And now for the stunning conclusion of the vampire saga. Maybe. Not sure how long it will take to cover. So after my big assassination shit got real. All of the factions opposing the current Master got hyped and things broke out into open conflict in the castle. Now its a big castle. There were maybe 10000 vampires here. What do they eat? I never learned. Maybe they had blood farms or something. Maybe animal blood. In any case the faction I had joined, my almost wife's faction, and two other factions revolted individually against the faction of the loyalists. I wouldn't say they were equal, maybe something like 16%, 18%, 20%, 22%, 24%. Something like that. The master had 24%.

Factions would hit the master from multiple fronts, then one would backstab another, it was messy. At this point I was no longer alone. I wasn't super worried about knowledge of my capabilities spreading to the human realms so I abused my unique powers to buff my allies. A couple Quickens here and there was a big deal because Haste was something close to the best non-boostable buff in the game. I could increase the duration but now the impact is what I mean. It was especially good for casters when my buffs lasted so damn long.

My faction was the 16% faction. Or the smallest one anyway, I wasn't privileged to have super detailed information. It had some of the top practicioners, which was one reason they approached me as a fellow magic user. The master had the second best. The middle faction had some of the best bruisers, my girl had the best espionage, etc. It was basically a free for all with shifting alliances. No one wanted to take irreversible damage and none of the factions were keen on genocide. Old and powerful vampires were difficult to replace. Damage, however, was done.

I was with a group of top ambush specialists. Perhaps I should have taken the Eventide Talent. Perception and Arcana were pretty nice. I even convinced a minor noble mage to swap sides. Staffs and robes forever! Mostly we killed. This was pretty good exp from assassinating enemy leaders. I explained why I was there after the conflict broke out and I think this persuaded them not to off my after it ended. I had a deal that I would take my quest target and leave.

The mage I was sent for was kept in a magical coma since they were unsure of his true capabilities. He'd be awakened in a special central room in the castle with strong wards and studied and tortured and then be put back to sleep. Eventually he was to be sacrificed for something. I believe I would have ended up performing that rite with my girl if I had followed the plan of the developers. Another good reason to have avoided that.

There's not really a huge point in recounting these fights. I was primarily a buff bot. My buffs are way more useful than even Miasma spells in a large group of undead casters. Tier 2 Miasma spells would have helped perhaps but usually I'd only do damage spells in special combos on super high level guys. In any case in 3 or 4 days I had picked up enough exp to hit my next level, on top of the exp I had earned before open conflict broke out. I hadn't leveled since I got into the high passes before reaching the castle.

+40000exp (138000/115200) (22800/172800) Lvl Up!!! Lvl 12!!!!

You have gained 25HP, 46MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 selection point + 1 magic point(bonus)!

390 Health | 797 Mana

I am now at 48 INT. Just one more level and I can spread my points around a bit more. Closing in on 400 HP and 800MP. I am now in a position where I can Phase Boost Miasma and get 2 skills. Because I am close to completing an Epic Quest, even more epic than expected, but not as epic as ruling an evil vampire empire like I could have I guess. I won't have to wait super long for Phase 2 Chronomancy. In any case let us see what we get.

First the Phase Boost bonus for Tier 1:

Miasma Phase 1 Spell List:

Splash: 40 damage + 5 DoT/4s + CON -10% | sphere 8ft | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 45 mana

Infect: DEX/STR -15% + 8 DoT/10s | 3 target Mark | ranged 40 feet | Cast 2s | 45 mana

Fester: 6 DoT/10s | Mark+ 3 target Mark | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 40 mana

Envenom: 12 DoT/10s | single target | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 45 mana

As you might have noticed, the 20 mana cost increase ignores the base mana cost. It is the same 20 mana regardless. Same for range increases. Splash got 50% more damage but it was mostly frontloaded. I didn't have a any skill points in Miasma and these changes were not super massive, but not bad. Now for the 4 new spells:

Miasma Phase 2 Spell List:

Plague: 10 DoT/10s | sphere 16ft Proliferate Mark+++ | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 70 mana

Blight: MIT -10% + 10 DoT/10s | Mark+++ 3 targets Mark | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 70 mana

Putrefy: Neutralize 50% HPR + 10 DoT/10s | Mark++ 3 targets | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 50 mana

Contaminate: 10 DoT/10s | Mark++ 3 targets | ranged 40ft | Cast 2s | 40 mana

Sadly I only had two points because these spells were intense. Proliferate, from Plague, in a sphere spell no less, cause all DoTs to migrate to every target in range with remaining duration if no copy of the DoT was active. It had to be targeted on a creature with 3 or more Marks though.

