Outsiders Pt. 05

Ben Kidder sat on his bed, swarmed by a host of questions that arose in his mind after advancing from level nineteen to level twenty. The biggest was how it could have happened at all. He could feel two extra slots for ninth level spells and room for a forty third spell inside himself so he knew it was just as real as him being a sorcerer in the first place.

He got up and waded through the piles of boxes until he got to his bedroom desk. He moved some boxes around and opened the desk drawer. He pulled out his rulebooks and sat back down on the bed to consult them.

He remembered that his character in the game campaign had lacked just six hundred experience points to reach level twenty and he guessed that destroying the robots and unintentionally frying the climbing psychos must have provided him with the experience points he lacked. He found the idea of gaining experience points and leveling up in real life to be very freaky, or he would have, if his freakiness gauge hadn't already been broken when he became a real life sorcerer.

Reaching level twenty one would require a further twenty thousand experience points, which was a tall order considering that as a twentieth level character he would get five hundred experience points for defeating characters that were at least level thirteen themselves. Characters of lover levels could net him some measly ad-hoc points, just like finishing quests could, but awarding those would be up to the Game Master's discretion. Ben wondered how those awards would be adjudicated in real life. He imagined an archangel sitting on a fluffy cloud and consulting D&D rulebooks. He laughed out loud.

"I can't start thinking of real people as game characters," he admonished himself after he stopped laughing. "That way leads to insanity."

As he read on, he learned that gaining more levels brought no new spells and no additional spell slots. Level twenty one would give him a new feat and so would every third level he attained after that. His choice of feats would be augmented by two epic feats; the Familiar Spell feat that would enable Felicia to cast one spell a day, or the Spell Knowledge feat that would grant him two new spells of his choosing. He smiled.

"So, there is a way to learn new spells, after all," he thought.

As he read on, he learned that the Familiar Spell feat required his charisma to be 25 for Felicia to cast spells, thus making it impossible. If he ever advanced to level twenty one, his best choice would be the Spell Knowledge feat. He returned his efforts to figuring out what level twenty brought.

Becoming level twenty wasn't that big a change after all, he realized. It brought him one point to an ability of his choosing, increased his will save by one, increased his secondary attack bonus by one, gave him some more skill points to keep his skills maxed and that was pretty much that for the non-magical parts of his character sheet.

The real changes were the ones to his spell list. Aside from the two additional ninth level spell slots, he could choose his newest ninth level spell and, since this was an even numbered level he had advanced to, he could replace one spell he had in his repertoire with another spell of the same level. More than half his spells had their effects subtly increased from now on. Some would last longer, some would affect more targets, cause more damage and so on. To his regret, Greater Teleport still brought only six additional passengers.

Ben chose to put his point of ability score to dexterity, bringing it up to sixteen, which would increase both his bonus to hit with a ranged weapon and his armor class by one, making him more likely to shoot straight and less likely to get hit, all at the same time.

He wondered if he could research new spells and add them to his repertoire. Picking a spell from the Handbook required just a thought; he didn't know what creating a new one from scratch would require. The section of the Dungeon Master's Guide on creating new spells was quite tight-lipped on the subject. It clearly allowed for new spells to be created, given enough research, materials and time, but it only warned against those spells being too powerful for their assigned level and offered ways to make the spells too costly to be used all the time. Since, to the best of his knowledge, there weren't any magical libraries in the real world, his only chance of researching magical spells was to meditate on the ones he already knew. He felt that those spells were too few and too similar to one another to give him any proper insight into creating spells he'd like to be able to cast.

As titillated as he was by the possibilities that creating custom spells presented, he decided to shelve them, for the time being. He had more pressing matters to attend to, so he decided to choose a new spell from the handbook.

The choice of spells was easy. He replaced Cone of Cold with Fabricate, a spell which allowed him to transform 200 cubic feet of some raw material into a finished product made exclusively from that material. The volume of material dropped by a factor of ten if he worked with raw minerals, and he couldn't make things made from more than one material, but even so, his chances of getting stinking rich by repeatedly casting this spell were pretty much exactly 100%.

