A Wizard In Alexandria's Court
Chapter Twenty Nine
Captain Muscles Goes For The Ring
by Skysaber
OoOoO
Story Day Thirty Two, May 7th 2011, Saturday - Late Evening
OoOoO
In an hour when ordinary people had gone to bed, in one of his underwater safehouses, Jared stepped out of the ritual circle and stretched, relieved that that, at long last, should be the last time.
Frankly, he'd forgotten how many times he'd done this. But it was alot.
Still, according to his reconstructed notes and the best of his memory, he was never going to need it again, which was good.
In D 3.x, adding on racial templates was one of the great themes of the system, and templates were power, but they also filled the same slots as class levels, and class levels were almost always more useful.
Jared had figured out a way to have as many templates as he desired, and the only cost was annoyance.
He was willing to deal with some, minor annoyance in return for power. Unlike some hotheads out there, he had patience. He was willing to wait in order to receive some rewards.
But he was also willing to admit that while Delayed Gratification worked, it was also kind of sweet once the Delay was over and the Gratification hit.
The hardest part about stacking multiple templates was keeping a humanoid appearance, and not look like some freakish, horror movie monster. Being of Fey type was the answer to that, as Fey could represent animals, insects, even plants, and not look at all out of the ordinary in normal human company. Oh, some of the lesser sorts of Fey retained some animal or insect features, but the more powerful ones, like dryads, looked perfectly normal.
And Jared was definitely one of the more powerful sorts.
He went to put on one of his costumes.
It was time to earn back the two levels that last set of rituals had cost him.
OoOoO
"BEHOLD! IT IS I, CAPTAIN MUSCLES!"
The Merchants were all but finished as an organization, but a whole lot of UN-organized drug deals still got conducted by their remnants. The small crowd of seedy figures who had been conducting one such illegal transaction looked up from their trade in horror over what they saw; A seven-foot tall wall of masculine muscle, currently flexing in a body builder pose, and dressed only in a Luchador mask, fur loincloth and boots, with a broad tattoo over his chest and back of an American Eagle, done in American flag colors, and surmounted by a giant capitol 'M'.
"CAPE!" one of the drug dealers shouted, drawing a gun that had not been cleaned in even longer than its wielder.
This was, perhaps, not the wisest choice of action, as the cape had stepped out of an ally already within arms reach of them.
"Surrender, Evildoers! Or be prepared to face my FISTS OF JUSTICE!" The self-proclaimed Captain Muscles shouted out, already swinging one meaty fist.
SMACK!
The guy attempting to draw his gun went down to a single blow, never having gotten his weapon free of his waistband.
The rest of that little gathering went down similarly fast.
"Thus, True Justice prevails!" The body builder declared, staring down at the tangle of moaning bodies.
"Aren't you cold like that?" A female reporter asked. Sure, she had been approaching this spot to get a dime bag, but this dim bulb did not need to know that. And she might as well turn this encounter into a story.
Her camera was already running, had been from when she'd seen him about to leave the alley he'd snuck up through.
"Cold cannot stop Justice!" the bombastic man declared, just before crouching and leaping to the top of the nearest building, effectively ending the interview.
The reporter carefully pinched out the burning end of her cigarette, then stowed it away again in her pocket for relighting later. The days when people dropped a mostly intact cigarette to the ground and stomped it out were deader than Elvis. You did not do that to something that cost so much. Smokers were careful to conserve every last bit of tobacco, as hard drugs were cheaper.
Still, at least she knew who would be paying for her next pack.
She got on her cellphone. "Boss? Yeah, I got footage of that latest cape, Captain Muscles. Yeah, living stereotype, but Smurf, the ladies are going to eat up those pictures. Sure, I'll get right on it. But get this, the guy is actually strong enough to leap to the top of a building. Ok, it was only a Seven-Eleven. No, it wasn't flight. Flying people do not shake the ground when they take off, and he nearly made me drop my camera. He may call himself Captain Muscles, but... he's not wrong. Alright. Got it."
The reporter turned around and went back toward the office. Maybe she could even hail a pedicab? This was going to be hot.
OoOoO
Rushing off, still under an Alter Self spell and wearing what was effectively a Luchador costume as part of his Captain Muscles disguise, Jared was of mixed feelings about that last encounter. On the one hand, he really hadn't wanted to deal with any reporters, as he viewed the majority of them as professional propagandists for whichever regime was in charge. Paid shills, in other words.
To put it more bluntly: Scum. Barely any better than the drug dealers, as both of those professions would rot your mind, if you'd let them.
Almost made him feel guilty for punching muggers, as they at least were comparatively honest, and what they took from you, cash, was significantly less valuable and easier to replace than what the lying shills took: your mind.
But such an encounter was bound to happen sometime. That might as well be now. He would have preferred later, or never, but that was not his choice to make. He was out doing bombastic hero things, beating up thugs, and reporters watched for people doing those things.
So he was bound to get caught doing it sooner or later.
The thing was, it did not matter. He was only out here because he'd needed to get in some meaningless fights, and the superhero thing filled that need nicely.
Something most people forgot was how quickly a D character could level up. Once you'd figured out how to survive, a given party of D characters could go from the lowest level to the highest in about a week of actual adventuring. All that was needed was about four fights against foes of their own challenge rating to go up each level.
And in a gang-ridden hellhole like Brockton Bay? If you knew where to go, four fights per hour was a slow pace!
Jared had stayed third level for years because third level was a sweet spot in the rules. Once you'd hit third level you could sacrifice one level to pay off a 1 Level Adjustment template.
Level Adjustment was the cost of templates. It was what they made players pay, to avoid anyone getting too many templates, as the level adjustment permanently limited your power. The real power in the game always came from class levels, and so filling that allowance with anything else was generally a very bad idea.
