[Warpworld] Ch 10 – Buffing up the Sanctum Sanctorum

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            There was a rider flying over the mountain, mounted on a Warped Manticore.

            The red colors of the Warp Armor, overdone horns on the helm, and plethora of spikes indicated a champion of Klaw, a tough and magic-resistant melee combatant armed with a flying mount, one whose mix of fur, scales, and feathers indicated the mutant status of a magical beast afflicted and changed by the powers of the Warp.

            A suitable mount for a servant of the Gods of the Warp, I guessed.

            He wasn’t going to see anything here unless he was immune to illusions, and there was nothing on him to indicate any level of protection like that.

            Feature and Ices had been having fun with the local cultists trying to track them down for the last few days, leading them off in all directions, even this one, and basically preying on the scouts and hunters trying to find them and their lair or base of operations. Instead of being scared off by the deaths, even more of the Warped humans, with ever more champions among them, were showing up to take this challenge Klaw had presented them with, glory going to whoever could harvest the heads of the pair of them and deal with their master, or, perhaps, claim the tamed beasts for themselves!

            I thought that was exceedingly amusing, but I didn’t take the threat of them lightly, either. Klaw was a god who loathed magic, and demonic gifts of anti-magic were among the many boons He’d give His servants. The Collars of Klaw made them immune to Cast spells, and were favored by many of His champions, particularly those riding mounts, with the Hounds of Klaw often found wearing them.

            There were multiple ways around such things, of course, and any Warcaster that wasn’t familiar with indirect fire was a total idiot for precisely that reason.

            I was getting better and better with working long hours at this kind of stuff as I gained levels, and it was even easier since I didn’t need to be distracted by Allegiance stuff in the interim. There were a lot of things I could do, now that my time wasn’t taken up by needing to create a further foundation back home, and I could just DO all sorts of stuff.

            One of the big things I wanted to work on was my Sanctum Sanctorum.

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            A Sanctum Sanctorum was a gift for being a Master Archtheurge of Eldritch Magic (Pact/Arcane), with full Dimensional Masteries to back it up. There’d only been two people in the game with one, and the other one was either dead or with the Archmage’s other people, wherever they had been sent to. Someone who had both Summoner and a Warlock Pact at effective Ten simply wasn’t a common choice for anybody, and then both sides of Arcane Magic, with all the Archclasses for both paths on top?

            Nope, simply not common. Heck, most Entities wouldn’t even grant you a Pact if you had Summoner Levels first!

            The Sanctum Sanctorum was a personal demiplane attached to you, with an area of ten-feet-square per base Caster Level. Title bonuses applicable to both Arcane and Pact Magic applied to that, so I got the full +7 for my Master Archtheurge of the Seven Traditions, but I wasn’t getting anything for my Star Magic, Masteries, Good Spells, Snowcasting, or Sublime Chord work.

            It was fine. It was currently at 24 of those squares, or 2400 square feet, and a whole 10 feet high and deep. I’d originally only been able to enter it once a day, but I’d been able to work that up to four times with a purchased Feat, and I could also open it up by spending six Valences from my Pool, if I needed to.

            2400 square feet was not a small amount of room, although it wasn’t an excessive amount, either. Easy enough to set up storage rooms and a place to bunk if I wanted to.

            I had used it as a reserve bank of sorts, storing the gold from the Federal Reserve and Fort Knox in there, but we’d long since blown through and Burned all of that gold to make magical items. I stored more tons of gold in there as we mined them all, if need be, but mostly they were automatically allocated to the Forge where Mulcaster ruled over the artisans making craftcoins, or were gifted as pay to those who could make magic items, or were directly Burned for Rituals (not preferred, we’d rather Burn Crafted stuff at triple the value!)

            I actually hadn’t had more than a scattering of personal savings in the storage chambers for precious metal at the time, and had actually been planning to raid one of the mineral deposits deep underground I’d found with Commune with Nature to restore my personal stash for work.

            Well, there’d been no reason I couldn’t do so on Korbald’s world during my systematic tracking and eradication of demons across the outer sectors of the Shadowlands. I now had many, many tons of gold and platinum I’d taken from deep in the planet’s mantle, given to me as recompense for my help.

            That was good, as using Greater Demiplane spells to Permanently expand my Sanctum Sanctorum was 45 goldweight a pop!

            It was also annoying, because I knew my Caster Level for these spells would increase in the future, but I wouldn’t get them for expansions I’d already paid for, at least not without some work on my part.

            But it was fine, because the other job of a Sanctum Sanctorum was not mere storage, but a viable home away from home that didn’t go away. Also, the Casting of a Sudden Widen x Widened Greater Demiplane using a Widen Spell Metamagic Rod really expanded the area I had to work with, and it was only going to increase in the future.

            The Casting also responded to Caster Level, not BASE Caster Level. Which meant a heavily modified 85 Caster Level effectively, for 20 10 ft cubes per level, x8 for the Sudden Widen, and x8 for the full Widen Spell, for my first spell I had gained 108,800,000 cubic feet of space.

            I then repeated the Ritual, using Rapid Ritual to reduce six hours of Rituals down to merely one each, using Residual Metamagic so I could also get the Sudden Widen again for free. Two hours of effort, 90 goldweight in value, and +217,600,000 cubic feet of Permanent space!

            And naturally enough I had all the Architect and City Planning Ranks to set up nearly three million square feet of eighty-foot-high space as I deemed appropriate... especially since I was in charge of EVERYTHING in how the plane was set up, terrain, plant and minor animal life, any planar bias, temporal relativity, magical...

