[A Day in the Life of Aelryinth] - 0900 hours

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The Bay City Garrison’s Hall of Ink...

            “Good morning, ladies.”

            “Good morning, Aelryinth!” exactly a hundred voices sang back, natural Cadence blending them together as easily and clearly as a master choir. The calls from the civilians seated there waiting their turns were much more discordant and rather drowned out by the group reply of the Amazons.

            It was time to apply some Marks and open Soul Points for Soul Tats.

            The Marks acquired by Sama Rantha and since dispersed throughout the Allegiance were another bedrock of The Steel. Replicated from Succubus Blessings, the Marks were a very, very powerful set of Runes, actually of Demonic origin, but now powered by very non-demonic energies and so changed subtly because of that.

            The key power of the Marks was to allow +2 to one Stat, and to set up a Marklink with the Mark Maker. That Marklink resonated with the Allegiance Oath of loyalty, and formed the Markspace with the aid of high-end people with multiple thoughtstreams who could manage it.

            An interactive telepathic exchange anchored off magical effects and not subject to things targeting the akasha was an incredibly valuable resource for information exchange, current reporting, memory storage, and a great many other uses… private amatory sharing part of that, too.

            Getting a Mark was required for military service in The Steel, as was getting your Soul Chakras opened. Getting your first Soul Tat was yet another rite of passage for people taking up a fighting career.

            If Primos were tough enough, they could hold up to three Marks. Forsaken Nulls could potentially gain all nine, like Sama had. Sources and Voids could only gain one normally, although they could use Soul Essence to power up others if desired, and the same applied to all the Powered.

            But, the Marks had to be made, which required making QL 24 Tattoos for the first one, increasing by +2 for each additional Mark.

            It had become traditional for the Amazons to apply the Marks if they could. After all, there were normally hundreds to do every day, and a devoted force of Tattoo Artists who could apply them was completely necessary. Amazons who reached Five and received their second Intelligence bonus point gained a new skill to go with it, and Tattoo Artist was the one they picked, just so they could work on the constant flow of Tats required.

            The first Tat to be picked was almost always Intelligence for civilians, Primos, and Forsaken. +2 to Intelligence was a huge boon to the dumb, as it gained them clearer thinking, better memory, and most importantly, Ranks in a Skill chosen by the Maker equal to their Level.

            Thus, if we needed engineers, cooks, smiths, cobblers, teachers, or any other Trade skill, a Mark could be applied to an aspirant, and they could instantly learn what was required, even if they’d never done anything like that in their lives.

            Further investment in the Skill was at their leisure, but teaching a fellow with a Talent for chemistry who’d come up out of sub-Saharan Africa three Ranks in Chemistry or Alchemy instantly created someone with a base +10 modifier for the Skill. They could walk out of there and take the Masterwork test for the trade immediately!

            We filled a lot of holes in our required Skills with Marked people, and of course there was them entering the Markspace for the first time. Seeing someone’s mind and soul in the Markspace was often at extreme odds with their physical appearance, as mental strength was clearly apparent there.

            You couldn’t fool yourself that you were as smart as the person in front of you. It was clearly visible who was superior, exactly as if you were standing next to a bodybuilder.

            The Amazons handled 99% of the Marks, and were working on handling 100% of them. Those DC 40 checks for Final Marks on Forsaken Nines required a +30 modifier and were pretty brutal, however. Sama, Briggs, and I had to handle Final Marks, with Sama taking care of most of them.

            Even out on campaign with the Bloodguard, Sama spent an hour a day Tatting, minimum.

            Soul Tatting was more specialized, and required Levels in the Soul Painter Class, of which at one time only two people in the whole of the Power of Ten had, first Ink and later myself, who he’d taught the basics once I had the requirements.

            Now there were over a dozen Soul Painters, because the demand for Soul Tats on Forsaken and Primos had long since exploded. 

            Opening someone’s Soul Chakras started with a DC 30 check, increasing by successive Chakra Point, and could be done by anyone with access to Soul Magic and the Spellcraft Modifier needed. Soul Tatting started with the same DC 30 check for Tattoo Artist, also increased per Chakra point, and was even higher if you wanted Dual Tats and Split Tats Chakra synergy with magical items on the same points.

