Val collapsed, his character sheet suddenly blazing in his mind’s eye in all its glory as his goddess’s lips touched his brow. “Fortune favor you, champion. Now act with haste! Our enemies gather even now.”
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Valor Hunter: – Level 27 Dauda Assassin / Level 8 Overlord (Arcane Reaver)
Primary Attributes
Strength 22 / Vitality 26 / Finesse 18 / Quickness 24 / Perception 23 / Scholarship 17 / Willpower 23 / Charisma 16 / Luck ?? +5
Secondary Attributes
Health 297 / Survival 707 +?? / Stamina 297 / Mana 1077 / Psion 809/ Insight 17 / Regenerates 11 Mana, Stamina, Health & 8 Psion per second. Base Appearance 10 (+3 charisma +1 fitness -1 runic scars = 3 + reputation bonuses.) Additional +6 When you embrace your wrath!
Skill Improvements
Spellboost Rank 3 (175% Potency For 225% Cost) /Psiboost Rank 3 (150% Potency for 175% Cost) / EM Mastery Rank 7 / Regeneration Rank 4 (Regeneration now equals Mana regeneration! ) / Blade & Shield Rank 5 / Persuasion Rank 1
Arcane Art Improvements
Healing Rank 3
New Spells Learned
L 30 (Warped) Reaver’s Kiss (Mastered – Improved Combat Casting) (8 Mana) = 12 Health & 6 Stamina/Mana/Psion transferred from target to caster for 20 seconds. Normal wards won’t resist. Spell stacks!
L 45 Season’s Restoration (Mastered – Reduced Cost, Reaver penalties negated.) (43 Mana) This Time-based healing spell instantly sterilizes all wounds. All physical injuries benefit from the equivalent of an entire season’s worth of healing inside a regeneration vat in a single hour, so perfect recovery is possible! Thanks to Healing school prerequisite, both traumatic brain injuries and all forms of neurodegeneration can be healed with cognitive facilities fully restored, given sufficient castings!
L 70 Greater Druidic Resurrection Ritual. (Mastered or no, don’t even think about casting this spell!)
L 30 Greater Dominion Catalyzation (Mastered)(15 Mana/sec)
L 40 Greater Abomination Binding (Adept) (48 Mana)
Overlord Improvements:
Arcane Reaver Tier 3: +1 to Strength, Vitality, Finesse, Quickness & Willpower.
Blood Reaver Tier 3 – Blood, Death, and Necromantic magics are 60% more effective and 30% cheaper to cast. All destructive magics are 30% more effective. All healing magics cost 45% more mana. (All bonuses stack with Potent Magus. Healing spell failure reduced to 15%. All penalties are fully negated with spell mastery or Overlord Ritual).
Death’s Kiss Tier 3 – Every foe who falls to your spell, blade, or Psionic power shrivels to dust as you claim their life force for your own! You instantly heal 9 wound tiers and 30% of your maximum Health/Stamina/Mana/Psion with every foe you kill!
Song of Battle Tier 3 – The killing fields are your friend! You heal an additional 15 points of Health/Stamina/Mana/Psion per second whenever you find yourself upon the field of battle, engage in melee combat, or use magic or psionics at close range! Dark rejuvenation continues for 30 seconds after last foe has fallen or all enemies have fled from your sight!
Dark Legend Tier 3 – Some legends never die. Survival has been boosted a total of 150 points!
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Condensed Dominion Matrix
Overlord Rank 8 (80% bonus to one aspect of each territory’s attributes.)
Territories Claimed: 9
Lesser Territories: Highblood Province / Greengrove Province / Terrance Province (GMW) / Ormur Province / Avarum Province (overlaps Stridborg)
Greater Territories: Blackenthorp Province / Falinnborg (+80% luck) / Stridborg (Bastion status achieved!)
Lynchpin Territories: Falinnlund (+80% Luck: Affected by Greater Mana Warping: all neutral territory between Falinnlund, Ormur, and Greengrove has been claimed! Bastion Status achieved: Only neutral or benevolent spirits will spontaneously take corporeal form.)
