Chương 124: AF Chapter 123 – Down the Beach, Up the Beach, Around the Beach...

"Well, it's like Lord Mick's explanation of those monstrously powerful Swords he used to have. You didn't have to be strong to use them, you had to be Skilled. There was a magical element. It means they aren't drawing actually strong bows and crossbows. Their weapons are built to the skill, not to the physics of the matter, and use the magic involved with having the Bow or Crossbow skill," Princess Kristie observed professionally.

She had probably reviewed a LOT of troops of all kinds training with her mother and father.

"In 'reality', a bowman or arbalester tends to be pretty damn strong, needing to draw a powerful bow, hold it steady, and release it, then be able to do it repeatedly and at speed. A precise and steady hand makes sure they hit the target, but with a strong draw you shoot heavier missiles further and faster.

"They aren't taking advantage of that. I wouldn't be surprised if all their bows had basically the same draw strength and weight, and the magic of their Stance is doing most of the work. The only real differences between them would be arrow length."

"Huh." My missile weapons tended to be my Shards, which worked off Intellect, nothing physical. As is only proper!, Mira /sniffed, and I smirked.

"Missile fire is damn lethal if they are just allowed to draw and shoot against things that don't have shields or the like. We should be updating their Gear, and the best way to do that is to add Mighty to their Bows." They were all 30's and 40's, except Rogar, who was a 57.

"Will that mean they need new arrows?" I asked.

"Heavier arrows just up the starting damage base. Long-term, sure, you want heavier arrows, just like you want a Heavy weapon," she reminded me.

"Right. Target point, pile arrows, broadheads. Still can't believe they use blunt-tip arrows…"

"Magic."

"Says the Forsaken." I made a face, and she grinned.

"They're going to challenge you to see if you know how to use that Staff," she warned me, and I just shrugged.

"I do, I'm just not a master as yet. Aelryinth always took the Weapon Mastery for unarmed and Staff, and Shards on the Archer side. However, I use the Arcane Fist side of things, not pure spiritual power."

"Arcane Fist, Arcane Fist… ah, you use base Caster Level to determine your Monk Level for the advances, not your Profound Level." She blinked then, as we slowed down to watch a Wave Golum being beat on by Milee energetically, juking and dodging simple but powerful hard water blows as she cut apart the force structures keeping it togethe r. She alertly spun around it when it started Casting, attempting to avoid the magic as she plied her smallsword expertly.

"Wait, how many of your Caster Level bonuses apply to that?" she asked sharply.

"All the universal ones and passives that can apply." She gave me a narrow-eyed gaze.

"You're going to have to quantify that." I had to smile slightly. This was a niche area that most people just didn't get involved in.

"Well, the Arcane Fist strikes are basically considered Cantrips. You can spend ki to apply Metamagic to them. Of course, if the metamagic has no cost, it automatically applies as long as it qualifies, right?" I held up my hand, and swirls of Meta-derived energies swirled up around it. Very pointedly, the Kickers of Sacred Spell were prominent there, and the sharp edges of Force Reserve/2, Force Blade.

"You have far more Kickers than that," she said, easily keeping track of the melee winding down while examining my hand simultaneously.

"No Bane, no Vivic, no Two Thunders … are there unseen qualifiers?"

"Plenty, most of them having to do with treating the Hands as Weapons and falling under the Crafting Requirements. I would have to add Arcane Strike to my hands for other Metas to qualify freely, as the Crafting Rules say they need a magic Weapon to be active. Sacred Spell applies here because I have Sacred Strike, and so my hands are Good-Aligned."

"Huh. Still, not something I imagine you want to use frequently?"

"No, not at all," I confirmed, letting the display fade.

"But it means Good and Force Caster Level boosts both apply. And naturally enough, the Sublime Chord can Boost it as well." Her eyes narrowed again.

"And how much of a bonus is that?"

"+12 or so?" I gave her a beaming smile. She rubbed her nose.

"So, you fight like a novice and hit like a grandmaster."

"With Kickers!" I waved my hand at her emphatically, and then Crown flipped up to full length. Force energy gathered around its tip, and Sacred Spell energy shone softly from it.

"Pretty sure I can take one of those mosswarts with no problems." Kris eyed the blue-white shimmer of Force energy around Crown's head, alternating between slashing and piercing optimal forms.

"Arcane Fist has more versatility than I expected," she admitted.

"Like anything else, it just takes massive amounts of cross-investment," I nodded agreement.

"The Elemental Fist Masteries would allow those specific Caster Level boosts to cross-apply, too, but only one at a time. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"If I want them all to apply, I'd have to actually enchant my hands." She blinked.

"Or Infuse them?" she asked me sharply. I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes away innocently.

"Or use Soul Magic?" she pressed quickly.

"I am aware you're not restricted to the Shapes of Soul Tats!" she warned me.

"It's like cross-investing is powerful or something. Maybe we'll be able to settle down somewhere for six months so I can actually gain some Levels back, and you can see it all for yourself." Kris groaned and looked away, just as Milee deftly thrust her sword in through the central nexus of the solid water Wave Golum, disrupting the force structure of the thing and precipitating a collapse into its component parts, like a puppet with the strings cut.