However, templates gave things, like ability score bonuses and natural armor, that were generally very nice to have, and class levels did not grant you. So it was a juggling game; How many of your precious levels do you spend on this, as opposed to that?
There were a couple very common templates out there, Half-Celestial and Half-Fiend, that gave some great bonuses: twenty points spread among the various ability scores, some natural armor and energy resistances, along with a broad selection of spell-like abilities, some of which were quite potent.
All very nice, but players rarely took them because they had a Level Adjustment price of 4, meaning if you were a first level character who had one of those templates, the game rules considered you equal to a fifth level character. Most character classes were really starting to get going at 5th level, it was where some very nice abilities started to come online. So if you were a 1st level character feeling nervous about killing your first orc in a party with 5th level ones, who could fling about fireballs and other nasty stuff, you just could not compete.
To say nothing of how helpless a 1st level character was against monsters deemed suitable foes to a 5th level party.
As nice as the template bonuses were, they just were not worth it.
However, then they'd introduced the rules for paying off level adjustment.
In a party, on a campaign, where everyone went up in level at the same pace as each other, the costs for paying off level adjustment were still quite high, carefully calculated by the game designers to be just barely worth it.
However, as a free-floating adventurer not on the plot rails of any campaign, Jared did not have to concern himself with keeping up with the rest of the party in an ever-escalating series of challenges. That meant he could afford to pay the cost, sacrificing one class level to pay off a 1 level adjustment template, without falling behind anyone.
What's more, he could afford to do that over and over again.
Each time he'd reached third level he could sacrifice that level, going back down to a second level character, to pay off whatever his latest 1 LA template was. Then, using rituals from the Savage Species supplement, he could sacrifice another level, going from second down to first, to pick up another 1 LA template, which he could then pay off once he'd reached third level again, repeating that cycle as often as desired.
Even better, using those same rituals from Savage Species, he could sacrifice a couple of paid-off 1 LA templates to gain a 2 LA template, and since the two 1 LA templates were already paid off, so was the 2 LA template he'd just acquired. And that worked for 3 LA, 4 LA, or whatever.
It was a little annoying, and required you to stay low level for a long time, so wasn't something you could pull off if you had anything urgent to do, like saving the world. But so long as you had nothing important planned, it was an easy way to pick up as many templates as you liked.
Since coming here to Brockton Bay, every time he went down to merely a 1st level Wizard, Jared had costumed up and gone out at night to pick a few fights and get back up to 3rd level, so as to have sufficient ability to protect those girls who depended on him. However, Jared had, just that evening, picked up the last template he felt like acquiring. Now it was time to power-level, and get to someplace decent in his actual class.
Thanks to his vast pile of templates, all of his ability scores, strength and speed, toughness and so on, were already well into the superhuman range. His natural armor bonus could have been mistaken for an actual military tank, and he had quite a few innate, natural abilities that the locals would consider superpowers.
So beating up a few thugs while wearing a disposable costume presented no problem at all.
However, while street thugs had been great fodder for experience farming when he'd been staying low level, their value rapidly diminished once he got up past about third level. So soon he'd be ditching the Captain Muscles ID, teleporting to Africa and switching to something in the classic British Safari Hunter theme to hunt elephants.
Maybe taking out a few crocodiles first, but that was more of a public service, as crocodiles were one of the few animals that were casual about hunting people, and as an adventurer he considered it part of his duty to crop such species when and where he encountered them. And cropping them would get him to about 7th level before he ought to switch to elephants.
It was trivially easy to knock out an elephant with a Ray of Stupidity spell, and that was just as easy to fix, leaving them unharmed but defeated so he'd still get the experience points he needed.
Hmm.
While they were knocked out, it would only take but a moment to collect their tusks, which he could then replace using the spell or potion that gives perfect teeth. And since teeth naturally develop flaws over time, cracks or cavities or even going missing, he'd even be doing those elephants a favor, knocking them out then fixing all of their teeth.
So maybe he could theme his next costume after a mad, safari dentist?
Something to think about.
OoOoO
Story Day Thirty Three, May 8th 2011, Sunday - Early Morning
OoOoO
"So, what's with all of the ivory?" Lisa asked, once she'd come downstairs, and seeing everyone but Jared gathered in the dining room, with most of breakfast already laid out on serving platters, ready to begin.
"What ivory?" Dinah asked, looking up from where she'd been waiting impatiently in her seat, fork in hand, staring hungrily at the heaping platters of bacon. It was a bit pointless to do that, in Lisa's opinion, as they would not begin to eat until all had gathered and Jared had said a prayer blessing the food, just like all of their meals together as a family.
Lisa carefully massaged her temples, not ready for the annoyance dealing with the younger kids sometimes dealt. "Dinah, you're a Thinker. Think! I know you've got those same skill downloads as the rest of us, including how to observe your environment. If I enter a room and ask about something I think is out of place, you could look for that thing yourself to figure out what I mean."
Dinah did what she was told and gasped.
Shortly, everyone was looking around, astonished.
Jared soon entered the room, bearing the latest tray full of breakfast dishes, and got confronted by several voices speaking all at once.
However, knowing such a cacophony was useless, Rachel had soon quieted them all, and asked herself on their behalf, "Dearest, where did all of the new ivory come from?"
She was referring to all of the dining room chairs, the table, a grand piano, the ceiling tiles and several doors, having been replaced by ones made out of ivory, a precious material made even more rare by the world's sudden collapse of international shipping.
Ivory was something scarcely seen even in jewelry anymore, and now it looked like he had somehow acquired literal tons of it, all polished to a mirror shine and inlaid with gold and gems decoratively along the borders.
