《Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six》 AF Chapter 0 - Foreword, Synopsis, and Glossary This is Book Six of the Power of Ten, covering the adventures of another one of Aelryinth¡¯s soul shards, Shard Zeks, the second to last of them to be cut away as the Be Gone Curse tries to eradicate the Magos, and is foiled by being severed from him and cut apart. This book takes place in a world outside the Power of Ten¡¯s default power structure, specifically a world very similar to that of Asheron¡¯s Call, one of the first big three MMORPG¡¯s, one of the inspirations and model for World of Warcraft, coming after Everquest Online and Ultima. Those of you who have been following my stories for a long time know the Power of Ten borrows from Asheron¡¯s Call, specifically in the form of the much-lauded and very interactive Allegiance structure that was in the game. The whole concepts of Loyalty and Duty having weight and force in a magical world is directly inspired by the Loyalty and Leadership skills of Asheron¡¯s Call. I began play with Asheron¡¯s Call basically the day of retail, and played daily and for hours at a time for over ten years. I made a great many friends there, had many great times, and one of the saddest times of my life is when I finally decided to hang it all up for good. That moment was basically how I wrote the opening to my Ebook Series, for the original Power of Ten. I had a LOT of time invested in that game, but people basically moved on to something new and different¡­ and eventually, so did I. Part of the research I had to do for the book involved going into the wiki and finding out things, and I was rather amazed to find that there are Emulators out there, non-official Asheron¡¯s Call servers where volunteers are attempting to bring back the game on their own time and merits. These enabled me to log back into the game to check out in person many of the things I needed to know, and verify details so that others can actually follow along in game. The basis of the story is simple: one day, ¡®the servers went down¡¯. In Dereth, the island where AC was played, that would mean magic. On that day, and thereafter, what exactly happened? A world operating on video game magic and rules, suddenly was forced to deal with what passed for reality once again? What happened? Themes of Asheron¡¯s Fall are going to include the fallout of apocalypse, video game logic and how it would interact with reality, including magical reality; contesting magical systems; confronting the utter imbalance between video games and TTRPG¡¯s in how balance is obtained, just how crazy video game logic is in the real world, and trying to convert stats and other things back and forth between two very differents systems trying to achieve the same things. Naturally, I am making some allowances and changes. Resources I used include the following: https://asheron.fandom.com/wiki/Home This is basically a copy of Acspedia, which tends to have connection issues, so I use this. Also, more ads. Amusingly enough, I used to use Sebastian Thor¡¯s personal page as a reference, and this seems to have replaced it. http://www.thejackcat.com/AC/ One of the most famous reference sites during retail, and still up today! The magic section was very helpful. https://planner.treestats.net/ An emulator that plans out your character. Useful in seeing what AC Level Zeks is actually at during the story. The Emulator World of Reefcull! I am currently playing there as Ael, trying to do the things I never got to do towards the end of retail, namely finish the Luminance grind and get me a set of truly uber Armor (A Soldier/Defense set with Legendaries and Zircon Imbues). I am playing a complete gimpy character, a sword and shield reflection of my retail character, and spending too much time at it once again. Happily, I¡¯m already level 258 and have all the base character skills maxed out already. Now I just need to get all the Augments, all the Luminance, and some truly good gear. A special thanks to Cher, Morganon, Dragosun, Morraine, and the other welcoming members of Reefcull, who have been very generous with their time and resources for an old gimp coming in to waste time. http://stevenygard.com/download/ac/dereth-2012-12-detail-2012-12-18.png This incredibly detailed map of Dereth is going to see constant use in this novel, by me at least. You can zoom in and find literally any location in the game up until the end of retail. ================= Like all games, Asheron¡¯s Call has some unique mechanics. 1) Spells are divided by levels into Scarabs. From least to most powerful, they are Lead, Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, Pyreal, Platinum, and Mana. For the purposes of this story, only spells up to Gold are known on Ispar, the source world where humans on Dereth originally come from. 2) As a video game world, there are respawns, there is copious amounts of loot, there is massive amounts of magic, and there is almighty fast leveling¡­ none of which are intrinsic to the Power of Ten, or any ¡®real¡¯ magical world. 3) Asheron¡¯s Call is a completely skills-based system, with no classes. You are defined by the skills you take, and anyone can take any skills they can afford and their stats support. You are called a war mage because you know War Magic, not because you have a class. A swordsman or archer can pick up War Magic, just like you can, with no restrictions. 4) The power of Swearing under someone, the Loyalty Skill, and Leadership are all a separate form of magic. 5) the creatures and peoples of Asheron¡¯s Call are found in no other games, completely departing from any earthly version of a culture¡¯s creatures, be it European, African, or Oriental. Banderlings, drudges, armoredillos, shreth, lugians, virindi¡­ the creatures here come from no other world or storyline. All of them can be looked up on the wiki above. It¡¯s actually one of the reasons I¡¯m setting a story here. 6) There are no gods, per se. Asheron¡¯s Call has a lot of entities who might be called gods, but universally they have a lot more in common with Cthulhu than traditional fantasy gods, and are about as friendly overall. In PoT terms, there¡¯s a LOT of Aberrant influence here, to the point you could easily call this a modified Mythos campaign. 7) I am assuming that there is a great deal of difference between the homeworld of Ispar and that of Dereth, as the humans incoming are woefully underpowered to survive here. That does change fast, however. There¡¯s just a LOT of magic in Dereth. 8) For some real world feel, when using the above map of Dereth, I am basically assuming about five miles to a square. Thus, that entire map is roughly 200 x 200 miles. 9) Unsurprisingly, the towns, villages, and cities do not reflect a proper NPC population whatsoever, and the ingame number of buildings is extremely low for any society. Thus, the small cities there are actually assumed to be much bigger in area, there are far more towns, shops, and houses, and the ¡®game¡¯ areas are basically the city center where the wealthy people do things. ¡®Unseen¡¯ extra buildings, homes, farms, and the like are spread out around the cities properly, but are not seen in the game itself. 10) Pretty much all of the weird magic and limitations and empowerments of the gaming system need to be explained in real life terms. This was part of the fun of writing the story. ------------------- Some Rules for the modified world of the Novel:
    1. As per normal, the Alignments are everywhere, but none of the natives acknowledge them or can sense them. Therefore, the vast majority of powerful beings tend to be Neutral to Evil what¡¯s-good-for-me-is-good. Also, there¡¯s much fantastic specism, as it is humans as just one more of the intelligent magical species on the world, all of them jockeying for territory.
    2. The Rules for the native Dereth/Isparian magic and Power of Ten Wizardry magic are different, but that doesn¡¯t mean there isn¡¯t a Theurgy between them.
    3. Many branches of magic in the Power of Ten are unknown in the Scarab system. Amusingly enough, there¡¯s some similar lack in the other direction, but it is notable that the entire systems of Creature and War magic in Asheron¡¯s Call can, in the Power of Ten, be taken over with three spells and two Metamagic Feats!
    4. Video game creatures are far tougher than ¡®normal¡¯ RPGs.
    5. The Isparian System actually has bright glowing lights and a sound when you gain a Level. So, people are INTIMATELY familiar with levels. Likewise, the ability to analyze objects and deduce their functions and values is widespread, so people are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of many aspects of the system.
    6. Explanations for the magic, the discrepancy, and reality battling to balance it all is one of the points of the novel.
    7. There¡¯s going to be math behind how the magic works. Everyone knows the magic is there, and what numbers to look at, even teaching proper Leveling and Skill selection in schools.
    8. Not planning on starring any AC players much. Those I mention might be in passing and from long ago. If I mentioned any of my own friends, they are in the Ebooks!
    9. The two styles of magic will have very different levels of potency and applicability.
    10. Leveling is one of the things that came crashing down in Dereth. People are restricted to a level per day, and one point per day per each skill or Stat they want to raise. Thus, you can¡¯t kill a monstrously powerful creature and suddenly gain ten Levels. You can gain a Level a day over the next ten days. Likewise, you can¡¯t get a billion xp floating and put it all into one skill to instantly become a master at it. One point a day!
    11. What is known of magic is known on a wide basis. This knowledge sharing is surprisingly egalitarian and open.
    12. The Isparian system caps at 275. The Power of Ten NPC Cap tends to be Six, the PC cap ¡®in reality¡¯ sits about Ten, and the Eternal Cap is Twenty. Yes, very D&Dish.
===================== Into this mix of features, I¡¯m going to be mixing the Power of Ten ¡®reality¡¯. The Rules of Power of Ten are in effect for the story: Extra humanoid Racial Levels can be taken when you reach Four, Seven, Ten (Atlantean Human), and as discovered in Book Three, Fifteen (Advanced Human). The Ten and Fifteen Levels are basically just acquiring the Atlantean and Advanced Templates. All rights reserved to add other Classes the Power of Ten doesn¡¯t normally have (The Rules are Different Here). And the Rules really, really are. Quality Level is a mechanic added in to reasonably restrict how powerful magic items can grow, and Skill Ranks are very important. There are no Bags of Holding or Portable Holes (creating extradimensional holes/pockets). These are excuses for something to come in through the Veil through the weakness and eat you and everything nearby. Shrinking/compression magic is used for this purpose instead (similar to the Pym Particle) via use of Itemize. As a general rule, I like to stick close to the Paizo Pathfinder or 3E Stat line for monsters, but I¡¯m happy to deviate if need be. In particular, monsters having Health Qi to up their staying power is anything but uncommon, and the way many of them ¡®get tougher¡¯ with age. However, there will be some conversions between the two systems. The Skills of Asheron¡¯s Call, in contrast, are covered in the Wiki link above. =========================== The Players! Powered, Primos, Forsaken, Nulls, Voids, Sources, Karma
Powered: The Magic Folks who won the super-power lottery. They can use magic, chi, ki, whatever, they have the potential for it, they only need the Stats and Levels to make use of them. Basically, they have stretchy souls. Primos: The rest of us. Terrans are all Primos. We can learn to use magic items, and accept a Warlock or Binder Pact. Our souls are considered rubbery rigid. The vast majority of humans are simple Primos. Forsaken: Primos who had forsaken Magic are either Nulls, Sources, or Voids. They cannot use any magic, chi, or psionic effects that require them to be projected, Cast, or otherwise, nor most magic items. Nulls: The most common Forsaken, the hardest souls. Reinforce the rules of Reality around themselves. Magic and such energies intruding on their Null simply gets straightened back out to basic background magic, and vanishes into nothingness. Tough and wise. Sources: Radiate magic at its most foundational level, and so burn away higher forms that intrude on their Sun. Effectively Make Fate for themselves. Strong and charismatic, Kings Among Men/Queens Among Women, natural leaders. Voids: Filter magic through themselves, tying themselves to it with every breath and heartbeat. Abnormally sensitive to impurities and disruptions, and driven to get rid of them. Very dexterous and extremely intelligent, their Voids manifest as Helices of different colors dependent on their Order that can drain magic from things around them. Since they are Awakened by the Land, there are Voids in the story. Forsaken are effectively limited to using ki (passive effects only), and some Alchemy in the story. They can use Powered magic items with passive effects, but cannot improve them. Karma: Another term for experience points. Karma is gained many ways, but the universally acknowledged fastest way is to defeat worthy opponents. This can be meta-gamey (evacuating a town before the flood caused by an enemy drowns it) or straight up bashing skulls en masse. Note that slaughtering things that are not a threat to you or yours generally gives you nothing, unless it¡¯s for a greater purpose (i.e. completing the Fountain of Death Becoming to create an undead army, or something). If you are a Good person, saving lives is generally worth much more Karma than taking them... rewarding you for being a hero! Just like classic RPG''s and the video games that borrow from them, it takes more and more Karma to gain every extra Level. You can always keep accumulating Karma even if you can''t Level up, buying Feats, Masteries, Hit Points towards your cap, Secondary Levels, spend them to make magic items, and so forth. A Level is defined as one Character Class Level, One Purchased Feat, and 3 Mastery Advances, in terms of Karma and Caps. For this novel, Powered must Level to gain new caps on Feats and Masteries, and only if they cannot Level can they Train Feats and Masteries sideways. It takes a Stat of 10+Level in the Class you want to take a Level in it. Thus, to be a Ten, you need a 20 in the prime Stat of that Class. It takes an exceptional person to gain Levels. If you play the system, you need a 14 base Stat to make it all the way to Ten eventually. Magical items do NOT count towards this limit! Regardless of how much Karma you have accumulated, you can''t Level up ten times in one day. Between Renewals, you can add one Level, one Feat, advance one Mastery, or train up one Hit point towards your maximum (Health or Soak, not both). You can only put a combination of 1,000 points of Karma and gold combined into a magic item (ONE Magic item!) per day via Infusing or Investing. There are special exceptions to this for Consumables, such as Scrolls and Potions, but largely 1,000 is a Hard Limit, until you get to very high end Forsaken Crafting... This amount of 500 gold + the Karmic equivalent means a ¡®goldweight¡¯, the amount a Powered can Infuse a day, is a Known Standard of value, and the actual value of an object or power comp is generally measured against goldweight. This amount represents approximately five pounds of gold, half a pound of platinum, or fifty pounds of silver (pure, unrefined, uncrafted).
---------------- THE LIMITS!: Ten, Valence, First and Second Ceilings, Gaining Levels/Feats/Skill Points, Primary and Secondary Classing, Prestige Classes, Renewals
The Power of Ten was largely an E10 world, meaning characters were mostly limited to Ten. The Human Race is largely an E6 world... the vast majority of characters don¡¯t ever exceed Six. Spells are limited to Valence III at Six. Post-Six characters with higher Slots can meta their spells to be more powerful, but D&D level 6+ spells are not possible to cast, and 4-5th Level spells are incredibly rare. The First Ceiling is Level Six. This is the limit for a normal mortal/human. It is by definition the limit of being Human. If you are a Seven, you are by definition a post-human. Thus, Tarzan, Batman, and the like, who are not post-humans, are Sixes. If you are a Seven, you¡¯re better in some way than Batman is. The average level of an experienced Terran Primos is Two. An elite is a Three. An Olympian/World-Class is a Four, and the best in the world today might be a Five. There are probably no Sixes alive on Terra, as it¡¯s much too hard to get there without healing magic. Batman would be a Deep Six... a Six with a LOT of secondary Classes, and many Feats and Masteries, and a nigh-perfect Stat Line. The Second Ceiling is Level Ten. Only truly legendary characters exceed Level Ten. The limit on Stats for a human body is 30-35. After that point, your body is basically a magic item, your mind is thinking in the akasha outside your skull, and so forth. Your strength is more telekinetic than physical. Twenty is the absolute Mortal Limit. After Twenty, you become Eternal, stop aging, and will not die of natural causes, you can only be killed. The Road to Twenty is the Road to the Eternal. Powered gain 10 years of additional prime years (normal age 20-40) for every Level they have... meaning they also live longer than the rest of us. Forsaken do the same. Primos who become Forsaken at Seven get back the years, which can rapidly de-age them, as do Primos who swear a Warlock Pact and become pseudo-Powered. Secondary Classing is allowed. One¡¯s Primary Class is not fixed until Level Four...the first Class to reach Four is your Primary forever, so prepare well! Your Secondary Classes are limited to half the level of your Primary, rounded down, +1. Thus, at Ten, the maximum Class Level you can have in a Secondary Class is Six. Gaining a Level in a Secondary Class costs exactly what it would cost to gain your next Level in your Primary Class. Skill points gained from a Secondary Class MUST be spent on Class Skills for that Class. Likewise, any Stat advances from Secondary Classes must be spent on the Prime Requisite of that Class. Any Feats and Masteries taken must also involve Skills or features related to that Class. You gain no bonus Skill points from Intellect from taking Secondary Classes, nor extra hit points. You do get the best of the Save/Resist Bonuses by Class, and Attack Bonus. You also do not gain any weapon or armor proficiencies, or other starter bonuses only available at Level One. There are Prestige Classes, which are basically special niche Classes or work off combinations of one or more main Classes. The main Classes are where the real power is. Most such Classes are 5 Levels long, and cap at Ten (i.e. require you to be a Ten to take the final Level). You gain a Stat point at Level 4 in any Class, and again at 8. When you first reach Ten, you gain +1 to all Stats (only once). Skill Ranks impose absolute limits on certain things you can learn and know. If your Soul is not developed enough, you simply can¡¯t understand certain things. The existence of Levels is widely known and understood. Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are fundamental forces that empower the universe, not philosophical arguments. Creation refers to the multiverse of multiverses. Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the Power of Ten all exist in Creation, although the rules of their realities might be wildly different. There is no war in Heaven. Renewal is your Reset time, when your Magical Day begins. It calculates the duration of all day-long spells, the reset on x/day abilities, when you can begin enchanting magical items again, when you can rememorize spells, when you roll again for saves to throw off an effect, and the like. Anyone who has gone through a Renewal knows exactly what it feels like, and so can track days passing by their Renewal. (Yes, I borrowed the concept shamelessly from the Dresden Files). The vast majority of Renewals are at Dawn. Other popular times are Noon, Dusk, and Highmoon (midnight). Renewal is based on personal time. Going to a world with week-long days, a Renewal is still once a day. The time of day can be changed by eschewing Renewal at the proper time, and proceeding to the time you want to Renew at. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ FEATS AND MASTERIES: Explanations of what they are
Feats represent special tricks and capabilities that build upon other basic abilities, and come in all types and flavors, magical and not magical. They are analogous to some of the Skills of video games, but virtually all Feats are passive in nature. The ability to Power Attack, giving up accuracy for a considerable boost to damage, or focusing solely on kill-points, is a Feat that builds over time. However, Skill Focus Feats give a +3 bonus to using a Skill, which doubles at Ten to +6. Melees, Archers, and Scouts have access to Class Features that basically supercharge certain Feats, allowing them to improve with time. It¡¯s how the Primos truly improve over time. Many Feats require you to be a certain Level, have certain Stats, possess certain Class Features, be of a certain Alignment, or know other Feats and Masteries to take them. Power Feats are certain stacking Feats that can only be taken once per every three full Levels. Masteries are basically half- or minor Feats that represent increasing proficiency in a specific area. If applied to a Skill, they give Competency bonuses and count as Skill Unlocks. In other areas, they serve as ways to upgrade a power or ability over time. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Because they have no access to magic or spellcasting, Forsaken and Primos focus on Feats. Any time a Forsaken or Primos gains a Feat when Leveling or from a Class, they gain an extra Feat. If a Forsaken or Primos takes a Class that has magical ability or Casting, any Level where they would gain a Spell or similar power, they instead gain a Feat appropriate to that Class. Competence bonuses for Skills are limited to +5, exactly what you get from a Mastery. Most other Bonuses are limited to +3 at Ten. Magical items that buff ability scores are limited to +5 at Ten. ----------------- The Stats! Strength (Str), Intellect (Int), Wisdom (Wis), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution (Con), Charisma (Cha), Health, Soak (Hit points), and what they mean in real terms.
-Human Stats average 10-11 as a baseline. As PoT mirrors reality, most women take a -2 penalty to Strength. Conversely, they gain +2 to any other Stat, up to the human maximum of 18. This means women don¡¯t make the best Melee Fighters, but they definitely make the most talented multi-discipline Casters! - Every 5 points represents a doubling. So, a Strength score of 20 is basically about as strong as 4 men, and a 20 Intellect can match wits with 4 average people easily. -The total bonus of a Stat increases by +1 every 2 points past 10, and is a penalty in the other direction. The subordinate score increases by +1 in between (i.e. Might increases before Power for Strength). -The normal human Stat maximum at career start is 20 (base 18, +2 for starting choice reflecting training). In the real world, the human maximum is about 23. It is VERY difficult for an average human to train beyond that level. Having a Stat of 24+ basically means you are beyond human in some way. People who are born with natural 18¡¯s and train to make it a 20 are incredibly rare... but not on Player Character Creation sheets, it seems... -If you want to see what a 22-23 represents, pull out the Guinness Book of World Records! ---Ogres have a Str score of 21 on average, making the average Ogre stronger than all but the very strongest humans, and they have Cons of 18, making them incredibly tough. Spider-man sits in the mid-40 range since he can toss a car, the Thing has a Might of about 60 (Power low since he¡¯s not very fast), and the Hulk a Str of 60+ (fast AND strong!). ---Succubi have Charisma scores of 26 (+8) on average, making them more charming than any human on Earth. Napoleon rode an 18-20+ Charisma to historical immortality, despite being nothing much to look at. --Intellect maps to IQ. An Intellect of 13 is the smartest person in the room. 14, in your grade. 15, in your grade school. 16, in your high school. 17 is a true genius, and best in your college. 18, probably in your state. 20, probably in your country. 22, probably the planet (Sherlock Holmes range). Batman probably has a 23, and Lex Luthor a 24-26 (and a lot of Feats/Masteries). Reed Richards is probably in the 30¡¯s, but has no ceiling, since he can grow his brain. -Spider-man has a reaction time 15x a human athlete, and perfect balance and body control. That puts his Dex score in the 38-40 range (+14-15). The best snipers in the world will have Precision about 20, while the best yoga masters and gymnasts will have Agility in the same area. -The wisest and most cunning advisors and plotters in history have Wisdom scores in the 20-22 range, which is about the basic level of a lesser Angel. The way Shakespeare¡¯s Plays have endured the centuries is a timeless testament to the wisdom of their writer. ------ Strength/STR: Physical power, divided into Might (lifting, breaking, bending, damage) and Power (how fast you can use your Might, hitting stuff, control). Power cannot be higher than Might. Someone with high Might but low Power could carry a mountain, but only throw it a couple feet, for instance. Someone with high Might will generally have massive musculature, while someone with Power will appear more toned, lighter on their feet, and faster. A body builder, for example, has high Might, but probably has less Power than an MMA fighter. Strength is very important to a Melee combatant, signifying speed and control of a weapon, and being able to wield heavier arms and armor. A mighty warrior wields bigger weapons (perhaps ridiculously so), but a Powerful one controls them more easily and swings them faster and more lightly. Dexterity/Dex: Agility and Precision. Not Speed. NOT SPEED. Speed is derived from Power. Agility is quick reaction times and dodging stuff, like Spider-Man doing his thing to avoid all the Green Goblin Shurikens, and twisting around like a pretzel. Precision is control, balance, a steady hand, and affects to-hit rolls with missiles, finesse combat, and when working on delicate tasks. These factors tend to be equal, but it would easily be possible for a tumbling acrobat to have a higher Agility than Precision, while a sniper might go the opposite direction. High Dex people are graceful, flexible, controlled, precise, steady, and balanced, and move with efficient motions. Dex is NOT SPEED! It¡¯s vital to both quick-reacting and agile combatants, such as Scouts, and ranged combatants, like Archers. Constitution/CON: Vitae, the power of your lifeforce/soul, and Vitality, same for your body. They tend to be equal, strong soul breeding strong body, but do not need to be. Vitae governs bonus to Class Levels/Soak, and Fortitude saves to resist things that affect the life/soul (life drains, necromancy, etc). Vitality governs the bonus to Hit Dice/Health and Fort saves against things that affect the body (fatigue/exhaustion, poison). People with high Constitution are in extremely good Health and phenomenally tough, able to keep going when others fail, and resist negative energy attacks more easily. Intellect/Int: Reason and Memory. Reason is the ability to figure out things rapidly, working through a new problem. Memory is retaining what you know. Reason governs present skill rolls for many crafting and profession skills, and Memory how many Skill Points you get. A high Intellect person knows a lot of things, and can apply them effectively and consistently, figuring stuff out faster than those around them. People who work with Arcane magic and Crafters, as well as Skill-heavy folk, need high Intellects. Wisdom: Divided into Experience and Insight. Experience is what allows a Wise person to pick the best option out of many available, doing the right thing at the right time. Insight allows a Wise person to know what is out of place, including things affecting themselves, and so pursue harmony. A Wise person can give (and take) good advice easily... or horribly wrong advice, if they choose. They tend to be hard to sway, self-controlled, and calm. Wisdom is important for those wanting attunement with Nature and the Divine, so Monks and Divine and Druidic Casters require it. Charisma: Divided into Personality and Willpower (is NOT Appearance!!). Personality is social skills, ability to get along with people, have them follow you, personal magnetism, ease of being around people, silver tongue, always having the right words for the occasion, having a thick skin, and so forth. Willpower is strength of will, inability to be swayed, commanding presence, emotional power, and pure stupid determination. Naruto would be an example of a high Charisma character... not much in brains or common sense, but gets people to follow him, never gives up, and becomes a leader. --- Examples: The high Int character exploits every cheat in the game, the high Wis character rewrites the rules of the game instead, and the high Cha character convinces the Admin to let her win. The high Int character comes up with a dozen battle plans, the high Wis character picks the best one... and convinces the high Cha character to back it, so everyone follows along. The High Int character goes looking for lots of advice and alternatives; the High Wis character gives the best advice; and the High Charisma character bulls ahead, figuring he can fix anything that goes wrong as he goes. For a Negative Example, Donald Trump is an example of high Charisma, Low Wis/Intellect. He had the charm and personality to manipulate people to become President of the United States, but had neither the Intellect nor the Wisdom to do well once he got there. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ HIT POINTS: A term that includes Health, Soak, Temporary Hit Points, and Health Qi. The base idea is similar to video games (who took it from RPG¡¯s). Health is actual physical damage an object or being can take. Most monsters and creatures only have Health. The average human has 1-8 Health. A brick usually has 5. Fast Healing, Magical Reserve Healing, and Regeneration only affect Health. Health naturally returns at Level/Hit Dice + Con bonus/day, twice that if resting, for normal humans. Soak is the magical ¡®oh that didn¡¯t actually hurt¡¯ or ¡®damn, that was lucky¡¯ effect, very fundamental battle magic. It ONLY comes from Class Levels. Creatures fighting humans with Class Levels hate it. (Why puny human not fall down when tree trunk smash his ribs?) It manifests in whatever manner is the most efficient to save the person struck, including near misses, lucky steps, glancing blows... but you can face plant after falling two hundred feet onto concrete, get up and walk away if you¡¯ve the Soak for it. Magical stuff! Clerical Cures can restore Soak, but mostly it¡¯s restored steadily at (Level+Con)/hour, much faster than Health, for humans. Battle Vigor, a Combat Feat, is designed to rapidly restore some lost Soak. Temporary Hit Points: Come from magic. Any damage taken is first taken from these, and they are burned away/expended. Like a magical field of ¡®Ahhhhh, don¡¯t cut me!¡¯ Very similar in effect to Soak. Health Qi: A form of damage absorption/instant healing possessed by really powerful monsters. You cut them, blood sprays, flesh tears and rips... and in the next second they are right back to normal, and the crimson stuff kinds of evaporates. Powerful monsters can have LOTS of Health Qi. They can burn Health Qi to overcome ability damage, poison, stun effects, etc, meaning things that have it are total pains to deal with. It is recovered after all Health damage is healed, building right back up, so Fast Healing and Regeneration, as well as healing spells, can help a monster get their Health Qi back very quickly. Temporary or Subdual Damage: This is Health damage that is not lethal, returning at the same speed Soak does. This is how you beat people unconscious. Melee fighters have Vigor, which turns lethal wounds into subdual damage, meaning they heal much more quickly than normal people. Also, every point of Health or Soak damage cured by other means also heals a point of temporary damage, meaning double effect healing! +++++++++++++++++++++++++ COMBAT TERMS: TH, MAB and RAB, d4/d6/d10 etc, Hit Dice, Crits, AC, DR, MAB, Energy Res, Saving Throws, etc.
TO-HIT/TH: The modifier to your roll to hit an opponent. In video games, this is generally a % chance. The enemy has a target number for you to hit (their Armor Class/AC), you roll % dice or a d20 (twenty-sided die), add your To-Hit modifier, and if you equal or exceed their AC, contact is made and it is time to roll damage. Most magic weapons modify To-Hit and Damage by a fixed amount.
TH is divided into MAB, Melee Attack Bonus (close combat) and RAB, Ranged Attack Bonus (missile combat). If you are subject to Luck, rolling a 1 (01-05) is always considered a miss, and rolling a 20 (96-00) is considered always a hit. This is somewhat different from many video games, where you are presumed to hit, and damage is just modified. Mathematically, they end up in the same place... whiffing is basically the same as seeing 0,0,0 damage come up... In terms of combat importance, you generally want your attacks to hit, then do more damage per attack, then gain more attacks. It¡¯s all math, but if you can¡¯t hit, it doesn¡¯t matter how many attacks or damage you get, and if you don¡¯t do any damage, it doesn¡¯t matter how many attacks you have. D4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d100: the d is short for ¡®die¡¯. Google ¡®Gamer dice¡¯ to see what they look like. They are used to roll random results from 1-4, 1-6, 1-8, 1-10, 1-12, 1-20, and 1-100, respectively, with other combinations possible by halving or combining different dice. They are used for calculating weapon damage and hit points for combat, and TH rolls and saves. The main reason dice is used is because of mathematical averages with more than one die. 2-16 means an equal chance of any number from 2 to 16. 2d8 means the damage is heavily weighted towards the average of 9, and 2-4 and 14-16 are very uncommon. So, a 10d6 fireball mathematically stays around 35 damage, instead of having the same chance to do 10 or 60 as the middle. A knife or dagger does a d4 in damage. A gladiator¡¯s short sword or a normal arrow does a d6. A knightly longsword or broadhead arrow does a d8. An average handgun does a d10. A two-handed sword or axe, or a lance on a charge, does 2d6. A rifle or shotgun does 2d8 or so. A cloud giant is four times the height of a human, can wield a Heavy Weapon, and so his sword strike would do roughly 5d6 damage, +11 from Strength... Remember us Terrans have on average 5 Health... A d20 is also known as an icosahedron! D&D basically invented the market for almost all non-d6 dice... If you take a geometry, you will learn that the vertexes of each die help make another one with more faces... CRITS: If you actually roll high on a TH Roll, you have a chance of hitting a key point (throat, eyes, stab the heart, cut the groin, etc.)... you know, the places you WANT to hit. You confirm the Crit by rolling again, and if you hit again, you generally deal double or triple damage, depending on weapon type and feats. Sword-type weapons crit more frequently (19-20 roll) and generally do double damage, making them more consistent. Axe-type weapons crit less frequently (20 roll), but hack down for triple damage when they do, making them more explosive. Simpler weapons, such as clubs and maces, crit on 20 and do double damage. A few exotic weapons are 20/x4 and 18-20/x2. The big difference between simple and martial weapons is generally that martial weapons are designed to hit and kill things, and simple weapons are just tools or random objects that can double as weapons. Exotic Weapons generally obey these crit ranges. The highest base combination is 19-20 x3, the natural damage range of a falcata (sword-axe, like an oversized kukri). HIT DIE/LEVELS: These are the number (and type) of dice rolled to calculate hit points. Monsters use a d6 (such as Fey), d8 (ex. Humanoids, Animals, Aberrants), d10 (magical creatures, Jotuns, Soulborn outsiders), or a d12 (Dragons) for their Health, usually assigning average values. To each Hit Die, you add their Constitution bonus to gain their Final Health, which can vary with other Feats and Masteries. So, a 12-HD Hill Jotun with a Con bonus of +6 has 12 x (1-10+6) Health, or roughly 12 x11.5 on average, or 136 Health. An average Terran Human with a Con of 12 (d8+1 bonus) has 5. Video Games tend to assign hit points per level, instead of rolling variables, and using an average is perfectly fine. Basically, the more Hit Die you have, the tougher/stronger/more badass you are. The average Human has 1 Hit Die for Human/1, and 1-2 Class Hit Die. How¡¯s it feel to be a wimp like me? An experienced, Veteran soldier might be a Three, and the best spec ops soldiers in the world, Fours. Main Characters are assumed to be highly trained and experienced, and at Level One start with maximum Health and Soak for their Class and Race. Us noncombatant NPC¡¯s have to roll... Class Levels also have Hit Dice + Con bonus, which grant Soak. Pure Casters, like Wizards and weak combatants (Experts, Commoners, Vizards), have a d6 for Soak. Partial combatants and skill-centered Classes have d6+2 Soak (d8 for NPC¡¯s) (Scouts, Archers, Bards), primary fighting combatants have d6+4 (d10 for NPC¡¯s) (Melees, Dragon Warriors, Paladins, Knights), and savage melee combatants have a d6+6 (d12 for NPC¡¯s) (Barbarians, Berserkers). Note: This is Power of Ten, and I am making a clear difference between the Classes if they use average hit points. It takes much more investment to make a Wizard as tough as a Melee using d6 vs d6+4 (3.5 vs 7.5 average), instead of using a d6 vs d10 (3.5 vs 5.5 avg). It was a problem in 3.5E D&D. --- AC/ARMOR CLASS: How hard it is to hit something. Unlike many games, PoT treats armor not as damage-reducing, but avoidance, i.e. it bounces off your armor. If some force gets through, it isn¡¯t reduced automatically by the armor, it¡¯s a hit. Armor Class is raised by wearing armor, using a shield, being dexterous, dodging, being insightful and reading movements, having a tough hide/skin/scales, and other methods. It starts at 10 (a normal human with no bonuses or penalties), and goes up as high as you can make it. Bonuses to magic armor and shields raise the amount of protection they give by the same amount. --- DR/DAMAGE REDUCTION (and Hardness): The amount of damage taken off a physical attack. This can be magical protection, toughness, supernatural vitality, special armor, otherworldly physiology, and so forth. DR is expressed as a number/bypass. DR 10/Silver means 10 points of damage is removed from every physical attack... except if the attack is silver. This is the standard defense of were-creatures, and why they are fearsome enemies if you don¡¯t have silver, as you just can¡¯t hurt them or nickel and dime them to death. There are Feats and Masteries that help bypass DR. DR X/- means there is no bypass, except some Feats. Common types of DR are X/Silver, X/Magic, X/Good, X/Cold Iron, and X/Adamant, but there are X/hawthorn, X/Jade, X/Obsidian and X/Gold out there, among other things, and X/(random special object) are always fun to throw at people. Hardness is possessed by objects, but is more like Indestructibility, while DR is more like Invulnerability. You need to exceed the Hardness of an object, using the right tool, to damage it. So, wood has a DR of 5, and a casual blow by a human isn¡¯t going to damage it. Steel has a Hardness of 10, and is very hard for a human to damage without the right tools. Mithral and the finest steel hit Hardness 15, and Adamant has a Hardness of 20. Jotuns have Primal DR equal to their Strength bonus, which also applies against Energy of the standard types. It allows them to live pretty much anywhere. ENERGY RESISTANCE: Is DR for Energy, as opposed to physical attacks. Even a single point of fire and cold resistance is enough to render you immune to Terra¡¯s natural extremes of temperature. The five basic energy forms are fire/heat, cold, acid/base/corrosive, lightning, and thunder/sonic. Other types of damage include necroic/negative energy, Force, Radiant, Primal, Divine, Eldritch/Arcane and vivic/positive (which generally doesn¡¯t harm the living), among others. Poison is not an energy type. 1 point of sonic/thunder resistance means you can fire off a gun next to your ear all day without harm. 1 point of lightning resistance means you¡¯ll never pick up a static charge from the floor. 10 points means you can¡¯t be shocked by your home wiring. 20 points makes you immune to a downed power line. 30 points means you can ignore being struck by natural lightning. 1 point of acid resistance means bleeding in the sea/salt in your wounds won¡¯t sting, and most caustic fumes have no effect on you. 10 points means you can drink battery acid. 30 points means you can drink aqua regia. 1 point of fire resistance means you can¡¯t be burned by a match, and are immune to sunburn and sunstroke, and physical exercise can¡¯t make you sweat from the heat. 10 points means you can stand in a decent bonfire. 20 points means you can¡¯t be burned at the stake. 30 points means you can grab and mold lava, and stroll around in the heart of a forest fire. 50 points or so means you can go swimming in lava, and watch an acetylene torch not burn your skin. 1 point of cold resistance means you can hold a chunk of dry ice all day, and go swimming in ice water. 10 points means you can guzzle liquid nitrogen. 20 points means you can tolerate the cold of orbital space. 30 points means you can take a bath in liquid oxygen, and walk around on Pluto (air pressure and breathing still problems, however!) ------ SAVES: RPG¡¯s use the concept of rolling dice to mitigate, resist, avoid, nullify, or neutralize magical and other attacks, known as ¡®saving¡¯ against the attack. This is different from video games, which often just reduce the damage or duration of an effect. Saving Throws, like AC, are part of a person¡¯s main defenses. The broad categories of Saves are Will, Reflex, and Fortitude (Fort) saves. Will Saves: Attacks against the mind and willpower. Illusions, charm spells, paralysis spells, ¡®these are not the droids you are looking for¡¯ effects, and so forth, attack a person¡¯s will. Reflex Saves: Here comes the fireball! Roll a modified 22 or better to dodge the brunt of the attack to take half damage. Also used for, say, jumping out of the way of the boulder rumbling down the hallway, Dr. Jones... or ducking around the corner ahead of the dragon breath, or firmly lining up behind your shield to deflect the lightning bolt some. Evasion is a quasi-magical Class Ability that allows you to totally avoid any damage on a successful Reflex save against something, along with a quippy phrase and sneer of contempt or two... Fortitude Saves: A combination of spiritual and physical vitality. Attacks against the soul, such as life drains, and against the body, such as poison, are Fortitude saves. A Save works much like a To Hit Roll against Armor Class. The target number represents the potency of the attack, with a low number being easy to resist (12 for a small spider¡¯s poisonous bite) and a high number meaning you better be praying (27 for a Banshee Scream or the poison of a house-sized Scorpion), and can reach 30-40 or higher for truly legendary monsters... and PC¡¯s who build in that direction. Naturally there are ways to make yourself immune to certain effects, which basically means you ¡®auto-save¡¯. Generally speaking, a 20 on the die roll is considered ¡®always saving¡¯, and a 1 ¡®always failing¡¯, if you are subject to Luck. There are many effects which can modify Saves, including high Stats, Resistance, Luck, insight, blessings from the Divine, and so forth. ----------------- Other fighting terms: Finesse fighting, Sneak Attack, Lightfoot, Heavyfoot
Finesse Fighting: Normal combat assumes you are using your Strength to control your weapon and hit hard and accurately with it. Finesse fighting assumes you are using lighter weapons and using them with extreme precision and control, going almost solely for crits and vital areas. Because you aren¡¯t using as much force, you don¡¯t smash home with as much power when you hit... but if you have High Dex instead of Str, the additional bonus to hit means landing blows that might otherwise miss.
Knife fighters are typical finesse-style fighters, but it¡¯s not uncommon for many weaker, faster martial artists. Generally speaking, someone who is using very fast, flashy, and precise fighting styles is using Finesse Fighting. In real life, it doesn¡¯t work as well as Power (just ask an MMA fighter), but it sure does look prettier. SA/Sneak-Attack damage: You know all that extra damage your rogue/thief damage does when flanking something or backstabbing it? That¡¯s Sneak Attack damage. Special note: Your attack actually has to hit and do damage, and THEN the Sneak attack damage applies! So, hitting that werewolf for 9 points... nope, you didn¡¯t get past his DR 10/Silver, and you don¡¯t get to apply your 6d6 of Sneak Attack dice. Notably, Sneak Attack dice are not multiplied by critical hits, since they are basically ¡®critical damage¡¯ as they are. Also, creatures that don¡¯t have weak points in their anatomy, like slimes and oozes, elementals, golems, and the like, tend to not be affected by Sneak Attack damage (it¡¯s hard to poke a liver when they don¡¯t have organs). Lightfoot: This is the term, derived from profound martial arts, for any kind of movement techniques. Enhanced speed, dodging, run on water, run up walls/ceilings/smoke, jump incredibly far, double jump, erratic charges, balance on spiderwebs, pushups on a single finger, impossible acrobatics, etc. They all fall under lightfoot techniques. Note this is actual movement, not Blinking or dimension-skipping in any form. Heavyfoot: The opposite of lightfoot, heavyfoot involves full weight, immovability, and absolute balance by steadiness, anchoring yourself to the ground. Being able to withstand a charge or hit without moving, maintaining footing despite slippery or uneven ground, crashing charges and bull rushes into things, 360 awareness/defense, ground sensitivity, always being braced, being able to lift things without proper leverage, and other ''tanking'' feats of strength and stability of posture are heavyfoot. Notably, heavyfooters are not ''slow'', but they are not ''quick''. Heavyfooters can move very fast indeed once they get moving, but they tend not to be able to do it in the blink of an eye, and they are rarely evasive/agile about it. The most evasive they tend to get is being able to bounce off something and maintain full speed in doing so. ++++++++++++++++++++ MAGIC, WEAPONS AND ARMOR: On Magic Weapons and Armor: Quality Level (QL), Goldweight, Naming Karma, Requirements, Spellcraft, Costs, Arsenal, Slaughter.
Naming Karma: If you Name a Bonded Weapon, you can share your karma/experience points with it, up to 1,000 points a day. This way, you can grow a magic Weapon without being a Caster. However, how strong your Weapon can get is still affected by its QL.
Goldweight: A unit equal to exactly the amount of gold a Powered Character can imbue into a magic item per day. This amount was divided by 500 to get the size of a standard gold coin. Thus, a goldweight is also equal to 500 gold pieces (gp). Silver is worth a tenth of what gold is for imbuing items, platinum is worth five times more. Gems can be worth anywhere from 1 gp to tens of thousands. In the story, the demand for gold means that a pound of gold is valued at about $30,000, or about $1800 an ounce. The lack of power comps and desire for magical items naturally prices them out of reach of most people. Five pounds of gold is a goldweight, or $150,000. Making a Ten Slot Weapon at 200 Goldweight would thus be $30 Million JUST for the gold to power it up, let alone getting someone to make a QL 40 item. The existence of active magic tends to coalesce pure minerals far more than in a non-magical world, so veins of precious metals and gems are more common. Different flavors of magic imbuing different materials creates Energized Materials, whose biases form ¡®new substances¡¯. Energized pure Earth Tungsten is Adamant. Mithral is Water Energized Titanium. Burning gold to create magic items releases their essence into the item. The gold (or other material) dissipates into the aether... later to recoalesce as it gathers enough magic, forming another vein of the material once again, somewhere else, and has to be mined out again. So the precious metals will never run out... but you do have to find them. QL/Quality Level: How well an item is made. Subsumes crafter skill, material, style, complexity, ornamentation, and other things. QL limits how powerful an item Crafted with non-Divine aid can be. A god can make an old tooth an artifact. A human would need a QL 40 item to contain something with a Caster Level of 20. The general rule is QL 20/Masterwork for the simplest, Cantrip-level weak magic items (shoes that tie themselves, a coat that sheds rainwater, etc), +1 QL for every Caster Level of effect you want to put in it. Note that the maximum Caster Level you can imbue into an object is based on Spellcraft Ranks. As a Ten, that is 10 Ranks. Thus, many powerful magical effects cannot be put into magical items! Different materials can only be crafted up to certain QL¡¯s. Normal base steel can only hit a 30, with really fine steel alloys hitting 35. It takes mithral or adamant to hit a 40 QL or higher for metals. For wood, you¡¯re looking at Weirwoods or other hugely rare, powerful trees; mundane woods will also only go to QL 30, with some alchemically/magically grown/raised able to hit 35. WEAPONS/ARMOR: Magical Weapons and Armor have further restrictions. The number of Slots magical Arms and Armor have is limited by QL, to 1 for every 2 points of QL over 20, to a minimum of 1, and maximum of 10. Thus, QL 20-23 = Slot Einz, 24-25 is Slot Zvei, etc. It takes a 40 QL, requiring a base +30 Crafting Check, to make a potentially Zehn-Slot Weapon or Armor piece, with 10 Slots open and running. Furthermore, Spellcraft Ranks must be 3 Ranks for every point of Enhancement Bonus or equivalent. This limits Weapons to +3 or equivalent effects at Nine, improving to +4 at Twelve and +5, the mortal maximum, at Fifteen. So, no Vorpal effects before Fifteen! Opening each Slot is more and more expensive per Slot. Doing nothing but opening all Ten Slots on a Weapon costs 100k gold for a Powered, and 200k for a Primos. Powered folk Imbue magical items with gold-equivs and Karma. Primos and Forsaken Invest them with gold or power comp equivalents, and Naming Karma, instead. As a convention, magical items are capitalized. So, a Sword is magical, a sword is not. ---Because of the E6 limit of the story, powerful magical Weapons and items are simply non-existent for the most part. Each one is at least $300,000, too. --Magical bonuses to Skills do not raise Skill checks, they only raise Crafting Speed (how much work is done). Thus, having two magic items giving you +5 to your checks gives you +10 to your check for speed, but has no effect on the Quality Level you can reach. ARSENAL: Forsaken have no magical signature, enabling their Bonded Weapons the ability to change between Rune effects on their Weapons. Arsenal is the name of the effect which houses these Runes, allowing one Weapon to change its nature based on current need. Of course, it all costs a lot of gold and/or Naming Karma... Arsenal I takes only +I effects. Arsenal II takes two additional Slots, and +II effects. Greater Arsenal can potentially take +3 to +5 effects, but has to be tied to the appropriate Slots. Naturally the prices for all such Runes must be paid... SLAUGHTER: Bane effects are the strongest targeted magical effects you can put on a Weapon for their cost, and the nature of their curse-oriented Rune doesn¡¯t work in an Arsenal. Thus, Banes have their own Slaughter Rune which stores their ire. Adding a Bane to a Slaughter requires 2,000 points of Karma/gold (i.e. two days), and first killing a member of the enemy type to be Bane to. Bane enemy types are fairly narrow. Each humanoid type (orcs, humans, elves, hyen, etc.) has its own Bane, although Animals and Vermin (bugs) are fairly broad. The Enmity effect is broader (Mortals, Natural Creatures, etc.), effectively subsuming multiple Bane categories, but it¡¯s not as strong. Additional note: A non-Forsaken using a Weapon Bane to his own species suffers the Bane effect themselves. Thus, a Powered man using a Humanbane Weapon takes an additional 2-12 damage from all attacks against him, and foes are +2 TH/Dmg against him! It¡¯s not a Curse effect for nothing... Banefire is often the hue of the blood of the creature it is Bane against. The corollary Arsenal effect for Armor is called Armory, and Bulwark for Warding (the anti-Bane). Adding an effect to a Weapon or Armor must be declared and added until done, i.e. I¡¯m adding Brilliant, means I¡¯m going to open 4 Slots, and I can¡¯t stop midway and use the gold Invested for something else, or start something else, without losing all the work put in. The Runework depowers if you abandon it for anything else, although it will wait if you stop and then start again. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ OTHER STUFF: Vivic Energy, Thaumaspectrum, Valences, Vajra, Alignments, Wierding, Practical/Efficient, Sieging, Reserve Feats, Tyranny of Rep Counts
Vivic energy: I invented this myself. To wit, it¡¯s the opposite of necroic energy, and a subset of positive energy. Where necroic lifeforms (the undead), are mostly-dead and feed on life energy, vivic energy is mostly alive and feeds on death energy, their exact opposite. It has next to no effect on living creatures, unless they die, when it starts consuming their bodies like firewood, feasting on the negative energy slowly flowing into them. Corpses with magical power in them burn faster, and undead/negative energy life forms (including many necromancers) of any kind burn like oil, taking 1-6 points of damage from contact with vivic flame. Vivic energy is unknown at the start of the story, as magic hasn¡¯t been around long enough, and the things which might know about it have either forgotten it or have no desire to speak of its existence. Vivic fire is slightly heavier than air, misting slowly along the ground as it burns, the energy slowly sinking into the Land, where it is absorbed and turned into basic life energy for the Land. ¡®Unwhite¡¯ is ¡®true white¡¯. The human eye sees ¡®white¡¯ whenever multiple colors stack on one another. Unwhite is ¡®true white¡¯, it has no component other colors. Its opposite color in the thaumaspectrum is naturally utterblack. Thaumaspectrum: Those who can Detect Magic can see the Thaumaspectrum, the array of light and colors given off by magic, and infer many things from it, such as type, school, or Domain of magic, personal biases of the Caster, strength of the magic, source plane, and other things, depending on the strength of their Arcane Sight. Octarine, Jale, Ulfire, and Dolm are examples of magical colors in the thaumaspectrum. There exists a Pspectrum of psionic colors, and an Aural Spectrum of the Alignments. Valences: Power of Ten uses the Vancian Spell system, where the energy for Casters is first accumulated in distinct packets of energy, not a spell point system. Cantrips are level 0, endlessly castable, and come from the heart of a Caster¡¯s Matrix. Level 1 spells are Engrams floating in a shell around that heart, the first Valence. Each successive Valence is a higher and larger shell, and can hold more powerful Engrams, up to the Fifth Valence, where the Caster can teleport hundreds of miles, bring the dead to life, fly all day as swift as a pigeon, turn a foe to stone, Summon powerful creatures from other planes, or travel to those very planes themselves. At the beginning of the novel, the standard cap of Six means that Valence Three is as high as most people get, with shenanigans allowing some to access the Fourth. Vajra: From the Sanskrit for ¡°Diamond Soul¡±. A Forsaken with at least 10 points of Ki and Soul Essence or Magic combined can form a simple Vajra, fusing life and soul energy together for greater passive effect. This cannot be gained by Powered as is, because Powered souls are flexible, not hard enough. They can replicate all the effects easily enough with magic, psi, chi, Soul Essence, Racial Levels... A basic Vajra reduces food consumption by 1/x of normal, where X is the lower of Ki and Essence over 9. A basic Vajra also provides a low level of elemental resistance, sufficient to ignore 1 pt of Elemental damage/rd, if the character takes the Mastery. The character¡¯s soul reaches up to an inch past his skin. A Diamond Vajra kicks in at 20 each Essence/Magic and Ki. This actually represents full body awareness and the body as a magic item. Elemental Resistance improves to lower of Ki or Essence, -10. Resistance to alternate forms of damage is possible. Most importantly, the character becomes Sustained, and needs no food or drink (other than to replace lost cells, so a good meal a month or so) and less need for sleep. The character¡¯s soul can now extend two inches outside their skin, and so can shove aside air and water and other non-living material to a degree, or display effects of magical energies or control within that two-inch area. They have heightened senses because they are touching things with their soul, can filter out bacteria and dust in the air, and instantly clean themselves by repelling foreign matter from their skin. This is a personification of the effects that allow monks to stay healthy, reject poison, be aware of their surroundings, lift things above their hands, etc. A Mark III Vajra includes two of magic, Essence, or psionics, in addition to Ki, and extends the soul to 3 inches. A Mark IV Vajra includes all four. Wierding: Wierding a spell is the art of making it easier to add additional effects and Metamagic effects to it, mostly by making the Metas Practical or the Spell Efficient via Rep Counts. Note that spending a Feat on the effect instantly applies the effects to ALL levels for that specific Feat or Meta, in effect never needing rep counts for the spell or meta ever. Practical Metamagic: While this can be taken as a Feat, it can be done instead by simple practice, conserving precious Feats for more valuable uses. Make a Metamagic Feat Practical involves casting it while attached to spells of a specific Valence at full cost, learning the Meta so thoroughly the cost is reduced by 1 Valence, to a minimum of 0 (attaches for free). It costs 500 reps to lower a Meta for a Valence I spell, another thousand (and a higher slot!) for II''s, +2k for III''s, and +4k (the ingame limit) for IV''s. The scale continues at the same pace, making it harder to apply Metas to higher Valence spells. Efficient Spells: Efficient Spells operate on the same basis as Practical Metamagic, except instead of making the Metas cheaper, you are expanding the spell and organizing it to attach Metas to it more efficiently, reducing the total sum cost of attached Metas by 1 (min 0). Thus, making a Spell Efficient involves attaching several Metas of the same cost to it and Casting it repeatedly. Like Practical effects, Efficiency is 500 reps for attaching +I Metas, +1k for attaching +2 Metas, and so forth. Sieging Spells: Sieging a Spell is the art of Casting a reduced form of a spell without expending the magical energy to do so. It involves Casting a spell many times (starting with 1000 for Valence I, 2000 for II''s, 4000 for III''s, and so forth), and keeping an incredible level of concentration and focus in effect while you ply the spell. Such spells are at reduced effect (no more than 2 pts/die of damage, save at +4, max duration 10 minutes, etc) and require you have a considerable amount of unspent magical energy in your Matrices to do so. Reserve Feats: Reserve Feats are a variant of Sieging, basically allowing you to Cast a specific type of Cantrip which is based on the most powerful spell of its type in your Matrix. Reserve Feats build themselves up by use in the Argos Scale (1k, 2k, 4k, 8k etc). So, if you have an Empowered Fireball in a V Valence, if you just took the Feat, you could launch a 1d6 5''radius fireball. 15k uses of Fire Reserve later, that fireball is now 5d6 in damage. You also have to Cast a LOT of fire spells to qualify for higher levels of the reserve, but in this instance it is total spell levels, and so much easier to meet, starting at 500 spell levels and doubling thereafter, to a total of 8000 total spell levels of Fire spells wielded to cast a 5d6 Reserve. As they have no cost but having the spell in memory otherwise, and are counted in ALL rep counts of the spells, Reserves can be very popular. Tyranny of Rep Counts: The name given to the incredible demands on time and spellcasting necessary to make Metas Practical, Spells Efficient, Use Sieging, and start Reserves. Akin to a character swinging a weapon at pelts for hours and hours or running a lot of miles, the Tyranny of Rep Counts and limits on Valences/day mean it takes many years to have a broad range of Metas and Spells upgraded, Sieged spells you can call on, and Reserve Feats ready to go. It is the big reason why older and experienced Casters are more dangerous than younger ones, as they''ve had to time to do Rep Counts and simply have far more staying power and stronger spells to call upon. Alignments: Good, Evil, Law, Chaos, and Neutrality.
