Chapter Seventy-Five – Converting an NPC

"That sounds like Druids at work," Sama agreed. "By position, I assume they are between the Fey and the Empire?"

"Aye, and the Fey were known to pitch into the fight in the past. Their Erlking in particular has a nasty reputation." He caught her smirk. "Something funny?" he asked alertly.

"Noir Rabe?" she asked, chuckling to herself.

"That's him. Never met him, but a couple of the elders have. He's got no problems with Ancients, but he's wiped out whole towns and villages of imperials, peasants and all."

"I beat him up!" Sama laughed, and Briggs blinked in amazement.

"No way! An Erlking?" he challenged her, rather awed.

"Eff him. His Stats suck, he's a freaking Fey so his BAB is half his Level, and he totally leans on Favored Enemy bonuses to stack up against humans. Intimidate him, split his stupid wooden sword, keep him out of the sky and unable to Summon, Blooding to stop any healing, and he's a total wuss, worse then a Ten Melee with no Gear," she sniffed, making a poo-poo gesture.

Briggs could only smile. "There are so many sighs of regret in the Empire that you didn't off the bastard."

"He will serve his purpose. Do you really think he's going to take human Warp marauders tromping all over the forest out here? This is like a dream come true for him. Slaughter all day, and more to kill on the morrow!"

"Easy to corrupt?..." Briggs trailed off significantly, and she frowned, looking away.

"Yeah, but nothing we can do about that. He didn't come across as totally bloodthirsty to me, but I'm a Hagchild, so I was definitely not just a human to him. Also, I think he rather admired how much I want to kill my Hagmom, who seems to have a rep even worse then his, if I read his reaction right."

"Name?" Briggs asked, eyebrows quivering like caterpillars.

"Tusk Annie."

Briggs blinked. "No shit?"

"Had it confirmed by my own Hagspawn half-brother. No denying it," she confirmed firmly.

"Hah." Briggs regarded her calmly, shaking his thick head. "Damn, I didn't think she was real. I thought it was like saying 'Baba Yaga' back on Earth, just a general filler of a name." He took a deep breath. "Basically every annis story I've heard ends up being attributed to her, if you don't know the name of the Hag responsible. She's a Big Thing, Sama."

"Mmm. Well, I killed her over fifty times in Nightmare. Olympian Legendary Template."

He blinked. "Damn." He regarded her again. "And you soloed her fifty times?"

"She never beat me, even once. I made very sure of it."

Briggs looked at the forest around them, at the silently praying young Paladin, and then back at her.

"Those poor Warp guys."

She gave him that beaming smile again, with those nasty cute canines. "I know, right? Totally different advancement system here. They are in for such a world of hurt, and they don't even know it."

"How are you for Mass Combat?" He almost dreaded the answer, even as he was expectant.

"Supreme Cleave, Sidestep; Opportunity and Reflexes Masteries at Five."

Briggs looked up, did the math in his head, looked back down at her. "Base move at 110?" She smiled even wider.

Justified. If he was doing the math right, she could kill a thousand men in under a minute! This whole warband thing was nothing but a farce to a Deep Ten…

"Can you max out your Reflexes?" Getting that many Attacks of Opportunity was nigh impossible…

"Hold the Line, Steadfast."

Hold the Line, get an AoO if a foe entered your reach and you were set against a charge. Steadfast, always considered set against a charge if you were wielding a thrusting weapon.

"Of course, that's ignoring Karmic Strike."

A muscle in his cheek twitched. They swung at her, she swung at them. No Dex or dodge to avoid… or Wis or Int either, as it were. But what was her DR? 18/-? Could they really even hurt her? With Expertise she could juice it to 28/-. Only their strongest champions had a chance of doing injury to her. The rest… would just die.

She was doing 80 or 90 points on average a swing, even if her full Sage of Swords wasn't in effect. Mostly likely, anything under Seven was just going to get ripped apart in passing.

He was definitely riding the gravy train with her around. She wasn't in any danger from these things.

"So, plans for the Paladin?" he asked.

"Hey, every five-man band needs someone like him." Briggs guffawed despite himself. "He's Powered, he's got soooo many rep counts in front of him to get to uber status."

