The Nightmare has not stopped...

My best so far was eight.

Two months had passed. I had been patient.

Twelve banshees solo was a completely ridiculous encounter. If it wasn’t for the fact that my Fort save was so damn high against them, just their Screams going off could have done for me. But the follow-up negative energy shrieking swipes they doled out on me were simply too much, even with my Vajra Resistance being as high as it was. The screams of the damned erupted out of their touches, shredding my body and soul.

It was not pleasant to experience at all.

I had improved my Vajra Resistance tremendously in the last month. I had all Seven Dragon House Masteries at /2, and I’d taken every Soul Feat I could, as well as Soul Mastery, even if I’d likely never use them, just to stack more Essence on top of and drive my Vajra higher.

My Vajra Resist was now over 30, which had really helped with the damage… but when they were doing about 50 a swing with touch attacks, well, my Soak still tanked like a mofo.

However, I was getting to them with more Soak remaining and less healing used, as I was dominating the damage of the ghosts and witchfires so badly they weren’t doing much to me before I vivic’d them dead.

The list of Masteries I had to take, and the Feats I had to pay for outside of Class Levels, was as long as my arm. Literally, because I had to get Mastery/2 and Skill Focus in pretty much all my Skills, plus Weapon Focus and Mastery in over a dozen weapons. It was all part of my Grandmastery and Sage Training, and I knew that I couldn’t advance to Five without getting all this stuff. So, I could only sigh and hit the next lever on the mental wall of my Visual File, while I dreamt of tactics and stuff for the fight.

In the end, it came down to a numbers game, and my numbers weren’t quite good enough for that whole lineup after everything I had to do to get me there.

But two months was a long time. Long enough for me to do 6,000 gp worth of refining crafting work on Tremble. That was enough to get me to QL 32 after I purified the metal a bit, and it opened Slot Zeks.

Opening six Slots out of the ten possible made Tremble a very impressive and powerful Weapon, almost a living legend. It was a lot of Karma stuck into a Weapon, the sign of a lot of fighting and a lot of victories and defeats.

It allowed me to add Greater Soulbound as Primary at Vier, Enmity/Mortals as Primary at Funf, and Courageous as Primary at Zeks.

More importantly, it allowed me to add more +I Enhancements to Arsenal… and it allowed me to open Arsenal II, and add +II alternates.

I could literally and easily fill all ten Slots on Tremble with +I’s, there were that many of them, and they could be mixed and matched to great effect easily. +II Enhancements were definitely stronger than +I’s, but they also tended to be more situational, which meant wasted Slots if not in the right situation.

There were a few universal exceptions, and one was the first alternate I put up… Sharding.

Sharding was a +II Enhancement that converted your Melee Weapon damage to a ranged attack, i.e., it generated a windblade for you. The range wasn’t much, with a range increment of ten feet meaning a maximum of fifty feet… but when you have no ranged attack at all, it was priceless.

Far more importantly, at least for me, it didn’t require ammunition, and it would hit exactly as hard as I did.

Oh, and it was a ranged attack, and guess who had Archer levels? Including Far Shot, which increased range by 50%? And who could put an alternate +I into her Sword, of Distance, which would double the range?

A range of 150 feet let me span the whole room, if need be. I could pop spiders off the ceiling!

Greater Soulbound brought my Sword to +IV base. Bane brought that to +VI, with +2-12 damage as a Kicker.

Enmity was a soft Bane-style effect, although not Curse-based, providing +II against a broader set of foes than Bane did. Enmity/Mortals basically meant it worked against all humanoids with souls, but would still be useless against magical creatures. It also hooked into Slaughter, and so could be alternated with other types of Enmity. Enmity/Evil, called Wrath if purchased alone, was popular, for example.

Courageous was Tremble’s favorite, as it increased any Morale Bonuses I had by half the Enhancement bonus of the Weapon, and for those around me if Tremble was Singing, which he preferred to be doing. Combined with Profound Bardsong, it could provide a tremendous Kicker for any people around me… and for myself, if I wanted them.