Note that this is different from a game, where playing fast and loose with Alignment is commonly tolerated so the game goes on. In the ¡®real world¡¯ of the story, you can fool yourself, but you can¡¯t fool the Profound Forces. Neutral GOOD people are Yellow to Golden. The more rigid the color, the firmer their beliefs. Angels are classic Good creatures. A farmer who just wants to tend his fields, but enlists to fight against the evil empire when called upon, is also NG. LAWFUL Neutral people are Blue to Sapphire. They tend to be rigid in beliefs, conservative, and members of organizations who tell them how and what to think. Axiomatics and many militaries and bureaucrats qualify as Lawful Neutral. LN people tend to think that everybody should follow their rules/ethos/laws/organization/philosophy, and the world would be a better place. Neutral EVIL people are Purple to Amethyst. They tend to be duplicitous, manipulative, untrustworthy, and have no problem sacrificing others to achieve their goals. Daemons, the Fiends of Natural Death, are Evil. By modern standards, most NE would be considered psychopaths to some degree or another. Lex Luthor would be a model of Neutral Evil. CHAOTIC Neutral people are Grey to Steely. They have few lasting attachments, and their own goals are basically all that they are concerned about. While they are not actively malevolent, if they want something, they are perfectly willing to kill to get it, and really don¡¯t care about any opinions but their own. By modern standards, most such people would be considered rather insane. True barbaric warlike, nomadic societies would be Chaotic. They are not ¡®random¡¯, in their actions, but their deeds often have bizarre purposes others do not understand. The crazy old coot who lives out in the woods and drives people away is Chaotic Neutral, as is the compulsive thief who can¡¯t hold a job and so just steals to survive, or the Viking Raider who thinks war is the best way to live and wants only to die in battle. TRUE NEUTRAL people are Green/Emerald. They have taken a philosophical view of balance and nature, and are unwilling to commit to more extreme views. This doesn¡¯t mean isolated or uninvolved, but they tend to be concerned with long-range implications, and care nothing for ethical and moral conflicts between others. FALSE NEUTRALS are Clear/Empty or BROWN, and represent anything that simply goes along on instinct, and hasn¡¯t taken a moral or ethical stance, simply responding on animalistic grounds. Creatures and things that do not think, such as plants, rocks, slimes/oozes, and insects are Clear/Empty. Animals, Elementals, and other sentient beings who focus simply on survival and ignore all else are Brown. A pig farmer who doesn¡¯t care about the army coming to lay waste to the kingdom and spread misery and death, he just wants to feed his pigs and survive another day, is False Neutral Brown... as are his pigs! LAWFUL GOOD are White/Silver. They represent those rather unrealistic heroic/moral types we all wish we could be, and whose ideals we strive to live up to. Paladins have unique powers because they adhere to Lawful Good, the most restrictive of Alignments. Mother Teresa is a classic LG person, as are Superman and Captain America. CHAOTIC GOOD people are Orange/Rainbow. They tend to be self-obsessed sorts who nevertheless make contributions to society in their own way, they just hate being told what to do, and will break laws without a second thought to do the right thing. Robin Hood vigilantes, wandering bards with a weakness for women, and lone rangers out on the frontier patrolling against the enemy on their own are all Chaotic Good. Goku from Dragonball Z is CG. CHAOTIC EVIL people are Black/Jet. They are completely self-obsessed, only their desires matter, and they have little to no restrictions on what they will do to get it. The more Chaotic and Evil you are, the more ANYTHING is permissible in pursuit of your ambitions. The Gods of the Warp and Demons are Chaotic Evil. The Joker would be Chaotic Evil. LAWFUL EVIL people are Red/Ruby. They are organized, malicious, and believe that as long as they stay within the rules, anything is permissible. It is the Alignment of tyrants, mobsters, stratified class-based societies, and the devils in Hell. Slade Wilson, the Terminator, is LE because he will kill anyone without remorse, but has a code of conduct and holds to his contracts. Stalin, Lenin, and Machiavelli would be considered Lawful Evil. From an outside perspective, Alignments represent an ever-shrinking number of choices that can be made in any decision, as some actions simply are not permissible. A Chaotic Evil person can give lollipops to kids, kiss babies, and salute veterans. He can also kill all of them without batting an eye, potentially. As you move away from CE, you either become more rigid about holding to a code of conduct (more honorable) or you become more sensitive to the feelings of others (more moral). A LE person will prize his personal honor, which will restrict him from acting against the rules put forth by his superiors. A CG person will empathize with others and not undertake actions to harm them without good reason, although he¡¯ll ignore rules made by others he doesn¡¯t like whenever it is safe for him to do so... but may be hilariously restricted by his own personal superstitions and beliefs, in return. A Lawful Good person both obeys an existing set of rules, and will make moral choices that consider the effects on others, meaning they have the smallest amount of choices available to them in life. This often causes them to seem stuffy, conservative, inflexible, and hopelessly old-fashioned to those around them... and yet they are time and time again the bedrock upon which a strong society is built. AF Chapter 1 – Falling There Intermultiversal ¡®space¡¯, such as it is¡­ Five done. The Curse was less than a third as strong as it had been. Hurt so fucking much. Oblivion hurts more... Aelryinth flailed and grabbed more magic, focus split and maintaining the Benny Hill session of mentally running away from the Curse trying to wipe him out of existence, copying and pasting the memories and identity it was trying to wipe away and putting them back into the wake of the energies. He couldn¡¯t do anything about the reality-bending power sending him spinning through and outside time and space in a wild ride he was absolutely sure had taken him out of the sides of Creation that he knew of and into somewhere else, vaguely just seeing infinities streaming past, Rules and Laws flexing and splitting, then abruptly gone and something else in their place, only able to cling to his own magic inside. NOW! Magic seared through, cleaving through something with no substance, and before the remnants of the Curse could move, half of it was gone, tumbling away through the void around him with some Karma released and not needed, locking the Curse to it as another part of his soul was cleft away with a pain he¡¯d never forget... ------ I was the sixth cut-off portion of Aelryinth¡¯s soul, and I was still rather surprised when the voice broke over me, and I understood the magic of it. It was a very weird sensation, like being a frozen image on a movie screen, and suddenly, just the spark of contact allowed me to start thinking again. Hello, this is Aelryinth. As I Send this, it¡¯s been two days since I arrived at my destination. I have just received a message from the first of the seven of you, informing me that you aren¡¯t random blank Karma, but actual soul-shards of me. No wonder it hurt so damn much. My apologies putting you through all this. You know I¡¯ll help if I can... and I¡¯m going to be coming back your ways regardless. I¡¯m sure you all have names you¡¯ll choose for yourselves, but for now I¡¯m going to refer you to what I suggest your Rings be... Einz, Zvei, Drei, Vier, Funf, Zeks, and Zeben. I don¡¯t know where you are or how to get to you, but you all know where I came from, and I¡¯ll do my best to find you if possible. In the meantime, here¡¯s some information that Einz has discovered that may or may not be of use to you, depending on where you end up... --- Huh. Well, I was the sixth of the seven of us. Zeks, eh? Well, not a name I¡¯d use in public, if and when... It also meant that I might just end up incarnating as someone, like Einz had. How had she managed that? How¡¯d she end up a she? Well, whatever. I suppose I should wonder how she ended up a bipedal humanoid close to what we came from, given all the potential stuff out there. It left me wondering about my own condition. I was tumbling free through something that might have been an astral space, cut through with countless ribbons and tethered web-like stuff connecting this ethereal wall to that one, sometimes throbbing with energy, sometimes cold and blackly dead, other times spinning energetically. I seemed to be bouncing along on some sort of planar current I had no control over, and couldn¡¯t direct myself. I wasn¡¯t sure if I was being drawn or carried, but my attempts to go this way or that didn¡¯t get me anywhere, so I just sat back for the ride. Well, I sat back and started realigning my thoroughly mixed-up Karma, which was all swirled around with the Curse bouncing around trying to find Aelryinth, and only having something here which wasn¡¯t him anymore. This tripping astral space was definitely not a safe place. I could sense a myriad range of energies, a lot of them very hostile to anything that would be normal organic life, and others just radiating ominous vibes. Given I had two days or less of temporal existence myself, nothing seemed to pay attention to me as more than passing spiritual detritus, perhaps a thrown-out thought or emotion from a greater power... The Curse was losing its hold on me, and that meant losing its power. I kept an eye on it as I tumbled along through nowhere. Stolen story; please report. ------ The tug sideways was quite apparent to me. I looked in the direction it was coming from, and would have pursed my lips had I any. Something foul and quite alien, and rather horribly familiar in all the wrong ways, seemed to be extruding itself through space, causing a local disruption held in place by some kind of wavering magic it was exploiting to punch through a dimensional Veil. The artificial and unnatural vortex so created was sucking me in. Wonderful. Did I really want to know what was going on with-where this thing? Something in the Curse worrying at me seemed to pulse. Also, a sense of familiarity... and betrayal? I couldn¡¯t see where this thing was extending from, but had the distinct impression that I didn¡¯t want to. It wasn¡¯t The Thing (moment of blackness at the reflected memory, ugh...), but it was something similar. Something from Outside Creation... I couldn¡¯t do anything about my progress, but I was about to see what happened to a disembodied fraction of a soul on the other side. --- I had no idea of how much time it took to get there, just bobbing along in spatial currents rippling in and out, and probably some vestige of being mortal attuning me to a harder reality than the one I was in. Like a stone falling to the bottom of a lake, I was as much falling as being drawn to a spiritual rupture in the local Veil. Being that close to something that powerful in my state was exceedingly dangerous. I blanked all my thoughts in thoughtlessness and fell back on that timeless period of no-thought, giving it nothing to read or sense, and thus decide to nibble on, just a passing lump of stray frozen thought, possibly with some malevolent Curse magic pulsing upon me and discouraging any casual snacking. Then I was being crushed, folded, spindled, and morphed wildly through the chaos of a forced and unstable Veil intrusion, before being spit out the far side. It took me a couple seconds to reorient and accommodate my sensory input as I was forced into a new and unfamiliar set of Laws and Rules, which didn¡¯t seem to know much about how to deal with Curse-carrying bundles of severed Karma. Behind me was an extruded mass of a dozen tentacles, extending through the matter of the ground and space, up and looming over the young seemingly-human woman on the other side of a Summoning Diagram of unfamiliar type and design, probably designed to attract the attention of this thing behind me, but not really contain it... which was about to prove fatal to whatever demands she was screeching of the thing. The tentacles seemed to pause, and power thrummed against the magic of the Circle. The young woman gasped, blood bursting out her nose as she staggered, her blue eyes going wide in shock, crimson streaming down the dark skin of her face. The Circle shattered like it was made of porcelain. That further destabilized the vortex here, so it wouldn¡¯t exist for long, the Veil instantly starting to push back this thing from outside its reality... but it did pop me free of being close to it. The tentacles lunged, and the girl screamed in horror as they plunged into her, her flesh just a containment vessel. They grasped, and yanked with casual skill and power. I watched her soul get ripped right out of her, desperate spiritual eyes shocked to see me floating there helplessly as she struggled uselessly. The Laws were trying to stuff her back into her body, but the tentacles had her, surrounded her in their influence, their Laws, and nothing happened. Except I was right there, and as the tentacles snatched their meal, the Laws snapped over to me, and pushed the other spirit there right into the existing spiritual void. --- ¡°Wagh!¡± I was trying to process the nervous system adjustment and sensory advancement, suddenly feeling very heavy and material and unfamiliar familiarity from programmed reflexes, because directly in front of me was a mass of greenish-blargh tentacles with little eyes on them that had suddenly realized it had taken out a snack, and now there was another one right in the same place! A two for one! How had this happened!? The pure novelty of it was all that stopped it from striking again. That, and the feeling of death and Curse magic around me. Okay, this body had active magic in it. It had taken the entirety of her soul out of her, but the vestiges of her mind were still here, crowded out by my own, as even a fraction of a soul-bound mind had far more power than the lack of one entirely. And I had a hungry Curse that needed to be repurposed. The mana here felt very strange, but I didn¡¯t care. I¡¯d been running through a lot of Karmic allocation while I drifted through space, and now I could give this thing an outlet. I Concentrated, the one thing I was good at, focus above all else on senses magical and visual, my eyesight forced to clear, to look at the squirming mass of tentacles burrowing into that young soul, supping upon the emotions and drives of its life, while others rose and prepared to do the same to me. She¡¯d still had her wand in hand, something snatches of memory told me was very important here. No magic without an Implement, which was limited to Wands and Orbs... I stared at the thing, impressing the sickening feel of its alien Aura into my thoughts, a texture and power and hunger that thought itself beyond morality, beyond mortality, feeding wherever it could... ¡°Be Gone,¡± I whispered at it, and the Curse inside me went absolute bonkers. It flowed out the line of mana I gave it, pushing forward as its target was abruptly changed, wanting to complete its mission as the parameters, even the vague ones, that had tied it to me were completely lost after I was stuffed into this girl. A new spell, a new target, new energy... and it was all fueled by the moment of death released by the soul staring at me in fear. She was going to die the most horrible death. It was already happening, and I had no power to stop it. But as the Curse plunged into her, she realized that it wasn¡¯t for her... it was for the thing that was feeding on her, and what it was going to do. The eyes of her soul closed, and she gave up. The Curse surged completely through her, free and clear, and those tentacles dining on her ate it right up. That was probably a very bad thing to do, as the remnants of a Death Titan Necromancer Lich¡¯s Death Curse don¡¯t need a whole lot to flare back up, and she had just willingly given herself over to power it. This... was HER vengeance, not mine! She tore apart and dissipated, the tentacles sucking up the remnants greedily, feeding on her final despair, release, and that final burst of hatred and revenge! The other tentacles were just starting to extend towards me when they convulsed and froze. AF Chapter 2 – Going Away Blackness licked over them like a thing alive. Space shook as power very, very old, and very, very actively malevolent, a power that was Evil, knew it was Evil, and glorified in being Evil swirled and grew as it devoured the energy of the very thing it had been remade to kill. It grew in power so fast it sucked all the life right out of the air as it fed. The psychic scream of the Entity was completely unfeigned as it realized it had just done something phenomenally stupid, and now it was going to pay a hideous price for it. Then the world slammed back together as it tried to tear itself away and free, and everything blew up around me. ------ I coughed out some sand, my head woozy, and pounded mental fists against my disorientation, trying to breathe and reorient myself, trying to make sense of unfamiliar messages screaming into my head, all of them demanding attention nownownow. I was pretty sure I had a couple broken limbs and maybe hip. There¡¯d been a severe spatial rupture, and while living creatures fared much better in such things than inanimate objects, I¡¯d been tossed and smashed into something, and was probably lucky I could still feel the pain. It meant my spine was still intact. The False Life I¡¯d gotten off had probably saved me, as I could feel the extra Soak was completely gone. I stifled my coughing and the acute desire to get the grit out of my mouth as I relaxed completely and stopped trying to put pressure on my injuries. Something that wasn¡¯t my memories said I had to use Life Magic to Heal myself. I followed the tangents of that thought to a dutifully-practiced spell, of a form completely different than what I knew, channeled by hexagonal scarabs of base metals, wooden talismans, herbs, powdered minerals, mixed tinctures, and tiny taper-candles with infused essence in them. A needlessly complex system of material components and very proper phrasing went with said components, which, when combined with a Wand or Orb, allowed the wielder to properly direct the flow of mana into the required form. Well, I suppose this was a reason why I took the Basic Metas while I was reorganizing what I could while drifting through astral space. Malar Zhapaj, I thought, feeling no Wand in my hand, very slowly letting the magic gather. Tiny candles ignited and burned away, little storehouses of power meant to power and guide the magic. I had vented the entire store of mana in her mana pool into Be Gone when I¡¯d sent it out, which had both allowed it to attune to her harmlessly and blend into her so it was sucked up with the rest of her soul. It had been the last of HER power, striking at the creature, and so it was her revenge upon it. The whispers of memories flitting about my head said something had changed with the mana coming in, based on my interpretation and comprehensions of it, which were an order of magnitude or four higher than hers had been. She had considered herself very gifted, one of the most talented Gharu¡¯n magi of her generation. Also, it seems I was a total snob and bitch, given the hauteur and arrogance riding through these memories I¡¯d inherited. My comprehension of Healing energy involved Arcane, Eldritch, Primal, Divine, Heartsong, Soul, and even Typeless Energies. The start of the process here was the tapers... and there was some hesitation. I mentally flipped through the spell, and noted that the collection of tapers for each spell and for each spell level changed with the mage casting them. There weren¡¯t unlimited forms of patterns, as the red tapers seemed to harmonize the most with all spells, but there were indeed 144 known combinations. One of the most tedious parts of practicing magic here was having to test out the many, many combinations to find the one that applied to you, although there were some master guidebooks that could walk you through the probable combinations once you worked out the first three or four levels yourself. This girl was indeed talented by the standards of her people, as she was casting level III spells before she was sixteen, and her combination of tapers, her Candle Talent, as it was called, seemed to be known and accepted as strong and vital. The double red tapers that were supposed to burn for this Healing spell were absolutely quiet. There were twelve different random tapers for a level III spell. The II spell used a basic red taper, while the III rotated to a pink one, with a second attuned taper inserted to boost the spell further and purify the energy. The turquoise taper in her satchel reacted to the copper hexagonal scarab, the sprigs of hyssop, powdered amber, and colcothar tincture potion, lined up with a carved yew talisman. Power, school, what it affected, energy type, and talisman choosing the form. Good enough. I looked at the form of the spell, lined it up in my Visual File, and pointedly duplicated it with a Cantrip so I wouldn¡¯t ever need to go through this dumbass stuff again, letting it all hum through the Arcane Bloodline I¡¯d brought in with me. In the future, I should only need the scarabs, as they were the catalyst for the amount of energy that needed drawing. Her name was Devra. Well, I guess that was my name now, although I refused to think of myself as al-Shamira. I think I would go with... al-Ryinth. I had to suppress a smile. Yes, that would work. Devra al-Ryinth made for a decent Name, and I fit it into place. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I could probably sub for Miss Shamira if I so desired, although there was no way I would replicate her completely self-focused and arrogant personality. It seemed to be something she had inherited from her teacher, who had praised her and talked her up like she was the second coming of the Poet or something... She had a special talent for conserving mana, able to use less than the default amount for spells, and thus being able to stretch her mana pool farther. It was a sophisticated skill to have as a child, and based on her tremendous sense of Self and intellect, she¡¯d been groomed to be a mage since she was discovered by a wandering mage of the Academy of the Arcane at the age of eight. It was... sort of the underside of metamagic? Metas allowed extra effects to be added to spells without increasing the costs, so spells grew more powerful. This method allowed mages to cast increasingly powerful spells at reduced costs, which amounted to something similar if the user¡¯s skill was high enough. My eyes were closed, but I was sure they were glittering. That sounded like just the sort of skill I would love to spend tremendous amounts of time developing the crap out of. Nothing like it existed in the Power of Ten. Whatever, I used the energy of a Cantrip to sub for a Wand, the small amount of mana burn a pain that I could overcome. I watched the mana flowing through the pattern, my own mana having to sustain the magic wherever it was not adequate, draining my partially-full pool in a sweep as Healing magic swirled through me. Ho, that felt REALLY good... Ouch! I winced as the spell read my Kirlian field, found out things were out of alignment, and abruptly corrected them. Bones shifted hard, snapped back together, shards from the breaks wriggling through meat to get back to where they were supposed to be before melding back together and fixing the holes and scars they¡¯d left behind. It was also considerably stronger than my added memories thought it should be, which didn¡¯t surprise me at all. I had several layers of Feats and Theurgies wound about my Healing spells, and this magic was just a variant on them. This magic was basically a variant Cure Serious Wounds, and my Theurgies boosted the heck out of something that crossed multiple Traditions. I needed to Assay myself... which started cross-memories down another rabbit hole that identified such an effect as a native magic that anyone could master, with three more variations on it: Assess Creature, Assess Human, Appraise Item, and Appraise Magical Item. The simple divinatory effect had been subdivided down to very specific avenues of study that even non-Caster people could pursue if they were so inclined. The skill to block them, Deception, was something that could be learned, as well. Physically, I seemed to be whole, any internal bleeding and wounds dealt with, but I was certainly not in perfect shape, aching and bruised all over. I looked at my pitiful mana pool, and compared how long it took to recharge the thing normally. Well, no, because you didn¡¯t wait around for it to be recharged. You used vivimancy, Life Magic, and recharged it that way, leveraging it with mana conversion, inherited lessons berated me. I sent my thoughts down a whole new branch of this Life Magic, as they called it, noting that there was nothing like Divine or Natural magic in my memories, and even astonishment that there would be a ¡®clean¡¯ type of magic like them. The magic she¡¯d been using had not been clean by any estimation, and to me felt very like uncontrolled Eldritch Magic, stuff that should only be accessed with a strong Pact to regulate and formalize it. Nothing about true gods in her memory, only people of legend basically deified by time and the examples they set. Demons they had, and didn¡¯t seem to know if they were real or not, although the Viamontians seemed to get the title a lot, blue-skinned conquerors that they were... She really hadn¡¯t liked Viamontians. Huh. There were three types of ¡®Conversion¡¯ spells available. They were based on the principle that Healing magic was really turning Mana to Health. Thus, you could also convert Health back into Mana. There was also topical physical energy, ¡®Stamina¡¯, which you could Heal/Convert back and forth as well. Healing was stabler, fixed effects, basically restoring Health or Stamina in a known range of efficacy. The Conversion spells were mana-powered, but could be much stronger, because they worked on ¡®half¡¯ of existing Source, and then converted it to the target energy type, at increasingly higher efficiency as the spell grew more powerful, with the only limit being the source energy. So, someone with a very, very large stamina pool could very quickly recharge a mana pool, as stamina could be recovered fairly quickly compared to Health and mana, especially if buttressed with a Rejuvenation or Revitalizing spell... Unlike the Matrix-locked spells in my head, the mana pool allowed mana to flow in and out of it freely, without limit. Even Sorcery didn¡¯t allow such free incoming mana, requiring long periods of Meditation or sleep to regain power to alleviate Spell Slot Burn. Granted, natural mana recovery was also quite slow, generally requiring focused Meditation to have any speed to it at all, which was why it was only used when you were truly empty of mana. Did they really have an entire school of magic around ¡®Buff Skill X¡¯ and ¡®Buff Stat Y¡¯?!?! I looked between the range of various Skill-boosting ¡®Creature Magic¡¯ spells and Wieldskill, and then at the Stat-boosters and the Animal Affinity six-way choices. To their credit, they did have offensive ¡®debuff¡¯ versions of the spells, which was very inventive in its way, like a Curse effect that was not a Curse. In the back of my head, I began consolidating things, because that''s what Theurges do, and most especially Soul Shards of Master Archtheurges. I really wanted that Wand back, but had no idea where it was right now. Still, a Cantrip was not going to injure me. Prestidigitation was the King of Cantrips for all the uses it had, and cleaning myself off was just one of them... especially the grit in my mouth. It occurred to me that I had a lot of Karma I could apply. This mana pool didn¡¯t actually sound all that different from the Arcane Pool that Einz had stumbled across, which could conflate excess Spell Levels, Ki, Heartsong, Channel uses, and Spell Pool uses, only it was faster to recharge than those were. The principles should be the same, just the rules were a bit more permissive here when backed by magic aimed at the specific effect. AF Chapter 3 – Second Hand Education I also should have monstrous amounts of unused Karma just sitting around I could throw at things. I didn¡¯t know if the Power of Ten limits applied here, as everything I could see related that gaining Levels here wasn¡¯t that hard, but gaining Karma fast enough to improve yourself to the scale I was used to wasn¡¯t very common at all, and likely only to be found on battlefields. Or, you know, hitting an Eldritch abomination with an Eternal-Class Death Curse and booting it off the mortal plane after a foolish young woman with arrogant overconfidence in her own abilities brought it in. A young woman tempted by her master to do so. That book wasn¡¯t left lying around because her teacher forgot it. It was done so the old Devra would take it, get dreams of power, and try to use the things inside for her own benefit. She¡¯d been a sacrificial lamb. If she succeeded, her master knew it worked. If she didn¡¯t... alas, another foolish mage lost to the demands of magical discovery. I could see and infer things this girl had not, clearly hinting that she was raised up to be used and disposed of when her ambitions overreached. That meant... she would have been followed, observed, and all of this witnessed. On cue, I heard a soft footstep nearby. Ah, ¡®my¡¯ teacher¡¯s pet Scholars of Shadow, the Zharalim. They were often used as personal agents and bodyguards of the most powerful mages of the schools. They wouldn¡¯t be here without having had instructions to follow me... I guess giving the vestiges of her mind a new soul didn¡¯t stop a whole lot of resentment from bubbling up inside of me. The sense of betrayal was pretty thick and cloying, especially with my insights into what a fool she¡¯d been. Carefully spreading out my weight, I cleared my head and focused around me. I couldn¡¯t see very well, which surprised me, as I was very used to having incredibly acute vision on several levels. I allocated one of my Valence II Slots to the vestiges of my Mask of Clarity Soultat, and it bubbled out of the skin on my face and slid into place down over my upper face and eyes, giving me Devasight and Devilsight, and x4 magnification. The night instantly brightened up. Directly in front of me was a crushed wall, and beyond that was a very weird crater, having a spire-like point in the middle of the basement-deep crater that had dug out a few more feet down past where the Summoning Circle had been drawn. The upper floors were no longer there, nor were the supporting walls to the side, and it looked like the stones and dirt in an unnaturally perfect sphere or circle had been picked up, swirled around, and deposited beyond the edges of the spatial rift there. The hole in the wall was unnaturally sheer and perfect, although the ground and area around was also dotted with rubble and stone, twisted into unnaturally thin and warped shapes that had promptly shattered when they plummeted to the ground. Let¡¯s see... she¡¯d picked an abandoned building a good half-mile from any others, and it was night. There¡¯d been no indication of a fire, and a spatial rip tended to suck in dust instead of spread it, so it was entirely possible nobody random knew where the sound of an explosion had come from. The odds the Zharalim wouldn¡¯t check the only other building here was slim to none, especially with the big gaping hole in it. Well, it was actually not something I didn¡¯t have to worry about. My eyes glittered as I looked around for my dropped Wand, and still didn¡¯t see it. Wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it was morphed and shattered in mid-explosion as I was sent flying and it left my hand. Wonderful. There were many things I could potentially do, but rapid no-Implement Casting could knock me right out and defeat me immediately. I took a deep breath, stepping past the empty window silently, into the shadow of the rubble on the floor, and began to slowly gather power for a Valence II, wincing at the throbbing headache that started again, something only partially alleviated by the complex hand motions drawing the sigla needed for the spell. Ghosting around the corner, the Zharalim paused directly on the other side of the wall from me, staring at the crater carefully, then at the circle carved out of the timbers and hardened clay of the building behind him. There were tiny crinkles under his feet from shattered and fused bits of earth and stone that he couldn¡¯t avoid without resorting to some of the greater secrets of Stealth Magic here. He stepped inside, pausing at the greater shadows, just as the swirl of my spell finished and I vanished from sight. Invisibility, staple of every Sorcerer with any sense. And then, just... don¡¯t move where you can be heard. I had been limited on what I could allocate Karma to while astral-drifting. According to what I recalled, I had nine sets of Karma at Nine to allocate... but everything in Devra¡¯s memories said the whole Classes thing I was used to was absolute nonsense. Everything was a skill, and you got better at it when practicing it, only there were only so many things you could be good at because time actually existed. I was so definitely going to have to get Sustained and turn THAT on its head. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The Zharalim couldn¡¯t see very well, and he wasn¡¯t going to light anything up to see my tracks in the sand and stuff. I just focused on standing very still, staying relaxed, and breathing in absolute silence. He was trying to feel for signs of life, but Invisibility was foiling it as a quasi-stealth magic, so he was getting nowhere. After a few minutes, he turned and exited the room as quietly as he had stepped inside. I waited in the silence until the shadows of his motion had faded, and then carefully stepped over into his footprints, so I wouldn¡¯t crush any of the fragile things on the ground and alert him of my presence. It was possible to see me if someone was really sharp-eyed, but I was moving slowly and carefully, knowing how fragile the illusion could be if you didn¡¯t know the particulars about it. The real problem was going to be when I deviated from his footsteps. The tracks would be obvious in better lighting, given the sandy soil, and they¡¯d lead right to me. I didn¡¯t have the lightfoot or other techniques to avoid the ground, either. It was a pain being a Three and not being able to apply tons of Karma quickly. Except... was that true here? Devra had never really been in a situation where she could apply more than a point¡¯s worth of Karma or essence or vitae or experience or whatever they called it here, poetic names that basically all meant the same thing: the favor of the Land complemented by magic so you could improve, generally working off an akashic basis to accelerate learning to magical levels. I had just thrown a really powerful and monumentally dangerous creature off the Mortal Plane, and if I hadn¡¯t killed it, I had really, really hurt it! Hmm, according to Devra, breaking through to a new level of spiritual growth was actually accompanied by a visible light display, magic reacting to the new level... and it was supposed to be accompanied by magical healing and invigoration, which should have raised my mana pool to full, taken care of my injuries, and restored my stamina... I eyed the crater in front of me, and suddenly realized why I had survived. If my False Life was tied to my mana pool, it must have been hugely drained at the same time my health was going up and down. So, I hadn¡¯t died of injuries, internal or external, because I¡¯d Leveled up as I was blasted away. Well, convenient. Of course, I hadn¡¯t Assayed myself, so I didn¡¯t know what Level I was... except Devra¡¯s memories indicated that such self-examination was purely internal and wouldn¡¯t use any magic that might alert someone. I flicked the mental switch she used to examine herself... and it promptly glitched, the format of the incoming information completely screwed up and adding to my headache with an explosive jumble of psychedelic data popping into my head. I had to catch my breath and shove away the effect, feeling a drop of blood come out my nose as I calmed down my thoughts. The magic system here was cuckoo. Or... I was. I had a Power of Ten Casting Matrix inside me, as well as the local mana pool. The two different magical Traditions were jockeying for position and how to apply themselves, and the local manafield was probably watching and laughing at me at what I was doing. Okay, okay. How to apply, what to apply, reason my way through this and then apply the Karma... The Power of Ten had two main systems of learning: Karma and Time/Training. Karma gave you Class and Racial Levels. These came pre-bundled with specific abilities, skill ranks, Soak or Health, and general increases in the limits of what you could learn. Time/Training was the ¡®real¡¯ method, where you focused on learning something, generally Skills, but sometimes Feats or Masteries, and added to your store of information and skills the long, slow, real world way. The local, um, Isparian system, just had Skills and Stats, and treated them both the same way. Well, no. Skills could be improved by practice and repetition, a slow and steady rep count system of their own that over time could raise you to great skill, relatively speaking. If you had nothing to do, you could just practice, over and over, and improve steadily. Stats, now, Stats you had to earn Karma for, and basically magically juice them. Your youth was the time to develop your foundation Stats in the direction you wanted, and you couldn¡¯t fundamentally change them without Karma or temporary magic. Her vestige was going ga-ga over all the stuff I knew was possible, categorizing it all as Skills I could just pour Karma into and acquire, without going through all that ¡®Class¡¯ rigamarole. The idea that I was a Sage Sorcerer/3, Wizard/3, Ur-Priest/3, Monk/1, Melee/1, Archer/1, Scout/1 was giving her vestige conniption fits on all the time and skills I¡¯d ¡®wasted¡¯... except I hadn¡¯t wasted anything at all. Nothing I did on the Power of Ten side detracted from the potential of the Isparian side. Effectively, the Skills I gained on that side were completely ignored. The fact I knew how to throw things, wield a staff, could fight unarmed, and other martial things were wastes of time on her end. Of course, how Caster Level improvements worked on one side vs the other was still something that needed to be hammered out. But... that was basically what a Theurgy was, and a Power of Ten Theurgy Class Level basically harmonized two different types of magic. Granted, it was usually WITHIN a Casting Matrix, not just connected to it and spritzed out into a world with such different default magical rules. But this world didn¡¯t have Valence structures or Engrams like Power of Ten did. The system seemed needlessly rigid to the inherited side of me, while also extremely powerful for the amount of mana it used and how it could just explode with extra power using Feats, Class Skills, and Masteries. The only problem was... there was probably no akashic rendition of an Arcane Pool Theurgy for me to take a Class Level in, which meant I would have to make my own! Such a damn pain in the arse when my life was literally on the line here. Okay, I was going to have to draw a clear line between the two types of magic, even if they basically did the same thing and I instinctively would grab for both results. Don¡¯t Assay, just Assess. Don¡¯t Assay, just Assess, I repeated to myself, focusing exclusively on the native magic, directing it at myself, forcing off the divination effect that wanted to come muscling in on pre-programmed reflexes that told me I needed it to do this. There was kind of a split divergence in my head, a metaphorical kick in the shin that I was ignoring MY proper magic for this crazy stuff, and then the data unspun the way that it should have, although my Cantrip-powered Visual File seemed to be the default dump location. Devra al-Ryinth, Level 104. AF Chapter 4 – Two Systems that don’t like One Another The vestige inside of me goggled in disbelief, while I just raised an eyebrow. She¡¯d been level 30! Barely high enough to get off her Copper spells reliably! Level 100 was incredibly high, archmage level. I should be strong enough to use Gold spells, the highest spells known! Buuuut I¡¯d not invested anything of what was probably an incredible Karmic Harvest from doing something really nasty to something that deserved it all. Quest awards for the win! I didn¡¯t know how Levels translated over between the systems, but Level 100 was incredibly advanced, according to her memories. Legendary champions and the like were in the 100¡¯s. I was basically sitting on the steps of legendary power. Huh. What I could recall of ¡®legendary power¡¯... didn¡¯t really impress me, and being a four-school archmage of basically a system where one of the Classes (Creature Magic) was two spells, the third, Life Magic, was one school of magic (necro/vivimancy), and the fourth was another school (evocation), ¡®legendary power¡¯ didn¡¯t really shake me at all, which just impressed my vestige all the more at my blas¨¦ acceptance of the fact. Have some Karma, I thought, and threw some at the vestige. There was a swirl and pop in my head, almost like something breaking out of its shell, blinking, taking a look around, and then staring at me inside my skull. Feeling awkward?, I inquired of her, while I wondered what to do. My soul. You¡¯re a part of me, now. The fact I remembered having multiple thoughtstreams both made her reel and calmed her down, as I didn¡¯t consider this situation all that unusual. -I can remember seeing the old me die...-, she /whispered back, and was startled she could even think and say that. Well, we¡¯re both operating off my soul, so this is me and you, we¡¯re an us together, mishmashed and all. I¡¯ll put it out there that together we¡¯re Devra, but since we both have different origins, you can call me Ry, Ryin, or Ryinth, as you prefer, and I¡¯ll call you Sham, Mira, or Shamira, as you like. She thought that over, knowing I wasn¡¯t being condescending or anything, just taking the situation as it was and moving on instead of obsessing over it. We were both essentially copies of someone else, so she couldn¡¯t even have a crisis of identity, as here I was sitting over here knowing I wasn¡¯t who I was modeled after, and basically, neither was she. Plus she wouldn¡¯t exist without me, so there was that. -We need to invest the Karma you earned!- she /spoke up urgently, moving up next to me mentally to study the Assess results. Strength, Endurance, Coordination, Quickness, Focus, Self. I raised an eyebrow, and filtered it down. Strength, affected damage with hand-held weapons and carrying capacity. Endurance, affecting magically-invigorated Health and stamina in general, with some lessening of magic attacks implied. Coordination, affected dodging ability, damage with very light weapons and missile weapons. Quickness, speed both afoot and in combat. Focus, representing Intellect, with memory, agility of thought, and comprehension implied. Used in everything magical and to perform most crafts well. Self, representing depth of spirit, harmony with nature, and resilience of character. Notably, contributed to magical ability and the size of the mana pool. Health, which Mira was startled to see me subdivide. Ah, yes, invisible unless you looked at it, but Endurance-derived Health was the physical body, while directly-derived Health was actually Soak, or magical protection against damage, the very frustrating ability to ablate tons of punishment without actual physical harm. Stamina was the same way. If it came from Endurance, it was ¡®real¡¯, a result of a stronger body and physical conditioning. If it was boosted directly, it was magical, an extra reserve of energy... which was how their vivimancy could tap it. Mana was Arcane energy reserves. I noted the Self half was held in the spirit, and the Mana half was held in the mind. Also, the spell helpfully colored the bars indicating how full they were red, yellow, and blue in turn, which was highly amusing to me. I could literally set them up inside my head as a reference point, which I proceeded to do. Stolen story; please report. Strength currently at 30, Endurance at 60, Coordination at 30, Quickness at 60, Focus at 210, and Self at 140. Base Scores were... 10/50/20/50/140/100. -Focus 210!- she blurted out, and then gaped. -Our mana pool is 250 already!- I looked it over casually. I¡¯m a Sage Sorcerer. I use Intellect for all my bonus spells, instead of Wisdom or Charisma, which map to your ¡®Self¡¯ Stat. Since you¡¯re using Arcane energy, the effect is swapping over to your side through the pools. We¡¯re using Focus instead of Self for bonus Mana. Okay, that was amusing. I couldn¡¯t ignore the Stat, since it was the foundation of her magic, but Focus was definitely a god Stat, and I had it in spades. I waved up the Assay on my side of things. Strength/Coord/Constitution, Intellect/Wisdom, Charisma. Base Stats, 8/12/14/22 (18)/16 (12)/16 (18). Current Stats, 10/14/15/25 (19)/18 (14) /18 (19). Mira had a naturally higher Charisma than I did, but just barely above-average starting Wisdom. Health and Stamina were also interacting weirdly. Because they were a Stat and not derived from Class Levels, which the Stats on my side affected, the magical effects were a bit screwball. She saw the same thing. -Our Health and Stamina are higher than they should be!- I had five things affecting that. Arcane Prodigy, which started the Arcane Toughness Mastery and let me use Intellect instead of Constitution at my first Class Level. Arcane Toughness increased Health by the scale of the Metas I knew, so only +3 for now. Arcane Toughness II added my Will Save to my Soak, which at this point was only +11. Toughness added either Character Level to Health, or +3, whatever was higher. Toughness II added Fortitude Save to Soak, which was +7 at this time. Favored Class bonuses added +3. So... +5 Soak from Arcane Prodigy, +11 Arcane Toughness II, +7 Toughness II. +26 over expected by Karma... which was spot on. Health should be +3 and +3, for +6. Also spot on... sort of. There seemed to be a partial investment in the Health Stat? As if Karma was pushed up from below? Ah, one Human Level, maxed, 8 Health Points. Those would be ¡®free¡¯, and so paid for by the Level. The Karma she had spent on them would thus be pushed up the scale... not even adding up to the cost of one more point. She¡¯d invested 30 points each into Health and Stamina, and 40 into Mana. So, we should have been at 60 and 90, and 180. Instead, we were at 93 and 100... and 250. Ah, the Great Fortitude Feat granted +10 Stamina as a side effect of a higher Fortitude save. The vast majority of her Karma was practice Karma. She¡¯d invested only moderate amounts into her Stats, but her Skills were up around plus-ninety points, the magical ones the highest of them. Learning Karma had gone straight to them, obviously, with hundreds of hours spent practicing spellcasting behind her getting her to that stage. In other words, she was a civilian mage increasing her proficiency by repeated Casting cycles, not a combat mage going out and earning experience Karma in combat she could apply anywhere. Nothing wrong with that. She was a teenager, shouldn¡¯t be out there fighting... or Summoning eldritch abominations as shortcuts to power. -If you think about it, in one way, it worked, right?- she actually /managed to get out. I turned a mental eye on her, rolled my eyes, and she snickered at me, us, and herself. I doubted any of that was planned by the creature she¡¯d brought in, which, I¡¯d been informed, was somewhat snakily called a ¡®slithyr¡¯. Of course, she¡¯d only seen her end of it. My end of it indicated just how huge and massive the thing was, likely with tentacles extruded into and across countless worlds... Whatever. Her eyes drifted over to the utterly massive pile of over a billion Karma, in their nomenclature, waiting to be allocated. I kind of blinked as she went crazy on her side of things, things blinking and pinging and doing all sorts of stuff as wandering Karma was sucked down into what she was doing. I appropriated some and sent it into my Mark. I felt the allocation hit, but I could only input two goldweight equiv, so nothing happened right now. At Renewal, I could do it again, and I told her to reserve another batch at that time, as I wanted to get that up, and only earned Karma would work. It would only be +1 (2) Sacred bonus to Intellect now, but another boost to magic skills and mana was not going to be ignored. The pings stopped rather abruptly, and she glared at the results. One point into each primary Stat. One point into each derived Stat. One point into each Skill. I shook my head in something resembling disbelief. Well, it appeared that it didn¡¯t matter how fast you Leveled up here, you still could only improve yourself so quickly. I had no doubt whatsoever that by their standards we would be Leveling like crazy. Why, who knows how much further we could take this in but a month, or a season? Which helped me at all right now not in the slightest. ¡°What have you found?¡± The sharp voice rolled through both of us, and I narrowed my eyes as I turned my head. My Assay was still there, and went out to look at her. Mira¡¯s mentor, Calli... wah. Xunidira? Milantean Sorceress 87? Fury began to bubble up as I perceived a layer of magic over her that would fool an Assessment, but she¡¯d not resisted a basic Assay. Which didn¡¯t mean she didn¡¯t sense someone doing so, her head snapping around and looking in my direction. ¡°Who is there? Who dares to probe me?¡± she called out sharply. AF Chapter 5 – Teacher Dearest is Here Welp, okay, she was going to kill me, without a doubt. She couldn¡¯t have someone knowing the truth. A Milantean in the Imperial Academy? And wasn¡¯t... fuck, wasn¡¯t Xunidira the name of the daughter of Nuhmudira, the Great Infiltrator who had nearly destroyed the whole Academy twenty years ago after delving into the lore stolen from the Viamontians? She had been forced to run, fleeing into one of the mysterious blue Portals that had taken so many people from Ispar over the last two generations. Her involvement in nearly destroying the Imperial Academy at Tirethas was shushed up publicly, but all the students there knew. I heavily and highly doubted her Zharalim did. They were Gharu¡¯ndim like I was, and fully aware of her mother. The woman who had taught Mira was playing at being a shore-dwelling Gharu¡¯n by her accent, but her lineage and heritage was Milantean, who were rather infamous for the number of dark mages they birthed! They had even used the Poet himself for their Dark Rituals! This was also an area of dimensional weakness, and the Isparians were anything but adept in dimensional magic. It was one of their big lackings in the magical department, and those random Portals were a huge reason why so many mages were interested in the things. I could have told them the magic here was simply not strong enough or conducive to making something as powerful as Portals, but this was not the time nor place. Blue Portals. Dimensional magic, the real stuff, not this quasi-Summoning Mira was totally unprepared for. Everything she had researched indicated the Portals were random, and although they had tapered off over the last ten years, they still popped up in odd places, mesmerizing those who looked upon them, and drawing them in. Okay, there were a couple things I had to do. The first was Know Location and find out my dimensional coordinates. The second was pull one of those Portals here. A distraction to give me that time would be nice. ¡°Xunidira, daughter of Nuhmudira, what are you doing in Tirethas?¡± I said in a completely wrong accent. ¡°Do you not know that there is a deathmark on your mother? Or are you merely carrying on her work?¡± The shock on her face was absolutely complete as my voice rang out, and the Zharilim escorting her looked at her sharply, unable to miss the expression on her face at her secret being revealed. ¡°You-!¡± she shouted, and then saw the expression on the faces of the two men with her under the bright moon. Her Wand came out and up, and a second later bright lightning flashed into the chest of the first one, sending him flying in a charred mess. Gold-level Lightning. I skipped down into the middle of the crater as a Cantrip throbbed at my head, a bunch of numbers slid across them, and I painted them into my Visual File. ¡°If you are a Scholar of Stealth, I¡¯d run now, because she can¡¯t afford to have you spreading the truth of her identity!¡± I sang out, and the man who¡¯d arrived first, now charging in to help his brother Zharalim as he slashed desperately at the woman, slowed down. Reinforced robes and magical armor took the attack easily, and the rapid slashes barely raised the slightest of gashes on her throat and arms as power gathered on her Wand. A flaring pink field flared over the man, his eyes bright as he realized he was going to die as the spell inflicted massive Vulnerability to lightning on him with the words ¡°Cruath Quafeth!¡± The third Zharalim turned and raced off into the darkness as ¡°Zojak Quagaz!¡± echoed out, and the second Zharalim charred and died, the Gold-level Lightning Bolt tearing through him even more violently than it had his junior. But the third man was off and running, and I was reaching out with the essence of a Blink spell, looking for a wandering weakness pervading the area, which had to be attracted to the stress the Veil here had just undergone. ¡°You!¡± snarled the severe woman who had been Mira¡¯s inspiration and primary instructor... and the cause of her death. ¡°Who are you?!¡± she demanded, eyes straining, roughly able to pick out the magic sparkling on my fingers. I felt and saw the Lightning Vulnerability field settle over me as she found a target, and hissed in satisfaction. Without a counter-protection up, her Bolt was going to kill me. Right there. I yanked, and space opened up behind me in a flowering blue nimbus of light. ¡°An explorer and traveler to distant places! So long!¡± I stepped back into the Portal as she screamed. Violet-pink lightning sparked and flared, but the Portal to somewhere collapsed about me and was gone, historically destabilized by the first person through it in ninety-nine percent of all recorded cases. Mira remembered something about the Viamontians making one last long enough to send armies through it, but what I¡¯d brought in definitely wasn¡¯t that stable, and her teacher wasn¡¯t following me. She could find her own damn Portal! ------- The Portal trip was topsy-turvy, which wasn¡¯t that unusual for such things, and certainly not much worse than Teleporting. It was only worse than my trip through Astral Space because I had a physical body, and Mira was impressed at how blas¨¦ I was about such a wondrous journey and display of magic. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Then she looked at some of my memories and realized why I wasn¡¯t impressed. It was because I was depressed I couldn¡¯t do the same thing... yet. Then there was the equivalent of a cough and hiccup in the magic, and I was dropped out of the Portal as it opened, disgorged me, and promptly shut itself behind me. I let myself drop to my hands and knees to get my guts under control, vestigial magic taking care of residual kinetic energy, atmospheric pressure, all the good stuff. I took some long and deep breaths to steady myself as I looked around. In my hand was a blue crystal of some kind, with a broken circle in the middle of it. As I looked at it, it fractured wildly, then shattered into a tiny mound of crystalline dust upon the floor. I noted that there were more than a few mounds of that dust on the ground, and many had been disturbed with rat tracks. My sense of foreboding grew. I was in some kind of carved stone room, with what looked to be a smashed table and chair, two fallen bookcases with their contents strewn across the room, and a long cold fireplace set in the stone wall to the side. Some sort of dried water fountain on the wall was also shattered, there was a fallen candle stand, and at least one broken masonry jar. A broken, decayed tub sat near the cold hearth, and what had probably been a stack of wood, now overgrown with mold and must, was also there. It was also absolutely dark, and I would have been blind without my Mask of Clarity humming along. I saw only one way out of there, the iron doors hanging askew, just remnants hanging on their hinges, the metal decayed and chopped apart savagely by something in the past. I slowly tracked right and left, and my eyes settled on the white of human bones scattered under the wall to the right, Devilsight not inhibited by the darkness at all. Mira was noticeably quiet as she watched all this with me, not having any better idea of what to expect here than I did. I sat up and looked around, spotting what looked like old rotting sacks lined up on either side the shattered table, things spilling out of them and the contents scattered in all directions by rodents or something. Those things look familiar... I slid sideways, closed my hands around something that was festooned with more than a bit of rat turds, and lifted up the perfectly functional, if very low-quality Wand laying discarded on the floor. Yep, it synched with my magic instantly. Cheap bronze and maple, by the feel of it, but I didn¡¯t have anything better, and so I didn¡¯t care. Which didn¡¯t mean it wouldn¡¯t hurt to have a backup. The packs looked to have contained sacks, perhaps food of some kind, and basic weapons that were now all warped and decayed, gnawed on and worthless. The rats had been nesting in them, and the nests were somewhat sizable... but there were none present for the moment, so I pulled out a second Wand from the mess and used Prestidigitation to weave up a crude sheath for it I could hang it on the back of my belt if I needed the thing. This night vision you have is incredible, Mira said, studying everything as I stepped over to the skeleton. What do you make of this place? The human bones were heavily gnawed and scattered, but didn¡¯t hide the fact some of them were fused by acid, and one skull had a definite penetration wound from something sharp hacking into it. Adult male, looked to have been wearing blue robes of some kind, now scattered and mostly faded, like the rest of his attire rat-chewed and worthless. ¡°If those packs had food and weapons in them, they were there to give to new arrivals, who presumably only had what they were carrying and might need them.¡± I moved up to the books and toed them. Most fell apart, charred, burned, or dissolving even before I touched them. ¡°There are elemental energy residues everywhere. The rat bedding had both scorch and burn marks on it, from fire and lightning. That man was showered with enough acid to eat through his flesh to the bone, and you can see the scoring of it on these glaze marks.¡± I indicated pitted areas of the stone. ¡°These are made by some sort of material hard enough to chip into stone.¡± I ran my fingers over the clefts in the stone. ¡°Like a pickaxe, but narrower.¡± A strange weapon, Mira mused, as I headed out the shattered door. This room opened up into what appeared to have been a transition room, with another riven door in front of me. A large shattered plaque was on the ground, covered in dust only broken by rat trails. Halls opened into larger, silent rooms to the right and left. To the left was a broken free-standing fountain... and what looked to be like two planted, dead trees, brittle and withered from lack of sunlight and water. I instinctively looked up, feeling for residues of natural magic which might have allowed them to grow inside. In the other direction was a more social room, with another hearth, seats, a table, a low couch, and more jars. All were cold, shattered, and torn apart, broken by... something. There was also a set of stairs that somehow was not destroyed, leading up. Ryin, the magic is stronger here, Mira breathed. Our mana pool is recovering slowly. I kept looking around as I acknowledged the fact. It was indeed recovering without using Meditation, maybe a point a minute. Which alerted me to the fact that I was an idiot. I had a wand, and should be trying to fill my pool if I could. ¡°Puish Zhanil!¡± I said softly. Stamina to Mana II, an Iron Spell. Mana conversion should be easy on it, so I should expend far less on it than what I spent. I started to weave the spell, and promptly felt the hollowness in it, like it couldn¡¯t find anything to target. I grimaced as a point of Mana fizzled, and the spell collapsed. That is not a good sign, Mira said softly. ¡°You got that right.¡± I tapped the Wand thoughtfully, and steeled myself. I still had over 60 Health, even if I didn¡¯t feel like it. ¡°Puish Zhafil!¡± I said softly, racing my thoughts along the play of iron scarab, red taper, saffron petals, amber powder, and brimstone tincture (as opposed to quicksilver) of the previous spell, finishing up with the willow talisman to form it all properly. The spell warbled, shifted, couldn¡¯t find a target, and fizzled out, costing two points of Mana this time. Well, less than ten points left, which wasn¡¯t good. I looked at the mana pool, then at my Matrix. Back, forth. Uh-huh. The Core of my Matrix powered my Cantrips, minor spells I could Cast all day. Instead of pulling out the power and forming it into a spell, I instead turned around and transferred it into the mana pool as raw energy, and then flipped a little lever of my own. Arcane Pool Theurge/1! AF Chapter 6 – Dev needs Mana Badly Tied off for the moment, the flow of energy from the Matrix, basically half a Level every six seconds, pulsed out and deposited itself slowly into my Mana Pool. Twelve seconds later, the blue line advanced one point. By the Poet!, Mira exclaimed. Can this be sustained indefinitely?, she cried out in wonder. Five points of mana a minute was a renewal rate rivaled only by the greatest of mana Formations in the Imperial Academy! ¡°As long as I¡¯m not pulling on my Core, yes.¡± Basically, if I didn¡¯t use the energy, it would dump into my mana pool, which definitely needed the love, considering its size and emptiness. ¡°Let me try something else. Boquar Zhaloi!¡± This would use the last of my mana if it went off... and it did. Iron scarab, mugwort clippings, amber dust, gypsum potion, willow talisman again. The spell wound about me confidently, swirling strongly as it went to work, and I could feel the motion of the mana all around me being conducted through and down into my Matrix, which promptly pumped the mana there over into my pool. The additional mana draw was up to 1 per 9 seconds, which was an improvement from 12 seconds, if not a big one. The natural rate of 1 per minute was now 2, so I should be hauling in at least eight mana a minute. Which, if I had plenty of time between fights, would be all I needed to stay full. How likely was that to happen? I noted the dust on the stairs was not disturbed by the rats. Well, it was about to be disturbed by me. I slowly and silently moved over there, setting my foot on them. They didn¡¯t seem to be gnawed at all, and I reached down to touch them. They had some vestigial magic in them, giving them the strength to resist time and decay. I carefully set foot on them, and padded my way around and up, noting that the marks in the wall from acid followed up... Upstairs looked like it had once been a bedroom, given the remnants of the bed, another candle stand, and destroyed table. Over in the corner, dusty robes and at least two skulls peeked out of a tumble of destroyed clothing. More bookshelves and books, the latter scattered, ravaged, and torn apart, acidic burns on them making the paper crumble to the touch, if the rats hadn¡¯t gnawed them completely apart. I went over to the dead, flicking up Vivic Darts, just in case. The two white slivers of unwhite energy revolved around my hand, fascinating Mira, who had never seen them before. But no, the skeletons didn¡¯t rise and reassemble themselves to greet me. I sifted through the bones, noting the layers of dust had been disturbed before, and there was nothing valuable there, likely removed by others who had come here before me. I headed back downstairs, and the second set of large iron doors. Large iron... were they guarding against people coming in from Ispar, or attackers from without?, I wondered. The hallway curved in an S, leading up to a pair of iron-bound wooden doors that had been mauled even more badly than the iron ones, completely shredded and only their hinges and fittings still remaining. This room was much larger... and had multiple stone plaques and their columns shattered and fallen over throughout it, the rubble kicked around and dispersed throughout the room. There were also more of the trees growing indoors that had died, scraps of wood hurled throughout the room. Ominously, there were areas that had been trampled on and scattered more recently, the dust thinner there, and older footprints visible... and tracks of both rats and things that weren¡¯t rats. There were also what looked like streaks in the floor from things being dragged, and visibly clear areas where things had been dragged, converging on a hole in the wall. Looking closer, I could see a variety of basic swords, daggers, staves, and other such weapons as might be held in hand, scattered here and there, along with some strewn arrows fallen out of a dragged quiver. Something had come through the wall there, something using a combination of acid and something like picks to carve through the stone and force a rough passage through. It was basically man-size and high, with a rounded and narrow walking area, and something about it raised my hackles. Which it should have, because I was very sure that a lot of the people who had come through that Portal recently had met something here and died. There were vestiges of magic on the scattered logs, and after a moment of examination, I realized that they were roughly carved. Arms, legs, head, torso... some sort of animated Construct here, standing guard for whatever reason? Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Wait a moment. I visualized this whole small set of rooms. This roughly carved tunnel was the only way in or out. If that was the case... how had the people who¡¯d been in here gotten in or out? Dimensional travel magic, or had I missed a secret door or something? Given the time and ruin, any such door should have been fairly easy to spot, even if I hadn¡¯t been looking for it... and I still had a Vatic Gaze, and active magic was pretty visible to me at short range. Regardless, that tunnel was the only way in or out. I considered it carefully, looked down to see my footprints in the dust, and more importantly, sniffed at the scent trail I was surely leaving. If I retreated, if something came, it would just track me easily. Regardless, I needed time to get mana back. Hmm, this might be the time to try Meditation. If nothing was coming, nothing was coming. If it was, it wouldn¡¯t hurt if I had more mana to deal with it... and got some defensive spells of my own up with. Currently only had Force Armor and Shield available for defense. I withdrew to the far wall and a cul-de-sac behind arches in the corner, an area as far from that tunnel as I could make it. Thinking about it, I burned a Wizard Valence I, and Summoned up a Phantom Servant. It wasn¡¯t very strong, but it didn¡¯t have to be. I bade it start stacking up all the pieces of shattered stone into a rough low wall, then start stacking the construct-pieces on top of them. All I wanted it to do was slow something down a bit, and in the dark, it shouldn¡¯t even see this. If it was working with infravision, I would still stand out, but the mounds would break up my outline until it got closer. If all it brought me was a few seconds, that was enough. As the Servant got to work tirelessly carrying pieces of shattered plaques over to stack up in an arc around me quietly, I sat in the corner and got to non-work. Bring everything into serenity. First time, on a twice-new world, new body, former owner now a part of me, sure, serenity, harmony, flowing, drift and yet be aware of everything. Mira was sitting there watching my internal bars and clock, and immediately noticed the incoming manaflow was increasing as I relaxed and opened myself to the stuff. Further juiced by the Iron Mana Renewal spell, the base one point per minute doubled to two, and increased to about half another point, doubled by the Mana Renewal to a total of five a minute, the three per six seconds staying steady and stable. I reflected that I could do better than a Cantrip rate of speed if I got a Reserve working. However, that was a lot of rep counts away. So, rep counts, yeah, gonna have to work on those. And see if mana could be used to renew Spell Slots. If so, that was a huge game changer. Lots of rep counts really fast, plethora of lower-level spells. Of course, it all depended on exactly how pricey Valence spells were versus those Cast from a Pool like this. 10 mana a minute. A half hour and I¡¯d be right as rain. The Servant mounded stuff up in front of me, and I sat there and drew mana in. Looked like Meditation increased the default rate +1 per ten points of the Mediation check over 10, as I should be hitting a 24 or 25. Good to know for the future. --- The Iron Mana Renewal spell faded away just about as my Pool topped off. The mounds from the Servant were knee-high. The spell cost twenty mana, and seemed to last about a half hour. It would pay for itself in normal use, barely, but really only in Meditation was it worth it to Cast. I didn¡¯t know what the Copper version of it would do, presumably triple the speed for 30 mana, but until I knew I could get more scarabs, I was going to be leery of Casting III¡¯s, and I didn¡¯t have any Silver scarabs for IV¡¯s. I was on a new world, and didn¡¯t know when Natural Renewal was going to hit, and couldn¡¯t reset it until it did. I made a loop of the mana coming in and fed it back into the Valence I I¡¯d spent on the Servant. I was ready to take it down at the first hint of mana burn, but there seemed to be no problems. Whatever was done to the mana in the pool was enough to pump back into my spent Slot, ignore the Burn on it, and fill it back up over the course of a minute. I noted that The Rules were indeed Different Here, wondering how that was going to change everything. About ten mana to refill a I for me. If I dropped in and out of Meditation, that was at least fifty basic reps an hour, enough to satisfy a lot of Reserve Counts in only five hours. The major roadblock I was looking at was that I needed II¡¯s for even the most basic Meta rep counts. Five hundred reps of a spell for an Efficient spell with Metas attached, five hundred reps of a Metamagic Feat on different spells to make the Feat Practical. Being a powerful spellcaster took a lot of time, and a lot of rep counts. This Pool method would allow me to shortcut a lot of that, getting back to the proficiency I could remember Aelryinth having, but it was still days, months, and years away. I was going to be spending a lot of time getting mana back. A lot of time doing rep counts, and a lot of time increasing my Reserves, just so I could do it all faster. That said, I needed to take an inventory of what components for Mira¡¯s magic I had, and how I was going to get around the need for them. I did not want to be stuck gathering and making my own, although that was a possibility. I quietly pulled out her components satchel, a fairly hefty leather carry-bag with a lot of intricate loops and pockets in it, made to hold components securely and to protect them from jostling. There was a faint amount of magic running through it to that effect. I untied it calmly and flipped it open, and something loose in there that was shiny blue dropped out. I caught it reflexively, frowning, and lifted it up to my eyes. AF Chapter 7 – It’s a Safe Place It Is, Certainly It was definitely magical, as it was glowing to my Vatic sight, and unlike the other stone that had appeared in my hand, the Rune inside it was glowing with faint power. I did not, however, recognize it, nor did Mira. Another thing dropped on us when we materialized? I held it up in front of my eye, and then pushed at the Rune mentally. There was a vroop and a sheathe of magic crawled over my skin and settled in. It was a basic form of Barkskin, reinforcing my skin. The rune inside had dimmed, but I could see magic starting to eke back inside it, recharging it. I eyed it, the structure of the spell on my skin, and instead fed one into the other, basically continually extending the duration of the spell it had put in place on me as long as I carried it, so I wouldn¡¯t have to key it again. That done, I found a tiny pocket in my satchel the die-sized stone could sit in, and raked my eyes over what else was in there. Everything in the satchel was basically stored in little jars of glass or crystal. There were the fingernail-sized scarabs, wrought of alloyed metals, runes on them storing the pattern and initialization energy for the mana they helped gather into a spell. The little jars of herb leaves, roots, and cuttings determined the nature of the mana for the spell. The small jars of powdered stones filtered out impurities. The little jars of tinctures aligned the spells with specific magical elements or functions. The talismans sent the energy out into the world in specific forms. The tapers were used as a suppressant to alleviate any stress between one¡¯s magical aura and the field of magic, venting any irregularities by burning off the magic in arcane fires that did no damage, but made sure there was no friction passing through that would be harmful. More powerful spells had more irregular elements in them, which disrupted the components of the spells and slowly used them up. The more mana was sent flowing through them, the faster they were used up. I so had to apply No Material Components to this brand of magic. It only remained to figure out how, but I didn¡¯t think it would be that hard. Given the nature of the spells, I should be able to get away with mental constructs alone, and only need to keep the scarabs. Maybe I needed a higher quality level of scarabs that wouldn¡¯t burn away... I assessed the numbers of contents we had left, tying them directly to my Visual File and updateable with basically a touch and a glance. Only ten Copper scarabs. Those things were expensive. Something rustled. I tensed up for just that second of surprise at the sound of movement, then forcibly relaxed. I exhaled and tried not to hiss as I murmured, ¡°Armor,¡± casting the spell with a Valence II for the slightly increased effect. Force Magic gathered and flowed around me, different than the little blue crystal had done, and settled into a layer of flexible force just above my skin, as opposed to on it. Armor, vs. natural armor, of 3, +1 per Valence it was Cast from. Argent Savant Mastery/2 increased the effect by +2. So, +7 Armor, roughly equal to a suit of fine mail from head to toe, good for three hours. Shield I¡¯d put up if I thought there was need. In the meantime, offense was probably a better idea. The movement I heard was like the patter of small feet, kind of squelching? I watched calmly as three figures that only would have come up to my chest scuttled out of the passage over there. Little mushroom men? The Assay that was still up flickered over the things that looked like brown-grey bipeds the size of children wearing wide toadstool hats. Hungry Thrungus? I had no sympathy for mushroom folk and their spores at all. I focused on Mira¡¯s understanding of War Magic, which was made up of simple but powerful evocations. The spells she¡¯d been taught and used seemed very simplistic to me, especially the fact the more powerful ones were quite slow and easy to dodge. But that¡¯s not what I was doing here. Iron, red taper, hawthorn, onyx, verdigris tincture, and birch, the talisman of war. ¡°Zojak Quati.¡± The fringes of their caps vibrated as they turned on the sound of my voice in the darkness that didn¡¯t bother me, and if the magic gathering to me was visible, it didn¡¯t last long enough to make a difference to them. The power of Whirling Blade II rotated down into the Cantrip I drew out, a simple Force Dart doing a whopping d4 damage base... but oh, there were some additions. Argent Savant Mastery/1. Shardcaster Mastery/1. I had thirteen Class Levels, which meant thirty-nine Mastery Levels, albeit none of them higher than /2. Shard-type spells, first rule: If you Cast as a full-round action, you got another Shard. That even applied to the Cantrip-level Dart variants. Stolen story; please report. Shardcaster Mastery/1, gain +1 Shard when Casting Shard spells. Argent Savant Mastery/1, the masters of Force energy. I dropped the power of the spell into those Darts and divided it among them as the source of their energy. +2 to hit, +1/die of damage. I was right at the edge of thirty feet away as they were coming toward me quickly, homing in on the faint light. Sneak Attack damage applied, +1d6, +2d6 with Way of Shadow I tacked on, Sniper Talent for extended Sneak Attack range. Thank you, Scout Level. Holy Metas, Sanctified Spell. Cost +1 Level, spell is Good. Spells do +1d6 Holy damage for each Good boost you have, chosen among Feats, Mastery, Class Abilities. Good Domain Class ability; Holy Metas Mastery; Good Domain Focus. Hey, +3 to Caster Level, too, from the Domains and the Good Reserve, too. Zealotry Mastery/1, Good: Good spells that would normally harm only Evil will also harm Neutrals. ¡°Ceremony of the Frozen Soul,¡± I murmured, and spent nine Levels of Karma to activate the Druidic Ritual. My skin was too dark to really show it, and I was sure my eye color shifted to icy blue, my hair was already white. My blood swirled and my body temperature dropped like a rock. The cool air of this place suddenly became irrelevant as cold, clear energy flowed through me. Snowcaster Masteries/1 and /2, activate! +2 Caster Level and +2 per die of damage as coming from a Cold creature, spell has Cold keyword. Traits: Magical Lineage (Shards); Warcaster Tradition: -1 each to the total cost of Metas attached to Shard-type spells. Signature Spell Metamagic Feat: +2 to Caster Level and -1 to total mana cost of Metas applying to chosen spells. Superceded/Evolved into Spell Thesis. Metamagic Feat: Banespell: Pick a creature type. Your spell does +2d6 more damage to creatures of that type, and the save DC increases by 2. Applies to each tick of Damage over Time spells. The three Darts began to spin around end over end, like whirling shuriken or rotary saw blades. They hissed out with a sound like screeching steel, trailing glittering stars of ice, force, and Holy light as they did so. I wasn¡¯t sure how much damage the things took, but I was sure the +7d6 of damage on top of the Whirling Blade¡¯s split damage of +8-16 each +7 Warcaster¡¯s Edge didn¡¯t hurt the results at all when they were caught in mid-charge. The foot-wide blades exploded into the mobile fungus-creatures and tore them wildly apart in a bright display of gleaming blades shredding pale pulsating insides, scattering pale pseudo-flesh and drops of mucus all over the dust of the area. I waited calmly as mana flowed back into me, taking a couple minutes to replace the Iron War spell I¡¯d just fired off, and then attempted to fill the II Valence Slot I¡¯d spent on the Force Armor back up. I couldn¡¯t make the connection to the II Slot. The resistance to the mana flow was too high. I eyed my Pool Theurge/1 Class Level, and just nodded to myself. I would have to restrict myself to I¡¯s I could refill for now. I had a lot of Class Levels to take yet, something Mira still found amazing and strange. I eyed my 252 Mana and otherwise full Slots, staying alert for anything else that might want to join the party. I had twenty-four sets of Shards in a row there with my Pool, in addition to my five Sorcerer Slots, which was a LOT of firepower. I could refill them all in, what, fifteen minutes, if I did nothing else? The explosion of force blades shredding these creatures had not been quiet, but considering each of them had 40 Health by the Assay, I had absolutely no problems with the overkill. I was also sure something else would be coming, and flicked up my Shards, tapping War Magic/1, Delimit Spell. Caster Level base 3, +2 Snowcaster, +2 Good, +3 Silver Magic Domain Theurgy, +2 Signature Spell. Modified CL 12 for 6 Shards, +1 Shardcaster, +1 Full Casting. Eight wedges of deadly force spun up around my hand, gleaming with Holy energies, waiting for anything else I could throw on them as well, and the surging download of an Iron War spell danced among them. There was a chitter that sounded uncomfortably like a very large insect, and I swore to myself. Bugs often traveled in packs. I did not want to carve my way out through a hive, but I might not have a choice here. The clicking of carapaced feet on the floor was not quiet. I held my Wand and the eight Shards circling about it behind me, out of sight of the entry, and heard stone scraping on something as the pace of the footsteps picked up. I blinked when it appeared. I had definitely not expected to see some sort of beetle-thing standing on two skimpy legs that somehow supported a full rounded glossy-black carapace, two small middle limbs with clip-like claws, and two higher pedipalps that gleamed like axes or picks extending above it, ready to chop down, maybe arc sideways against an enemy. The entryway coming in was basically made exactly to fit it, carved through the stone. I eyed those chopping appendages, and a flickering, magical green light seemed to boil subtly on them to my Vatic Gaze. That was definitely some form of magic at work, likely an acidic attack, and its eyes were actually gleaming in the dark with some form of internal energies. Explained how it cut through the stone using organic tools... Okay, it still looked like a bug, but the way it was looking around was not insectile. This was some sort of magical being, either an aberration, which was unlikely if it belonged to a hive, or a magical beast. I picked the latter, moving fast as Holy and Banespell stacked on the spell, my thoughts racing as quickly as they could. Those things had probably been what chewed through the stone, the wooden doors, the iron doors, and the people here. Magical probably meant resistance to magic! Spell Penetration/1 and /2, the first being +2 to Spell Penetration rolls, and the second a Metamagic, Piercing Spell at +1 Valence for +5 Penetration! I was pretty sure that if I didn¡¯t manage to kill this thing quickly, I was going to die. It was sniffing at the air, the spores of the dead mushroom men likely confusing it for the moment, but it had been attracted by either the sound or feel of the magic going off. It was turning towards where they had died, looking my way... Looking at a person of cold who was nothing but a black blot in infravision. What type of War Magic? -The shell is chitin, it should be brittle. Use Shockwave!- Mira suggested crisply. AF Chapter 8 – Bugs and Shrooms and Stuff, Oh My! That worked just fine for me. Iron, Orange taper, Hawthorn, Onyx, Vitriol, Birch! ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± All eight Shards rotated sideways into flat circles, and then the flat circles spun sideways themselves, instantly forming whirling, spinning spheres of pure force as the Shockwave¡¯s effect poured through them, the basic Force damage (which was more cellular disruption than anything) aligning itself with more emphatic bludgeon damage. I stepped fully around the side of the column, the bug¡¯s head jerked sideways at the glowing light of the Shards, and I let fly, specifically targeting its two ridiculously small legs with two shots each, while clustering the other half of the eight in a centered triangle focused on its wedge of a head. The Shards zipped out like arrows, smashing into those small legs and crushing them sideways. What passed for knees shattered as the chitin broke, and then the blasts smashed into its face, hitting like hammerblows that bashed it over sideways as the crunching grind of the spell hit its chitin, and something cracked and snapped as it screeched in dying agony. The blood was a brighter green-yellow than whatever shot out of its mouth, and I watched the latter hit the ground and hiss loudly as it ate at the stone. The walking bug pitched over sideways helplessly, its little legs shattered underneath it, and brightly glowing blood that bubbled as it touched the dust and the remains of the mushroom things also hissed and smelled acrid and vile to me. Okay, maybe I should have saved the head for a Baneskull against these things, not that I had the power or resources to make one of the things. It was plenty dead, but that didn¡¯t mean I moved from where I was. As a matter of fact, I just stood there, because that death shriek had been pretty loud, and bugs often emitted a whole bunch of death pheromones when they died, too, which could bring a lot of attention. Something else I could do if I needed to, but for now, I just sat there and waited as my mana and my Slot slowly filled back up. The one thing I did do is shoot out two sets of Vivic Darts. The unwhite flames splattered across the bug¡¯s carcass and the main bodies of the thrungus, setting them all alight. By the speed at which the flames spread in a misty hunger, they were definitely magical beings, and the Land was happy to take them. They freshened up the air nicely as the vivic mists falling off them ignited on the scattered gore and mucus, cleaning up the area... and also digging at old blood or something staining the ground beneath, making me wince. They would make a fine distraction for anything else coming in here, focusing their attention on the misting, flaking corpses being disposed of. I was not in a hurry. If there was more than one of these things, then I was going to be running a race against it, and I had absolutely no incentive to do that at this point. It looked to be scampering faster than I could move right now, even on those spindly legs... and I didn¡¯t know what kind of friends it was going to have with it. I had felt the thing¡¯s resistance to magic through the attack, and it was a damn good thing I¡¯d gone for Spell Penetration, or the attack would have bounced completely. It was also a damn good thing that Shards were MY spell, I had boosted them to the nines, and a +19 Spell Penetration was enough to do the job. Enough to do it every time? This thing hadn¡¯t struck me as particularly powerful for its kind, but none of what I had smashed into it had been wasted. Indeed, without the Shockwave juicing it, I had the impression that it would have tanked my attack and lived without much problem. That was not a particularly upbeat thought for me, as I sat there and got my 6 mana a minute back patiently. Ah, would have killed to have Ael¡¯s Perpetual Shards right now. Zip through this place trashing everything, no need to worry about defenses when you could wipe everything out that quickly. I was going to have to tap into the magic of this place, particularly for Assessing Stuff. No-cost full-power Deep Assays would be incredible for reading whatever needed to be scanned. After all, while Ael had fought bugs and mushroom things before, these Thrungus were something different... and I hadn¡¯t even scanned the bug properly, not wanting to alarm it before it got into range, in case it detected the divination magic. --- My juice was not all back as three minutes later, more patter-patter steps sounded in that narrow tunnel, and I just sort of sighed. Scattered bones and body parts were burning in multiple places now, little unwhite torches heavily ablaze on the ground, flesh Burning away like wood normally liked to do, only cool and misting, not hot and smoking. I saw the first Thrungus come in, pausing to survey the situation with its vestigial eyes. The air was fresher as the vivic mist invigorated it, although I had the impression the fact it was consuming the dead was not what the mushroom folk wanted to happen, judging by the way they ran up to the olthoi greedily and surrounded it, wondering what to do as its carapace fractured and fell apart. Its insides were going at it like a small vivic furnace as the magical blood and organs behind Burned cheerfully, gouts of vivic mist filling it and pouring out the rent skull and legs of the thing. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. There were four of them this time. That was nice, they got two Shards each, spinning like shurikens ablaze with cold, fire, and Holy energies this time, taking them all by surprise and shredding them as explosively as it had the three before them. Very quickly, four more large vivic fires were Burning about the place, and, I noted, my mana draw had ticked up a notch. Mana Conversion meant I wasn¡¯t spending the full 20 a shot for the Iron spells, which was good, as watching it go down was a dangerous situation for me to be in. I was pretty sure the mushroom guys had seen the bug and held back after their own had died, coming in when they sensed the thing die. Were they expecting more bugs to come? It didn¡¯t seem they were afraid to drag the dead bug away... somewhere. Somewhere a lot of others had been dragged away to, as well. I winced as I realized that clearing this place out so at least those who came behind me had a chance was a really Good thing to do. And this, this was where clueless people from Ispar were dropped. Who knew how many had been slaughtered after being dumped into this situation? The creatures here probably considered the humans popping in to be free meal tickets! Okay, the more I thought about it, the angrier I grew. As a Ten, I would have had no problems in this place. As a Three, this place was probably suicide without a group helping everyone out, depending on how many of these creatures there were. Mira would¡¯ve been slaughtered pretty quickly, I was sure. Without the Transfer-type spells enabling her to get mana back quickly, she probably would have been wiped after a single Buff cycle of protective spells I had completely forgone at this point, and she¡¯d had no Valenced spells to begin with. I had three of my five II Slots and seven I Slots to work with right now. The high-pitched chitter call resounded down the tunnel again, but this time was followed up with a different one echoing the first. There were two of them coming! I considered my alternatives. I could still take a Paid Feat today, and a Mastery advance for Arcane Pool Theurge. Since I could only take one a day of each, not taking them would be wasting a chance, so I had to take something. Better now than never. ¡°Metamagic Feat, Toppling Spell!¡± I hissed under my breath. ¡°Meditation Mastery/1, Skill Focus!¡± Because I needed that skill as high as possible. I peeked around the side of the support column blocking the view as the bugs came into the room, and this time I just sighed and crossed my fingers, Assaying them. Olthoi Workers. Said they were Level 50, although who knew what that meant in relative power. The 150 health was a grimacer, however. Whatever was feeding the creatures here was giving them monstrous amounts of Soak. There was no way I could split my magic to kill them both... but, you know what? I didn¡¯t care. I lost a Shard, but I gave up Delimit Spell for Toppling Spell. As the olthoi cautiously advanced through the mist all over the floor, the unwhite fires Burning stuff up heavily, they naturally couldn¡¯t see me right over there, and so my surprise was pretty absolute. One Shard to the further one, six to the nearer. They whipped around at the rumbling sound the spell made, but it was too late, and Mira assured me that my Shards moved way, way faster than the Bolts she normally threw. There was no dodging them as the olthoi got to deal with the equivalent of fist-sized sling bullets moving very quickly! The closer one¡¯s legs were smashed out, but I didn¡¯t breach the chitin anywhere, even with six Shards. It didn¡¯t matter, as the seventh Shard also smashed the second¡¯s leg. The relative check against getting thrown off their feet was +15 on my side vs. whatever on theirs, and applied multiple times on the first one. The nearer olthoi actually went slamming back into the second, whose tiny leg kicked out and lost its balance instantly. Both went tumbling down and hit the stone floor out of control, screeching as they did in identical shrill notes, while I brought up another salvo of Shards hastily. Their stiff, round bodies weren¡¯t made for regaining footing, but I got a very good idea of how powerful the pedipalps were as they splayed out, stopping the bugs from rolling, then shoved them over into a face-down position and started levering them back to their narrow and undersized legs. The second round of Shards blasted into them, staying on theme, losing the Sneak Attack damage. Four for the wounded one, three for other. This attack breached the black carapace of the second, spraying the glowing yellow-green acidic blood everywhere as the olthoi gave another death-scream of pain. From the looks of things, once the carapace was ruptured, the blood coming out of its veins did something in contact with the air, and started reacting with its internal organs, dissolving it from the inside-out. Well, that would suck... for it. The surviving one was braced by its oversized pedipalps, but it still went skidding and lost its footing at the multiple hits hammering into it. It did turn around to look at me with its sharply beaked face and glowing eyes, unable to see me, only the sight of my Shards, one of each hue red through violet, spinning up into existence as vaguely crystalline wedges of scintillating force, which spun into disks, which spun into spheres as the Shockwave was downloaded into them, and a rumbling flight of rainbow spheres trailing ripples, cold sparkles, and radiating hostile Holy light swept down into it. Its whole side blew apart in a spray of glowing ugh-blood and shattered chitin, and its pedipalps convulsed and folded in as they lost pressure. It slumped to the ground, and vivus ignited on it like it had on its companion. Three spells, two bugs... but they hadn¡¯t gotten the chance to charge me because they were both smashed off their feet repeatedly. I had a technical stunlock on them. That... was worth the extra mana-cost of the spells! AF Chapter 9 – Next Moves Await! I swirled up the Iron Mana Renewal and sat back down, going instantly into Meditation. I had used forty-four mana Casting four Iron Spells, plus thirty to replace the Shard Slots, so 74 Mana, and it came back at ten a minute in Mediation, as opposed to six without it, plus I was still down nine from the Thrungus. I had seven Slots of Valence I that could be used, which was not a lot, but it only took two minutes to refill a Slot, so it was a good use of my time. I noted that if a Cantrip was supposed to be half a level, it should be giving me five mana every cycle, instead of just one. I eyed my results, and decided that it had to be yet another Mastery or Skill I could start taking, putting Karma into being more efficient with harnessing mana and restoring my Mana Pool. If Mana Conversion was a skill on the Pool side, then Mana Renewal should also be a potential skill there, right? And if not on hers, then on mine. Mira knew of no skill directly linked to it, and even Meditation was wowing her with the speed and power with which it worked. All of them were things I was going to need to improve constantly. It would make more sense for Mana Renewal to be a skill on her side which was undeveloped, as Meditation had definite uses on the Matrix side beforehand, while Mana Renewal was effectively useless to a Matrix. With that said, there was direct proof that Masteries on my side affected results on both sides of the equation here, just looking at how Health worked. My Feat and Mastery-based Health and Soak bonuses added in above and beyond what the confluence of Endurance and Hit Die+Constitution were granting me. I¡¯d taken my daily Feat and Mastery, so I¡¯d have to wait until Renewal, but I was going to try for Pool Theurgy Efficiency Mastery/1, and see what happened... Soooo much stuff to regain, and now new things being heaped on top!... Well, it was what it was. I stared at the multiple Burning bodies, the flashes and low bursts popping up of random bones and remains here and there, and pondered my next move. My eyes fell to my bare fingers, and I knew what I needed. My Bonded Ring! Of course, for a Bonded Ring, I would first need a ring... ------ Detect 0 was a fine, very short-range use of Divination magic. Each such iteration of the spell was very similar, you only needed to swap in and out what exactly you were looking for and represent it in the mana flow. Mira was shocked at how versatile the spell was. Clearly the magic of the Power of Ten had massive amounts more modularization than what she had learned, especially given how all of her Creature Magic fit into a subschool of Alteration magic... If I put Wieldskill and Animal Affinity into Spell Engrams, I had the feeling I was going to collapse her fairly encyclopedic knowledge of the Creature School down to two or three spells. She was already agog that my defensive spells had more in common with her War Magic than her Life Magic... I flipped up Detect Precious Metals and Minerals and trotted around the room, my Phantom Servant trailing dutifully after me. Yeah, the range was only fifteen feet, but that was absolutely all I wanted. I tinged a few hits here and there, things hidden by rubble or the dust that I wouldn¡¯t have found or seen without giving this place a thorough cleansing. Random coins of a metal I¡¯d not seen before, but identified as an alloy of Air Gold, gathered to my hand, probably spilled from a dead person¡¯s wallet or purse. There were only a handful of them, making me think someone had scavenged the rest. Minor body jewelry, mostly in bronze, copper, and silver... chains, bracelets, earrings, a few minor rings... and one good one. I lifted up the QL 23 ring, of gold alloy, set with knotted forms of what Mira identified as an Aluvian design, and four tiny emeralds. Possibly a wedding ring, although I saw no names, dates, or attestations to it, and really, I didn¡¯t care. It was QL 23, and I could make it magical and grow it. It was large, probably sized for a man, so I fit it onto my left thumb, sent my arcane energies through it, and rapidly Attuned myself to the Ring. The downside of doing this would be that if I lost the Ring, I¡¯d be unable to Cast from my Matrix. The upside of it was that once a day I could fish an entire Spell Engram out of my inner spellbook, ready and raring to go; I could enchant the Ring without need for gold or even having the proper Feats to do so; and I could both Witchbond it and make it my full-blown Item Familiar... which, among other things, made it my spellbook, and gave me access to the Ring Domain. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The process began winding into the ring, and it promptly shifted over to my ring finger by itself, resizing and rapidly beginning to assimilate the Karma and power needed to become active. At Renewal, it should be fully functional. I tapped the plain wand in my hand, the implement cold and steady, not energetic in the least, having no magic of its own. I dearly wanted a Stave that could do double duty, but hey, can¡¯t have everything. I fixed my eyes on that tunnel which all the nasties had come through and none had gone back, the vivic mists crawling along the floor, creeping after the residues of older corpses dragged out of here. Well, I just better be ready to run if it was needed. My Mask of Clarity still gave me the visual advantage, heatsight shouldn¡¯t be able to see me at all, and vivus was taking care of all the scents. I really missed not having lightfoot, and I was not in the best of physical condition... although the ki circulating through me as I breathed was having an effect with every step I took, building me towards a leaner and more balanced self... not that the Karma being invested wasn¡¯t doing much the same. Mira was smoothly confident that we¡¯d end up physically superior to any normal person could possibly be just because of her Levels and that gargantuan glob of indigestible Karma just sitting there, waiting to be nibbled on. Whatever, it was time to bite the bullet and see what was over there. The mist was covering up the floor, but I could use Minor TK to gently push anything in front of me out of the way, so I made no noise as I padded up in leather slippers, then slipped into the tunnel itself, which was about sixty feet long. It was remarkably smooth, although there were definite gouges in it from chiseled claws that were much too hard. I padded past them, dreading the very idea that they had guards posted there. The vivic mist stole after me, drawn into my wake. I stepped out into another stone room, again with the square walls, although now... stuff was growing on them. It was a weird battle of two magical ecologies, one looking fungoid, the other squirming with the weird yellow-green light of the olthoi innards. Both were moving slowly, subtly, and it was really off-putting, while I wondered just where the tailings from all the removed stone had gone to. The streaks of bodies being hauled away through the dust were obvious, leading down a hallway that didn¡¯t seem to have much strewn about it, although I could see hooks and pins here and there, jutting out of fibers and tendrils stolen over the walls, where paintings or tapestries had been hanging. I resisted the urge to align my little Darts to Fire and start Banespelling to Plants, which should kill all these different kinds of slime things. Maybe later. I had a full rainbow of Shards around my wrist since I had seven of them. The hall sort of juked right. I slid up closer to the opposite wall, but did not touch it, looking for a guard... Instead, I found a decent bunch of the mine tailings, crumbled down and fused together in a black-green mass. As I stepped around the corner, I also suddenly heard a very low and ominous buzzing sound. Almost a thrumming, really. The tunnel was mostly blocked. The doors that used to hang on it were scattered and chopped apart, iron doors just like the ones in the other set of rooms, hacked into by abnormally hard pedipalps with acidic chasers, not leaving much functional behind. The mound was actually visibly giving off a strange smell, swirling in the air, and yellow-green lights were warring with arrays of toadstools upon it. There were probably twenty different half-melted skulls fused into the mass of the thing, with bones sticking out of it all over the place. I let the Shards fall, not wanting to be seen from the end of the hall, and glided up to the mound. The smell got very bleachy, very fast, almost hard to breathe, and I had to snap a vivic Dart up I front of my face to clear the air. There was a passageway beyond, and the ominous humming was coming from that direction. This was some kind of block preventing what was on the other side from coming through, and torching it would alert everything wildly that I was here. It could wait until I came back. Down at the far end was a conical thing that I belatedly recognized as an old kiln-style forge, although it was so overgrown with fungi it probably wasn¡¯t too functional. The mushrooms were growing all over the place, but right down the middle of the floor it was clear, because things had been dragged through it and ripped up the mold and stuff that had been growing across it, sharp claws tearing through the matted stuff easily. There were a lot of white things sitting in the mess of the toadstools and mushrooms, too, and it wasn¡¯t hard to figure out where all the fertilizer to grow that stuff came from. Two of the mounds of mushrooms there, weren¡¯t. They were actually a couple thrungus guards resting among the stands by the kiln. Well, I couldn¡¯t pass them by. I held my wand behind me as I brought my Shards back up, allocated some overkill as those two seemed to be a bit bigger as Guard Thrungus painted across my Assay, and I sent the rotating buzzsaws down the hall. They didn¡¯t see them coming, and the explosions of rotating edges ripped them apart as neatly as it had their predecessors. Just to see what would happen, I promptly sent two Vivic Darts down there to set their remains alight, then knelt down to wait for the spore alert to spread and see what happened. The remains of the two thrungus went up like misty bonfires, and soon a merry and cheerful foggy bonfire was stealing over everything, sniffing out all the rotting flesh around and going after it, and probably taking any alien or weird magical energies with it at the same time. I was crouched down at the corner, thinking about that open door of the kiln, and all the faintly moving tendrils that seemed to be coming from it. I could shoot Elemental Darts all day, and ladle them down with Holy Banefire while I did it, too! AF Chapter 10- Stoking a Fire I sent a trio of such into that yawning opening, and they didn¡¯t get very far before they impacted something that didn¡¯t much like the intrusion. The flames of the Darts didn¡¯t do much, but they didn¡¯t have to. As long as they did anything, the Kickers would activate, and the Holy Banefires promptly unladled 5d6 of wrathful energies through whatever was inside that kiln. I saw streaks of energy erupt along the tendrils, and some of them just turned right to powder and died instantly. Greatly cheered, I sent another trio down into it, and whatever was going on inside flashed a lot brighter. The vent at the top started spewing some thick black stuff, which was probably not a good sign, so I sent the next three Darts up there, through the mounting black cloud, and down into the chimney. It looked like a Roman candle lit off as electrum and chalky-sap flames exploded through the spores, consuming them and driving down into the interior of the kiln. One more set into the main opening, and something actually kicked on inside there. I realized after a second it was probably residual coal, igniting as the magical fire found something to play with, and the fungus growing on however many corpses had been stuck into the thing really began to burn. Banefire happily cleared out the things that would help kill it the fastest. That must have included the floor feeder vents, because my last set of Darts seemed to blast everything out of them smoothly, and the kiln was starting to burn to life. The connecting roots, tendrils, and mold upon it had all burned away from the interior, the top was spewing out a smoke which was probably toxic, except vivus was spurting up after it and eating a bunch of it. The fungi all around seemed to be wilting rapidly as they lost their center. Ah, here they came. Over the slow and building hiss of the fires inside taking off after who knew how long, a lot of little pattering feet were coming this way. I pushed ten mana into my Shards, giving me a full array of seven if needed, mana down to 230, going up by one every twelve seconds. Well, nine with Mana Renewal going. A small horde of the thrungus came shuffling into sight at the far end of the hall. I¡¯d obviously stopped in time and they hadn¡¯t seen me shooting stuff into the kiln, as none came down this way. Had to be forty of the buggers. If this was most of the force... well, this didn¡¯t look too promising if I had to fight here, as they¡¯d swarm me and kill me, and there was precious little I could do about it. Also, there were three fungus men of my size, and six the size of the guards. The latter were coming in at a cool 100 health, and the bigger ones at 150ish. The little guys were only 50, so an ambush and the extra Kicker damage to all of them was enough to clean them all off with just a Shard each. I eyed the spells in my Matrix. The Isparian spells were very basic and powerful, and yes, if I would have dared waste time making them vulnerable to what I was going to hit them with, the Life Magic would have been helpful. I did not have the time, the blockade, or some meat shields to stop the horde down there, and even if I had a Fireball, I would have had to really juice it to have an effect on these creatures. A Mass Fire Vuln in the future sounded all kinds of promising, however. I, however, had access to the faithful Phantom Servant hovering there unseen, waiting for orders, sticking around for another two hours or so. I could also cast Invisibility, which would last until Natural Renewal or I broke it by fighting, a Force Disk which would also last for three hours, and a Levitate spell which would last for thirty minutes once used. So far as I could tell, these rooms all had twenty-foot or more arched or vaulted ceilings, and I could totally stay out of their reach, long enough to get all my mana back, if needed. They were magical options Isparians simply didn¡¯t have, and it expanded my range of tactics a great deal. I also had one spell more, which could really change the game. I had a Web... and those suckers were all packed in there nice and tight for now, as if they never had a reason to avoid Areas of Effect, and clumping together was the best thing they could do. If I wanted to use the spell, now was the time. There was an anchoring wall and ceiling, nothing looked strong enough to be tearing through it... and those would be the first ones to die. I grit my teeth, looked at my hide and run options, and went for it. Pure Matrix magic, didn¡¯t pump it with anything, no inherent resonance to help it out. I did Cast it slowly and completely, trying for maximum power, and the manafield seemed to coalesce in great interest at what I was doing here, as if it hadn¡¯t seen magic used like this before. With a whirl and splaying of magic, ectoplasmic white strands of silk were suddenly thickly all over the place... except near the hot portions of the kiln. The entire force of thrungus was blanketed in them, and promptly panicked, thrashing about wildly, getting themselves stuck even more tightly as the silk wound up, even collapsing in areas to make tightly packed bundles of helpless toadstool folk. I was racing forward, getting in range even while building up a complete show of power, and shooting into the helpless mushroom men, starting with the big three. Eight Shards laden with an Iron Whirling Blade tore through the first Leader Thrungus, the eighth black flying sawblade cutting the deepest and ripping it apart. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Cost, 11 mana from my 235, down to 224, as I turned on the next one and let it rip at him at point-blank range. I must have been critting with all the different shots smacking into it, which was fine by me, the next Leader blew up and scattered frozen chunks onto its servants. Minus 9, down to 213 and five. The third Leader was shredded. Four Slots, six Guards. Thirty-three of the rest kicking and rolling in the webbing. I dropped twenty mana into the two Slots, bringing me to 193 and seven, and this time I went for the little guys in groups of eight. It was a complete massacre, as they had no way to dodge and could only sit there and watch me slaughter them. Each Shard found a different target, d8+13 damage, +7d6 of Kickers, plus the diluted force of the Whirling Blades coursing through them all for another +10 or so each. They were just torn apart. It would have been very nice to just be able to hack or pound them down with a weapon, but I didn¡¯t even have a suitable knife on me at the moment... -60 mana and four Slots later, and all the little guys were dead, and only the guards were left. Since it couldn¡¯t stick to the webs, I¡¯d had the Phantom Servant keep itself busy drawing more silk strands around the struggling guards, especially when the smaller thrungus were ripped apart and freed up more for the task. Didn¡¯t want them slipping free with some mucous secretions, although it looked like they had more the sticky kind than the slippery, too bad, so sad. For just a second, I contemplated how ruthless I was being. Then I saw the white stuff sticking out of the mounds of mold and the like to the left of the kiln, leading towards a tunnel with wooden doors torn off straight ahead, with absolutely no fungi on the floor there, and a very disturbed passage of dust leading off to the right, the fungi only getting thicker. Five Shards to one, three to another. Each d6+6, +7 for my Razor, +7d6 Kickers. Neither one died, but the pair of Lightning Darts I spun up finished both of them off, the Holy Bane Kickers doing the job on the helpless things just fine. 118 mana, two Slots, four more Guards. I couldn¡¯t take the risk of being completely depleted, so I kept an eye on that passageway as I hammered the last four thrungus down in pairs, four volleys each driving into them and letting them know I was also an extremely powerful predator with territorial instincts going to kill them all and make them fertilizer for the Land. They died with little squeals of escaping air, and launches of spores which had the Banefire and vivus darting and swirling through the air to consume them as I backed away. The whole area of the Web was now Burning merrily with unwhite misty fires, the floor thick with the stuff and spreading in all directions, hungry to break down the dead organic matter that was everywhere. The hurfing sound coming from the passageway off to the right there, along with the sounds of some heavier galumphing tendril-feet thumping on the ground, prompted me to retreat to the far side of the kiln. The thrungus that came lurching out was much thicker and more powerful, a Warden Thrungus that probably headed up the whole colony here. It was taller than I was, its toadstool cap was a meter wide, and I was pretty sure it had some magical ability the way the manafield was tensing around me. That was fine. I had an invisible, scentless Phantom Servant, and Minor TK. It slowed as it came up on the edge of the misting area, staring at it and the Burning bodies of the fallen fungus-men, their stool-heads all shattered and drooped in long lines that weren¡¯t actually aflame, but were definitely eating away at the fields of mold and slime growing over layered bones. It kicked out a stubby, blocky leg, no bones, all fibrous tissue, and wasn¡¯t hurt by the mists at all, of course. It advanced into the area... and naturally stepped up onto the Webbing, which was quite sticky. It lifted one foot, then the other, realized the stuff was pretty strong, and then whole sections of it which had been wrapped around the dead suddenly were tossed into the air and came down upon it. Its reaction was instantaneous, magic coalescing and spitting out in a spray of acid which easily blasted through the strands that had fallen upon it, no match for that level of power. But there was more Webbing snaking towards it, its feet were still stuck, and it blasted at each of them again and again, jets of acid rapidly dissolving through the remnants of the Webbing, as well as laying waste to the fields of mold and slime and shrooms, which made the vivus grow even faster around it. Which was about when I stepped around the edge of the kiln and lit it up. Eight Shards buzz-sawed into it loudly, sinking into it deeply and ripping through a bunch of pale white fungoid flesh. It had over 300 Health from the Assay I had on it, but I had just taken out 8d6+48, +7 Warcaster, +7d6 for the Sneak Attack, plus 60ish for the Whirling Blade. Yeah, I¡¯d just chopped its health down in half, and just stepped back as it blasted another of the Acid Bolts my way, at least a Copper in strength, potentially capable of one-shotting me. The blast sprayed off the magically hardened brick of the kiln, which mostly no-sold it, although the wall behind me was completely splattered with hissing globules that killed everything in the area quite instantly, visibly turning it all into goo that ran thickly down the stone. I spun back out and gave it my last Slot, and I was down to 83 mana. A crit must have come in as the seven Shards bit into him, but it didn¡¯t help it as the multiple Toppling impacts blasted the thing back, off its feet, and into the Webbing it was tearing its way through on the floor. More empty strands fluttered through the air, came down on the severely wounded thing, and pairs of Darts with +5d6 of Kickers drove into it once, twice, and it stopped thrashing around. A second later, vivus ignited all over it, and I knew it was dead. Taking a bit of a risk, I decided to stay where I was. The vivic mist all around was charging my default Mana Renewal up to 2/minute, so Meditation should get me to 3.5 or 4 a minute, doubled by the Renewal, added to my default 5, and I should be getting back 13 a minute. 252 topped, 83 remaining, +70 for Slots. 239 mana to get back. Just shy of twenty minutes. Would the bugs show up? Would more thrungus come up to investigate after smelling the death spores of their merrily Burning boss? Would I find out when Natural Renewal was so I could get on with getting stronger? Whatever. I dropped into Meditation while vivic mists slathered the ground about me, and the fungus began to break up, break apart, and die as something important was taken out of it and returned to the Land. AF Chapter 11 – The Thrungus Mounds I rose from the ground as the last of my Mana Pool filled up. While I had been drawing in some energy from it, the vivic mist had still spread literally everywhere now. It had crawled its way up the walls after the veins of unhealthy white and grey fungi, and chased after the veil of yellow-green stuff coating everything, too. It didn¡¯t so much consume them as drain them of whatever passed for the magic inside them, and they withered up and fell away, revealing the bare stone behind the softly falling mists as the vivus Burned. It exposed a lot of bones all over the place, too, all Burning away cheerfully now, as well as the scattered remnants of crushed and broken gear. I didn¡¯t see anything magical at all, but Detect Precious Materials did ding as I took a walk up and down the area. I paused by the heaped mound of agglomerated stuff that was blocking the other doorway out. Vivic fires were creeping up it now, interfering with the spores it was sending up. That... probably was going to have consequences. There was more minor jewelry buried among the cemented stuff on and within that mound, and the bones and flesh-fuel powering it all were falling apart. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to say it was a bad thing. I¡¯d just have to deal with it. The destruction of manufactured things was far too thorough to be anything but deliberate. Acid had done a lot of it, eroding away armor and weaponry into uselessness, while wood and leathers were simply decayed and used as food or fuel. Actually, there were specific mounds of decay, tapped into by both biosystems, where the various metals were being broken down, possibly as specific reagents for the whole process, which had a lot more to do with Weird Science and Alchemy than nature. Thus why vivus was disassembling it. This stuff couldn¡¯t exist without some form of magic powering it. Out of pure need, I flicked up a Force Disk to carry all the stuff, and heaped my haul into it. Disks were ubiquitous, probably the single most common utility item in Power of Ten, and back on Terra-Luna. If you didn¡¯t have a metal one enchanted up and following you around all the time, you had the spell in memory so you could whip one up. Three feet in diameter, slightly concave. It wasn¡¯t a shield, and it could be hacked apart or shattered by strong blows without much problem... but even Cast from a I Valence it also carried a hundred pounds per Caster Level, it lasted a base one hour per CL, and it could both move slowly by itself, hovering above the ground using geomagnetism, or be ¡®tied¡¯ to the Caster or another person, and dragged along without using hands. If you invested in the time, magic, and mastery of using it, it could do other things, like easily change shape, be ridden like a surfboard, become tougher and usable as a blocking tool, and so forth. I just needed it to carry the coins of Air Gold I was finding, and all the fallen jewelry and minor gems that seemed to be all that remained of those who¡¯d come before me. A bit grimmer now, I slowly let that Slot recharge as I stepped towards the tunnel the ruling thrungus had come through, which the thick vivic mist was now slowly creeping along, like a lawn fire eating up leaves in the fall, sparking here or there as bones ignited in the mess and began to fall apart, destroying the fungus about them. The tunnel was not as clear as the hallway outside, the trail a hard mat of mold and moss instead of the stone floor beneath. It curved left, then right, opening up into a larger room that I slowly moved up on, and paused at the entry to survey. Um and ugh. Blugh. Blargh! Another large room with supporting arches and cul-de-sacs in the back, repurposed for growing mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms, with five ten-foot mounds heaped up around the room, and one massive mound in the middle of it, reaching towards a faint shred of light leaking through a narrow window out of reach above. Mounds with a lot of white things jutting through them, and toadstools on them that wriggled and waved stunted, immature limbs. There was a lot of haze from spores in the air, and the baby, planted thrungus were all wriggling in agitation, all of the mounds seemed to be lurching somewhat. There were twelve smaller Hungry Thrungus around, doing... nothing. Not reacting to anything. I could get off one Web if I needed to, although they were spaced some distance apart. They also... seemed to be a different color than the other toadstool folk, and the areas around them were surprisingly free of any fungi, even the stone underneath them visible. And why were they emanating Summoning magic? Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I slowly wound up three Darts, focused on the nearest one, and let fly with one Dart. The Dart of lightning and force smashed into it and sent it tumbling awkwardly as the Kickers and Toppling did their thing. The two thrungus nearest to it turned to look at me with exactly the same motions, then jiggered into motion, racing around the mounds and stands of mushrooms for me. The others in the room? They didn¡¯t react at all. I waited until they covered half the distance between the one I¡¯d sent tumbling, now getting stiffly back to its fibrous legs, and snapped the other two Darts off at them. Both of them were clotheslined instantly by the impact, even as chunks of flesh were blasted off of them. I wound up two Darts with a flick of my wrist and wand, and the third Dart slowly cycled in as the first one looked at me again, then came running fearlessly to the fight. I retreated out the entryway, out of sight of any other thrungus, moving backwards as the first one charged heedlessly for me. It hit the entryway and started towards me just in time to take the Holy Banefire Kickers of the narrow crystal of violet lightning square between its vestigial eye-spots, and was knocked down again as its head sparked loudly and blew apart, spraying gray goo and fibers in all directions as toadstool and animated stem-body parted ways. That seemed to excite the two I¡¯d knocked down previously all the more, and they came running in as I retreated back to the curve. They were halfway down the hall when the Darts also took them between the eyespots, and they blew apart. I lifted my eyes to watch the first one I¡¯d killed dissolve into ectoplasm and vanish. Counting down six seconds between deaths, numbers two and three dissolved into goo and vapor that simply vanished into the Veil. Summoned Monsters. Like, what the fuck? Why would there be Summoned Monsters in a fungi garden? Fwoosh! I heard the sound from the room, and paced cautiously back up to the doorway. There was another Thrungus standing where the first one had been. I counted off, and fwoosh, fwoosh, in a swirl of rainbow particle effects, two more Summoned Thrungus appeared where the others had been standing. The three didn¡¯t look exactly identical to those I¡¯d killed, but it was VERY close. I eyed the clear spot under the closest one¡¯s crude legs. Was there some kind of automated Summoning effect that brought in basic copies of the local creatures? If so, it had to be based where they were standing. The proper way to shut it down would simply be to vivisize the location, which would strengthen the Veil and shut down the Summoning of Astral Templates which most basic Summoning Magic consisted of. The vivus would feed off the ambient magic which powered the Summon, like a flame burning on the end of an oil lamp. Drawing in more oil just made the flame bigger for a moment. Well, that I could do, at least. -Killing it added to our Karma.- I blinked at Mira¡¯s note, looking at the glob of indigestible Karma we had, held back by investiture rules. She was right, it had gone up. Did that mean... I could just sit here, pop mushroom men, and gain Karma if I desired to? The idea was surreal. Did the magic here really work that way? Then again, I wasn¡¯t going to get MUCH Karma, in time. As you got stronger both the relative value changed, as you needed so much more, and the absolute value changed, as you received less Karma for killing weak things, unless they were hugely Buffed, attacked in a mob that could actually threaten you, or something that actually made them a threat. There were some experiments I wanted to test out, however. But first, all those mounds were going to die. That meant vivus was going to eat their fuel, while I shot down anything around them. That probably meant the Summoning points were going to get shot down, and if that happened, too bad, so sad. Mmm, maybe shoot the first trio again... --- After they dissipated this time, I waited for two whole minutes before the Summoning points flared, and more Thrungus popped into existence. So, make note to self. If creature has been Summoned for a long time, there¡¯s likely an energy build-up in the system, and a new Summons can be generated very quickly. Once a fresh Summons is dead, however, there¡¯s a build-up before it is replaced. It was possible the time delay was based on the level of Summoning Magic, but that could be equally misleading if it was in a location with a stronger ¡®point¡¯. I didn¡¯t know what the underlying power supply was. It did mean I didn¡¯t have a whole lot of time to kill stuff, unless the vivus worked to shut down the Summoning points. Best to get to work on that. No mana needed, I just slammed the mounds with Vivic Darts and set them on misting unwhite fire. The larger growing thrungus I just picked off with Fire Darts, one by one, and if it took a while to do so, well, I was patient, had time, and the Summoned creatures were not programmed to investigate odd things happening to the landscape, so they weren¡¯t reacting to the emergency and alarm spores and anything else in the air. More to point, when vivus withered the ¡®shrooms and stuff, the gunk became pretty Burnable. As the vivus expanded towards the Summoning points, I started picking off the silent, unmoving Summons there meant to guard against things. It was easier to draw their attention physically, get recognized as a hostile, then pull them out of activation range of the others, and it was also safer overall. I stepped up in range, the Summons noticed me, turned, and didn¡¯t puff out any warning spores, just heading for me. Some backwards trotting, and bam, hit it with Lightning Darts and knock it over, then hit it again as it got up, so the Kickers could reset. Simultaneous hits meant the Kickers only went off once, and the Kickers were what was finishing these things for me. Hence, I needed more Kicker damage. Well, needed more ALL damage, really... AF Chapter 12 – The Bugs are Back Spells were divided into base damage, bonus damage, and Kicker damage. Base damage was the core effect, bonus damage added onto and was added into the core effect, and Kicker damage occurred if the spell actually hit/hurt something. There were some weird interactions in this, however, especially with Shards. Shards were a multi-missile spell, meaning you could hit them with one or more separate attacks. If they were auto-hit, you lost the bonuses of weapon Feats attached to them, specifically additional damage. If you used touch-attack, weapon Feats were considered bonus damage and applied once per spell, even if you hit with multiple Shards all at once. If you used weapon-style spell attacks, which would run into armor, weapon Feat bonuses were considered base damage, as you had to roll for every single attack! I had Ranged Weapon Specialization in Shards. If I attacked with multiple Shards as auto-hit, I got no Weapon bonus because there was no aiming involved, it was fire and forget. The bonus there was... I couldn¡¯t miss. It didn¡¯t matter how fast the target was, if it warped or Blinking or Mirrored or was ducking, dodging, or concealed in mist or shadow, or even had anything but absolute cover. The Shards would hit, and it would take damage. If I used touch attack, well, I had +2 Ranged Attack Bonus, +7 from Intellect, +2 from Argent Savant, and+1 from Weapon Focus. +12 to-hit against something not wearing armor was pretty good. However, Weapon Specialization¡¯s current +2 bonus to damage was lumped in with my +7 Warcaster¡¯s Razor for +9 damage, added after ALL base damage was calculated, once per spell per target. If I used it as a Weapon Attack, the damage was considered base damage and applied per Shard. So, hitting with three Darts would be 3 x 2 damage, for +6, instead of +2, and then THAT was added to my Warcaster¡¯s Razor for +13. The third thing I had going for me on my Matrix damage was per die damage bonuses, which were also bonus damage, but in the case of Shards, followed each Shard. Power in the Blood, +1 damage per die to Bloodline or Spell Focused spells... and I had Spell Focus (Cold), with Snowcasting giving all my spells the Cold descriptor, even if they didn¡¯t do Cold damage. Cold Specialist, +1 or 2 bonus to damage per die based on ambient temperature OR if I was a being of Elemental Cold, which the Ceremony of the Frozen Soul had made me. Argent Savant Mastery, +1/die to Force spells, which Shardcaster made all my Shard and Dart spells in terms of descriptors. +4/die was a very big bonus for Matrixed spells, but the ungodly staying power of even minor creatures here rendered it... less than optimal. A minor Buff I had going was the combination of Vivic Spell/Vivic Darts and Augment Healing. Vivic spells had the Healing Descriptor, and so Feats and effects that boosted magical Healing boosted them. Alas, I was only using Darts, which as a Cantrip meant the +2/Valence bonus was a measly +1. Vivic energy only damaged creatures of negative or unnatural energies, typically Undead and Fiends, sometimes death-feeding Aberrants or Fey, or negative energy Elementals. It did set dead things on vivic flames, reducing them rapidly to base ash and dust, ¡®Feeding the Land¡¯. However, creatures who were immortal, eternal, otherplanar, or the like could have their souls savaged by the vivus if they resisted its effects. Lesser otherplanars, or Soulborn, could be consumed entirely and Fed to the Land, as could almost all Aberrants and Fey. Undead were completely consumed, and even if their soul was hidden elsewhere, part of it was devoured, as happened to powerful Soulborn and Fey who tried to resist the vivus. Vivus was the ¡®unnatural¡¯ energy of the Mortal Plane, consuming the energies of other worlds and making them part of the Mortal Plane, and so was rightly feared by those lifeforms who relied on such energies to sustain themselves! These alternative, unnatural ecologies powered by consumptive magic qualified for vivus¡¯ discriminatory tastes, and so they set to work. Dead baby thrungus Burned just like the... uncounted number of corpses they¡¯d used to fuel and build up these mounds. Mounds of organic material ten feet high, multiples of them... As the vivus spread out, it eventually reached the locations of the remaining Summons, which didn¡¯t react to it in the slightest. I would pull them over and away, shoot them, knock them down, and shoot them again. If the vivus was atop the point, when the next Summoned Thrungus came in, the pull at the astral templates was fun fuel for the vivic fires there. There was a jet of vivus that flashed through the area where the Summons was supposed to materialize, and instead the ectoplasm was more like gasoline thrown onto a fire. I was patient and thorough, and even worked on some rep counts with Shards, since I could replace them every two minutes. Like before, I found no useful gear whatsoever. Only the noble metals, like gold and platinum, and some precious stones had survived the acidic leeching of the magic-seeking fungus that had spread everywhere, and was now withering up slowly and steadily as vivic fire took its due. The mounds Burned down, literally as the bones inside them held them up. The vivic fires, touched with Holy Banefire, were driven into the cores of the things, and they shrank rapidly as the vivic fires turned them into hungry pyres devouring them to the core. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Banefire damage specifically attached to Damage over Time effects as magical Kicker damage, and vivic fire Burning stuff like this definitely qualified. As a result, the dead fungus was devoured with astonishing speed, and the living stuff died with incredible speed in the area of where I was shooting. Bones crumbled, reeking compost was drained away and sloughed off, and the mounds began to fall, fall, and fall, the dead who¡¯d been used to make them finally falling completely to dust. My Disk waited patiently at the side, accepting Air Gold coins and the scattered valuables left behind in this mess. Fucking things. It probably came completely naturally and heartlessly to them, but that was just one more reason to get rid of them in my eyes. Then the low trilling call, skittering on the edge of my nerves, sounded from down the hallway, echoing around the stone, and the other set of fucktards here showed up. When the Power of Ten had been a game, Argos, the largest Monarch of the game, had set up his home on Hivergreen for one reason: it was occupied by constantly respawning giant insects, and so was the absolute friendliest spot for low-Level people to gain Karma at. The bugs never stopped coming. Stomp them out in one place, they rose in another. Stop stomping them out, and they¡¯d grown in both numbers and power with amazing speed. Sometimes swarms chased out of Hivergreen came into other servers and had to be exterminated with absolute thoroughness or they took root there, too. But in Hivergreen, the bugs never went away. As a result, everyone in the whole game had taken those lessons to heart. The bugs never stopped coming. It was a genocidal war, you didn¡¯t let up on them, or they ate you, took over the landscape, and devastated everything. The only thing which might contain them was other insects or bugs who preyed on them, which meant you had to be careful about killing all the giant spiders or your bug problem might just explode on you. Mobile mushrooms and plants were the same way. Just like bugs, all they did was feed and grow, and if you let them go, they¡¯d also take over everything, transform the landscape, and make it Hell on Earth. The main problem was that a lot fewer natural things fed on mobile plant life, so the only ones who could contain them were the players... Damn, if I came to a place where this was an ongoing problem¡­ Day of the Triffids was not wrong, in the end. You just don¡¯t mess around with animated plants! Well, getting to Ten wasn¡¯t currently a problem, and I¡¯d like to see what this Isparian system could do, especially in some area with a plethora of targets to practice on. I just needed a lot more sustained firepower. I didn¡¯t hear multiple trills, which didn¡¯t mean there weren¡¯t multiple bugs. Was it going to come this way and investigate? A lot of bugs had tremorsense and could feel footsteps nearby through the ground. And while I didn¡¯t have a way to get off the ground right now with my footsteps, I did have a Disk. ---- I glided slowly along the hallway as it hooked around, seated on the edge of the Disk as it glided along over the vivus Burning and misting below. My wand was up and aimed, but no sound, no motion, no upright bugs in blue-black carapaces. Calmly I shifted around as the next room came into view... and nothing was waiting there at the corner. The only direction it could have come from was through the small room there coated in olthoi goo... olthoi goo that was also attracting the vivic mists. I moved along the wall to my left, having the impression it had moved ahead, not back. Slowly, I crept over the withering stands of shrooms and reached the corner down the longer hallway, the one leading back to the passageway left that had been blocking whatever was thrumming. There it was, standing there and looking at the mists that were now pouring down out from inside the chamber. I could hear the thrumming only faintly, given how quiet it was, the only other sound being a faint skritch-skritch as the olthoi rubbed its ready pedipalps across one another. Standing guard in case something came? Might the first olthoi have been doing the same thing, and that was why it had responded before the second wave of thrungus? The forge was still burning dimly, but not enough to let it see me peeking past the corner. I held my wand off out of sight, pulling in the power. ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± It spun around in my direction at the flash of light, just in time to see eight spinning spheres in ROYGBIV with Black smash into it, shatter its tiny legs, pound its head to pulp, and shatter its thorax. It was knocked over with its automatic death-cry, glowing yellow-green blood scattering with hisses... and the vivic mist swirled on it and began to grow quickly on the fresh new meal. Instead of moving to investigate, I moved into the shadow of the kiln, anticipating a response. I got one, too. There was a clicking and clacking, sounding just like something with very hard feet was coming down sets of stairs with short, fast steps, and then the next olthoi arrived. Two of them, except the second one was more blued and a foot taller than the Worker, with pedipalps more like spears than picks, and easily a foot longer and stronger. Olthoi Soldier. Wonderful. 190ish health, registering as a 60? They trilled together in that nerve-grinding fashion, and got no answer. There was some hesitation as they moved into the mist, but it did nothing to them, although it seemed to make them uncomfortable. Well, all their glowing slime was down off the walls, and likely the scents they were looking for were all gone, meaning they were out of their element. I was just a part of the wall and in the shadow of the hotter forge, vivus only very visible because of its hue and not actually shedding much illumination. They trotted ahead with a little hesitation, knowing the way, turning the corner and starting down towards the freshly deceased Worker down there. Well, no better time than the present, seven Shards. ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± I said, my voice inaudible over the faint roar of the coal in the furnace giving up its last. Both of the Olthoi were smashed in the back and went flying forwards out of control. Five Shards on the Soldier, two on the Worker! AF Chapter 13– Buglock and Natural Renewal I was getting a lot of work out of Toppling Spell and Banespell¡¯s +2 boost to it, that was certain. Their spindly legs damaged, the two bugs scrabbled desperately for purchase on the floor. ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± They were just starting to get up again when another 3-4 split of colorful spheres smashed into them and drove them down again, the Worker¡¯s carapace spilling blood and shattering organs. Vivus was quick to leap into the opening. The Soldier was screeching at least twice as loudly as the other death cries I¡¯d heard, which didn¡¯t fill me with a lot of assurance for a peaceful future. It rose again, but the two Darts had enough Kicker damage to them to finish the job as the cold energy smashed against its chitin to help make it more brittle to the follow-up bludgeoning force damage. It spun away and back, never seeing its attacker, only the rainbow hues of the magic hurled out to kill it. Down three Slots plus 47 mana. Three dead olthoi piled up in front of that opening, my scent happily being taken down by all the vivic mist. I sank into Waking Meditation to get back as much mana as I could as fast as possible, because I was sure something else was coming. I had one minute, maybe two. 11 mana a minute wasn¡¯t much, but it was better than nothing. --- I slid 30 mana into my Slots, and my ears perked up with 23 mana restored as I heard more tiny, hard, fast steps coming this way... and something different, scuttling-? The new Soldier came from the small hallway to the left of the small room there, followed by two more Workers... and a fourth olthoi, another new type. This one was actually down on all six legs, moving like a normal insect, the source of the scuttling sound as all of its meter-long legs moved quickly. It was about four feet long, legs nearly as long as its green, segmented body... and it had a set of crystalline wings folded over its back. Ah, shit, I thought, as it came out into an open area with enough space to spread its wings and gain some height. The other olthoi got out of its way as those wings began to flutter with thrumming speed, although not nearly as hard, fast, and heavy as would be needed to lift it off the ground. Indeed, it was lifting off the ground before the wings were even moving quickly, so basically the wings were just generating enough wind to move the bug around. Olthoi Needler. Level 50, 160 Health. It quickly zipped up for altitude, the ceiling rising to a good thirty feet here. I was not happy to see that these creatures had fliers, but since they¡¯d probably had crawlers of some kind, it was not unexpected. -I¡¯ve never seen any kind of creatures like these, in books or anything,- Mira admitted. Me either!, I agreed silently, even after review of the endless bugs of the planet Verdan and the Hivergreen server. I considered my options as the olthoi moved forward... and again, air-temperature unscented human female sitting on the ground. The flier was moving much more quickly than the other olthoi, and was obviously the biggest threat with it being able to ignore terrain. It zipped over to where the three olthoi were Burning, hovering as the other olthoi ran up. I was even less happy when it squirted a stream of glowing acid out and covered the entire area below it in the rain. It washed over the vivus and damped it down, although it didn¡¯t really go out inside the broken corpses. A bug with a breath weapon. I knew what I had to kill first, and happily it was still staying up in the air, thrumming happily as it maintained a kind of rolling zero-g position. The other olthoi hadn¡¯t reached it yet, so they had their backs turned as my Zojak Quareth lanced out with seven spheres and slammed into the flying bug with full force. One of its wings went flying, and it was smashed sideways into the wall at the impact. I did over a hundred points of damage on the attack, and it was pounded into the wall there, losing any focus on its levitating, and crashed down to the ground, hitting the stone hard and breaking open. The vivus it had just tamped down flared up and followed the leaking blood up to it like fire follows gasoline. It rapidly caught on vivic fire, and joined its kin in Burning nicely. The other three olthoi all froze to a halt on seeing it fall down, catching only a flash of light and the rippling shockwaves in rainbow hues spreading out from the impact points. Their backs were still exposed to me, so I hammered them 2-3-2, giving the Soldier the extra shot as I smashed Shard-spheres into the back of their spindly little legs, and they were kicked over onto their backs helplessly. The trip-lock was working pretty well. 1-5-1 spread followed up, and the Soldier¡¯s head was shattered open as its comrades were smashed back down. An Ice Dart each finished off the wounded workers with my next spell as they shrieked madly at their deaths one final time, and I withdrew to my position to instantly move into Meditation and try to recover the 42 + three Slots of mana I¡¯d just spent. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. 126 mana to get back, half my total, hoping nothing else came. I sat back down on my Disk, went into Meditation, and began to regain the juice once again. ------ No more olthoi came, but the thrumming had increased in volume as I came out of Meditation. I could feel it in the air, and paused, my Detect Time automatically reorienting as the magic reset itself as well. It ticked over, and unseen somewhere in that direction, the sun broke through in the east and brought with it the dawn and Natural Renewal. A wave of positive energy, subtle but powerful, stole across the world. It brought a natural ending to many longer-lasting spells, washed Spell Slots to soften and dispel mana burn, and basically started the magical day. It meant I could also take another Class Level, another point of Health, Soak, a Paid Feat, and Mastery. Also, I poured another thousand Karma into my Ring, and it rose to life, crackling as Sustenance came online. New energy poured through me, wiping away the hunger gnawing at my gut and the thirst that had been growing quietly and quickly. ¡°Pool Theurge,¡± I stated, even as Mira went through in a blizzard of mental motion and raised everything she could a point... not that she didn¡¯t try for more than one. ¡°Sustained Effort. Meditation Mastery/2, Mystical Skill Affinity, Concentration and Meditation. Mark +1 to Intellect.¡± There were many, many things I needed, but being able to recharge my II Valences had to be number one at this point. My Domains also recharged themselves. First order of business, a Dawnstopped Spell. I went with Shield. My only other real alternative was Force Armor, but that lasted three hours, so I didn¡¯t need to recast it so often. Shield lasted minutes normally, but as I wove the Metamagic around it, I dumped my Ur-Priest Channeling uses into it via Divine Metamagic and paid the +6 Modifier handily. I could only do this with one spell a day using positive energy. However, that info dump from Aelryinth said I could do it with a second spell using negative energy, particularly vivified negative energy. Additional Channel Mastery uses for the win! +6 to my Armor Class against attackers would be very clutch, although it wouldn¡¯t stop most magical spells, and the last thing I wanted to do was have to Cast it in combat. My first three Ring Domain Spells were the Cantrip Protection from Rain, Force Armor at I and Resist Energy at II, all of which enhanced my Spells Known from Sorcerer, as the Domain was tied to my Bloodline. That meant picking a new Valence I and II Sorcerer Spell Known, too. I seesawed on what to take for a moment, and made the decision that taking Web for multiple Castings was probably not as life-preserving as Jaunt. Jaunt was the first and most minor of the dimension-hopping spells, only ten feet per Caster Level, but still a lifesaver, and I had the impression Web would not be of much use against the olthoi and their acidic weaponry. It gave me utility that an Isparian mage just didn¡¯t have. Mira was going nuts over the potential magic I could wield, as I knew of literally hundreds of spells... and I could eventually access them all, one by one. Cantrips, minor spells infinitely usable. I had access to Elemental Dart, Vivic Dart, Write, Holy Symbol, Detect 0, Visual File, Assay 0, Detect Time, Prestidigitation, Hologram, Ghost Sound, Stabilize, Minor TK, Read Magic, Know Location, Light, Mending, Create Water, and Sift. Visual File tied to Know Location gave me an auto-mapper. North was... that way. The internal map I had of this place promptly re-oriented to it, meaning east was that way and the sun was over there. Assay 0 was working with the natural magic and also up with just concentration. The range wasn¡¯t great, and details required full Valences, but it worked fine on myself, and at least told me the names, approximate power, and relative Stats of monsters if within sixty feet. Write allowed me to start accruing a spellbook. I promptly began Writing all my spells into my Ring, one by one, now that I could. The problem was I¡¯d Cast both Phantom Servant and Web, wiping them from memory. There was nothing to rebuild there, meaning I¡¯d actually lost the spells for now! Wonderful. I could puzzle them out again with a day or two, tracking the changes in the living magic and rescribing them, but it would take hours to do so. So, I had Sorcery spells of Illusion I, Shield, Shards, Force Disk, Identify, Force Armor, and Healing for my Valence I¡¯s, all cast out of the same seven Slots. I had Jaunt, False Life, Resist Energy, and Cure Disease Known in my II¡¯s. My Wizard spells were fire and forget, numbering Run, Vanish, True Casting, Sleep, and Detect I at this time, Phantom Servant was now absent, for my Valence I¡¯s. Invisibility and Levitate were left in my II¡¯s, Web was gone. After I finished Writing everything into my Ring, I double-memorized Run and Invisibility, not having too many options at this point. Invisibility was unique in having a duration of Natural Renewal, whereas Vanish only lasted a few breaths, but could be Cast almost instantly. As long as I didn¡¯t undertake violent actions or attack anything, I could stay Invisible all day. Run had two forms. The normal version was a +10 bonus to speed (average human speed was 30), lasting an hour per Caster Level. It could be trashed on command, the remaining duration shortened to a minute/level, but the speed bonus increased to +30, twice as fast as most normal humans! My Ur-spells used my Wizard matrix, all of them also Vancian fire-and-forget. That left the bonus spells from Wisdom, and my Domain Slots. Sanctuary might save my ass, and Protection from Evil was enormously relevant with potential Summons here, both of them I¡¯s. Lesser Angelic Aspect would be a small defensive boost, and Eternal Light was something I could Cast every day and it would never go to waste. Also... ¡°Ritual of the Burning Heart!¡± I announced to nobody in particular, investing nine Levels of Karma, and my heart ignited inside me, startling Mira as fiery mana swirled and invested in an echo of the Primal Ritual that, like the Ceremony of the Frozen Soul, Aelryinth had enacted. Fire burned in my heart, Cold swam through my blood. It actually worked out just fine, as the cold conducted heat to my heart, actually making it easier to burn inside me, taking less power. I was now a creature of both Fire and Cold, neither could harm me without some special tricks, and I had an attunement and feel for Fire and Ice magicks that went beyond normal people. Also, the temperature was always perfect for me, and I¡¯d never overheat or sweat, which was a convenient add-on to being Sustained... AF Chapter 14 – What Waits Within Where? I didn¡¯t even have Arcane Theurge Levels yet, tying my Wizardry to Sorcery, and which would¡¯ve allowed the incoming mana to regenerate my spent Web. It sucked, but I could get the spell back, so I wasn¡¯t worried. The Natural Armor boost from that little blue Runestone had faded with the dawn, so I hit it again to refresh it. Likewise, my Force Armor, Force Disk, and Mana Renewal had gone down with the dawn, so I had tied them off to auto-renew, and Meditated until I drew in the mana to pay for them. The additional investment in Meditation was small but noticeable, and would only get better with time. I didn¡¯t want anything behind me to worry about. I was certain that at some point the olthoi would follow after those who came before them, but the ¡®alarm¡¯ that should have spread with their deaths via pheromones had been cleaned away by the vivus. I didn¡¯t know how long I had, but hopefully it was long enough. I had to find out what that thrumming was and get rid of it if it was dangerous, which it doubtless was. --- The obstructing mound built atop some stacked tailings had collapsed from within and left the upper half of the passageway on the other side mostly clear. The bones were Burning still, and there were minor trinkets among them I pulled out and stacked onto my Disk with Sift and Minor TK. I definitely wasn¡¯t going to scramble over the mess and alert whatever was on the far side. Instead I just laid down atop the stuff on my Disk and let it float serenely over the stones, staying close to the wall and just squeezing through as it made a juking turn, where I could look into the room beyond. Uh-huh. My eyes got a little wide as I winced, and then I pursed my lips. There were a dozen wasps hovering in midair, wings beating with a combined thrummmm tirelessly, just holding position and sitting there. Around them, half a dozen other, similar wasps were moving in and out of a hive taking up a quarter of the room, leading up towards a broken or cracked window at the top of the room that looked just big enough to admit one of them, and was letting in some scattered light to the otherwise dark room. The stacked tailings were stacked up just high enough that the wasps couldn¡¯t fly through. Red Phyntos Wasp, the Assay said. Only an 8 for a challenge, with 35 health. Quick kills. But if they were spawns set here guarding a real Wasp nest, that meant they were an unending series of defenders repeatedly popping to kill anything that wasn¡¯t a Red Phyntos Wasp in this nest. The vivic mist hadn¡¯t gotten into here yet, but I was obviously going to need it to shut down the Summons. More pointedly, they should all go down with just the Kicker damage on a surprise attack. However, I¡¯d need to vivify the corpses on the ground. Shouldn¡¯t need to juice my Shards for this. Actually, this should be like shooting ducks. I just needed to get the second volley up really fast... I looked out there just enough to mark my first eight targets, put my wand against the corner, and hissed out the word to launch straight Shards. They flashed out in full weapon-mode, catching the bugs completely by surprise as they trailed ice, thin red Banefire, and some electrum Holiness with them. The blunt impacts shattered them, blew off their wings, and sent them tumbling from the air, unable to fly even if they weren¡¯t dead. As I expected, the Summoned Wasps all turned on me and swooped my way much too quickly, while the real Wasps all jumped into the air and joined the coming Swarm. Running right into the next volley of Shards I brought up with iron nerves, looking the incoming swarm straight in the eye as I picked my next eight targets and hammered them with hammers of force Burning with happy Kickers. The slamming impacts warred against the thrum, and suddenly the thrumming was basically almost gone. Almost, as I shoved myself backwards, and the last two wasps swooped into the tight quarters, finding they couldn¡¯t fly in the narrow gap. They aggressively landed and began to claw their way urgently towards me, while other thrummings started up in the room behind them. I just pushed backward, flicked up two Lightning Darts, and popped them both at point-blank range, smashing them back and out of the tunnel with shredded wings and ruptured glossy eyes. Seconds later, crimson shadows were thrumming in the entryway, landing to come in after me. I coolly waited until their bulbous heads peeked up, and then blew them off with two more Darts. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. I was on a timer for the first respawn, and I didn¡¯t have the Vivic Spell Meta to add as a Kicker yet. One day at a time... I kicked back forwards, bringing up Vivic Darts now. Coolly and quickly, I began to pop the Summoned Wasps on the ground, turning them into little balls of vivic mist almost instantly as the ectoplasm of their forms promptly ruptured. I had to shift my attention between targets on the ground, possibly coming in through the window overhead or crawling out of that bigass hive, which I was absolutely sure was going to happen. Poof, poof. Poof, poof. Snipe one coming out of the nest, poof. Poof, poof! Poof, snipe another! Turn around, poof, poof! Poof, poof! Fwoosh, fwoosh!, fwoosh, fwoosh! There was a fwzap. No, eight of them simultaneously, scattered around the room. Threads of vivic mist leapt into the air, ate the prismatic ectoplasm forming, and then fell back to the ground in a thick cloud that spread out even further, going after the bones of what looked like a lot of rats and some unfamiliar animals... and more than a few scattered human remains, and the shells of a couple of olthoi, although those were very worn down. Another wasp was coming out of the hive, and I shot it down, watching as the last four Summon spots activated, and two evaded being taken out by the vivus. Two more Darts sent them sparking to the ground, and the follow-ups of vivus lit them up instantly. I proceeded to vivisize the real dead Wasps leading into the hive, and then began to shoot the hive with flaming Darts. With the backing of Holy power and the Vermin Banefire, I rapidly blew holes into the interior of the thing and set flames shooting through it, hungry for targets. That set off a scramble by the remaining wasps to get out, and I picked them off one by one as they did so. When I was done, there was no thrumming in the place whatsoever. --- I lifted the short, straight sword from the withered grasp of the corpse. His flesh was mostly eaten away, but the stinger wound in his eye socket spoke volumes as to how he¡¯d died. Most of the other stuff he had was organic or leather, and the living wasps had chewed them to bits, including the scabbard for the sword. More of the Air Gold greenish-gold coins among the bits of a purse. Leather armor chewed to shreds, along with all of his clothing. -Aluvian style,- Mira said softly as I hefted the clean, straight steel of the broadsword with bare familiarity, and shook my head. Gharu¡¯n preferred curved blades, like scimitars and shamsirs, but mentally I was more prepared to use a straight sword. Sword in one hand, wand in the other... well, whatever worked. There were no identifying marks on him or the blade that I could see, and the smith¡¯s mark was naturally unfamiliar to me. There was an eating knife in the remains of his pack, the only other thing I salvaged from him. It all went onto my Disk, which accepted it all calmly. Then I set the remains on vivus, and the bones and scraps of flesh seemed to sigh as they collapsed and began to Burn. --- I blew the hive open vertically, and charred the interior to black ash with repeated point-blank Fire Darts, letting the Banefire do most of the work. When I left it was a charred husk nothing was going to be using, and no returning Wasps would find a home here. I did manage to recover two whole and unbroken wings off them, blasted free by my Shards and quite beautiful, more crystalline than organic and with threads of aeromancy running through them, allowing the things to fly. I put them carefully on the Disk, wondering what I could use them for. Potions, possibly? For the future, when I could make Potions reasonably well. Two minutes of standing Meditation to recover my mana, and it was time to glide over the rubble and get out of there again. --- There were still no olthoi outside the wasp room, and the Corpses were Burning down. I Sifted through the remains of the mound and took out the last of whatever was there that was worth taking before pacing down through the hallway, a lot more stone underneath the thinning mists as I did so. The small room the olthoi had entered from had lumps where shrooms had been growing atop furniture or other long-decayed objects, and one partial large candlestand. The vivic mist had been creeping after the unnatural ecology, but didn¡¯t seem to have followed up the stairs to the left. Well, we couldn¡¯t have that now, could we? I politely blew Vivic Darts off with almost every step, quiet rushes of impact washing through the mold and slime and luminescent lines of stuff pulsing slowly through the whole thing. Banefire lashed through the purple-black stuff and deprived it of life, creating gouts of instant vivus as it did so, and the phosphorescent stuff dimmed and receded around me as I blasted it with every step. Lots of small gouges on the small steps from chitinous feet, I noted, turning right and up, right and up, the stairs turning in nearly a complete squared circle to rise above the ceiling of the floor below. In front of me was a gooey light-green organic membrane, completely blocking my way forward. I stretched my hand out to touch it, paused, and then simply blasted it with two pairs of V-Darts, evenly spaced. The membrane Burned through and liquefied in seconds, splashing down on the steps as whatever organism managing this entry was reduced to dust in a hostile flash of bluish Banefire. I stepped past it, and paused in the entry to the room. It was large and square, perhaps a hundred feet square and thirty feet high. What might have been in here was moot, as the walls were completely covered by the purple-black resin and slimes, with several short mounds on the floor opening up to form pools of the glowing organic goo. It hadn¡¯t covered the ceilings, but any lights up above looked to have been choked off, and at least an inch of the hard, waxy resin mold was on the floors. Nothing was moving here, however. AF Chapter 15 – Rooms with Views I was standing near one corner, and the only way out was at the opposite corner. I considered that for a moment, and all the olthoi who had come running to the rescue, and didn¡¯t consider that all that unreasonable. If the pheromones weren¡¯t spreading, or this slime wasn¡¯t conveying alarms with colors or something, the olthoi wouldn¡¯t have come here from further afield. That said, I had no doubt what had formed the foundation of a lot of this stuff, and being opportunistic about random destruction, I began to shoot everything. This was the perfect time to use a Pyroclasm, but alas, lacking in the spells department right now, thank you. The resin was pretty thick, but whatever its chemistry was clearly was unacceptable by the standards of vivus. I wasn¡¯t destroying large areas with every shot, but I was setting it en vivus. The mistflames perked up eagerly, especially whenever they touched a vein of the glowing yellow-green stuff, which was either fuel or food, and I didn¡¯t want to know what, especially as acrid as the stuff in the bowls smelled. Dumping a Vivic Dart on them made them go up like I had just lit an oil lamp. Amazing how much damage could be done just with Cantrips and decently powerful Kickers attached to them. In case it all happened to be part of one whole gargantuan living organism, and might be by the way of the veins of bioluminescent stuff were throbbing, I bombarded the area all around the other entry, effectively cutting any connections off from the rest of the stuff leading out of this place. If this was all one organism, one of its limbs had just gone completely silent, instead of being Burned away slowly. I walked to the right across the room, shooting with every step, clearing a misty path slowly and surely, the tip of a slowly spreading vivic feast, until I could look into what had once been another connecting room... and another of those tunnels hacked through the living stone was leading into it, larger than the prior one, and with one of those membrane-doors on it. I backed off enough to be out of any easy sight, and continued my patient bombardment of the entire room. It took patience with only three Darts at a time, but that was fine, as I was going to be thorough about this. I ringed the highest reaches of the place so the vivus could Burn its way down, the mist sparking against the unnatural fungi-wax and eventually taking root in it. One by one, the bowls of goo Burned up and let go, the liquid within gushing out into the vivus below and starting a virtual bonfire of the stuff. I also noted something glittering in them. Detect Precious Materials pinged some gems on them, elements condensed out of the goo and filtered out by organic processes, further convincing me it was food, and was acting like a food bowl for the creatures. I Minor TK¡¯d the gems up, watching as the stands themselves slowly Burned down, adding the new haul to my Disk. Then I came across the scattering of Air Gold coins down at the bottom of the first column to completely collapse. They were just randomly scattered on the ground underneath the resin-mold there, as if something had fallen there and simply left them there. I turned and looked at how many other feeding bowls there were. Six more... No signs of bones or iron anything. I imagine the bones had been dissolved and processed, too. I grimly swept up the Air Gold coins and dumped them on my Disk, my thoughts still dark. ----- There were more coins under each of the feeding stations, and some minor ornamental jewelry. They¡¯d been built atop corpses to get the raw materials needed. I stood opposite the nictitating membrane in the carved tunnel and blasted it once, twice. The organism forming the door withered explosively, the membrane became liquid goo, and the way to the next stage of the complex was open. I Cast my first Run spell. For the next five hours, I would have +10 to my base 30 ground speed, plus whatever Mira had paid for, which didn¡¯t seem to have really done much. If I had to book it, that would be +30, which should be more than enough to outrun any of the bugs I¡¯d seen, since the fliers couldn¡¯t come through a smaller tunnel at speed. Coming into this room should slow them up. Leaving my Disk behind for the moment, in case I needed to run and didn¡¯t want it behind me in the narrow tunnel, I stepped ahead of the vivic mist spilling this way from the wall-to-wall feasting going on in the previous room. It was silent, but carrying fresh air into the spore-laden, acidic-smelling air beyond. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The resin and slime-trails of glowing goo were even thicker in this room. I stepped out into it carefully, looking down the length of the room quickly. It was some kind of landing. On the opposite side, stairs led down and around to an area perhaps twelve feet below, with a single hallway blocked by another membrane-door leading out. There were two olthoi I could see from this point, one of which was a Worker standing upon a location with no resin underneath it. A Summons... The other Worker seemed to be moving along the wall, scraping at it here and there. In the corner was a feeding station, which it eventually moved over to and rubbed off scrapings into, also scooping up goo on its pedipalps and beginning to daub them here and there over the wall stuff. I couldn¡¯t see over the edge of the landing if something was down there. I had a feeling there was. Potentially three olthoi, one of them a Summons, but that ¡®door¡¯ should stop any pheromone alarms, maybe... or have to shunt it through the walls. The Summons had to die atop its Summon point, or I was going to have to deal with another one. The other visible olthoi had its back turned, and I should be out of the arc of vision of those glowing eyes when the Summons turned to look at the one working... Now. ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± I murmured, and the rainbow spheres shot out, zipped past the Summons, and slammed into the back of the Worker, shattering its shell and splattering glowing acidic blood all over the resin-coated wall as it slid down with barely a death cry. It turned around to look and see where the balls of colored light had come from, but I¡¯d already moved back around the corner, and there was no enemy to see from its angle. A chitter from below, and I watched another olthoi race for the covered stairs, almost a ramp with how thickly they were coated with resin. Excellent. I eyed the membrane, but it didn¡¯t open, which was great. I swung back around the corner, picked out the watching Summons, and said, ¡°Zojak Qaureth!¡± It didn¡¯t have time to move before the spheres smashed into it, its front carapace ruptured, and it dropped where it stood. The third olthoi, running to where the first one had died, paused at the second shriek and turned my way. It couldn¡¯t see me, but it could see the dead Summons, and it was just starting to move that way to investigate when the Ice Darts came out, clipped both its legs, and it fell to the ground face-first. Two more volleys of Ice Darts as it tried to get off the floor, not advancing very far in doing so, and then its head blew apart and I was alone. I promptly hit the Summon with Vivic Darts, and its ectoplasmic body was feasted on before it could dissolve back into ether. That should stop a follow-up Summoning... Fza¡ªfwoosh! A big thick stream of vivus fountained up, then fell down heavily, billowing out along the ground in all directions. The resin-mold began to sparkle and prickle immediately. Follow-up V-Darts hit the dead olthoi, and I promptly went into Waking Meditation, drinking back in the 22 mana and 2 Slots I was down intently, letting the vivus spread without me for the moment. Nothing was going to come from behind me. I bid my Disk float up behind me, sat down on the edge of it while keeping my meditative stance, and it glided over to the edge of the landing near the wall, making sure I had a clear firing lane to the whole room. Four minutes later, I was full again. I hated the tedium and repetition, wondering just how big I could get my Mana Pool... but more importantly, how fast I could get the Mana Renewal up to, the real deciding factor without the exchange/transferral spells! Or the necromantic Drain effects of Life Magic, but I hadn¡¯t seen anything worth pulling mana out of yet. I did walk over to the rather thick feeding station in the corner, and I blasted the damn thing with ten separate sets of Vivic Darts, sending the insides sloshing out like liquid fuel for happy vivus, and blowing apart the supports to it to reveal what it had been Burning atop. Detect Precious Materials pinged dozens of times. ¡°Ah,¡± I murmured as I saw the tiny ceramic and glass jars, the fallen gems from the food basin glittering among them, their contents either absorbed or scattered in a mess beneath the sculpted resin as it fell apart. Many of the containers were broken, but some were not, and that meant usable. I went through the mess of stuff, using a combination of Sift and Prestidigitation to round up the dusts and powders, clean the usable jars, and put the former into the latter, bolstering my supplies. No tapers. I guess paraffin treated with mana was good for the resin... I paused as I came to the scattering of scarabs. A mental count let me know I¡¯d already burned one of my Iron scarabs, with no way to get more... except, it seemed, off the dead. Prestidigitation brushed away the remnants of the resin, and the scattered scarabs were revealed to me. About a dozen Lead and Iron scarabs, a score of Copper and Silver, and fully thirty Gold scarabs, showing this had been a much more powerful and wealthy mage than I was, able to handle both the spells and the costs. But Gold wasn¡¯t the most common of the hexagonal scarabs. Off the ground lifted four scarabs in hues Mira didn¡¯t recognize, and so I didn¡¯t, either. The first was bright green alchemically-treated Air Gold. It could be made into scarabs?! The second was heavy and dark blue. I recognized the metal, Mira astonished to see it. Alchemically-treated Platinum scarabs, five times as valuable as gold, or somesuch thing. There were absolutely dozens of Crystalline scarabs, more than the rest of the metal ones put together. Some sort of alchemical poured compound, solidifying like glass into the proper form, a Rune etched into it and filled with mana. And there was a softly glowing light blue scarab, clearly imbued directly with mana, heavy and powerful and ready to power something quite strong. -Four additional levels of spells, past Gold?- Mira gasped in disbelief. AF Chapter 16 – Levels just go Up, Mira What made you think they ever stop?, I asked archly, waving my hand. The mess of a hundred-some scarabs was cleaned up and poured into the collection of stuff on my Disk. I could probably Cast Silver spells, and even make a stab at Gold, but without any way to get additional components, that was just asking me to burn through raw materials. I had No Materials as a bonus feat for Sorcery, but obviously it didn¡¯t apply to the Isparian style of Casting, or perhaps only reduced component burn. I could feel Mira¡¯s burning desire to get powerful enough to attempt these new and more powerful spells, obviously stronger than anything known back on Ispar. The scarabs alone represented a heck of a fortune back there! -Our Focus went up by 21!- Mira suddenly blurted out, as she took a look at our Casting skill, and compared it to yesterday. -How did that happen?!- The Mark activated, I informed her. +1 Sacred Bonus to Intellect, which carried over to Focus. Favored by Faith means when I receive a Sacred Bonus, it is increased by 1. So, +20 to Focus. -A permanent magical boost?- she asked, shocked at such a thing being so easy, and so powerful. It¡¯s more akin to a magical item. It can be suppressed if targeted, although it¡¯s very difficult to get rid of once it is filled with Karma, but that takes time. -You mean... it increases further?!- She was agape at the news. It was already as strong as Copper Creature magic! It¡¯ll go up to +4 (5), but that will take a full month of fighting every day to feed it. -Just like the Ring?- Mira verified. Aye. And if we had a decent Weapon, that, too. It meant fighting every day to get the Karma to advance our stuff, and finding something worth building up. Every day I didn¡¯t have something was a day delaying uberness. Well, such was life. The best thing I¡¯d found so far was a sword I wasn¡¯t even proficient with, and it was barely masterwork. But now, I had to hose this room down with vivus, and then go through that door. --- A chest, intact, of all things? It had been buried under a heap of resin, hardened goo growing over it flaking off and exposing the corner of it with my first shot. A couple follow-up Darts, and the front of it was mostly blasted clear and exposed. I warily made my way down the stairs along the wall to the lower level, half-turned towards that door at all times. It wasn¡¯t locked, although it looked like it had been hacked on and battered a little bit, but had somehow weathered the degradation of direct attacks and the leeching goo alike. I opened it up, and saw the three vials inside, their insides coated with dried-up residues. Minor TK lifted them out, and I let the lid drop as I eyed the vague red, yellow, and blue colors. -Potions to restore health, stamina, and mana!- Mira said quickly. -Alas that they¡¯ve dried up...- I popped open the first one, the Health potion, and Created Water atop it with a soft prayer to Amana, a stream of the stuff coming off my wand and filling up the container. I swirled it around once with Prestidigitation, agitating it nicely, and the alchemical residue shimmered and thickened up to a bright crimson quickly. -You know Alchemy,- Mira murmured, shocked and delighted at this discovery. Alchemy, Spellcraft, Artifice, Casting. The four foundations of Arcane magic, I answered smoothly. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have any easy way to carry the thing that wouldn¡¯t fall out if I had to run, so on the Disk it went. I started working on the blue Potion, able to feel the residual mana in it, still caught in the remains. In a minute, all three Potions, once again bright and viable, were sitting on my Disk, propped up by Air Gold coins. There was a fwzap from the chest, and then it seemed to creak and shrivel in front of me as the last gasp of magic in it gave way. I hurriedly opened the lid of it, and it fell over and back, disintegrating as it did so. There were three more whole Potions, one of each color, sitting there. I looked at them, considering a chest which could just cough up endless amounts of such things, the sheer amount of magic that would take, and just shook my head. It would be a major artifact if it could create endless amounts, so this was probably taking them from a hidden reserve somewhere... and this was the last time it would do so. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Regardless, I added seconds of the Potions to my Disk, before turning and steeling myself for that membrane-door. They definitely had acid-spitters, so I bit the bullet and Cast Resist Energy to Acid. It took a II Valence and would last close to an hour. It would also protect me from the first 20 points of acid damage from any effect. -Truly? Life Protections only reduce the damage you take, they don¡¯t neutralize all of it!- Mira murmured. I glanced at the mental list of spells she had there. That would mean they would stack, then, wouldn¡¯t it?, I asked thoughtfully. However, I don¡¯t like their duration. She couldn¡¯t argue that, especially with our restricted mana problems. The additional Focus had certainly helped our raw numbers, but we just went through it so quickly. It didn¡¯t help that I didn¡¯t have a lot of Valence support on my side of the equation, either. Ah, the wonders of being low-level, even if my Intellect was much too high for said Level. Spores and acrid smells wafted out to me after I blasted the membrane open, but the Resist Acid warded them away. I had most of an hour before the spell went away, so no sniffling or eye-watering from the much more intense odors here! I left the vivus to start the process of eating the place, joining the stuff that was flowing down from the higher walls in the room behind me, building up a calf-high mist eager to expand into this place and start the munching. I heard the skittering and teeth-grinding skritches of the olthoi, one of them from not far away, possibly feeling the air pressure change with the open membrane. The others were pretty muted. -If we do anything here a bunch of them are going to come running,- Mira murmured. It looks like we¡¯re going Copper if we have to, then. I could use Toppling to knock a whole bunch of them down, but I¡¯d still have to finish them. The tunnel went ahead, and curved left. It almost felt like there was one right around the corner. I flicked up eight Shards, rotated them into spheres, and stepped around the corner, saying ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± as I did so. The Summoned olthoi Worker had bare stone under its spindly legs. It paused on seeing me, and then shrieked as the spheres detonated against it, spraying it all over the membrane behind it. Instead of retreating, I advanced the three steps to the s-curve, and noticed the tunnel split right and left, both of which had membranes on them. Well, color me lucky, I thought, promptly V-Darting the dead Summons to stop the re-Summon back in. I found myself looking down the corridor and debating right or left, wondering which way to go. Good thing I hadn¡¯t advanced, because the membrane off to the left side suddenly dilated, and another olthoi Worker stepped through, freezing instantly as it sniffed the air. It saw me a second too late, and then eight colored spheres sprayed it all over the open portal behind it. That death cry and the pheromone release got an immediate reaction, however. I heard the distant shrieks of alarm, but I didn¡¯t stop, turning around and booking it instantly. I was out the entryway, turning left, and raced up the stairs with all speed. I looked back sharply as I cut through the vivic mist on the floor, wand out and ready for the first thing to follow me through. When it did, Mira half-shrieked inside my head at the sight of it. This one was far more spidery, with no manipulator limbs at all, its walking legs longer and almost humanoid, the middle and upper pedipalps hooked and sharp and as long as spears, made for cleaving and sticking things, with yet another pair of finer manipulator limbs down low. The thing was purple-violet in hue, and looked like an entirely different species than the beetle-like and fly-like things I¡¯d killed earlier. It saw me right as the two Lightning Darts detonated on it and smashed it back into the wall behind it, screeching the alarm, arms splayed wide and looking pretty big and huge. A Soldier and a Worker came out of the doorway behind it, looking around and locking on me at the top of the landing, my feet still moving, wand still pointing as I closed in above them. And I was blasting Silver this time. I gave four Shards to the one that was tagging as a CR 80 Olthoi Eviscerator, one to the worker, and two to the soldier... and all the Silver damage went into the walking spider. Its frontal carapace shattered and exploded, while its inferiors were blasted off their feet by Toppling. Standing out of reach above them, I hammered them down with Darts as they struggled to get to their feet and chase after me in territorial aggression, while I was also keeping an eye on the doorway for more things bound to be coming. I was glad I did when another Worker, with a Needler right behind it and another looming Soldier behind that, came out of the tunnel. The green Needler instantly spread its wings... and then I flattened it to the ground. A Silver War magic bolt had a damage spread of 50-100. That was approximately 10d6+40. Dice meant my +/die Metas were working on it, and the more dice, the merrier. 10d6+80, +Warcaster Razor of 8, plus specialization of 2. Average damage of 125, and then three Shards with Kickers, another 3d6+5d6, and yes, that thing was hammered to the ground and flattened before it could get into the air, while one Shard each to the remaining olthoi smashed each of them to the ground again. They were not having good days. The Soldiers were the biggest threats, with more Health to absorb what I was unloading on them, but the Workers were the easiest to kill. I¡¯d hit the first two a grand total of three times now, Holy Banefire doing the work of the gods¡¯ flyswatter, and they were both down about eighty-five Health, my Razor not applying to Cantrips. A Copper spell was 40 to 80 damage, or 8-48+32... which increased to 8-48+62, or 90 average damage. I gave the wounded Worker a Shard with a third of the Shockwave¡¯s magic, the Soldier two-thirds, with four Shards on the Soldier, one Shard each on the two ¡®fresh¡¯ ones, smashing them all back to the ground as they scrambled to get to the ramp leading up to me. Two more olthoi splattered on the ground and floor as their carapaces ruptured, and unstable insides coughed up glowing green blood that turned to acid when it hit the air. AF Chapter 17 - Bugstomping Continues Only two left now. I downstepped to Darts, my mana down a hundred points, and four Shard Slots empty of the seven I had available. I didn¡¯t have to vivisize anything, the mists here instantly turning the dead into gentle unwhite bonfires. I pounded the last two down with shot after shot of Darts, Holy Banefire doing what it needed to do over three more volleys before they both stopped moving. The vivic mists swirled about them and promptly set their cracked and broken forms alight with misting unwhite fires. I stayed right where I was, eyes focused on that membrane door. Death pheromones shouldn¡¯t be a problem, but the screams might be. Down in Meditation, on one knee, focused without being focused, a razor edge of concentration and open harmony, with the vivus around being quite helpful about supplying the mana I needed. Fourteen minutes of Mana Renewal crept by before I could get up with confidence, watching my spell durations and wincing, but knowing I could recast them all if needed. I trotted back the way the olthoi had come, stepping past the dissolving bodies, and slowly and carefully re-entered the hallway once more, now misting all around, cool fogs drooping off the ceiling as the resinous goo was eaten away. The Summon spot was empty, and the center of a hearty Burn. Since the alarm had already come from the one direction, I decided to head that way. If something came in behind me, well, that was why I had Levitate ready to go, and could stay aloft indefinitely if I had to. Unless I was swarmed by the flying Needlers, I should be fine. Those spidery Eviscerators might be able to climb along the resin on the walls, it was hard to tell. I hadn¡¯t taken the time to heft their exoskeletons and see how heavy they were... and, well, magic would laugh at that. The Needlers were obviously using magic to stay aloft, wall-crawling was a step down from that stuff. I blew the nictitating membrane open and stepped through, wand poised. Small square room, covered with olthoi gunk. I V-Darted each wall once with triple Darts, including the ceiling, and the chamber was Burning heartily as I inched out into the hallway to the room beyond. This room was as festooned with gunk as all the others, but I recognized the design of the archways and cul-de-sacs behind them. Only two feeding stations around the room, and the wear lines on the ground all seemed to lead towards the far side... where a large and wide passageway had been carved right through the worked stone, leading upwards. A faint breeze seemed to be coming from that direction, too. There were exactly two olthoi there, about the same size as the workers, pinged as Olthoi Guards. They were a slightly brighter blue, and were stationed near the ramp-like tunnel leading up and out... and was I detecting a hint of reflected sunlight there?! I didn¡¯t waste much mana on them, pounding them over and down and keeping the trip-lock on them as they crawled out, shrieking the alarm loudly, trying to get to me. I spent only Lead on them, 5d4+10 of crushing damage popping to 5d4+32, and very low mana cost with my Mana Conversion being where it was. It took me four salvos to kill them both, while I shifted left inside the room in case something decided to come out of the hallway behind me, actually closing the distance to them as they tried to scramble at me. Once they were deceased, I had to fight the urge to go racing towards what felt a great deal like the way out of here. Instead, I first blew apart the feeding stations and shot both dead olthoi with V-Darts, and proceeded to ignite the room. When the feeding bowls Burned down enough to harvest the gemstones congealed in the bottom of them, I kicked them over, collected my bounty, and shot them a few more times for emphasis. The Crystal scarabs seemed to be very common, and I had no idea why. There was no sign of the lesser ones in the mess I slowly Sifted through and filtered out, nor any more normal components. Did the Crystal scarabs make all other components moot, a universal component? That would be wonderful if true, I could stop carrying this heavy satchel and just carry a bandolier of Crystal scarabs or something. Well, I¡¯d find out in the future, I guess. --- Once the room was mostly on fire, I slowly and warily trudged up the ramp. I wasn¡¯t expecting trouble, or it would have come when the Guards called out. The first thing I acknowledged was that the temperature was cold. With acidic reactions generating heat inside them, the bugs probably weren¡¯t affected much. There was snow on the ground. I looked around, and blanched. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. There was an invasive mix of toadstools and mushroom growing among the native trees, although who knew how well they were doing with the winter season. Dying, growing again, dying, growing on the corpses of their own... and possibly of the plants they were infecting and killing. I was on a hillside of sorts. The entire area I¡¯d been in excavated out from inside a hill? I turned around, and grimaced again. The whole top of the hill looked like it had blown up and fallen back down somehow, something erupting out of nowhere to lift the entire hilltop, shattering stone, earth, and plant life violently before settling back down. But... there were no standing buildings atop the hill, at all. If there was rubble there, I couldn¡¯t see it with the shrooms and brush in the way. There was what looked like old buildings down the hill, just a scattering of them and small houses running down towards the river and what might have once been cultivated orchards, judging by how they were arranged in rows. Nothing human moving within sight. Not much at all moving, really. Even the birds and wildlife seemed reluctant to be about, which was par for the course for wintertime. I shot the nearest stand of shrooms with a volley of V-Darts, and somehow was not surprised in the slightest when the things went up like tinder. I looked at the many, many stands of mushrooms in sight, and shook my head. Someone had a lot of work to do here, and she was probably looking back at me in the mirror. But none of that work was going to matter if I didn¡¯t clear this place. It had to be a nest, and that meant a queen or other egg-layer. And if that held true for insects, she was going to be bigger and tougher than all of her children by a fair margin. With very little hesitation, I gave a last look around, and turned and walked back down into the nest. Nobody was going to do this for me, and I knew bugs. There was no reasoning with them, they just bred and expanded. They had to die, and I was going to kill them all. ------ The room was still empty. I went into what I was calling my Aurora Stance to regain mana, standing on that edge between focused readiness to leap into action, and relaxed acceptance and openness to the universe and its energies. Energies that weren¡¯t much liking the shit around me, but were happy with the vivus gathering around my feet as the unnatural ecology of this place went away. My mana ticked slowly back up as I waited for it all to top out, and still nothing came. I guess as long as the membrane doors didn¡¯t open, everything was fine? I¡¯d have to exploit that, I would. When I was full up, I decided that recasting my Resist Energy was wise, just in case, and added two more minutes of Aurora Stance to get that Slot back as well. Then I shot open the membrane door that was denying the vivus flowing around, obviously being slightly higher on the order of life, and watched it Burn away. Nothing right behind the door, and vivus should have disposed of the death pheromones. I followed the curve around, listening to the skritching and scrabbling of the grown olthoi, and stopped. There was a small square room here. Some kind of tripod stand had existed here, but it had been blown to shreds, and not even the olthoi ooze was growing over the hissing remnants of it. The walls were all cracked, and embedded with hundreds of broken, burned-out blue stones. Most importantly, I could count at least forty skulls among the many, many skeletons infused into those walls, bones jutting out wildly, fused and merged into the stone, broken and shattered at the same time. It made my hackles rise, as the place was simmering with the afterburn of violent magical death. This room effectively cut the other half of the olthoi¡¯s chambers off from the half I¡¯d been in. I had no idea what had happened, but those were human bones, there were a lot of them, and there didn¡¯t seem to be much clothing on any of them, even rags. I... couldn¡¯t hazard anything, and neither could Mira. So, I defaulted to what I normally did, starting with the spurting line of erratic energies burning off the remnants of those stands. V-Darts away! Those energies caught like gasoline, spurting into full-out flares of vivus, making me wonder what the fuck they had been connected to in order to do that. With very little hesitation, I started shooting every skull and intact ribcage I could see. The blue crystals sparked and lit up when the vivic fire touched them, before flaring up inside and spontaneously cracking and falling apart to shiny dust. I noted its existence, but wasn¡¯t going to take the time to clean it all up and collect it right now, although I was sure it would be useful. Oh, Hell with it. My nerves were getting to me, so I Cast the Levitate on myself, so it would be active if I needed it. As long as this didn¡¯t take more than fifty minutes, I was fine. The hallway continued around, curving to the left, once again festooned with olthoi resin, even thicker and glowing brighter than that without. I edged around the turn, pausing as I caught sight of massive mushrooms, bigger than those growing outside, growing in this area like trees in the darkness. And there was a skritching sound of mandibles rubbing pedipalps to the left, just out of sight. I inhaled deeply, turned the corner, acquired the olthoi Worker there, and before it could register me, I spat out, ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± The Iron spell was enough to flatten it, and it died with only a startled shriek. I spun around at movement just past the second tree, another Worker stepping out in surprise, seeing me as a dark blur, and starting into motion. Two Darts, and it went down awkwardly, while I concentrated on dealing with any new surprises, which had appeared very quickly! AF Chapter 18 – Clearing the Nest The Eviscerator came pumping from the left side, the room open in that direction. Killing limbs out, it looked quite impressive and dangerous as it churned towards me, and ran into a Copper blast all for it, with another Shard for the downed Worker and two more for the Soldier trailing after it. It was knocked over and scrambled to regain its balance, but it was stronger and tougher than other olthoi, and those limbs actually were really good at bouncing it back to its feet again. A sudden shriek that was really loud and seemed to make everything in the room vibrate echoed through the whole chamber abruptly, and I was pretty sure more fun would be coming quickly. My Disk remained in the entry hall as I went up the side of the wall. Unmoving and not alive, the Disk attracted no attention whatsoever, especially with an active moving me there. The Eviscerator wasn¡¯t expecting me to do that, nor to take a mere Lead shot via Darts to the face. 5-20+32 +7d6 was still an impressive amount of damage, and enough to knock it off its feet again before it could try climbing the walls after me. The Worker and the Soldier had gotten back to their feet and were plodding towards me, but there was no way they could possibly reach me, so I focused the next volley exclusively on the Eviscerator trying to get up, jam its limbs into the resin, and scale the wall up after me. I turned upside down, my satchel secure and clothing tied, and with Sylune¡¯s Grace for hair, I didn¡¯t have to worry about it being in the way. With my feet pressed on the ceiling, I could move around, unless these things could leap like crickets... which I didn¡¯t see among them. Another volley of Darts flattened the Eviscerator, whose body jerked and folded in on itself as its thorax ruptured and it lost pressure in its limbs, curling up incredibly small for its size. Aaaaand that¡¯s the vibrating sound I was waiting for. I ignored the Soldier and Worker flailing around uselessly below me, waiting for me to fall down, as the thrumming of wings which could not support so much weight echoed around the corner and was soon accompanied by its sources. Two of the green Needlers, zipping around the corner, freezing for a moment to study the scene, and then spotting me up high as I unloaded on them. Good reflexes. Both of them spat their lines of magically-propelled acid breath at the same moment. I twisted aside and dipped down at the same moment, before reversing and coming back up, staying out of range as the acid hissed past me, the shots missing. The Needlers, on the other hand, smashed backwards into the wall behind them, three Shards to one, four to the other, and the Silver Shockwave split between them. They slid down the wall and landed badly, crystalline wings cracking and breaking. It took them a second or two to invoke their anti-gravity effect and lift off the ground again, but they should have tried something millipede in style instead, trying to crawl up the wall to me. Their damaged wings couldn¡¯t propel them with any control, and I just Darted them twice more each before their carapaces gave way and their glowing blood was going in all directions as their tumbling bodies finally lost all lift. There were nine olthoi below me now, all of them desperately trying to reach me, and probably really bummed that I was the one who was clinging to ceilings out of reach. Since they wanted to stay and attack me, I obliged with slow and careful triple sets of Darts, and slowly hammered them all down with the Kicker damage, not caring if they got back up. I really needed more Kicker damage here. Life sucked, be patient. There was another Eviscerator, and two more Guards. They earned my first attention, as the rest weren¡¯t anything but diversions. I hammered them repeatedly, spreading out the three Darts to maximize damage among different targets, using the spare Meta Slot for Piercing Spell so I definitely didn¡¯t have to worry about their spell resistance. Elemental lightning zipped down again and again, but it was still Force damage, and the Holy Banefire did the job it was supposed to do, amplifying every hit and finding the weakest points to prey on. Slowly and steadily, I beat the olthoi down in sets of three. If it took ten volleys, it took ten volleys, I didn¡¯t care, and was patient enough to let it all go. One of them did try flinging acid from its jaws up towards me with a pincer, which splattered off my blouse and Resist Acid, and earned it my immediate attention. It never got back to its feet before it died. The shrieks from deeper in the place grew louder with each kill, until subsonic killing intent was filling the air. Would the queen come up from below, or not? She did not, which raised my hackles. It meant she was waiting for me. With trepidation yet haste, I cleared off her vanguard, then set them and the giant mushrooms en vivus. My Disk followed carefully and dutifully after me near the wall as I turned the corner from up on the ceiling. I turned the corner, saw the fwzap and swirl of polycolors as a new olthoi Worker was Summoned in, and I promptly sent it flying with two Darts. Three more volleys and it was dead, set on vivus, and I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about any others coming up behind me. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. There was a ramp in the floor leading down, just what I did NOT want to see. Fwzap. At the bottom of the ramp, the clear spot there materialized another olthoi Worker. There¡¯s a reason that people hate Summoners. I hammered that one down patiently, too, not wanting to spend Valences unless I had to. The ramp curved down and to the right, but nothing else seemed to be coming as I walked upside-down on the tunnel¡¯s ceiling down the way, Wand leading, Disk staying up top for now. Clear area on the floor! I blasted it hastily, just as the fwzap started to go off, and the vivus ate the glowing lights and stopped that nonsense. There was a membrane to the left of the Summon point, and a feeding basin near to it. I blasted open the membrane, blinked at the blank wall there, and then looked down at the covered mound there. Two more volleys blasted the resin off the chest, and I heaved it open. Dried Potion bottles. My Disk came drifting down from above at my silent command, and I deposited the dry bottles upon it. Then I waited for the chest to recharge, short out, and pulled out the three intact Potions that came in with it, leaving my Disk floating directly over top of where it was falling apart. I blasted the feeding station as I moved ahead, looking for signs of more olthoi, probably Summons at this point. There was one more further into this lower, darker chamber, lit only by traces of bioluminescent goo and another feeding font, notably richer and brighter in color than the ones upstairs. There was a single chamber reaching out of here. I could see on the far side what looked like another massive set of fungus, and a glowing lake of olthoi food goo, as well as several oblong organic objects set around it. There were two Summons in that room, waiting for me, but no sign of the queen from where I was, which sent all my hackles rising up. I braced to run, making sure there was nothing hiding around me, and proceeded to blast the two Guards with sets of three Darts, two to one, then the other, knocking them around as they tried to run at me. Sometimes the single shot would bull through the effect and eventually made it to the doorway, but then two Darts slammed into it and knocked it over, getting in the way of the one coming after it. I spent two Lead shots and only five mana to speed things up a bit, and neither guard managed to cross the low, dark room I was in and backing up through before they died. I started them en vivus, and waited. No reaction from the queen at their deaths. Two Darts more V-speared out from my position, ignited on the spawn points and shorted them out. Still nothing. I sent two V-Darts into the pond of glowing goo, and poof! Both Darts generated instant bonfires of vivic flames on the stuff, which began to spread quickly. Okay, this was seriously creeping me out. The queen was obviously waiting for intruders, but where? Somewhere out of my line of sight, obviously. That meant either on the roof, or on one of the side walls. Or right above the entryway. I tilted my head, considering that point, letting the cold shakes at the idea run through me while acknowledging and ignoring them. Well, let¡¯s see if she¡¯ll reveal herself first. I promptly began popping each of the eggs there. A flashing Fire Dart hit them, superheated steam blew them open, and pop, pop, pop, whatever larvae were in them were cooked and died. Oh, I heard that. A skitter of bladed arms rubbing softly on one another... Larvae were coming up out of the pond of goo, which was completely covered by vivus now. They looked like pasty white clumps of motile poo, not attractive in the slightest, and I had no reservations about shooting them dead from safely where I was standing... and then shooting them again to set the blasted carcasses to Burning. Still not coming out, eh? Well, that¡¯s why I had utility spells. Mira was very excited as I wove up Illusion I, Phantasmal Force, basically a visual-only illusion. I paused just long enough to get my next spell ready with great care, before sending the illusion of me zipping out of the entryway towards the pond at a run. Predators naturally trigger on fleeing prey. The flexing of something big and not light. Massive legs that had been straddling the upper half of the doorway flexed and leapt out after the illusion with rather impressive speed. She was deep crimson with dark purple highlights from the back, another humanoid insect, but unlike the Eviscerators she had a much longer abdomen, presumably for egg-laying. I blew a II Valence on Assay just so I could read her better and know what I was facing. Olthoi Matron, Challenge Rating 100. A thousand Health. Gods in Hell, that was like an ancient dragon or tougher back on Terra-Luna! Strength nearly 400, about the equal of 30 in Power of Ten Standards. Fast-healing 10. Virtually immune to acid and lightning, resistant to fire and cold... vulnerable to bludgeon damage? SR 23? Wow, that was damn useful to know. As was not letting her run away to mend. Truecast, +10 to SR punch! Silver Magic Yield Other, ¡°Equin Opaj!¡± Ping! I watched the swirls of magic descend around her and lower her Magic Defense to 18 while she was hacking at the illusion who was dodging with incredible nimbleness from those scything claws, and probably wondering why she couldn¡¯t smell or hear anything. I really wanted to try a Gold spell, but I hadn¡¯t figured it out and Mari didn¡¯t know the formulas, so we were stuck with Silver. Bludgeon Vulnerability IV, ¡°Cruath Qaureth!¡± AF Chapter 19 – Matron’s Massacre The resonating Aura flared like gray static about the Matron, ready to amplify and make any blunt impacts incoming reverberate for +100% damage. It would only last a minute or three, but that was enough... Down 60 mana, 190 to go. Starting with, as she slowed in her frantic assaults on the illusion, ¡°Zojak Quareth!¡± with Silver attached to it, and Piercing Spell making it an absolute success to land. Eight Shards as the Matron waved her claw, and it passed right through the illusion. Mari was delighted to make the illusion of us throw up her hands and blow her tongue at the Matron, and then the Shards hit the Matron from behind with full power. The Matron was blasted from her overlong feet by the impacts, unbraced and unready to take such a hit. The first two magicks on her had not had any discernible impacts, so it seemed she wasn¡¯t looking for another attacker. Let¡¯s see. 8d6+24, +5d6 Kickers, +8 Warcaster¡¯s Edge, +2 Spec, +2d6 surprise attack, +10-60+80. Times 2. +66% for natural vulnerability.* Might have been a crit on some of the Shards, hard to tell. Her Health dropped like an absolute rock, however, as she went stumbling and sprawling into the pool of glowing Burning goo, massive cracks running up her spinal crest and the vertebral ridge of her exoskeleton. 