Blight, with the same Mark requirement, was a 3 target spells but it only affected as many targets as had 3 Marks. It also did negative damage mitigation. So enemies would take 10% more damage or else it would neutralize 10% mitigation. Expensive spells though and high mark requirements and needed enemies relatively close.

Putrefy neutralized 50% of enemy health recovery, or regeneration, if they had it. This value increases +10% additive with Phase, so it caps out at 70%. This was a 2 Mark spell for 50 mana. Contaminate was a basic 40 mana 2 Mark spell. Just did raw DoT damage.

The damage from these spells seems like a lot per mana but it is key to remember that they technically have 2s cast times and thus it takes a while to get a combo going and for their impact to be felt. Miasma would probably be useless for a solo player unless they had a Warrior class to tank with. Or self-Haste. Time Magic is the best magic. Actually you also needed amazing Control magic of some kind since Haste let you cast fast but you also needed to survive 10-20 seconds.

Regardless I had to take Contaminate for obvious reasons. Need a 2 mark spell for sure. I didn't need Neutralize so I yanked Plague as well. Proliferation? Yes. Haemomancy actually had a Mark and Mark+ spell but it was Tier 3 so 2 targets for both and weaker in general plus no Phase Boost. Still, useful in a pinch. I now had some serious damage output with a decent array of damage types. Arcane Missile was still useful for various reasons though as well.

With Miasma advanced a Phase I was not more useful in the damage and debuff aspect of combat. Vampires had Mark based spells as well for instance. Proliferate from Plague was unique and OP as shit. After the days of fighting and the pre-conflict sort of cold war things were starting to get resolved. The only factions that really remained as coherent entities were the faction of my allies and the faction of my almost queen. I gained an action based boost to Vampire Reputation with my faction, which would transform to a regional boost if they won. So that was nice. My boys really loved Miasma.

Eventually my almost queen's faction was ground down. Not wiped out, none of them were, just put into a position where they were obviously not going to come back. She went into hiding and we marched on the master. At this point the remaining vampires organized into loyalist and reformist factions. We ended up about even in numbers but most leaders joined us or stayed neutral, since there was a reason they revolted against the Master in the first place. So we were stronger really.

We fought for two days in the inner keep and conquered the dungeon and the cells. I had them leave the captured mage in his coma since I didn't want him to have any more knowledge of what happened than necessary. We marched into the throne room and the final fight began.

I'm not going to run the math because frankly I don't really know it that much. Vampires were throwing all kinds of shit and even if I had an exact record it would take ages to diagram a fight with so many participants. I buffed the major practicioners in my faction as well as clerics and warriors. I didn't bother with control spells unless I had to. A major part of my job was spamming Plague and then putting together a massive spell chain on the Master. Stagnation, Blight, Putrefaction and so forth. I dropped my stun but he had a huge disable duration reduction. Mine was the best but nothing kept my man down for long. I rarely had time for Arcane or Metamagic boosts. Using Quicken to keep up Haste was my main self buffing action.

In the end we emerged victorious. I mean that should be obvious. We had me. We had numbers and magic users. I wouldn't have had an amazing enough adventure to justify this record of my achievements if we had lost. Let us all be honest. Plot armor is a thing but in the end no one reads stories about losers. The guy who died in the big battle 5 seconds in? If he died that fast it meant no one cared about him enough to help or save him and he probably wasn't that powerful himself.

After the battle our leader retrieved the high level artifacts of the Master and equipped them, gaining most of his power. His organs were preserved for various purposes. His minions were handled with death or mercy as appropriate. The field was looted of items and teams scoured the castle to clean up loyalist stragglers, gather the items of the dead to be distributed, and various other administrative tasks. The ritual to crown a new master bestowed an incredible Adminsitrative Legendary Template.

