[Warpworld] Ch 6 – Cold and Stone and All Alone

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            I’d never intended to have or need Protection from Chaos among my personal defenses, even if it was an option. My enemies had always been Evil for the vast part, with the occasional Neutral beasts and things thrown in there.

            I didn’t need the ‘combat Buffs’ from the spell, which were small Deflection bonuses to Armor Class and resistance bonuses to Saving Throws. The Protection effect from Magnus was better for myself.

            No, the real defense was against mind-control, manipulation, and really, even being touched by them took an effort of will from those Warded away... unless I attacked them first, of course.

            I didn’t actually have to re-Cast the effect. Protection from Evil was already a Permanent spell on me, put in place long ago when I’d had the spare goldweight to do so. Upgrading it via Zealotry to Protection from non-Good wasn’t all that hard.

            Yeah, I could have gone Protection from Chaos, Law, and even Neutrality if I liked, but that meant discrimination against literally everything, unless I brought down my defenses.

            Non-Good I could deal with more easily. Neutrals had plenty of their own problems they would happily inflict on me, and if they would find it difficult to touch me without my permission, that just meant I didn’t have to worry about pickpockets, or being jostled in a crowd.

            I took out a fifty-pound ingot of gold, literally ten goldweight, and worked through the spell and upgrading as I did so.

            The Base Spell was Circle of Protection from Evil, an emanated effect good for ten feet in radius around me. It became a place where telepathy could not intrude without my permission, mental links did not work, Charms and Enchantments could not enter, and Summoned or extraplanar creatures of any kind could not step. Stacking Theurgies made it potentially one of the most powerful spells I could Cast in terms of Caster Level and Girding, since it was considered Arcane, Binding, and Divine Magic, and also part of the Good Domain. A flat +36 combined Caster Level bonus just from my Theurgies was no small thing!

            I gained a +III benefit because of my Burned Valence Rings, which I chose here as Widen, increasing the area of emanation to a maximum of twenty feet. I could then add all my Metas, Spell Potency, Good and Cold spells, Spell Focus bonuses, AND... another Widen, along with taking a moment while Casting it on the ground to make it effectively VIII+1, a Valence IX defense that would be very hard for anything this side of a god to overcome.

            I definitely wanted the next set of Valence Rings to Burn and make it unsurpassable by X’s, Eternal/God-level stuff, but that would just have to wait for now.

            I was looking at a Caster Level of 81, good enough for anything save for some damn long Rituals in case something wanted to take it down on me. Nothing below an 82 CL could Dispel it once made Permanent... and then Tenacious Spell would just bring it back up in under twenty seconds or so. Their actual target number was 101, because my Girding was just that good.

            Overcoming its defense of me required a Will Save of base 10, +9 for an effective IX spell, +20 for my Intellect, +5 for Holy Fervor Potency, +2 for Good Spell Focus, +2 for Cold Spell Focus, and +2 for Snowcasting.

            Beat a 50 Will save and you could touch me without my permission, whatever you are, or anything within forty feet of me!... which wouldn’t stop them from using ranged attacks or spells, but would certainly keep me safe from almost all melee-type extraplanars not equipped with Sun Saves.

            The corrupting effect on the wind was extraplanar, tinged with Not-Good, and so was immediately warded away as my Aura expanded and adapted to it.

            It also dealt with the subtle pressure I’d been subjected to, which seemed to be attracted to my strength of soul and the magic I was wielding. The stronger the person, the more intense the effect, it seemed?...

            If people didn’t recognize it was happening or did not have defenses in place, it was going to be pretty bad.

            -I can feel the difference,- Feature /related to me, feeling the difference in my Aura at the upgrade and refinement. -Very dangerous,- he /repeated.

            “Agreed.” We were almost to the top of the mountain, not moving with great speed because we didn’t need to, and I saw he was slowing down. “Problem?”

            -Presence of something...- He was just gliding now, looking around.

            “Under the ice.”

            He looked down, and then his body whipped out of the way as a dozen great reptilian heads erupted from the frozen whiteness beneath us with hissing roars and plumes of snow and ice.

            I stepped off of him onto the air, and four heads about twice the size of a crocodile snapped shut a couple feet shy of me as I coasted backwards through the air. The other eight were snapping at Feature, who had coiled about and away with serpentine speed. Two basically just scraped their fangs over silver-edged jet scales, and then there was a burst of absolute violence.

            Gleaming adamantine Talons on all four of Feature’s claws flared Golden, lashed out, and grabbed. His Noseblade Whiskers materialized and chopped into one neck, hacking it right off, continuing through to impale another through the skull, and then his jaws closed on yet one more, crunching right through the scales with gleaming, Burning teeth.

            Feature’s Tailmace Rattles came whipping in, and yet one more head was smashed like a boulder had hit it with a jangling ringing, while Feature simply rotated in a coil.

            Seven heads of this icy white hydra were torn right off it with absolutely brutal strength, the last one caved right in.