300 to go! I was using the no-miss variant of Shards as I juiced with Copper this time, more than enough to finish her as she rose from the pond, vivus dripping off her with the goo it was consuming. She spread her weapon arms wide (Mithar, nearly fifteen feet of reach at full extension) and came charging for me REALLY fast with those long legs. She ran right into seven spheres, each in one color of the rainbow, prickling with Holy electrum Light, Banefire the glowing yellow-green color of her blood, and the force spheres smashed into her chest like cannonballs. I watched her chest burst apart, and she stumbled and went sprawling as her insides blew apart and were consumed by her own acidifying blood. She still had her eyes locked on me as she hit the ground and stared, spewing out a long stream of glowing ichor as she looked at me, probably wondering why her Fast Healing wasn¡¯t saving her... but -50 Health is a long way to be dead. I shot the V-Darts into her, and her thorax erupted with them, Holy Banefire driving the life from her gleaming eyes. -I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen a spell hit that hard!- Mari admitted, impressed. -These conjoined spells of ours are incredibly powerful!- Not much different than two mages hitting it at once, I observed, refusing to be arrogant about it. Although the per-die effects are saving our ass, I¡¯ll admit. Taking no chances, I spent another I Valence Slot on Detect I, going for olthoi directly, scanning to make sure there were no others around as I stepped around the Matron¡¯s corpse and began flashing off more V-Darts to get this place to Burning quicker. There were a couple more eggs and larva out of my initial sight. I popped them and vivified them, scanning the place and especially the pool of goo that was dimming quickly, vivic mist thick upon it and having a field day. I Detected for Precious Materials, and found a minor treasure trove of trinket gems scattered at the bottom of the pool. Minor TK fished them all out, as I didn¡¯t want to step in the stuff, even if I could resist how acidic it obviously was. My Disk came at my call, gliding up to take in the new bright rocks and everything patiently. No secret doors, no secret panels, no hidden bugs waiting in ambush. Everything was dead that needed to die inside here, I just needed to hurry up with my critique of their interior decorating. Triple flashes of V-Darts streaked out, detonated in Holy Banefire that sped their work along, and I slowly walked back through the dark room, already awash in expanding vivus, added to its problems, destroyed the last food basin there, and then dug out more crystal scarabs from underneath it, along with some random gemstones. Time to get back to fresh air. Something wild would probably move in here soon enough. It was actually a great base, even had a drain by the entry to take care of the water that had to come in. Put the doors back up and it might actually be livable. I paused at that thought, and turned around. I went back downstairs, and found the Matron still burning, its hide pretty hard. I blasted off her head and both of her pincers with Darts, loaded them on my Disk, and then trotted all the way back, back to the very room I¡¯d entered this place from. With my handy-dandy new stone-cleaving tool, I wrote a message on the wall. When I was done, I left that single sword, the matron¡¯s head, and the pincers beneath what I¡¯d written, the Light aimed at the message written in Human, so anyone human could understand it. This place is very dangerous. I do not know if new threats will be here when you arrive. I regret that all I can leave you is below. I can only ask that you leave something here for those who might come after you. There is a way out, and you may have to fight or flee to reach it. I wish you good luck. Survive! --------- I stood atop the ramp, wishing I could cover it up, knowing that most likely, unless someone else decided to set up inside and defend the place, other olthoi would most likely come here and recolonize it, and unless I wanted to stay here, there was little I could do to stop it. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. It wasn¡¯t an insurmountable problem, and it was even something useful, in its own way. Having an area that would draw enemies in who could be cleared out regularly was very useful if done right, a good way to train people up and help them Level. Level, on rapid Summons that would no longer be working... Well, the last thing I wanted was for the bugs to have it easy retaking this place. Endlessly spawning Summoned olthoi was definitely beneficial for them, only who had been so grokking insane as to set up such a thing? What was with that room with all the skeletons buried in the walls, and the blasted crystal sands now heaped up inside a remnant of olthoi shell? More to the point, if there were no people around, that was truly going to suck. There was a lot of work involved in being a mage and an adventurer, and having to focus on just acquiring the basic materials to be a wandering hero was the exact opposite of the situation I wanted to be in. How could I grandly explore a brand-new world and put its ecological disasters to the torch if I kept running out of tiny candles, herb shavings, and stuff? ---------- It was winter time. If there was anyone human in any of these buildings, there would be smoke coming from the chimneys. I went up the broken top of the hill first. I still had Levitate active for a few minutes, so I could indeed go over the broken terrain and get a good look of the surrounding territory. At the top of the hill were the remains of three structures, the only one that had seemed livable being what looked like a mage¡¯s abode. There were runes carved on the wooden structure in the Aluvian pattern, indicating that magical services were available within. Furthermore, all four schools were represented in the carvings, and up to Silver, something that would normally only be available to a sizable town back home! I turned to look at the small town, only able to be considered more than a village because of the sheer number of homes and cottages scattered over the area. More a cluster of the major craftsmen gathered together, while the houses were spread over the countryside to work the farms and fish the rivers. No walls, which was... unusual. Even if it was to keep out vermin, they should have had some kind of defenses-? They had giant walking bugs around, for Mithar¡¯s sake!... who could dig through solid stone, but at least walls would stop raids. The walls of the building were remarkably intact, all things considered. I could feel something akin to an Ironwood effect on them, faint, but giving them the durability to resist the weather and not bounce apart when they hit the ground after what looked like a sudden trip skyward, likely tossing around the much-lighter people inside wildly. The joints, nails, and screws were the things that had failed, tearing free and collapsing the whole structure down on itself, which likely would have crushed everyone inside if something hadn¡¯t exploded within and blown the remnants of the building out into rubble around the exposed basement, now cracked and ruined. Knowing it was a mage building, I scanned for components thoroughly, and was unsurprised when I barely found any. Even the crates in the basement had been torn open and were basically empty, with signs that all the walls and flooring had been shifted at least once by those searching. Magical supplies would be the first thing any survivors would have tried to find and carry away, and the elements would do for most of the rest. I did find one thing interesting. It was a broken double-length taper under the edge of a random board, made from a crystalline wax speckled with every possible color of mana within it. -It has the essences of herbs, powders, tinctures, and talismans in it,- Mira judged, excited by the discovery. Dozens of different energies woven into it, in an unstable matrix that could activate by directed destruction. These things might be able to emulate the need for multiple materials, but they¡¯d also burn through much faster than the pure components would. It was also something to base No Materials on. I would just need to practice according to the same paradigm. If I was right, the crystal scarabs were the main thing, and massive amounts of these tapers had subbed for a casting satchel. I had to admit it was a huge leap forwards in magical development, every bit as important as adding at least three Scarabs of ranking spells. The Portals had been opening for thirty or so years, and in that time period the only major magical developments had been the Artificing introduced by Emperor Briggs and Empress Sama... I literally froze in place as that detail in Mira¡¯s memories jolted through me. Aelryinth¡¯s relayed information about Sama and Briggs was real! Holy shit! -You know the Emperor and Empress?- Mira gasped in disbelief, and I peeled out my own replicated knowledge of them back on Terra-Luna. The similarities were too great to be ignored. The Brute and the Hag had come down out of the northern mountains, united the feuding Aluvian clans and families with a combination of terrifying battleskill, immunity to War Magic, and Weapons that could carve through the thickest Celdon or Viamontian plate armor as if it was gossamer. They had driven the Aluvians against the Viamontian invaders, driving the blue-skinned invaders from their hills, down to the seas, and then pursued them all the way to the ancient Roulean capital they had seized, gathering up recruits and followers by the truckload as they did. Nothing had been able to stop them. Viamontians had been slaughtered without mercy, and had fled rather than face the Thundering Horde, what they instead called the Howling Horde. The two of them had freed the lands of Gharu¡¯n, picked up thousands more people willing to fight, and then returned the favor to Viamont for all the years of conquest, doing the impossible by building a navy up and somehow getting an army all the way to Viamont, where they promptly began wiping out the Viamontian Empire piecemeal. All the stories were that the slaughter was horrific. The Viamontians had been broken, their empire put to the flames, their armies and nobles were massacred, and their cities razed. Famine and plague had stalked their lands when the invaders finally pulled out, taking with them much plunder, including much of the wealth the Viamontians had once seized from other lands. Supposedly the Viamontians had tried to work a great magic, Calling out to the kin of their great ancestor Karlun, the visitors from another world who had interbred with their human ancestors to create the blue-skinned Blooded, hoping they would come and save them! ============ *Average olthoi have a Resistance divisor of .8 against Piercing damage, and .6 against Bludgeon. All other elements are 1.2 or higher, so¡­ use Bludgeon! (Dmg/.6 = 167% damage). AF Chapter 20 – Someone was Busy! The Brute and the Hag had personally interrupted that Ceremony, and it had gone horrifically bad. Spatial ruptures had destroyed the entire heart of Corcosa, and with it the central powers of Viamont, including almost all of the royal lines. That event had marked the great decline in the appearance of the Portals to other worlds. Now the Portals only manifested in places where great amounts of magic were thrown about, or places of power. ¡°Well, of course a fucking Source and Null would mess up a grand magical Ceremony to their advantage,¡± I murmured to no one, still a bit stunned as the stories Mira remembered cycled through my memory. Damn, Sama and Briggs had gone off on the Viamontians! If the Viamontians fought, they were put to the sword. If they surrendered, their possessions were burned, their great herds of cattle slaughtered and left to rot or burned, and their arrogance put to the boot. Only the Clans who had not participated in the armies of conquest were left alone, and few of those there were, as the Viamontians had a very martial culture. Estimations were that a full third of Viamont¡¯s people had perished in the fighting there, unable to believe they could be fought and bested so bloodily, and the famine and fighting for survival and positions afterwards had further raised that number to half. The tainted Blood of the Viamontians was now a byword and a curse in Ispar, and the average Viamontian¡¯s blue skin was basically seen as little better than the blood of demons. ¡®The Viamontian Way¡¯, the mantra for what they had done returned tenfold upon the Viamontians themselves, was also derided throughout the continent. Briggs and Sama had returned to Roulea and been proclaimed Emperor and Empress. No one had dared to speak out against them, and the loyalty of the multi-national force underneath them was unbreakable. They were proving to be as remarkably adept at administration as they were at outright war, to the disbelief of many who wanted to categorize them as bloodthirsty marauders and savages. They had rebuilt some of the famous and necessary Imperial institutions, while avoiding waste and corruption somehow as they expanded their grip on the lands of Roulea, Aluvia, and Gharu¡¯n in a relatively bloodless manner. It was how the Imperial Academy of Magic had been restored after its plundering and dismissal by the Viamontians. As for the secrets of Rune Smithing, only those Sworn to the Imperial Household learned the secret of the ebon-edged Blades that glowed the Colors of their wielders¡¯ souls... The two of them had even introduced Human, and it was infecting the human populations haplessly, unable to deny the genetic language. The main holdout was the Viamontians, who had problems learning it, which only underscored their inhuman heritage in the eyes of the Imperials. Adding on the Magic of the Allegiance Oath and Sama¡¯s Marks giving them followers who were more powerful than others and telepathically connected, there was no question as to what was behind the incredible loyalty their followers displayed, and their uncanny ability to communicate and coordinate. Runesmithing and Naming Umbral Weapons that didn¡¯t rely on magical charge-ups from a mage for their power had naturally turned the fighting situation upside down. Ignoring armor had basically turned the entire Viamontian army into cloth-wearing peasants ripe for slaughter. My attempted looting of a mage¡¯s building done, I turned to survey the other two buildings. Both were of stone, but of very different styles, one being more lightly-brickwork, similar to some of the walls in the, well, dungeon down below. The other was more like hand-carved fortification blocks, older, thicker, and darker. The first one was also shattered to pieces, with a blasted and fused crater and hole leading down into the ground, the interior bricks melted, warped, and shattered by an arcane explosion that had sent boulder-sized chunks falling in every direction, including downslope, and doubtless smaller pieces for hundreds of yards in all directions. I heavily doubted anything had survived that eruption, and while there was vestigial magic in the bricks, it was fading, broken, and leaking away. There was definitely a feeling of power in the crater and hole going down, but I didn¡¯t feel like sliding down into there to test it out with Levitate having expired while I was searching. The last building was sprayed over nearly a hundred yards, and looked to have been some sort of watchtower originally. It had overbalanced and fallen downslope when the upsurge from below came, spreading stones and a shattered warning bell all along the downslope. One last great ringing to herald the end of the world, I guessed, looking down at the ruins here, and then the remains of the town visible through the brush... There was a Summons here, about forty yards from the remains of the buildings. It stood out because it had cleared an area in the brush and snow with its occasional motions, walking around its point to keep warm, perhaps reacting to things passing by and trampling the grass down to do so. First, its existence told me that there were external Summons, not restricted to the dungeon below, or others I might run across. The implications to that were huge, although I didn¡¯t know how it worked with proximity to a town. Second, it had only the most basic clothing, so it was probably dying to exposure routinely and being re-Summoned. Magic was some cruel shit at times. It was basically about chest-high on me, with a wide head, large night-seeing eyes, and yellowish skin, bluntly clawed hands and feet, and an omnivore¡¯s teeth. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Assay pegged it as a Drudge Slinker, ¡®Drudge¡¯ being a humanoid type I was completely unfamiliar with. The wide, staring eyes could seem cute, but most Summons default to ¡®attack anything not like me in the area¡¯, and I found it hard to picture most people putting up with a dangerous Summons in their area. Then again, if you were aware of the danger range and kept out of it, it wasn¡¯t much different from having an unpaid guard around? I did move closer to it, just to test its reactions, and with unfailing zeal, it charged me once I got within twenty yards, watching me the whole way, meeping like a demented cat or something as it flailed with its blunt claws at me. I shot it down with one volley of Darts, and it died with a pained keening. I watched it fall, the ectoplasm energetically discorporating, and subtle power building around the Summon point as waiting magic prepared to Summon again. Fwzap, just like in the dungeon below. Multi-colored lights swirled, Astral Templates condensed, and a new Summons materialized on the Summons point. What the heck was a Carrion Shreth? The thing looked like a weird four-hooved omnivore, the back legs short and very powerful, the front legs longer and ready for battering and beat downs, with a row of broad, circular spikes along its spine, shoulders, and the back of its almost spherical head. It was also happy to immediately charge me, despite only being waist-high to me. It first tried to ram into me and knock me down, which I dodged deftly, curious as to its attack patterns. The bony ridge-teeth of its broad mouth chomped at me, trying for a bite as I slid aside, and then it swung forward, trying to kick me with a startlingly long thrusting double kick from the rear legs I danced back from after seeing it plant its forelegs. That turned into a jumping roll at me, actually trying to impale me with the spikes on its back! Definitely had aggressive confidence in its tactics... It followed that up with a bounce forward, raising both front legs and trying to smash them down on me. I judged the arc and they slammed down a couple inches short, and then the Darts flashed out of my wand at point-blank range and blew its head off. A completely mundane but alien animal, perhaps even native to the area, replicated by the magic of the Summons. I left the Summons point intact, having no reason to Seal it as long as I knew where it was, and so I marked the location on the new map with my lived-line on it that I was building. Know Location and Visual File were interacting to form a real-life memory and map of the area. Time to wander back down the hill, not break my ankles, and see what the ruins of the town had to tell me. ------ The main buildings of the town proper were built on a hillside, the road coming into it splitting in two to form two main streets, high and low, reuniting on the far side of town. The road was the first thing I looked at, because it was intact. The paving stones were still tight. No plants had taken root in them and begun the process of overgrowing them, while the snow and rain hadn¡¯t shaken them and disrupted them at all. It was a good, solid road, without any sign of being abandoned for years, like someone regularly maintained it and swept it clean of obstructions. There was definitely some kind of geomancy attached to the thing, slow and subtle, and not subject to the tensions and explosions of the power that the big stone building atop the hill had obviously been tapping. The first thing I investigated wasn¡¯t actually the town itself. It was a circle of standing stones in a suspiciously clear area near where the road turned west as it ran out of town. None of the surrounding brush or shrooms had intruded within ten feet of the stones, so they were remarkably clear. Something was also sparkling slightly in the middle of them. As I walked carefully up on them, it was plain that the silvered-blue of arcane fire was spitting and spurting from a fused and shallow crater of blackened earth and glittering crystals. Arcane fire... from menhirs. My hackles rose. Menhirs should be tapping the energy of the land, which was Natural/Primal energy, which should be more to the green/rainbow in hue, blending all types of magic together into something that eventually became an elemental Land-spirit¡¯s thoughts and blood. Arcane energy was... incredibly inappropriate for this kind of thing... I turned to look back at the hilltop as I paused at the edge of the circle, my fingers rubbing together thoughtfully, and I shifted my Second Sight, letting my Vatic Gaze range up and down the thaumaspectrum, ignoring the material world. Yeah. Right there, almost leaping into existence in front of me suddenly. Three ley lines formed a minor nexus, anchored to these menhirs, which is why they hadn¡¯t been affected by whatever event had triggered the buildings up there. There were shattered remnants lines visible, scorched into and through the ground from these ley lines, tapping the menhirs crudely to power... something. And they ran along the roads, too, keeping them free of change and intact. I had to admit I was fascinated and could have studied the interaction of what was going on with these things all day... leaving myself pretty damn wide open to attack while I couldn¡¯t see the material world. There were at least five layers and styles of harmonization with the ley lines there, different forces interacting with them and the tremendous amount of energies running through them, yet so subtle and controlled that they couldn¡¯t be felt. Those Summoning points were all connected to these menhirs. The colossal, subtle power of the ley line was radiating out through the area in a grid-like mess of positions and placements of various levels of power, some of which could be tapped by the relatively crude efforts of the latest generation of people messing with them. There were also the faint ripples of a failing of dimensional space, like a break or warping in the space had... fractured? And natural space had taken over? That hadn¡¯t been a built dungeon. It had been extra-dimensional, then abruptly forced back into reality here, at its anchor point, shoving all the existing mass out of the way with all the force of space snapping back, with most of that venting going upwards and precipitating the disaster on the top of the hill... AF Chapter 21 – Menhir Mollifying I blinked away the Sight before I got too engrossed. I didn¡¯t have the Ranks yet to understand everything that was happening, although Mira was practically salivating to be allowed to spend hours and hours studying the interplay the way I could. Isparian Magic just didn¡¯t have the tools that I did to play with. Most importantly, this menhir circle was circulating rather large amounts of free mana. Cautiously, I stepped into the interior of the menhirs, and instantly felt a harsh, raw prickling on my skin as raw, uncontrolled mana leaking out of it was attracted to my natural mana draw, trying to get in. It felt like mana with thorns, unrefined and unmodulated, and there was a lot of it. Easily 4-5 mana every six seconds, scores of times faster than I could do naturally, and five times faster than Meditation. Well, I knew where I was going to be standing to get in my rep counts, if I could restore myself from what was going on here. I looked at that pit below, some sort of short-circuit or bulging in the nexus, where a surge or feedback had pushed back through the system and been vented... and was still being vented. So, I shot it with a Holy Vivic Dart. The energies of the henge flared white and electrum, almost singing in the manafield. Vivus spurted and began to nibble at the arcane fire, more thickly as I continued blasting into the small pit, condensing on those jutting crystals and playing over the fused soil. The sparks shooting up were slowly swallowed and calmed down as vivus began to grab the discharge and naturally vent it back into the ground, returning it smoothly to the ley line without affecting the mana rotating through the area. I¡¯d have to use II¡¯s to get my rep counts for Valences in, which meant 20 mana, or about four cycles of mana here, 24 seconds, 150 reps an hour, basic 500 reps on the Argos Scale in just over three hours. I needed to get Sacred Spell down to +0 with all speed, so I could apply it to ALL my I¡¯s, and later my II¡¯s, III¡¯s, and IV¡¯s. The resulting Caster Level bonus from Good Domain magic was only going to be more helpful, stacking with my Coldcasting. I still needed to explore the area, but I had found an extremely important resource right here. The only thing was going to be the need to get some Karma every day to drive my gear, which meant exploring the area and seeing what there was to find out. Was I in a hurry? No, but the daily need for Karma for my gear was going to drive most of what I was doing. I should probably also start shutting down the Summons in a broader area, leaving some isolated ones. If, as I expected, the Summons were stronger the further away from a settlement they were, it meant I should be able to shuffle between them just to get enough Naming Karma without a problem. After all, I was only going to gain a Level and a set of Stat points a day, regardless of what I did, on either side of the equation. Technically I should be taking three days between my Levels, just so I could max out the three Masteries per Level I could take, but I needed some of those Class abilities like, now. Still, were the costs all that significant, in the long run? I really should be aiming for Six at this point, get my Arcane Thesis, and be able to raise any Secondary Classes I took to Four for a Stat advance. As long as I could earn Karma, the higher costs should be rather irrelevant overall, and if these Summons could bring in tough enough creatures, well, Karma was cheap and easy here. Even a damn fool could gain Levels if they learned how to snipe these Summons! That said... I needed my Arcane Theurge Levels as much as I needed my Pool Theurge Levels. And I also needed my Archwizardry and Archsorcery. Arcane Theurge would allow me to Cast Wizard spells out of Sorcery Slots, which I could recharge with Pool Mana, effectively turning all my Wizard spells into mutable Spells Known. I could also trash them for pure mana to Cast Sorcery spells through, turning them into a monstrous reserve of mana over time. Archlevels doubled the amount of base Spell Engrams and Spell Slots I had. Mira blinked at that, and looked at my Casting ability now. 4/1 Wizardry spells and 5/3 Sorcery Slots was 90 mana for I¡¯s and 80 mana for II¡¯s, and that was without my bonuses from Intellect. Just two Levels each of the Arches was effectively +170 mana! That would be 340 mana, plus 2/2 x2 for bonuses, 400 mana! -How do you have such unbelievable amounts of mana?- she asked, shocked at the amount of energy we carried around. It normally doesn¡¯t regenerate without hours of work or sleep, and it¡¯s in much more fixed forms, I replied to her. Your Pool has access to every single spell you know, and it¡¯s irrelevant if you have less mana overall if you can recover it quickly. -Why so many restrictions? It seems... quite unnatural,- she asked, studying the discrepancies between the two systems. Eyeballing it, the Isparian system makes no allowance for Chaos. I¡¯m gathering you have a more stable and dense magical field than we do. The difference is that your spells are Cast at full cost, and then you convert them down, the exact opposite of what we do. We have a Valence foundation, and do more and more within the Valence, i.e., keeping the cost the same. We have no Mana Conversion, such as it is. We make the same amount of Valences do more, we don¡¯t reduce the cost of the Valence at all. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Given that Cantrips are only coughing up a point of mana every two cycles, and are supposed to be half a Level, in Isparian terms, there is a LOT of energy bound up in keeping the spells safe and controlled, i.e., stopping wild magic or chaos energy from doing uncontrolled shit. As we get better at Casting the spells or Metas, we control the Chaos and use it to further energize the spell, ¡®making use¡¯ of the excess mana that is there without losing control of the spell. -Chaos in your mana and spell structures,- she repeated, studying the Rune and Spell Engrams. -That seems...dangerous?- she hedged carefully. Oh, wild magic is extremely bloody dangerous. That¡¯s why our spells seem so inefficient and wasteful next to yours, making sure they don¡¯t happen. On the other hand, the levels we can boost them to can still exceed yours by a comfortable margin because of that, whereas you can drive the cost of your spells down by ninety percent, it seems... but your results are variable. We¡¯ll have to do something about that. It might also be why our magic is so much more fluid and variable than yours is. We simply have more room to play inside the mana structure. Caster Level only seems to affect Spell Penetration and Casting Chance on your side of the equation, since you can fail to Cast a spell, and ours will always go off if the forms are followed. Adding Arcane Mastery to that would enable us to start measuring things far more precisely. Understanding what that Feat could do had her eyes glittering. -But you must be a Nine to take that Feat,- she pointed out as she read the details of it. Arcane Mastery let me Take 10 on contested Caster Checks, including Dispel rolls and Spell Penetration checks, among other things. Every single spell that an Isparian Cast was a check against a spell¡¯s complexity of manaflow and control of the spell. Unless your base score was +50 higher than was needed, there was a chance of failure, and if the target had Spell Resistance, the skill check was made against their Magic Defense, exactly as done on our side. I had significant bonus Caster Levels for multiple reasons, but Dispel and punching Spell Resistance were two of the big reasons. The Isparian magic seemed to be taking advantage of them when mixed with my own. Isparian magic seemed very fixed otherwise. Damage, area, duration, and range were barely affected by Caster Level at all. The fact some Matrix spells benefited from all those at once was just astonishing to Mira, who definitely wanted to see if I could convert the entirety of the Isparian spell system over to the Matrix format and Cast them all that way. It was a good idea, really. Adding boosts to range, area, and duration from Caster Level, in addition to scaling damage, would really be useful. However, there was no doubt we¡¯d need Engrams to profit from the whole thing, which would limit the number of spells that could benefit from such a structure at one time. Chaos, doing things for magic since the time of the first Casters... Superb flexibility of which spells within a frozen set of them via the Mana Pool. Absolute versatility with enough time given massive selection of spells, with long-term power equal to or greater via the Matrix and learning to control Chaos better. Wed them together, get a very powerful system of Arcane magic. I turned my attention to the present and the buildings nearby to investigate. But first, the crater with all the gleaming blue crystal shards in it demanded attention from me. ------ Hundreds of corpses of humans, withered, reduced to bones that weren¡¯t even gnawed on. They were blasted into and melded into the stone all about another spot in the ground that was leaking tainted mana, just like in the dungeon. I immediately started blasting it, one Dart to skulls, one to each of the still-bright blue crystals all around, resonating with some fell energy I didn¡¯t much like. The holes in the ground formed a triple array, had no idea what was down there, and it didn¡¯t matter. People had died here... and not all of them were human. A whole lot of them, regardless. Detect Precious Materials found absolutely nothing of value, although vivus started to do its work here, acting on the jetting energies and the plethora of arcanely-preserved dead. I was actually amazed something necromantic hadn¡¯t grabbed this many dead, but they were Really Dead... there was no spark of anti-soul to infuse in them. Nor was there the slightest sign the various dead, human or otherwise, had any belongings on them, which was deuced strange. Given the way so many of them were impaled by blue shards, and blasted or deformed by the broken arcane energies, something big, blue, and crystalline had exploded here, at the exact moment a whole bunch of... totally-naked and extremely tightly-packed beings were around it. Four of them looked to have been automatons, scattered and warped and degraded, impossible to reassemble, somehow caught up in the same effect. Had that been the same thing that happened in the dungeon, only with a lot more people? What had made them suddenly converge here? Some sort of mass Teleport Contingency, gone horribly wrong? I left the crater boiling and bubbling with mistflame happy to eat away at everything there, cleansing and maybe finally getting the Land to relax a bit here, while I worried at the meaning in the back of my head. ----- The upper stretch of the town was damaged and abandoned, naturally enough. I saw no recent tracks of anything human, although the heavy clawmarks of the olthoi were visible in places here and there in the dirt, indicating the guards from the nest checked the places out. The designs of the wooden structures and some of the ornamental carving on them was definitely Aluvian, although I could see Gharu¡¯n influences, and some from the reclusive Sho. Human-sized entryways, internal furnishings (what had survived), and windows. A lot of interior destruction, both planned and from the weather, and definitely some wildlife coming in and using the places as dens. The chopping marks and acidic fusing from the olthoi were particularly visible here and there, poking and prodding into places, and they seemed to be trying to encourage the mushrooms to build in the ruins of the buildings. I set the shrooms all on vivic fire, a constant policy I applied as soon as I got within range of any of them going forward. The Land agreed that whatever breed they were was unnatural, and vivus toasted them nicely, helping thicken the green under the snow and reverse the environmental damage the shrooms had done as it did so. The main buildings up here looked to be a tavern in the Aluvian style, made out of wood; what might have been some sort of general store given the variety of rusting and unusable goods I saw laying around, and some sort of finer dwelling of better wood, now all warped and rotted, perhaps a mayor¡¯s office or something. AF Chapter 22 – Exploring a Ghost Town Across the road was another stone building, this one... odd. It had broad stone steps and columns, with what I called a Grecian roof and motif... except the whole thing hadn¡¯t extended back more than fifteen feet. Hadn''t been, because it had fallen into a rather gaping hole, opened up in the hillside directly underneath it and collapsing the whole shattered building down within, all the stones cracked and broken as what looked to be a big chunk of the hill had fallen in on itself into a concealed room below. A concealed room with no visible way in or out, but with furnishings nonetheless... and what looked like a pool of water gone all scummy over in the shadowed far side, where the wall was breaking open on the hillside without, with cracks of light falling through. In not too much longer a time, the supporting wall there was going to come down, or someone would dig it out, and there¡¯d be a way in that didn¡¯t involve rappelling or levitating or jumping down forty feet or so. I looked back at the dungeon area, back at this pit that had been made out of a room. Another dimensional chamber, forced back into real space, directly under the heavy anchor to its entry. Unlike the nest, its ceiling hadn¡¯t taken the weight well, and it had collapsed under the load. Everything I was seeing pointed to a massive magical collapse, which was concerning. By my standards, this place was absolutely awash in magic, given it could actually support an ecosystem with mana pools, a place that didn¡¯t need a Matrix to anchor the mana and hold it in. Exactly how mana-flush was this place, if it could routinely afford dimensional chambers like this? Then I realized how stupid I was being. I hadn¡¯t tracked the countryside yet, but if Summon spots were common, that answered my own question. The amount of magic needed to gridmap a large area with powerful Summons like that was ungodly, and the expense must have been... well, it wasn¡¯t a small number. Especially if people were killing off multiple Summons repeatedly over huge areas. Someone had had access to a lot of people, power, and funding to do what I¡¯d seen, and I hadn¡¯t even seen anything yet. Let¡¯s not forget setting up an interplanetary or interdimensional Portaling network to another world for the purpose of bringing in outsiders for... what? The primary reason would be slave labor or military conscripts. They were really the only two options that made any sense whatsoever. You didn¡¯t bring in rival colonists or something, your own people would revolt. You brought in outsiders to fight for you or as labor, that was it. Making up a randomly-generated portal network to do that... someone had more power and time than good sense, unless there was no remaining population of your own, and you HAD to go grabbing people. I didn¡¯t go directly down the hill, instead heading back for the unnaturally clear road, none of the rubble or scree or anything obstructing it, and followed it down and around to the lower part of the town. There was another crater there, again with the twisted and warped matter of reality being bent around, spitting infectious energies marking red, blue, and green crystals of unsteady make and type drilled into the ground, but of much smaller size and quantity than the pale blue of the larger crater just up the road behind me. I waved my hand, and could feel the echoes of rippling spatial magic worrying at the veil again, drawing on the ground conduits from the menhirs to do... something. V-Darts got to work on everything there, starting on smoothing out the after-effects almost instantly as they did so, fixing what something had done wrong as I walked into the rest of the abandoned downtown area. A tumbled cottage on the right, roof caved in and door completely torn off. There was some sort of sign out front, but it was splintered and illegible now. Up ahead on the left was a massive pedestal of green stone. It looked like something a statue should be sitting on top of. Oddly enough, there was a hacked and blasted statue of greenish coppery metal there, smashed and rent and leaning against the pedestal. A statue that had all the hallmarks of being a Construct of some kind, and Animated at one point. I eyed the markings on it, the fact it still radiated magic, and the fact that all the wounds were exterior plating and not to what had to be the gearworks or endoskeleton inside, which raised my caution. I noted the type of injuries to it, and trusted to the fact almost all of them were the same type to prepare Acid as the complement to my Shards this time. With a Silver Vulnerability to Acid prepped to arrive first. If I had to hit the thing twice, I wanted it dead. I approached it warily down the road, and heard the creak before I saw the motion as its head turned on me, and the hand bearing a crude dagger of forged greened bronze lifted. ¡°Cruath Qualoi!¡± Pure Life Magic, nothing on my end. I felt a moment of resistance, rapidly overcome by the surge of Snowcasting I could add to all spells, even Isparian ones. There was a gurgling, fluid shimmer of light around the thing as it lurched to life, starting in my direction with great speed, given it was twice my height. So, I fell back on my Disk and just backpedaled rapidly, sighing at my lack of proper Lightfoot. The Waveskating Step would allow me to skate backwards at a healthy clip without turning around. Another thing I needed to get into place. So would Footsteps of the Mage. Alas, not enough time to get everything I needed. Maybe we could montage the next thirty days and I could really get myself set up sweetly. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. No? Well, time to instead take advantage of the fact Constructs took a long time to build up speed, and I was at the edge of its threat range. The Acid-shifted Shards, backed with a Silver ¡°Zojak Quafeth!¡± for a LOT of additional impact, hammered into the brazen skin of the thing like eight acidic hammers, blowing and fusing holes right through it before the reverberating force-sparks of the Banefire to Constructs blew through its insides, going after all the key stuff happily, Holiness powering it all. When the spray blew out the back of the thing, I knew it had been damaged previously. The next step it took sent it tumbling to the ground, its arms, legs, and head breaking off the shattering torso and going tumbling. I just waited, expecting something else to be roused by the thing, and then realized the statue probably attacked everything in its line of sight, including any animals or investigators, which meant nothing was going to stay in line of sight of the thing without being chased and possibly killed. Indeed, some of the damage to the buildings looked like it had been inflicted by sweeping blows of that bronze sword-sized dagger... With a chink, all the parts of the drudge Construct fell completely apart, shattering and reshattering down to basically particle sizes, before swirling up... and pouring back into the green pseudo-stone of the pedestal. Ah. I reversed course, keeping an eye on the broken and shattered buildings, stealing up to lay a hand on the pedestal. Yes, it had a link to the ley line grid. Yes, it was pulling on it now, the magic trying to reassemble the destroyed Construct, but not able to surge and rematerialize it like a Summons. I imagined if I rose up into the air and looked at the top of the plinth, I¡¯d see little flows of bronze coming up out of the stone and slowly taking the form of a drudge¡¯s foot as it slowly rebuilt the thing with its restricted mana flow. Well, I didn¡¯t know how long it would take to rebuild the thing, and now that I recalled its position, its extended back foot had been touching the plinth. It also meant something had come through the place and beat it down. Acid and hacked gashes in it... my guess was the olthoi. The fliers alone could simply rain down acid until it was too damaged to move, and then anything on the ground chop into it. Good enough, time to see if anything was left in the town... --- Remains of a corral, probably livestock brought into the town for chopping up and feeding folks. There was a feed barn nearby, in remarkably good shape compared to the rest of the buildings in town, probably because there was little magic involved with it. On the other side of the barn, next to a building that seemed to be the personal domicile of a local archmage (basically someone who could Cast at Gold), was another of those ley-linked devices, all burned out and fused. This one seemed to have had a lot of brewing/heating/mixing contraptions about it, all of them now half-melted and damaged by the elements, but it looked like something to do with chemistry or alchemy. Some sort of magical communal alchemy lab that boosted skill checks? I was a bit incredulous as I looked at the open sky and lack of sterility and uncontrolled conditions, wondering just what you could have made alchemically here... but then, I didn¡¯t know the local magic, so it was kind of moot. Like the more general magical exchange up the hillside, this building was torn apart, the upper floor in particular blasted away entirely at one corner, as if a bomb blast centered there had gone off. The magical reinforcements to the house had kept it intact, but those had ebbed over time, and the remnants were barely more than normal wood now... and seem to have been blasted by acid flung every which way and loose, boring holes in what remained and precipitating more collapses into the basement beneath, now half-filled with water and growing mold and fungi, with scattered Air Gold coins I could drag out of the mud and under rubble, and that was about it. The fungi I shot and cleared away, turning to the other buildings standing close together. The closest one was the most intact, but when the hanging door was pushed open, it was plain the entire floor had been blasted out by something, leaving the interior a mess and a ruin. I had no idea what had been done, but there were only a few Air Gold coins scattered around, some minor tools so rusted as to be useless, and I didn¡¯t really need scissors or needles and pins at this time. Next door had probably been a smithy, but the front of the building was completely blown out, and the first floor had collapsed into the basement as well, bringing with it a massive smelter of some sort that had likely tapped into the ley line, and now looked to have melted itself into uselessness. There were scraps of iron and coal down there, the remnants of smithing tools, nails, and basic ironwork turning to rust, and more of the Air Gold coins around. The last shop had its floor and wall blown out as well, who knew what was stored there that had done the job, and whatever the ley-linked device there was supposed to do seemed to have been violently disassembled and fallen apart, chunks missing as if fired in all directions into the stone. I did pull up a wide variety of degrading arrowheads from the rubble with the scattered coins, but nothing useful or of value. There were mushrooms growing in the basements of all three buildings, and they all went up in vivus. And... that was it for the important buildings. I could go investigate some of the houses nearby, but I had the impression the only thing I might find was the remains of animals using them as dens, or mounds of fungi from olthoi spreading their harvests. Which was reason enough to investigate them. I sighed, marked how many hours I was going to devote to this before I got started on my rep counts at the henge, squared up my shoulders, and got to work. There were only a few hundred homes in the vicinity. I should be able to go through them in a couple of days. Well, it was something that could wait. I went into the backside of the smithy, to a section of floor that was still stable, and took a seat against the wall. Protected from overhead observation, I began my two hours a day of needed sleep/True Meditation, letting me swap out Wizard spells, and work on other things. I should be able to puzzle out Web once again with a few hours and get it back into my spellbook, along with my Phantom Servant. More important than trundling through some abandoned homes. AF Chapter 23 – Why the People aren’t Here Anymore The rats here were fucking vicious! They were also fast, the size of small dogs or bigger, and had rabid aggressive tempers, like wolverines with attitudes. Instead of running away like normal mice, they swarmed right to the attack, looking to kill! Shards speared them all in mid-charge. I didn¡¯t want them nipping at my legs, even with a Barkskin and Force Armor up on me. Rats could nip their way through thin metal, I wasn¡¯t trusting the magic to defy them. Better to spear them with a no-miss Shard each and let the Animal Banespell and Holy Kicker damage take the blighters out. Normal Shards could deal with anything the size of a cat or smaller. The instant I saw the one the size of a beagle breathing fire, it got a Zojak Quareth to the face on top of everything, crushing its little bones and making sure it didn¡¯t reach me. Not that I was afraid of fire, but damn, the little pests were just not something I wanted to deal with. Mountain Rats were the big ones that breathed fire, the smaller ones seemed to have color schemes based on personal strength, which mostly didn¡¯t matter too much. I imagined they were a favorite staple of the local shreth. Clearly, the rodents weren¡¯t afraid to go onto the attack. Out of the thirty homes I went through, only four had active rat¡¯s nests, which I thought about, looked around for tracks, and found the hooves of the sharp wedge design I¡¯d noted on that Summoned shreth, along with some others. Also, I had seen more of the eagle-sized red wasps flying around, as well as some blue ones nearer the water. I imagined a rodent was a fine bit of prey for them, and the birds definitely got absent the second a wasp was in the area. There was also a four-clawed set of prints I ran across more than once, standing out because it had a three-footed track... two side claws, and one middle one! I hadn¡¯t seen what made it yet, but I doubted it would take long. I had also seen a dozen more Summons, and after thinking about it, let them be. Most were drudges of various sizes and types, along with the wasps and shreth. It occurred to me that they probably killed a lot of the non-Summoned creatures, and thus were acting as pest control. As long as the humans in the area could deal with them easily, they were basically acting as unpaid guard dogs, keeping the vermin population down. Which made me think that any natural animals around, to survive, must have gotten very good at maneuvering around anything that stood in place so unnaturally, and learned to ignore them or lead enemies to them if they looked similar. If they were smart, they¡¯d kill a spawn point until it coughed up something similar to themselves, if they could, surrounding themselves with guards that would kill anything but them. Mmmm. It would be a good way of telling if there were intelligent foes in the vicinity. All the spawns in the area would be cleared until ¡®friendlies¡¯ were there, if it was possible. I hadn¡¯t seen any human spawn points around, but that didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t there. Indeed, it was possible that the local mages learned how to control the spawn points so that humans didn¡¯t spawn. Random pre-programmed Summons killing other creatures they weren¡¯t supposed to might be a problem, and seeing Summoned humans just standing there ready to kill would likely unnerve a lot of people. Also, the idea that they might end up an unthinking conjured slave of some mage somewhere probably wasn¡¯t something people wanted to be reminded of, if they didn¡¯t know where the Summons actually came from or were congealed. The only ¡®interesting¡¯ thing I found was another crater of blue crystals and skeletal corpses fused into the rock south down the road from the town. It had only a third the numbers of the other one, presumably because it wasn¡¯t as close to the center of the town... All of the homes had been thoroughly cleared out of valuables. The stuff that was left behind was generally of low-quality to begin with, or was definitely now, after years of exposure. Importantly, almost anything that could be used as a packing device, such as bags, sacks, or crates, was gone, and the only wagons I found were broken ones. Even most of the things with drawers were missing some of them now, although the only furniture was the stuff too large and hard to disassemble, left behind for the bulk. Still, even a lot of the beds were missing, and the mattress stuffing was left behind, if the cloth was not. The rats loved those. All this meant people had moved the stuff in a somewhat thorough, organized fashion, taking everything they could and getting out of here. Haste was all part of it, pretty decisive action, and likely later trips had been made in succession to claim as much stuff as possible, maybe even survivors like me going through the place like I was and claiming anything else left behind. Rusted hoes and shovels were not high on my priority list, either. In the end, I only gained some scattered coins and a few bits of cheap jewelry that had fallen into nooks and cracks, and that was about it. I had subbed out Light for Color, and used the Cantrip to mark all the houses I¡¯d inspected with a blue frowny-face circle, indicating nothing here. No need to waste further time looking for much here, just move along... This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. My daily treks duly noted, I headed back to the town and that stand of menhirs. I was going to be Casting spells for hours. Every twenty-four seconds, I¡¯d get back the Valence II I was going to be using to Cast Sacred Spell on my I¡¯s, recharging everything smoothly. In the meantime, Mira was learning that Chaos applied to magic meant spells changed over time. The Fireball of a year ago wasn¡¯t the same Fireball of today, when it came to Spell Engrams. Find a scroll with a Fireball spell on it, and it would take a minute to puzzle out what you were looking at, and even more to take it out and write it into your own books in your own format and style. If the author of it had a particularly weird way of looking at magic, you might not even be able to understand how they approached the spell, and it would be useless to you! It wasn¡¯t a problem with Isparian Magic. You had to learn the relevant words, and then the method of guiding the magic through the stages of the spell with components guiding and harnessing the energy to achieve the desired effect. Everyone learned the same spell, there was precious little deviation, and while there might be ¡®accents¡¯ to a spell based on where you were taught, the Sho, Aluvians, Gharu¡¯n, and even the Viamontians could pick up one another¡¯s libraries of spells and understand all their spells with very little problem. One of the things the Emperor and Empress of Ispar had been driving was the absolute availability of said spells to people, which had started an unparalleled drive to learn magic among those who never thought they would get the chance to. As a result, there were tiers of students, ranging from the haughty elitist pure Casters like Devra, and a whole bunch of lower-tier people specializing in one or two schools and learning enough of it to accomplish what they wanted. Sama and Briggs, going for the egalitarian thing, broad, low power. Item Magic and Creature Magic were the most popular schools for day-to-day life. Life Magic was the School that marked you as a serious Caster who did that full-time, operating as a Healer if nothing else, while War Magic meant you were a magical soldier risking your life in battles with magic. Using the principles of magic based on what I could remember of Web to find the ¡®new¡¯ iteration of it was a mental puzzle that was taking hours, and occasional interruptions in my Reps Casting to test out some draw or weaving of the spell. It was starting to take shape, however, Mira exulting in the puzzle and the possibilities, and wondering what it would be like to just be immersed in magic and figure out all of these things, all of the time. Then she got a look at the thousand and more spells that Aelryinth actually knew, and nearly fainted in disbelief. Separate, disparate spells, not just advanced versions of the same spells as was common with Isparian magic, which in the end... really just had Raised and Elemental versions of the same spells, compared to mine. It was kind of funny feeling the delight of a person from an integrated magical society enjoying the wonder of true magical versatility, when Aelryinth came from a society that once had no magic at all... Which reminded me that I had to do the Weird Science boundary tests for this world, too, finding out, for example, if mundane or alchemical gunpowder worked here. If they could... well, now, science and magic co-existing made for some powerful possibilities. -Science, now?- Mira wondered, and took a peek at the borrowed memories of Aelryinth¡¯s early years, fairly gasping in shock at the wonders of a high-tech society, and the comfort and wealth of even the relatively poor there. And all with no magic at all! -I, I can see why our magic does not impress you,- she murmured, stunned at what a united society could accomplish, from the highest to the lowest. She watched a recollection of a passenger jet taking off, realized it could fly to the end of a continent, or cross a mighty ocean, without effort, bringing people in mere hours to places far, far distant, convenient and ready, without mighty magic. I was nearing my rep counts for Sacred Spell, happy with my progress and the quick boost that was coming with it as I came closer and closer to figuring out how to reduce its cost to fit for free into a I Valence. It would take a thousand reps of II¡¯s, meaning III Slots needed, to do the same with the next Valence, but hey, the Tyranny of Rep Counts was definitely a thing that never went away. And then the crickets all went silent. It was like a wave of quiet, coming towards me. I looked at the menhir that had been stoically defying all the magic I sent at it that couldn¡¯t affect it anyway, and without any hesitation hissed out Invisibility, dropping my Disk down to the ground with the crude mat of grass I¡¯d woven to throw over it for concealment. I got out of the menhir ring instantly, looking out for whatever had managed to silence the insect life over such a wide area. I was about to Cast Detect I to see what popped up when I saw them coming down the road towards me, moving at a trot in speed... or rather, three fellows armed with spears and shields were trotting, and one was floating. On smoke. If I hadn¡¯t had my Mask of Clarity, I wouldn¡¯t have seen them in the night. They were utterly black, like 3-D shadows, save for their eyes, which glowed from within with a lambent fury of negative emotions. It was like looking into a pocket of black space, with no features visible save in profile. Three male figures, ranging from teenager in build up through what looked like a warrior, while the female figure had nothing from the waist down but shadowy smoke, but pinged to be the most dangerous of the four. They were heading right for the menhir along the road, likely because there was still the glow of vivus around it. The presence of negative energy radiated around them like a cold field, and silenced all the insect life with the unnatural chill of the soul, especially with the vivus-laden atmosphere. Happily, my clothes were still dark, I was now Invisible, and heat-sense wasn¡¯t going to spot me. Still, my hackles rose at the threat level I could perceive from these things, as they obviously weren¡¯t Summons, but free-willed, roving quasi-undead of some kind, drawing off negative energy and possibly Shadow. I wasn¡¯t even going to Assay them, as it might ping their senses, so I couldn¡¯t get an ID off on them. However, the shadowy grace of their movements, the way they acted as if they didn¡¯t weigh much, and their presence in the manafield bending the magic indicated they were all skilled Casters, and I simply didn¡¯t trust my own toughness in the face of the power of Isparian War Magic, if that was what they were wielding. Or maybe the higher-level versions of it, that Mira had never seen! AF Chapter 24 – Shades in the Night I could tell the Shades were fascinated by the vivus, as well they should be. It was probably as bright to their senses as fire, but coldly repellent at the same time, alien and hungry. The big fellow, who was wielding a very functional spear of classic design, stepped forward to kick at the mists with his abyss of a leg. The unwhite mist ignited at the contact, and he hurriedly danced backwards, digging his toe into the grass to snuff the unwhite flames. The woman glided up next, equally curious... and the instant the smoke she was floating on met the mists, they ignited, billowing up around her hungrily. A thin shriek that seemed to come from far away escaped her lips as she dropped to the grass, throwing herself backwards and rolling about to extinguish the flames that were beating at the blackness she was composed of. They weren¡¯t magically powered or anything, so they were put out fairly easily by rolling and beating against the grass, the shades of the males only able to stand there helplessly, lest they catch on fire, too. They weren¡¯t undead shadows, as such were spiritual creatures, incorporeals, and these four were definitely material, but the negative energy they were made of was undeniable. I murmured a Detect Undead Cantrip, directed it for range as I peeked out from behind a nearby tree. I got a partial ping, as if they were part undead, part something else that definitely was not human. Infused with essence of another plane, possible negative elemental, Shadow essence, or something similar. In any event, not something that should be living on the Prime. Shades was the most likely choice. Detect Evil was a rank up. I wasn¡¯t going to take a chance on being judgmental and summary killing if these things didn¡¯t deserve it. Ah, yeah, these things were a swirl of Purple-Red, nearing metallics, probably bounded in some severe racism or something similar, as that hue seemed to pop-up with all the opportunistic racists. You had to earn that color, it wasn¡¯t natural, so their beliefs were earned and validated and they¡¯d taken actions in support of them that had resulted in bloody slaughter. You don¡¯t get anywhere close to crystallizing beliefs without fighting for them. They¡¯d definitely killed for their beliefs, slaughtering those not like them with perfect belief that they were right and clear to do so, regardless of circumstances, because their enemies were not them. Deserving such fates was not even part of the process. But there were four of them, and if I was reading this right, they were also Copper, Silver, Gold... and maybe Air Gold level Casters on top of it all. If they could Heal themselves, it was going to require one-shot kills to get them, which meant maybe Vulning... and I¡¯d lose any battle of attrition, when it came down to it. I certainly wasn¡¯t going to win any fisticuffs without an appropriate weapon. Given the way they looked, I was guessing it would take magical Weapons to hurt them... -Such a thing is standard among your enemies?- Mira piped up, mental eyes wide at the notion of Damage Reduction. It seemed new and novel to her. She was used to damage ablation, as that was how the Protection array of Life Magic spells worked. But reducing a percentage of incoming damage was not the same as Damage Reduction... or Resist Elements, both of which nullified the first X amount of incoming damage. Life Protections did better work against high-end damage, Damage Reduction against low-end damage. Against 200 points of incoming damage, Damage Reduction was worth nothing, reducing 50% was everything. Against nickel-and-dime or environmental damage, Damage Reduction was much superior. Of course, what might be DR 10/magic elsewhere might be 100/magic here, who knew? Of course, if they stacked, Life Prots in front of Resist Fire would have magnifying effects. Stacking on pure Protection from Elements would also be nice, but those were Caster Level based and with the sheer amount of damage thrown around here, would be burned through quickly. Still, they¡¯d be a great no-sell on a sudden attack, right? Tanking some huge opening volley without a single scratch... Well, something to worry about in the future. Now I just had to survive these four, or kill them. My biggest problem here is that most evocative war magic was like the exact opposite of stealthy. It had a light show, it drew a direct path back to where it was launched from, and it detonated loud and bright so as to attract everyone¡¯s attention. I could turn invisible once more, I could run like the dickens if needed, and I could probably get away with my better nightvision than they had, but I didn¡¯t want to dare the range of their magic. Repeated no-miss Drains, and I was toast! I didn¡¯t have any current protection against that crap, and I couldn¡¯t counter-Heal fast enough or enough to stop them! If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. That said, hiding from them was totally possible. They were highly unlikely to notice my Disk as long as it stayed down and covered in the night, and all I was going to do was not get close to them. I could also Jaunt far enough to get out of their line of sight if needed, and hide from that point. Another thing I needed, Death Wards against that Draining shit. I didn¡¯t much care what they called it, Draining the life from something magically was necromancy, even if it was a totally viable tactic. Sucking away stamina or mana wouldn¡¯t kill anything, although likely it would be very uncomfortable, but siphoning out or canceling life was the definition of necromancy! Mira was a bit surprised to realize that negative energy was the impelling force behind that, the same energies that animated the undead... On the other hand, if I could pull it off on them, their mana pools became a resource for me in a sustained fight, especially if they couldn¡¯t Drain me back... which I did not hold out high hopes for. I¡¯d have to stay at range. Mira¡¯s information indicated that Drains and Harms could work on the other side of cover, too, as long as you had a lock on the target¡¯s life force. They were just nasty pieces of work as far as spells went, like ranged Inflicts with more killing power! As such, I just could not chance it here. If they were smart, each of them could cast Harm Mana, destroy my mana pool, and I¡¯d have the resources of a Three Caster to try and fight them with. Nah, just not gonna happen. I was just going to follow them and see what they did. The only way I could possibly do anything was if they split up. Their whispery voices communicated in a sibilant speech I didn¡¯t recognize, reminding me that I needed to take Polyglot soon. It wasn¡¯t Necrus, felt like human origins with something alien stirred in. In time. All things, in time. After they finished conversing about the vivus, and pointing out that it was Burning at the other crater, they floated and trotted down to inspect the other site and what it was doing to the magic there. After a few minutes more of inspections, they turned and went back up the hill, and right to the olthoi nest. Ahhh, well, now I knew why the numbers of olthoi weren¡¯t all that high. These things had been coming by regularly and killing them! They paused before entering, and I winced to see them perform that most intelligent of operations... Buffing! All of them put on some Force Armor, and Protections against Acid and Piercing. A few spent mana on Stat or Skill Buffs, the male characters also Enhancing their spears and shields, while the floating female seemed to be Enhancing her fists. Then they floated unafraid into the little nest, prepared to do away with all the olthoi they found in there. At most they¡¯d find decaying circles of whiteness for all of them. I waited outside as I tracked them with Detect Evil, staying at the edge of the spell¡¯s range, before following them down the slick stone ramp very carefully, indeed. They¡¯d moved out of the room after several minutes looking around, obviously familiar with the place and perhaps a bit nonplussed by the way the olthoi stuff had been Burned off the walls. I considered the implications of that. Okay, small numbers of olthoi meant a new nest, which made sense with a young queen and only a handful of servants, relatively speaking. So, these Shades come in, prepped to deal with the olthoi, slaughter them and the queen, and then... depart? A short time later, more wandering olthoi come in and investigate, find the olthoi here dead, and the nest empty. It¡¯s still an ideal place to nest, so off they go, and soon enough another olthoi queen comes back with an entourage to resettle the place. Circumstances repeat. Anyone who comes through the Portal still dies to the Summons, if they aren¡¯t prepared, which they undoubtedly are not. Who from Ispar is ready to face a massive beetle-thing with spear-picks for arms walking on two legs? The Shades would be nonplussed to find that none of the Summons were there, however, leaving the place truly empty. Possibly also indicating that some incoming humans got through here? It all meant... did I dare to kill them? If they were clearing out what historically was a fast-breeding species, they were doing a good job, and unless I could somehow divert the arrival point to somewhere that was actually safe, the only thing I could do would be to camp this place myself and deal with intruders. That... actually isn¡¯t impossible, I considered coolly. I had nine Levels at Nine of Karma I could absorb and process while doing nothing. I just needed to range out enough to get my Naming Karma in. I was on massive Karmic overload on the Isparian side of the equation, and could only gain a Level in abilities a day regardless. It would restrict my explorations, as this area now became basically incredibly important to anyone new arriving, a potential deathtrap if I wasn¡¯t here. I was in a unique situation to serve as a guardian where it wouldn¡¯t hurt me, only delay me some... and the fact was, when I got strong enough, I could put down some Wards and Glyphs and other things that would do the job of providing warnings to me, and also have the Teleporting ability to get back here with great speed along my Lived-Line. It was just a period of time away at this point, and I didn¡¯t want to waste Levels shooting straight to Nine in Sorcerer and having to pay Nine prices for my Levels after that. That was horribly inefficient, even if this place was a Karmic fountain. Of course, if I could Seal and conceal the place, the only way out being accessible from within, that was a completely separate matter, was it not? That would just require the ability to Shape Stone long enough to make an alternate egress and close this way in. If they wanted to blast or dig it open, that would be a something else entirely... AF Chapter 25 – On the Hour What would the tactics of the Shades be? Likely to head rapidly into the olthoi section, which, judging by the entry room here, most of which would be Burned clean by now. They¡¯d find literally nothing but alien mushrooms falling to dust. I imagined that would creep them out, when even the Summon spots were not working. They would head into the rest of the place to clean it out. Would they have bothered with the wasp hive, or the thrungus shroomer-folk? They¡¯d find those all Burned and gone, too. They would find the message and the Light I¡¯d left behind! I suddenly darted out of the room. I was only a minute or two behind them, so if they were off in the olthoi wing, I¡¯d be fine. Quite invisible and keeping sure not to trip on anything, I retraced my path back to the landing area, the two large open rooms that might have been courtyards, and wound through them back to the entry area of the Portal. Even if they moved with assurance and not wariness, it was going to take them a few minutes to follow me, and that was if they hurried. The Light was definitely visible through the sundered doors, and sure to alert them. The fact they didn¡¯t need light to see was immaterial as I made it to the candlestand I¡¯d enchanted and left shining on the carvings on the wall. There was a pulse and flare in the Portal behind me as I suppressed the Eternal Light, making me jump and whirl around in alarm. The bluish-white arcane energy swirled and sparked to life in mid-air, crackling and writhing, and Runes scribed into the walls were shorting out in sudden protest. I glanced at my Detect Time, and found it was twenty-four hours to the minute since I¡¯d come here myself. With a last gasp, the Portal hurled someone forth onto the floor, right before crackling, sparking, and sections of stone literally peeled away and fell down in a spray of stone shards. A woman, with long black hair, bronzed skin, a dagger behind her waist, dressed in dark leathers, with black fingernails. She snorted, shook her head once, and sat up from where she was on all fours, looking around in the darkness, and somehow settled right on me instantly. She also opened up her hand, displaying a blue cube that cracked and fell to powder in her palm. I felt the stillness about her, and blinked. Then Mira recognized the scarring across the side of her face, and so did I. Except the ones we recognized were blonde, which meant this was... ¡°Princess Kristie!