The Power of Ten: Book One: Sama Rantha, and Book Two: The Far Future-Chapter Twenty-Two – Getting Some Strength Back
Back In Nightmare...
Hahhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrr!
I grit my teeth as my soul stitched itself back together. Fortitude Save to throw off negative levels.
Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!
It burned and cut and chilled and nauseated me all at once. The shredded bits of my soul gathered back together, and I swore over and over and over as they did.
“Minstrel/2! Give me that damn
Foe Hunter
Feat against spectral undead NOW! Forsaken Feat to
Strong Soul!
Bardic Feat to
Extra Bardsong!
And if I don’t qualify for
Ghost-Scarred
after being killed by incorps twice and butchering over fifty of them, I’m gonna hit something!”
I crawled up off the ground, feeling like I’d been burned and scarred all over, my skin writhing as if I had been electrocuted. My emotions were raging like a storm as I tried to get mind, body, and soul back in synch after some severe maltreatment.
But I hadn’t LOST anything. They might have been able to strip something from me, if I was weak and failed the Fortitude saves against the Energy Drain.
There was a damn good reason I had a high Fort save. Wraiths only required a 16 to resist making the drain permanent, giving me a 90% chance of making it. Even passing three of them wasn’t beyond the realm of disbelief.
“Fahhhh…” I sat down in meditation, and forcibly calmed myself down. Essence and ki went spinning through my blood and nerves, percolating and cooling everything down, stitching it all back together and soothing all my little hurtsies, yes little Sama, poor little Sama, there, there now…
------
It took me a good hour to get rid of all the muscle tics, the fluttering heart, the surges of emotion, and the body-wide Charlie Horses. The gut-chilling fear and horror of something latching onto my soul, feeling that yawning not-death pulling at me with all the power of Sin and the Curse behind it… I stared at it with scorn and a growing sense of wrath.
So, I had to fight lots and lots of undead now, did I?
I was so going to show them!
“Advance to Charisma/1. Skill points to Piano, Violin.” Yes, I was going to be a remarkable musician someday, I could almost feel my hands and fingertips creaking. Thankfully, with a Vajra I didn’t need to worry about calluses on my fingers interfering with things. I was going to make beautiful music one day.
With a Sword, damn this Curse. I was
The Sage of Swords
, just wait…
I also had more music on my brain, and began to compose the second act of my theme song in the back of my head, because I could.
Strong Soul
gave me +1 to Fort and Will Saves, +3 against necromantic influences, which included most everything undead did, and Fear, among other things. I was immune to Fear, but you never knew. The bonuses doubled at Ten, as normal, and really gave a nice lift to my saves against Energy Drain.
I had hit the fifty kills against Incorps, so I gained a constant +2 Morale bonus TH/Dmg against them, wouldn’t need to Wardance on them.
Getting Strength and Energy Drained to death satisfied the reqs for
Ghost-Scarred
. It gave me a +2 Insight bonus TH/Dmg/Saves against incorporeal undead, as I had very, very intimately felt what they were, what they could do, felt their Damned touch upon my soul, and I was so not going to play with them.
Tomorrow… I would have
Vivic.
Maybe it was only +d6 against undead, but they were going to burn, and I was going to feel happy. It should easily be enough to get me comfortably into the two-hit-kill range.
+1 Fort Save meant +1 Soak, too.
Tremble
hummed happily in my hand. For now, that was all it could do. But it was aware now, just unable to communicate.
Vivic
would ensure it stayed pure from the Curse.
I would get
Vivic
,
Blooding
to fight regenerating shit, and
Flaming
and
Frost
for universal damage and utility. Then, if there were no other surprises, I would start working on
Bane
and
Slaughter
. It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough monster types to build up
Slaughter
already…
My emotions were calming down. I had been eaten as a baby. These things wanted to scar my soul? They had a ways to go!
I picked up
Tremble
and strode for the mist.
More
+1’s
. Let’s see what the bastards did with them!
--------------
Another soul-sucking death later...
“Hah hahahahaha…”
I had Inspired for
Whirlwind Attack
, normally a rather dumb Feat to go for. Basically, one attack on everything in my reach. Good if you were fighting one-hit-kill minions. Around, up, down, didn’t matter. You had to move really quickly, slicing in all directions around ever-changing arcs and points of contact.
Didn’t kill any of them with the
Whirlwind.
I killed them all when the first Wraith missed, however. I
Riposted
through his neck, and
Supreme Cleave’d
through to every single damn one of them around me, like two
Whirlwinds
going off back-to-back.
Even the nominally fearless undead halted at the sight of me shredding eight of them in under two seconds.
I could barely lift
Tremble
physically, but my ki was just fine!