Key Terran Territory Resources: Tier 5 Research Facility (+80%) / Tier 10 Arcane Academy (+80%)/ Tier 3 Elementium & Altersian Crystal & Silbion Reserves / Tier 5 Alchemical Garden & Fungal Grove / Tier 6 Agricultural Facilities / Tier 6 Manufacturing Facilities (+80%) / Tier 5 Mining Facilities / Tier 7 Mercantile Facilities
Key Dwarven Territory Resources: Tier 5(8) Elementium Mine / Tier 5 Ancient Faerie Refinery / Tier 7 Grove of Knowledge / Tier 5(8) Mushroom Grove / Tier 5 (8) Arcane Garden / Tier 5 Agricultural Facilities / Tier 10 Valorium Mine / Tier 7 Elementium Mine / Tier 10 Manufacturing Facilities / Tier (Undefined!) Research Facilities / Tier 10 Starship building Facilities (+80%)
Unspent territory points: 15
Unclaimed Territories Attuned to: Wildlands (Lesser Attunement)
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Tactical Dominion Submatrix
Ward: +6% Defensive bonus to all units and enhancements within your territories!
Assault: +5% (8) = 40% bonus to all offensive maneuvers for up to 32 party members or soldiers under your command.
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48
Val lurched awake with a gasp, his heart racing. Momentarily disoriented, he was filled with a sudden visceral terror that he might already be too late.
"Husband, be calm!” urged Ava, her concerned expression easing into a smile. “You might wake your daughter.”
Val blinked, forcing some of his terrible anxiety back down, taking the time to gaze at his little princess, the knots in his gut easing as he gazed upon her peaceful sleeping form. His lips, feather soft, touched her warm brow before he quietly got up and slipped into Ava’s arms, giving her a hug filled with all the love, hope, and desperate worry he felt at that moment.
Soft lips caressed his own before Ava pulled back with the gentlest of smiles. “Go, husband. I sense the burden you feel.” She bit her lip, looking strangely vulnerable in that moment, the soft dwarven lights caressing her sensual form, captivating features gazing up at Val with a longing that filled his heart. “Just please… promise me you’ll come back to me?”
He rested his brow against her own. “Always.”
“Good,” she said. “Then embrace the madness all our lives depend upon. If we are lucky, if you can distract them long enough...”
Val swallowed. “Then we might just have a shot of seeing this through. I won’t let you down, Ava. No matter what it takes, Avelina’s people will one day claim the skies.” He flashed a teasing smile. “Who knows? Maybe our daughter will be the captain of her own starship, one day.”
Ava flashed a sad smile. “Maybe she will. Or maybe the grove we spend our days playing within will call to her, her father’s magics echoing within her soul as well. Now go, husband. Do what you must, to make our daughter’s dreams a reality.”
Val nodded. “Do you have the transceivers?”
Ava grinned. “Father and I finished modifying them while others duplicated that terrible, wonderful cube holding so many secrets. The hyperion signals now come in just as clear as they would on the surface, the phase shift fully accounted for.”
Val smiled, awed anew by his wife’s cleverness, and grateful that the Valorium core used to shift this city and its resources out of phase just enough to avoid all detection would not hinder her ability to receive the signal.
“Good. You’ll recognize the signal when it comes. Best of all, you can now keep tabs on the world above with the transceivers I'm leaving behind.”
Ava nodded, planting a farewell kiss on his cheek as he headed out the door, the look in her eyes haunting him even as he dashed for the gate, dwarven citizens honoring him with solemn bows whenever he glanced their way.
For all her words, Ava knew there was a good chance he wasn’t coming back.
But it needed to be done.
For the sake of everyone he loved… it needed to be done.
“Bethany. Status. Can you read me?” Val hol
lered into the transceiver carefully secured to his dwarven hover-blade as he roared down the Jordian equivalent of a highway. He had gated directly to Terrance Province, now little more than wild grasslands and fallow farmland. The crisp, fresh air was a delight to his senses, for all that he sensed his property was almost completely devoid of citizens. Perhaps it was the flood of mana that had rendered all Dominion tech inoperable. Perhaps it was the legions of undead glaring at anyone who dared to look at the pair of open gates guarded only by Val’s wards. Either way, his province had been pretty much abandoned by everyone. Even the few velis he had seen along the road just beyond his territory were instinctively increasing their speed and racing away from the strange light and eerily swaying fields with all haste, and that suited Val just fine. He spent a few precious moments adjusting the one modified dwarven transceiver he had taken with him, which besides being storable in his dimensional rift and inured to Greater Mana Warping, also had far superior range.