¡± I hissed quickly and quietly, coming right up to her and placing a finger on her lips before she could respond. ¡°We are in a very dangerous situation!¡± She looked at me, down at the finger on her lips, and I pulled it back, feeling the rising stillness around her as she raised up her Null, and magic decided to take a nap around her. ¡°Summarize,¡± she said, without going further, her purple eyes deep and sharp. ¡°Beings of Shadow, very powerful, are moving their way through this dungeon. They were expecting to find Summoned creatures and some native alien beings, but I cleared them all out when I made my escape from this place. ¡°There is extremely little cover on the way out of here, the magic system here is odd, the creatures coming are at least Ten-equivalents, with likely two or three times the Health and Soak that we are used to, and they are likely powerful Casters of Isparian-style magic, which seems to dominate the local manafield.¡± She blinked at me. Oh, right, I¡¯d been using the Power of Ten terms, which she should understand on an instinctual level. ¡°Weapons?¡± was her only comment. ¡°Three males of various ability wielding spears and standing shields of classic style. One female without legs maneuvering on a cloud of smoke. All have magical ability, and have Force Armor going, and Prot/Pierce and Acid.¡± ¡°Is there a good ambush site where we can hit them from two sides?¡± she asked simply. The dagger behind eased off her back, and suddenly Morphed into a full-sized bastard Sword she held in one hand as easily as a toothpick, just the faintest warbling note rising from it for a second. My thoughts raced along my backtrail. ¡°The forge room, if we are quick!¡± I darted out of the room, and she was right on my heels. --- I wove quickly through the halls to the first olthoi tunnel connecting separated areas, sliding to a halt and poking my head out to make sure there was nothing in the long, sidestepping hallway there. ¡°If you can get behind the kiln there and stay out of sight, I will attempt to Vuln the big Shade to Fire, and then follow up with War Magic while I am out of Drain range. They will doubtless seek to close with me and all attention will be on me. Your Null might be able to shut down the other Caster. If it¡¯s the female, she¡¯s using magic-enhanced open hand attacks.¡± Stolen novel; please report. Kristie smiled wolvishly. ¡°And if the other two come after you?¡± ¡°If they make it to me, I¡¯ll run back into the other room, pop the weaker one in the tunnel, and then run around the room if he decides to enter here. If he wants to stand back and trade spells, I should be able to beat him on Casting.¡± She was giving me another peculiar look, but just nodded and darted out of there at probably twice the speed I could, skating in the particular lightfoot of the Waveskating Step, the movement technique that had made her mother absolutely dreaded back on Ispar. How do you catch or flee from a woman who could outrun a horse? The tales of her hacking progress across battlefields, slaughtering men faster than they could run, had followed her everywhere. Her second daughter was here now, her mother¡¯s handmaiden while on campaign, and a terrifying swordswoman in her own right. Why she¡¯d been sent through a Portal would be something to catch up on... and I¡¯d have to level with the truth about Devra al-Shamira very shortly. Not that she wouldn¡¯t know something was really strange when the Shards came flying in! She ghosted in behind the kiln in seconds flat, while I stood against the wall right near the turn to the wasp hive, wand raised and Cruath Quatak the second thing ready on my tongue. The first was going to be hissing out True Casting to make sure the Vuln to Fire hit, as I didn¡¯t trust my inherited Life Magic skill. My Detect Evil was still up, but the stone blocked the effect. I could only rely on my Vatic Gaze, and the spiritual chill they carried with them. It turned out we had about five minutes to spare, as the Shades weren¡¯t moving fast, and they were being thorough. I heard the tink of their spears hitting the steps, shields scraping on the walls, and then they were in the hallway and coming towards the kiln, whose coal had long since burned out and was cool and dead now. They¡¯d stayed together, as was proper, the two weaker males in front, the warrior and female in the back. Ranking, I presumed. True Casting left my lips, magic detected, analyzed and targeted, and ¡°Cruath Quatak!¡± went out with a hiss of fiery sparks on my Wand. The Silver Fire Vuln discharged over the commanding male in a brilliant red aural display of pyromancy incoming. They looked around for the source of the magic, delayed a moment by surprise and digesting what was happening. I could see the big one start to raise his hands and summon power in a gesture to either issue a counter-Prot or Dispel the Vuln. The Zojak Quaguz riding a full set of eight Shards got there before his spell went off, and he lost it in the absolute agony of Holy flames riding smoky black Banefires to Shadow to slam into him with everything. His reedy scream wasn¡¯t actually all that loud, but it was clear by the way he was burning that he¡¯d taken a massive hit. Unhappily, when you shoot fiery missiles at someone or something, it does tell them right where to look for you. The other two males pointed with their spears and started racing for me. The female turned and with the male began condensing power in her hand. Like a ghost, Kristie Rantha came out from behind them, her Sword flashing to full length in two hands, and I grit my teeth as I issued another Zojak Quaguz, but only at Copper to speed it up. And I gave four Shards with all the juice to the big guy, one each to the other three. ¡°HAHAHAHAHA!¡± There were plenty of tales of men who¡¯d fought the Golden Hag having their blood run cold when her laugh cut through their hearts, often a very short time before her sword Tremble followed. I smiled despite myself as a One Strike to the big man generated two additional cross-cuts: one each an Attack of Opportunity for Casting spells while in reach of her, and then one additional AoO each for being caught by surprise. Then my Shards hit, and yeah, she had all the Fire Opportunity Masteries, because Opportunity kicked off for her opponents being hit with a Ranged Attack by an ally, and her Sword¡¯s quavering notes were shrieking accompaniment to her laugh. The two charging Shades weren¡¯t much better, as they¡¯d just been knocked off their feet by Toppling Darts to the left legs. Their shields and spears clattering down were pretty loud relative to the impact of their bodies, and they actually slid almost fifteen feet, showing they didn¡¯t actually weigh all that much. Regardless of that, they were now on the ground, where they wouldn¡¯t be Casting or running at me. The big guy down there folded and burst into vivus as he did, a familiar unwhite flame bursting up around Princess Kristie¡¯s Sword, even as the female Shade somehow survived three devastating hits, and turned to inherit a Hew and Cleave to the face as her mate dropped. There were Burning unwhite flames crisscrossing her back, and now another one was across her throat. She gurgled black smoke as she lashed at the princess, who flicked her wrist and lightly lopped off the shadowy hand just like that, leaving a Burning stump behind. Sword Beats Fist. Another gurgling shout of pain, while I looked at the two on the ground, picked the bigger one as they both tried to get up, maybe throw a spear at me, and Zojak Quaguz¡¯d him with six blazing Shards, plus one to his smaller ally, and one to the female down the hall. Both of the males were knocked backwards, spinning awkwardly from the impact, while the female up there overcame the impact and tried to retreat from Kristie, who flicked Quaver through the mists underneath her, causing a woosh of vivic fire that froze her in place, unable to get out of range before the Opportunity attack flashed across her chest, and another Burning scar was crossing the blackness of her body. Her instinctive punch in return was a bad idea. The other shadowy arm went flying, right before the full attack went off, a Flurry of motion that sliced through her four times in less then a second. The female Shade came apart, flesh like absolute darkness flaring into vivus as it did. The senior of the two in front of me was also disintegrating as the vivic fire raced through his shadow of a corpse, the other one trying to struggle to his feet as I shifted my wand and aim. The Fire Bolt was only Iron, but it was still eight weaponized Shards, and it tore him apart as thoroughly as all the others. I watched them Burn coldly. I was down less than a hundred mana, although I also had to fill three Valences I¡¯s, which I proceeded to start on. AF Chapter 26 – A New Meeting of Old Friends The princess was looking around coolly, watching and waiting. ¡°Only four?¡± her voice drifted down to me. ¡°That was all I saw, but I make no promises that something didn¡¯t come in the place behind me, Highness.¡± I waited as the bodies burned away, the shadowy flesh converting first to something more solid and real, then abruptly crumbling into white ash with great speed. I noted that they must have preferred to remain nude so as not to be seen, as they¡¯d painted their shields and spears black as well. They were certainly solid enough to wear armor, but with their magic had preferred not to do so in order to retain the element of surprise. Someone who could see in the dark as if it were day, not quite in their plans. I considered the ruin of the Portal back there, and realized that I didn¡¯t need to leave a Light or a message there. Nothing was coming through this place now. The princess watched the Shades-whatever Burn down, her arms crossed and her gaze cool. ¡°Are you sure they were enemies?¡± she asked me as I walked up. ¡°Auras Purple-Red. You aren¡¯t seeing it now, but all these white spots on the floor? Fungi mounds, built atop human corpses. Those little mounds are bone dust mixed with shroom ash.¡± Her eyes slowly swept around, moving back and forth, including up along the walls. ¡°How many?¡± she asked shortly, frowning. ¡°I only saw evidence of perhaps a thousand. I don¡¯t know how long it took to break down the bones.¡± Her breath hissed out. ¡°And they were responsible?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know if they were directly, setting up things this way. This area was occupied by mushroom-folk and walking insectile predators.¡± A Holo flashed up off my hand, and she stared at it in surprise as I illustrated the relative sizes and appearances of the things. I think it excited her to see them. ¡°I basically sniped everything, choosing not to engage in personal combat, so don¡¯t ask me for their relative melee capabilities.¡± She laughed throatily at the statement. ¡°Fair enough, I¡¯ll test that side of things for both of us,¡± she agreed, and then gave me a hard stare. ¡°You know I¡¯ve got some very pointed questions for you, right?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here before something blocks the one way out. Matrix magic is not capable of much directly here, and the mana pool of Isparian magic is Renewing appallingly slowly. There is a Henge outside that is VERY good at helping that along, however.¡± She studied me for a moment, then nodded. ¡°Fair enough. Lead on,¡± she ordered, and, well, she was a very dangerous Null with a blue-black adamantine Sword edged in hard Gold soulfire, so I obeyed. I did keep a flight of Shards up around my wand as I trotted through the place, surveying each room before I moved into it. Amusingly, the princess jumped down from the landing while I took the ramp, waiting for me there. A minute later we were walking up the ramp to the outside, where she abruptly crouched down and ran her finger over the stone there. ¡°This is like those tunnels. Acid-fused rock,¡± she announced, striding up effortlessly to join me at the top, and slowly look around. It was still the dark of night, and I don¡¯t think she had Devilsight, so she was basically looking around with low-light vision. ¡°That your henge?¡± she asked, pointing at it a short distance away. The misting vivus made it pretty visible in the starlight. ¡°Yes.¡± I headed down that way after a careful look around. ¡°I was doing rep counts when the insectlife in the frozen night shut up at the coming of the shades, using the henge here to recharge. I just finished up Sacred Spell, and was going to start on No Components.¡± Bugs that could survive the winter without freezing hibernation I chalked up to the energy from the henge. ¡°Okay, you are not an Isparian mage,¡± she pronounced shortly. ¡°Nor are you Gharu¡¯n. Your accent is all wrong, you¡¯re using terms they don¡¯t know, and you¡¯re familiar with Matrix magic, which Isparians have no familiarity with, and may not even be able to use. Who are you?¡± ¡°Well, the body used to belong to Devra al-Sharim, apprentice to Xunidara, the daughter of Nuhmudira, who was going by the name of Calliona in the Imperial Academy. Xunidara enticed her into attempting a Summoning from a book of Viamontian magic she had acquired. It brought in an eldritch entity she wasn¡¯t powerful enough to contain or to bargain with, and it took her soul in payment for her entertainment. ¡°I was stuffed into the empty shell, and emptied the Death Curse which brought me here on top of the thing. There was quite an explosion, her teacher showed up, I revealed who she was, she killed her own Zharalim guards, and I hope one got away to warn others about her.¡± ¡°He did,¡± she nodded shortly. ¡°We shook down her quarters and secret chambers, finding some very unhealthy stuff, just like her bitch of a mother. However, she never returned there. ¡°That explosion location had another Portal standing in it, and we think she used it after you did.¡± She gave me a keen stare. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Nobody else came out here. As a matter of fact, you came out exactly twenty-four hours after I did.¡± She blinked at me. ¡°Mom and Dad used the time to hook into the magic causing these Portals to pop up, and I was sent through to both chase after the bitch and to shut the whole system of magic down. If all went well, those Portals popping up to this place should be done forever.¡± I was impressed at her resolve as I walked into the Henge, and mana began to flow into me. I adopted Aurora Stance to help the process along with Cantrips, which she studied with some interest. ¡°You just... jumped into a new world?¡± I had to ask, smiling despite myself. ¡°I found it a better option than facing a Level 87 sorceress!¡± ¡°Ispar has mom and dad. While I could definitely find stuff to occupy myself, hey, they are going to be around a long time.¡± She watched my face, and leaned closer to me at my total lack of surprise. I noted the way the vivic mist wasn¡¯t getting within a foot of her. ¡°But you knew that. You said you came in on a Death Curse. Who were you?¡± ¡°You know that guy Sauron was always going to sue in game for trademark infringement?¡± I asked her calmly. ¡°Sauron?¡± She blinked. ¡°The Lord of the... Oh. Ohhhhh...¡± She tilted her head slightly. ¡°Aelryinth?¡± she finally remembered. ¡°And you¡¯re a Hag Curse-powered Rantha, with copies of the memories of one Sama Rantha from back on Terra-Luna, along with Briggs.¡± I nodded calmly, making her blink. ¡°Former Captain of the Intrepid. The Tip of the Spear. Grandmaster and Sage of Swords, The Trembling Sage.¡± All the Titles broke over us, ringing their Truth. A smile quirked at the edge of her mouth, displaying the trademark double canines. ¡°And don¡¯t forget terrifying and beloved second eldest princess of the new Isparian Empire, long may it continue,¡± she said. ¡°Okay, if you were Aelryinth...¡± I cut her off, ¡°To be specific, Highness, I¡¯m a soul shard of him, cut off to dilute the power of a Death Curse from a Death Titan Demilich, a mere fraction of which Curse I was able to use to blow that eldritch thing right out of Ispar with horrifying efficiency. I¡¯m effectively a hollow copy made of Karma that is slowly reapplying his knowledge to myself in these circumstances, and am certainly nowhere close to being a fraction of his equal.¡± She just blinked. ¡°I don¡¯t have the magical assessment powers of most Isparians as a Null, but I¡¯m very capable of feeling a Level Aura this close, and you¡¯re pinging at least as high as me.¡± ¡°My Assay says I am 104 in Isparian terms. It also says I¡¯m a 3/3/3/1/1/1/1/2. And did you know that when you earn a billion Karma for booting a horrifying eldritch entity off the mortal plane, you still only get to apply one point a day to Stats and Skills and the like in the Isparian magical system?¡± She blinked again, and then smiled widely. ¡°Oh, well, that sucks. I must admit I have never been in a situation where I earned enough Karma to do that so quickly. The early Levels are so simple I could Level up almost every day as a child...¡± ¡°Yes. So, I am in the middle of building my Power of Ten Levels up, one Level at a time, and applying exactly one point to all the relevant Stats and skills that I can, right after every Renewal.¡± I just closed my eyes. ¡°So, the dead Devra had the knowledge and skill of a Thirty. I am easily a hundred points away in most of my Skills and Stats from using all this Karma.¡± She laughed in unapologetic glee at my miserable expression. ¡°Such a horrible problem to have!¡± she grinned, her naked Sword flipping around back to dagger-size and deposited smoothly in her belt-sheath behind her. ¡°I know, right?¡± I admitted tiredly. ¡°What¡¯s the Renew rate here?¡± she asked me. ¡°The standing rate is base 1 per minute. When I¡¯m in Aurora Stance, I apply Matrix energy back into it, but so far the only thing I have that is renewable is Cantrips, which is effectively one point per twelve Seconds. I have to get a Reserve working to do better.¡± She lifted an eyebrow. ¡°Six a minute is fantastically good by Isparian standards!¡± she noted. ¡°I know, but it is very fast depletion in real terms in a fight, just like Valences.¡± I tapped a foot down. ¡°Now get this. Almost a point of mana a second here.¡± Her purple eyes dropped, and she whistled in amazement. ¡°Wow! That¡¯s just like chain-chugging mana Potions!¡± she murmured. ¡°Now, meta that fact.¡± She looked at me, smiling crookedly again. Sure, she looked like a teenager, and I was treating her like a seasoned veteran... which she totally was. She had been a seasoned veteran the day she was born mentally. She probably wasn¡¯t used to people outside her family treating her this way. ¡°Meta it. Okay, big picture. It¡¯s a conduit to a lot of energy, and this is some leaking out?...¡± She frowned somewhat. ¡°It was probably helping power that Portal magic, and that magic used to be some serious stuff. Thousands of people used to get snatched up by those things. The scale of power to do something like that is immense. Supposedly a version of a Gate, in Power of Ten terms, a Valence IX.¡± ¡°Yes. Walk down the road a hundred yards and you¡¯ll see a pit. I set it on vivic fire, so the worst of it isn¡¯t there, but the skeletons of over a hundred people, some not human, were blasted and fused into it, studded with blue crystal shards. I have no idea how or why, but they all died in the blast together. ¡°Go wander out in a random direction, away from the local houses, and you¡¯re going to come across Summon points.¡± She blinked. ¡°Summon points?¡± she repeated calmly. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°I mean they are Summoned creatures with standing orders to attack anything not of the same species as them, just standing there until they die for some reason, upon which time the point accumulates enough energy and Summons in something else.¡± She blinked at me. ¡°Are you kidding me?¡± she asked warily. ¡°Not a damn bit. You¡¯ve got good night vision. Head off into the trees thataway, and you¡¯ll come across one of the native creatures here, just standing there in an area obviously worn down by something just staying in a small area. ¡°It will turn and attack you. Kill it without using vivus, it¡¯ll discorporate back into ectoplasm. If it¡¯s the first time it¡¯s been killed in a while, the spawn point will congeal another Summons, although I imagine your Null Interdiction would stop it as long as you¡¯re close. ¡°The follow-up Summons might or might not be based on the power of what is being Summoned, I don¡¯t know, but within five minutes, it should activate again.¡± She just stared at me. ¡°I AM going to test this out,¡± she told me carefully. AF Chapter 27 – We need more Rep Counts! ¡°Please do. More tests are what we need to understand this place. The primary creatures I ran across in this area are drudges, who are big-eyed, oval-headed humanoids of several subspecies, who meep most annoyingly; shreth, spiked four-hooved predators like leather-hided ape-things; reedsharks, three-legged predators with frilled crests; some really nasty versions of giant rats; and phyntos wasps, which are the size of eagles.¡± It was my turn to quirk an amused smile at her. ¡°Also, they increase the Isparian Karma meter.¡± The Princess Rantha blinked at me. ¡°Are you serious?¡± she asked in astonishment. ¡°Dead. Now... picture those Summons spread anywhere from fifty to a hundred yards apart, all across the landscape.¡± She looked at me, lifted her eyes to the forest nearby, turned around to look at everything. ¡°There¡¯s a relatively clear zone around this settlement, and they don¡¯t seem to pop near the houses I investigated. However, natural animals aren¡¯t so restricted.¡± ¡°That is an unbelievable amount of magical power,¡± she muttered aloud. ¡°Think of it like the power grid of the city, and I¡¯m just standing on one of the electrical outlets, and the Summons are like street lamps.¡± Her cheek twitched. ¡°Gods in Heaven. How much magical power would that take?¡± ¡°A lot. Of time, power, investment, everything. The sheer scale... and we don¡¯t know how big it is.¡± ¡°Or why they did it.¡± ¡°Technically? But we can probably assume from the fact they were kidnapping unaffiliated sapients from another plane to come here, and said sapients were allowed to build homes and cities, and have children, engage in trade, and so forth.¡± She frowned, thinking about that and the alternatives. ¡°Not slaves, then. A fighting force.¡± She looked over sharply. ¡°With convenient enemies to practice on, who give out Karma!¡± she hissed. ¡°If you consider some of the standing Summons around the city to attack anything that gets close to them, that includes pests and predators. So, guards more than threats, because they don¡¯t move much from where they are Summoned, except to charge to attack.¡± She nodded sharply again. ¡°What about gladiatorial purposes? Entertainment?¡± ¡°It amounts to the same thing,¡± I shrugged. ¡°You can see the ruined main buildings over there, and there¡¯s more up top the hill there, and down the hill further. They are Aluvian in design and style. You bring people in for a work force or a fighting force. Whether you take that fighting force and bring it elsewhere to fight, or you watch them fight for entertainment, it¡¯s still bringing people here to fight.¡± ¡°And everyone got used enough to the presence of these Summons to just roll with the system,¡± she nodded shortly. ¡°Those who wanted to get better at fighting could go fight as many as they wished every day... but that would get boring and lose its challenge quickly.¡± She looked thoughtfully away. ¡°I didn¡¯t get far enough from the city to see if the Summons stepped up a tier in danger and difficulty, but I would not be surprised if they did,¡± I agreed with her. ¡°I was actually planning on staying here a while, watching over the dungeon there and using this place to get in rep counts. I expect olthoi scouts ¨C those are the walking bugs ¨C to come by at some point. The thrungus, the mushroom things, shouldn¡¯t come back after vivus washed the place of them, their fertilizer, and their spores.¡± ¡°But the shades should come investigate what happened to this team,¡± she said slowly. ¡°Meaning danger is coming here.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve shut off the Portals bringing unprepared Isparians here to be slaughtered and turned into mushroom fodder. So, there¡¯s not much reason to stay, save for an incredibly convenient mana source I absolutely want to exploit to the fullest.¡± ¡°Tyranny of Rep Counts,¡± she nodded once. ¡°I understand the idea. How good is it?¡± ¡°I get a free rep basically every twelve seconds with Silver Mana Renewal going. That¡¯s three hundred reps an hour.¡± ¡°Whoa. That is insanely good...¡± she murmured, impressed, and looking at the ground thoughtfully. ¡°That is better than the Transfer spells, unless you¡¯re Casting Gold!¡± ¡°Ah.¡± The way I said it made her look at me sharply. ¡°The Transfer spells don¡¯t work here. At all.¡± ¡°Oh? Ohhhhhh...¡± The Transfer spells were everything. Stamina came back far faster than mana did, just requiring you lay down, sit, or stand around. ¡°Wow, that makes managing mana very important. I thought you just liked not having to lay down...¡± ¡°If I had the Transfer spells, I¡¯d not care about this place at all,¡± I affirmed. ¡°Without them, this is godly.¡± Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°How long do you need?¡± she asked reasonably. ¡°I have twelve Metas, two of which are +II and I can¡¯t make Practical as yet. I¡¯m done with Sacred Spell, so nine more. Fifteen hours of Casting.¡± ¡°Ugh. Have fun, I guess?¡± She stood up, looking into the forest, back at the town, weighing which way to go. ¡°If you go down the hill, careful of the pedestal. If there¡¯s a drudge statue on it, that¡¯s a Construct that I think is meant to defend the town, and is going off on anything it sees. Use Acidphasing if you have it.¡± ¡°Or an adamantine Weapon?¡± she asked lightly. ¡°I have no opinion. The stuff here has insane Health totals. That Shard array I hit the big Shade with? That was a good four hundred points of damage, Highness.¡± She whistled shortly. ¡°And I still had to One Strike him, and AoO him three times, with full Sneak Attack damage! I couldn¡¯t even feel any Damage Reduction at work, and I cut right through his Force Armor. Damn, that is really, really tough...¡± ¡°And how many times did you hit the female?¡± I went on. ¡°I don¡¯t know your math, but you smacked her at least eight times?¡± She nodded absently. ¡°As you said, dangerous,¡± she agreed. ¡°Also, you can call me Kris, I¡¯m not going to play the princess card on you. How do I call you, since you aren¡¯t the missing apprentice?¡± ¡°Ryin is fine.¡± ¡°Ryin it is.¡± I straightened up from my stance to take her extended hand. ¡°Partners in exploring this new world, and tracking down the corrupt daughter of a corrupt mother?¡± ¡°I would be pleased to do so!¡± I agreed cheerfully. ¡°It¡¯ll be nice having the best of meat shields in the way!¡± I admitted happily. She just grinned, the vivid scarring on the side of her face giving it a newly savage air. ¡°I¡¯m going to go looking for some of these Summons points to test them, but not too far off. I¡¯ll be back shortly, and wait around until daylight while you practice.¡± ¡°Good! Let me get to it!¡± I ordered my Slots and No Materials, and began Casting promptly, burning a II Valence with every spell, but requiring no material components. The Meta did not actually demand a +I Valence cost, but I was pretending it did for another reason. I wanted it to apply to my Isparian spells! No Materials meant I could ignore cheap component costs on the Casting of all my spells. It was a staple of having Sorcerer Levels. I wanted it to apply to all the fancy components of my Isparian Magic, which meant I had to treat it like a full Meta! I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to give up using the scarabs, but the rest of the stuff? I could definitely do away with it all! And if I was right, and the Crystal scarabs were some sort of universal component, well, I had hundreds of them, versus less than a hundred combined of ALL the other scarabs. I¡¯d need to learn the base spells and components to know what to do, but once I had the proper formulas, tapers or whatnot, I should basically be able to dispense with most of them. That would be hugely liberating, and remove a real worry. Moreover, it should provide a clear pathway for working on my Metas with Isparian Magic, which should mean I could immediately start working on higher Valences. I would have to pay higher costs for doing so, but that was fine with me, Rep Counts waited for nobody! Humming happily as I began the process of reducing the costs of my Metas to nothing or +I, and the stacking possibilities that would result therefrom, my first Force Disk manifested. I began to cycle through my spells for variety, and began to sub in Iron spells directly, working out how they applied and how to use them on Isparian magic, too. ----------- I took a two-hour break near midnight, then stayed at it as time went on and the sky lightened in the east. No Material for free on my I¡¯s. No Words for free. No Hands for free. Delimit Spell for free. Sanctified Spell for free... Kris came back and dozed on the other side of the Henge while I practiced, only stirring when Natural Renewal came across the land. Mira went on her flurry of Karmic Investitures. I popped Karma into my Ring and my Mark, and I picked my next Level. Arcane Theurge/1, tying Sorcery and Wizardry together into a greater whole. Very pointedly, it should allow me to recharge Spell Engrams, just like I could Spell Slots, basically turning all my Wizard Spells into faux Spells Known! I could also Burn a Spell Engram for the juice to Cast a Sorcery Spell, or Cast a Wizard Spell with a Sorcerer Slot. It also made my Wizard Caster Level 4, for now. Only I¡¯s for now, however. It also permanently made one of my Wizard Spells that I knew a Spell Known, and I had to pick which one. Phantom Servant made the cut, meaning I didn¡¯t need to puzzle it out anymore. I could use more spell diversity, but everything in time. For a Feat, I picked Vivic Spell. At +I, I could train it down to +0, and thus have a vivus Kicker on ALL my attack spells, instead of just a Dart. More importantly, the +1d6 of vivic damage, while it wouldn¡¯t work against a lot of stuff, it did clean up the dead and alien energies, AND, importantly, it gave the spell the Healing descriptor. That meant Augment Healing triggered on it, and specifically should work off the Isparian spells I connected to them. It might not be much, but another +2 to +8 damage to everything hit by a Shard would be nice. Everything going up slowly, but it was going up. I still had Banespell, Vivic Spell, Reach Spell, Extend Spell, and Toppling Spell to work on, which was almost nine hours more of work. I¡¯d not be done until the afternoon. It was fine. Once I was done, all those Metas would be free... which meant I could attach a +II Meta for nothing, and a second +II Meta for a Valence boost, or Penetrating Spell for the same. Split Ray and Energized Spell combined would give my Shards firepower one HELL of a damage kick... AF Chapter 28 – A Chat on Mundane Magical Matters Kris went down to the lower hill, and I heard the crunching of metal, the crashing of War Magic going off, and I think another building partially collapsed. It persisted for quite a bit, and then the princess came limping back up to the henge with a smile on her face, her shoulder and ribs not in the right spots... but twisting slowly back into place as I watched. ¡°You have Fast Healing?!¡± I protested strongly. ¡°Us Rantha Hags have so much cool shit to make up for the fact we can¡¯t Cast,¡± she nodded. I listened to her bones grind and pop and shift under her skin, having an excellent idea how much that hurt. ¡°It¡¯s about five points a round boosted with Blood and Soul. Mom¡¯s sitting at around ten or twelve or something.¡± ¡°Mithar, I don¡¯t know specifics. I only know about the original Sama, and she uses Human Levels, but your Health must be way higher...¡± ¡°I¡¯m a Rantha Hag/8, which is d10¡¯s of Health. Maxed, of course, with Con and plenty of boosters.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± That was a given. ¡°With a Con of at least 30, 35, I¡¯m assuming?¡± ¡°You do know your Nulls!¡± she said cheerfully. So, a minimum of 160 Health, plus Kickers. On the other side, her Melee Levels were also d10¡¯s, with Favored Class bonuses on top, so her Soak was going to be 180ish minimum. I looked at my paltry 99 combined, and just sighed. ¡°I¡¯m not even at a hundred total yet.¡± ¡°Pretty good for a Three... or a 30!¡± she replied heartlessly. ¡°What are you standing at after morning investiture?¡± ¡°Well, the Assay gets wonky, because it¡¯s adding in bonuses from the Matrix side. My functioning Focus is eighty points higher than what is invested in it. ¡°But from a pure Karma side, I¡¯ve invested to a 31 on the Isparian side.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve got a billion Karma floating.¡± ¡°Yeah, and then some.¡± She waved her hand with a disparaging blurgle my way. ¡°Sweet Mithar. A billion Karma? There were only a handful of people in all of Ispar with that much Karma!¡± ¡°I¡¯ll let you know how good it feels in six months or something when it¡¯s all invested.¡± ¡°You do that. In the meantime, you¡¯ve still got Naming Karma to earn daily, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°I have noticed that you have an exceptionally basic wand there.¡± ¡°I have an exceptionally basic back-up one sitting over on that Disk, too,¡± I confirmed, nodding off to the side. She craned her head around and picked it out, sitting there on the ground with a crude grass cover on it. ¡°Ho ha!¡± she crowed, hopping to her feet, ignoring her ribs that were inflating back into place. I could have just maneuvered it over to her, but she grabbed it, dragged it back to where she was sitting, and sat back down as I continued my rep counts. Removing the cover, she began to go through what I¡¯d scavenged. The scarabs caught her eye with all their glitter. ¡°Are these what I think they are?¡± she asked, lifting up the strange ones. ¡°I believe they are.¡± Kris whistled sharply. ¡°There¡¯s Isparian magic beyond Gold. That¡¯s very significant.¡± ¡°You¡¯d need both time to develop that, and a manafield which could support that,¡± I agreed between spells. I was getting really good at moving into and out of Aurora Stance. Her eye turned down the hill. ¡°That drudge bronze Construct down there was at least a Fifteen CR. It chewed through all my Soak and most of my Health before I hacked it down, and that was using an optimized Weapon against it.¡± Constructs weren¡¯t unknown in Ispar, they just weren¡¯t very common. Of course she¡¯d had it added as a Bane to the Slaughter of her Sword. ¡°Adamantine Acidphasing double-School Acidic Bane Weapon. I was unloading on the thing. It was definitely worth being a town guardian. Thing should have had 200 Health at best, and I know I did over 500 to it, if the math follows, and it slammed through all of my Soak and a big chunk of my Health, and that¡¯s with DR 8/- working on it.¡± I glanced down towards the thing as I blew off Vivic Shards, limned in unwhiteness that was using less and less of the second Valence with every shot. ¡°It¡¯s like EVERYTHING here has massive amounts of Soak or Health Qi from the manafield. A Construct with 500 Health? It should be the size of a house!¡± I shook my head. ¡°And it had inbuilt War magic! Did your Null handle that?¡± ¡°Yeah, luckily. It was tossing Gold.¡± I winced, I knew the math on how strong those were without Prots. ¡°You¡¯ve got about ten goldweight here in worked jewelry, not sure about these coins? What¡¯s the metal?¡± Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Air Gold, hence the green-gold hue.¡± ¡°Huh. Never seen it before. Any special properties, other than being light?¡± She tossed one in the air experimentally. ¡°Other than being useful for making Air-themed magic?¡± I shook my head. ¡°I don¡¯t remember Aelryinth ever working with the stuff. All the gold Isotopes he worked with were Earth, Fire, and sometimes Water, or he custom-energized anything more exotic for special purposes.¡± She peered over the mess of trinkets and minor jewels, lifting up the perfect two-foot wasp wing with a raised eyebrow. ¡°Two weird things, then.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°None of the other stuff is Isotopic.¡± I lifted an eyebrow, but didn¡¯t refute her. ¡°Second, none of this stuff has any trace of magic on it, which is damn weird given how easy the mana is worked here. Did you get this stuff out of that crater with the dead you mentioned?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the opposite of what happened,¡± I answered after shooting off another spell. ¡°There was absolutely NOTHING on the dead. No scraps of clothing, armor, jewelry, anything. Not even false teeth. The salvage there was dropped from corpses underneath fungi mounds and the olthoi¡¯s resin-slime, with the rougher jewels condensed from the bottom of the olthoi¡¯s acidic goo in their feeding basins.¡± She gave me another sharp glance. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ll know when you see them. You remember Hivergreen. These bugs gotta go.¡± ¡°Are they responsible for those mushroom stands I see all over the place?¡± she asked shortly. ¡°Similar but bigger ones were growing in their nest before I Burned them down with vivus there and out here.¡± Let her draw the same links I had. ¡°So, we¡¯re talking an unnatural, invasive ecology. That does help matters,¡± she nodded in agreement with my actions. ¡°Did you check Karma when you Burned them?¡± she asked shortly, shrugging once without a wince at a final popping as her shoulder snapped back into place. Duh! ¡°No,¡± I admitted. ¡°I will next time.¡± ¡°I would be extremely surprised if there is not some reward, given you¡¯re cleansing the Land. Do you have magic item creation Feats yet?¡± I just sighed. ¡°I¡¯ve been here for a day and a half. Create Wondrous Item is on the list for tomorrow morning via Artificing Mastery.¡± ¡°You did notice the difference between Resists and Vulns, right?¡± she asked. ¡°Couldn¡¯t miss it.¡± She nodded once. ¡°I might have to prevail upon you for a full array of Protections. At this point I¡¯m basically pass/fail on my Null, and if something gets through, I¡¯m going to be half-dead instantly on the higher tiers. Isparian base War magic is no joke.¡± I considered that, doing the math behind it all. ¡°I can use Elemental synergy on one set and Force synergy on the other set, resonating and keeping the cost to base, I believe,¡± I said slowly. Isparian magic was somewhat awkward and rough to put into magical items, operating on a charged basis... I turned my head around sharply. ¡°Well, damn...¡± I muttered. ¡°What now?¡± Kris asked archly. ¡°You¡¯ve been up the hill, right? Saw how it looked like it exploded from below?¡± ¡°Yeah?¡± ¡°And if you recall the trip through the dungeon, you¡¯ll realize there was no way in or out of the two sections connected by those olthoi tunnels, right?¡± She hesitated a moment, going over our trip out in her own Visual File. ¡°That is true...¡± she said thoughtfully after a moment. ¡°Abrupt materialization of empty spaces into an existing material environment via Veil pressure...¡± It was her turn to look around and back at the dungeon. ¡°You¡¯re saying that was a dimensionally-expanded holding? No, you¡¯re saying it was completely extra-dimensional, and the only way in or out was via dimensional movement?¡±* ¡°A powerful enough surge to interfere with an existing dimensional structure. How might that have happened?¡± She half-frowned, half-smiled. ¡°The folks really did a number on that Viamontian Ritual,¡± she offered with a snort of contempt for the blues. ¡°You¡¯re saying it caused some sort of surge here?¡± ¡°How do Isparians make most magic items?¡± She tilted her head, hand moving automatically to her Sword. ¡°Well, unless they are fixed items, they don¡¯t...¡± She glanced at my feet in the vivic mist just as I did. ¡°Fixed items tap into the existing manafield directly with a constant draw,¡± she corrected herself. ¡°Portable items have a reserve that they draw down to power their effects, which have to be recharged with special methods, jewels, or the like.¡± ¡°There are no charged items in that collections of gems and jewelry,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Nor did I find any Arms or Armor with such.¡± Or I¡¯d¡¯ve taken them to be Burned down into something else. Her head turned thoughtfully back to the town and what she¡¯d seen there. ¡°The bowyer and the smith¡¯s shop exploded from within, as did the mage¡¯s buildings.¡± ¡°And they had devices tapped into the ley line here which blew out and melted from within.¡± ¡°As if an utterly massive surge of magic swept through the manafield.¡± She looked back at me. ¡°You think it went into the charged items...?¡± ¡°And blew them apart, at the same time as it overloaded so many of the things tapping directly into the ley line.¡± I was hushed as I considered the circumstances. ¡°High magic world, yet we¡¯ve seen absolutely NO magical items. The dead in that crater were wearing nothing at all...¡± ¡°As if all their belongings were suddenly destroyed,¡± she agreed, nodding slowly. ¡°Okay, that tracks. If this world has easy magic and depth like all those Summon spots, it follows that magical items would be everywhere, perhaps even really powerful magical items.¡± ¡°And if we¡¯re talking high magic, we¡¯re talking easy pocket planes and dimensional spaces. Suddenly the Veil is massively reinforced, crushes in on those things, and forces them back into the material plane.¡± ¡°And we get weird things like that,¡± Kris tossed a thumb at the nest. ¡°If you¡¯re a high magic society, that is utterly catastrophic!¡± ========== *Ryin didn¡¯t notice the ¡®no entrance¡¯ aspect previously. The space that came back in had NO WAY in or out to the outside world, the olthoi literally dug in to access it and link up the sections. The only way to move in or out of ALL of the sections was dimensional magic! AF Chapter 29 – Consequences of Magical Reliance ¡°Worse. Who are the people who are going to own the most and most potent magical gear?¡± I asked Princess Kristie Rantha. ¡°Ah.¡± That said a lot. ¡°And they all die at basically the same moment...¡± Kris trailed off. ¡°Leaving only the weakest and most under-geared people alive, who are the least likely to survive the other effects of the tragedy.¡± ¡°So, why would they all wind up in the same spot? Some sort of Teleport Contingency?¡± she hazarded. ¡°It would play to the high magic vibe. Also, this is basically a rural town of overgrown farmland and orchards. Having a Teleport tie here probably means family in the area. If they have larger and more populous cities...¡± ¡°The number of dead there could be vastly higher,¡± she agreed slowly. ¡°Which we won¡¯t find out until we find said locations.¡± ¡°And if the olthoi and the shades are any indication, sticking around in these areas when all the elites of your population are dead was just not possible. Those who didn¡¯t want to fight would be forced to, and the leveling grind re-started.¡± ¡°Without all the infrastructure to support magic use. I noticed you have no non-scarab components here, and I didn¡¯t see any in the two mage¡¯s buildings.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Scanned for both, saw none. It¡¯s why I¡¯m getting No Components active on the Isparian side. All the non-scarab components are ¡®cheap¡¯. I should be able to do without them, once I have the proper formulas.¡± ¡°Proper? You are only at Silver?¡± She held up a Gold scarab tellingly. ¡°Note the utter lack of tapers there to discover my patterns.¡± I looked away as Mira hurriedly brought up memories of her own in my Visual File, and mentally sighed in relief as they materialized in eidetic glory there. ¡°I can recall the Twelve-Twelve Codex combinations, once I have the anchor tapers.¡± Those combinations of tapers being in Item Magic, considered the most basic of all the magicks. ¡°But I need those core colors, and I didn¡¯t have the Gold scarabs, except for those on the Disk there.¡± ¡°And these Crystal ones?¡± she asked, lifting up the most plentiful of them. ¡°I actually don¡¯t know. You might not be able to feel it, but those have internal resonances six layers deep. I think they¡¯ll work with the first six levels of Isparian magic, with those Air Gold scarabs forming the sixth, after Gold. I think the Platinum scarabs are for the seventh. Also, I believe they advanced the entire spellcasting structure to use copies of that one broken taper there.¡± She reached out and plucked up one of the crystalline things, wound through with many multicolored veins within, turning it around and inspecting it. ¡°This... subs for ALL the other components?¡± she asked doubtfully. ¡°If I can do it with a Feat, certainly it could be done with advanced alchemy, right?¡± ¡°Magical infrastructure. I note I didn¡¯t see any more of these, and you only have a broken one.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like they were extremely valuable and everything possible was taken away.¡± ¡°So, I presume you detected the scarabs with the coins, and they were buried or otherwise concealed?¡± ¡°Most of them came off what I presumed were fertilizing corpses inside, but yes.¡± She set the broken thing down. ¡°That taper and the Crystal and Air Gold scarabs alone would absolutely revolutionize magic back on Ispar, Ryin.¡± ¡°Yes. Given time, I can probably duplicate them, too. My problem will mostly be raw materials.¡± ¡°Indeed.¡± Gathering the raw materials for magical use was basically a whole industry back home, and I doubted it had been much different here. ¡°It would put a lot of people out of work, too.¡± Just the talisman-carving alone no longer being needed would destroy generations of families who specialized in making them. They¡¯d only be needed for discovery Casting, finding the taper combinations, and then you¡¯d only use them in classes to better understand how the magic worked. ¡°Isn¡¯t there an advantage to working with components?¡± she asked me. I thought that over, Mira also thinking on the subject, but having no point of reference. ¡°Matrix Casting allows for extraordinary components to add to the magic. Holy Water and the Alchemical Fire stuff, for instance.¡± Mira promptly goggled at such basic things actually existing and enhancing magic. ¡°So, my guess is yes, but I don¡¯t know how much, and such things typically involve 100% consumption of the components, if they aren¡¯t a simple enhanced Focus or something.¡± ¡°And you can¡¯t afford to be so liberal with your components, I presume.¡± ¡°I have what I have, and it isn¡¯t much,¡± I confirmed. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°How much longer on your Metas?¡± she asked calmly, clearly far more patient than most people would believe. ¡°Two hours.¡± ¡°And then, your Rep Counts for-?¡± ¡°Siegework and Reserves, particularly Detects for the one and Healing for the other, although I think having a combat Reserve could feed my mana pool in place of Cantrips, and at a much faster rate!¡± Anything and everything to not have to use up Valences! Her smile bloomed again. ¡°You will need someone to heal!¡± she exclaimed brightly. ¡°I¡¯ve heard meat shields are extraordinary at the duty,¡± I replied wisely. ¡°Not if the local Summons continue to be so weak!¡± she muttered. ¡°I suppose I can let them hit me...¡± ¡°Crystal Shield training when you need it the most!¡± I supported her decision with blas¨¦ encouragement. ¡°Damn, this is strange talking shop with someone who isn¡¯t family!¡± she muttered, shaking her head. ¡°Strange is running into a template-clone of someone in my copied memories on a random world out in the arse-end of Creation in a whole different multiverse, as I understand things!¡± I rolled my eyes. ¡°The Hag Curse must be freaking everywhere...¡± ¡°Can¡¯t speak for it,¡± Kris just grinned. ¡°If there were Hags on Ispar, they kept themselves hidden. Maybe on other continents.¡± I thought about that. There were always stories about magical crones and witches and the like, but in a world with mages, those were just descriptions of despised female Casters... ¡°Huh. You know Nuhmudira and her daughter were Milantians, right?¡± ¡°Of course, that¡¯s...¡± she trailed off, going after that chain of thought. ¡°You know, Mom didn¡¯t really know a whole damn lot about them islands, and they have a really nasty recurring rep about delving into dark arts.¡± ¡°I am now interested in seeing if there¡¯s a Hag bloodline in that bitch¡¯s ancestry.¡± Dazzlingly wide and savage double canines gleamed. ¡°Me, too. If she¡¯s here, we¡¯ll track her down. How are you going to regain your spells, assuming you don¡¯t get a huge number of them by default?¡± ¡°I can access the whole cleric list one by one as soon as I get Mystic Theurgy going. Otherwise, hitting Five and getting Exemplar Surge means I can grab one spell a day from memory, every day, of the Valence it is Cast at or lower. It starts at III.¡± ¡°Another time-dependent thing, slowing down my wild and crazy exploration of the world just so I have a mage to drag around with me!¡± She shook her black-nailed fist at me. ¡°Hurry up and Level!¡± ¡°I¡¯m already four Masteries in arrears, given the Levels I¡¯m taking. It¡¯s just going to get worse the longer I delay taking them.¡± ¡°Ugh. Karmic efficiency. Do we really have to worry about it with potentially unlimited Summons supplying lots of Karma?¡± she asked rhetorically. ¡°Are we in so much of a hurry as to ignore it?¡± was my reply. ¡°I will always have things to do for my downtime. Are you so confident that you don¡¯t?¡± She crossed her arms, frowned, and looked away. ¡°Ahhhh, up yours. You know how much crafting I should be getting done. I went through with only Quaver with me, just so I wouldn¡¯t disrupt the Portal even more. I¡¯ve got a ton of stuff to make up, sure.¡± ¡°But you need raw materials,¡± I noted. ¡°And tools,¡± she agreed. ¡°Limited to Rune Weapons and Armor?¡± I asked her. She gave me a look both smug and annoyed. ¡°Looking for a decent Implement?¡± she asked knowingly. ¡°I can work in metals black and white, leather, and wood.¡± ¡°You can¡¯t Name an Implement unless it¡¯s at least Masterwork. I¡¯m already three days behind!¡± was my response. ¡°Can¡¯t argue with that. Just need to get some tools and raw materials,¡± she half-smiled. I had to sigh. ¡°I have three Ranks in Woodcarver, but only one knife to do the work, and I¡¯d have to find the wood,¡± I admitted. ¡°Isparian Magic does not work through traditional staves,¡± she reminded me, not that I needed it. ¡°Isparians aren¡¯t familiar with Wand Chambers.¡± She blinked at the casual rebuke, then rolled her eyes. ¡°Riiiiight. Nice workaround.¡± ¡°Magic is different here, but add a little Chaos, and you can still stretch the rules,¡± I grinned impishly. ¡°I really want a proper Staff and Stave, thank you!¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t the ideal a Staff with a Wand Chamber, a Cap, and an Orb on that Cap?¡± she remembered. ¡°Indeed it was. Still is, actually. We still haven¡¯t worked how to tie a Tome to it without looking quite ridiculous and really compromising its weapon integrity.¡± Isparian Magic was centered on wielding Wands and Orbs. There were rare Tomes rumored to serve as Implements, but Mari had never personally seen one, and they were likely unique. The idea that I could actually make one of them was surprising her again! So was the fact I could take a full Staff and make it a Casting Implement! ¡°Actually, much of the no-staves problem is cultural, rather than actual. I can¡¯t remember anything of Isparian Artifice that denies Staves. Staves are simply big, clumsy, and not easily wearable in polite society. That just fed across as carrying a weapon when you needed a weapon, and a more discreet Wand or Orb if you needed to Cast.¡± Kris rubbed her forehead. ¡°That makes too much sense. Quit being reasonable and let me mock our inferior magical traditions alone, thank you.¡± ¡°Yes, Your Highness,¡± I drawled back, and she just grinned again. ¡°Just remember I was born before I became royalty, so its Princess by conquest, not inheritance!¡± she reminded me sternly. ¡°I¡¯m sure if I run into any Aluvians, they¡¯ll be skeptical just the same. The idea that there is someone above a High King will just irritate whatever remnants of national pride that remain here.¡± ¡°NO clan politics!¡± She jabbed a warning finger at me. ¡°NONE! I don¡¯t want to hear it!¡± she ordered. I smirked and continued with my Rep Counts. AF Chapter 30 – The Tyranny of Rep Counts Continues... It turns out that it isn¡¯t hard to work on rep counts while traveling, even if it is much slower. I wanted Reserves first, as I could take the Feat or Mastery tomorrow. Thus, it was all about grinding, and happily I didn¡¯t have to Renew and wait for 20 mana, I could use I¡¯s, which only took 10 to refill, and get my counts started handily without it. It wasn¡¯t five reps a minute, but it was still progress. Getting my Reserves going should accelerate what I could draw from my Matrix, refill my Mana Pool faster, and then loop around and fill my Sorcery Spell Pool. It was very important, but the Reserve wouldn¡¯t kick in without the Feat to trigger it, which would be in the morning at best. Kris wanted to go investigating and exploring and get more Karma in, and I needed it, too, so why not? Thus, I was riding on a second Disk while she hauled me around after her. Elevated as I was, I had a higher field of view and could pick out things from slightly further away, Mask of Clarity and everything still active. Rep counts for one thing did not do double-duty for another thing. So, Casting Shards and Disks and Shields and Force Armor to key up the two Force Reserve Feats did absolutely nothing towards Siegecasting Counts. As I wasn¡¯t attaching Metas, it didn¡¯t contribute anything towards Efficient Spells or Practical Metamagic, either. Kris wanted to follow the river, reasoning that it would have more Summons of different kinds than following the road, there would be tracks to observe behaviors of creatures on, and the water would lead to civilization regardless. Thus, we headed downstream, her feet misting and gliding easily over puddles or mucky ground, occasionally hopping logs or brush or debris, barreling through stuff with the assurance of someone with innate Natural Armor and Damage Reduction. If I was tossing Force Armors onto her, that was nice, even if they only lasted ten minutes before fading away in her Null. There was a lot of stopping along the way, because we basically killed every Summons that we saw, Kris quite cheerful about exploiting the opportunity. The Phyntos Wasp Summons along the shore tended to be blue and shoot acid from their stingers. Just a bit into the trees off the river, they were green, and shot fire. If they were Black, they were far, far more dangerous than the others, and I Vulned them to Slashing so Kris could take them out more quickly, which she was totally happy to do. Her style wasn¡¯t that far off from the Sama in my memories. If she could get the charge on it, she would, and that was a triple-damage One Strike which could take out anything weak without fail. If she surprised it, that was Sneak Attack damage on the stack. If it fought back, it had to overcome her Damage Reduction of 8/-, and then her Combat Focus Trance was mending Soak at 4/rd, so she could take 12 points before actually having to eat any damage, which she usually took to her Health because she could Fast Heal it away. If she landed a crit on the charge, there wasn¡¯t anything that had survived it yet, and that was including the Reedsharks, the frilled waist-high three-legged predators with the attitudes of wolverines, and increasingly larger and more spiked shreth variants showing up. --- The humming of the wings we heard was too deep for the wasps, so when the bushes parted to reveal one of the flying olthoi hovering in place, Kris looked expectant. ¡°Look.¡± I pointed left, and there were some of the walking olthoi beetle-types, except smaller and colored paler and towards the purple, off a short distance away. ¡°Great! I¡¯ll get some proper practice! You notice the number of mushrooms has been thinning?¡± ¡°I did.¡± I also vivisized every stand of those that had come within range... said range now being quite impressive with Reach Spell and Spellwarping turning even Cantrips into base Medium-range Rays, boosted to Long range with Reach Spell. 400 feet + 40 feet/Caster Level was a nice long way to reach out and touch something. ¡°Think I can take them?¡± She hefted Quaver in eager anticipation, her Sword¡¯s gentle humming actually countering the drone of the fluttering flying Olthoi Nettler¡¯s wings. ¡°My Assay said weakest to pierce on the flyer, blunt secondary, and the opposite on the beetles,¡± I informed her, flipping my hand back and forth for emphasis. ¡°No problem. Versatile Armed Strike, or a bunch of thrusting, got it. Huh, epee versus bugs, that¡¯s different...¡± ¡°How¡¯s your Acid Resistance?¡± ¡°Eight points.¡± ¡°Mmm. The flier spits acid, it manifests as a breath weapon, so your Null will probably shut it down. But that¡¯s actual acid spittle from the beetles.¡± ¡°Got it. How fast can you take them down if I need help?¡± She was fearless, but she wasn¡¯t stupid, and she was a team player. ¡°I can knock them down instantly with a Toppling Spell, and likely finish any one of them.¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She nodded once. ¡°Okay, let me try these myself, get a feel for how they fight, and I¡¯ll yell for help if it¡¯s needed.¡± She didn¡¯t need me on overwatch, I was sure she could just run away long enough to Fast Heal, then turn around and deal with her pursuers the hard way. But it was nice for her to show I could still be useful, and she wasn¡¯t taking chances with the wonky toughness of the creatures here. She didn¡¯t even bother to kill them on the Charge. They were a Summons, so they wouldn¡¯t run away or anything, they¡¯d attack mindlessly until they were dead. So, it was an excellent way to get a read on them. They were also a good deal weaker than the ones I¡¯d fought earlier, which might have been a guard unit for a young queen. These... were probably closer to young olthoi? Regardless, I sat back and watched. I could always Cast and renew my Mana, I was not going to have nothing to do for some time... She started with the flier, as it would be the most maneuverable, and she wanted to see if her Null could handle its breath weapon. Such things were still magically created, and thus her Null would work against them. I doubted she¡¯d have a problem. Still, the Summons perked right up when it found something to attack, buzzing right on up to her and starting a pattern of peck-and-nip attacks with its snipping jaws and multiple hard forelegs. Kris was staring at it intently as she parried and dodged, wielding Quaver with both hands and totally strong enough to parry what it was trying, forcing it back if it tried to press on her and grapple her with light strokes at its eyes that made it flinch and retreat instinctively. They did a dance in a circle, and the olthoi nearby seemed content to watch, Kris having accurately judged their threat trigger radius. There was an expulsion of acid...which flushed quietly into nothingness against Kris¡¯ Null. She smirked slightly, and then tapped her foot significantly. Her Null Interdiction went out, paying homage to King Gravity as it did so, and the Summoned olthoi flier dropped awkwardly to the ground. Its wings beat harder, but were unable to keep it off the ground as its internal levitation was disabled. Significantly hampered in its movements, it could only keep fighting tiredly as Kris began to whittle at it here and there, searching for the weak points, how to hamper how it moved, testing the toughness of its chitin, and even letting herself get hit a couple times and allowing the thing to draw blood. Then the wounded, tired, half-dead winged olthoi was put out of its misery with a spinning thrust driven behind its head, severing the nerves there and precipitating a catastrophic explosion of ruptured acidic blood vessels throughout its brain. The flying olthoi gave off its dying shriek before trembling and falling still... and that did trigger the other two olthoi. Completely unfazed by this development, Kris flitted forward to meet them, Quaver leading the way with trembling notes to contrast the shrill calls of the olthoi. This was another, different kind of fight, as the two olthoi were prancing around on their ridiculously small legs, poking at her with pedipalps like spears, or nipping in for acidic bites. Kris took them on in a defensive mindset, Quaver a Gold-black blur of motion as it parried and hammered at the bugs, learning their attack patterns and tells, how they acted and reacted, and above all slide-dancing ahead of them as they tried to get around her. The point of her Sword probed at joints and junctures of the carapaces, testing them, hacking in occasionally to feel the strength of the chitin in different locations, compare them, measure the openings left when they lunged, and generally just give them the chance to show off all their instinctive moves and behaviors in the middle of deadly combat. I watched patiently, not moving in lest I distract one of the big insects from its flailing in her direction. They were rapidly hampered and weakened by her pokings, slowing down and making it easier for her to dodge any contact, and she even smashed into them on several instances, bowling them over with strength far beyond natural for her size and sinewy slenderness, anchored with heavyfoot and proving quite capable of bashing the far-bigger and balance-vulnerable insects over. The fwzap as the Summons point behind her reloaded and spit up another walking olthoi like the ones Kris was messing with only added to the fun, as now she got to see how their three-on-one group tactics worked. After about ten minutes, the Summons were so beat up they could barely flail at her, although with their programming they still tried. She finished them with a blunt chopping to the skull that split one¡¯s head apart precisely, knocked the second off its slender feet with a shattering swipe and crushed the equivalent of the groin, tearing its femoral artery open, and dealt with the last by crushing open a seam in the side of its shell that shattered two sections of carapace. A network of blood vessels there exploded and took it down in mere seconds. I vivisized all the corpses before she could say anything, along with the Summons points. She arched an eyebrow at me, as I¡¯d mostly left that function alone. ¡°Olthoi Summons means it is safe for the bugs to travel through those spots, but not others... they effectively form guards for the olthoi. I don¡¯t want to see that, so I¡¯m shutting them down.¡± She nodded once. ¡°Good reasoning. Especially if they are re-Summoning the same things.¡± Her violet eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ¡°Do you think the Summons changing is a way of declaring territory for some creatures?¡± ¡°That¡¯s... an interesting military application. Butcher all the Summons in the area so they come back as members of your own species?¡± I had to consider that. ¡°If that¡¯s true, there might be places around with humans as the Summons...¡± ¡°Oh, would that not piss off and frighten so many people. An eternity of being called into combat and dying in battle as an astral template...¡± ¡°Astral Templates are just that, templates. They aren¡¯t original souls, just snapshots of them frozen in astral essence and filled with power. They should be more frightened that such copies could be made. Actually enslaving a soul is a step higher on the scale, and would definitely be working with necromancy.¡± Needless to say, the field of Summoning and Conjuration versus Necromancy had a lot of overlap and discussion about them! ¡°Which we¡¯ve seen no sign of, as yet. Ispar was surprisingly light on undead, too, mostly from Curses, mother said.¡± The princess kicked the olthoi, and the last of their ectoplasm swirled and was consumed by softly glowing unwhite mist, creating bright white spots on the ground. ¡°It does mean that if we find a fairly unbroken line of Summons of a singular species, we¡¯re probably in something¡¯s territory, then.¡± ¡°I imagine if they die randomly from exposure or deprivation then the respawn might be random. Of course, I don¡¯t know how to attune the Summons, so maybe there¡¯s an art to it.¡± ¡°Easy enough. If it¡¯s random and includes them as Summons, kill all the creatures until the ones you want to pop up do so!