Chương 174: AF Chapter 173 – A Letter to Home

The knowledge that the undead were best at ley line awareness came as no surprise. The Empyreans they came from had been messing with this island for at least twenty thousand years, and so knew more about it than anyone. The shades might also be descended from them, but they were largely forcibly converted from soldiers or civilians, while the undead came from the nobility and their elite servants of the ruling class.

The true breadth of knowledge would have remained with the undead, and the shades' own magical lore they had inherited would have been massively affected by their sudden affinity to whatever force their master and maker Bael'Zharon was indebted to. As for the Virindi, they were an Aberrant hivemind race, and their knowledge was going to be specialized, exotic, and alien in nature, so being able to feel and wield what was likely to be the equally alien and exotic living ley line network was hardly unexpected.

No doubt they were far more sensitive to some aspects of magic than even the undead would be...

The present... Making the Outer Wall took up most of my day. It was mostly because I wasn't walking very fast in order to do the job right, and I did have miles of ground to cover. Even if I was able to pull up thousands of cubic feet of stone at a time and set them into place, I was dealing with millions of cubic feet of volume.

Still, the memories of grinding so many Pyramids for so long was excellent conditioning for what I was doing, and my Stone Walks making the main trade roads through the Vesayans had been good starting practice. I was also running the constantly-updating Markspace Maps for the effort, tracking both the raids against the Gotroks and their conscripted Summons points, and watching the landscape on the way to Mayoi and Hebian-to going silent and dark as point after point of Summons went misty silent and was Sealed.

The Marked people were quite emotional about it all, some of them fighting back tears as the monsters that had infested the landscape for so long were wiped away. We held out no hopes they wouldn't be back ever… but for now, they were gone, clearing the way for real people and creatures to start taking back the countryside. Sending a message, too, but we'd only see if it was heard by other forces…

and it was plain to us that at least those on top were probably sneering at our efforts to subvert the Summons points, and probably knew a way to pulse the ley lines and break the Seals on them, even if it might take them a while to arrange. It did leave me time to take care of one other order of business that had been waiting.

"Mom, Dad, ended up fine on the new world, place called Dereth, been six months since I arrived. News: You are both Eternal Templates, and can take Eternal Feats. Take Legendary Crafting and you'll be able to Invest 10k a day into Rantha Stats! Oh, and a shard of Aelryinth from Power of Ten is here, helping Send this Message! Mithar works!

"I'll be in touch!" The Sending, Boosted beyond the default word count, swirled up and into the cold and lonely Markdoor that had sat useless in her Markspace for these many months, alongside the others to her friends and family.

For a moment it winked to life, glowing as the magic streamed across the connection that was made with more direct power than a Mark could muster, piercing multiple dimensional walls that seemed designed just to thwart those kinds of connections (no, no, that wasn't ominous to discern) to reach the targets on the other side. It took less than a minute for the bounce-back reply to arrive.

"WAHOO, you made it! Thanks for the tip, so awesome! Hope you're doing great, and tell that Aelryinth-Shard to send someone this way, if he can! Took a load of worry off our minds! It's been eight months on this side!

"Remember your Past-Life Regression! Let us know how it goes!" The returned voice was a lot like Kris', but older, wiser, maternal, and full of relief and love that only a mother for her daughter-hagsister could have. My V Valences weren't unlimited and I'd certainly be able to spend them all every day… but the fun thing about being a Bondmage to a Forsaken is lots and lots of extra Valences, if they are willing to Invest in a Forsaken Matrix.

As a result, I didn't have to spend my power on the Sendings, Kris could just spend hers for me to Cast and send on the way. As my Caster Level and higher Valences improved, I'd be able to Send on much longer messages, like the ones that had come while I was free-drifting in Astral Space. Fine-tuning them to Kris' Marks would work even better. It'd still be Sending Marked e-mail instead of talking, but it would be a whole lot better than nothing.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Kris sighed as she opened her eyes, one of the Marks around her shapely waist that had lit up going dim once again.

"That was good to hear her voice," she pronounced in relief.

"Looks like time is still not linear between these places."

"Commit to a Sending a day, maybe two, and magical synchronicity will start applying, aligning the time streams," I told her.

"We'll basically be forcing convergence on the two realms along the chronal streams, if nothing else. From everything we were told by people of Lord Mick's generation, time was pretty well harmonized, up until the Fall and the Portals basically failed." Princess Kristie Rantha nodded.

"I'll do that. It's no imposition." All the Forsaken had different ways of filling a Matrix. Sources just sacrificed their invisible ability to affect the world, redirecting the constant energy they generated into filling their internal Valences instead, like a generator filling a capacitor.

Voids were much like Powered, taking mana from the world, purifying it, and building up a reservoir inside instead of just passing it out, like widening a river's flow into a lake inside, constantly expended and refilled, just more 'in the process', as it were. Nulls had to sacrifice Constitution, their own matchless physical vigor, turn it into mana, and refill a Matrix from within, healing the damage internally however they could.

