Hayden Flux's long-shed eyes widen very quickly as everyone begins to move at once. The summons have their orders: They don't need further directions… but they're not nearly as skilled of combatants as Alice. Fortunately, they only need to target her armor css., and there's enough of them that, yes, Alice is almost immediately held arms down in the ground… which looks bizarre when I can't see the people holding her, like she's acting.

  I stick to my part of the pn: Cleaning Alice is my current priority, so I cast for that, and blow the spell away this time… the dice like me, it seems. I shout, “Clear!” and use my standard action to ready a swift: Fireball Hayden when she casts… because it is very difficult to keep a spell going when you're burned while casting… and I yell the minion wearing me to do basically the same, but with weapons.

  Charlene changes the orders for her pets and I watch as her Klickiharp and drone both cut loose on the baddie at range… to very little effect. Brenna summons her Mystic Fre and fires it... also a miss. Alice curses and grabs at Hayden as the summons release her Alice… she doesn't get a grip, sadly.

  The evil lich starts casting… and gets caught in the fmes (as does Alice, but she doesn't care), failing to get off a Mass Baelful Polymorph spell (Yay Mysticism) as her silver ballgown (apparently disguised armor) deflects the bsts from my minion. Unable to cast, she draws her sidearm, grinning like a gargoyle.

  She's not scared. She's not running. That's a bad sign.

  We keep at her, Charlene ordering her minions through firing; Alice, my minion, and Brenna firing; me bsting with fireballs whenever the lich acts… and the lich simply calmly picking us all off one by one with double shots from her sidearm… acid damage, apparently. Wings of Cover helps… but doesn't stop the double shots from Hayden.

  Alice falls first, then Brenna, then Charlene (and with her, almost all of the summons)… and then my carrier… at which point, I stop casting: I don't want to die for real.

  I wait, patiently, as Hayden shakes her head, “Pity… they would have made fine servants.” she pauses, “They still might… when I can find the materials for animating them. For now… I have a ship… let's see what else I have….” I watch patently as she goes through all our gear: The wrecked mech suits, the weapons, the various utility items we all carry, and shakes her head, “Junk, all of it. Still… okay for minions, I suppose.”

  I try very hard not to react when she picks me up, “Hmm… you were used for casting… I am going to need to get a good look at you…”

  Hmm… I am, technically, an enchanted item right now. If she doesn't delve too far… I wait as she looks at me. If push comes to shove, I'll just leave the ship entirely… let her deal with the fact that it will simply dissolve… but I do wait to see what she does.

  “Well that doesn't make sense… just a minor weapon enchantment on a ring?” She frowns, then smiles, “which means this is an artifact, or at least a relic. Perfect. Now all I need to do is research how you work my little friend.”

  I calmly wait as she slips me on her finger, and heads to the bridge, where she opens the door easily… but the biometric… oh, I get it. One of my companions probably added her at her request. Annoying… and sits down, going through an inventory of the ship's systems. “No guns? Eugh. Very good engines… minimal shields… okay, yes, those are probably the best sensors I've ever seen…” Her eyes go very wide when she reaches the cloak, “A cloaking device? That fools how good of sensors? AND lets the ship move? I can fly this ship under the radar anywhere? …and it makes fuel for itself to boot.”

  She leans back and taps her fingers together, “Okay, this wasn't a complete waste of time. This is probably the perfect ship for scouting and spying, and will make a fine chariot once I upgrade the power core, shields, and weapons…” she sighs, “...once I have some serious capital.” She shakes her head, “Well, we're heading to Absalom Station, huh? That works… a few courier gigs, maybe get some crew under my thumb… or just go for broke and Charm a few businessmen like st time… lessons learned about how to control folks: Fear only works up until someone who can conceivably shield the minion gets involved.” She shakes her head, “and I need to stop talking to myself… bad habit. Helped when I was stuck in a box, but…” she shakes her head and goes silent.

  I wait patiently on her finger, accessing the ship's computer and watching what she does that way when I can't just see what she's doing. She inspects every inch of the ship, finds our stash of UPBs, and actually takes the time to repair the floor and walls around our battleground.