With a functional +VIII Enhancement bonus, that was an additional +4 to Bardsong or Favored Enemy/Hunter bonuses. If I was Wardancing… that was +8!

And all that fed into another routine and oft-ignored +I in Arsenal… Defender, and its brother, Guardian.

Swap TH/Dmg bonus from Enhancement for AC with Defender, or Saves with Guardian. With the boosted morale bonuses, it was like I didn’t lose anything!

Saves juiced my Null, which crystallized it and basically made it impossible for the banshee Screams to affect me. The AC bonus, combined with defensive fighting and Expertise, meant I was parrying their attacks and dropping their hit rate drastically. Combined with their lowered damage, I could now make a fight of it.

Better, with a ranged attack I could now skim, kite, skirmish, and every single time I swung, I could attack without letup.

If they were within a hundred and fifty feet, I had no downtime and could always be attacking! The difference in lethality was huge...

Importantly, I could turn a Cleave into one of these shots, which was very important. I would never waste a kill if one of them wasn’t in ‘range’.

And not last and not least, Penetrating Shot allowed me to take a ranged attack and hit a target behind my original target, up to 70 feet in a line, taking a -4 to hit on each penetration, stacking.

All of this meant needing to be able to change the active configuration of the Slots quickly and when needed, and me and Tremble got into this with gloating enthusiasm for all the configurations that would be needed… and would only increase as Arsenal expanded.

And his QL increased, to give us those options. 100 gpv a day now, slow and sure.

But… today was the big combo. I twitched a finger, and my Training Technique for Melee/5 slowly ticked over.

Skill Focus, Mastersmith. +3, +6 at Ten, to Blacksmith, Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, and Whitesmith skill checks. My Sage of Swords finally triggered, and Leatherworker and Woodcarver were also sucked in, because they were required support skills for true smithwork. These Skills were now basically combined, any modifier to one of them was treated as affecting all of them, so Mastersmith applied to all the Skills, and the Ranks combined towards my cap.

Skill points gained, 4. +1 FC, +1 Resolve, +5 Intelligence, so 11.

One point each to max out Stealth, Perception, and all six Smithing skills, plus Martial Lore, Miner, and Gemcutter.

They were all now at five Ranks. Synergy bonuses started at five Ranks.

I ticked over my Combat Technique, and my Sage of Swords was humming at me.

Profound Artisan. I could almost feel two months of collected breath release as I ticked that over, and picked Mastersmith.

Profound Artisan: pick a Skill, add the synergy bonus from that Skill to your Focused Weapon damage.

Mastersmith was about using tools. So, knowing how to use the hammers and knives and chisels of the main six skills added together into a profound driving force.

But wait, Miners used hammers, chisels, and picks. So did Gemcutters. Perception had a Feat, Find the Weakness, where if you made a spot check vs. an opponent’s AC, it was a touch attack, turning your eyes into a tool for attacking.

Stealth reduced your opponent’s AC to flat-footed if they didn’t see you coming, no matter what tool you used. It was basically the foundation for Sneak Attack damage.

Know the School allowed you to use Martial Lore to find an opening in your opponent’s fighting style, it was a duelist Feat. Knowledge… became a tool of war with a Skill check.

“Whoa whoa whoa whooooooa!” Tremble murmured, as he felt my Vajra almost crystallizing around him.

My Grandmastery was: The sword is a shitty weapon, but it’s better than all the rest.

The premise was that the sword did all weapons’ jobs better than any other weapon could. The sword was my hammer, my spear, my mace, my axe, my knife, my saber, my staff, my club, even my shield or javelin. My Grandmastery required me to take Weapon Focus and Weapon Mastery in all those weapons… but what I could then do is apply any weapon- dependent Feat for those weapons to my sword.

I could take Axe, Hammer, Mace, Spear, Lance, Knife, Scimitar, Short Sword, Pick, and so forth Feats with my Sword, and use them, if it was mechanically possible.

All this resonated through my Sage of Swords. Any Skills that used tools that were also weapons or could directly affect combat instantly became sources of martial strength.

I had eleven Skills hit five Ranks. The Synergy Bonus on each of them was +2.

