(Vol 2) Chapter 68: Channeling an End

Sammy tried to rapidly read through, skim, and absorb her new abilities…

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Sympathetic Targeting

Instead of normal targeting for single-target spells and abilities, you may operate by Sympathy, i.e. having some other link to the target, whether by having an aura-retaining personal item, by them having your personal aura-retaining item, a body sample (blood, hair), a physical, artistic representation, having access to an inherent mystical link to the target (portal, detected point of clairvoyance), an analyzed aura, or the like.

The penalty varies, but starts high for minor links (-5 Effective Levels penalty); multiple links reduce the penalty. At this level of Sympathetic Targeting, the maximum Effective Level is up to a -1 penalty after any other bonuses.

If a spell or ability is physically damaging, the contest is converted into a Will vs. Will curse-like effect. Location targeting and physical armor become irrelevant (anything that protects against the magic still applies). A successful resistance (which avoids any wounds) or a failure by only 1 will eliminate that specific link being utilized again. If using an artistic representation, you must improve the quality grade used before the last.

If a spell/ability is restricted to an external element being manipulated — rather than created — to attack a target, Sympathetic Targeting is normally not possible. Only targeting the element directly is.

Certain wards interfere with Sympathetic Targeting, generally by specific methods/types of links.

This may also be used for a bonus with normal/default targeting, for [Curses] and Will vs. Will contests where such a connection is logically beneficial. At this level of Sympathetic Targeting, up to 1 Effective Level may be gained, by either a major link or two minor links.

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Removal

For 3 FE (Fate) or 6 FE, you may attempt to directly remove a target with a soul entirely from existence by cutting their ties to Fate. This always has an echo of injury to the body as well. You may target spirits, but not deities.

This is a simple Will vs. Will contest to a target within 120 meters plus 60 per deity level. This ignores most resistances aside from [Fate] or [Time] anchorage effects or certain soul protections. Ties always go to the defender. Success by 1 will cause a soul-based Major Wound and the permanent malus [Fate Scarred], though this status has immunity to further Removal attempts.

Success by 2-4 causes the removal of the soul from the world and universe into the System lottery, without any chance at in-world reincarnation, any memory retention from that world, or the possibility of an in-world Afterlife. A husk of a lethally wounded body is left over.

Success by 5+ also disintegrates the body completely.

Success by 2+ may be downgraded to the effects of success by 1 if desired.

Base class is [Goddess] for level comparison for resistance purposes. One additional class may add as normal, providing (level/3, rounded up) to the base class — this includes [Wizard] or some special classes.

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Channel Domain

(Domains: Fate) You may utilize certain relic/magic item options or other receptive abilities to amplify your raw Domain energies into miraculous feats. Generally, this is to [Focus] or [Broaden] but each Domain has different options.

Use of Channel Domain costs 7 x deity caster levels desired in specialized FE (double for normal FE and cannot use PFE), drains all Grant Prayer uses (or disables core power of Domains without Grant Prayer; if Grant Prayers uses have been used, the difference will turn into debt the following day) and is on a 48-hour cooldown after use.

Domains available are one of choice at level 13, and another at levels 15 and 17.

Fate: You can amplify some of your Fate-related spells or abilities via [Focus] or [Broaden]. You may also be able to make a minor, believable (depending on deity level), alteration of reality in the Present. This serves as the amplification of Alter Fate, but has broader potential. If you attempt something and it fails to resolve, the Channel Domain use is not expended.

Removal (Focused) — Single target. Add +3 to Deity Caster Level for the contest. Range is changed to Line of Sight. No penalties (including Sympathetic) for range can be applied. Even on a failure or tie, deal a Minor Wound and apply [Fate Scarred]. On success by 1, double the malus of [Fate Scarred] for 24 hours. Wounds cannot be downgraded or supernaturally healed by any source and must heal naturally over time.

Deities may be targeted. However, on success by 2-4, they are only banished from reality (into a void) for 12 hours + 12 hours per success value. Their Avatar is disintegrated. Success by 5+ results in full removal of the soul (if desired — banishment for up to 100 years is also possible).