And Bethany was in a battle-mech designed with a Highlord comms specialist in mind. Rare and valuable a combination as that was, Bethany fit the bill perfectly, Val having only just found out that she really had been all but bred for the role.
“Bethany?” Val’s growing anxiety edged up a notch as he squeezed the throttle and activated his bike’s shields, racing for Newford as fast as his boosted hover-blade could take him, high perception, quick reflexes, and Rank 5 skill just barely keeping his bike clear of slower transport that seemed to whip right by him, so fast did he roar past.
But no matter the dwarven transceiver’s boosted range, he heard not a trace of Bethany’s honey-sweet voice, not even when the magnificent edifices of chrome, steel, and brilliant shining glass popped up on the horizon, Newford now just a few miles away.
Growing anxiety turned to sick dread as he merged with the growing traffic entering the heart of the city. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that the beautiful girl who so loved holding Val close when he rode through the city would have responded to him by now, if she possibly could.
It was obvious something had happened, Val thought as he grappled the storm of emotions flooding through him, muffling his hover-blade as he replaced spikes of dread with the cool embrace of Shadowmind, one with the ebb and flow of traffic that he weaved so effortlessly through, one with the city entire. Flickering shadows and light dancing across the city as clouds raced by overhead, not a soul paying any mind as the hotel he, Bethany, and her sisters had stayed at came into view.
But Val was no fool. Even embracing shadow, he didn’t dare go directly inside.
For others possessed his gift, and he was forced to fear the worst with the continued radio silence.
He would be an idiot to expect anything but a trap, and as he flowed through adjoining buildings, taking his methodical time even as afternoon slowly edged towards evening, his paranoia was eventually rewarded.
Not in the first building, nor the second.
But the sneering countenance of a man he recognized from his grandmother’s restaurant instantly quelled Val's growing doubts, replaced by a sudden sense of dread. The man was peering intently at fuzzy scenes on a black and white monitor, massive computer banks blinking merrily away in a reserved suite in the top floor of this, the third building Val had inspected. His target and the man beside him were so focused on their tasks that they failed even to look his way. And though the black and white picture was blurry, the voices crackling in the speaker could clearly be heard.
A single bronze cube glimmered softly before shadow flowed into the gloom, his device bearing silent mechanical witness to all Val saw and heard.
“Two hours before the hyperion evening broadcast, Faith. That was the time you were given, correct?”
“Yes, Micah,” said a voice haunting in its familiarity. His sister. “Angelica made that clear. She did not say what day, only sometime this week. You don’t have to be here. I can handle this myself.”
A soft chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure you could, Faith. But it has already been three days. Any deference our target could purchase has already been spent.”
“We hear him out,” Faith said, voice as cold as ice. “And no one will interfere with his arrival. Timothy himself swore that would be so.”
“Of course,” Micah soothed. “We hear him out, and in case his words should prove so alarming that we might actually have cause to violate our contract, we’d be fools not to listen.”
“But you don’t think there’s a chance in hell of that. Neither of you do,” said Faith. “That’s why Jonas here insists on holding onto my blade.”
“We’re here, Faith,” said a gruff, older voice Val assumed was Jonas. “And we’re not going to strike him dead without hearing him out first. That should be enough.”
“Relax, Faith,” Micah said. “You read the contract. We don’t even have to kill him. The narcoleptics are ready, and we’re all properly dosed. We just put him to sleep after our talk, and reel him in.”
“Do you really believe Craven’s going to do anything but cut him down?”
“It doesn’t matter what we believe,” Jonas snapped. “Craven can pierce our cloaks! We honor our contracts, so neutrals don’t become reds. Do you understand, girl?”
