"Nice view."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew found himself taken to a rather spacious floating platform. The platform levitated up the side of a tall tower. There were several entrances, but most were at the top. The ride gave him an excellent view of the city as they climbed into the sky. The platform's walls were made of more of the transparent substance he had seen before. He had a chance to tap it as he looked out across the city, "Glasteel? no... quartz?" He snapped his fingers which made his manacles jingle, "Ah. Deep Crystal. Makes sense. I'd use that to make a floating platform."

 

His escort ignored him.

 

He was separated from Elyin and the kids, then stripped of all his magical equipment. He was currently walking around barefoot and nobody seemed to care. Miriam was being held in a cage and carried by a guard. They stopped at a level about four hundred feet off the ground. Their equipment was taken inside. They continued going up to the top floor, about five hundred feet up.

 

The city was everything one might expect of a fantasy metropolis.

 

It was a glittering skyline of silvery spires and crystalline windows. It had a  flowing, organic feel while being made of glass and chrome. The entire city was surrounded by an outer wall that shined golden in the light of the setting sun. It was the sort of city only possible in a world of magic. You could see small shapes flitting about. There was normal street traffic, but also air traffic as well. People flying on mounts, carpets, or just zooming along in the air without any obvious aid. However, Andrew noticed they flew in straight lines as if  some sort of designated air corridors existed.

 

Fortunately for Andrew, the skills he bought up the most were knowledges, so it took him little time to figure out what was going on.

 

He turned to the nearest guard, "So not only do you have a massive teleport trap over the entire city, but you used Earthbind to keep people from flying where they aren't supposed to." He paused. When they ignored him, he continued, "So, did you build the city with a mythal, or did you layer consecrated land spells over and over?"

 

The guards looked at each other a little puzzled. It seemed obvious that Andrew was onto something, but equally obvious was that they were surprised he figured it out. As the door opened to the top level, a guard shoved Andrew off the platform onto the maximum security detention floor.

 

---

 

"At least put us in the same cell!"

 

 

 

 

 

Andrew was locked up and chained at the wrists in a private cell. Miriam was carried down the hallway to another room. Same block, but nowhere near each other. Andrew found himself chained up in a cell with a simple bed attached to the wall next to a toilet. The Elven guard started to explain the toilet to him. Andrew cut him off by flushing it, "I know what a toilet is." He fell back to sit on the stiff wall bed and held up a foot, "What I want are some SHOES!" He wiggled his toes to emphasize the point.

 

The guard rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut.

 

The chain was long enough for Andrew to make it to the cell door. There was a small window that could only be opened up from the outside, otherwise, no way to see out. He spent some time moving around the cell, looking for flaws to exploit, but wound up sitting on the bed, waiting.

 

About an hour later, the window opened. An elf looked in. A panel opened up and a tray soon followed. It had food and water upon it. Simple fair. Just some bread and a bowl of vegetable stew. Andrew stepped up, "Hey. What's-" The window slammed shut.

 

"Going on?" Andrew said to the panel slammed in his face. He stared at the tray, "Fuck."

 

As he stood there, he heard a conversation going on out in the hall. He pressed his ear to the door and listened.

 

"[So what's up with these two?]"

 

"[I dunno. It seems we captured an infernalist.]"

 

"[Huh. And they haven't been put to death?]"

 

"[Well, according to the schedule, the devil is going to be executed right away. This guy? I suspect interrogation first, then they'll kill him.]"

 

Andrew stood there with his ear to the door as the pair walked away. He closed his eyes tightly and cursed under his breath, "Fuckin' bitch." He nearly threw the tray against the wall, then thought better of it. He instead picked it up walked over to the bed and sat down. They at least gave him a wooden spoon. He picked it up as he talked to himself, "How the hell am I going to get us out of this mess?"

 

He scooped up a spoonful of stew, blew on it, then tasted it. He frowned, "Needs salt." He pointed a finger at the bowl, "{cantrip: seasoning}" He took another taste, smiled, nodded to himself, then started eating earnestly.

 

It took him about two minutes before he figured out he somehow had managed to use magic in an anti-magic field.