[Fate Scarred] does not provide immunity to this effect. Add +1 Effective Levels against any with this malus. Those with [Fate Scarred] can be targeted by Removal (Focused) at will regardless of distance.

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Fuck. Level 13… It’s a cheat to have this. A godkiller…

She did not bother reading any more. It was either use it all to kill the source of the madness or watch it kill her people.

As her mouth opened to speak, Azure was already interlacing her fingers with Samantha’s, her beautiful, luminous eyes looking up into those of her goddess with sanction and determination. Insistence. Her skin began to change, to glow, as an ability was laid bare for use. A channel through her, out to the world awaiting miracles.

Through User Azure’s ability [Perfect Reflection: Chameleon] you may use [Channel Domain].

She wanted to kiss her right then… but that was a whole other can of worms she felt an intuitive warning about. Instead, she smiled, nodded, and moved so they were standing side by side, much in mimic of how Innogen and Blue had stood upon the tower.

Level 4 effect? And +3 for 7. I’m not confident that is enough. I need an enhancer…

Shockingly, Azure was right there in her head. “I can add to it like another class. That’s +1 right now.”

Er, right… level 8. Still dubious.

Watching the golem trying to go after the flying Dart, Sammy immediately knew what to do.

To Dart, she sent, “You’ve done amazing, my friend. Time to take another one for the team. We’ll finish this.”

“It’s what I’m here for — do it, Big Momma!”

As the golem swung the arm club at Dart yet again, Sammy cursed Dart with Alter Fate, forcing him to fail. The golem’s arm smashed him hard and splatted him heinously into the ground like a swatted fly, his faux body splattered and pulverized to death. But he did manage to utter one last, squeaky, “It’s a living,” before he passed.

It also recharged her Alter Fate ability to boost allies.

To Azure, she sent, "I'm sorry we have to do this, Blueberry."

Azure sent a smile and a shake of her head back. "I'm not. Do it with all the judgment in your soul, Your Majesty. I embrace that I am this instrument — your instrument. Forever."

Samantha and Azure raised their hands up as their mutual channeling ability activated. At Caster Level 7, Sammy spent 12 Fate FE and 74 FE to fuel the miracle. Azure’s skin turned into a gleaming perfect mirror as the energy coursed through her. Though a mirror, no matter what angle one would look, the vision warped and bent to focus on one particular target…

All around them reality warbled and warped, its bonds made threadbare. The wind became a torrent.

Twin stars for eyes on a golem finally met hers — finally became aware of something happening. Samantha reached and targeted the source of those eyes. Locked on. Somewhere lying under a surreptitious pile of rocks was a bald, sweating man, all but his face covered. As he was touched, as he was brushed by Fate, his eyes shot open.

“You are a blight upon this world, dog!” Came a voice from the goddess’s lips as she reached tendrils through his soul, her hand lifted up into a clenched fist. The sound and the hatred reached him in fullness — without a doubt. How much of it was the Fortuneteller she wasn’t even sure. They were in perfect alignment at that moment.

She triggered Alter Fate as their wills met and she drove threads winding all throughout his spirit and entangling. Caster and target both knew the end result. The fat man screamed.

“Forever are your rabid ways stripped from Calrenazzod! Begone.” The twisted soul threads that were wound within him suddenly ripped out, and his soul was shredded apart — disintegrated into nothing — his body left behind and drained lifeless. Whoever he was before this world, he’d start over elsewhere.

At his death, the light of the golem’s star eyes winked out, and it collapsed and fell apart. Elsewhere, the smaller golems did the same, and Orswyth was finally free.

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The quest “Mettle of the Tin Chicken” is complete. 93 FE gained. 7 exp gained in [Goddess], 2 exp gained in [Wizard], 7 exp gained in… please select [Wizard] or [Rogue] (within the next 4 hours) due to clever supernatural ability use, application of spellcraft principles, copious avoidance and dodging, and application of opportunistic, physical ranged fire.

87% reward grade achieved. [Tin Chicken Memorial Statuette] granted.

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A little shiny gray metal statuette of a chicken indeed materialized on top of a pile of bricks next to her, but she was not paying it much mind.