  I wait patiently, and - when she pces me in a jewelry box - I wait until I hear her leave, then summon my minion, have him get me out of the box, cast Invisibility on us, and Warp us both out of the ship… then dismiss my minion, and resume my “normal” shape. My Mythic ring prevents basically anything from finding me, and I can fly… so I simply renew it every few minutes until I'm well out of range of ship's sensors.

  Then I plot a course for Absalom Station, and head that way. Once I'm on the path and inertia will take me to my exit point eventually… I call on the party ghost, “Hey Ferdinand?”

  After a bit, I realize: He's stuck in the waiting room until… right. I'm going to be a mother. Again. Ugh. Well… I have found a few annoying points to my build. I want to change it up. So I focus on getting to the waiting room while I zone out in the pink and purple void… until, yes, I find myself on the wrecked rainbow bridge.

  …where everyone is waiting, “Are you still alive?” Alice is looking at me, concern on her face.

  “I escaped, yes,” I grin, “and as I'm resting now, in eight hours or so that evil dog will find herself alone in the void.”

  Brett rubs his chin, “Do you think a phyctory works across the Drift barrier?”

  Ferdinand shakes his head, “No, it does not: That would technically be magic-assisted travel. Drift travel is very dangerous for a lich of any stripe. If her electroencephalon is on the prime, and she's on the Drift… she's going to need to stay active if she doesn't want to stay dead.”

  Charlene’s turn to frown, “if?”

  The ghost shrugs, “How can you be sure that the box you found isn't hers? If she's aware of the Drift problem - and she probably is - she'd need to have it for travel in case something happens… but might not want you to think it was personally important to her so you don't automatically think of breaking it if you figured out - like you did - that she had turned on you.”

  I nod slowly, “Wheels within wheels, multi-level precautions for multiple contingencies… we most likely will never know for certain.”

  “Unfortunately,” Brett shakes his head. “Anyway… why are you here? We're not leveling up yet, so we just need you out there to revive the rest of us.”

  I shrug, “I want to revise my build. I found a few annoying weak points, and think I've figured out how to mitigate them… I'll have a long buff routine, but I'll only need to do it on level up.”

  “Okay, I'll bite, how does that work?” Brett tilts his head.

  I expin in excruciating detail:

  Spoiler“All right, so I turn in my ‘off’ levels, taking the Walking Deity and Primarcane temptes from Spheres of Power… mostly for the infinite Mythic power and infinite spell points. I burn some oath talents and a feat to grab two different Conbat Sphere talents to meet some qualifications.

  I take a breath and keep going, “For my main side, I go all in with Eldritch Godling like I have been, using Magic is Magic as a keystone. My racial levels all have casting and so I keep the one and a half caster level progression. That puts me at caster level seven for everything.”

  “And it means your Conjuration Companion will have like six hit dice… nice.” Alice follows along.

  I smile, “Yes, but the real gem will be taking the Sphere Bound trait and having it for the Pilot sphere from Spheres of Might. Specifically for the Personal Starship option, using the ‘not for character scale combat’ adaptation notes.”

  “So… your personal Starship will be the same tier as the party ship. Umm…” Charlene frowns.

  “Yes..." Alice has quite the thinking face, "And if I go with the Conscript Sphere Specialization too, I could get it a level above.”

  I nod at her, “Yes. So I propose you build the mothership - a bulk freighter with four shuttle bays, the Industry, Fuel Synthesizer, Drift Engine, Gray Cloak, and Data Net. For the party ship and the rest of us, we do tier five Tugs with high end sensors and weapons, data nets, and load those in the shuttle bays when not in use to take advantage of the cloak and Drift engine.”

  “Ah, I don't have room in my build for that many feats….” Charlene objects.

  “Non-issue,” I smile, “Extra Combat Talent is a combat feat, so I can get you as many as you like with repeated castings of Heroics from Spell Compendium.”

  “Temporary talents don't work for…” Brett starts to object.

  “Temporary talents are those you'll have for less than twenty-four hours,” I snipe the objection. “With the third-party Stack Metamagic feat, the Extend Spell Metamagic feat, Metamagician on my Mythic ring, and unlimited Mythic power from the Walking Deity tempte… well, if I apply Extend Spell ten to the power of a hundred times, a one round spell will outst the stars. I just need you to natively have enough to qualify for Sphere Bound, and I can repce your losses to meet that.”

  “And how do we handle the crew for the big ship?” Brenna is coming around.