            Civilians getting their Chakra points opened was another rite of passage for The Steel, giving them a form of improvement that was quasi-magical by use of Soul Feats. While such things could be used for combat, they could also be used for Healing, Warding the mind and body, and very importantly, Skill bonuses!

            Getting everyone opened to Soul Magic was thus another cornerstone of the Allegiance. Skilled Soul was an instant +2 or +4 to any selected Skill, meaning higher quality and greater speed and deftness in a trade or profession. It might be small, but it was noticeable, and it was there.

            Depth and Width better than Height over time, for now. The Soul Classes were the only PC-level Classes a lot of people would ever take in their lives, just to gain more Soul Feats and the Soul Essence to power them. We would go for Height when we had the resources and stability to take advantage of them.

            I thus spent an hour a day making Soul Tats, generally for Forsaken who loved them as combat supplements, and who thus used Soul Magic far more than most Powered did. Units rotating out of active duty for a week always had people who broke through to a higher Level and were eligible for Soul Tats on new Chakras, or had earned merits enough to power up a Dual Tat or Split Tat.

            Primos and Forsaken could not Shape Soul Essence, so Soul Tats were the only way they could tap into the greater powers of Soul Magic. It was less flexible than the Powered, who could swap Soul Essence around as they liked and Shape up many different forms for the magic to take… but something was still much, much better than nothing, especially when they got to pick what that something was!

            “Good morning, Sergeant. What am I working on today?” I asked Bloodguard Sergeant Fitzsimmons.

            “Sir! Dual Tats, Lightning Gauntlets, sir!” he smiled at me. I’d done the big Null’s Mauler’s Gauntlets as well, almost a year ago.

            “Going full in on Vanguard, Sergeant?” I asked him, as I swung in close to the array of inks and powders there. They were all full, the Amazons making sure they were restocked every day along with their own, and the Alchemists of the Allegiance diligently ensured I had everything I needed.

            The big soldier laid his large callused hands palms-down on the table between us. “You know it, sir!” he nodded at me. “Blitzen needs the boost, and I’m not much of a shooter.”

            I glanced at his Morphed Spear, only two feet long at the moment, leaning against the chair. “You know the specs on Lightning Gaunts?” I asked him, picking up the gleaming mithral needle there.

            “Sir! Base d6 damage, plus a d6 per invested Soul Essence! This is administered as a Touch Attack! I can use either a Chakra Bind or an invested Feat to allow me to channel this attack through a Weapon as part of a normal attack once per round!” he recited quickly.

            I nodded. “Been looking to join that line of crackling longspears for a while now, I’m guessing?”

            He grinned ferociously. “You know it, sir!” he said cheerfully. Facing that Bloodguard line of electrified Spears was a deeply intimidating prospect.

            “Let’s get you done, then.” I mentally charted everything I needed to do, sent it to his Mark so he could follow along, dipped into the azure ink there as my Electrum-hued Soul Essence hardened like a diamond around the needle, and I began to work.

            He didn’t open the Markspace to look at me directly, which I didn’t blame him for. Most of my Vassals couldn’t even perceive me directly in the Markspace, I was too far ‘above’ them. They could distantly sense me up there, and if they concentrated on me they could feel my mind at work, but actually looking at me in the Markspace often overloaded their perceptions, and Sergeant Fitzsimmons here was no different in that respect. Just the feel of me right next to his Markspace was making him a little nervous, even if all he could sense was benevolence.

            A helpful dragon standing next to you was still a dragon, after all.

            Blue and golden ink stabbed down into his hands, into and through the Mauler’s Gauntlets that had been his first Soul Tat. The Lightning Gauntlets were pure additional Elemental damage. The Mauler’s Gauntlets were to-hit and damage, making sure blows landed true and hard.

            If you couldn’t hit, what good was additional damage? The Bloodguard worked the numbers smartly and wisely. Hit them, damage them, attack them faster, in that order.

            “Doing good on the Null there, Sergeant. That should be a 31, right? How’s it working against the orcs?”

            He flushed proudly at the praise, especially from a Caster who wasn’t afraid of him. Null Forsaken took huge pride in their Nulls. “Sir, only the strongest Shamans have any chance of landing something on us at all, and you know they are the main targets of the Casters, so they rarely get the chance. We don’t have to worry about anything from the lesser Casters.” The relief in his words was heartfelt. Nobody liked eating Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, or Clouds of acidic poison to the face, or watching their friends experience them, either.