Azure flopped downward. Sammy was barely able to keep her from falling by dropping and catching the Naugite in her arms with quick reflexes, though they both ended up on the irregular rocky ground.

It was no mere fainting. She both looked and mentally felt drained and weakened. Faded. Her skin was no longer reflective or glowing and was far paler than it should’ve been.

“Azure!” Sammy cried insistently, as her hand darted to touch a cheek — she shouted into her mind at the same time. A mind that suddenly seemed cavernous to her. And… somewhere deep within… hidden to all but her yet central… there was a Gate.

Her Followers rushed over, including a scuffed-but-hale Bast, a panting, injured, yet relieved Canmore, and an even more injured and relieved Bamm. In the back of her mind, she sensed others were tending to Tashome.

Azure desperately wanted to be conscious, she was fighting to be in the midst of the overpowering weakness, because she wanted to be there in that moment, wanted to respond to and comfort the worry of her goddess. She tried, but it was an instinctual charge through a deepening haze she was lost within.

All she managed was to mouth, ‘love.’ It was clear what she meant.

Panicking, Sammy tried to find something mentally to hold onto, while muttering multiple versions of ‘stay with me.’ Things had reversed — she had to be what Azure was for her when she was buried in the rubble!

But the means to make that possible escaped her. Azure’s mind was like smoke, with nothing tangible to grasp.

Bast put his hand on her shoulder while meeting her eyes. “Goddess. She’ll be alright. Her heart beats strong. We need to go.”

Sammy shook her head, tears spilling from her eyes. “You don’t understand! She has to wake up! She didn’t just faint! Azure, please — come back to me!”

It was a strange fear in her heart. Why it was there, she couldn’t pin down. Because of an intensity of feelings she had for someone that she’d never experienced? Anxiety overload? Or was it a dread born of intuition?

‘Always a cost.’ The Fortuneteller seemed to just be musing to herself, not instructing Samantha in this case — not even noticing her. There was sorrow and regret from her. ‘We knew; we know. Both of us did. You’ll always forgive us… won’t you?’

It didn’t help Sammy’s sense of dread at all. She found she was yelling with both her hands cradling Azure’s face, begging/commanding/promising every way she could.

The others didn’t understand. In their faces was perhaps worry — worry that their goddess was in too much shock and had ‘lost it.’

Within Azure’s mind, she found she had willed herself right up to the Gate and was trying to pull it open by an ivory handle. Fruitless. The beginning of some warning seemed to come from the Fortuneteller right then, as she noticed. Sammy banged on the door, begging it to open.

‘Stop. It won’t open.’

A whisper very Azur-Blu-Azure-like seemed to reach her ears. ‘Kiss me, first.’

Sammy blinked in the real world and looked down at the unconscious face in her hands. She didn’t even think about it — if it would awaken her-

‘No!’

Sammy kissed Azure.

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« Chapter 67: A Helping Hand | Table of Contents | *Or did she??* »

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Comment: And one more psychopathic killer is dead. Rarely does Sammy feel no regret for such ruthless acts, but in this case...

❤️⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽❤️༓❤️☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽❤️༓❤️☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅⋅•⋅❤️

❤️NOTE ❤️ THANK YOU❤️

I am pleased to announce that within a month or so... the first book shall be going to Amazon and KU! Not only that, an audiobook will be available, courtesy of Royal Guard Publishing! 🥳 🥳 🥳

So thank you so, so much for your support, which has been an incredible boost to make it possible! I hope that I can continue to make the story enjoyable for everyone and keep it all rolling with success. But it definitely wouldn't be possible without you all.

If you have any interest in audiobooks, it would assuredly be a huge boon for folks to snag that when it comes (naturally, I'll announce). I am still eagerly awaiting hearing it myself. Only heard chap 1 so far. It has a female narrator with a perfect voice for Sammy, I think. And there is even a guy doing the male voices! A legit duo. They sounded into it and passionate.

A ridiculously exciting development! I hope that some of you agree, haha! In addition, reviews of the e-book will be huge with a capital H. So any so inclined to assist will be appreciated. ^_^

Cool beans, cool times, right? Cheers and thanks again! ❤️❤️❤️