[Be Gone] Ch 26 – Adding some Energy

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Energizing stuff was the bread and basket way for a Caster to make money. Energized stuff was worth more goldweight magically, doubling the value of the base item towards what it was Energized to. So, Fire Gold was worth twice as much in gold as normal base gold, if you were Burning it towards a Fire effect.

            Cast a spell, increase the goldweight value of something of relative purity. The higher the Valence, the more specialized the effect you could Energize to, the higher the value you could put into a single object, and the more value you could put into the item at one time.

            However, Energize never got above one ounce per Caster Level, even if you could totally blow out the Caster Level. Iron and steel, for instance, were valued at coppers to the ounce, and potentially you could Energize dozens of pounds of the stuff at one time if it was based on ‘value’ of the raw material.

            But, no. One ounce per Caster Level. Energizing enough steel to create a good sword could take a junior Caster a week. For a suit of armor, potentially months.

            Energizing fast enough to keep up with the speed you could Burn goldweight meant being able to Energize 250 gold value of stuff a day, doubling that to 500 gold if it was not of the right Element.

            More to the point, raw materials Energized also had some minor effects added to them.

            Fire-Energized objects, for instance, were normally twice as hard to melt, didn’t rust, and were warm to the touch. Water-Energized stuff was often lighter, hard to corrode, resistant to cold, and virtually immune to acid, while being more flexible before breaking. Air-Energized stuff was often greatly reduced in weight, and either nonconductive or extremely conductive to electricity.

            Earth-Energized stuff often had twice the durability of the basic material, and was usually at least a point or two Harder. In the case of something like adamantine, twice as Hard!

            Not much, sure. But it meant, for instance, that those jade Tokens would last twice as long or more absorbing Taint if they were Earth-Energized.

            More to the point, if they were Positive or Holy-Energized, they would totally protect against minor Taint without burning up, and only major Taint events could corrode them.

            If they were Positive/Light or Holy/Spirit-Energized, they would totally protect against all Taint without decaying up to their threshold, all protection or nothing.

            If they were actually Enchanted, they could stave off those levels of Taint forever and not be Contaminated.

            Naturally, that would be extremely valuable to the warriors about to fight demons and Tainted creatures that could spread their affliction to mortals. Vivus was starting to treat some of the Tainted’s normally damned bodies, but nobody wanted to get infected.

            Energized stuff made their jade last longer, while vivus could help even expended jade get a second life as dust for an alchemical Weapon Salve. It was an economic multiplier, and all it required was Casting a spell.

            Sure, there were limits. But if you just Energized stuff every day, it all added up!

            If you were high Level and had the alternate Elements available, you did stuff like this every single day as long as the raw materials were available. The need for Energized stuff simply never went away.

            It was so rote and established that I had used all my SLA Conversion Slots Mastery for Energize at all five Valences: exchange one Permanent Spell Slot from your Active Matrix, gain one spell usable as a Spell-Like Ability three times a day from that Slot.

            Slots I had bunches of, and Energize I did literally every day. A three-for-one was a good deal, and since they auto-scaled with my Matrix, I wasn’t out anything. If I truly needed to Meta them, I could always memorize them as a spell proper and do so.

            I had Burned three Valence Rings, so there were three auto-Raises on those SLA’s. My usual choices were Widen or Mass.

            The former +III Meta multiplied the volume/weight/amount of a single object I could Energize by eight. The latter +III Meta increased the number of different objects I could Energize at one time by +1 per Caster Level, max 20, similar to a Chained spell, but done all at once instead of in a line.

            It was a shame there was no Metamagic Efficiency with SLA’s, nor did the Residual Feats work with them.

            I collected some of the jade tokens for the soldiers, willing to do my part.

            Energize I, twenty-one one-ounce tokens for each use of my three daily uses, Earth-Energized. Only needed to be able to Cast spells of that Element to Energize to them. Positive and Negative required you to be able to Channel or Cast spells with the appropriate energy, as well.

            Energize II, Aligned effects or Elemental Aspects possible. Had to be able to Cast spells of the appropriate Alignments, which was harder than it sounded, as most such spells required you to BE of those Alignments...

            Aspected parts of the Elements were subsets thereof. Storms and Weather were aspects of Air. Ice and Crystal were aspects of Earth, etc.

            Energize III, Aspects of Alignments, or Esoteric Elements. Aspects of Alignments were things like Honor for Law, Valor for Good, and Tyranny for Evil. Esoteric Elements were the mixed Elements, like Smoke, Lava, Ash, Radiance, Brine, Mud, Fog, Vacuum, and so on.

            Energize IV, the Dimensionals were possible. Space, Time, Astral/Mind, Ethereal/Dream. You had to have some good math skills, dream-walking ability, and deal with souls to use them, along with dimension-hopping and at least some chronomancy. These were high-end Energized Elements with high-end uses, and very rare in nature.

            Energize V, you could do the Infinites, typically Void and Creation. It required some high-end philosophical stuff to understand. Finding them in nature was virtually impossible, and the uses were always fantastic and weird.