  “Massive numbers of Conjuration Companion summons, built the same way.” I smile, “which I can have, because the same method works for the Enable Function spell for the Extra Magic Talent feat.”

  Alice rubs her chin, “Does that work for the Extra Skill Talent and Extra Skill Leverage feats Spheres of Guile and the Open Minded feat from the Expanded Psionics Handbook?”

  I shrug, “Yes, as long as you can point me at the feats, they don't have requirements you aren't meeting honestly, and you're a Construct.”

  Brett pauses, “Let's coordinate, then, and we can all be omniskilled omnicasters with an army of summons.” He smiles and looks at me, “You do exactly the build you pnned. The rest of us take your same primary track, skip the Walking Deity tempte, use Primarcane, and dip whatever to get things we want… I'll take a level in Conscript to get the Pilot Sphere specialization so we can have a tier six mothership, for example... and some rocking armor.”

  I consider, “That sounds good.”

  “How are you pnning on avoiding getting shot like you have been?” Alice asks.

  I shrug, “The monster feat, Innate Magic, applies to the Alteration sphere for Object Transformation with extra spell points, Greater Changes, Extreme Changes, and Retain Ability. I drop binus feats from my race - I don't need them anymore - and get down to Tiny. That will reduce me to a seemingly inconsequential object while keeping key racial abilities. I pn to go with a nice decorative face mask, or maybe a neckce.”

  We get to work… I end up as an Eldritch Godling-5//Primarcane-2/Walking Diety-3 for my build stub (the two temptes getting a one CR discount each because they don't come with the stat boosts). My “Native” feats go to meeting requirements: I need two different Combat Spheres to qualify for Spherebound (I go with Pilot and Berserking), only one of which can come from the Oath system (the second Talent hits at sixth). I also grab Greater Link (so I can take full sensory information from my summons), Merged Summons (so I can borrow a full-sized body with Fusion from Alteration quickly), Extend Spell, and Stack Metamagic (I want to have the keystone features directly).

  As spheres talents are now free, I trade out my racial settings a bit: I don't need Focused Study (4 rp), Static Bonus Feat (2 rp) or the Flexible bonus feat (4 rp)... so I go with a Tiny (4 rp) Fey (2 rp) base form with a Skill Bonus for Stealth (2 rp). Everyone's going to be bigger than me… but I won't need Size Change to be Tiny, and can use it on a Bnk Transformation to be Medium when required. I also greatly reduce my magic tradition. Needing the companion to cast… wasn't great when I had to get away, and I don't really need bonus talents from drawbacks anymore, so I trim my casting tradition down to just Mental Focus and Emotional Casting (which means I can't cast if I'm under a hostile emotion effect - which should be pretty rare - or if I'm critically hit and haven't taken a moment to recover - likewise) to get the Techno-Miraculous boon from the Technomancy sphere, so almost nobody will be able to dispel my magic (they'd need something that doesn't exist in Starfinder).

  So my magic will ignore dead magic pnes, antimagic fields, and dispelling… and will st essentially forever. Nice!

  I briefly look over the other's sheets:

  Charlene grabbed the Incanter specialization for Conjuration on her dip, and took the Spherebound trait for Conjuration besides… she's going to have a native Conjuration caster level of ten, and is all-in on summons (they'll have some eight hit dice, and any she has take the Mage Archetype will end up with a Spheres caster level of six... or better, there's some fun tricks she can do).

  Brett did the same as Charlene, but for Life: He's going to pretty much be the ultimate healer, including being able to raise the dead.

  Alice of course went with Conscript for her dip, following the pn for the ship… oh, and it still counts as a casting css thanks to the Advanced Magic Training feat? Nice… I'm going to need to remember that, it will really open things up ter.

  We end up needing to back down slightly on the stealth on the “main” (Alice's) ship, as well as the speed and sensors: The Huge frame needed to hold everything, and all the shuttle bays, ate too heavily into our build points. Another level or two, I suppose… but the ships we will individually fly into combat all have turreted Persistent Particle Beams (Long range death), fast engines, top tier sensors, good shielding, and a turretted point defense weapon in case of tracking weapons… but the goal is that we'll be zooming along and shooting anyone hostile from far enough away that they can't even see us… if we get into a fight at all.

  [colpse]Once we're done, I cringe and sign off, knowing what's coming….