They all could appraise its value, and saw that their furniture now cost more than their house.
"I played mad dentist in Africa last night," Jared responded brightly, unruffled as he carefully set down the tray on their new table along with the rest of the breakfast dishes. Since they were all getting up a little early this morning, due to plans already made, he had gotten up a little earlier to save everyone else time by making breakfast himself.
After all, even though his table had thought the whole "Elves don't sleep" rule of 3.x was stupid, and had thrown it out, he still had spells that gave him double value for sleep. So give him four hours and he was fine. Four and-a-half or five were sleeping in.
So he missed out on nothing by pampering them for a bit.
He continued. "I teleported around the various elephant herds, knocking them out, then fixing their teeth; and since I was giving them all perfect teeth anyway, I figured it did no harm to collect all of their ivory tusks beforehand, since they'd be replaced by the Perfect Teeth spell anyway. So they got a tusk and tooth upgrade, and we got lots of ivory."
"Why did you think we needed so much ivory?" Rachel asked.
He smiled at her. "That was just a side benefit of what I was doing. I needed to knock out lots of elephants, that's all. I took hold of the opportunity to give them each a Remove Disease potion as well."
"Wouldn't better tusks just encourage more poachers to go after them?" Taylor innocently asked.
"Twenty years ago? Yes," Jared responded, already serving up plates of breakfast to be passed around. "However, with international trade gone the way of the dodo, ammunition is as hard to get in Africa as ivory is to get here. It exists, but only in small and carefully hoarded amounts. So most guns over there are only useful as clubs, and most people trying to kill an elephant with clubs or spears get trampled flat. Elephants are tough foes, when you haven't got an overwhelming tech or magical advantage. And for all of that risk, they'd have no place they could really sell the ivory. For them, it's always been an export item, and with no trade to carry out your export goods, they tend to be pretty useless. I lived for a while on a property that had lots of bay trees around it. You can buy bay leaves in a bottle from the spice rack in most grocery stores. It's useful for flavoring soups and stews, so people pay good money for it. It's a very common flavor you've all gotten used to and would miss if it were not present. So literal tons of those leaves get bought and sold every day, bought up mostly by restaurants and the big food companies. However, since I did not have a good way to bottle and sell bay leaves, I sadly did not make my fortune that way."
"So, where were you all night?" Lisa asked pleasantly, started to lift a forkfull of eggs, then returned it to her plate. They hadn't had prayer yet. "I've noticed that you slip out on us from time to time. Care to explain?"
Jared smiled, and replied very mildly, "Prayer first."
He said a blessing on the food, then began to explain while everyone else began eating. "Unlike the local parahumans, my powers get a permanent increase after I do a certain amount of fighting. What form that increase takes depends on what style of character class I am increasing.
"I am a wizard. For as long as you've known me, up until last night, I was one of the third experience level, to be precise. Now, that brings up a special project I have been wanting to tell you all about. You see, most of a wizard's power comes from the spells he is able to cast, and an average person trained as a third level wizard is going to have two first level spells he can cast per day, before his spellcasting ability is exhausted. He'll also have one second level spell, but let's talk first level ones for now, and a normal person trained as third level wizard has two. An exceptionally talented wizard will have three, and a *very* exceptional wizard will have four. In extreme cases, he may have as many as five, but that's pushing it. Getting that high is really a corner case, edging into power-gamer territory. Most wizards of that level will have two per day, and 90% of the rest will have three. However, thanks to all my ideas the Headmaster has stolen, by now every Redhurst graduate will be able to cast fourteen first level spells per day - at minimum. It may even be more, I've not kept track of exactly how many of my special projects have been implemented lately."
He drilled her with a look. "What that means is the average Redhurst graduate is flinging as many spells per day as seven ordinary wizards of the same level. And thanks to other projects those spells are hitting with almost three times normal power. That's huge. I can't even begin to tell you how significant that is, because it's unprecedented. That's like having the average, low-rank recruit in your army being able to fight as well as Rambo, or some other action hero."
"So, we'll be going to Redhurst?" Missy asked, a spot of jam dropping from the edge of her toast, only to circle around back above it and drop back on top of it.
"Of course," he favored them all with a fond smile. "That's always been in my plans for all of you.
"Anyway, after your first year there, once you are comfortable with all of the basics of being wizards, we'll all do as I did and take a year off from our formal education to go around duplicating some of what gave me my advantages; things that are too time or resource intensive for the Headmaster to have just added to the Redhurst curriculum."
"Things like what?" Missy asked again, this time pouring syrup that flew sideways and up onto her waffles.
He was glad to see her enjoying herself.
Most of the rest had their mouths busy enjoying the food.
Jared reached into one of his pockets and passed Taylor, who was sitting next to him, a ring. "I am an exceptionally powerful wizard, even by Redhurst's new standards, and this ring is one thing that sets me above the rest."
Taylor cleared her mouth, wiped her face for crumbs, and examined the object.
"It's a ring." she declared flatly, handing it back, not certain what was supposed to be so impressive about it.
He nodded sagely, amused. "Yes. You've read Tolkien, Taylor. You know that 'just a ring' can be very significant indeed. This is my favorite ring for a *reason, Taylor - and that's not because it's pretty, or someone I like gave it to me, or even as a memento of some event I'd like to remember. Those are all of the usual reasons ordinary people like their rings. But I am a wizard, and this ring is among my most cherished possessions. What does that tell you?"
"It's a magic ring?" Taylor replied, both doubtful and hesitant, not sure why she was being singled out.
Other than everyone else had their mouths full, that is. He'd taken extra care today to make breakfast special, and the food was delicious. Odds were they'd be forced to roll Rune out the door for their appointment.