"He should be able to keep Leveling just with Smites use, if we do things right. Picking him up most of his secondaries should really broaden and firm up his foundation, even if it's just the charisma-heavy Classes. Powered can go anywhere and do anything, and just because he's a Paladin isn't going to restrict that much…" Briggs rubbed his jaw. "Silver Fist?"

"A Wisdom bonus in armor isn't a bad thing, but we have to see his Stats. If he tanked Wisdom, well…"

"He won't even be able to advance in it, right." Stat reqs were still a thing, after all.

"And we gotta pound him to max hit points." Her grin was pure cheese. "Which reminds me, have you been doing that?"

Briggs groaned aloud. "Soak, yes. Health, not so much."

"Played the tribal punching bag, aye?" she snorted at him. "Looks like you need an Assay, too. Can you make a Look Book?"

"Hmmm." He thought that over, and nodded slowly. "Need the wood slates, however. Has to be of decent quality and all, at least a 25. I don't think you had anything like that among your stores?"

"We could use that petrified stump I still have left, it's basically ideal for this."

"True. How will you make the slats? For that matter, how did you make the cabinets? That's a really smooth finish on them."

"Ah, One Strike with Tremble in Sunder mode. Makes a very clean cut."

Briggs looked at her strangely, then shook his head. "Then you're doing the cutting, not me. I can carve it up fine, I think."

"Good, that'll be the job for tonight. Let's wait for L-Goody Two Shoes to wake up, give him the basics of what he needs to do, and we'll be off on the trail of this horde."

"Got it. I can go over the Assay with him as he goes, if I can borrow Tremble's 2d illusion."

"Happy to help!" the Sword chimed up properly.

----

Half an hour later, the young Paladin was out of his meditations, looking a little dazed… because everything his two rescuers had said had indeed come true. He looked at them a little strangely. "I… need to open the chakra points on my hands?"

"You need to max Spellcraft and put anything left in Meditation. This will help you increase awareness of your spiritual capability. Picture 'Spellcraft' in big words in your head, and then light them up." He blinked at Sama, his eyes drifted as he did that, and then his whole body flinched as once again, something impossible happened.

"Ouch!" He looked down, and her nails were embedded precisely in his hands. Before he could even exclaim further, she stepped back and stabbed them into the top of his booted feet, right through the leather. "OUCH!" he shouted out again, and then light spurted out the wounds, his entire face went red, and his muscles all convulsed at the feeling of his soul being squeezed out the two narrow openings.

"Shock Gauntlets!" Briggs called out casually. "Hurts a lot less when you've got it disciplined!"

His face seemed to purple up as he warred against the pain and dove into the sudden knowledge he had been granted. The liquid light that was leaking out from the opened chakra points swirled and gathered around his hands, beginning to crackle with power, and solidified into a pair of silver and gold gauntlets with lightning patterns on the back of the palms. Little shocks of electricity popped around them, and Estemar remembered to breathe about then, staring at the things he'd materialized around his hands.

"Send a bolt between them," Sama advised. He blinked at her, then slowly faced his fingers together, and scrunched his brow.

He almost jumped up when the narrow charges of silver soul-powered electricity blasted between his fingers, muttering an oath to himself as he stared at them.

"It's not a lot of damage, equal to what an apprentice mage could call up… but you can use it endlessly… and channel it through a weapon. Of course, the more Essence you can put into it, the stronger it becomes, but that's something that's going to have to come with time. You don't have a lot of flexibility right now, but it will happen eventually."

He let the electricity fade, and looked up at the two of them. He could feel it now, the prodigious amounts of energy bound up in their Vajras, especially Sama's, cold and hard as diamond.

"This is… there is a lot of things that can be done with this, to aid the gifts that Mithar has entrusted to me…" he trailed off, rather stunned.

"And you can't use it all yet, because you're not good enough. But, there's places to put it all. First, drop one in Wrathful Soul, that gets you one more Smite per Renewal, which only gets better." He nodded at Briggs' words, silver light flowing ephemerally around him and vanishing. "For your Mastery for today, light up Strength Mastery/1." Tremble helpfully gave a sample for him to focus on.

He did so again, and energy visibly crackled through him.

"Excellent, you're on the way to being marginally effective. Now, hop on the Disk here, and you can cast that Assay and tell us what it tells about you. We're going to be following the force that killed your peers, and it gives us something to talk about while Sama runs."