“Oh, whatsamatter? Don’t like being two-hit?” I purred, sliding forward without moving my feet. My target didn’t notice fast enough, and the one I was closest to was suddenly hacked apart before it could retreat. One of the others lunged in to swipe at me, missed, and tried to retreat, not making it out as the two AoO’s in response chased it into vapor.
Then the Dread Wraith loomed up behind the lesser minions, eyes like dead suns as they met mine, full of hate and fear and an endless hunger which no amount of souls could satiate.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from NovelFire. If you see it on Amazon, please it.
Ah, damn. 16 Hit Dice. Damn near 200 Health. Reach. Touch attack at something like +20 to hit. It was going to swing at me three times, and I was going to die.
I wouldn’t be able to kill it fast enough… but I should be able to kill all of its minions, if I was really quick and agile. The more Karma, the better.
I laughed and attacked, ripping into its minions, knowing it was going to shred my soul again, and knowing that I would take it.
------
Taking it one more time...
“Hah ah…”
I laid there as Renewal burned through me, and I fought off the lingering negative energies trying to neutralize part of my soul and tear away my hard-earned Karma.
No need to rush. Today was an important day.
Because all my off-Classes were at Two, and I could advance my Melee Class to Four.
Which I did!
Three key effects.
Bumped my Fort Save by +1, Will Save +1.
At Melee Four, Weapon Group Training +1 kicks in, adds to
Great Fortitude
, which meant my Fort Save also went up by another +1.
Level Four, the
Cover Your Weakness
Class Ability kicked in. My choice of Stat was Con, which also went up by another +1 with my Forsaken Inherent Level bonus. Con 25, bonus to +7, Fort Save goes up by +1.
In addition, my lowest Physical Stat, Strength, went up by +1. My lowest Mental Stat, Wisdom, also went up by +1.
My Melee Attack Bonus went up by +1.
My AoO per round went up by +1 with Weapon Training kicking in.
I could pick a second one-handed weapon to be Finessable via
Expertise
. I picked Shield.
Expertise
and
Deadly Precision
increased to +2, which meant a damage and AC increase. I added
Improved Bull Rush
to
Improved Sunder
under
Expertise’s
Special Manuvers.
Inspiration Feats +1 via
Expertise
.
Primary Group Weapon Training increased by +1. That took me to +2 on Sword and UA, doubled by Spec to +4/+4.
Another +2 was good to work with.
+2 went into my Combat Pool, still set to Improved Grab/Grapple and Trip Defense.
D6+4+Con+FC of Soak, plus prior Hit Points adjusted for the rise in my Constitution Stat. +3 prior Levels, +1 Health, say +15 for now, +3 from
Improved Toughness
, soon to increase with my deaths toughening me up to max.
Toughness
+1 to Health.
Health 21. Soak, goes from 88 to 109, +21 in total, 112 when maxed in six more days. Wait, none.
Toughness
mixed with Weapon Training, added +AB towards max Hit Points. Straight to 112.
Oh, and I was Level Four. I could take another Level in Human! I flicked over that lever, and could feel the energy coursing through my body as I actually and truly toughened up, and felt the Obsession mindset of Human/2 come down on me.
I was Sama Rantha, Grandmaster of the Sword, Sage of the Sword, and I simply wasn’t going to let a Hag-spawned Curse beat me, ever! The idea sat in my head, smoldering, the core of everything I was. I would be that Grandmaster again one day!...
D8+Con in Health.
Say 11. My Health was now 32, 36 in eight, seven days. That was now significantly higher than my Vigor, which would be nice.
Two bonus General Feats.
Added to my Forsaken Bonus and two Combat Techniques.
Skill points
, 5+FC+Int, so +3 = 9. +6 more for the Human Racial Level.
Oh, yes, this was a very big Level.
Tremble, Arsenal, Vivic.
Silently, unwhite flames, etherfires, the necrotao opposite of necroic energies, ghosted up on the blade of my Sword, falling quietly towards the ground, unlike normal flames.
That was because Vivic energies fed things to the Land. They did no harm to anything that lived, unless it was suffused with otherworldly or negative energies, in which case it did 1d6. It could also set corpses and carcasses on vivic fire, which would slowly burn them away, just like fire burned wood… only, like, in billowing mists which sank into the ground and purified away Taint, Corruption, and other negative energies.
Still got only one Mastery Advance. It was silly, but I just picked Constitution/1, since I needed to get it to /3 at Five to get a Con point off the Mastery.
For my Human Feat,
Font of Life
. Immediate Fort Save to avoid Energy or Stat drain/damage effects. Damage applied, but the necroic effect would not.
My Fort Save was now +18, +20 against undead. My Null was 24… 26 against undead!
