With Minions

I also make a few other purchases on the way home: A new computer (the most expensive laptop they had in stock), plus a few accessories (a docking station, the biggest and highest resolution screen they had available, some external storage, a high end Bluetooth, a gaming chair, a few other odds and ends). Carrying is easy: The Warp sphere has a utility talent for storing things with some weight limits, and another for increasing that limit… and I can have as many copies of the increased limit talent as I like. Why yes, I can put ten tons of weight into a space outside of reality and access it all at will: It makes parking a breeze, I just turn off the car, get out, and drop it in storage.

Not that I need my car for much anymore.

I also buy out the local big box stores of all of their salt… and all the neighborhood stores I can find. Then I go home, lock up my apartment, and go into my Magnificent Mansion… where I check online the progress my current minions have made.

It seems I've been gone long enough that my Solar has made a Demiplane for me, and linked it back to my Magnificent Mansion via the Portal option - nice. I check with my ring… not refilled yet. Thinking for a moment, I grin: An intelligent item counts as a creature. casting of Heroic Fortune on my ring, an order to use that bonus hero point to recover a Wish, rinse and repeat twice more… and she's all charged up and ready to go.

So I get to work making more Simulacrums of advanced monsters: Specifically, Vault Builders. They have very little actual casting, but what they have is at a caster level of nineteen. What I'm really after, however, is their Item Shaper ability: It lets them craft eight times as quickly as normal… and I was listening to Adam when he told us about the time tricks he had planned. Oh yes, and I don't need to spend my own time charging them up… just getting salt.

I order QUITE a few items, making a separate Simulacrum for each: I see no reason at all why I should stick to wealth-by-level. I stay away from simple bonuses: There's a metamagic feats I can use to have spells match even the best available items in that regard. So I order up an Earth Elemental Belt so I don't need to worry about people literally pushing me around; a Robe of Eyes so I can't be snuck up on easily; a Mantle of Faith because damage resistance is sweet; Truesight Goggles because I don't want to be tricked by any illusions; Boots of Teleportation to help me get around; a Veil of Attentiveness so I can track as many conversations at once as I like; a Dead Man's Headband to help secure the veil; an amulet of the Planes because taking ten will let me go to a specific spot on any plane… and it's at-will, so two uses gets me anywhere; a Cloak of the Diplomat to make Diplomacy (or rather, Diplomancy) more effective; a Seducer's Bane bracelet to trick anyone who tries to mind control me; plus a slew of slotless items (I have essentially unlimited carrying capacity, after all) and a pair of gauntlets enchanted as weapons: +5 Impervious, Glammered, Ghost Touch, Dueling, Greater Transformative, Endless Ammunition (they can be bows of any type), Defending, and Guardian. The general idea with them is that most of the time I'll have them glammered as simple gloves, with one set at full Guardian for the save bonus, the other at full Defending for the AC bonus… but I can switch them out for melee or ranged weapons as needed. Additionally, I get a shield: +5 Ghost Touch, Radiant, Folding, Greater Energy Resistance (all five kinds), Impervious. As it can sometimes be usable for a shield bash (Folding lets it change class), I also order it enchanted as a weapon just like my gauntlets for that purpose. After some math, I figure out that they'll have my gauntlets ready in about a week, assuming the Solar does the updates in order; the shield will be about three weeks, but still: Not too bad.

As I exit back to the real world, I get a notice from the false Adam in my head: ‘You were targeted by a spell, to which you're immune.’ I frown, because I'm alone… but don't think too much of it. When I get the same notice again a few minutes later, I frown again, and use my ring to go to Adam's beach (and recharge it). When it happens again a few minutes later, I start to worry… but recognize that the effect is remote, and where I am doesn't matter. So I go back to my apartment.

Then I feel a knife slicing my belly open, and feel at a real wound as I hear Adam's voice in my head along with some dice, ‘sixteen slashing damage from a variant Anatomy Doll.’

