The Power of Ten

Chapter 9-272: Some Pain and Suffering

Purity can work wonders multiple Pacts cannot, Fred tapped calmly. That said, there is a lot to be said for pain relief.

Yeah, Im, like, just because of that, Im surprised you dont stay that way.

Im sharing with a bunch of Hellbound women who dont particularly like it, he admitted. Its also a form of theft Im not exactly comfortable with.

Erm. Cant you, ah, borrow their appearances?

Yes. Core power of the Hungry Kiss Pact when you Consume a woman. Hungry Heart does the same on the Demonic side for men taking men, he confirmed.

Right, stealing someones life is just murder and theft of the highest order, the holo-gnome murmured. Would you be permitted to for infiltration purposes?

There are less murderous ways of gathering information and changing your appearance, Fred typed. Im not a dop. -Nor-, he thought, -am I Shvaughn, who would do so without batting an eye.-

That said, the women had been extremely useful for hunting down dozens of total bastards as bad or worse than themselves. He didnt like doing it, but they had all deserved to burn, for stuff that went well beyond merely tormenting a mighty angel that could have saved them all.

Idiots hungry for power. He could only sigh, and his hellscars blaze hungrily at his guilt, self-reproach, and judgmental anger.

It was indeed useful to have something handy that would feast happily when you sinned as a warning sign, although the women inside him didnt much seem to think so. They were burning all the time, just like him, except their Sins ran much, much deeper...

He would open a dialogue with them at some point, because there was no reason not to. Shvaughn would just take what she wanted from them, treating them as callously as they had treated everyone else, turning them into victims of their own making once more, likely before taking any semblance of self-identity they had remaining and just subsuming them into the gestalt personality shed made of herself.

Well, I doubt theres anyone around who would blame you for opting out of those scars, given what youve been through.

It was meant to be encouraging. After all, a gender swap wasnt a small thing in the eyes of society.

I would blame me, he tapped out with a silent sigh. That was the thing about being Heavenbound: it didnt make this a decision of simple convenience for himself. Doing this, trapping the souls of those women, his Hellpact burning them greedily as it waited for all of them to be sent to Hell; had he really done all that just to get strong enough to pull that angel out of there?

Yes, Traveler had made the decision, and she could be terrifyingly ruthless when it came to such things. But...

She had told him that she expected to be removed from the world when the Shroud collapsed. She would not be here to see what would happen afterwards, and so there were things she had to do, to get in place, before the Shroud was destroyed, and whatever lay out there beyond the Haze came down to entertain itself.

She was pretty certain there was a city of near-Titanic undead on the moon, held off only because they didnt want to be enslaved to the Shroud, but doubtless looking to set up their own necromantic empires when it went away.

They would have to be taught a lesson, and that meant there would have to be people here who could teach them that lesson.

What, he wondered, would people do when the gods actually started talking back to them? Making actual demands of them? Would those people who were happily falling into Evil powers suddenly realize the implications of what they were doing, had done, had gotten themselves into?

That there really and truly were unholy powers in the universe, and those idiots were now under obligation to those forces?

That the only thing they had of worth in the eyes of those forces was their souls, and that only while they lived? After they died, they were just currency, raw materials to be refined and the profits of the Alignment Wars extracted from them?

Heaven and Hell burned over his soul; his Pacts were never silent, never still. There were no words, no guides to behavior, save those the Angelos had passed down... and the Angelos had never claimed to be able to truly interpret Heavenly will and desires.

Indeed, the angel had stated that Free Will was the foundation of mortal life, and him interfering with mortal choices of what was Good simply removed any benefit from the conflicts that Good might harvest.

Free to choose. Free to walk away. Free to Rise, free to Damn themselves.

Without that freedom, they were but slaves to an arm of the conflict, giving nothing, gaining nothing, nothing more or less than the Soulborn who had already given up their Free Will at death, having made their choices.

The Angelos had been happy to relay what the various Faiths of the gods considered proper forms and rituals, the purposes behind them, and what the gods represented, bringing them all into what was truly an interplanetary, interdimensional Faith that could unite them all... and when and if the gods actually could answer, would see them prepared for that eventuality.

His Hellpact wanted him to take the power that he could from those who were weaker, as was his right; dominate, possess, hoard, and centralize all that power and influence to himself. The Hungry Kiss concentrated that desire against women, as the Poison Kiss did against men.

Take everything they had and were for yourself, do it again when you wanted to. The difference between the infernal Kiss Pacts and demonic Heart Pacts was largely a matter of style, of discipline vs. whim, division and lust of the sexes vs envy of others of the same sex.

As Eryllian and Ruedian Amazon Pacts basically preyed upon the differences between the sexes, he wondered if the Hungry Kiss Pact had been devised to take advantage of them. It would not have surprised him at all. It didnt work on the Amazon Pacts from the Good goddesses, after all...

It appears that it is time to make some of them an offer, he thought, and his Sight turned inside.

---

There were fourteen of them there in his Pactspace. Their souls were all bound up against the beating Runes of his Hellpact, the vestigial hellfire burning over them, feasting on their Sins, surging up whenever he indulged in Sin, and also whenever he resisted it.

