BECMI Chapter 431 – Divine Goals
“Damage dice on spells are capped at twenty for mortals. Resistance to magic and other effects via Saves are based on Class Level and magical defenses, not ability scores, although Feats can affect this. Magic Resistance exists as a fixed Anti-Magic chance, although Spell Penetration can lower that. Immortals are immune to mortal magic, and surrounded by Anti-Magic Auras to boot.
“Ah, yes. Wish spells and Miracles come without intrinsic costs. But you must Cast at base Thirty and have an 18 Wisdom to be able to Cast them. They do not give Inherent bonuses, and mortals cannot normally exceed 18 in an ability score.
“The most common use of Wishes and Miracles is to raise your Ability Scores from where they are to Mortal Perfection, a straight 18 Stat line. This requires one Wish or Miracle for every point of the new base Stat, all undertaken within one week.”
Speaking of the apex of magic this way naturally didn’t deter any Avatars, and they were naturally quite fluent in gamer-ese, given they had Power of Ten players as worshipers.
“Would I be wrong to think you had, ah, violated these restrictions?” quiet Jian broke in, his archer’s eyes missing little.
“I learned the Miracle spell of the Power of Ten System, and paid the goldweight costs to use Inherents to boost me past the mortal limit, once I used Wishcrafting to achieve Perfection,” I admitted calmly. “Also, my Intellect was well past the mortal limit before I was reborn here, and so had no restrictions in improving, especially once I gained my Ring to support such mental power.
“I would like to see your Stat line, if I may?” Dame Adama asked politely.
I flicked it up for their perusal.
There was, ah, a lot of it. I didn’t go into complete detail with everything, but they got the gist of it rather quickly as it went on, and on, and on, especially listing out Feats and Masteries.
“You have a giant bat for a Familiar and Animal Companion!” Catleya squealed as soon as Duum came up, grabbing Jian’s hand and pumping it wildly as she pointed. They were technically half-siblings, after all.
“I lean heavily into my trope. People believe what they see, even Immortals.” I shrugged calmly. “It seems to work marvelously. People expect a certain style from me, and have difficulty thinking I might act outside that style.”
“And what does that style have them thinking now?” Dame Adama asked, going over the Holo’s notes with an appreciative smile. All of the Gallivants were nodding approval and pointing out things on my build, the resources available, and everything else.
Basically, I was giving them a lot of build advice on how to accomplish things here, and they were taking it very seriously, as I knew what I was doing.
“That I am emotionally wounded, tired of the world, think of humans and mortals as below me because I deal with dragons, and am very, very magically powerful and aware. As all my peers of Darkmoor are gone and I am its last champion and citizen, that is totally logical.
“This view has largely been confirmed among the Immortals, particularly those I have refused Immortal sponsorship from,” I finished.
“Would we be wrong to be thinking you have builds in mind for all of us?” Helos asked slyly.
“You definitely would not be,” I agreed with some approval. “Subject to your own approvals, of course. Elves… have a longer road to power here than humans, because we tread concurrent paths.
“Also, an important point. Mortals are relatively frail here next to Power of Ten Gamers.” That definitely got their attention. “Class and racial Hit Dice cap at nine. Humans gain a paltry handful of Soak for their Class Levels after that, elves and dwarves next to nothing.” I flicked up the Holo representation of Hit Points by Level, which for humans meant Soak, and elves and dwarves meant Health.
Racial Levels off to the side optional, meaning that really, they were not.
Brawny Molniya’s eyes were narrowed. “That is a great lessening of staying power,” she uttered sharply, such being very important to a warrior. “One could almost call the folk here frail in comparison?” Especially with Stat limitations being what they were.
“That is correct. Amazingly, it is not something Immortals have to deal with, having Hit Dice for every level.” The Gallivants rolled their eyes and promptly muttered disparaging things about their rivals.
“Thus, the Toughness Mastery and the Save Masteries become particularly important when you want survivability at low levels.” Those flicked up before them.
“You said you had Immortal allies. We need to know more about them,” Lunia took the lead again.
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“Master Lalo and Captain Emeril are both citizens of Darkmoor, the nation that existed here before the Immortals blew it into a radioactive crater and nearly put a hole in the planet with a magitomic anti-matter bomb.” They all sucked in breaths as I displayed the image of the Doom coming down and wiping out the nation and surrounding lands. “Where you are now standing is the very heart of the nation that once existed here.”
I displayed how the crater here had filled up with water, then volcanoes emerged, the Rings of Fire of these lands began to grow, and grow, and grow with clearly magical speed and purpose.