¡± she grinned. ¡°Which is a totally viable tactic,¡± I conceded. ¡°Let¡¯s keep moving. We don¡¯t know how long it¡¯s going to be until we make it to the next town.¡± ¡°Meh, a cold camp will be fine, or we just don¡¯t stop.¡± But she still anchored my Disk to her again, and we were off and moving. AF Chapter 31 – Too many Smart Things We met other things on the Summons locations, and some of the living versions of them, too. Of the latter, they were much less aggressive, at least after Princess Kris mulched through them when they sprang to attack us, and ran away when the limbs started going flying and cat-head anthros started crashing into trees and rocks hard enough to shatter spines and skulls. Truly cat-headed, by the way. Assay rated them as Banderlings, with various minor name alterations that seemed to be based on age and tribal jobs. They seemed to attire themselves in color codes for easier identification, and grew taller with age. We also ran into our first Water and Mud Golums, mis-spelling glitchy as it first said Golems, and then reset to the new name, as these Constructs were obviously not Golems. One, they were totally vulnerable to magical energy, which true Golems are most definitely not, and two, they were basically a bunch of elemental matter held together about some sort of energy core, probably based upon a sophisticated and scaling elemental power matrix that I would have loved to look at more closely. They also moved a lot more quickly than most Golems, who tend to be strong and ponderous, not quick. A bunch of pieces of hard water carried in a force matrix serving as a virtual skeleton was a really innovative way to build a Construct, with incredible flexibility and no less bludgeoning force. Turned out the Water Golums were pretty vulnerable to fire damage, too, while the Mud Golums fairly popped when smashed with blunt damage, the forces disrupting the matrices supporting them pretty hard. When they died, the matrix destabilized, and the residual elements basically fell apart in a heap to the ground, unlike most Summons, leaving a small pile of actual rubble behind. Er, except when it¡¯s water and mud, it just drains away quickly. I imagined that if it were solid, it might just be sucked up and used by the next Golum to manifest like this. We even ran into a huge double-height Mud Golum King or something, surrounded by half-a-dozen lesser ones, like a king surrounded by his court. Kris ran right up to it over the top of the water, weaving between its guards, Quaver all ki-wrapped to blunt via Versatile Armed Strike... and in a magnificent case of deceptive looks, the thing blew apart all over her, covering her in sticky mud as she fell back down into the waters in astonishment. Even more amusing, his ¡®bodyguards¡¯ barely got to move before they all died from resonant matrix failure, falling down and blobs of sticky mud spreading out in the river. ¡°Phoo!¡± Kris spat, wading out further into the cold shallows of the river here to get out of the fresh mud deluge in the water, her Vajra forcing the stuff off her nigh-instantly. The water here was also deceptive, being scarcely more than waist-high for its entire length, although it was broad enough to look like a major waterway, moving slow and lazy... yet somehow, it was not freezing over in the slightest, despite all the ice and snow. ¡°Talk about size not mattering!¡± she complained earnestly, dunking down to wash off the last of the cloying stuff. ¡°It looked special. It leave anything behind?¡± I asked her, sitting on my Disk and gliding over the water toward her, not needing to get wet. ¡°Lemme see.¡± She waded back to where it had died, focusing on the water and her tremblesense. ¡°Ho, what¡¯s this?¡± She plunged into the chilly water, and was back out a second later, clutching something in her hand. She held it out to me as I arrived, using the opportunity to grab the Disk and haul herself back up above the water and stand there on her lightfoot, ki swirling about her soles and keeping her from falling back in. If you knew what you were seeing, it was a show of incredible ki mastery, if only a minor use of magic. I held up the light green sliver of metal she¡¯d put in my hand. ¡°This is the same stuff as the coins are made of, but without an alchemical treatment and no oxidation. The weight is, what, about that of aluminum?¡± I gave it back to her, and she weighed it in her hand experimentally. I scooped up some of the Air Gold coins for her other hand, and she weighed them together. ¡°Titanium,¡± she corrected me, looking elsewhere. ¡°More to the point, look at the shape.¡± She flipped the sliver up between thumb and forefinger. ¡°Regular and symmetrical. If I were an Artificer, and I am, I¡¯d say this looks like some sort of stabilizing central core to an active arcane matrix.¡± I frowned. ¡°Is it enchanted? Internal rune structures?¡± I asked, as she tossed the greenish coins with the stylized woman¡¯s face back on the Disk. She tapped it a couple of times thoughtfully. ¡°There was something going on, but what could have been a perfect crystalline formation now has slag lines running through it.¡± ¡°Burned out when the matrix collapsed,¡± I murmured, as she flipped it back to me. ¡°Still, that tells us this stuff has some remarkable uses for Construct magic, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s twelve Golums, right? And the first one we¡¯ve seen with such a thing?¡± she asked mildly, counting on her fingers. ¡°If the others had these motes in them, they were not coalesced, or they were returned to dust when they collapsed.¡± I lifted an eyebrow. ¡°If they could draw this much out of the environment whenever they manifested, that¡¯s actually pretty nice,¡± I offered. ¡°I should be able to sift even dust out of the remains, if we know it¡¯s there.¡± ¡°Ah, more stuff to add to your collection?¡± I glanced behind me at the piles, and just shook my head. I didn¡¯t even have boxes to sort things with... ------ Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°What is that called?¡± Kris asked, watching as the soft-scaled, amphibious thing slowly dissolved into sparkles. Its head was also vaguely cat-like, with big yellow eyes, a dark green back, lighter green front, and a frog-like mouth with rigid fine teeth around the bone. It would have blended well into the reeds in springtime, but stood out quite brightly in the whites and blacks of winter. ¡°A Mosswart,¡± I informed her, looking back down the river, thinking. ¡°Well, it squealed more than croaked, but it wasn¡¯t as annoying as those Mites.¡± The fox-like, slender furred anthro spawns had been as annoying as the drudges in the way they called out to one another when fighting, excited and aggressive in combat, both the living ones and Summons alike. ¡°What¡¯s on your mind?¡± ¡°Humans. At least two non-human bipedal races allied with us, and maybe a race of sentient Constructs, or at least servants. Plus Banderlings, Mites, Drudges, and now these Mosswarts. All in less than five miles.¡± Kris tilted her head as the Mosswart Summons discorporated, waiting for the quick respawn to follow. The things were slow and small, but that didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t dangerous. ¡°This river has a lot of fish in it, yes, but that is a very small area for so many different species to be living in, if the Summons are any indication.¡± ¡°Eight separate intelligent species together, and that is discounting the fact that some of those olthoi are probably fully sapient, too?¡± I just lifted an eyebrow. ¡°And the mushroom men you haven¡¯t seen yet?¡± ¡°Ah, right. And don¡¯t forget the shades. This is just ripe for conflict, isn¡¯t it? Totally unnatural, like it was set up to generate fights...¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been looking for signs of a god of war or chaos, but I¡¯ve not seen anything special. However, there¡¯s no primal, natural magic hereabouts.¡± She gave me a funny look. ¡°No Druidic power? At all?¡± ¡°All the power running through the land is arcane, Princess,¡± I noted worriedly. ¡°That... sounds completely unnatural,¡± she admitted slowly, trying to crunch numbers, but not knowing where to start. ¡°The level of magic required to do something like that...¡± Her voice fell off again. ¡°Yeah. Mind-blowing, deific in scale. Who or what made this place?¡± I had to ask. ------ The Salute to Aethra was coming up shortly, dusk arriving, when we made it to the bridge. It was a fantastic piece of architecture, long and noble double spans completely bridging the gap between the hills on either side of us, with long and elegant loops used to support them instead of standard spans, towers, or cables. The forested isle in the center of the river that anchored them was quite picturesque, stark and leafless in the winter, and only added to the scene, although the upflow side had a lot of flotsam heaped up on it right now. The river here was still broad, shallow, and easy to ford, if incredibly cold, but the hills were fairly steep on the sides, restricting traffic without some few iced trails here and there running up and down them, trails that often had Summons at the bottom of them. Strange, that. It was my turn to haul Kris up to the middle of the western span, Levitating while she rode the Disk. We made it to the middle of the bridge itself, a good hundred-plus feet above, giving us a good look at the landscape for the Salute to Aethra. We could also see the road coming down from the northwest, presumably from where we had entered this world, and how it continued on along the river shores to the south and east. However, this bridge crossed the river, the connecting road leading almost due east. The difference in stonework between the two made it plain the bridge and the road were constructed by different peoples, if using the same old, simple magic that kept the flagstones swept clean of life and fixed minor problems. ¡°So, there¡¯s something east of here,¡± Kris mused, looking that way with me, before turning around to face the west¡¯s frozen landscape. Both our eyes fell on the ruin of a house only a little bit upriver, and traced the completely uncovered road continuing on along the shoreline. Well, we knew what we¡¯d be checking out next. Tellingly, it was the only real building in the area, which was freaking damn weird for a bridge on a river, which were natural historical choke points and where traffic stopped. But it was time for Aethra¡¯s Salute. ¡°The Night Wind comes, the World now breathes deep, The Shadows grow strong, and Song falls to silence steep. Eyes in the Darkness wait, yet the Rider stands not alone. Let the Clouds pass beneath the Silver Moon¡¯s embrace Where rest the weary, and dream of the wind at dawn.¡± ------- Kris held up her hand as we approached that house. ¡°I smell something.¡± ¡°Hopefully not the blood of children or untainted virgins,¡± I riposted immediately, noting that the snow on the roof indicated nobody was heating anything in there. ¡°Nah, that¡¯s my aunties. This smells... something like that room you showed me where the mushroom people had been.¡± I eyed the boarded-up, completely enclosed building, which, strangely enough, had no holes in the roof, and the doors were intact... ¡°That¡¯s not wood,¡± I said slowly, staring at the building¡¯s repairs. ¡°Good eyes. No, in ultraviolet it¡¯s actually quite clear it¡¯s something else,¡± Kris confirmed, squinting at it. ¡°Would have missed it in the daytime. Kick a hornet¡¯s nest?¡± she asked me, and I obligingly blew three flaming Darts into the doorway, blowing it off its hinges and opening it up to the fading sunlight. There were squeals of alarms from within, and then the smell of oddly warm rot and decay hit us, just as the thrungus folk charged out into the waning light, their button-like eyes squeezed tight against the fading dusk light. They were about the same size as the smaller ones I¡¯d seen, with one of the guardian ones looming behind them as they charged out. Kris happily went to meet them, Quaver warbling with delight as it swirled fluidly through the air, leaving gorgeous trails of multi-hued flames as she hewed into their tough flesh with skill and abandon, their flailing little arms swatting at her and giving her all kinds of openings to exploit. AF Chapter 32 – A Markedly Quiet Night? Floop floop floop, the toadstool heads of them were hacked clean through by a Heavy Blade no normal person could swing. Their dying cries brought out the second of the bigger ones from inside, complete with Acid Bolt magic spraying before it. Kris lopped off the arms, then through the stalk of the other, its pale sappy blood leaking out as Quaver ignored any stickiness and hacked on through. Her Null easily dealt with the magic. Twelve seconds later, the other Guard Thrungus was down and in pieces. I set them all on vivus, having no desire to see them recycled to feed the spores growing inside, while Kris walked inside to take a look around. I heard her creaking about, politely letting me know approximately where she was, and then a curse and chokchokchok sounds rang out as she chopped into something urgently. ¡°Burn it all!¡± she called out from the inside, disgust all over in her voice. Well, it would probably advertise our position to those interested, but why not? Fiery Darts exploded over wood and the fungoid material used to patch them, and soon enough the building began to burn down thoroughly... and Burn as well, as the unnatural mushroom fibers went up nicely en vivus, and the snow wouldn¡¯t stop the misty flames at all... ------ We retreated to the island in the middle of the river. Actually, she balanced effortlessly on the branch of an elder oak growing tall enough to look down at the spans, and I just leaned back on a second Disk while we got our two hours of rest and Meditation in. I was Sustained by Ring, she by Vajra, it amounted to the same thing. ¡°Those mounds were disgusting,¡± she grit her teeth. ¡°How many remains?¡± I asked knowingly. ¡°They¡¯d built a massive one up through the floor from the basement. I couldn¡¯t see the bottom down there, but there were at least forty in my range. Not all human, multiple species, animal and bipedal.¡± ¡°Opportunistic little fellows, aren¡¯t they?¡± I asked rhetorically, as we watched the flames pour smoke into the sky. I didn¡¯t know if something would investigate, but it would be pretty stupid not to. Then again, it was night-time. I wondered if another group of shades would come along to investigate, but other creatures might not want to dare the night. Both of us had excellent night-vision, so stumbling into Summons wasn¡¯t going to happen, but that didn¡¯t mean it wouldn¡¯t for others. ¡°That¡¯s the kind of put-spirits-at-rest thing you can earn some nice Karma for,¡± she mused aloud. ¡°That hungry for it?¡± I had to needle her. ¡°The Rantha Hag Racial Class sucks up all the Karma we can throw at it,¡± she admitted. ¡°All of the Stat raises over +6 are priced at Legendary levels. You know what that means?¡± ¡°Other than you get built-in magical Stat raises that exceed +6?¡± She just gave me a shit-eating unapologetic grin. ¡°Gross 36k for +6 gold-equiv advances tenfold to 490k for +7 Stats, and its plus one million for breaking Ten Slots on Gear or Caster Level 20 on other items, as I recall?¡± I replied easily. She sent me a funny look. ¡°Did they learn that back on Terra-Luna?¡± she asked quickly. ¡°Yes. Aelryinth both asked the Archmage¡¯s holo-ghosts about them, and confirmed other details with the World-Angel assigned to the planet.¡± ¡°Well, this is the Rantha Hag Racial Class.¡± She touched her bracelet, which popped up an easy Holo in front of us, dim and pale in the moonlight. I had to whistle, and Mira mentally pointed and flapped her lips in disbelief. ¡°Damn, Princess, that is a Legendary Racial Class, taking you all the way to Twenty, maybe beyond. Just look at those Stat mods!¡± I just shook my head in disbelief, pointing. ¡°You have Fast Healing AND Regeneration/Holy Silver?¡± I asked, stunned. She beamed. ¡°Oh, yeah, making Six was VERY important!¡± she agreed. ¡°But Six and Seven are also when a lot of the Eternal-class pricing kicks in. It takes a very long time to apply that much Karma, and there¡¯s no progressing beyond Seven until we actually pay for all those Stats. So, I¡¯m an Eight Melee Prime and an Eight Hag, because I¡¯m limited to how much Karma I can pay to advance those Stats. I haven¡¯t managed to raise a single one as yet.¡± ¡°You¡¯re only able to assign a thousand gold-equiv a day? Like a magic item?¡± I asked her. ¡°That¡¯s right. Which means it takes years and a LOT of conflict to power them all up.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t disagree with the latter, but... that¡¯s a Legendary Racial Class, Kris. That means you¡¯re automatically eligible for Legendary Feats, just as if you had the True Exemplar Template, or something.¡± She glanced at me, not understanding. ¡°You can take Legendary Feats applicable to your Racial Class. Like, oh, Legendary Crafting, which allows you to Infuse 10k a day in gold-equivs. Either that or a parallel Feat should allow you to do the same for your Stats.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. She stared at me as if I¡¯d grown a second head. ¡°Are you sure about that?¡± she asked in disbelief. ¡°99% sure, yeah. If this was something you were acquiring as you go, no. But you already HAVE the Racial Class, it¡¯s a part of you. Like being born a demigod, as opposed to buying up demigod brand-new as you go. One is filling in an empty mold, the other is buying and building the mold and filling it as you go. ¡°Try and take it, if you have the Karma floating. You had a productive day, after all.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t...¡± She actually flinched so hard she jumped a foot off the tree branch, a side-effect of a marvelous strength-to-weight ratio. ¡°HOLY SHIT!¡± she gasped in shock. ¡°Pat the little magos on the head for all her inherited knowledge base,¡± I said drolly, and she precisely reached out and did just that to me, beaming eight-canines widely. ¡°You¡¯ve GOT to tell my folks about this!¡± she told me urgently. ¡°I will do so, when I reach Nine and can Send something out,¡± I agreed generously. ¡°There¡¯s already a dimensional connection, so there should be no issues, especially with your familiarity with them.¡± ¡°How are you going to work that in with a Null?¡± she wondered. ¡°Share Marks and a Markspace? I¡¯m actually surprised your Markspace isn¡¯t working here, or you wouldn¡¯t have said that.¡± She blinked again, and then swore under her breath. ¡°You even know about the Marks? Now I feel like an idiot waiting to offer one to you...¡± She tugged up her shirt, and around her sinuously muscled perfect waist was the Tatted belt of softly glowing emblems, dark and rather savage-looking, but filled with moderate colorless light. ¡°I hadn¡¯t moved it into my nasal cavity yet.¡± I lifted up the back of my hair and turned my neck to her. She peered at it with great interest. ¡°That¡¯s a Greater Intellect Mark, and you¡¯re filling it with-?¡± she tilted her head in surprise, slapping her palm to the matching Mark on her waist, where it transferred to her hand. ¡°Sacred Energy, as opposed to typeless, like you have.¡± ¡°Ohhh, wouldn¡¯t that be nice to do.¡± She promptly placed her hand gently on my neck, and the two Marks synched up with an actual jolt and spark of similar origins and styles, a minor conflict of energies. The Markdoor popped up in my mind. I pushed it open, and stepped over into her mindspace. It was... distressingly empty. I could see dozens of Markdoors sitting cool and empty there, once probably lively and filled with constant discourse, now utterly silent and absent. The sense of loneliness that pervaded her mind was impossible to miss, and her absolute delight as her mental attention fixed on me was unfeigned. -Oh! Oh, this is wonderful!- she /chirped happily, dashing right on up and taking my mental hands. -You¡¯re Gold already!- She was a bit amazed, as my hue was a bit harder than even her own. For all that she had some merciless hard edges to her, she wasn¡¯t as close to Good as a Powered could be, and I¡¯d been shaved off a Fifteen with Levels in Cleric, as well as being a Heavenbound and Favored of Mithar. I was simply far, far more attuned to what Good actually meant than she was. She was much brighter than I was, being a Melee and Racial Eight, just a lot more depth to her than I had currently. But the haze of Karma attached to me was impossible to miss, it simply couldn¡¯t be applied all at once. She did stare at me a moment, fully aware that she was stronger and Deeper than I was right now, but if I could apply all that Karma, I¡¯d likely be well past her. It was a bunch of Karma to put in! -And you have a second thoughtstream already?- she /protested enviously. Getting one as a Three was quite an accomplishment, although I could see she had one as well, benefit of Marks and more Class Levels. -Don¡¯t even get me started. I saw those Racial Levels!- I /groused right back at her, and she grinned. -I¡¯m assuming those are your folks.- I pointed at two ornate mental doors, replete with the familiarity and energy of much frequent use, surrounded by a half-dozen other Markdoors of similar use, if not power. -I can just Send along those connections, without any problem, when it¡¯s time.- Her grateful smile was unfeigned, and then turned mischievous. -You know, if this takes a while, I might even catch up to and pass their Racial Class!- she /remarked cunningly. -It¡¯s like having a magos around is useful or something. Speaking of which, did you take your Forsaken Matrix Classes?- I /inquired of her. -I... no, I have not. It was low on priority, as we couldn¡¯t share Matrix energy, and Nogging was secondary to paying our Rantha Class bonuses. We can¡¯t Nog ourselves up until those bonuses are paid, for some reason, and it wasn¡¯t that important, anyways. Cheaper and easier to use the Marks...- -I won¡¯t contest your right to spend Matrix Slots for Nog purposes, but I am right here and able to draw on your Matrix if we bond,- I /pointed out calmly. Her mental eyes /twinkled. -You¡¯re moving fast for a prissy conservative Gharu¡¯n wonderfrau!- she /laughed. -Aelryinth was Bondmage to his bodyguard Eddie, so I¡¯m not unfamiliar with the status.- And, startling her a little bit, I leaned into her mental image, tunking mental heads. -And admit it, you want a relationship with a friendly mage who is an equal and doesn¡¯t look down on Forsaken.- Her mental eyes /sparkled. -You know we¡¯re Hags, not virgins, right?- she /teased me back. -The Sama back home is loved, feared, and reviled by the Amazons, because she has absolute dominance over their beloved Commander Briggs, and because if they whine too much, she proves to them why,- I /sniffed right back. Her expression warped a bit at that news, and then she burst out into the familiar Hag cackle that showed just how funny she thought that was. -I am so going to enjoy working with you, Magos Ryin!- she /declared firmly. -Friends are always good things to have, Princess!- I /winked at her, and she just cackled at me softly in real life this time. AF Chapter 33 – A Dangerous Visitor ¡°Something is coming,¡± I hissed, and jumped off the Disk abruptly, sending it around behind the tree. ¡°Expand your Null. Suppress my magic!¡± I ordered her urgently. A rock and an island in the field of magic swept past me and surrounded me in unmoving, placid reality. It wasn¡¯t that there was no magic, it was that all the magic was quiet, in the background, dispersed and unable to do anything, a lake of serenity and silence in the midst of flows and surges and random concentrations of finger-flinging mages with silly ideas about manipulating it. Even my Mask of Clarity fell apart under the wash of her Null, leaving me without decent night vision. Kris gave my face an approving appraisal, then turned her own sharp violet eyes back in the direction I was looking. ¡°How do you know, and from the south?¡± ¡°Yes. It¡¯s... like the magic was being bent, half of it forced away, half of it being drawn. Like a moving magical vortex of some kind.¡± ¡°There¡¯s something moving along the road there. Moving fast. See those lights? By the way they are pumping, it looks like something held in their arms.¡± ¡°The hue is in the thaumaspectrum. It¡¯s... weird. Like magic being drawn in and taken apart. Some kind of dispelling or anti-magic effect?¡± I hazarded at the point of light against the whiteness and black. ¡°It¡¯s also moving faster than a normal man can sprint,¡± Kris judged, her eyes narrowed. ¡°That¡¯s some healthy foot speed, if it¡¯s a biped.¡± I happened to glance around, and poked her. She looked back and followed my gaze, then hissed in surprise. It was some of the winged olthoi, except these were bigger than any either of us had seen yet. They were milling about on the hill on the far side of the river, but had not seen fit to cross. Now that I knew they were there, I could just barely hear the thrum of their wings... and as we watched, the swarming stopped, and the olthoi all sank down to just above the ground in silence. We turned to look back at that swiftly arriving thing with lights on its fists, the angle of the road taking it up so it could be seen from the opposing hill, past the bridge. ¡°They don¡¯t want to attract its attention,¡± Kris breathed. ¡°That¡¯s a huge acknowledgment of power if the bugs recognize it, and won¡¯t cross into its territory...¡± ¡°Implications. What do you think the chances are there¡¯s a whole bunch of other things watching from a safe distance, unwilling to go over there and be caught?¡± I asked in a low voice. ¡°No bet. I¡¯d like to know who, however.¡± ¡°I¡¯d lay you good money there¡¯s banderlings on the opposite side of the bridge from the olthoi, watching from the brush.¡± She glanced that way, the view mostly obstructed by the eastern span of the bridge. ¡°Reasonable. They wouldn¡¯t cross the bridge for territorial reasons, or if they thought the olthoi scouts were coming. They¡¯d be too visible and easy to pick off.¡± Breath weapons of acid from above, far more reasonable tactics than the charge to attack of a Summons. We watched the moving light reach the burning house a couple hundred yards away from us and pace all around it urgently, as if searching for something to kill that wasn¡¯t there. A yowl of frustration, startlingly loud and piercing, reached us all the way over here, and the thing took its anger out on the house, lashing out at it. ¡°That¡¯s a drudge,¡± Kris said slowly. ¡°Did you catch the reverb on that?¡± ¡°I did. It was echoing in the manafield, I could see the magic curdling. That might have been a drudge once, but I don¡¯t think it is any longer...¡± The house didn¡¯t last very long at all. The old timbers, starting to rot from fungi infestation inside and, well, on fire, collapsing quickly inwards as the pale figure tore through the sides and pushed them in, seeming to delight in the sparks, the billowing dark smoke, and the stench of burning mushrooms. ¡°I¡¯m suddenly pretty glad we didn¡¯t go rest over there,¡± Kris remarked softly, her hand thumbing Quaver in her hand, who was remaining scrupulously silent. She tilted her head slightly. ¡°Is that... doesn¡¯t it look like it¡¯s inhaling the smoke?¡± she asked after a moment. ¡°The power of magic mushrooms doesn¡¯t have to be magic,¡± I noted piously. ¡°Indeed, if it were normal magic, I doubt it would have any effect on that thing.¡± ¡°You know how badly I want to test that thing out, don¡¯t you?¡± she grinned at me. ¡°Yeah. I also know you ain¡¯t stupid enough to do so until you have more information, and I¡¯m not Assaying something like that, except from a good long distance so I can get away from it when it senses it.¡± ¡°Mmm. So, we hold off on what a killer drudge can do until we see more.¡± ¡°A wise idea, my royal companion.¡± ¡°Hey, watch the attitude, or I¡¯ll pull my Null back in!¡± ¡°Of the two of us, one can turn invisible and leave no trace, the other can just run fast.¡± ¡°Such arrogance from the common-born!¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Indeed, your Highness-ness.¡± ------ It was a good two hours before the drudge-thing squealed and yowled and tottered off back down the road to the south, clearly a wee bit unsteadier than when it had arrived. Neither of us bothered to move as yet. The olthoi turned around and buzzed off after the drudge had left. I noted that not a single member of the swarm got above thirty feet from the ground, and nudged Kris. ¡°Altitude limitations. They are using some from of geo-magnetism, not aeromancy, to fly.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s convenient,¡± she agreed. ¡°Nice to know they can¡¯t get out of Sharding range. Also, more visitors.¡± I turned my eyes back on the house, still burning, but lower than before, not as brightly. I shifted over to my Vatic Gaze, blinked a couple times, and shifted back. ¡°Necromancy and shadow magic...¡± ¡°The same, or different? Looks like up to ten individuals over there, but not the same groups...¡± ¡°That¡¯s definitely the shades, and I¡¯m 99% sure the other force is undead.¡± Lots of inherited experience fighting the undead. ¡°So... intelligent free-roving undead? That sounds pretty ominous...¡± ¡°Especially if they are the life-leeching, brain-eating kind?¡± ¡°Yeah, that. Shades wouldn¡¯t have anything to worry about from them,¡± she nodded. Necros didn¡¯t feed on shadow-stuff. They needed bright, healthy living stuff for that. ¡°Now I want to be the one to go over there and shoot things up,¡± I groused. ¡°I¡¯ve inherited a lot of traumatic memories regarding undead that are best assuaged by feeding them all to the Land.¡± ¡°Yeah? What prompted such a seasoned adventurer to have such a harrowing experience?¡± she asked whimsically. ¡°1% of the Earth¡¯s population survived the Fall which started this whole mess, as the game turned out to be true. The rest were turned into undead, including pretty much everything that was in tombs and graves, and Aelryinth and company had to go out and kill them all.¡± Kris gave me one of those long, hard looks. ¡°Seven billion undead?¡± she asked quietly. ¡°Somewhere between ten and eleven when you include the animals that were Animated, but only about eight with old bones. All Leveling, if slowly, and Buffed up just like the Dead Marches in the game.¡± Plus the Fiends, the Constructs, the negative Elementals... ¡°So, you had to kill the whole rest of the world again, after they died?¡± she asked quietly. ¡°That pretty much sums it up.¡± ¡°Was the original Sama there?¡± ¡°Cleave-Training through the hordes of minions like nobody¡¯s business.¡± She looked off into nothing, imagining that. ¡°One percent? A hundred or more to one?¡± ¡°Yeah, they ended up with eighty million survivors, give or take. Used some major magic to pull every living human from the rest of the planet to North America. ¡°North America itself was about half the survivors, as we had the biggest gaming population for Power of Ten. The rest of the planet was dispersed throughout the heartlands of the country.¡± ¡°Your food situation must have been horrifying...¡± ¡°We had to put eighty percent of the population into Stone Stasis so we could feed enough people to do the work to make the food, all the while having to fight the undead over the rest of the planet at the same time. ¡°It¡¯s still not solved, but most of the people are out of stasis. Magic does help with a lot of things.¡± ¡°It makes the matter of my folks crushing the Viamontians seem like small potatoes.¡± ¡°You Forsaken do your killing personally. Magos kill armies, remember.¡± ¡°True. Let¡¯s wait until these undead and shades go away, and get back to it, alright?¡± ¡°Heading south after the fearsome killing drudge. Sure.¡± ----- Princess Kristie had new enthusiasm once dozing time was over. She had ten thousand gold-equiv in Karma to make every day to fuel her Stats, plus Naming Karma for Quaver! While Summons weren¡¯t as good as free-willed and unbound attackers of equal power, they still gave Karma, and there were a lot of them. Kristie firmly had her eyes set on a minimum amount of daily Karma, and if she so happened to earn a LOT more, that was perfectly fine, too. If that meant staying busy, totally fine, she was a grindaholic in pursuit of her goals. If it meant fighting bigger, nastier stuff and growing to meet them, that was also totally okay with her. I only needed Naming Karma to grow my Mark, I didn¡¯t even have a proper Weapon at this point, which was irritating in the extreme. Hauling around goldweight with nothing to put it in, losing days in powering up Slots... yeah, it was annoying. So, I was looking for something that might have a staff that I could use, or carve up to higher Quality Level. Either would work, I could keep refining even normal woods to 30, magical hardwoods to 35, and epically powerful wood to 40 or greater. That would mean something living wielding one. Given it was a simple weapon to make, and these anthroids didn¡¯t seem too sophisticated, I was hoping for some good luck. We added some sort of killer Fey, sprite-like things called Zefir tossing War Magic with aplomb, to the lexicon of things we were running into. They were bright orange-red, freaking annoying, and I vivisized them and the Spots they sprang from, although I was sure they were marvelous pest-killers. Happily, they were minute Fey, less than two feet tall, and if they had way too much Health Qi, they still died pretty quickly. I, uh, just sort of hid behind Kris and let all their War magic just kind of melt into her Null and go away. Very convenient, that was. So was them trying to Cast right in front of her, which earned them quick trips to the ground in pieces. She didn¡¯t even bother to Stillflight them, no reason to. Of course, if there were swarms of them, she¡¯d be much more brutal with them. They were probably some of the pests that the Wasps picked off, I imagined, and vice versa. Ael had never had a lot of use for the Fey as a whole, and even the Good ones were flighty and rather unreliable most of the time. We also ran into our first Ursuins, which were the apex predators from back home on Ispar, clearly not native. They might have looked comical for their bow-legged bodies, except they massed as much as bears and could grow to massive sizes, with sabertooth fangs sticking down from jaws that gaped very wide open. Their paws were the size of dinner plates, and they definitely meant business when they came charging in at us for entertainment value. Why would anyone import them here, unless they wanted some really thick rugs? AF Chapter 34 – Other Unwanted Discoveries ¡°I¡¯m clueless,¡± Kris admitted. We were looking at... some sort of floating tentacle-thing, hovering via some form of geo-magnetism out above the cold, dark river waters, a colorful spiral shell covering most of its body, multiple meter-long tentacles hanging down. It didn¡¯t look that dangerous... except the Assay said it was a Twenty, and I could see the folds of magic around it indicating it was a Caster of some sort, and had a fairly sizable Mana Pool. ¡°It Assays as a Niffi, a young one, probably a freshwater form,¡± I murmured. ¡°It¡¯s an Aberrant,¡± I told her carefully, which earned a startled look. ¡°Never seen one before, but it¡¯s got the Aquatic trait, and it¡¯s not a Beast. It¡¯s fully sapient, although that one is a Summons.¡± ¡°So, it comes from the deeps-?¡± she guessed with me, regarding it. ¡°The only reason I could guess something like it would be here is if there¡¯s a spawn in fresher waters...¡± She studied it a moment longer. ¡°So, it spawns inland, goes down to the sea to grow. Just how many of these things are in the seas, then?¡± I had no answer for that. She just half-smiled and skated out to confront it. It turned and advanced toward her, bobbing along the waves with some pseudo-gravitational surges, and its four tentacles arose into what was clearly an attack pattern. I could see the gleam of crystalline barbs and something within those barbs on the rubbery flesh. So could Kris, who obligingly chopped them off with flicks of Quaver, and her Null wiped away the varied blast-types of Force and Acid the thing tried to use on her. The implications for the sea shores and deeper waters here were not good, either. It appeared nasty Shit in the Seas was true in other magical worlds... ------ At any rate, the miles went by energetically as I did slow and steady rep counts in the early dawn, until it was time for Natural Renewal and the first rays of the sun washed past us in the morning light. Kris turned as I did to celebrate the Salute to Aru , just as we had the Salutes to Sylune and Aethra. ¡°Dreams of the wind at dawn, A new day has begun. Light chases back the dark, and the future lays before us. Will it be something bright and new? Walk the road before you now, and leave the night behind, Today is a new day, and the light comes to warm you all. Let go the shadows, and behold the sun! The Light has come, as ever it must. Behold the new day!¡± Time to assign Karma for the day! --- Naming Karma to Mark. Naming Karma to Ring. Mira enthusiastically hitting all the levers on the Isparian side. Recast Dawnstopped Shield. Cast Extended Armor, because it cost nothing extra and would last eighteen hours now. Chosen Class, Arcane Theurge/2. Valences II between Wizard and Sorcerer now usable with the other Class¡¯s Slots. One Wizard Spell Known II transferred to Sorcerer... hey, it was time for Web to make a comeback! Which I promptly Wrote into my spellbook fully happy, just like I had Phantom Servant. +1 more faux Level to Wizard, which made me a 3 (5) and opened up the III Valence Slots, even if it didn¡¯t give me more Spells to fit in them. It was fine. I could fit in single-cast Meta¡¯d spells into the III Slots, although I really needed Exemplar Surge. That would have to wait for at least two days, if I decided to go vertical in growth instead of wide, gritting my teeth at the decision. Long-term, it was a minor decision, especially if I got into a circumstance where I was earning lots of Karma. But if I wasn¡¯t?... Then again, square miles of Summons that seemed to get tougher and tougher the further we were away from settlements boded both well and grim for that thought... Zeks, my Ring, finished basic Sacred Resistance, giving me a +1 Sacred Bonus to my Saves, boosted to +2 by Favored by Faith. I would need three more days to boost it to full Sacred Protection, which would include a +1 (2) Sacred bonus to Armor Class. Getting the unhittability up, that was me! My Mark would need eight days total to grow to +2 (+3) Sacred bonus to Intellect. I could only put in the Karma and wait. No Weapon, no Naming Karma to it. Kris waggled her nose at me as she happily fed Quaver, and I just rolled my eyes. Bane to Shades was now part of her Weapon. She was pretty sure she could get all the other stuff we were running across individually. Olthoi were under Bugs and Vermin, which she also didn¡¯t have. Shreth, Reedsharks, and Ursuin were under Animals, which she did. The Drudges and Banderlings would also have to qualify on their own, along with the Mites and Mosswarts. Constructs, for the Golums, she did have, as they existed back on Ispar. Aberrants for the Niffis were also something she had to take. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. We now knew Undead existed, but there were necromancers back on Ispar, so she¡¯d run into them before. Summons were their own special category. Being made of ectoplasm made you uniquely vulnerable to your own form of Banefire. They just didn¡¯t have the same array of dire threats to people back on Ispar that they did here. The biggest threats back home were, unsurprisingly, other humans... Slaughter also required having slain the creature within the last two days to pay for it with Naming Karma. So, she was going to have to retrace her steps and hunt down Summons of those types to fill in her Slaughter, but it was a good problem to have for her, it just meant longer before she had a full set of Banes for everything around here. The Feat I took was Domain Focus (Good). As Sacred Spell was now free to my I¡¯s, and the first Meta I was going to get for my II¡¯s, it was another +1 Caster Level on the stack. With Sacred Spell, the bonus would eventually apply to all my spells, so it was a very good use of a Feat. It also meant my base Caster Level for Shards was 15, which was eight Shards base, since Delimit Spell was also free to my I¡¯s. Add one Shard for Shardcaster, add one for Touch variant, and lo, ten Shards on the table, rotating through ROYGBIVBlWGy. The Mastery I took was Artifice Mastery/1, Create Wondrous Item. Among other things, it would allow me to start making Baneskulls as I needed them. I just needed to kill real things, and not Summons. In the meantime, some protective Amulets and Necklaces were not out of the question... ------ The new day had a lot of drudges in it. We were standing at the edge of the river in the brush, looking out over the grassy field leading up to the hillside behind us, a hill the river ran about before emptying into a large lake, its slope gentler than further upstream and easier to wander down to. There was a former human city ahead of us, and many scattered and fallen farmer¡¯s homes, orchards, and fields everywhere about us. We could see a bunch of ruined buildings in the distance, me more keenly with my Mask down and enhancing my forward vision some. They looked like Aluvian buildings, but the only living beings I was seeing were drudges. All of the landscape spawns... were drudges. For a good mile at least, in every direction around that city, dotting the white snow with tans and browns and yellows close to us. It was one of the most blatant displays of ownership and dominance you could declare. Kris was thumbing Quaver, looking at all of that, wondering what kind of a hornet¡¯s nest we¡¯d stir up if we started butchering all those Summons and real stuff came at us. Especially that drudge from yesterday. There were a lot of the real drudges coming down out of that town now, threading in between the unmoving Summons, heading for the river and the lake, presumably to go fishing, maybe hunting, wrapped in some crude furs on feet and waist, but mostly letting their thin fur do the job for them. ¡°Anything interesting?¡± Kris asked shortly, and I just fed her a look out my eyes. The drudges seemed to be color-coded, the darker ones clearly exerting dominance over those of lighter skin hue around them. I glanced west, and noted there was a significant increase in alternate and darker colors in that direction... away from the town, and closer to the true center of power? There were also obvious warbands heading straight away from the city in all directions, shaking their crude weapons to give themselves confidence. ¡°They are going to challenge and kill the non-drudge Summons,¡± I hypothesized calmly. ¡°They are farming them for Karma, just like you and I.¡± Kris inhaled deeply. ¡°I have no problems killing Summons, they are just shaped ectoplasm. I am uncertain of how to address the problem of living creatures, but...¡± she frowned as my eyes focused in on the town, ¡°that looks like it used to be another Aluvian city, as do the homes around it and along the shore that we can see... all of which seem to now have drudges living in them.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got coms. I can go invisible, sneak into the city, and see what is to be seen there.¡± Kris eyed the warbands moving along the shore of the shallow river on well-trampled, partially frozen paths, obviously heading north on both banks, looking for some excitement. ¡°That¡¯s a good idea. I¡¯ll pull back and wait, see what is developing.¡± ¡°Something else weird is going on,¡± I told her, shifting my eyes towards the lake. ¡°Why is there a Ward out along the shoreline of the lake?¡± She blinked at it through my eyes, then the sheer scale of it, almost domelike as it rose into the sky and extended off to the south, clearly not allowing something in the center of the lake to get out... or those from the shores to move out there. My words about the Niffis formed a yawning abyss before us. ¡°Another massive waste of magical power?¡± she asked rhetorically, the warrior in her identifying a defensive effect when she saw one. ¡°That¡¯s a Hell of a waste... if something isn¡¯t out there in the water,¡± I murmured in reply. Nobody would waste that much power for no reason. Would they? ¡°Well, don¡¯t go into the water, although if you want to investigate the shoreline, I doubt you¡¯ll find anything other than drudges nearby. Beyond that... maybe some clues?¡± ¡°Keep the Disk with you.¡± I shoved it at her, and she tied it off with a tap to Quaver, who could lock it more easily than she could. I murmured an Invisibility spell, which would last until I broke it with violent action or Natural Renewal, and then I moved into a trot for the city. ------ Devra hadn¡¯t had any real focus on physical ability at all, but I was putting Karma into all the Stats, not just the mental ones, so I had significantly more endurance than she had, and furthermore had Arcane Fist Levels. Monk Levels were always about being idealized in mind, body, and soul. Unable to see me, and with my scent tamped far down by my Cold Creature status, I ran past the scattered Summons, who did not acknowledge me in the slightest as I moved through the frozen grass and snow, Levitating to get over drifts and obstructions with otherwise impossible leaps. The outgoing drudge groups were likewise ignored by the Summons as they moved out in warbands gathered around certain leaders with stronger power. Drudge Raiders, Lurkers, and Stalkers, with Levels around 50ish, dominated the warbands, their body paint bright among the lesser Drudges around them, taller and more vividly furred. Drudge packs in the distance, however, seemed to be mostly made up of those who were the leaders here, with more powerful Drudges in even brighter colors and warpaints leading them. It was an ominous sight, for all that they traveled more like a horde than disciplined soldiers. It was plain they had no training, and were simply moving like instinctive hunting parties. Furthermore, their clothing was nothing more than leathers and furs, although some of them were artful and done with care, and maybe had scraps of bone, metal, and jewelry on them. I noticed some of them did indeed carry heavy staves. Liberating one of them should not be too much of an inconvenience... AF Chapter 35 – Into the City Levitation got me up a steeper part of the hillside of the city, a place where no drudges were waiting. Once again, there were no city walls of note, making me shake my head in wonder at the lack of defensive planning. The grounds were like the village we¡¯d come from, with foot-trails winding through overgrown yards and the snow drifts, houses half-collapsed and only bare efforts made to repair them. The smell was exactly like those of animals: body odor and pits of shit and offal, the latter from remains of caught small prey, probably from the thrown darts and knives they liked to use, and assorted shreth and reedsharks who formed the basis of the crude armor the hunters wore. Like most human cities, the streets led towards the center, with the style of the homes indicating former upper-class, and signs of wealth in the surviving scrollwork on the frames and borders indicating relative station and status at a glance. I flitted through the place, invisible and unscented, only the smallest of the drudges and presumably their mothers left behind as the others went out to gather food. The city opened up towards the middle as I both dodged the numbers of drudges still running about haphazardly here, mostly young playing games in the snow with one another, and... And. There was another of those greenish pedestals here, the one that had borne a drudge Construct back in the other town, probably a failing defense meant to protect the place. The pedestal here had been ripped apart, shredded by powerful claws that had not allowed it to fix itself. The statue that had been on top of it was a mangled, dismembered Construct that wasn¡¯t going to be repairing itself or threatening anything else, ever, who knew what it once was. Stacked around it were skulls and bones, heaped up in a broad ring at least fifteen feet high and a hundred feet across. Even the snow didn¡¯t want to gather on them. Watching through my eyes, Kris hissed exactly once, the sound just a whisper of the death that was coming. Quaver slid out of its sheath, and she was on the murderous hunt. She had her answer on how to regard drudges. There were going to be a lot of dead drudges for this, and that murderous one be damned. I stared at the circular mound of dead, at least a hundred feet in radius. Thousands of bodies were piled up there, not all of them human... but most of them were, and they were of all ages, from the youngest of children, whose skulls seemed favored for tossing games among the drudge whelps, to elders with failing teeth and every age in between. There were other skulls and bones, too, some of which I had seen before, but not in this much detail. Shattered and crushed mechanical men, ripped apart by claws that had to have cutting power like adamantine. At least two species of other anthroids, one long-faced and tusked, with tails and digitigrade feet, and the other built incredibly tall, thick, and stocky. They weren¡¯t numerous, but they stood out among the human remains. There was another rare species of bones, noticeable because they had decaying, vestigial magic on them, like it had been running through their bodies and still wasn¡¯t gone. They otherwise looked humanoid, and I couldn¡¯t tell much about them. A tally of unmitigated slaughter. I marked how many of the armored bones, skulls, and ribcages had ripping injuries on them, as if terrible claws like adamantine razors had carved through them and their rusting metal armor, irresistible and unstoppable. Claws that were about the size of those that had mauled the pedestal there into unusability... Something incredibly powerful, yet not too large, had torn through these people like a reaper¡¯s scythe, perhaps because they had lost all their powerful defenders at the same moment, and there was simply no one left alive who could stop him. I exhaled softly, and then kicked off from the edge of the house I was barely standing on, out towards the mounds of bones. The drudges weren¡¯t messing with the mounds themselves, contenting themselves with carefully playing around the edges of it. After all, there were a lot of rusty metal bits and shattered bones there, easy to get hurt. Prestidigitation could push me enough to get me to the center pedestal accurately, and then I simply dipped below the sight of the surrounding houses. Shooting Vivic Darts into the ground wasn¡¯t considered a violent attack, and so wouldn¡¯t disrupt my Invisibility spell. So, I proceeded to do just that. Banefire to Humans and Holy flames fed what was to follow very quickly as I sent vivic flames exploding into being down in the interior of those mounds of bones, and lit off a hungry vivic inferno aborning there. Unless they cared to take them away, all of the bones here and scattered in the dirt and grime of the vicinity were going to be dust before sunrise. I kicked off and away from the ruined pedestal in satisfaction, the oppressive weight of the area already starting to depart as the vivus did its work, sweeping the area with my eyes. Hello, what is this? There was an old drudge sitting there, wrinkled and bent, but bright blue of skin and painted with stripes of crimson. He held an unmistakable air of authority, with talismans and feathers and fetishes hanging about him, and all the other drudges were carefully giving him a respectful berth. Looked like a local elder and wise shaman type, although his Level was over 100. Most importantly to me, he was leaning on what was obviously a well-made staff, bound in gold and more than a little gaudy in the Aluvian style, perhaps a former staff of government office. It was now topped with three skulls, of human and anthro races one and two, with a tiny miniature mechanical man dangling from the human skull. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Since they were avoiding him, Jaunting up behind him was effortless, and he was wrinkled and bent, his senses not as sharp as they might have been. I made no sound as I reached out, invoked Shards as a Touch variant, and also applied the Copper Frost Bolt to the back of his skull, reaching out to grasp his staff as I did so, my Zojak Quapaj completely mental. The spell didn¡¯t get to explode, instead drilling deep into the back of the old drudge¡¯s skull, over his body, and blowing through his insides with superchilled frost carried on the racing and eager edges of Banefire. He didn¡¯t even get to meep as he died, and I removed the staff from his grasp as his freezing blood raced down his arm, convulsively letting go of it before his hand could freeze tight about it. Startled drudges all around were blinking at me as I gestured shortly, and me and my new staff faded from sight once more, as if we¡¯d never been there, kicking up off the ground and towards the east, where I¡¯d seen something else just as grim. Flashes of blue crystal, and another crater of dead. --- This crater had hundreds of dead crammed together in it, and like the previous ones, the snow didn¡¯t gather in it. It was significantly larger than the previous two that I had seen, the bones actually merged and meshed into one another, as if they had materialized into, through, and with one another, with no sense of personal space, at the same time being impaled by dozens of the blue shards, and shattering and cracking with some explosive force that had broken and crushed bones and bodies. The meat on them was long since gone and decayed, and vestigial energies running through the things had left the bones cleansed and polished. Still, the sight of so many screaming skulls mixed into and through the remains human and not of those who had died here was extremely unsettling, and the psychic horror and pain that lingered about it was not a phantasm. Horns were blowing behind me as some astute drudge sounded an alarm. I didn¡¯t know if that would bring back the hunters or not, but let them try to put out this fire! I flashed only two salvos down into the pit, but they splashed over multiple bodies, and vivic fire ignited over the densely packed bones instantly. It would be a bonfire of vivic mists in less than a minute, Burning away the remains of the dead. Just like the mounds, which would soon start steaming. There was a lot of activity on the ground, drudges running around everywhere trying to find an intruder, and I so, so wished for Perpetual Spell so I could just start mowing them down and removing them from the world. The simplest Detects rated them as Brown to Purple, with the levels of malevolence notably higher among the older ones. If they wanted genocide against humans, well, I was more than happy to return the honor to them. They were chanting and calling out, and after a moment I realized it had to be the name of something, said in reverent tones, as if they were calling out the name of a god. Being the wise person I was, I immediately got behind some cover at an oblique angle, looking all around, and then saw the wooden fortress to the north, atop a low hill, just visible between the trees outside of the main city. It also had carrier balloons hanging in the sky above it, which for some reason had not been visible from, like, miles away. I just blinked at them hanging there, wondering if they were tied down somehow, masked by illusions or what, and then saw it, that distorted push/pull in the manafield, moving out from that fortress toward the city here. I wasn¡¯t going to take a chance at being in its line of sight magically, Invisible or no. I made sure I was off its approach vector as I floated back into the trees, watching the distortion move with the speed of a decent horse from the fort in the distance toward the city. Being the opportunist I was, I headed for the edge of the killing zone around said fortress as the creature went in the other direction. Ho, look at this, I thought a few minutes later. Kris wasn¡¯t looking, and I wasn¡¯t interrupting her, as she was ripping through one of the drudge warbands, the Sound Bubble emanating from Quaver making sure no screams for help or sounding horns were being heard by anyone. Drudges were dying messily and quickly all around her. This place was replete with brightly-hued drudges in even brighter paints. Stark white, pure black, bright blue, deep crimson, green, purple, yellow, orange... a whole panoply of actual fur colors, with bright if standardized paint patterns on each and all of them. They were all Summons, just standing around and not responding to anything in their dark spots in the snow, although there was a small stream of real drudges with the same hues heading for the city in the wake of their leader along a road and well-trod path through the snow. My eyes fixed on a snow-covered mound to the north, and the monument there. It was a monument, because it was an olthoi queen, one at least twenty feet tall. Her blue and red carapace was shattered and clawed apart in multiple places, then reassembled and mounted on a crude wooden framework, pincers and arms spread wide, displaying all of her might and power... and the fact she was very, very dead. Next to her was sprawled the stacked and heaped chitinous shells of real olthoi. No need to worry about their meat, the acidifying blood took care of that, but the shells remained behind when the real ones died, and that was a heaped-up hill of thousands of olthoi. Obviously, they hunted the olthoi and kept the numbers down, and it was entirely likely a horde of the bugs had tried to sweep in here and evict the drudges... and it hadn¡¯t worked. Hadn¡¯t worked impressively badly. Kris took note of the olthoi queen and how it had died, and that it was probably not a good idea to cross hands with the Killer Drudge before then. Of course, that was no reason for me to leave any of this display of puissance alone. As I¡¯d said, setting the dead on vivus was not an attack... and Summons didn¡¯t do reports. They were a distance away, but that was fine, as Reaching Spellwarped Split Ray Darts ignited their infernos in the mounds of olthoi trophies... and on the proudly slain olthoi queen, likely a huge ego boost. The Summons there just watched the Rays emanating from empty air, not knowing what was going on, their territoriality specifically restricted to threats to themselves. Soon enough, misting unwhite fires were ablaze on the mounds of remains, while the scarecrow of the queen was Burning down merrily. And then it was time to go. New horns were beginning to sound here as living sentries blew another alarm, and I didn¡¯t want to test the big fellow¡¯s sense of magic, at least until I had some anti-sensory spells I could bring online. No reason not to swing down by the lake, now, was there? AF Chapter 36 – A Bloody Nose, is All We met back by the waterfall. There was a large and picturesque waterfall located about halfway between the bridge and the city. Impossibly, there was still no frozen icicles and the like around it from the scattered spray. There seemed to have been almost no river traffic upstream, because there were only a few scattered homes around the place, all of the patchwork repaired and used as overnight shelters by hunting bands, species depending on which side of the river they were on, judging by the tracks in the snow about them. None dared to make a permanent lair there, having a good idea what would happen to them if they did. Nothing like portage services or a water lift or anything of the kind remained there. There had been a drudge hunter team here with nets and crude spears to hunt for fish. They were bubbling away mistily underwater now, Kris having no use for them as she sat at the top of the falls, waiting for me with cool violet eyes. ¡°Took your time,¡± she said mirthlessly, as I came out of Invisibility and sat down next to her, going right into Aurora Stance. ¡°I¡¯m also down two hundred mana,¡± I murmured. She¡¯d watched me cutting down every drudge warband messing with Summons or hunting along the river for my entire trip back here. As she¡¯d been doing much the same thing, using Sound Bubbles to make sure she wasn¡¯t heard instead of Toppling to knock them off their feet and then hammer them if they still lived, she had nothing to complain about my tactics. We¡¯d both racked up over a hundred kills between us. ¡°I¡¯ve a feeling the banderlings and the mites would do the work on the females and kids if we took out their hunters, but it¡¯s all immaterial as long as that big guy is holding them all at bay.¡± I let Kris take my new staff from my hand and run her fingers up and down it. The skulls that had been tied to the top of it were long-gone, Burned to vivus and fallen off now. ¡°QL 23. A lot of work put into making it look and feel good, only never to be used. A perfect staff of office for the local steward.¡± She rubbed a series of golden bands upon it gently. ¡°Elysa Strathelar. The name familiar to you?¡± ¡°No. Very Aluvian. Should it be?¡± ¡°East Aluvian, I think, the low country. Nothing noble about it, but apparently the wielder served at her behest. The scrollwork is significant, it¡¯s a major position. Like serving as Steward of Celdon, back home. Might be her face on those coins.¡± She waved at the pale green coins on the Disk behind her. I glanced back in the direction of the city. ¡°That was the local capital?¡± I considered the arrangement of the terrain I¡¯d seen, a lot of it now overgrown with new foliage. ¡°Possible. There were hundreds of farms in the vicinity, I believe, and major access to the river and the lake... although I didn¡¯t see much sign of boat traffic.¡± ¡°Any sign of things inside that Ward?¡± she asked coolly. ¡°I couldn¡¯t see anything, but something was watching, staying concealed, and I didn¡¯t go underwater to see what might be there, and I can¡¯t use Wavesight at the moment.¡± ¡°But all the neighboring Summons were drudges.¡± ¡°The fort there was the center of the effect. The drudges radiated out from it, lowering in power the further away they were.¡± ¡°Not a true dissuasion, but it would eat away at any invaders with the continual respawns, while not interfering with the locals at all. It¡¯s an excellent passive defense that costs nothing,¡± she commented coolly. ¡°Do you know how they reset the spawn points?¡± ¡°Given what I was seeing, the spawns take longer and longer to renew themselves between kills if you keep killing them. The warbands were camping several sites apiece, killing them over and over. ¡°If I were a gambling person, I¡¯d wager that when dusk or dawn Renewal hits, an empty Summons resets what it pops out. Maybe randomly, maybe not. I¡¯d also guess that there¡¯s a possibility that a death by exposure could trigger a random reset, but I¡¯ve no idea without longer-term study. I¡¯m sure the natives know the trick by now.¡± ¡°And since we can shut them down, it¡¯s not a real issue.¡± ¡°About that.¡± I looked back south. ¡°I saw a line of olthoi Summons extending north off the river.¡± ¡°A scouting path?¡± she asked archly, instantly figuring the tactic. ¡°What do you suppose those scouts might do if they look across the river and see absolutely nothing on the other side?¡± Her violet eyes narrowed with malice, and the scar-brand on the side of her face pulsed blue-black and shifted on their own with dark thoughts. ¡°That¡¯s like saying the drudges have abandoned their territory.¡± ¡°So, they¡¯ll send something to investigate. What if that empty spot goes all the way up to the city walls?¡± Her left eye actually flashed white as the Brand extended across from it, the first time I¡¯d seen that happen. ¡°You¡¯ve extended an invasion route for the opportunistic into the city...¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°And bugs are good at throwing away drones in pursuit of their goals.¡± ¡°Won¡¯t do anything to the big guy, if that queen and pile of carapaces is true.¡± ¡°Consider him a force of nature. Wipe out his foundation, and what does he have?¡± ¡°A lonely god with no worshipers.¡± The eye gone white seemed to glow with wrath. ¡°If I have to shut down every Summon spot within five goddamn miles of that place and leave it isolated, I¡¯ll do it!¡± I just sighed and nodded. ¡°It¡¯s a better job for you. They¡¯ll see the flash of magic from me at too great a distance. You can take each of them down in complete silence, and if they are in melee, none of them should be able to Cast on you in return.¡± ¡°You could plot their positions out during the day, share the Visual File with me, and I could move from one to the next with maximum speed,¡± she nodded, the smile she was showing me not at all friendly to anything right now. ¡°Better. You could follow along visually and pick out the path you want to open up. When I get closer to the city and the ground opens up, I could Levitate up and plot out the immediate defenses of the city. ¡°As long as the corpses are in the tall grass and snow as they Burn, it should stop an alarm from being sounded,¡± she agreed. ¡°Also, the bastard is going to be running up and down the river once they stumble over the white zones, if they can identify them in the snow.¡± All the blood would be vivisized, too, after all. ¡°The weapons left behind will be solid clues on what happened... if some of the local tribes don¡¯t realize the opportunity and make off with them.¡± I had the feeling the banderlings would be happy to do so, and I was pretty damn sure I¡¯d been noticed Sharding down the smaller groups of drudges out to expand their territory. Making off with the drudges¡¯ simple weapons was a no-brainer for poor scavengers. ¡°My question to you is... do we want to take the time to be doing this, or do we want to be exploring more and trying to find out where all the humans went to, Kris?¡± She gave me a fierce look at even daring to ask the question, then looked away and grimaced so violently it looked like she was going to rip out something¡¯s throat. Hag faces can get VERY expressive. ¡°One night. We¡¯ll carve a path right up to the walls of the place. You scout it out and set the targets while Invisible, I¡¯ll cut their throats and bury the alarms in Quaver¡¯s Sound Bubble.¡± ¡°Sucks making the smart play and knowing it¡¯s the right play, doesn¡¯t it?¡± I asked softly. ¡°After seeing those dead babies and kids? I just want to slaughter them all. You weren¡¯t looking for it, but I saw the gnaw marks on those bones, Ryin.¡± I grimaced, flicked a look back at it, and yeah, she was right. ¡°Just more meat for their bellies, I see...