His new ninth level spell was Shapechange, which was the most powerful spell in the whole book, as far as he was concerned. With this spell he could assume the form and abilities of every kind of creature he was familiar with, including all the magical ones from the Monster Manual. By transforming into a dragon, he would gain the ability to cast all the arcane and clerical spells from the Handbook and that would doubtlessly allow him to craft new spells to his liking and learn them, if he ever gained another level and took the Spell Knowledge feat.

He couldn't use the Shapechange spell to imitate other people, but that was pretty much the only limitation the spell had. That, and him needing a jade circlet worth 1500 gold pieces as a material focus to cast it with. He was going to cast Fabricate to make the circlet after acquiring the necessary amount of jade.

The spell lasted for 200 minutes after casting and he could change form every six seconds. If he felt like it, he could turn himself into a flea and then a giraffe and back again repeatedly, just for the sake of looking at something from two wildly different perspectives.

The two spells turned his frown upside down and lifted his spirits all the way to low earth orbit. The mere thought of using them made him as giddy as a little boy in a candy shop.

He felt Lisa complete the spell drawing in the den, so he set aside his rulebooks and went there to read it. He cast Read Magic and glanced at the mineral prism he pulled out of his belt. He picked up the drawing and silenced the chatting girls with a raised hand so he could study the spell in peace.

It was similar to the one that had been cast at the army base but, unlike that one, this one was still running, still gathering energy for its caster and he needed to know why. He was particularly concerned with the fact that he had dispelled the spell at the army base with a regular Dispel Magic spell, but even a maximized Greater Dispel Magic spell failed to undo this one. The spell had constructed another piece of a larger whole and Ben compared its most relevant parts to the first one.

He held both drawings next to one another, comparing and contrasting them. As he started with the central symbols, his Spellcraft and Knowledge Arcana skills made him realize that those two also spoke of how the spells in sequence related to one another. Ben then mentally rotated and overlaid the spells according to the central symbols. His blood ran cold as the pieces started fitting right before his mind's eye.

"Holy crud," he whispered.

"What's the matter, Ben," Lisa said with a concerned tone.

"I know what they're making," he said.

"Well, what is it," Raven asked. The other two girls were eagerly waiting, as well.

"It's a portal," he said. "They're trying to summon The Outsiders to this dimension!"

The girls gasped in shock. "Can we stop them," Lisa asked.

"In theory, yes," he said.

"And in practice," Krista asked.

"In practice," Ben said and faltered. He found the scale of the portal's construction staggering. "In practice, not so much."

The girls exchanged worried looks. "Why not," Krista asked

"This portal has been assembled with more than five hundred spells like these two," Ben said. "This here, what I'm holding? These are among the last pieces of the portal's functioning frame to be assembled. If I'm reading this correctly, and the central symbols say that I am, then there are only two more spells to be cast and that's that. The portal's completed."

"Fuck me," a shocked Raven whispered.

"Two more freaking spells and that's it," Krista yelled. "Two more spells and it's game over!? These Outsiders, these death-worshipping, unknowable beings of power come here, to Earth!?"

"No," Ben said as he realized he was missing something. "No, wait! In two more spells, the portal is completed, but it will still need to be activated. Turned on, so to speak."

"And what does that entail," Krista asked.

"Well, I'm not too sure," Ben mumbled as he rotated the spells in both his hands and his mind's eye. He was trying to extrapolate what they would look like with two more spells placed over them. After a few moments of concentration, he got a clear mental picture of how power would flow through the finished portal. "Well, in order to start up the portal, they'd need to demonstrate power over human life at a time when the natural flow of power to our realm is disrupted."

"The fuck does that mean," Raven said.

Ben shook his head in dismay and said, "I don't know."

