A few minutes of life

I don't spend much time with ****: I pick up a couple abilities to make my ship faster (both in the drift and not), the Coven hex to help my Vancian casting (with the help of a particular talent from the Time Sphere), some abilities to upgrade my numbers again (I'm probably going into battle shortly), and a feat I'm only going to use for requirements (Third Eye - the follow up feats are free, but I need the base feat to get them). Update my numbers for the new level… and back to reality.

…where the idiot is still screaming on the shipwide. Ugh, and his voice just SO pushes that button. Actually… one Fleeting Silence spell and I don't need to listen to him anymore, which affords me enough mental bandwidth to think. The ship's cameras just aren't going to locate me, and I'm not actively doing anything that would fall under Life's domain… but I can't rule out that she has similar books to ****'s. And of course, capital-L Luck, so if the idiot comes looking for me… and yep, I can see his mind making a B-line for me. Heh. Neither of us can hide our general location from the other… I toss a few fresh buffs on myself as he comes… and almost lose my nerve with the plan when I see the Adonis.

His flawless face is visible and perfect hair are visible through his clear helmet… the rest of him is covered: Starguard powered armor, with four visibly mounted weapons: A Paragon Nanite Thrower, a Paragon Gyrojet Rifle, a Paragon Seeker Rifle, and a Paragon Reaction Cannon… all of which are dripping with magic seals. And it looks like he's still screaming into a microphone, the handsome devil.

…stupid curse…

A frown shows on his perfect lips and he stops talking when he sees my decoy… closes his eyes, and powers up his weapons… and somehow, he reacts faster than I do, firing two perfect shots directly at me… I survive, but only because of my magic: Delay **** and Eternal Steel. Overstimulate keeps me moving, barely… and I also find myself wrapped up in some kind of netting, and on fire.

I invoke the Unstoppable Mythic base ability three times to get moving freely: Yay for immortality. He raises an eyebrow and mouths, “You're still alive?” …ah, right, Silence spell. Then I fire off my choices: Three full-round actions for the Fear spell from the Bard list. Why? Because that particular one still has some effect even on a successful save (Shaken)... and fear effects stack. Save on all three, you're STILL Panicking, sucker. And due to Technological Wonders, it's forever. For my Swift actions I just spam Destruction Blasts, using my free metamagic to apply Maximize (so there's no damage dice), Twin Spell (to double it), Split Ray (works fine on Ranged touch attacks to double it again), and Quicken Spell (so it fits in as a Swift action).

And they all miss. Well, area attacks next time… and something in his armor flashes to my magical sight; he does not run screaming. He has his own countermeasures… pity. And… he focuses briefly, an old, corroded, and worn x-cannon appears in his hands, which he fires… and then it is lights out for me.

————————————

I wake up blind, and activate my Hardlight Body… I see I'm drifting through the Drift, naked once again. Well, that's fixable. I take a moment to try and call my artifacts to me… and nothing happens?

“Hey ****, what's going on?” I frown.

That familiar itch… “Ah, that. The rules you pull yourself don't exist while you're dead, so the artifacts imploded. It's been four days, you revived via Rejuvenation, that first level pick.”

“So I can completely revamp the Mythic portion of my build, then?” I consider. I could divide the artifacts more efficiently… oh, and I do qualify for Complete Reversion from Spheres of Power now. Hmm… rings, then, as they're easy to hide… especially on my shadow.

I get to work, buffing myself back up (which involves giving myself Personal Starship again - with a new design assuming I can cast spells on it, because I may as well - which materializes around me, and getting another portable grinder for crafting from magically created permanent gear, setting up a crafting minion, casting lots of spells on myself, and so on). When I'm done, my shadow wearing my armor (I've reached a point where I can actually get better defenses from the Junk Armor spell than I can from actual armor!), something occurs to me, “Hey, ****?”

“What can I do for you, Dan?” The chill voice of the grave responds.

“Where's my power coming from?” It's bugging me now. “You mentioned you're only supplying for actual level ups….”

“Huh, give me a bit…” he pauses, “...you're leeching the potential energy difference from the planes.”

Umm. “What?”

“The planes. The Prime Material, the Drift, the Plane of Fire, and so on.” The very cold voice elucidates, “They're all separated by some amount. You are generating power by allowing them to drift closer. That's what's running your non-magical magic, the faux-divinity, and so on.”

Umm… “What happens when I draw enough that they collide?” I don't want to spark an apocalypse….

“Not going to happen,” My patron reassures me, “The planes are infinite, literally so: Dad tends to overengineer things. At worst, if you go really, really crazy with it, you'll bend them towards each other enough to precipitate a local planar breach - and it wouldn't be long before things straighten themselves out. We'd maybe get a couple of elementals running around on the material plane or some such, not a big deal, hardly noticeable when mortal Wizards summon them across regularly anyway.”

Hmm. Wonder if we can adapt you to my power… “Thank you.”

“Happy to help. Be seeing you…” **** signs off.