            I just used the higher Valences here to treat larger pieces of jade, the kind of things used as Spell Focuses, Ward Nodes, or warning devices of one sort or another.

            I simply lined everything up, and treated them all at the same time as astounded spellcasters watched me do so. They only had to truck most of it away.

            I kept a basic large ring of jade for myself, Shaped by one of the Casters into what would normally be a slender bangle or earring loop.

            Instead, it was hanging there from Mortus Dius with my Token vs. Fiends dangling from it, and I was Imbuing it as a Token vs. Shadowlands.

            Another +d6 on the stack against a lot of these creatures was not out of place. Call on extraplanar energies, take the damage...

            There were a broad range of things the Token could be applied to here, just like Bane to Shadowlands was quite common among the Tigers, and venerated among the lucky Bears who had earned a Weapon from them.

            Elsewhere, mostly useless. The energies of Jigoku didn’t Taint stuff in most places outside its grip.

            The Tigers were very happy to learn how to do this as I worked it out for them. A lot of dangling bangles and charms were now being charged up with some very anti-Jigoku stuff on them. In addition, they’d taken over finishing up my Baneskull/Shadowlands, as that was one of the Toys they had definitely figured out how to make. It would be ready for the arrival of their army tomorrow.

            More d6’s on the stack. Kickers help kill armies.

---

            I had another thing to work on while I was out here in a mostly private courtyard, being left alone to meditate and look out over the valley beyond. Pretty place, really nice for just sitting back, relaxing, and doing light calligraphy as I wrote out more spells.

            They really wanted the full Tempering set of Bond, Reed, Stone, Iron, and Harden, the famous Smith/Dwarven Pentad. I was obliging them, but all five spells meant fifteen hours of writing, and was not something I could hurry if I wanted the magic to stick.

            Mother Bea had assured me that I’d have another half-dozen Shard Wands for the fight at least, and maybe some partially-spent ones I could use up. They might have to set up some people to protect me once I start wiping out hordes of the weaker creatures, but that was fine.

            But, no, that all wasn’t why I was out of the way doing some work here, either.

            I was talking to the Elemental Spirits around here.

            There was a natural waterfall nearby, falling away from where I was working. Wind was blowing across the valley, and the earth was naturally deep and strong beneath me. No concentrated fire, unless you counted the sun, but that worked, too.

            I was wearing Primus. Primus was a Ring of Prime Elemental Command, giving me great authority and power over Elementals.

            The magical Tradition here was based around ‘requesting’ things from the Spirits and the Elements they represented. As you gained greater harmony with the Elements and their wills, you stopped needing them as intermediaries and could wield the magic yourself, as long as the Spirits still approved.

            That was the Shugenja Class of the natives, their primary spellcasters, a weird hybrid of Divine and Arcane Classes, wrapped up in their philosophy and traditions.

            Shugenja spent much of their early lives learning how to speak formally to the Spirits, gain their attention and favor, and Invoke their spells at need. If Shugenja weren’t enlightened enough, they found it difficult to Cast, and different Elements naturally favored different aspects of the Shugenjas they worked with. Thus, all Shugenja had a favored Element, usually tied to their best Stat.

            Their philosophy bled over into their leveling system, and so Korbald and the others had worked out a lot of the magical power behind it.

            They recognized four Elements, with the fifth being Void/Zen, nothingness and serenity, which we basically called Ki Reserves. The locals divided the Stat line along Elemental affinities, and much of their interaction was basically Stat+Skill checks on opposing rolls, with the Void Element boosting the others as needed.

            Technically, Powered could learn the system, but the Elements here really didn’t like the Power of Ten’s Valence magic, and so us humans couldn’t take the opening step.

            I didn’t have any Power of Ten Valence magic at the moment. Windfire Archery didn’t count, and the Pact Magic of Heaven was actually a bonus, being Good as it was and so extremely opposed to the Taint of Jigoku over there.

            And I had Elemental Command. Given my Caster Level default was an absolute minimum of 22, for all practical purposes I was like an Archcaster to the native Spirits, and they could not help but pay attention to me, swirl around me, and dance to the Sublime Chord I hummed for them.

            They were very respectful of Feature, too. He was an alien Spirit, sure, but he also had Heaven clinging to him, and in Dracoform resembled the mightiest Spirits among them.

            And so, as I drew out spells, I Hummed the Sublime Chord, and I listened and chatted to the Spirits all around as I did so.

            There was a dark elven acolyte outside the door, waiting patiently to receive the spell I was writing out and run it off to the Powered. He was quite fidgety about the sheer number of Spirits that were gathering around me as I worked and Hummed, but he didn’t dare bother me, instead enjoying the opportunity to play with his own minor spells in the +4 Caster Level effect of the Sublime Chord.

            The Spirits were telling me there were a lot of Shugenja loitering around to listen to the Sublime Chord and practice their magic. I just smiled and continued on with my day...

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