Only doing nothing, like right now, as he basically watched Traveler spilling the beans to the world of Racial Class Levels, were they not really screaming.

They couldnt see or hear one another, but they could see and hear him, and feel his presence, which was not unexpected. It gave them a chance for them to beg and plead, and for him to play with them.

The Runes of his Heavenpact glowed electrum and gold beneath and through his Hellpact, restraining most of its power... but what is room inside a metaphysical space? Each of those womens souls were chained right to an infernal Rune, and the relief and mercy that might be grasped by touching the Runes of Heaven were metaphysically out of reach, no matter how close they seemed to be.

His other Pacts were scattered between the two major ones, with the winds and lightning of his Storm Pact swirling around, and his current Land Pact manifesting as mountains and hills here and there. Other Pacts hed Sworn that were not active rotated around as ribbons and scrolls of profound Calligraphy, or crystalline Patterns or Rune-filled liquids.

The subordinated Pacts of twelve of them, hovering over each captive soul, but severed in effects, also waited there.

Nine Ruedian Amazon Pacts, fallen from Eryllian, and three Burning Veil Hellpacts, along with Hungry Kiss a Pact generally awarded by an erinyes.

The final two women were Priestesses of Rue, and had literally nothing to offer him other than intelligence on who the souls most fit to be burned to power the Ward were. He wasnt Powered, and couldnt use their Clerical abilities. They literally had no value to him now that their knowledge of people was used up.

All the women were glowing various shades of crimson, and the hellfires were caressing them inside and out, bringing their Sins to light like dark embers under the skin of their souls, flaring here and there as particularly sumptuous morsels came to the light of recollection.

They couldnt shout at him, because he didnt let them. He could and had taken their voices, even if he couldnt use them right now.

I Have A Proposal For You.

He had their immediate attention, but that wasnt something hard to get. He was literally the only break from pain and torture that they had. They wanted to shout and scream at him, but all they could do is bulge their spiritual eyes, writhe a bit more, and maybe curse him to themselves, maybe plead. He actually wasnt sure which.

It Comes With Full Sensory Input.

Despite themselves, the nine former-Amazons he was speaking to froze. Without their Pacts, they were just normal women, who had lost all their Levels and spiritual strength without the Stats to support it... Stats that had been completely granted by their Pacts. Even their Level-up Stats had been applied to their physicality, meaning all the time and Karma had literally benefited them nothing at all.

A couple of them had 12s. Over half their mental Stats would have been 8-9, perfect fodder for Eryllian dogma.

He ignored the three Warlocks and the two Priestesses. They werent as mentally weak as these nine, and they didnt have the tools for what he could do here.

As You Know, Amazon Pacts Increase The Base Stats Of The Women Who Take Them To 18. What You May Not Have Considered Is The Fact That Those Stats Are Those Of What The Goddesses Consider An Amazon... They Are Not You.

He made nine sets of Stat lines appear here in golden soulfire, their names atop each list. Thoroughly average to below-average, each one of them.

He then added the number of points necessary to increase each Stat to 18 base, six to ten points.

You Probably Dont Know That Five Points In This System Represents A Doubling.

He could feel their consternation. After all, if they were smart or wise, this shit wouldnt have happened to them.

A percentage figure was added to the end of each line. The value ranged from 55% to 75%, depending on the starting number.

This Represents The Amount of Your Personality That Was Not You When You Were An Amazon.

They all twitched and stared despite themselves. At the very, very least, it was more than half, and up to as great as three-quarters. It didnt take much for them to recall how very, very different they thought as Amazons... bold, aggressive, physical, smart, sure, confident, insightful, and determined!

I Am Naturally Not Going To Be Sharing Headspace With Hellbound Amazons. But, Since You Were So Comfortable With Your Amazon Pact Occupying Your Head And Twisting Your Mind And Soul, I Have An Alternative.

He reached out and spiritually tapped the nearest Ruedian Pact, which fluttered with light for a second, as if ready to unleash its blessings upon him or the Oriental woman chained to the Hellrune below it, out of reach.

Her soul was still promised to Rue, and when he went Down, thats where she would go, barring something extraordinary.

That Aspect Of Your Pacts Is Useless To Me. My Mental Stats Are Already Higher Than That.

Courtesy of Traveler, a lot of Nogged Levels burning away his Faux Matrix, Stats from Levels, and blanket +5 Inherent bonuses to all Stats from Wishes.

It meant all his mental Stats were at least 30 right now minimum. Having a total of four thoughtstreams made it a lot easier to keep track of things in his surroundings, and coordinate with others while fighting... or just hold a conversation without actually losing focus.

What I Can Do, However, Is Put Myself Where Your Pacts Put All These Stat Bonuses. So, Instead Of Thinking Like A Hyperaggressive, Sexist, Racist Bitch, Youd Instead Be Thinking Like Me.

And In Such A Circumstance, I Could Probably Tolerate Sharing Awareness With You.

Stats and names and math and everything evaporated as they stared at him, clearly not knowing what to say or think.

------

He withdrew from the Pactspace with that thoughtstream, just as Traveler was finishing up with her video. Behind the scenes, Gregorigori was working fast and furious to get it all ready for downloading and the huge influx of viewers that was going to happen.

Changing worlds within and without. Who knew what might happen?