            “That is damn good. I hear you've been sending back tons of pork from their rides, too, so kudos on that.” Nobody was turning down more fresh meat, and even if there were a lot of wild pigs out there waiting to be butchered for food, more meat was never going to go to waste right now, with the livestock herds so thinned by the Fall and plagues that had followed.

            “Have you ever seen Warlord Sama butcher something, sir?” he asked me carefully.

            “It’s called Hag-ripping,” I informed him calmly, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “True Hags use it to tear men apart and devour them. An Annis Hag could rip you apart and swallow pretty much all your meat and organs in about a minute. The other kinds of Hags are a bit less brutal and not quite so fast, but they can still do the same thing.

            “If all Sama wants to do is tear apart a carcass, it is coming apart right now, and make no mistake on that.” I paused as he nodded agreement. “There’s a spell that does the same thing. It starts with Filet at Valence I and advances to full on Butchery at Valence III. So, it can be Sieged.” I gave him a knowing glance. “I can break down a whole cow into sliced meat portions in six seconds with it, without all the spraying blood and flying gore. Not quite as impressive to see, of course, but it’s not as messy, either.”

            “Huh. There’s a spell for everything, isn’t there?” He was only a little regretful of the fact he couldn’t use such things.

            “If there’s not, it’s because someone hasn’t thought up why one was needed. The Casters at Grand Central are always looking for new spells to invent. It’s a point of pride, and you aren’t labeled a true Wizard until you’ve got an original spell to your name, even if it’s only a Variant of an existing spell.

            “Hells, Sergeant, some people have to be reminded to let the revisions, improvements, and alternate versions get done by others, or else earning that Wizard Title is going to be VERY hard to earn in the future.”

            “Huh. Do they take requests?” he wondered aloud, just watching as I worked, the conversation not distracting me in the slightest. One thoughtstream doing the work, one blabbing.

            “Of course! There’s whole lists of spells needing to be invented that would-be Wizards can pick from, more lists of spells that need alternates in different Schools or Traditions, other lists from those that need higher Valence versions, and some that need lower Valences. The crowning achievement is considered to be something that can be Cast as a Cantrip by even an apprentice. That… is truly useful magic.”

            “Cantrips, sir?” the sergeant repeated dubiously. “Not Reserves?”

            “A useful spell that even the least apprentice can use, over and over? Totally the most awesome spells for folks who aren’t going to reach high Levels. Like, the Mowing spell that could do your whole yard, itself derived from a Harvest spell meant to take in acres of wheat at a time. Take it down to a Cantrip, and it becomes Clipping… but you can still do your whole yard, just a square yard at a time.

            “Or Weeding. Sure, you have to touch each weed as a Cantrip, as opposed to cleaning up a whole acre or something as a V, but every six seconds, you completely desiccate even the most obdurate of weeds, right down to the roots, and they are done and gone. Damn cool… and, you know, Cantrips are the easiest things to work into magic items, so your everyday low magic works best with Cantrips.”

            “Huh. Didn’t realize…” he murmured, considering that.

            “Yeah, soldiers tend to see the bright flashy spells that kill shit violently. They just replace bullets and bombs, you know? And what did bullets and bombs ever make for you? Do they help everyday life for folks?

            “No. They are required to stop things from killing us, but they don’t make much, don’t create much. How much good is your Spear doing outside of combat, when compared to a nice adamantine scrimshaw knife?”

            He was quick to nod. “Those things are pretty damn sweet, sir. Carve through the toughest of bones like they are jello!”

            “Exactly. Anything which eases and improves and speeds up drudgery and mundane tasks is hugely valuable to the right people.”

            Blue and gold veins were all over his hand now, zigzagging around and through the black of his Mauler Gauntlets. I could naturally move with superhuman speed when doing this, and I’d already numbed his hands with a gentle nerve touch, so he wasn’t feeling any pain.

            “I wonder if I could think up a spell,” he mused aloud.

            “We get a lot of good ideas out of school kids, so, yeah, I’m sure you could.”

            “What do kids come up with, sir?” he had to ask.