He nodded reassuringly. "Yes. Indeed it is. In fact, I spent a good part of a year pushing magic into this ring, when I can make items like your favorite boots inside of a single day. Let's put it this way: I am really not sure whether or not this ring, or the One Ring of Sauron's is more powerful. I don't know enough about that legendary ring to say. Tolkien was surprisingly silent on what his Rings of Power could actually do. So I don't have a good basis for comparison."
Taylor cocked her head. "So that turns you invisible when you wear it?"
He shook his head, sliding the ring onto his finger to demonstrate that, no, he did not immediately turn invisible just by wearing it. "Invisibility is a cheap trick, and there are a thousand ways to achieve that. That's about as special as a warm pair of socks - appreciated by those who own them, but not terribly remarkable. No, let me tell you a little story about some of the events I went through to make this ring, and perhaps you'll understand better."
Jared composed himself for a lengthy bit of storytelling. "You see, wizards, as you know, are known for having animal servants that are mystically bonded to them, and properly called familiars. They vary widely in their capacities. What you may not know is that it is possible to trade the ability to link to an animal familiar for a variety of other powers, some great, others less so. It is also possible to tie the familiar link to very odd creatures like slimes, imps, animated statues, tiny dragons, and so on. All of that is background to a very specific ability few know of, and even they rarely get, and that is to take a magic item as your familiar. On the surface, it does not sound so scary... in fact, it barely sounds interesting at all. However, on those worlds where my abilities are fiction, and a game exists to describe and define them, those who consider themselves experts on that system were almost universal in decrying having an 'Item Familiar' as they are properly called, as one of the most overpowered abilities you could get in that game."
"But why?" Taylor asked, spooning up some more eggs onto her plate, and grabbing another pair of toast slices.
All of the Sirens were listening, caught up in his story.
He smiled. "That system was very tightly regulated, trying to make it so all character types were equally valuable. They failed, obviously. If everything is equal, nothing is interesting. If there is no advantage to be found, then all of your choices are pointless. Still, many players protested strongly about anything they considered overpowered, and this qualified. You see, one of the things that game tightly regulated was the amount of skills any one person was able to gain. But a person with an Item Familiar could invest his skills into it, and it would grant him not only the full use of them, but also roughly one-third more benefit than what he'd put in. This was deemed overpowered. Another thing tightly regulated was how many spells a spellcaster had available. But it was possible for a caster to store a small portion of his spellcasting ability, one of his highest level spell slots, into an Item Familiar, and get in return not only the continued use of that spell slot, but one more of somewhat lower power. This, too, was deemed game-breaking by some, as it broke the mold."
Taylor was shaking her head. "I don't get why, but ok. What I don't get is why you think that's so... interesting."
"You almost said 'precious', didn't you?" he intuited.
Embarrassed, she nodded, before taking a drink of orange juice.
There came some giggles from the rest of the group.
He smiled, holding up the ring for all to see. "You have to know what any system is, before you know how best to break it. This is indeed a game-breaking ring, and I'll tell you why. Because, you see, there is a little section, in the source describing Item Familiars, that is overlooked by almost everyone, that describes how an Item Familiar can be inherited. Now, the reaction of most people could be defined as 'Who cares? I'm never going to find one, and what does it matter what happens to my Item Familiar once I am gone? I never plan on dying anyway.' Then they forget about it."
Jared's look grew shrewd and sharp. "But they forget that inheritances can be *arranged*!"
Taylor looked momentarily horrified.
There came some gasps from the rest of the group.
Jared just shrugged. "Oh, don't be so dramatic about it. In fantasy realms, there are no shortages of creatures as well as people that need to die. You would not hesitate to defend yourself should a raiding party of orcs or goblins descend upon where you live, nor should you. It would be insanity not to defend your home, loved ones, and yourself from the inevitable rape and murder should they succeed on their attack. But if you are going to kill them anyway, there is no reason their deaths could not serve double duty, and make you more powerful as well."
The wizard gave a small tap to the ring on his hand, to emphasize it. "This began as the Ring of Tirna'gael, a very minor artifact with only two functions, one of which was pathetic, and the other almost never came up... and wasn't very exciting when it did. I sought it out because I once lived in a world where all of this was described as fiction, and had read the adventure module that described where this ring rested. So I knew all about its guardians and defenses (which did not amount to much), and could easily bypass them. But had almost no reason to do so - except one, and that reason was very important. You see, the game rules that describe Item Familiars gave them one, very significant disadvantage, and that is: if an item used as a familiar is destroyed or lost, its owner loses all of the abilities he had invested in it, whether skills, spells, or life force, until he got it back. Since the only way to gain advantage from having an Item Familiar is to put your own skills, spells, and so on into it, and they actually belong to the item from then on, not to you, this was catastrophic. You only got the use of those skills and spells you'd invested while that Item Familiar was still in your possession. Otherwise you were less powerful than someone without an Item Familiar. So if one were to actually use this option to its best advantage, one had to risk losing everything to get it. This was how the game designers considered it balanced. It was all a risk, a gamble that if you won could be a great advantage, but if you lost you'd easily be ruined."
The boy tilted the ring so the light glinted across and through the gemstone on top of it. "I sought out a minor artifact to reduce that risk. After all, if something is lost, the possibility exists for it to be found again. But if something is destroyed? Well, I could avoid that fate by picking a ring that was specifically described as almost impossible to destroy. You'd have to do something like throw it into a very specific volcano to get rid of it, I imagine. I don't know, because I've never dared to look it up. What I don't know, I cannot be forced or induced to tell, and I'd rather others not get it into their minds to destroy my things by telling them how."
He grinned. "You see, if I was going to go the route of getting an Item Familiar, I was at least going to minimize the risks."
She looked confused. "But where do all of the orcs and goblins come in?"