            It gave me something to play with during my down time... and store any stuff I happened to pick up along the way home.

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            Outside, I was making a double-sized forty-stepper ziggurat Pyramid out of vivisized white mountain granite, working sixteen hours a day at the job, which worked out to about 23 days to complete. I had screened the entire area with a Hallucinatory Terrain illusion that made the whole valley I was working in look like a spur of the mountain’s black rock and icy snowfields, with no sign of anything passing through this area that basically led nowhere important.

            The only way anyone was going to know something was off here is if they could see through illusions or they had memorized every irrelevant pass in these mountains and knew this bulging spur off the mountain was something new.

            I would sit down and make a Ring or work on some other aspect of my gear during the other eight hours, Energize some gold or platinum to double up its value, or Fabricate up craftcoins, equipment, furniture, alchemical supplies or the like.

            When I was done with that, I would tour my Sanctum, working on the layout of what I wanted to have happen there.

            The nominal starting display was a house at the top of a mountain valley. The building itself was quite spacious, because it could be, with multiple levels below it I could use for storage in the sub-basements, while the highest level was all living areas in one wing, a reception area in the middle, and casual working/crafting areas on the other wing. I didn’t really have any wood, but I did have trees form in the mountain valley below on either side of the idyllic stream running through the place, with regular waterfalls, pools in nooks and crannies, a few small ponds on the way here and there, and other pleasantries.

            I wasn’t worried about getting around in the place, as I could Ride the Light basically through the entire area, or just fly around as I wished.

            I wanted a magical flower garden, although I couldn’t make any truly exotic flowers pop up, so I’d need to plant them. An herb and spices garden, again without anything truly exotic, and then a regular garden with vegetables and the like for food rounded that out. Those things led into me creating processing centers for whatever I grew there, as time flowed at double speed and my four-hour end of day was eight hours long there.

            Improved Phantasmal Servants anchored to the Sanctum took care of all the routine tasks and maintenance, so I wouldn’t need to be picking weeds or canning anything personally. They’d also take care of reseeding and fertilizing the soil, and the mild nightly rains would take care of watering everything.

            I had no problem setting up special areas to grow things like ginseng and wasabi, although I actually had to conjure the roots up with Creation magic for me to plant, something I began to use for other spices regularly, extending my gardens in terraces around the side of the valley. Making areas of specific climate types for specific kinds of plants to grow was simplicity, and Plant Growth could turn seeds to mature plants in no time at all...

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            “Got a new lair for you to rest in. If you want to come with me when I leave this place, you can live there. Otherwise, it’s just an interesting place for you to visit, Ices.”

            The heads of the hydra looked interested at the idea, and hissed in eagerness to see. It was moving around a lot more, burning more energy as a result, and so kept its appetite keen. However, just imbuing Feature with an Invisibility 10’r Radius spell and sending off the pair of them on night time raids with Disks so they could retreat via untraceable and invisible flight was keeping the Ice Hydra extremely well-fed, to the point where it admitted it couldn’t ever remember eating so well.

            If it decided to stay with me, I could give it a Ring of Sustenance, and it would only need to eat to fuel its regeneration.

            I flicked up a door to the Sanctum, and Feature led the way in, gliding inside without any hesitation as the twenty-foot arch opened next to the Pyramid, leading to some place that was definitely not the side of the Pyramid.

            Unwilling to look cowardly in front of Feature, the white-scaled heads of the cryohydra nevertheless poked cautiously through the hole in space before carefully stepping through the opening.

            I stepped in afterwards and closed the Portal behind me. I didn’t actually have to open it where I closed it, and rather made a point of not doing so. I would open it on the flanking side of the Pyramid, just in case, and I had a couple Alarm spells scattered about to warn me silently of any invaders. I wasn’t going to trust any watch-creatures Summoned this close to a center of Chaos...

            We were on the ‘back side’ of the artificial mountain I had made. Off to the sides was all rising walls and misty, opaque barriers that very obviously weren’t natural, although the sun seemed real enough, albeit slightly whiter in color than the world we’d come from.

            Ices was looking in every direction with all their heads, sniffing at the cold wind on this side of the mount, the back entry to the manse over there on a porch, and a nice big hole leading to a curved cavern in the stone off to the side where Ices could curl up if they wished.

            Feature was gliding around in the sky, testing out where the ceiling actually was, as opposed to where it looked like it was, testing out the winds here.

            “I’ll make up a flying course for you around the perimeter when I have time, Feature!” I called out to him, and he bobbed his head in acknowledgment as he zipped down to examine the terraces and the meandering path and waterfalls of the river below.

            I waited patiently as Ices stalked into their den. There was a ledge on the side where they could sleep by the entry, or they could go further into the darkness where they wouldn’t have to worry about more than an occasional breeze upsetting things. I had a Phantasmal Servant around to clean up after them, and there was a freezing cold pool and trickle of water there they could drink from or bathe in if they wished.         

            Ices came stalking back out, tail twitching in a way that indicated they were quite happy, heads dancing about and trying to see everything, hissing in delight. “You’re going to like this,” I told them with a sly grin. “There’s not a lot of area for you to run around in yet, for which I apologize, but I’m working on it. Here, step up to here.” I pointed, and they obediently yet cautiously stepped up to the edge of a frozen slope leading down, the snow winding and twisting back and forth as it went down the rocky slope, clearly not natural although there was nothing artificial about it.

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