            “A lot of whimsical stuff, which is totally fine. It all expands our knowledge base, and sometimes we stumble across real gems. Like, this one four-year-old who wanted a spell where he could change the colors he saw something in. It is like wearing rose-colored glasses, only cooler. Purple water, green sky, blue leaves, pink clouds, orange maple trunks, that sort of thing.”

            The sergeant screwed up his face. “Okay, that would be funny, but strange. And that’s a gem?”

            “Wellllll, it turns out that when you can make specific colors look like other specific colors, suddenly there’s a lot of use for that.” I flicked a finger at his leathers. “Like, changing the sight of the brown of leather to hot pink. Or, say, the green skin of an orc to electric blue, or the prevailing gold of the long grass to pastel purple.”

            He blinked. “That would… totally screw up any kind of camouflage, sir!” he realized quickly.

            “Correct. Now, take it a step further. Change the very specific hue of a valuable herb or flower to pastel yellow or bright purple, instead of green or white or whatever the prevailing colors around it are.”

            He nodded once. “They’d stand right out, and you’d see them faster, so you could find and gather them quicker!”

            “Brown of a deer hide to pastel blue.”

            “Oh, use it for hunting,” he understood instantly.

            “Albedo of a specific mineral to the same hue.” He hesitated. “Suddenly you see fractures of blue light all along the baseline of that hill when you’re looking for gold… or iron or copper or silver or whatever.”

            “Wow, sir,” he had to admit. “I… didn’t think that would be so useful!”

            “The Cantrip version of it is Rose-Colored Glasses. You pick one color, and you see it in another color. It doesn’t stack, it only lasts a few minutes at a time, but you can just keep Casting it or tie it off.

            “A lot of Druids, Herbalists, and Alchemists use it to find ripe fruits and herbs at a glance, just by the color standing out from the others. I know some Scouts who use it, including those attached to the Bloodguard. Find the prevailing skin tone of the enemy, swap it to something that stands out, and they can see orcs coming from literally a mile away, for instance.”

            “All because some kid wanted to see the world in different colors.” The sergeant shook his head. “So, are there spells like that for bonecarving, sir?” he asked with interest.

            “The Cantrip version is called Bone Cleaning, which instantly cleans up bones, polishes them, and arranges them neatly in the original skeletal form if appropriate, and will even fit shattered pieces back together, if not actually mend them,” I answered promptly. “Bone Molding and Fix Skeleton are the I’s that are popular. The first allows you to rapidly work bone with your hands, not needing any tools. Fix Skeleton will summon in all the different parts of a skeleton, size dependent on Caster, meld them together flawlessly and in the right form and figure, suitable for analysis, resurrection… and if you’re a necromancer, Animation, hmmph!” I muttered, and he smiled darkly, too.    

“Marrowmelding is the II, where you can reshape bone as if it were clay, turning it into any form that you care to.

            “Marrowsplitting is an attack spell, a III, that is very effective against skeletal undead or bone Constructs of any sort. It will shatter them and break them apart if successful.

            “Boneshatter is a IV, a necromancy doing both damage and, if you fail the Save, it will instantly break a major limb, usually a leg. Bonemesh is basically the opposite, combining multiple skeletons and bones into a greater form, usually for later Animation. Saw a bunch of that during the Marches.

            “Boneburst is a V, doing Boneshatter to the main target, and then hitting everyone else in the area with shards of bone, too. Can also be used on multiple corpses, piles of bones, and the like.

            “One of the big reasons us Casters left the whole making of Tokens and Baneskulls to you Forsaken for the long term is that working with bone almost always involves necromancy, and we don’t want to use that stuff. A normal man using tools to do the same thing is cleaner and healthier for everyone concerned, and no less effective.”

            “Doing the shit Casters can’t do!” he grinned proudly.

            “Damn right,” I encouraged him. “Everyone can contribute one way or another, Sergeant!”

            “Yes, sir!” He paused a moment in thought. “What about that Bone River spell? The one that transports carcasses away?” He’d likely seen it used pretty recently, whisking the dead boar mounts of the orcs away to be processed into pork and a lot of soup.