 

Andrew stared at his finger, then pointed at the far wall, "{Magic Missile}" Nothing happened. He held up his thumb and stared at, "{Cantrip: Cigarette lighter}" A small flame like that from a Bic lighter appeared, hovering over the tip of his thumbnail. He blew it out.

 

He started to talk to himself as he tried to figure out what was going on, "Okay... what's the difference? Magic missle is a spell. It makes sense it doesn't work in an antimagic field." He snapped his fingers, "WAIT!" He stood up, "I took the psionic version of cantrip because it lasts longer than the spell version!" He frowned, "But an antimagic field should cancel out psionics just as much as spells."

 

He stared at his hands for a bit, wiggling his fingers, "Unless..." He pointed at his leg, "{Cantrip: Flare}" A flash of flame scorched his leg causing a slight burn. He then touched the fresh injury, "{Cure minor wound}"

 

Nothing happened.

 

"I have arcane/psionics transparency, but not divine/psionics transparency." Andrew started to put it together, "So... that means... due to the regional rules being in play, it's possible universal magic/psionics transparency is NOT in play... therefore..." He snapped his fingers, "The antimagic field doesn't work on psionic powers, just psionic SPELLS."

 

He sat back down on the bed.

 

"Alright... that's something. Just one problem." Andrew leaned back and hit his head lightly against the wall a few times, "Most of my psionics are in crystals and that's in my backpack a hundred feet below me. Yeah, I got my time-based psionics but that is mostly speed enhancement." His eyes flared open, "Except time skip."

 

He stood up and turned around, holding out his hands that were chained together at the wrist, "{Time Skip}"

 

The chain vanished.

 

Andrew jumped back. Six seconds later, the chains reappeared and dropped to the ground.

 

He turned and rushed to the door, "Okay... Bit heavier." He felt it up, "But should be under six hundred pounds." He closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the door and started to mutter as he tried to work out a plan, "I need to get to my equipment. I need to somehow get down one hundred feet."

 

He took a deep breath, "As economical as it might be to keep everything in crystals, I'm going to have to permanently learn more psionics when this is over." He closed his eyes tightly in concentration, "Problem is, I need offensive psionics, and I need it NOW, not next level."

 

A heartbeat later a solution started to form in his mind, "Next... level..."

 

Abruptly his eyes flared open, "I know how to do it." He pushed away from the door and backed up several steps. He started to run the calculations in his mind of exactly what he'd need. The more he thought, the more intense the frown on face got.

 

 

 

"I just need to completely fubar my build to do it."

 

 

---

 

 

Contrary to popular belief, you don't instantly level up when you get enough experience points.

 

 

 

 

When you get enough to reach the next level, you can choose to take another level in what you have, but if you want to learn a new class, you need to have some sort of justification. Training, research, or mentors were the usual methods, but what to do if the class you want isn't available just yet?

 

When you get enough XPs, you can hold onto them. You don't have to advance, but you only have so much time. You see, you still earn experience points, even if it's just a few points a day, just by living your life. You learn new things every day. However, if you ever advance to the point where you have enough experience points to earn TWO levels, you automatically and immediately advance a level, right then and there. 

 

There are reasons for waiting, especially for crafters. It's easier to get experience when you are at a lower level, so crafters will often be in a race against time to spend experience points as fast as they get them to avoid leveling up. Andrew was no exception. He was just better at it than most. He knew all the best experience point sinks. The one he used the most was dumping the experience points into crafting expensive magic items.

 

You could assign the experience to an item and the experience would get 'spent', but until you took the time to finish the item, your experience existed in limbo. It was possible to cancel crafting an item and get all the experience points back, but you had to be careful. Too much of a refund all at once, and you might level up, right then and there.

 

Andrew was counting on it.

 

He sat on the bed, closed his eyes, crossed his legs, interlaced his fingers then muttered, "Cancel Amulet of Ray Deflection."

 

He received a refund of five hundred and sixty XPs.

 

Immediately he felt his totals surge. He had been riding the line for quite a while and this put him over with room to spare. He couldn't afford to be fancy, he needed brute force and he needed it now. He took a level of arcane mind.