            A flight of Shards came up, twice as many as this hydra had heads. I could see the glimmer of some intelligence as it insta-counted and realized something bad was about to happen.

            Two each to three of the heads, one each to those Feature had dealt with, the rest to its massive three-footed body.

            The impacts tore apart all the targeted necks right down to the stumps, and blew its thick serpentine body backwards ten yards. Its front was a mess of seared, burning flesh, scales shattered by the blast, smoking with the fiery energy that was preventing it from regenerating.

            It was writhing and screaming in pain, the one head left having to take the full load of its pain. Feature drifted over and slammed it down into the snow, while the blasted heads withered with supernatural speed and dissolved as both vivus and withdrawn magic did their thing.

            He didn’t even get to eat them!

            “That was very unwise of you,” I said in Draconic, as the last head blinked up at me in horror and fear. It was stupid, savage, and dumb, but it wasn’t foolish. “Do you have anything to say, or do I just dispose of you?”

            “Serve!” hissed the head under Feature’s claw, not daring to writhe anymore. “Will serve!”

            “Interesting. Mostly because I just might have a use for you.” I bent down to regard its Brown-Gray Aura with some consideration, and then the lines of malignant mutation that were starting to occur on its scales. Hydras were pretty weird creatures to begin with, but with this much Chaos stuff, even this one was starting to mutate.

            Well, we could do something about that.

            My Hexar-Disks zipped out of my Masspack, inserted underneath its bulky lower body, and lifted it easily out of the snow. Feature let its head go as the last Hexar lifted it up, and I dropped a Vivic Eternal Light Brazier right in front of it.

            “I’m going to allow your wounds to heal, which I assume is going to make you extremely hungry. There will be some fighting soon enough. Put your head in that brazier and inhale the white flames as we travel. It will help you deal with the pain.”

            It obliged quickly, seeing Feature glaring at it, and frankly was stunned as it found itself floating off the ground.

            I healed up the fire aspect of the damage to it, and let the Blooding on its injuries fade. Almost instantly its flesh began to ripple and grow slowly as its superb regenerative capabilities came back online.

            “Your name is now Ice-1.” I put the foot of Mortus Dius on the last head’s forehead and Wizard Marked it. “I will name your other heads as they are restored, and worry not, I’ll teach every one of them who is boss before they get you killed.

            “Now, just breathe in the vivus and heal up. I’ll have things for you to do soon enough.”

            The thoroughly cowed ice hydra did not move as it splayed out there on the floating Disks that were supporting its weight so easily, and despite its ire, it marveled at how fast and easily it was moving above the snows when we started into motion again.

------

            As each of the eleven heads regenerated, I beat them half-silly, Intimidated them, and glared into their brains as fiery Shards hovered over them and waited to reduce them to nothingness. The fearful hisses and urgings from #1, the only one to survive of the previous heads, really helped cool them down and get their promises to serve from them.

            One of the reasons hydras were so stupid is they kept getting their heads torn off, losing their memories and experience and having to start all over again, with only the heads that survived able to maybe guide the others along, but just as often ignored by their simple-minded baby-brained counterparts who basically only acted on instinct.

            It was fine. I burned into their forebrains a fearful respect for me and fire that dominated their initial moments, then stuffed their jaws on top of a Vivic Brazier and had them keep inhaling to deal with the pain.

            I noticed some of the unnatural mutations inflicted on it were peeling off slowly, too, popping and dying as the healthy scales and flesh beneath replaced them.

---

            We flew up and down over six mountains to get to the far side of the range. Nothing else bothered us on the way, although Feature sensed eyes upon us. For some reason a dragon and a hydra together didn’t seem to be a combination that things wanted to bother.

            Finally, we came down the far side, the swirling wall of the Planar Breach visible on the horizon, and I just shook my head at the sight of it.

            Free-standing Planar Breaches were horrible, as this Tainted wind all around us was proving, but OPEN Planar Breaches were far worse! At least there seemed to be a lack of open synchronization between the mortal plane and the transitional realm beyond, but I now had Shugenja Levels on top of a lot of skill with Divination magic, and I could see the many, many souls and spirits being pulled to this open path to the Life Beyond, except I seriously doubted said souls were getting where they were supposed to go.

            Start a big enough vivic fire, though, and all that alien energy was going to turn into the local Land’s biggest meal ever.

            Well, I probably should get started on that...

            My method wasn’t going to be unique, as making Pyramids was what I did, and this was definitely something that needed a Pyramid to deal with.

            Wasn’t going to be a small one, either. That opening was many, many miles across, which meant I really had to set the thing on fire and keep it fueled to do what needed to be done.

            Well, I didn’t have much else on my docket. There was only to get a feel for the land, clear a space off, and get to work.

            Ehhh, the damn rock was probably Tainted and I’d have to vivify it all, too. Ah, well. Just more work to heap up on the stack....

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