"I was just getting to that," he answered. "Back to how an Item Familiar could be inherited. You see, if Random Orc Raider #1 should happen to get a magical item, actually go through the correct process to make it his familiar, and invest what he could of skills and so on into it, then regrettably pass on, Random Orc Raider #2 could easily bend down to pick that magic item up, and if he should also go through the correct process to make it his familiar, then he gets access not just to what he should be able to invest into it, but everything Random Orc Raider #1 had put into it as well!"
The wizard plainly found this very exciting.
"You sound thrilled," Taylor told him flatly, reaching for her bacon and noshing on a strip.
The focused attention from the rest of the group listening was palpable.
"You have no appreciation for how common random orc raids are," he playful accused her in turn. "On any fantasy world you could think of, there are probably several thousand orc raids going on at any given moment. The orcs do so with the full intention of killing, raping, robbing, and often enough, *eating* all of the innocent people they could find - and especially the women and children. You could not find a better group of 'these creeps need to die'. Orcs are worse in every way than Nazis - the actual WWII kind, who threw millions of innocents into ovens. Orcs will do that too. But after baking them, they'd also eat them."
The boy composed himself. "Before setting out to recover the Ring of Tirna'gael, I asked Headmaster Andarlin for a favor. Bardic performances are magic, and can have wonderful effects. But I needed a particular kind of bard called a Heartfire Fanner, who had a very special kind of music that can temporarily grant a kind of ability called Feats. Now a great deal could be said concerning feats, but the only thing you need to know about them right now is that it is a feat to have an Item Familiar. So, in summary, this type of person could, by singing, or dancing, or stuff like that, grant someone else the ability to have an Item Familiar - but only temporarily. They lose that connection once the bard stops performing."
Taylor nodded. "Alright."
He nodded also, having assured himself that she was following along. "Now I won't bother you with details you'd never understand (without more background, anyway), but she could also grant limited spellcasting, also temporary, but enough to put one spell into an Item Familiar. I had also, previous to this trip, purchased an item or two that was important, but you do not really need to know about at this time, as they overcame barriers you'd never heard of, so me describing them would only confuse you. You've got enough to keep track of already. Suffice it to say, I asked for a favor, and Headmaster Andarlin put me in touch with a very high level elvan bard he knew by the name of Cin'di a'Dalaran."
He smirked. "The first thing she ever said to me was, 'Call me Cindy', so I did. She is about four centuries older than I am (her grandchildren have grandchildren that are older than I am - although that branch are all half-elves) and once I'd paid her for the escort mission we headed off together, and picked up the ring."
"You make it sound easy," Taylor assessed, having expected more of an adventure.
"It was easy," he agreed. "The ring was in a tomb suspended by chains above the fiery heart of an active volcano. But the environment turned out to be no trouble, and if those chains had been flat, you could have driven a bus down them, so climbing out to the tomb was not very hard. It was a wonder they did not get more visitors. The only guardian was an old ghost, the architect who had designed the place and converted it into a tomb after it was no longer in use as a fortress, and whose regret that kept him in this existence was that he had lied to the people of that land. He and others had spread tales about it being a great hero who was entombed there, when instead it was a great villain. They'd had their reasons early on, but those no longer applied. So the ghost wanted to set history straight so he could pass on, but could not because no people ever came to that tomb to listen to him, and he was bound there. But the ghost was a nice guy, and once he felt assured I was too, we got along great together, and he was happy to tell anyone decent how to avoid the traps that were the tomb's only other protection. Really, that place was a cakewalk. I could have done that part of it alone, without the expensive and high level bodyguard."
He grumbled, half under his breath, "Actually, it was more like a babysitter."
Taylor found herself smiling over this, but could not immediately express why, as that might disrupt the ongoing story.
The rest of their silent listeners obviously felt similarly.
The boy gave off a casual shrug. "Anyway, I had a load of parchment and was perfectly willing to write the ghost's life story in book form, even write a second biography just focused on the villain, then distribute copies of both to Redhurst and other libraries, while with me was a high level bard, grandmother to dozens of other bards, able to get the word out among people like nobody's business. We were the perfect combination to get the truth out and resolve that ghost's remaining regret so that he could pass on, and in return for that he was willing to do nearly anything that wasn't evil. So he became the first one to use the Ring of Tirna'gael as an item familiar, investing everything he could within it. He passed on as we resolved his regret, and the ring remained behind, filled with all of those lovely skills and a single, invested spell slot.
"An item familiar can only accept one spell per owner, and automatically takes their highest level slot. But that's ok. After the ghost, we went out hunting orcs. There are *always* orc raiding bands wandering about, as I've told you." He measured Taylor with a very serious gaze. "All spellcasters have available what you would term as Master abilities. Mostly it's a bad idea to use them, as people quickly learn not to trust you if you do. But we have them if we need them, and the trust issues never crop up if you Master a monster that was going to die anyway."
There came a gasp from Missy.
Jared shot a wink to her, even as he was still measuring Taylor as he said, "They used to drug criminals who were going to be executed, to keep them calm and make things easier on everybody - especially the criminal, who otherwise experienced crippling levels of fear and anxiety, which being drugged to the gills kept nicely at bay. I view using Master effects on monsters in the same vein. The end result is going to be the same either way - the evil monster that was hurting people is going to die so it doesn't hurt any more people, especially women and children, but being mastered beforehand takes most of the stress and fear away."
He finished very seriously, scanning the whole group as he reaffirmed, "I don't use Master effects on friends, as that only ever ends one way - with the loss of that friendship."
Taylor, along with the rest of the group nodded, appreciating that, and trusting him enough to feel somewhat relieved. Masters nearly always caused apprehension, because of their abilities. But they knew him enough by now to have observed that he had a sense of ethics that he stuck to. It did not make the fear of masters go entirely away...