I was awarded a decent amount of gold, my Reputation boost because +2 regionally and +1 globally. I was given a rare 100 mana and +5/+5 MEM/CHA circlet. Not bad. I was sort of an honorary vampire I guess? I had consistently refused Turning. The vampires wanted to pass the Eventide Free Talent to me but I negotiated them down to a +5/+5 Skill/Selection point deal instead. Tier 3 is not amazing and I already had a lot of good Talents and was anticipating new Templates at some point. I was even miffed I wasn't offered a decent one here. Stupid "Only If You Are Turned" rules...

I had 9 skill points and 5 selection points saved. I immediately blew 2 filling out Miasma. So 9 and 3. I got a massive amount of experience. 150000. Finishing the little revolution, killing the master, clearing up loyalists plus quest EXP for overthrowing the master. Another level for me!

+150000exp (172800/172800) (0/259200) Lvl Up!!! Lvl 13!!!!

You have gained 25HP, 48MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 selection point + 1 magic point(bonus)!

415 Health | 945 Mana

So with that I finally had 50 INT. Not bad. I was now at 11 SkP and 5 SeP. I'm going to do a basic status at the start of my next entry for stats, hp mana, etc. Not talents or skills. I am at 13 but I need to be 15 to use the teleporters. I expect to get into 14 after returning to the Mages Guild with my success, and some slight obfuscation of what happened at the castle. Not sure how I'll crack 15. I really wanted to get to the capital. Atria, as the town I was based from was called was a mediocre border settlement. The capital was unbelievably superior.

After I was done I head out to grab my mage and get back to town. As I left the dungeon and headed for the gate my Perception and Arcana pinged hard. There was a vampire noblewoman hiding in a passage and surprise and shock it was my girl. With my sweet new +3 reputation and my charisma boost and bonus dialogue and so forth I got it out of her that she was persona non-grata here in the castle, unless she wed the new Master, and she needed a ticket out of town. I agreed to get her to Atria and then the capital. Bonus objective fullfilled. We made our way back to the city and she took off. 75000 EXP. The quest bonus for getting her through the teleporter to the capital would be better.

I took the sleeping mage to the guild and they debriefed me and woke him up and debriefed him as well. With my awesome social skills I stuck to my story about freeing him from the vampires and tons of combat, which was backed up by items and scars and exp gain and so forth and I barely got away with it. Perhaps some of them were suspicious. But the guy was back so w/e. My completion bonus took me to level 14 as expected. Got a bunch of gold. They upgraded my staff to a master staff. I now dealth 10+STR+INT Arcane damage for no mana. 70 damage wasn't bad. Of course it was melee, 2s or 1s with Haste, and so not quite ideal. Might rarely get me out of some sticky situations.

The mage I rescued gave me a letter to deliver to his master in the capital. Dude was an old ass high level research mage but his master was a real big dog. This was the real quest reward as I would later discover. The main problem was I still had another level to get. Couldn't deliver the letter or make good on my promise to vampire girl until then. I was midway into level 14 though so it wasn't a super terrible problem.

+250000exp (172800/172800) (100000/259200) Lvl Up!!! Lvl 14!!!!

You have gained 25HP, 50MP, and 2 stat points!

You have gained 2 skill points + 1 selection point + 1 magic point(bonus)!

445 Health | 995 Mana

I dropped my stat points right into MEM since I was going to be picking up lots of skills. MEM capped magic skills at a certain amount so I needed to constantly boost it. It was also a faction in Knowledge checks. I yet again saved my SkiP and SelP. 13 and 7. I was gonna blow them on Chronomancy probably. Level 15 was gonna be nice. 2 Ability points for Geography and Historian to max out my social benefits in the capital. 9 SelP so that as soon as I got another skill point I could start getting Phase 2 Chronomancy spells. Awesome.

I'll dig into my efforts to hit level 15 next time. Nothing super amazing happened but some okay stuff. No new Free Talents or anything. I did pick up some SelP so I didn't have to wait till 16 to get boosted. Which was good. Because 15 to 16 would have been a long slog otherwise. Be back when I'm back.