            “That’s part of the Teleport line of spells. It is actually a three-School, restricted version of Teleport Item, using Conjuration, Alteration, and very mild Necromancy/Vivimancy. It can only go to an active Seal Focus, and it only affects bodies less than a day old. The restrictions mean it can work as a III Valence, and there’s only three places out there that can receive the bodies as of right now. Grand Central’s Alchemy Annex is by far the busiest of those, naturally.” Especially since a whole wall could swing out so mass carcasses for food could be quickly transported out of there to the butchers nearby.

            The orcs had been providing us a lot of fresh meat recently, had to hand it to them, although we had to be careful to get all the meat Purified, as some of the things they might be carried by their overgrown pigs were not things we wanted to be eating. The Purification Rooms of the Steel Butchery were there for good reasons, and some hard-eyed ex-kosher butchers made damn sure everything leaving them was clean and ready to eat.

            Kept a lot of strong men fully employed, too. When more people reached Twelve and could Siege III’s, the Bone River would be an even better spell!

            “The Great Seal, the Alchemy Annex, and-?” the Sergeant asked, frowning.

            “The Cold Gallery of Harse, in Sir Justin’s territory. Bodies are automatically under Ninemen* there, and so preserved for Raising or Resurrection. They are also preserved for forensic investigation and Speaking with the Dead.”

[*note: pronounced nih-neh-men]

            “Oh, that’s where they send the dead, to get them off the field quickly,” he nodded. “Wow, that Bone River really is a cool spell…”

            “That it is. And it’s another new spell, we didn’t have it in the game. It’s actually named after Boneriver, the man who designed it. He’s a White Necromancer of Harse, an avenger of the dead and forgotten. I’ll be seeing him shortly, he’s on my Pyramid team.”

            “Oh, yeah.” He’d forgotten about those. That was my main job, not Soul Tatting Forsaken Melee badasses. “You’re working on South Canada right now, right?”

            “Yes. The main holdup is we have to make sure each new Pyramid Zone is clear of hostiles before it goes up, as we move the garrison behind it forward to the new border. So all that fighting with goblins you’re hearing about with Briggs and Flechette and the main muscle of the Steel is pushing that forward to get the space cleared before I finish up the current Pyramid.”

            “And the Bloodguard is fighting the orcs, and not the goblins, because, sir?” he asked carefully.

            “Because you need way less Powered to support yourselves. We’re blooding the noobs on the goblins, and the reserve forces. They need babying. The Bloodguard doesn’t.”

            “Sir, and that is the goddamn truth, sir!” he immediately stated proudly.

            “Every minute you’re out there fighting is a minute we don’t have to be. It means we can give good men Soul Tats, we can make Pyramids, we can break down corpses for alchemical components and meat for the people, we can Bless fields and make Eternal Lights and Shape up some new homes. We do the shit you can’t do to make everyone’s lives better, while you do the shit you can do just goddamn fine, as I’m sure the orcs have been finding out to their sorrow.” My voice was grim despite my encouraging words. “You know you’ve got an arseload of orcs to kill, don’t you, Sergeant?”

            “Estimations is that there are at least a million of them running around Alaska, sir,” he nodded shortly. “It’s… not like the Marches, but there are a lot of them, sir.”

            “And they run around like headless chickens ruining everything, which doesn’t help matters at all.”

            “At least they aren’t Warhammer orcs, sir!” he said with some feeling.

I was a bit surprised. “You didn’t strike me as the gamer type, Sergeant. You know about Warhammer orcs?”

            “They’ve been brought up a lot by some of the others. Big as the ogres, tough as nails, and with no fear of death, treat dying the same as walking across the street, and want nothing more than to fight, fight, and fight some more,” he repeated from memory.

            “And they reproduce by spores and growing underground, so they’re almost impossible to get rid of. Just, ugh.” I frowned more. “It’s likely there is somewhere out there they might exist, too, and the darker gods might just dump some on us for the lulz… but I damn well hope not. At least not before I get Northam covered with Pyramid Fields.” I could only shake my head. “You do much fighting when the Jotuns came in?”

            “That was when I made Seven, sir.” I glanced at him knowingly. “Looking up at one of those bruisers and knowing I had to be more than just a man to kill something that big, that strong, that powerful. Hit Seven when I put Blitzen into the skull of my first Hill Jotun.”

            “Still got the Baneskull, I trust?”

            “Carved it up myself, sir!” he grinned.

            “Good man.”

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