But then Taylor realized that she was being silly, as SHE was a Master-type cape, and nobody in this group was avoiding or afraid of her over it.
She relaxed and allowed him to get back to the story.
He saw and appreciated that, as reminding everyone that he had Master abilities had been a big concern because of the inherent lack of trust most people treated those capes with, and their own past bad history over the issue. Feelings were still a bit tender over that big blow-up. "Anyway, what followed could almost be termed boring. If the orcs had camped somewhere that had a big basin of water, I crept up close enough to turn it all into hard liquor, and if they hadn't I made sure to drive a cart loaded with barrels of hard liquor in front of them, then abandon it in the path of their advance. Either way, they would soon get blind, stinking drunk. Once they had passed out, I would then sneak back, then I would Master one of the sleeping orcs and Cindy would perform a nice dance that wouldn't wake anyone. I would wake that one orc I had Mastered into believing we were best friends, present him with the ring, then guide and assist him into taking it as an item familiar, investing everything he could into it - which normally isn't much, but was more because of her performance."
Jared sat up straight, subtly on guard as he risked this next statement. "I would then send this orc, still both plastered and mastered, into combat with something that also needed to die (just in case he won), but where he wasn't likely to win. Swamps were nearby at the time, so I used plenty of crocodiles - and when those weren't enough there were plenty of icky monsters like shambling mounds and assassin vines as targets. Most often the orc would die and I would recover the ring using a Mage Hand cantrip so I did not have to go anywhere near the crocodile-infested water, then repeat that process with the next orc until we'd used up the entire raiding party. Then we'd go searching for another raiding party, get it drunk, and repeat."
This kind of thing was exactly why people were terrified of capes that could master people. It was especially chilling that he could send so many thinking creatures to their deaths.
Taylor tried not to react, but it became apparent anyway. "Are... are you sure they deserved that?" she tried to grant him the benefit of the doubt.
"Oh yes." He nodded quite calmly. "Quite sure. Humans are careful about killing other humans like that because humans are so inherently variable that you can never tell whether one would be a good person, or a bad one. But fantasy races are far more set in their ways, and thus far more reliable. Elves and dwarves are very consistent. Elves will generally always like archery and forests, and dwarves will pretty much always have a mine somewhere. However, orcs vary not at all. They pretty much always represent a distilled version of pretty much all human flaws in one violent package. On all of the fantasy worlds I am aware of, there have been proportionately fewer good orcs than this world's humans have been astronauts. To say they are rare is to beggar the imagination. The odds are quite literally a billion-to-one or more against it."
He shifted his stance in his seat a bit. "To give you one example: half-orcs are everywhere. But no one, and I *DO* mean no one, wants to marry an orc. So pretty much every half-orc you have ever heard of was the product of rape - and, as I just said, half orcs are everywhere. You are always running into them. People don't want to marry orcs because orcs are nasty, brutish, ugly and short, and so is their lovemaking. They pretty much check every box for 'what no girl wants in their mate'. They are not wealthy (every orc I have ever met considers robbery and plunder his primary source of income - and should he get any money he wastes it almost as badly as our Federal government), they are so ugly no one wants to look at them (not even themselves), they are dirty, crude, impolite, ill-mannered... the list could go on nearly forever. They are racist bigots always at war with nearly everyone around them - especially other orc tribes, and never buy anything if they can kill someone and take it instead. They have literally every bad quality you can think of, and probably most of the ones you can't. As I said, every orc I've ever known or heard of makes the typical Nazi look good. They make the average murderer or rapist look like decent, upstanding citizens. Hitler was kind of AVERAGE for the typical orc leader!"
Here, Jared paused, then amended. "No, I have to take that back. Hitler was actually on the lighter side of that equation. The typical orc leader is usually a necromancer, and animating the dead as zombies (and worse!) is more evil than most worlds' Hitlers have been able to manage. I'll grant you that where there is enough magic, Hitler will do it, but it is not common for every world to have that ability. So most Hitlers just don't have the opportunity to do acts that bad, so wind up more moral than average for orc leaders."
He paused, and gave Taylor a steady gaze, convincing her that he was quite serious. "And that has been true for years beyond counting, on worlds without number, almost without exception. There have been some, but very, very few. Like I said, the humans of this Earth have had more astronauts per capita than there have been orcs that broke that mold. Statistically, the number of good orcs approaches zero. So yes, I can be certain they deserved that; because even given all of that, I still checked their alignment."
He gave off a soft smile. "It is almost as if magic, to compensate for making nearly everything possible, tried to counterbalance that by establishing some things that almost never change - and orcs being a race overwhelmingly made up of mass murdering serial rapists who are robbers, cheats and thieves, worthy of death by the laws of literally any civilized country you could name, is one of the most stable and predictable facts of any fantasy environment I can think of - and certainly the one where I was."
He continued, "One never sees a cockroach and wonders if it will leave your food alone, or if it is dirty. All cockroaches will absolutely go after your food, and they are all dirty. Fantasy races are about that consistent. Some are good, most are bad, and orcs kinda set the standard on bad behavior. They are everywhere, and like I said make actual WW2 Nazis look like nice guys... and make these local posers pretending to be Nazis appear almost to be saints, by comparison."
Taylor nodded, but...
There was trust, and there was trust.
A girl in doubt about a boy she is interested in calls in all of her female friends to get their input and opinions, so she looked across the table, and Lisa and Dinah nodded back to her, having used their Thinker powers to confirm that, yes, orcs were like that, and that Jared had killed no one who was not at least guilty of murder.
The others nodded too, for what it was worth.