I now had another +22 damage with my Sword.

Tremble rose, his hum quavering. He could feel the power moving him was far more than flesh and bone now; this was my soul and life energy settling on him with a form of martial comprehension he had no prior idea of. Sure, it was only the equivalent of a 6d6 attack… but it was with every blow, and unlike dice, it multiplied on crits and One Strikes and charges.

This, my Grandmastery and my Sagedom, had made me what I was, back in the game. Now, they were going to make me something in my dream.

Oh, oh, oh… things were going to be different, now…

-------------------

The ghosts had been barely capable of hurting me, and clustered as they were, multiples took hits when they crowded together. Being able to two-hit them with regularity and open up on them while they were manifesting, they lasted for much less time than they used to.

After they all died, there was a short delay before the witchfires appeared and flew into the air to begin their bombardment.

The spiraling Shardstars spun up Tremble’s length, and I flicked him out.

The first Sharding cut through the chest of the first witchfire, drove through a second and a third. The follow-up shot ripped that first one apart, and nearly killed the other two.

Their shock was matched by the fury of the burning Rays that came down on me.

A third Sharding cut up as I shifted position, and another witchfire caught it in the chest, taking down number three as the angles shifted.

They were starting to move now, trying to avoid the Shardings. It wasn’t working, because I was ignoring the Rays coming down at me, and just shooting back and two-shotting my primary target with overkill damage.

When the will o’ wisps came up, I tore through them, ending my daily Cleave session with another free-spinning Sharding into the ranks of the witchfires.

By the time they came down to mess with me, half of them were dead, and many of them were wounded.

The Whirlwind went off. Wounded ones died, the Cleaving ripped through those left, and the only one out of range died when the Cleaving ended with a Shardstar arcing off the end of Tremble and shearing through her head twenty feet away from me.

I was basically untouched.

---

The shadows began bubbling, and a mournful song was starting to grow in the air as the banshees boiled up out of nothing, beautiful faces starting to contort as they came into being.

Twelve of them. But… their positions were pretty predictable. I set myself accordingly.

My first Sharding hit three of them, which would get them to two-hit range, before they could even move. I charged the closest one, and Spirited Charge’s triple damage was enough to rip her apart and see her go down en vivus. I discharged the Cleave into the closest one nearby, took a step and lunged to wound the fourth, and got in the middle of four of them as they turned on me and let loose their screams.

While they were Screaming, they weren’t trying to hit me.

Save or die. Enduring Life would give me time even when they beat my Null, which had really annoyed them, but this time Guardian flicked up to add +8 to my Null, and not a one of them could beat it.

“Tremble, She comes!” Tremble snarled in Necrus, and my Whirlwind sheared out, riding the Attacks of Opportunity of them being dumb enough to use a magical ability in range of my Sword, and four banshees exploded in vivic fire. I ended the Cleave with a Sharding into my next target, spinning into her and the middle of three others at the same time, daring them to scream.

They didn’t, and their arms lashed out as Tremble went AC config. Spectral hands danced off the edge of the Blade, Sword Beats Fist and Riposte went off on two different ones, one shrill touch tagged my side, and then I hacked at my first target, burst her, Cleaved and then cut my next one, Cleaved against my second when she dropped, and got the third in her nexus with a crit, Cleaving to the last one and wounding her as I slid back from her hand.

There were five left, and four of them were wounded already!

They came screaming in, mindless of their options, as I backed up and danced Tremble’s edge in front of their hands. When I stopped, they didn’t halt in time, and I reversed into the Whirlwind as they struck out.

Wrathflame of black, white, and gold tore arcs through all of them, Riposte triggered as one missed me, and I shanked her instantly. The Cleave tore out in a virtual second whirlwind, ending at the last one as I hacked off her arm with Sword Beats Fist, and she died.

For a second, I was surrounded by the screaming, writhing figures of betrayed elfin exploding in flames of soul, life, and anathema… and then they crumbled and died.