A 5 HD Wraith had no chance to Drain me now, nor a normal shadow. A Greater Shadow at 9 HD had a 1 in 5 chance. Even a 16 HD Dread Wraith only had a fifty percent chance now.
One Level shifted everything that much!
+1’s, Hear Me Roar!
I had Melee Weapon Mastery. An Achievement Feat upgrade kicked in.
Necropotence,
required
Foe Hunter - Undead
, Melee Primary Weapon Training,
Weapon Specialization
, and getting your ass drained by undead. It doubled the Specialization damage bonus against undead. So, an additional +4 damage against them.
Not a huge amount, but it all went on the stack when multiplying, unlike +dice. Steady increments towards One-Hit-Kill range!
The
Cleave
Technique
and
Fleet
Technique were my choices for Techniques.
These two freed up some room for my Inspiration. The
Cleave
Technique automatically gave me several layers of
Cleaving
, going up with my MAB, like a Mastery and Feats I didn’t have to pay for.
There were two kinds of
Cleaving
. The one I normally used was to drop a foe, attack a foe adjacent to it with
Sweeping Cleave
, or spend an AoO to attack one not adjacent to it via
Extra Cleaving
. There was another called
Impaling Cleave
, where you impaled a foe, and used an AoO to stick the one behind it if it died, which was great when charging.
Improved Cleaving
removed the AoO cost of
Extra Cleaving
.
Supreme Cleaving
allowed a 5’ step between Cleave attacks, up to your total base movement rate if you kept dropping creatures, truly an awesome form of minion-slaying.
Improved Cleaving
kicked in at +7 MAB, and
Supreme Cleaving
at +9. So, just some Levels to gain now.
Whirlwind Attack
was the gift at +5 MAB. One more level, and I wouldn't need to Inspire for it…
The
Fleet
Technique was a combination of speed and agility. It granted +5 to base movement speed, and then +5’ of Fast Movement per level of Armor Training. This popped my current 50’ base speed to 60’, as fast as a wraith. This worked out great for Melees, as Armor Mastery/Exoskeleton made their medium and heavy armors effectively weightless at later levels, so they didn’t lose the Fast Movement, unlike, oh, a Barbarian would if they slapped on plate.
The
Fleet
Technique also gave
Sprint
at MAB +3, which was x5 running speed vs the normal x4, and
Endurance Runner
at MAB +5, which was double length between endurance checks for long-term movement.
I still had two Feats left! Four was such a great Level!
Endurance
Technique
.
Opened a lot of pre-req doors. Very, very importantly, +1 to Con if Forsaken. My Con was now 26, +8! Sleep in medium armor (yay). Bonus on lots of endurance-type checks. Opened the
Die Hard
Mastery.
Fort Save +1. Soak +5. Null +1. Health +2. 33 and 117 respectively… +19/+21 Fort save… Null 25/27...
At Armor Mastery I, ignore the first exhaustion and fatigued result per day. At Armor Mastery II, ignore fatigue entirely, exhaustion becomes fatigue, keep right on trucking.
Enduring Life
for the General Feat. Any effects of necroic draining or damage are delayed for one minute per Con bonus. So, an eight-minute delay, during which they could only do damage to me… at the end of which, I got to make my Fort Saves to stave off all of the effects, and maybe die from overwhelming Drains… but in the meantime, they could only kill me with straight damage, which they were pathetic at, and I’d suffer no penalties.
Yeah, let’s do that. It certainly fit my theme.
Then I was going to have to work on my
Battlemind Focus
. At Five, I’d get access to
Battle Vigor
, and wouldn’t that just make me a cockroach to these bastards…
And just wait until I hit Five and also got my
Profound Artisan
…
Skill Points to assign. 15 of those suckers, just to get to four Ranks in stuff, between my Human and Melee Levels.
Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Blacksmith, Whitesmith, Leatherworker, Woodworker. Perception, Stealth, Concentration, Meditation, Survival, Heal. Martial Lore. Alchemy. Spellcraft.
That was 15.
I r smart, I r!
I waited as my brain grew, rooms opening up and airing their contents into the rest of my skull with the force of endless libraries consulted and thousands of hours of practice. The ancestors of humanity were watching over me, and hopefully spitting on the Curse of the Hag with me.
I hoped they could see what I was doing and were laughing heartily. I was probably the toughest damn Four they’d ever seen, and it was only going to get better.
My hand closed on
Tremble
, both of us stronger now than we had been a short time ago, and I got to my feet.
“Time to go kick some ass again.”
Tremble
hummed in response, and I strode out for the mist.
.
!
Chapter Twenty-Two – Getting Some Strength Back
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