Tammy cleared her mouth and said, "Even the Empire has standards. We'd have disposed of anyone that bad who wanted to join. We had our image as protectors of the community to consider, you realize. That's the Empire's major recruitment slogan, and they have to defend it. No one would believe the Empire protects anything if they had people like that working for them."
Jared nodded. "Now I would have been happy going on killing orcs until we'd gotten a few thousand of them, but Cindy had grown bored, and so she called a halt to it before we'd even bagged three hundred. So we went on to this other place I knew of, a manor house where a particularly ugly demon-worshiping cult had killed so many children in horrible ways there were literally hundreds of ghosts of murdered children haunting the place. Luckily, having read the adventure module, I knew exactly what had to be done to lay those ghosts to rest - which is what they ultimately want, as it ends their suffering, and coincidentally counts as destruction, which equates to death for passing on an item familiar to a new owner."
"Now my DM had ruled, back in the tomb where the ghost of that helpful architect had helped me to gain this ring in the first place, that ghosts could substitute one of their spell-like abilities for the spell slot when storing spellcasting ability in the ring. That was good, and the old architect had Telekinesis as a ghostly power, which turns out to be a fifth level spell, and very nice. Now, not all ghosts have the telekinesis ability, but they all have some random abilities, so with a little help from Psychic Reformation, we could make it so all of those ghosts in that manor each had Telekinesis. So we had them do a few small things, which included implanting a use of their Telekinesis into the ring, then one at a time, with as many other ghost children watching as wanted to, they got laid to rest."
He smiled softly in memory. "Those ghostly kids literally stood... or rather floated, in line for the opportunity to do so."
The elf's gaze hardened. "We had to kill a bunch of demons and demon-worshipers first to get enough peace to do it, of course."
Then he shrugged. "Now we had to do it this way, because each user only gets to add a single spell slot to the ring. From hundreds of orcs and goblins having taken and wielded it as their familiar, it had gained nearly three hundred 2nd level spell slots. But 5th level spells are far more powerful. Until last night I couldn't even use them myself. So I was not going to miss that opportunity to get some. There was only ever going to be one chance to add them to the ring, because once I took the ring no further additions could be made until I die, and I don't plan to die anytime soon."
"Got *that* right," Lisa muttered happily.
Rachel overheard her and nodded along fervently.
His heart felt warmed by their approval, and he went on. "So, we filled it up with the assistance of every ghost that we could find and set free, gaining as many 5th level spell slots as we could, because I had been thinking when I finally reached the level I could cast them, they would be invaluable. Then Cindy and I headed on to our last stop together, and that was to visit the headquarters of the order of paladins that had built the tomb where we'd found the ring - a place called Garadon Manor."
He wiped a speck of dust from his eye and stretched. "It was a trap, of course. The order of paladins had fallen, turned to evil and become devil-worshiping blackguards. Luckily I knew that before going there, from having read the adventure module. So they laid their trap, but did not catch us. Instead, I pretended to be a deliveryman, stopped by and gave them them a rather generous gift of barrels of wine without ever going inside, and you guessed it, they imbibed rather heavily. Only it wasn't wine, it was brandy. So they all got very drunk and I did not even have to fight very much as we took over the manor. Only the devils were immune, and they hadn't called many of those yet."
The boy shot a grin across his audience of girls. "Sure, it might be a cheap trick, taking advantage of their weaknesses like that, but I was still a low-level, know-nothing back then, using every advantage I could to survive. I certainly could never have taken them all head on. Even Cindy couldn't do it. So I tricked them." He smiled, "Or rather, just gave them the means to defeat themselves. I could never have forced them to get drunk, if I'd tried."
Another shrug. "Anyway, the manor had several things of particular interest to me. One was a minor artifact sword, of a matched pair with another I had already found in the same tomb as the ring and some armor. The other finds, though, proved to be far more interesting. You see, in that house they had a nightmare (which is an evil kind of magical horse), a means for containing captured nightmares, along with the means for summoning more nightmares. I found this very interesting, you see, because a nightmare is a fairly weak creature, easy to kill, all things considered, that has a pair of 9th level spell-like abilities. And it immediately occurred to me I could abuse this situation to my benefit, getting them to summon more nightmares for me, which could then be contained and mastered, then induced to add 9th level spell slots to the ring just as ghosts had added 5th and orcs and goblins had added 2nds. There was even a Lovecraftian horror lurking in the basement that could kill nightmares almost as fast as they could bring them in."
Here he smirked. "And that same Lovecraftian horror, called an aboleth by the way, could not escape the cell it was in. So I got an item of Polymorph Other (which cost me another favor with the Headmaster as I'd already spent my current funds enchanting the ring), transformed the aboleth into a giant single celled organism called a black pudding, which splits into two separate and equal copies of itself when struck by edged weapons, and proceeded to mass produce aboleths, then, one by one, reverted them back, mastered them and got them to take on the ring as their item familiar, had them add one of their own powers, and..."
Again he grinned. "Because there were still plenty of devils in that place who together were more than a match for any aboleth, you see. So by setting that group of devils against one aboleth at a time, they killed off as many as I had produced. By the time we were done the devils were almost all dead too, and were easy to finish off."
Here he faked a tear. "Ah. Cleaning up the world by setting evil against evil. Has there ever been a better way to do it?"
"So what was the point of this exercise?" Lisa was leaning back in her chair, sharing in Dinah's popcorn.
Jared made a popping sound with his lips. "The point, my dear Lisa, was the very existence of this ring, and most especially its properties, are one of my most valued secrets - which you had to know in order to keep it."
He held it up, smiling at it where it rested upon his finger. "By myself, I am a fair wizard. I've got a good selection of spells, and can switch among them with the greatest of ease, which grants me insane flexibility. But I will never have infinite energy to fuel my spellcasting. This ring, however, grants enough that now I can use it, I will almost never run out."