Micah sighed. “It’s not about the money, Faith. It’s about our survival.”
The man Val recognized chuckled softly, leaning back in his chair, taking a sip from his chrome mug. “If only those fools knew what was coming.”
The other man smirked, adjusting several dials on the flashing computer before him. “It can’t be too soon, Akel. Whole damned system will finally be free of those psychopaths.” He sighed, cracking his fingers. “At least we get to kill these fuckers, the minute this Valor Hunter shows his face. I know the big man will want to be here for that. Where is he, anyway?”
Akel flashed a cold grin. “With his newest acquisitions, of course. I locked our transceiver to his line before your shift started. The minute we see our target's face, we report.”
Shadow trembled, fury boiling away gloom’s cloak. It was all he could do to force icy stillness once more.
And when horrid screams resonated from the speakers that could only be from the hyperion monitor to the agent’s left, very much live but showing only an empty command room with blinking computers and an empty chair, it was all Val could do to rein the horrid storm roiling inside him. For he recognized the voice behind that scream.
It was Bethany.
Akel smirked. “Bitch is getting what she deserves, crossing our future Highlord."
His companion nodded before wheezing out a sudden cry, abruptly jerked out of his chair and sent crashing into the far wall, well out of the monitor’s field of vision. And before Akel could do more than blink, he was sent flying as well.
The smaller man was rubbing his head and groaning, skin scalded by spilled coffee. “What, who the hell are...” His eyes bulged, his hands frantically clawing at Val’s rock-hard gauntleted fist as he clenched tight to the man’s throat, slowly increasing pressure as the man jerked and spasmed, capable only of a dying rattle.
Val stared intently at a horrified Akel as he slowly throttled the man’s partner. “Very good,” he said, his voice cold as death. “You will make no sound my enemies will hear. You will swear yourself to me, and you will tell me everything you know, or this man’s fate will be your own.”
Val then tore out the other man’s throat.
He did not take his eyes off a pale-faced Akel, the man clearly near collapse, his co-worker’s blood now staining him like crimson rain.
Intimidation check made! Critical success! Your enemy is mortally terrified of you!
Akel was sobbing and howling, looking on the verge of collapse.
Val’s smile was that of a wolf eyeing his prey. “You’re going to tell me everything you know, Akel. Everything about your master’s plot to kill the Dauda.”
Akel gasped. “No, there is no plan, nothing of the sort!” He tried to scuttle
away from a looming Val. “I swear it, my lord. I am just paid to observe. Only to observe and report!”
Val’s cold gaze bore into the other man. “I know all about the exothermics.”
Interrogation skillcheck success! Your foe’s tells reveal all his secrets!
And the way Akel shook told Val all he needed to know.
He smiled, gazing into the other man’s eyes. “I’ll know if you’re lying. You understand that, yes? I can sense the elevation of your pulse. I can taste the fear you exude. Truth is, I’m hoping you’ll start with a lie. It will give me a reason to start tearing off your fingers, one by one.”
Quickness check made!
And before his prey could blink, Val had swept his legs from under him, slamming Akel to the ground, one gauntleted hand covering the man’s mouth, the other wrenching his arm tightly back.
Val smiled and squeezed, feeling wrist bones grind under his grip. “And if you dare scream again, I’ll tear out your throat just like I did to your friend. Do you understand?”
The man gave a terrified nod.
“Good. Now sit up. See that bronze cube right there? Good. Now I’m going to ask questions, and you are going to answer them. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Excellent. Where are the explosives?”
The man hesitated for the barest heartbeat.
Strength check made!
Val covered Akel's mouth and didn’t hesitate to snap every joint in the man’s left ring finger, no matter how he bucked and screamed.
Endless moments later, as the groaning man regathered control of himself, Val clenched locks of sweaty hair so tightly he could feel them tearing free of their roots, forcing the Akel to meet his gaze. “I know that’s how Craven and his cronies plan on wiping out my entire clan in one fell swoop. So if you dare try to tell me that entire hotel isn’t rigged with explosives, I’ll rip your jaw clean off your face. Now, let’s try this one final time. Where are the explosives?”
Oblivion's Crown Page 62