The water naturally de-solidified and gushed away almost instantly into a wet, sandy mess. The Scouts all cheered her victory enthusiastically. I sifted through the sparkling remains of the animating Nexus scattered on the sands, and pulled up some more pyreal dust… and a condensed Mote. The golum had probably been here a long time and had time to condense it properly.

"They need so much more speed and better Gear," I mused, watching it all. The Mick was as enthusiastic as all of them, but his eyes were measuring, as always. His juniors were definitely not melee specialists.

"Without Gear, they take far too long in melee, and tight quarters where they couldn't move would really hamper the styles they are using. If they had to stay at close-quarters, they'd get mangled badly," Princess Kristie agreed quietly.

"The things here simply have far too much Health. The Isparian System really front-loads our Health and Soak to compensate, but yes, the lack of magic hurts them badly.

"The Mick bluntly said that a fully-Geared out 100 from back then going up against him now might be able to kill him."

"Well, that's not surprising," I nodded at the admission.

"Look back at the Power of Ten. Consider Sama with her full load-out, going up against a base Twenty Warrior with only mundane equipment. There's an incredible level of difference, and the Isparian system doesn't really have much investment in personal power. It's all foundational. You want versatility, you need different Gear."

"Or spells," she said grimly.

"Or spells," I conceded.

"Or a Rantha bringing a whole mess of new options to the warrior soul to the table."

"We do bring a lot of potential, especially the Soul Magic. It's basically made for personal combat," she nodded in agreement. With a group shout, we watched as the Scouts pounded down the shore toward the next enclosure, and Kris trotted after them.

"I have to say that you are the craziest stacker of Caster Levels of magic I have ever seen, heard of, or remember," she told me.

"I treat it like you treat your Fort save." She flashed me a knowing smile. Forsaken Nulls were based on Levels and Fort Saves, so they juiced that Fortitude Save with every method they could think of.

"There are sooooo many reasons to up your Caster Level to totally unreasonable levels, just like your Null. It has to work when it has to work, and even minor spells become incredibly dangerous if juiced enough."

"Are the caps much of an issue?" she inquired.

"That's almost purely an aspect of the damage spells, and yes, it is possible to outstrip the damage caps of almost all of the damage spells without too much effort. Valence III's have a mere ten dice cap, and I can easily Cast a spell at 19. A free Delimit is still only fifteen dice.

"But, as you might guess, it's a good problem to have!" She grunted acknowledgment.

"To be utterly honest, I didn't think I'd ever run into anything back on Ispar that could break my current Null. I'm sitting at a 42 after a lot of investment into it. They were lucky and living legends if they could hit +20 on Spell Penetration. There's stuff all over the place here that seems to be able to hit +30 somehow."

"The Mick has a Spell Resistance of 34. When he was Buffed up back then, it was probably higher than your Null, by his words. Outright no-selling two-thirds or more spells from high-end foes like that means at least a 44, right?"

"That doesn't mean I have to LIKE it, Ryin," she huffed at me.

"No, it means these creatures are designed or evolved to take on stuff with monstrous spell resistance. What do you think the resistance of that thing back there was?" Her eyes narrowed.

"You used Shards because you couldn't use anything else?" she asked.

"Correct. Mid or high 30's, at least. Might even have been situational, higher against War Magic. It was hard to tell, there was a lot of discordance when I hit it. It was definitely surprised I could affect it."

"Well, duh. You're showing a 100-odd on Assess, and popping off spells like a, what? 300? 400? It probably considered you roadkill waiting to happen."

"Probably. I wasn't going to Assay it. I like being able to see." She glanced at me in a little surprise at that.

"Some Aberrant protection against Divination Magic?" she recalled after a moment.

"Yes. You'll recall I NEVER focused on it. It blared up, you shunted off, and we never got a 'look' at it."

"That must've been hard not to do," she grinned.

"The Isparian Assess Creature Skill could have given its Level, maybe. I was a bit too busy to care about it, and wasn't going to take the risk with other Divs up." A thought occurred to me.

"Hey, too-energetic runners-about! Who did an Assess on the big honking nautiloid thing?" I called out to the watching crowd of Scouts." Vodatron Nefane, level 385!" Roach King Rogar told me helpfully, eyes flickering as he tried not to think about what that really meant to a 57 like him, and everyone else went a little quiet as Mizaya, a wakizashi in his hands, fenced with another mosswart with cool, professional cuts and slices.

I rolled an eye at Kris, whose eyes narrowed for a moment, and then the devilish fuck-all smile of a Rantha spread itself out with all eight gleaming canines.

"I am so looking forward to butchering that thing one day." It was plain they all thought she was somewhat crazy, but they were plainly too intimidated to make the slightest remark in her presence about it. If they were sharp and looked to the Mick in time, they would have seen the tiniest of grim nods of agreement from him. He'd been part of some big, big fights in the history of Dereth.

The size of the thing was nothing new to him, even if it would have loomed over the olthoi queen scarecrow we'd seen outside of Cragstone, and was even more massive than the Tremendous Monuga we'd run across. It didn't matter. With the right friends and equipment, anything was possible. It was just getting everyone and everything back to that stage. I sat back, rubbed my feet, willing them to accommodate more runabout tim e.

Mira apologized for not getting more exercise, and the day headed for noon, when we would take a break. We were in 'safe' country now, at least as safe as could be found in this place. There was no need to move strictly at night.