The wound heals up quickly, my Waxen Regeneration taking care of it easily. As I'm catching my breath, I feel like my head is on fire and I get another notification from ‘Adam’, ‘Seventeen fire damage, ten points negated by fire resistance, from the same doll,’ followed shortly by a feeling like I'm underwater and another notice from ‘Adam’ about my not drowning.

Then my phone gives me a text notification, and I stop feeling like I'm underwater.

My Waxen Regeneration kicks back in after a few seconds - fire temporarily turns it off - recovering the damage as I set my phone down so I can actually read it, and open up my texts. I find the new text, from one of those five digit pseudo-numbers for business texting. It has an address, plus a short message: “7 pm. Bend the knee. Or die. Your call.”

Is it wrong to admit I had to look up the expression?

I check the address out online… a warehouse owned by some company I've never heard of. The street view is apparently from six months ago, but the place was well kept up at that time, at least.

I check the clock and directions… I can get there, but don't have much time to prepare. Hmm. I could die… everything else works, it’d probably get them off my back, and I have like four different return paths set. Of course, that would hurt, and I’d have to NOT do my ‘giving back’ thing to stay dead in their eyes. Hmm… still… I cast Delay Pain on myself. Yes, I'm already immune to pain effects, but the text says I'll stop feeling it.

Not entirely sure if I’ll go through with it, I have my Ring make a Simulacrum of itself, wear the copy, and leave the original behind on a Simulacrum of a Solar, set to be able to use the original ring and with a few orders for both of them… as well as emptying my Warp Storage into my private Demiplane. I keep my phone, wallet, and keys, plus the fake Mythic ring (testing it via See Invisibility and confirming the fake works) and head out.

I stop at the address, and look at it with my own eyes. It's a two-story tall building with a flat roof, a pattern brick facing, and what looks like a little office space. The whole thing looks about four hundred feet in a side, and has those weird raised garage door things that all warehouses have regularly spaced along one wall. The grounds seem maintained: The fence around the place is in order, the grass is mowed, and there's no graffiti. There's one vehicle in the parking lot, a plain white cargo van with an “XMT” license plate.

I still have a few minutes, so I use my ring to look through the walls of the van… and find it has lead paint, blocking my Ring of X-Ray Vision. Well… I'm Invisibile… I slide underneath, and find they didn't lead the floor. Inside, there's a slightly fat guy in a cheap suit sitting in a very comfortable chair in front of a computer, a VR rig on his head and what looks suspiciously like Power Gloves from an old game system on his hands. The guy isn't moving much… I can see him breathing, but that's it; he could easily be asleep… which is strange, as he's sitting right next to a rather large gurney kind of like I've seen in ambulances. Lots of straps, currently open. Still, the chair looks really comfortable.

One Detect Thoughts spell later… yep, he's conscious, has an intelligence score of twelve… and he's actively thinking: ‘Okay, so… I'm in the office pool saying that he won't submit. The betting says I have to wait a full hour, but we have a little while until the official deadline. How much… ah, my watch says another ten minutes. Okay. So I have another hour and change until I can claim my winnings…

Huh, a little confusing… he's not standing, and didn't move to check his watch… but he clearly thinks he is. Very strange, what could explain that?

Well… he is the enemy, and he's right here… I use the Mind Sphere from Spheres of Power: Enthrall so he likes me, Mind Spy so I can see through his eyes, both with the Subtlety talent just in case, the Persistent Spell metamagic so he has to save twice, and the Burrowing Spell metamagic because I don't have line of effect roght now.

Both spells take.

And the man's senses say he's in the warehouse, looking around idly, and pacing slightly. Ah, so he's piloting a remote, okay… but why doesn't he so much as twitch? He's got gloves, they should be moving… huh. Something to think on.

I examine the warehouse through his eyes… it's big, well-lit, and empty. Concrete floor, white painted steel columns every fifty or sixty feet, white painted steel trusses holding up the ceiling… oh, cameras on each of the support columns, looking all directions… okay… insulation on the walls and roof. He's actually in the office space - kind of, there's a big picture window

Well, it doesn't generally pay to be late.

I take a moment to summon decoy, walk to the door of the office portion, ring the doorbell, and wait.