“Master Lalo is tied to the magical Inn which maintains a Portal through Time to an alternate reality four thousand years in advance of this one, one where there was no Lady Edge who rescued the king, came back in time, and was able to evacuate most of the population. You will be meeting him once you all hit Twenty or equivalent here, no reason for you to do so before then, although he has been informed you are here and has been rising for the Salutes to Dawn and Dusk for years.” Lunia and Jian both smiled in approval for such simple faithfulness. “He was made an Immortal by the energies of the Portal when the Doom fell upon the Inn he was linked to, and his Immortal Domain is determined by his links to inns, hotels, taverns, restaurants, and other places of public hospitality.”
“Oh, I think we’re going to be GREAT friends!” Catleya piped up happily.
“His church doubles as a monastic order and runs hostels on every continent on the planet now, serving as a convenient way to get around and as an intelligence service. He’s also working to set up a mail system as The Postal Guy in an alternate identity.”
That brought grins to almost all of their faces at such a clever play.
“The other is Captain Emeril.” I pulled up his image for them, earning a lift of eyebrows at the green tint to his skin. “This universe is home to the Galactic Federation, an interstellar government of TL 15-capability science, and the Captain is a member of one of its member races, as is most of his crew. They are human-compatible, have moderate psionic potential, average magical potential, and come from a generally moralistic and civilized culture.”
“They are the source of your plasma sword,” Dame Adama nodded. “Go on.”
“Captain Emeril and his crew discovered this solar system, found an unidentified magical field here, and were promptly sabotaged, brought down, and marooned here by the Immortals, who didn’t want them contacting the rest of the galaxy about the magical world we are standing on. It seems magic is not known at all, at least publicly, in the Galactic Federation.
“The Federation Ship Barhund was a point of much contention between the Immortals, and the eventual peaceful contact between it and Darkmoor drove the civilization here to heights with a speed and purity that the Immortals simply could not abide among mortals. Many events were put into play, which you will hear more of in due course, and the Doom was brought down on Darkmoor to remove technology, its wonders, and the achievements of Darkmoor from the world, returning the primacy of the Immortals.”
The Avatars sucked in their breaths, glancing at one another and frowning deeply. “And that is why you brought us here,” Lunia stated softly.
“I knew it was going to happen, as it did so on the Far Shore.” I waved off at nothing. “We could not stop it, we could only prepare and run away from it under cover of obliteration. Darkmoor is destroyed, almost nothing is left of it… save the Inn below here with its Portal, and the buried remains of the FS Barhund, particularly its fusion power core, which has drawn the great interest of many Immortals who wish to tap it and see what they can do with it.
“Captain Emeril was gravely wounded and uploaded to the neural net of the Barhund. When the Immortals intervened to save the Barhund’s fusion core, they also inadvertently saved him and elevated him to Immortal.
“His Domain is exploration and discovery. Among the Immortals here, he is known as Spock, an alien wanderer and explorer of the Astral Reaches and connections to the planes within. His Domain gives him great skill at discovering new realms, and he is quite well thought of among them as a result.
“He’s also very eager to avenge his ship and crew, and the people he grew to love here, and he has also been Saluting you all for decades.”
“It will be good to have Immortal allies who are not devoted to the current hierarchy,” Haki spoke up gravely as they all nodded in approval. “What manner of aid can we expect from them?”
“Mmm.” I first pointed off to the left at the gate to the Dungeon. “Well, first of all, they made the Dungeon’s regenerating nature and ability to manifest material awards with Immortal Power possible, although recent events have left it much more self-staining now.
“The second is that if you want to use them as Clerical Patrons, they will be more than happy to serve in that regard, giving you a clear and existing Patron to disguise your own advances… something I advise, actually, since you are cut off from your higher selves.
“The third is that they will run interference with any curious Immortals, painting you as a special project they are trying out. Exploration is such a broad domain that it can fit almost any manner of folk into it, especially adventurers, who are such a weird and myriad lot of ne’er-do-wells, anyway.”
They all laughed at that, having little pride at this time, and enjoying the joke for what it was.
“You are suggesting we run with that idea,” Chardon smiled shrewdly.
“I think you are already enjoying a potential life as and rising up as mortals do,” I nodded calmly back to him. “I think you should lean into the trope of enthusiastic mortals out to discover the world, have great adventures, unveil great things, and attain great heights with spells and swords and song and all the obnoxiously cheerful things that will make your adventuring peers green with envy to hear of them. The more crazy things you do, the more the Immortals will love to watch you and the less they will suspect you, thinking you are being groomed for Immortality, and not something much, much Higher in purpose.”
“And this Dungeon is just the place to get started on such things,” Catleya pointed out enthusiastically. “And is the closest thing to a controlled environment we can get until we are out of the danger zone of being instantly killed by a random monster we can’t handle as yet wandering by.” A crucial fact that tended to weigh on the mind with a simple look up and outside at some of the very large dragons flying around, many of whom had no love for humanoids. They wouldn’t touch anyone on the steaming waters or in Doomgate here, but anywhere else but here, they were a lethal danger!