The girls began to debate his words while he stared at the spell drawings, trying to decipher what they meant. Felicia jumped up on his desk and said, "Boss, if I may?" He glanced at her and nodded. "Demonstrating power over human life is magic speak for human sacrifice, our realm is Earth and the natural flow of power to it is sunlight, so what you said means that-"

"They need to sacrifice an innocent person during a full eclipse over hard ground," Ben finished her sentence for her in an astonished tone as he realized she was right. The girls stared silently at him, for a few seconds, and then accepted his conclusion as true.

"When's the next full eclipse over land," Krista asked, voicing everyone's thoughts.

A brief scuffle ensued as all four of them reached for the laptop. Felicia jumped off the desk to get out of their way. "Stop," Ben yelled. "My computer, my quest, my house, my web search!"

The girls backed off to sit on the couch while he sat at his desk and went online. "Ok," he said, "according to Wikipedia, the next full eclipse visible from land is next year, March the twentieth, and it only hits the ground in the Faroe Islands and Svalbard.

"Where are those," Raven asked.

"North of Europe," Ben said. "At each location, the eclipse will only last a little over two minutes."

"How big are those islands," Krista asked.

"Too big," Ben said. These cultists would need just a few minutes to draw their spell, giving him only that much time to find them and stop them. As soon as the sacrifice's blood landed on the drawing, it would be game over for Earth.

"Are the last two spells going to be cast there," Lisa asked.

"I don't know," Ben said, "but I sincerely doubt it. It makes more sense to do those two spells anywhere else in the world and not there. Why draw attention to the one place where you gotta be before you have to be there? I'm certain that whoever is behind all this mess will be there, come March, waiting for the Moon to obscure the Sun before killing someone and activating the portal. And they'll orchestrate two more massacres before then."

"Giving us two more chances to stop them before the big showdown," Krista said.

Ben's eyebrows rose up in response. "Look who's completely on board all of a sudden," he said. "Didn't you quit and lead a walk-out the other day?"

"That was before I knew the world was about to end," she said, "along with everyone in it." She looked at Ben questioningly. "Right? I mean, that's what happens if this portal gets opened and these Outsiders come through? End of the world?"

"Pretty much," Ben said. He sent Raven the order to tell him everything she knew about what would happen once The Outsiders came to Earth.

"I don't know anything about that," she said. "Simon had agreed to summon an avatar of the Outsiders to Earth in exchange for his magic, the magic that you now have, and he told me that The Avatar would end all wars and strife on Earth. We would also be elevated to positions of power."

Krista snorted and said, "Yeah, can't wage war if we're all dead."

"There will be no reasoning with these cultists," Ben said, disappointed. "They're probably dead certain that they'll be made rulers of the Earth if they succeed."

"No, no, no, no," Krista said, wagging a reproachful finger at Ben. "Get all ideas of talking sense into them out of your head, Ben! These people have spilled so much blood already that it's just impossible for them to stop. Whatever conscience they have, it's been silenced by the screams of the dying long ago. Playing to their humanity won't net us anything."

A pall fell over the room at her chilling words.

"So, we're all in agreement, then," Lisa said. "This portal must never be completed and the cultists must be caught and dealt with most severely!"

Everyone solemnly nodded.

"Yeah, but we're hardly equipped to deal with them on our own," Krista said. "I mean, we've got one girl that can see active Outsider spells and one sorcerer. We can't tell anyone about this, can't call on anyone for help and we're not exactly rich in resources at our disposal."

"Well," Ben said and cracked a grin, "that's about to change!"

"What do you mean," Krista asked.

Ben was about to tell them what his new spells did, when the runoff valve of the spell caught his eye. It was ever so slightly different than the one the previous spell had. He read the two, side by side, and barely stopped himself from swearing out loud.

"Oh, dear," he finally said. "I think I know why the spell is still running."

"Why," Lisa asked.

"It's left on to take the life force of anyone the escaped lunatics kill and reroute it to the caster," he said.

"But, you stopped them all," Lisa said. "Only one got out and you caught him! You tossed him back inside!"

"What if there were more," Ben asked. "Quick! Turn on the TV! This has to be on the news by now."