Two hits were all I took, not giving them any chances. I even took most of it on my Health, which meant my side and my chest were shredded, but I blew two Vigors instantly, sealing them and turning them into temporary damage, and then expended three of my four Healing Soul uses tat-tat-tat. Golden energy glowed, my Kirlian Aura flared, and my flesh was restored to optimum condition as my Soak topped off.

My skin was steaming gold mist from the healing, and I looked around, drifting from side to side as I wondered what was next.

There were cosmic-class undead stronger than a Banshee, but I shouldn’t have to put up with those, right?

The light outside was changing. An accelerated morning, still shadowy and strange, was taking place. I could only pause and wait, wondering what was going to happen.

---

Then the door was pushed open all the way. It was about then that I noticed that the room and the door… were much shorter than they were before. Like, I had grown some…?

“Oh, my, who left this door ope- Fido! Slinky!”

I blinked. The Hell. Seriously? Those names were correct?

It was a maid, in a classic black and white outfit, long skirt, white cap. Looked perfectly human. Except she was eight times my height, I didn’t even reach her knee.

And then she saw me.

“Ahh! Vile thing!” She reached outside the door, moving exactly at the speed a non-eight-meter human would, and grabbed a stick from outside the door.

It looked like a broomstick, except it was at least eight inches thick, making it effectively a tree trunk!

“You dare threaten the mistress! Die!”

Ah, Hell.

“Defense!”

It didn’t make any difference. She was relatively the height of a cloud giant. Str 33 or so, +11, +16 from Hit Dice meant +27 to hit, and I didn’t get any of the bonuses for being great against undead, naturally.

That broom was moving at the speed that maid would be using if she were human-sized flailing at a rat.

Pow! Too much mass, too much speed. I was lifted right off my feet, went hurtling across the room, missed the divan by a foot, crashed into the wall, left a dent, and fell to the ground.

That had been a quick way to lose 60 Soak, and the stick was coming in again, the maid’s dark eyes cold and hard.

Well, I was not prepped for a giant of that size and power. She had Resist All equal to her Strength bonus, regardless of attack form, so -11 damage from anything, the strength of the Jotuns.

Well, maybe I can cut her shoes before she kills me, I thought, knowing what my next Feat was going to be. I drove myself off the wall, spinning and dodging as the stick came down waaaaay too fast for how big it was, going for her feet as she danced away with very disconcerting lightness. She really did make me feel I was pixie-sized, or something.

I cut into her leg, trying for the Achilles, and she shrieked and bashed at me harder, kicking out and trying to step on me. Her skin was inches thick and tougher than tire rubber, and her reach with that stick was basically one step for the whole room. I couldn’t get out of her attack range in the room, and I was pretty sure that if I ran out into the hallway, more bad things were going to happen.

Well, Hell, if I was going to die…

I spun around and bolted out the door.

She screamed at me, I twisted, and the stick came down, nicked my shoulder, and bones broke. I zipped out into the hallway, looking right and left down a giant-sized corridor, one way leading to other doors, and the other opening out to a lit room. Carpet on the ground was oversized, it looked and felt like I was running on a woven grass lawn. But…

HAH! I was outside the room!

OUTSIDE THE ROOM!

Since I couldn’t open the other doors, I booked for the open area.

She was hot on my heels, waving her broomstick and shouting. In the corridor ahead of me, a man in light armor wearing a sword hurried into view, obviously drawn by the shouting. I rolled my eyes as a twelve-foot saber cleared its scabbard, and his face chilled as he focused on me racing towards him.

Welp, this is probably going to be quick, I mused as he took a warrior’s stance, and lunged out with a sword a foot wide defying all the laws of metallurgy as it came in way faster than a human could thrust, and I couldn’t dodge in time nor possibly parry enough to stop my head from being cut off my shoulders.

Aaaaand that’s a bit of Health in one swing, I noted, as my head started spinning away, and the world did circles. I didn’t really try to block it with Tremble, because little half of a pair of scissors get hacked in two by hundreds of pounds of steel, or something.

I closed my eyes, pondering what changes I was going to have to make, and how it was going to be difficult to get Bane/Giants on Tremble, since I had to kill one to get Slaughter active.

Things went to black.