 

Arcane mind was a joke of an advanced class, which is why anyone could take it without much effort. It gave you a level in an arcane caster class and a psionic manifester one. That was it. No other perks. There were far better versions he would have preferred, but the qualifiers for those classes were beyond him in this situation. Under any other set of circumstances, Arcane Mind was a terrible class to take.

 

Except Andrew didn't have time to dick around.

 

He applied Arcane Mind against Arcane Psychic, twice. This not only gave him access to the sixth-circle, but he gained his choice of two new free powers or spells for each level. In this case, he would be getting four brand-new powers that he couldn't get any other way. He needed firepower, and he needed it NOW.

 

Psionic Sight, the psionic version of true seeing. Andrew figured he'd need it to get around any illusion magic the elves might use. The next obvious choice was Anticipation, a time-based power. It allows you to go first no matter what. If Andrew got backed into a corner, he might need to pull something out of his ass and he needed to make sure he beat everyone else to the punch.

 

Figuring that he was going to need to remove obstacles, Molecular Disruption, the psionic version of the classic disintegration ray was a must. Nothing gets around an obstacle faster than reducing it to a smear of fine grey ash. His final choice would be none other than the single most broken psionic power ever created, in Andrew's opinion. (And that's saying something.)

 

Temporal Velocity.

 

Better known to most as Time Stop.

 

Time Stop was a ninth-circle spell used by archmages. It allowed you to step out of time. You cannot affect anything that is not out of time with you, but you can move around and cast spells. Spell that have a duration will linger and go off when time resumes. A fireball won't hurt anyone, because it burns out too quickly. What you can do is cast Vortex of Teeth with a three minute duration a half dozen times on top of someone. When time restarts someone is going to experience what it is like to be inside a blender set to frappe.

 

What makes it so broken is that psionics get what is supposed to be a ninth-circle spell at sixth. Why? Because psionics might usually suck in comparison to magic ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the one thing psionics does better than anyone else is time manipulation. What better way is there to manipulate time than to stop it cold in its tracks?

 

The psionic version was superior in almost every way. The spell version could at most last thirty seconds, whereas the psionic version could theoretically last as long as you had power points to pump into it. The spell version took six seconds to cast and could thus be interrupted, while the psionic version went off as soon as your turn started. The spell version worked by shouting a command word. For the psionic version, you just needed to think really HARD.

 

There are two downsides to the psionic version. The first is how much energy it took to keep it going. A lot. At best Andrew would have Ninety-six seconds of subjective time, assuming he had cast nothing else that day, then he'd be down to nothing but divine spells. The other downside was a bit more subtle. The human mind is not built to deal with moving sideways through time. Upon returning to real-time, your brain might need to catch up. The spell version cushioned your psyche against this phase change.

 

The psionic version... did not. 

 

Hallucinations, paranoia, panic attacks, and even collapsing from overwhelming terror was not unheard of. The human mind simply is not equipped to deal with non-temporal existence, so the flight or fight response kicks in, and rational thought is often the price. In this regard, the spell version was superior, but if you don't mind a little chrono-psychosis, you too can become untouchable for a minute and a half.

 

---

 

Andrew sat there.

 

 

It took a bit to finalize spending his new level. Internally he cursed for he knew this would screw up his build and there was no easy fix, short of another self-reformation. Alas, he really couldn't afford the permanent stat loss and there was no way he was going to find a crystal to buy.

 

To be forced into making this sacrifice because he helped someone grated on his nerves. It would be easier to cut off his right arm than to do this. You could grow back an arm. He'll, he knew of magical grafts he'd love to REPLACE his arms with.

 

However, he wasn't about to allow anyone to hurt Miriam. There was no way he'd let these elves get away with that. While short term gain at the cost of the long game went against everything Andrew stood for, there was one thing he hated even more than a bad build.

 

Losing.

 

When he finally felt he had done everything he could, Andrew opened his eyes and slowly twisted his head to the side until he cracked his neck. With a deep breath, he straightened up, rolled his shoulders, and uttered three words as he planted his feet on the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Playtime."

 

 

 

 

"Is."

 

 

 

 

"OVER."