Simon was sitting in a café, drinking coffee, and barely suppressing his scorn for the meaningless insects sitting around and blowing empty air out of their mouths. "If they had an inkling of how insignificant they all are," he thought, "they'd all march off a cliff like a bunch of lemmings."

He supposed that there was a benefit to their delusions of importance and meaning. Those kept them alive and well for the day of reaping, which was soon to come.

"Oh, my God," a girl at the next table exclaimed to her friends as she looked up from her computer screen. "Plainview is somewhere nearby, right?"

"The mental hospital," one of her friends asked. "Sure. It's seven miles away, deep in the woods. We used to go there as kids and-"

"They've had a breakout," the woman exclaimed, interrupting him. Many others in the café also turned their heads her way for a moment, before sticking their faces into their own computer screens and typing the same words into the same search engine.

Simon couldn't help but grin. His consecrated warriors were loose in the countryside. Their murderous impulses were maximized by his spell and each innocent life they took was going to add to his power. More than that, the panic their rampage was going to cause will degrade humans' belief in their society, just as the robotic rampage at the base made them give up on the use of robots in war zones. By the time of the eclipse, he was going to both complete the portal and crumble the barrier further. "The title of Prime is mine," he thought to himself.

"No, no, it's ok," a man loudly said. "They caught them all! It's all over the news. They were stopped before they could get away."

Simon's grin froze into a grimace of disbelief. "How could that have happened," he asked himself. "I gave those stupid idiots every advantage possible! I gave them all they needed to get away! What a bunch of fuckheaded, shit-for-brains, backwards, fuckwad idiots!"

The big screen plasma TV in the coffee shop was switched to a local news channel and the volume was turned up significantly. The local police chief and a representative of the FBI were answering questions at a press conference and they assured the public that no one escaped from the criminally insane ward, despite the heavy loss of life in the facility itself.

Simon stood up and left in an angry huff. He couldn't believe his luck. He had thought that he had staked his power on the worst of the worst, and it turned out that he had squandered it all on the dumbest of the dumb, instead. Their inability to simply exit an undefended gate was so infuriating that he would have burned the whole town down to the ground, if only he had the power for it. He had poured all that he had into casting the spell that consecrated them and used the deaths of the staff and non-violent patients to construct the element of Fire.

Just as he was about to end the useless spell, he was unexpectedly hit by a surge of power. He smiled in relief. At least one of his consecrated warriors had escaped law enforcement notice and had just finished killing someone, sending him their life force. He decided to leave the spell running. He needed all the power he could get and there was no harm in leaving it spinning at the base of the tower. It wasn't like anyone could see it.

He went to the car he had appropriated when he had killed the former owner and got in. He was going to need to gather up a lot of power for the next spell in the sequence and that meant killing a lot of people on his own. His safest bet was to drive to a major city and kill hookers. Human society paid no sympathy or attention to murdered hookers. There would probably be no investigations. He started the engine and drove towards the interstate.

The girls and Ben were relieved when the news said that no one had escaped from the institution. There would be no more death. His spell of Greater Dispel Magic was stronger, now that he was a level higher, and he decided to go back to the institution and see if it could get the job done this time.

"I'm going back there to try and end this spell once again," he said. "You're coming with me, Lisa!"

Lisa stood up and waited for him to cast Invisibility on them and then teleport them to the gate. She confirmed that the spell was still in place and Ben cast a maximized Greater Dispel Magic against it. Just as before, it made absolutely no difference. He teleported them back to his den and ended their invisibilities.

"Well," Krista asked.

"No joy," Ben sadly said. "The frakking thing is still spinning."

"Is there nothing you can do," Raven asked.

Ben shook his head and sat down at his desk. He took another look at the spell drawing, but knew he would find nothing new in it.

"Maybe whoever cast it died in the asylum," Raven offered.

"Nah," Ben said and indicated a line of symbols on the spell drawing. "Without a recipient, this component of the siphon part of the spell wouldn't be active anymore. It's still spinning, so the caster is alive and well."

An uncomfortable silence ensued as he reread the spells. Krista interrupted it by saying, "You said, before, that our resources are going to change. How so?"