He turned a fond gaze upon all of them, lowering the ring, his expression showing that he valued them even above that ring. "Once a magic item becomes powerful beyond a certain point, you have to name it, because if you don't someone else will. I tried to just leave it, 'the Ring of Tirna'gael', but with mirror universes and all that out there, there were other copies. So that was not enough. The trouble was, if I named it something impressive sounding, like 'the Ring of Ultimate Wizardry' then someone out there would doubtless think 'that sounds nice' and come and kill me to get it. Bragging is pretty much always the worst choice, since it gives away vital information your opponents will use against you, if they can. And telling your enemies 'I have this treasure you will want' only guarantees that they will try and get it - all of them perfectly willing to explore all sorts of delightfully creative ways to kill you in the process."
He relaxed back onto his chair, letting the hand with the ring on it dangle behind. "I thought about naming it, 'the Other Ring' in a form of mockery of The One Ring of Sauron, but frankly I did not want to tie into that mythos at all, for fear his would reach out and try to control mine. It does that, you know."
Jared now smiled very broadly across all of his witnesses. "Magic item names are almost always constrained to being at least a little bit descriptive. So, I planned from the beginning to aim for a name where no one else hearing of it would want it, chose what creatures to add, used a very specific number of each, and so produced: The Ring of Gross Things!"
Lisa suddenly pitched forward off her chair and began to laugh hysterically, clutching her gut on the floor.
To the rest of the girls, he offered more explanation. "You see, it was made out of ghosts, and goblins, and nightmares, and other nasty stuff. I also aimed for a very specific total of spells. This ring grants one hundred and forty four first level spell slots - a number also known as 'one gross', just like the number twelve is also known as 'one dozen', or twenty as 'one score'. It grants two hundred and eighty eight second level spells - a number also known as 'two gross'. Each level of spell, it offers bonus slots measured by gross. I couldn't use most of those before today. You have to get access normally to any spell level before you can receive bonus spells for it. Still, when I put them in I was thinking of the future - planning ahead is one key to success, after all, and of particular importance to those of us who are wizards. As for the ring, everything about it is measured in grosses. What it grants is in gross numbers, and it was made from gross monsters. Thus, it has a yucky title, and almost no one who hears of it will ever want it."
He laughed, light and easy. "It's almost as good as the infamous 'Ring of Nostril Mining' - but I couldn't use that title, as it was already taken."
Still laughing, he rose to his feet, and began helping the girls to theirs. "This may be the most powerful magic item in my possession. With it, I can use more spells in one day than most wizards will use in their adventuring lives. Yet not even Headmaster Andarlin, who has copied so many of my ideas that not much sets me apart right now from the typical Redhurst graduate, wanted anything to do with this ring once he'd heard it's name. He chose instead, for the Redhurst school ring, to be a regular Ring of Wizardry whose formula I had corrected for its many errors, and thus made cheap enough to mass produce. This ring also has those powers, but he never once even asked 'what can it do' after I told him it's title."
"As I recall, he walked away grumbling, 'Too much information. Don't tell me the rest', and has never once asked since."
"Did he really give up that easily?" Lisa asked, climbing to her feet after her laughter had mostly played out.
"Of course!" Jared admitted, "The week before, I had made a Bag of Endless Dung, which does exactly what it sounds like. And the week before that, I had made, and sold, a Neverending Whoopie Cushion!"
Lisa fell down laughing again.
"A Neverending Whoopie Cushion? That's juvenile!" Taylor protested.
"That's actually more useful than you'd think," the boy countered. "It's based on a spell that increases your overland movement speed by one third, by giving you an... ahem, 'tail wind'."
Lisa howled, where she lay on the floor.
"Why would you make a bag of endless dung?" Missy inquired seriously, her nose scrunched up in distaste.
"It doesn't sound like much, does it?" he agreed pleasantly. "But you take one of those out into the desert, and with that and a bit of water (which is also easy to get magically) you can turn the most blasted wasteland into a farm. Or fertilize your crops on any farm, regardless of where it is. So, since we all like to eat, it's very useful, as crops don't grow so well without fertilizer."
"Students also threw the contents at each other in dung fights, didn't they?" Lisa gasped from in between giggles on the ground.
Jared tried to look innocent, and failed. "There was that use too, I suppose." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "There is no telling what mischievous children will get up to with any invention, though, no matter how respectable it may be."
"And you threw the handful that started the first dung fight, didn't you?" Lisa pressed.
"Maybe," he allowed, with a twinkle in his eye. "Maybe."
OoOoO
Author's Notes:
Sorry, it's been so long. Nearly died. Health problems, you know. Should be better now. Been getting stronger this past month and a half, which is why I could get back into writing.
Yes, I am aware of the various attempts to 'redeem' orcs. D 5th makes them a neutral race, while Warcraft actually tries to make them the good guys. However, I put those all together in the same category as the corpse-humping modern literature that tries to idealize vampires, as being the product of some sick creeps trying to share their fetishes with the rest of the world. It doesn't match the mythology, like, at all.
Seriously, at times it feels like I am the only person living who has actually *read* the book Dracula by Bram Stoker, or is actually aware of any of the original myths and legends out there.
Anyway, here I expose two of the best bits of cheese in the entire D20 system, the infinite template stacking trick and theoretically unlimited abilities of inherited item familiars, that as far as I am aware, no one but me had ever figured out, until I just revealed them.
Not that it matters, but it is kinda fun.
Also, though he had tweaks he could use to bond the ring, and thereby not be separated from it, Item familiars have a certain minimum level to use, which our main character did not reach until last night.
And previous experience had all gone into more templates.