There was a Feat from the Moon Dragon and the Mind Dragon Disciplines, Furnace of Life, that allowed someone to recover ability damage at the rate of 1+ Con bonus per day, instead of 1 per day/2 with rest, either mode doubled with a Healer's attentions and a Heal skill check. For Nulls with their massive Con scores, the Feat was a natural to take, allowing them to recover from extreme shocks and bounce back with amazing speed compared to others, and all as a passive effect.

Sure, it didn't rival a Restoration spell or anything, but it took no effort beyond the Feat on their part, either. Kristie, whose Constitution was north of 40 by now, had at least a +15 Con modifier, meaning she could heal 16 points of ability damage a day. Sacrificing a Con point for mana yielded mana = current Con bonus. So, 40 Con, sacrifice a point, generate 15 mana to fill those empty Valences she couldn't use. 39 Con, +14 bonus, sacrifice a point, +14 mana. 38, +14; 37 and 36, +13 each, etc.

She had no problems filling up her Matrix in one day, even if she had to sacrifice 16 points of Con and heal it all back the next day. The damage wasn't something a Restoration spell could mend, either, having to be all natural healing. It wasn't as easy as the other Forsaken… but it did mean that if I needed mana quickly, she could sacrifice ten points of Constitution RIGHT NOW, and suddenly I'd have over a hundred Levels of Valences filling her up nigh-instantly.

It would take her a day to recover from the loss, but Null 'instant-fill' was much faster than the other Forsaken types, even the Voids who could actively wrench mana out of something.

"What's this about a Past-Life Regression?" I asked her quietly, letting her relief spread through her and ease a tiny bit of the tension that had held onto her. The Sama I recalled had been utterly ferociously protective of friends and family, clutching to those bonds with clawed hands and grim resolve that could and had frightened off a lot of people who'd thought they could poke at those close to her, and found a way-OP and protective Hagchild going off on them like a shotgun to the face.

I could only imagine those actually empowered by the Hag Curse and formed from the same template would be even closer.

"All Rantha Hags are the same, and we're all different," she explained quietly to me.

"There's no actual genetic ties between us, even if we sometimes look like twins, and take after our parents. I could go have sex with my brother Grant, have kids, and there's no inbreeding at all. Once we go through the Hag Curse," she swiped at the Cursebrand on her face, which seemed to shrink at the gesture and the sharp flash in her pale violet eyes as she snarled, just a little, "we're just changed so we're different. It's not the same on the male side of things.

The boys are actually brothers, and dad is their father, but on the Sama-side of things, the Curse ends up being the actual mother, and we're all different because of it."

"Huh." That was indeed different, with some weird implications, par for the course for Hags.

"So if you don't get a Briggs of your own, your folks could have a son for you?" I asked, finding that… pretty strange on the human side of things, but I wasn't an actual Hag.

"Yes. Only a Briggs can sire a Briggs, only a Rantha can bear a Rantha." Her fingers drummed on the stone next to her, black nails chipping the rock absently.

"There's three of us hagsisters, and I've got two brothers who are their twins." I knew that of the Imperial Family, but hadn't digested the implications.

"Huh. Does that imply there's another Briggs out there back on Ispar, waiting for you?" I had to ask, wondering if the twins were basically meant for each other, or they'd swap with their siblings, at least? Hag family mechanics weren't going to be standard human, that was certain. I could imagine they could find Isparian lovers, but they'd have normal Isparian sons and probably Rantha daughters, by her words.

The matching Briggs would either be freeborn and have to be found, or they'd have to find one of their own.

"It should," she nodded.

"Our souls are the obverse of what the Hag Curse is supposed to do. Originally it was meant as a punishment for evil souls, warping them and twisting them into foul forms as punishment for things they'd done in a previous life.

"Ranthas are the reborn souls of those who died to Evil in a previous life, and their Briggs may or may not have been their life mate at the time." I put my hands together quietly.

"Oh. Giving those tied together another chance at life and love…" I could see Sylune guiding the souls together using the Curse to do just that, and Nuava aiding with all her power, too! Love that conquered even death...

"The general rule is to wait for Ten to do the Regression, and then go back and look at who I was before I was reborn."

"So you can do it at anytime." She'd reached Ten months ago, training up a new generation being good for Matrix Levels, even if Summons Karma wasn't appropriate. Warlord Karma, Allegiance pass-up, and Glory Awards, even if they came from Summons, did the job for her.

"Yes. One of the reasons I'm reluctant to do so is that if my Briggs is back home, I'm going to be compelled to go back and find him." Well, sure. The love of two lives was waiting for you, with all the animal attraction between Rantha Hag and Rantha Ancient thrown on top of things. Of course she'd go looking for him!