¡± This wasn¡¯t about genocide now. This was predator and prey, and removing one from the other. As natural a rivalry as existed. If they ate humans, Kris would hunt them down to the last cub, and I wouldn¡¯t blame her for doing so. We made fantastic war on everything that preyed on humans back on Terra-Luna, and our own instincts on that matter were finely honed. It wouldn¡¯t even be a bad thing. If they could have raised something better out of the ashes of humans falling, even Good couldn¡¯t fault them for racial enmity, and even forgiven them the barbarism of feeding upon us. It was clear there was precious little development occurring, if any, and their morals certainly weren¡¯t improving. That their boss liked magic mushrooms was probably not in their favor, either. The hunting bands would have been called back by the alarm horns, and would notice some of them hadn¡¯t heard anything, and had not returned by the dusk. Someone would go out to investigate, and probably find the white areas which would fade rapidly by Natural Renewal/dawn. If the Killer Drudge had an ego, and it probably did, it might just go on a rampage looking for who was responsible. The fact a human had been seen in the ruins of what might just have been the capital for the Aluvian immigrants on this world would probably be one of those moments about the horrible humans coming back to kill them all. Which, since a bunch of them were already dead, wasn¡¯t that far off the truth. ------ Dusk fell. I moved through the night, as Princess Kristie Rantha stalked a hundred yards back from me, marking who and what I marked as I drifted past them. She was unseen and quiet inside her Sound Bubble as she glided above the snow. Behind me the random sounds of Summons moving around went silent, while unwhite flames Burned inside the deep grasses and brush and atop white snows where they would not be seen, the Summons points also vivified and their replacements never going to appear. Drudges were moving warily along the river to the west of us, some of them bearing torches just in case, while the simmering pull of the unseen Killer Drudge was prowling along the river on its east side, looking and hoping for trouble. Kris was clearing a path two hundred yards wide behind me, moving as fast and lethally as a ghost, the death cries of her victims, if they happened, contained within her Sword¡¯s Sound Bubble. She had my ears to hear anything happening outside the Bubble, and with her own sounds completely concealed, she was moving with speed and surety from victim to victim, the Summons going down quickly and violently. Something flying overhead might have noted the soft white flames Burning on the Summons points, but only for a short while, the vivic stains clearing up much more swiftly since all that was Burning was ectoplasm. The wind soon started covering the Summons spots over with blowing snow, erasing all evidence. True bodies would have a much more lasting impression. Quaver harvested them, and behind us, more silence followed. The drudges weren¡¯t strong enough to get anything off magically on her, and their screams went unheard. They perished, one after another, as I watched the nearest Summons sharply to make sure there were no further surprises. Kris had done some very basic Runework on my new Staff, enough to get it to serve as a basic Implement. Her carving tools were her claws, which were perfectly functional for the job, and far more subtle than any but the most enchanted knives. At one point she was shaving off layers so thin I could see through them, raising the Quality Level up, up, up, and doing it without real effort, not even looking at what she was working with. Ah, so convenient have a higher-Level Null around. She had basically a bottomless hole of Karma sinks, however, soooo many Eternal-class Stat raises and special abilities to buy, and limited in how much effective ¡®bio-magic¡¯ she could produce a day. Which didn¡¯t bother me, as I had the same kind of limitations, plodding along when Mira wanted to hit all of the buttons right now and shoot to a level of power that would have made us a living legend back on Ispar. The deep of the night moved towards light in the east, and the killing continued. AF Chapter 37 – Cash Flow Problems It was a tribute to just how fast she could move, and how swift and ruthless in her killing that Princess Kristie Rantha was, that we made it to the inner circle of drudges within only a couple hours. They didn¡¯t seem to have any internal patrols out among the Summons to check on them, the icy night winds being what they were, and they were counting on the Summons themselves to be their screeching alarms. Kris simply opted to keep going, slaughtering to the west and widening the approach zone as we moved away from the river. I did hear several echoing screeches humming along in the manafield, relayed that to her, and we both took satisfied looks that way as the drudges stumbled across yet another site of the dead. Kris didn¡¯t even break stride, going after the marginally tougher, yet still quick-to-die from being throat-slit, drudges that were in her area. Over the course of the night, she ran at least thirty miles moving back and forth from target to target, while I threaded my way between them and scouted the way for her, making sure there were no surprises. Unsurprisingly, none of the local wildlife larger than rodents wanted to risk setting off the Summons, as well as it being effing cold and not wanting to tromp around in the snows, and so nothing dangerous got in my way. The area seemed to be partially asleep with the Summons removed, with few creatures roving around in the night for food. A naturalist would have had a field day with the alternate evolution that had gone on here, especially with the shreth and reedsharks... as well as the phyntos wasps and aggressive Fey zefir. Then again, how much of it was real, and how much of it was artificial, given the extreme amount of magic that had been used in this place? --- We stopped two hours before the dawn, as the growing shadows might give away the slaughter that had gone on. During that time, Princess Kristie had slaughtered over a thousand drudge Summons on their little circles, their little circles were vivified with them, and the dots on the white landscape were being blown over now. There was a huge gaping swathe of Summons points completely absent on the landscape now, which would become quite obvious in the morning light when the drudges stirred themselves. That Killer Drudge would no doubt be incensed, but that was its problem, not ours. We were now zipping around the western edge of the Drudge Summons, Kris lightfooting it above the snow effortlessly, leaving no tracks, no warbands out far enough to see us yet, moving to return to the lake shore, see what would be seen, and see where the waters led. I¡¯d made an argument for the road east, and she thought it over, then shook her head. ¡°If they ran, the most natural place they¡¯d run to would be to follow the waters upstream to the mountains, or downstream to the sea. That trail of olthoi Summons you saw ran mostly north, I don¡¯t think they¡¯d go racing into the hands of the big bugs. That leaves downstream. There should be other settlements along the waters on the way, and maybe clues will come with it. ¡°If not, we¡¯ll discover part of the lay of the land. The river will eventually hit a lake, or a sea, and we can start circumnavigating the continent or island, whatever we find ourselves on. ¡°There should be some sign somewhere...¡± Hopefully, we both thought. So far, the incredible number of deaths we were seeing were not proving encouraging. ¡°If it takes long enough, I can throw a Scrying high enough in the air to get an overview of where we are, at the least.¡± ¡°That would be incredibly helpful,¡± Kris nodded as we skated along, arcing back towards the east now. ¡°Given the amount of magic we¡¯ve seen casually on display, I¡¯m not at all confident of what we¡¯re going to see,¡± I admitted. ¡°Look at that lake, it should be totally frozen over. There should be lines of ice mounded up along the shores from wave action.¡± We were coming up on it, and she frowned as we wove between Summons, or cut them down in passing. ¡°Yeah, yeah, we both noticed it. You probably didn¡¯t notice it, but when I was in the water and it was trying to get past my Vajra, it was freezing over when it hit my Null. I was constantly moving so it wasn¡¯t visible, and it melted again as soon as it hit the river again.¡± ¡°Well, now we know it isn¡¯t super-high Caster Level, just super broad ritual stuff.¡± Else it would have acted normally in her Null, instead of being neutralized. ¡°What¡¯s your Null at? 35ish?¡± She sighed and shook her head. ¡°Yes. That is really annoying, you know.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sitting on a +27 Null and calling a Caster annoying to her face?¡± I just looked at her incredulously. ¡°I prefer abject terror and soul-gripping fear from a great many of the Casters I have to interact with, thank you,¡± she sniffed unapologetically, and I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Immunity to Casters below Fifteen who don¡¯t have a lot of Spell Penetration boosts is not an excuse!¡± I just huffed at her. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°You¡¯re Casting Shards at a base Fifteen as a Three. With Spell Penetration, and True Casting. So, 85% chance to affect me with Shards?¡± she shot right back. ¡°Uh-huh. You think I don¡¯t know you can spellcut them? What¡¯s it take for you to hit a 26? A negative number, right?¡± Caster level + Spell Level was the AC a Forsaken needed to hit to swat a spell coming at them out of existence offensively. Her teeth flashed again. ¡°Damn, it¡¯s so nice to have someone around who understands proper defensive measures!¡± she said cheerfully. ¡°That being said, I¡¯ll use this to start on a protective Amulet for you today.¡± I held up the simple golden chain with a stylized pendant. ¡°I¡¯ll slowly work in a five-way Lead-grade Protection for you, and we can upgrade as we go.¡± I hesitated, and shrugged. ¡°I can agglomerate Force as an overarching Protection that includes the effects of the default Bludgeon, Slashing, and Piercing attack energies, but that¡¯s still going to be five different sets of spells, marching on up the scale in effectiveness. Even if I get them to Gold, that¡¯s 45k each in resonance on one item!¡± I warned her. With it silently left unspoken that there might be two tiers higher than that! ¡°I shouldn¡¯t need Fire or Lightning,¡± she said after a moment, glancing at it thoughtfully. ¡°But that¡¯s still a lot of goldweight...¡± ¡°Amusingly enough, these coins are worth one gold apiece, doubled if making something with Air involved.¡± I tossed one in the air, let it settle back onto its pile with a clink. ¡°It might not surprise you, but there were a lot of them strewn around the city over there, I just didn¡¯t want to risk exposing myself by going and digging them all out. Too easy to be seen.¡± She slowed down perceptibly. ¡°We have cash flow issues, so this is important. How much money are we talking about?¡± ¡°At an absolute minimum? A hundred thousand, I didn¡¯t go searching all the places. My guess is that the human population was massacred before they could move their wealth away, and the drudges don¡¯t have much use for the coins except as baubles. There could be millions, scattered all over the place, the wealth of what was once a major town or city.¡± ¡°They didn¡¯t seem to have much alternative currency. Coins are lousy in large denominations. I imagine they started using paper currency like back home?¡± ¡°All decayed or ruined by now, if they were left laying around. There might be some left in storage somewhere, but I¡¯m imagining their eventual use was stuffing and insulation for beds and litters.¡± Her face twisted into a scowl as she slowed to a halt in some brush, the nearest Summons an adult deep brown-crimson Blood Shreth forty yards away and ignoring us for the moment. ¡°You¡¯re Casting a Disk at, what? Nine, now?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°So, that¡¯s 450k of these Air Gold coins. That¡¯s a lot of Investing and Infusing. The amount of money we need to spend for basic defensive gear already eats up that entire amount. Just the amount you have there we can run through in what, two days?¡± I inclined my head. ¡°You want to stay a day or two and loot the city clean.¡± Her brilliant violet eyes were hard as amethyst. ¡°And I have no issues with cleaning it right out on all levels.¡± She was challenging me, but I just inclined my head. ¡°There¡¯s no Heavenly defense for them, this is pure natural competition, and it¡¯s not like you¡¯re killing them all everywhere. Going after the females and children isn¡¯t optimal, but it¡¯s not like we are strong enough to hit the elders, and they are definitely breeding quickly under the big one¡¯s protection. That Sound Bubble makes you murder, so we can definitely kill a lot of them, so all I need to do is ramp up Detect Precious Materials and find out the best places to hit.¡± ¡°And the nights are cold and the sentries are not exactly diligent,¡± she noted. She inhaled softly, glaring in the town¡¯s direction, hidden behind the young forest. ¡°I¡¯m a Hag. I can do this. But damn them for making it not the wrong thing to do.¡± ¡°So, we stick around for another day. Good, that makes it easier to get some Investing and Infusing done,¡± I admitted. ¡°I¡¯ll get Amulets started for both of us.¡± ¡°What are you going to take at dawn?¡± she asked. ¡°Soul Warrior.¡± I waved my Staff at her. ¡°I don¡¯t have the Soul to empower Crown and my Mask.¡± ¡°Crown, eh?¡± She lifted an eyebrow, prompting a response. ¡°When I found it, it had three sets of skulls mounted on it. It¡¯s going to be earning some different ones, now.¡± She just nodded at the irony of its Name. ¡°I should be driving more Soul, too. It¡¯s just...¡± she waved her hand in the air. ¡°Karma, right. But if we can harvest Karma off Summons this easily, Leveling should be the least of your worries. Those drudges around that fort were the equals of Ironskull Tens and more,¡± I told her. ¡°You probably just drove Soul Warrior, lots of Soul Feats, and the Masteries to reach the twenty for your Vajra, and were glad to get there?¡± ¡°Yeah. I really, really need to get my Tats up and Energized.¡± I lifted an eyebrow at her. ¡°All the Ranthas come with full sets of Soul Tats ready to be brought out. Just need the Chakras opened and the Karma poured in.¡± ¡°So, priority one the Maulers and Marksmans Gauntlets, and Philosopher¡¯s Might?¡± I asked knowingly. ¡°I¡¯ve received the distinct impression that you can¡¯t have too much damage on the stack here,¡± she admitted. ¡°These bastards have a LOT of Soak or Health Qi to get through.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not arguing with you. I am going to ask if Item Magic stacks with Artifice Magic on your Weapon.¡± ¡°Yes, if it¡¯s a Cast spell. However, trying to make a charged weapon and an Artificed Weapon do NOT go well together. The end result exploded every time Mom and Dad tried. It seemed that the constant enchantments kept feeding into the charged side of things, overloaded them, and blew them apart. ¡°On their own, Artifice Infusions acted on the base weapon and stacked on top. Lasted full duration, too, once on the Weapons, unlike base Buffs did on us.¡± I gave her a speculative eye. ¡°So I could give you a significant damage boost on Quaver there for a short period of time. That¡¯s... good to know when we fight what is basically a video game boss creature.¡± ¡°Given the ridiculous durability of these creatures, I definitely need all the damage I can eke out. Even Mom¡¯s Sagedom isn¡¯t helping me much...¡± she admitted. AF Chapter 38 – The Clearing of Drudgetown ¡°Do you get the full Sagedom?¡± I asked. ¡°That was a huge damage bonus for Sama back on Terra-Luna.¡± ¡°No, it was capped at +1 per Skill, ten skills, on Ispar, for every five Ranks. So, Mom had it up to ten Ranks in ten Skills and was doing +20.¡± I nodded. ¡°Lots of skill points to invest,¡± I noted. ¡°It is. And with limited Karma, it¡¯s a lot harder to go broad once you hit Four. If there¡¯s truly a Karmic Buffet here, I¡¯m going to be going a lot wider...¡± Kris¡¯ face lit up in expectation. ¡°I would say figure on that. Now, let¡¯s find some shelter against the wind, and get to our Infusing and Investing. It waits for nobody!¡± -------- There were plenty of ruined farmhouses and buildings in the area that could provide some wind protection. Neither of us were bothered by the cold at all, so the annoyance of the wind was the only thing to be discomforted by. The Salute to Aru came, and I bit the bullet for Soul Warrior/1. Primary Benefit: 1+ Con Soul Essence points, and one bonus Soul Essence Feat. I had two Soul right now, both invested in my Mask of Clarity basically full time, and I needed to power up Crown, whose Naming Karma had ticked over and was now Einz-Slotted with Soulbound. One of the interesting complications with all the Summons points being around is that it discouraged traveling overland, because you wanted to avoid the Summons, which would always attack, so you¡¯d go between them... which all the non-Summons would be doing in an unpredictable manner, so you¡¯d end up face-to-face with living stuff. If you traveled the roads, you¡¯d get no Summons... but the living creatures had found that out, too, and so the roads tended to be camped and watched, and got a lot more wildlife traffic then they would in normal circumstances because of the damn Summons! Add in our lack of tracks and the cold weather, and we weren¡¯t too afraid of search parties finding us. Even the Summons we did kill, as long as we didn¡¯t vivify them, would pop back up and conceal our backtrail. I weighed all my options on my choices for Paid Feat and Mastery. There were so many things I wanted and needed, especially if I could make them Practical, for free damage boosts, but many of them now required being a Five. I Recast my Dawnstopped Shield and my Extended Force Armor and Disk, debating internally. Mira shuffled through and hit all the progress bars. Invest in Zeks. Invest in Crown. Invest in Mark. Perhaps surprising myself, I picked Polyglot for my Feat. There were too many intelligent species around, speaking too many languages. I didn¡¯t have Comprehend Languages up all the time, and it wasn¡¯t even in my spellbook yet, another thing I had yet to add. I had knowledge of so many classic Elemental and Soulborn languages, and none of them seemed to apply here. Permanency was a ways away, as was Tongues, and really, Aelryinth had taken great pride and satisfaction in learning as many languages as he could, including all the many derivations of human languages he could find. Otherworldly species having languages just perked up my interest even more, as he¡¯d taken pains to learn Goblin, Orc, Gnoll, and other invading species¡¯ languages, among other things. Meeping in their language back at them would probably sound hilarious, but I wanted to know what they were saying. Polyglot would kick in after an hour of listening to them, as I automatically scanned the edges of their akasha. For Masteries, I debated for a moment on which ones, but settled for immediate damage with Fire Metas/1, Burning Spell: When using Acid or Fire spells, the spell does 2xValence damage the next round if it inflicts damage. +1 Meta Cost. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. That didn¡¯t sound like much, until you realized Kickers and Implement damage stacked on top of that. For Cantrips, it was only +1 damage... but that would set off 5d6+2 in Kicker damage, basically almost doubling the power of my Darts. My repeatable spells weren¡¯t going to be instant kills, but things were still going to die, and Sacred Spell¡¯s half-Divine damage meant that fire resistance or immunity wasn¡¯t going to stop it from going off. Just had to make it cost +0 and it would be free on them, but that was fine. I had the free Slots to spare, for now. For Soul Warrior¡¯s bonus Feat, I chose Tough Soul, +1 Soak per Essence point, +1 Essence. The Class ability gave me Soul Essence equal to my Con bonus of +2, +1 per Level, and a Soul Feat every Level, along with automatic graduated Soul Chakra openings. My prior 2 Essence joined my new +4 for 6 total, leaving two Essence uninvested as I quietly poured two points into Crown, two stayed in my Mask, and my Staff glittered with a hard Golden edge for a moment. Only two Skill points, and I was restricted on what I could take. I finished out the Calligraphy Ranks, raising them to 3, and added a Rank in Dance. This was not standard for a Soul Warrior, but I typically used Dance Ranks with Minstrelry to sub for Athletics and Fly, so the connection was there. It was basically Athletics with rhythm, for all intents and purposes. The magical conditioning made me grit my teeth, as suddenly thousands of hours of practice and conditioning rippled through my entire body, remembered practice on the part of Aelryinth replicating itself and altering itself to fit me. Owowowowowowowowow... and it lasted longer than expected because I wasn¡¯t in great shape to begin with, even with the magical boosts of the last few days. A really quiet hiss extended over from Kris, and I opened my eyes in time to see a blue-black Soul Tat start growing around an electrum point of Light that looked like it had speared right through her palms. It stole quickly over her fingers, palm, and wrist, taking on a hard metallic sheen, like her skin had just been transmuted into metal. ¡°Maulers Gauntlets,¡± I identified them softly. They were the standard Melee boost of Soul Tats. +1 to-hit while wearing them, and a bonus +1 to damage per invested Essence while wearing them. A solid, foundational boost to offensive prowess. ¡°Yeah. Now I¡¯ve just got to take the Chakra Mastery for my hands up.¡± ¡°I¡¯m eight in arrears on Masteries. No preaching allowed, Princess!¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah, I know. One Mastery a day is just annoying. I should have my Cloudstepping Sandals tomorrow.¡± ¡°Not going to double up with Marksmans?¡± I asked archly. ¡°It won¡¯t stack with Maulers for Sharding, and I¡¯ve no other missile weapons,¡± she pointed out, and I inclined my head at her point. ¡°I¡¯ve got to take Soul Warrior up until I get my Arms Chakra open for Philosopher¡¯s Might, too.¡± ¡°Ohhh, you did get to take a Level!¡± I was impressed. ¡°I think it was cutting into the senior Drudges on the second half of the sweep that did it,¡± she admitted. ¡°I have a huge Karma hole, of course, but if I don¡¯t apply it ALL... I¡¯m reasonably certain that I¡¯m doing okay.¡± I thought about that. ¡°Why do I have that feeling that blocking the Summons points is worth a lot more than just killing the things?¡± She blinked at that. ¡°Makes sense. Logically, we¡¯re cutting of a Karma flow for a higher cause. It should be worth a lot more, even if it¡¯s not that much effort, because it IS a choice.¡± ¡°On the flip side, those are some nasty drudges closer to that fort, and if you¡¯re allowed to confront and kill them multiple times, that is some major Karma just on the face of it,¡± I pointed out thoughtfully. ¡°No. I would love to, but if we go after them, we¡¯re stopping each point in its tracks and isolating the bastard inside.¡± She paused a moment. ¡°Those balloons up above are Summons too, right?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I confirmed. ¡°They are hovering in place, they are not showing signs of wear and tear, and they aren¡¯t bobbing around or juking in the wind or with the temperatures. They are basically flying platforms for the drudges inside them.¡± ¡°And they are invisible from over a couple miles away. Very strange.¡± She just shook her head at the same fact that I¡¯d noticed. ¡°I¡¯d like you to shoot them down. They are a point of pride for him.¡± I considered that, and just nodded after a moment. ¡°It is certainly something we can dispose of. I imagine they are an ersatz alarm with a wider proc zone, and start shooting at anything close to the walls. I don¡¯t know about immediately... I think we should focus on our wiping of the Killer¡¯s living supporters before we worry about Summon points which will be around until we get to them.¡± She agreed after a moment. ¡°Okay, then, let¡¯s finish up our Infusing, and then you can do spell practice while I circle the area looking for interesting things.¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan.¡± AF Chapter 39 – A Grim and Unwanted Deed There had been agitation and horns blowing in the distance. Warbands of drudges had loudly and openly paraded around the edges of their borderguard of Summons, looking for absences and practicing on the random Summons just beyond the edges of their territory. Scouts wandered around and found nothing, not wanting to move too far alone and go missing. A dozen of their little squads went missing, anyway. All in different areas, all in teams, even if they were the weakest and most eager drudges volunteering for the jobs, ready to show themselves to be strong and perhaps get themselves promoted. Nobody saw anything or heard anything, and with no humans working the lands and fields, the amount of scrub and brush around had exploded, interfering with line of sight. There were no tracks or scents, either. The scouts vanished into the cold of the white, brown, and black, and were gone. With a reviled human being seen after so many years in their former town, this was naturally quite alarming. Humans had driven off drudges and claimed territory from them for many years. Only the most powerful of them being slaughtered en masse by their own horrible and corrupting magic had allowed them to rise up and fight back, slaughtering the humans who fought back, and driving them forth as they themselves had once been forced to flee. But that had been years ago. Humans, humans could grow to be powerful! While their God and Great Heroes were also powerful... bands of humans had been known to kill even him, and many of their kind had been able to kill the champions of their people! Furthermore, this was a new kind of fighting. This was hunting and stalking, and not the overwhelming arrogance and power of the old tales. It spoke of fear, but also of cunning... and it was deadly. As for arrogance, the invaders had Burned down their memorials of the dead, including the seething pits that had torn their immortality from the humans, and had even Burned down the great mounds of olthoi corpses from when the alien bugs had thought they could overcome their God. Even the carcass of the olthoi queen¡¯s steel-hard carapace had crumbled down to the same unnerving white dust, leaving whiteness behind which faded to new green growth the next day. Not even the least scrap of bone was left of any of the bodies the misting flames Burned upon. The new magic was strange and unnerving. If the scouts could vanish in the daytime, what then at night? So, the drudges fled back into their city, with some unlucky fellows setting up camp on the great swath that had been cut into their mighty ring of guardian Summons, so that none could pass through it. In the cold and night, the drudges took shelter in the homes and basements of the buildings that had once belonged to humans, clinging together to stay warm in crude furs and blankets sometimes remaining from those self-same humans. And in that darkness, death flowed into the city. --- A Sound Bubble was not Silence. It prevented sounds from passing through it, so those outside and inside it could not hear one another, but it was not the sudden blanket silence that could hamper many Casters. It was still ideal for taking out sentries and those resting. A dimming of sound was not the same as not even being able to hear yourself breathe, and a lull in the wind not the same as sudden absolute quiet. Also, if your victim did manage to wake and scream, they would think help was coming, and might not run away. That helped them die content that they had revealed an enemy even if they died, and Princess Kristie Rantha was more than happy to let them die clinging to that empty hope. The job of a sentinel isn¡¯t to catch a foe, stop a foe, or the like. It is to raise the alarm. Anything beyond that was a bonus. Turning that against them was why Kris had chosen it for her Sword effect, instead of the default Light effect. If she wanted a glowing Sword, she could make it Flaming or something... Also, Quaver was Shadowslaked, and did not create noise when it cut into things or banged into them, unless she wanted to. This was grim work, and Kris hated doing it. Unfortunately for the drudges, seeing the gnawed bones of the dead humans here had completely eclipsed her revulsion, and left her one of the Mitharn Proverbs to fall back on: Return the honor you are given. If they wanted to slaughter civilians and children and feast on the dead, then by all that was holy, she was going to Feed them to the Land, and the Land was going to eat damn well this night. She had her new mage companion up top (A PoT warmage! The idea of a bondmage was getting more and more palatable! Her mom would be so envious!) with Detect Non-Good up and working, sweeping around and able to pick out each and every soul within every structure, how many, how powerful, approximate location... Her Tremblesense gave her perfect footing and local awareness of everything around her, allowing her to move with great speed and assurance, figuring out the layout of buildings and rooms and scrap and where the living were like her own personal mapping function. She had infravision and ultravision and low-light vision and Devilsight, and the darkness of the night didn¡¯t slow her down in the slightest. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Bane to Drudges was being fed in the night as the Ruby Blade on Quaver began to quietly reap them. They couldn¡¯t hear her coming, they didn¡¯t see her moving or ghosting between the various buildings, entering through doors that couldn¡¯t be truly barred, or sliding through windows, even dropping through holes in the roof if appropriate. Ryin¡¯s ears were her external alarm, so she focused on her task of killing everything and everyone, and quietly Feeding them all to the Land. Eight canines gleamed in the night, and she fought down the urge to see how they tasted in return, images of gnawed and marrow-broken tiny bones drifting past her mind¡¯s eye. Males, females, young, old... Quaver made no noise to proclaim her presence, not liking the task any more than she, but knowing it needed to be done. If they wanted to act like animals, they would be harvested like them. That¡¯s all there was to it. As she worked, Air Gold coins, as well as occasional precious stones and jewelry, often broken by careless hands or feet, was pulled out of corners and dirt and trash, came up out of cracks and crevices and hiding spots, and clattered quietly to Disks waiting to accept them. Reclaiming the discarded wealth of humans to be used by humans. Some drudges did wake up, by chance or instinct. Some were still awake. Some were asleep, and died quietly and painlessly. But die they did. The blood was only there for a moment, before the vivus started consuming it, not leaving any gore or corpses behind to freeze in the cold and create any kind of macabre monument to the slaughter, or release a hanging scent of slaughter to draw attention from bipeds or beasts. No monuments to death. Just whiteness that would fade at Natural Renewal. Unseen crimson flashed Ruby in the night, and the Land fed well... ------- Invisible, Disks stacking up and staying out of line of sight, I kept watch for surprises. Occasionally one of the drudges came wandering around in the night for some purpose, and might have stumbled into the quiet houses. Kris came out of the shadows and planted Quaver deep into vital tissues that she had learned a great deal about slaughtering hundreds of Summons emulating living things, one after another. Its dying meep was caught inside the Sound Bubble as she dragged the drudge off into the shadows with strength completely outside her build and mass would deem possible. No random wandering drudges came randomly through the silent areas where drudges were now doing far more than sleeping. I stacked up coins, kept invisible watch, and watched Kris¡¯ shadow wander into and out of the ruined and decaying homes. There were only occasional sounds and mewing when she went in, little dots of non-Good souls apparent in my senses glowing there. And then they winked off, one by one, sometimes all of them in just a breath. I exhaled in distaste. Not for Kris, doing what she must. No, for the drudges doing what they had, for not taking a higher road, building up a road of cooperation in the apocalypse that had happened. Making alliances would have done absolute wonders for everyone involved, and likely would have immediately raised the drudges right out of tribalism into the start of their own civilization. Whatever their god of a drudge was, he had done them a great disservice, and now it was yawning open into potential oblivion. Long-term implications weren¡¯t good. Co-existence was a valid thing, but when the drudges had unleashed this slaughter, they had basically screamed the fact that they wouldn¡¯t coexist with humans at all. Return the honor you are given. Absolute slaughter from a rival species would be met with great fervor and inventiveness by humans. I didn¡¯t want to go to war on the living... but I had no wish to aid these drudges at all. Goddamn natural competitiveness and savagery having its day when given the opportunity... ------ We were out of there well before dawn. Behind us, the outer three-quarters of the former capitol city of the local Aluvians, if that was indeed what the place was. There were no sentries alive to react to us, having been expeditiously removed ahead of time in her grim tour around the outsides. So, out of sight of anything that might see us, we also removed all the defensive spawns on our way out. ¡°Ryin.¡± Kris pointed as I followed her with half a dozen Disks piled high with pale green coins bearing their new crest of Aluvian origins and a woman¡¯s silhouette. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± I blinked and looked over at a mound at the beach, covered with snow. It sprawled around rather crazily, a randomly shaped hill. ¡°A mound? Is there something special about it to you?¡± ¡°Remember the olthoi nest back then? There are cracks radiating through the ground similar to that that occurred around the olthoi nest. Sand has filled them in, but there was ground displacement of significant volume here.¡± I looked at the mound. ¡°There was a similar mound located along the shores of the river just south of the town. I didn¡¯t know it was important, thought it might be a barrow or something at best.¡± ¡°You said these could involve dimensional interdiction of existing extraspatial pockets forcibly shunted back into normal space.¡± ¡°Indeed.¡± ¡°Curious about what is inside?¡± She glided around the thing, and indeed, there was a gaping entry into the place. I switched over to Vatic Gaze, and lifted my eyebrows. ¡°Kris, there¡¯s a ley line convergence here, just like back north in the henge.¡± I followed the three lines here, moving along the lake and also off to the west... presumably towards the fortress over there with its odd wards. ¡°Why would a former extraspatial pocket have a henge inside it? That¡¯s... just insane. You¡¯re sucking magic out of the normal world into an extradimensional pocket, venting and wasting tons of it, practically waving a sign in the aether that you¡¯re present there, come tap into us...¡± ¡°Want to see what is inside?¡± ¡°We¡¯d have to dig through the snow and let them know we went inside. I would prefer not to right now. Let¡¯s get some distance, rest, Salute Aru, and get our Infusing done. I¡¯m marking it as a point of interest to return to in the future.¡± ¡°When we can kill the fucker.¡± ¡°Aye, Princess.¡± AF Chapter 40 – Running South It hadn¡¯t quite reached dawn when we came upon the shattered tower in the blast crater a few miles south of town along the shore. It wasn¡¯t immediately discernible as a blast crater, because sections of it had washed out and flooded, creating a lagoon about the thing. But Kris confirmed that there was blast damage underfoot, it had taken out a good chunk of the beachfront and made a little inlet, showcasing an incredible explosive force. The tower looked like a great carved ox horn or long cone, all black and red and in sections that had fallen apart when it smashed into the ground, most of it still sticking above the waves. There was visible blast damage on it, but not enough to really damage it. Most of the damage seemed to have been conduits of magical power burning out. Kris looked at me, I looked at her, and she pointed at me. ¡°It was flying, right?¡± I asked helplessly. ¡°Yes. Upside-down horn. There¡¯re no foundations or anything nearby from it falling over, and it hit the ground point-first, then fell sideways.¡± There were fell energies radiating from the thing, things woven of darkness and blood magic. ¡°Your expertise. The shades?¡± she asked calmly. ¡°99%. If not, something so closely allied with them, or of the same power but opposed.¡± I eyed the water below us she was standing on. ¡°No muck or algae or anything in the water. Nothing wants to grow here.¡± ¡°I can believe it. Anything valuable?¡± ¡°There¡¯s... crystals built into the structure that channel magical energy, they are pinging me. But we¡¯d have to reduce the stone down, and that stone has massive Shadow, Earth, and Air biases of its own.¡± ¡°Vivus?¡± she asked, and I considered that, and so fired off a couple Darts at it. The impacts sent Holy Banefire flames laded with vivus swirling over the side of it. A blot of whiteness crawled across the blackness of the stones for a moment, licking at it and finding stuff to enjoy, before the mists fell away and it petered out. ¡°If I could get inside the stone to the conduits, where the residual energies remain, I could probably grind it down with a lot of work. Can Quaver carve it?¡± She drew and cut in an eyeblink. Black stone protested with a squeal that sounded more organic than lithic, a long, narrow slice appearing in the surface of the thing, vivus skirling over it and painting it white in seconds, and then the unwhite flames petered out as well. She put her other hand on the hilt, and cut back, shimmering resonances of force around the Blade this time, and the squeal of protest was much louder and deeper this time as she completed the stroke. ¡°Hardness of 30,¡± she judged calmly, Quaver spinning and shrinking and sheathed behind her as the vivus on the newer cut lasted about a minute longer before petering out. ¡°Breaking, Sundering, and Bane to Constructs, and that¡¯s all I did.¡± She smiled winsomely at it. ¡°Good punching bag!¡± She actually gave it a pat, and I was pretty sure that she intended to come back here and reduce the thing to crushed junk through sheer bull-headed determination. I scanned the sides, and pointed silently. She glanced that way, and glided down towards the spike-like tip of the thing, towing me on my Disk after her, and with me the other Disks with our haul of Air Gold coins heaped up on them. Something had tried clawing at the outside of the spike, hundreds of parallel claw marks crisscrossing it back and forth in narrow, frenzied cuts and slices. They didn¡¯t appear to have done much real damage. Kris reached out to put a hand on the rounded surfaces. ¡°They¡¯re fixing themselves, aren¡¯t they?¡± I asked, and she nodded. ¡°It would be a lot faster if there was active energy pumping through the system, but it¡¯s just leeched, passive effects here, very slow. The cuts I made won¡¯t heal, as the vivus Burned at the residues, but these eventually will.¡± She stepped back to look at the thing again. ¡°So, with enough power, these things could actually be fixed up, reassembled, and this tower could fly again.¡± I eyed it with distaste. ¡°As good a reason as any to make sure it never does that,¡± she agreed. ¡°Nine will get you ten that if we camped it, I¡¯d bet there¡¯s regular pilgrimages of shades who come by it, treating it as a shrine.¡± ¡°No bets. You want to camp out inside? There are like NO tracks of drudges anywhere near this, and I bet you want to examine the internal power structures as much as I want to inspect the physical side.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want to sleep here, but that¡¯s fine.¡± The psychic residue of the blood and souls that had powered up this thing naturally still lingered in the stone. ¡°Give me a design, and I¡¯ll carve out a Teleport Focus for you. You can use the henge back at our entry point, but this would be a good self-empowering Focus, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s a very good idea,¡± I agreed promptly. The lived-lining around was very necessary to expand my guaranteed Teleport range. We weren¡¯t that far from the city, maybe four or five miles, but there was no sign of what direction we¡¯d left in, anyway. I heavily doubted that after losing three-quarters of their population in one night they were going to have any incentives to go out and patrol the area, opening themselves up to more Rantha shenanigans. The Salute to Aru and a new day was coming. Let¡¯s see if they enjoyed the taste of the blood on it. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ------- Karma to Zeks. Karma to Mark. Karma to Crown. Hit them Isparian buttons. Pick a Class, a Feat, a Mastery, pay for a Soak, a Health point towards maximum. Sorcerer/4. Set Primary Class to Sorcerer! More Spell Slots! More Spells Known! Favored Class bonuses of Extra Spell Known and +1 Soak! +1 to Intellect, mirrored by Sustained Effort to +1 Dex as well! More bonus Slots and Spell Engrams for Wizard! Chosen Feat was Legendary Artisan, -25% time needed to Infuse, down to six hours from eight, giving me more time to do rep counts. Opened up the Artificing Artisan Mastery tree. Chosen Mastery was Elemental Mastery/1: Fire. Something rumbled dangerously inside me... on the Isparian side of the Equation, as suddenly the ability to change any Elemental damage default spell to Fire had some impressive connotations, establishing a link between ALL my Elemental damage on all my spells. This was important because there were plenty of per-die and fixed-effect damage boosts by both spell dice and spell level... and although it looked like fixed damage ranges, the Isparian War Magic actually had both, not just spell level. Level 1 Isparian War Magic was 15-30... which in Matrix terms was 5-20 +10. Level 2 was 25 to 50, which was 5-30+20 or so. 3¡¯s were 40-80, or 8-48+32. 4¡¯s were 50-100, or 10-60+40 or so. By simply applying the spell as accumulated blots of damage, instead of one big swingy load of it, I made the swingy damage much more predictable, AND opened it up for per-dice boosters. By applying the Cold Descriptor to the spells, done free with Snowcasting, the magic drew on the chill, pure power of Cold and gained +2 per die from me, even if the damage type didn¡¯t change. By applying the Good Descriptor via Sacred Spell, and Good Spell Focus thereby, Power in the Blood activated off the Spell Focus, and I gained another +1 per die. A +15 to +30 damage boost wasn¡¯t small, and much better than the +2 to +8 from a +Spell Level effect. The same per-die damage was also boosting all my Shards, too, of course, but unlike most Isparian magic, I could apply multiple Elements to my Shards. I had a lot more Masteries I needed to take. Born of Two Thunders would allow me to add the Lightning and Thunder Descriptors to any spell... including Isparian spells, once I took Lightning Elemental Mastery. Then Lightning damage boosters would also apply to everything. Stacking Metas, so much to do!... But tomorrow was going to be big, as I was going to bite the bullet and take Sorcerer/5, grab my Exemplar Surge, and start grabbing Wizardry spells of all kinds and types for emergencies. After that, it was Mystic Theurge Levels, so I could copy Divine Spells to my Ring, pull them for emergencies, and use them in my Primary Matrix, instead of my Wisdom bonus Slots only. And then... Archwizardry and Archsorcery, doubling up Spell Slots and Spell Engrams for fun and profit! So, my next week was all planned out, leaving me ever further behind on potential Masteries to take. ------ We both Infused and Invested in what we needed to. Kris opened up her Foot Tats, I worked on the Amulet for her, Air Gold coins Burning away as the power within them was sucked away to lock in the magic for her. Only having to do three types was good, and furthermore restricting them to the magically-powered end of things would also help. She should be able to handle the physical combat side of things, and the magic didn¡¯t want to bind into the Amulet with purely physical sources that way. I gathered that was something for Damage Reduction and Energy Resistance to take care of. With my new Artificing Feat, I got done before she did, and used the opportunity to do my two hours of dozing while she worked, which she swapped off with me once she finished up her Tats initializing. I then did rep counts until she woke up, noted to her I needed almost an hour more practice before Force Reserve could come online. Then I could start on Wierding Energize down from +II to +I on my I Valences, at the same rate of speed. Right now I had natural Mana Renewal at a point a minute. In Aurora Stance, my +21 juiced that to 3 a minute. Silver Mana Renewal working increased that to 9 a minute, +50% per Valence. Cantrip-conversion was .5 a cycle, or 1 per twelve seconds, or 5 a minute. 14 mana a minute wasn¡¯t anywhere near as good as standing in that henge, but it did allow me to shoot 14 II¡¯s off of pure Force Magic, replace them for 20 mana each, and then get all that mana back in twenty minutes. So, I was getting roughly 40 II¡¯s an hour in rep counts, and I needed 200 Valences thereof to activate Force Reserve. Force Reserve I would be my Feat for the morning. There were three Force Reserve Feats: one created an endlessly usable Force Dart, doing a d6 in damage/highest Valence of Force Magic held in memory, essentially a more powerful Cantrip with greater range. The second version of the Feat basically popped up a Force Disk for ten minutes at a time, without the full utility of the spell version, only an increasing weight limit and always staying close. It was a convenient way of bringing one up on demand and not having one hanging around all the time. The third version was basically forming a supplemental force blade around whatever weapon I used for additional damage = 1+1 per Valence, an alternative method of changing the damage type between Bludgeon, Pierce, or Slashing if you didn''t have the Feats to do the same. None of the Metas or Kickers applied to a Reserve Force Dart, only Implement boosts or passives, like Argent Savant Mastery giving +1/die of damage to all Force effects. Even Shardcasting bonuses didn¡¯t apply, as there was no Casting. The effect was more akin to a monster¡¯s Spell-Like Ability than anything else. What it was to me was a doubling of my Matrix Conversion rate, as each Force Dart was more powerful than a Cantrip, technically equal to a minimal powered Valence I in terms of efficacy. So, it should immediately jump my Conversion from .5 a cycle to 1, which meant 5/minute would become 10/minute in extra mana. 19 a minute was 0 to a full Mana Pool in only fifteen minutes. That was pretty important, given how many rep counts I had ahead of me. I also wanted to be able to apply my Metas to the Isparian side of the equation, using the same exact principles as the Matrix side. However, the War Magic on the Isparian side was basically one spell, Elemental Bolt, which was then Sculpted into other forms or Raised to a new Valence. Basically, the only things that changed were the damage and the manifestation of the magic. Nothing was Caster Level-based at all, but I was aiming to change that. Mira was quite excited at the possibilities of doubling the range and duration of Isparian Magic, among other things, and being able to invoke it without words, gestures, or components was a godsend. The fact that Mana Conversion should really help chew through the reps was also very encouraging... and led me to wonder if it could be applied to refilling Valences. What about Boosting Mana?, I suddenly thought, all the lightbulbs going off. If I could give mana to others, certainly I could give it to myself, right? Even if it was only a Valence at a time! AF Chapter 41 – Different Magic Systems Feeding One Another I also still needed my Gold spells, as I was 100% sure I could get them all off now. Applying Metas for free to Isparian magic, applying Mana Conservation to refilling Valences. Ohhhhh, the implications thereof... Just being able to use Metas on Isparian Magic would have turned me into one of the most powerful Casters alive back on Ispar. Add in the versatility of Matrix magic, and yeah, things would have been quite incredible there. Feats, Masteries, and Rep Counts vs. Mana Conversion. What a pleasant situation to be in! I was so excited about discovering a potential workaround that I blew through my II Slots and immediately targeted those Valences, instead of my Mana Pool, with a Boost Mana. On Ispar, the spell was vastly inferior to the Transfer spells, which started at, for instance, one-half of current Stamina being turned 75% to mana, your Stamina often close to 200. So even as a Lead spell, you could easily get 75 mana back in one Casting, for a spell that only cost 10 mana normally, and could be next to nothing with high enough Mana Conversion. The more powerful versions increased the % transferred quickly, rapidly reaching over 100%. A Boost Mana was basically ¡®healing¡¯ your Mana Pool instead of your Health. It could also be seen as a ¡®working¡¯ Mana Renewal, where you were leveraging your Mana Conversion against the results of the spell. If your Conversion wasn¡¯t good enough, at best you¡¯d be on par, and more likely you¡¯d lose mana with every Casting. It was a good way to practice Mana Conversion, however, as it truly minimized the actual Cost of each and every spell... More importantly, it had a variable range in what it ¡®healed¡¯... which meant it was a multi-die effect, which meant per-die bonuses could accrue! Most importantly, from the standpoint of magic, it was a Healing effect. After all, the effect could also be targeted on others, restoring their Mana Pools by spending your own, just like Cast Spells could. That meant Augment Healing kicked in, as well as the Healing Domain. +2 per Spell Level, and automatic Energizing at some later point would both apply. That... might even allow the spell to override the restrictions on self-Boosting! The effect might be terribly limited next to the Transfer spells, but what did I care? Anything that enhanced my Mana Renewal rate was fine by me! Because the amount of Mana needed to restore Valences was fixed, I had to restore 10 mana to restore a I Valence, and 20 to Boost a II. 6-10, 11-20, 16-30, 26-50 for Lead, Iron, Copper, and Silver spells, respectively. 2d3+4, 3d4+8, 5d4+10, and 8d4+18. Apply the Good and Cold descriptors, +3/die. Augment Healing, +2 per Spell Level. +8, +13, +21, and +32 mana respectively! Cold and Sacred energies swirled around me as I fed a Boost of each matched Valence into it. Lead into I, Iron into II, Copper into III. I had no problems meeting the minimums to fill them with each spell, and the Converted cost was waaaaay less than the 10xValence needed to fill them! The sensation was bracing, invigorating, like a cold and serene snowstorm falling into the Valences and filling them up with serene harmony and joy. 200 mana worth of Slots was filled back up in less than two minutes, for a net cost of 40 on my end. But would the extra translate back in above the limit? I dutifully applied the boost right to my Mana Pool, using a Silver Boost. Mana conduit established, Mana Conversion kicks in and reduces the cost, Mana Pool goes down, comes back up... and the fixed bonus overlays the natural ¡®return¡¯ stop point, flooding 32 extra points of cold and harmonious singing mana into my Pool, just a few shy of full. I resisted the urge to jump in the air and whoop for joy. It was far more active and would take longer than the Transfer spells, but I had a workaround, courtesy of Feats from the Matrix side of things! I could now recharge each Valence for basically one-third the normal 10x or so cost or less, and recharge my Mana Pool at up to 32 points a cycle, a rapid refill compared to Meditation. It wasn¡¯t 600 reps an hour, but I should be able to hit 200 or more in anything, especially if my Mana Conversion was humming along properly, and I was definitely Buffing it and keeping it going. Four to five hours of work, and I could get Energized and Split Ray both down to +I. Ah, it was a good day! -------- ¡°Got two more additions to the sapient species roster for you.¡± I had to roll my eyes at Kris¡¯ remark as she glided back in to where I was practicing not long before dusk. ¡°Seriously? How many sapient races are there around this place? It just isn¡¯t that big...¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°There¡¯s a purple-skinned race that sort of look like some depictions of hobgoblins. Elf-like, fanged mouths, armored up adequately. The other I thought was some type of ogre by its build at first, but... the thing had three eyes, all lined up vertically.¡± I blinked. ¡°Well,¡± I managed to say. ¡°That¡¯s impressive. Is there some special benefit to that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, but they attacked like barbarians or berserkers as Summons, so I¡¯m not expecting great things from them. All crude furs and leathers, and clubs or fists, too. Also, they started at a foot taller than me.¡± ¡°Eh. That just makes them more fun for you to throw around.¡± Probably to their immense disbelief. Kris just smirked at the comment and the knowing truth behind it. ¡°There are also random Wisps of at least three types around, and minor Elementals manifesting on the Summon spots.¡± ¡°You must have gone a lot farther afield than I did.¡± ¡°Did you see the centipedal rollers?¡± She flicked up a Holo of an armored, segmented creature with a rounded, bullet-like head and jaws, with spikes around its backside. It actually flipped into the air as it charged, becoming a spiked disk that tried to impale Kris, and somehow recovered from being batted aside with remarkable balance and a whipping action of its whole body before Quaver inserted itself deftly between its segments, severed its spine, and it died. ¡°No, I hadn¡¯t,¡± I admitted. ¡°Another weird native creature, or an import like us?¡± ¡°Between the reedsharks, the shreth, and these things, not to mention the wasps, this place is top-heavy on predators, not that it¡¯s that unusual. Oh, and there are wild aurochs from home running around here, gods know how they got here if there are no horses. They somehow amble around without disturbing the Summons, probably because they are herbivores.¡± I¡¯d seen plenty of wild rabbits and chickens running around, so the native predators definitely had some basic prey animals to keep themselves fed. Something had to feed the ursuins! That was good, as feeding on Summons was basically impossible, unless you were into ectoplasm as a food supply. ¡°Oh, the discrimination in the air against innocent omnivores,¡± I sighed dramatically, hand to my head. ¡°Perhaps I should go vegan or something and see if that makes any difference.¡± Kris just rolled her violet eyes. ¡°I say no, but what do I know? Ready to head out and go south?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll work on applying Meta I¡¯s to my Valence II¡¯s as we go,¡± I said happily. ¡°The Mana Boost workaround is soooo much better than I could expect, the Theurgies from the different Traditions are really nice once they start working together!¡± ¡°I think I harvested enough Karma for the trip, but I¡¯m going to make a point of killing any golums we run across, see if we get more of that untreated Air Gold. Other than that, it¡¯s lived-lining, seeing the sights, and following the water.¡± ¡°Did you happen to go out by the Ward underwater?¡± I asked her, and she tilted her head. ¡°I will definitely do that tomorrow,¡± she stated, as I re-upped all the Disks floating around with our coin haul on them, now down fifteen hundred of the things from yesterday. ¡°I¡¯m ready. Let¡¯s go.¡± ------ It was... largely uneventful. We were already beyond the normal hunting area of the drudges, and what scattered living things were around just watched us go by. Kris didn¡¯t swerve aside for any Summons, and I was invited to blast them with whatever I was working on at the moment, too, having my own Naming Karma to harvest. For that reason, she made sure every single Summons along the way was in range of my spells and attacks, and most of them were weak enough that I could take them down without a great deal of effort. This was especially true with Assay II telling me what elemental energies hit them hardest. It wasn¡¯t the same as having the Cold or Fire Template, but there was a definite edge in magical vulnerability. I passed such along to Kris, who merely asked me to start getting reps in on Imperil. Imperil was one of the quintessential Life Magic teamwork spells, although from my side of things it was more akin to Force Armor or Barkskin, except the opposite. It sank into an opponent and acted directly against their Natural Armor. That wasn¡¯t too huge a deal, unless their armor went negative, at which point incoming damage from weapons started being magnified! This effect could also be applied to armor as an Item Magic Bane effect, reducing both the armor¡¯s protective value and its specific strengths against elemental damages. If you could get those values into the negatives, then it was possible for an opponent¡¯s armor to betray them, magnifying the force of impact, superconducting the lightning, flames or cold, or oxidizing the flesh beneath with magical betrayal. There were plenty of tales back in old Ispar of a cunning mage Baning an enemy commander¡¯s shield in the heart of battles, and instead of holding back the arrow fire it made it faster and more murderously powerful, ending up with them being slaughtered because they didn¡¯t take protections against such magic. It was also possible to enchant an opponent¡¯s weapon right into ineffectiveness with similar reversed magic, Greater Curse Weapon and its specific applications reducing speed, damage, control, and defensive ability, all at the same time. It was not something a Caster usually worried about, of course, but it was a way to shut down a dangerous enemy if needed. Kris was doing her own testing of these creatures. They all had enough Soak to absorb a normal blow without any problem from her, so she wanted to test Imperil¡¯s various stages and see what was needed to one-shot the stuff, as well as determine the Elemental Phasing to use, if need be. I was happy to comply. I could use Mana Boost to get back any amount of mana consumed by one spell now quite rapidly, with the result that Kris was trotting through the night, moving from target to target like a hunting wolf as I picked them out, or she saw them first. Summons that survived my ranged spells or who had an Imperil go off on them came charging up on her, and died. And then Kris stopped dead in the water. ¡°What?¡± I asked, and she just flicked over a sensation, right before she bolted in the opposite direction, heading for the shelter of a stand of brush growing up against the edge of the lake water. She¡¯d just felt the water vibrate through her Tremblesense... AF Chapter 42 – A Tremendous Discovery There were remarkably few things that could make the water convey a repeated shockwave like that. It wasn¡¯t an explosion. It was steady repeated pressure on the ground, and for some reason she decided she didn¡¯t want to confront what was making it, moving directly away from it and under cover. ¡°Holoscreen atop us!¡± she directed me harshly, and I barely got it up before I heard the crackings and crunchings of treetrunks being forced aside, and then something crashed through the resurgent young trees that had reclaimed so much of the land arduously cleared of lumber by farmers and workmen. Forty feet tall if an inch. I whistled at the size of its boots, wondering what it had skinned to put them on. I popped the Assay at III because I could, and then promptly rewove the Holo at III and crouched down even lower. ¡°It¡¯s got a million Health Qi,¡± I whispered to Kris, who blinked once in disbelief, stared at me, and I just nodded. ¡°Mithar!¡± she swore, watching as it waded down to the water two hundred paces away, bellowing like a foghorn as it did so, wading out into the shallows. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°A Tremendous Monuga. Which means there might be more than one.¡± It didn¡¯t have any weapons, probably bashing apart any trees it kicked down to serve as one. It wasn¡¯t moving with any agility, but it didn¡¯t have any problems striding around, having none of the heavy ponderousness that it should at that size. ¡°Jotunic-level strength, for certain. Its none-too bright, but it¡¯s at least at the power of a Storm Jotun.¡± ¡°Those are calls of challenge.¡± We watched it waving its arms around and bellowing at the waters, just in front of the massive Ward there... and then it reached out and pounded at the Ward. The area in front of it buckled, the air seemed to quiver and crack. Without let-up, the big TM beat on the Ward in front of it, shattering it, pounding it open, and suddenly the energy field in front of it collapsed, a great hole rising in front of it. Beyond, the waters surged, and something of great size moved in eagerly towards the opening. It was a niffi, no, a Sleech, a Solgus Sleech, an elder of the species, floating twenty feet in the air and with a dozen writhing tentacles reaching for the Tremendous Monuga, who actually waded out to meet it, the huge mattocks of its fists raised and ready. I ducked down, letting Kris continue watching in fascination as the real fight began. ¡°I think the TM is fishing for calamari.¡± She glanced at me as Water and Acidic magic exploded over the titanic monuga. In return, it began to beat on, kick on, rip at, and pound on the massive floating aberrant in its huge spiral conch-like shell, clearly making the thing waver even as it tried to wrap the monuga up in its multiple tentacles, lashing and searing at him non-stop while blasting him repeatedly with magic, including magical Vulnerabilities, Imperils, and the like. Unfortunately for it, it only had about forty thousand Health Qi, and it just wasn¡¯t strong enough or big enough to bind the big thing up. The TM¡¯s simple brain was too focused on Feed Me to scare away or control, especially as it seemed to be in a berserker rage as it went to town on magical unnatural shellfish. It did take it about ten minutes to finally crack the mighty sleech¡¯s shell open, tear off six tentacles (throwing them back through the hole in the Ward), and then reach and tear out the important bits there for a quick snack of the things inside, the elder nefane letting out an odd squicky squeal of disbelief as it died. Its grip on its shell faded with it, and the monuga hauled its carcass out of the thing, probably losing the innermost portions somewhat and not caring. Hefting its massive gory prize over its shoulder, it kicked the rest of the shell fifty yards into deeper water... and there was an instant frothing there, as a whole lot of somethings waiting further out swarmed over whatever bloody remnants were left inside. My Assay watched the TM''s Health Qi returning with ferocious speed, at least ten a second as it picked up the scattered tentacles, proceeding to munch on one and knot the others together to sling over its other shoulder before striding away with its prizes. I swept my Assay out through the hole in the Ward, which was rapidly filling in, and nothing seemed to be going to get through the opening before it filled up. Probably held open by the dim will of the Tremendous Monuga, given how fast it was filling up once he passed on through and left it behind. ¡°Remorans,¡± I informed Kris, glancing at the churning water. ¡°Shark-like ray-things all in the 200 range. That huge sleech that died was in the area of 350.¡± ¡°So, are the niffi spawn and Summons related, or-?¡± she asked, eyeing the difference in shells and tentacles and stuff. ¡°Probably a servant or slave species. The remorans are acting more like a swarm of underlings being directed by the smaller sleeches, who just looked on instead of teaming up with their elder.¡± ¡°Tactically stupid. Enough massed firepower could even bring that thing down. How much damage did the big guy take?¡± ¡°Maybe a hundred thousand? It¡¯s got at least DR/15, and Fast Healing/60,¡± I told her, an Assay at III being pretty informative. I let her take a look at my Visual File on it. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°SIXTY?¡± Kris blinked in shock at the Assay, whatever her estimations of what was required to kill it getting a sharp revision. ¡°I assume Blooding would stop it, but note that still means it¡¯s going to take three hours to regenerate all of that damage. I¡¯ll also note that the dead Sleech knew I was looking at it, but it was kind of busy.¡± ¡°I seem to recall Aberrants being unusually sensitive to Divination magic. Nice to see some things are constant. Well, no, but you know.¡± She smirked as I just inclined my head at the point. ¡°Just the fact there is one of the big ones around is pretty horrible, and you made it sound like there is more than one. I¡¯m surprised it hasn¡¯t eaten out the drudges in the city back there...¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t notice? Oh, you don¡¯t have your Mask up yet.¡± I pulled up the Visual File and zoomed in on my memory of the monuga¡¯s massive body. It had a patchwork of furs on itself, probably from massive ursuins of various sorts on closer inspection, although the lay of some of those other furs was quite different, something we hadn¡¯t seen yet. ¡°Note the white scars on it.¡± The thing was greenish-brown, with a slightly taller proportionate skull than human for its three eyes, two thick nailed fingers and an opposed thumb, obviously not made for tool-making. Given how hard it was to find suitable furs, a lot of its body was exposed, and as I zoomed in, it was plain to see that it had tons of parallel white scars all over exposed areas, including its face. Kris nodded slowly. ¡°Okay, those are definitely about the right size. Wow, you think that Killer Drudge was actually able to drive this thing off?¡± ¡°I think it basically took on the entire city of humans itself, and might be so magical the monuga just can¡¯t kill it, maybe with regeneration it can¡¯t compensate for or something. It was able to do some kind of enduring flesh damage to the big guy, so the monuga probably doesn¡¯t want to mess with it to no real effect, even if it can eventually pulp it, we don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°Or it¡¯s fast enough, nimble enough, and can climb all over the thing to kill it. It could harm that black tower¡¯s stone, so it can definitely punch the big guy¡¯s Stature DR, and maybe stop the Health Qi from absorbing all the physical damage.¡± ¡°Or just put out so much damage...¡± I hinted at, and she just sighed. ¡°That means the only chance of beating it is to Not Get Hit.¡± Her lips quirked in a feral smile. ¡°I feel some strange motivation for getting my Armor Class way, way up, Ryin!¡± ¡°Yes. It seems quite capable of taking on beings bigger than itself and winning,¡± I sighed, Mana Boosting my Valences and Pool back to full. ¡°It also means we¡¯ve definitely been noticed by the deeper creatures in the lake.¡± ¡°Eh, if there were humans here, we¡¯re just two more of the same. They are still trapped in there.¡± ¡°Indeed. I can¡¯t imagine they are happy about their imprisonment, but given their power, I can see why it was done.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know how large this lake is, but it is clearly fresh water. At best it¡¯ll be the size of a sea, and eventually will run down to an ocean,¡± Kris predicted. ¡°And just how big are the things that are in the ocean?¡± I nodded as we both stood back up, looking once after the huge monuga, then out at the frothing that had died away out in the waters. ¡°After all, it could have gone fishing there.¡± ¡°Strange, that. Like it went after the easy prey.¡± ¡°Or the freshwater variety tastes better?¡± ¡°It¡¯s all possible,¡± she agreed, as we started our journey again. ¡°I¡¯m just not happy to find out there¡¯s intelligent sea species with an interest in this place.¡± She quirked an eye at my words. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t need Wards if they didn¡¯t want to and weren¡¯t able to come ashore, Kris.¡± ¡°You¡¯re making me think this place is like a death island full of martial dangers and easy ways to die in every direction, Ryin,¡± she replied, amused. ¡°Like it was made to form an army,¡± I agreed. ¡°An army that was incredibly skilled.¡± ¡°That only works if there¡¯s absolutely massive amounts of healing,¡± she said thoughtfully, Waveskating into motion and resuming our progress south. ¡°After all, dead soldiers don¡¯t learn any more. One miscalculation, and months and years of Karma, all for nothing. Isparian magic doesn¡¯t return the dead, and necromancy was hugely unreliable, when we ran into it.¡± ¡°The Milantians were the best at that, true enough, although things I inherited from my teacher suggests the Viamontians know more about it than they let on, possibly inherited from the aliens who started their bloodline.¡± I blinked a moment. ¡°Why do I have the sudden feeling those aliens might be behind the Portals from Ispar to here? They already knew of our world, and already knew humans had militant leanings and would make good soldiers...¡± Kris was silent for a moment as we swooped in on a hovering blue phyntos wasp Summons and she slaughtered the hawk-sized thing with one swing in passing. ¡°That does make sense. Records my parents recovered revealed contact with aliens had occurred many times in the far past, growing increasingly rare in the modern day and age. For the Viamontians, the key recognition factor was blue skin and height. For the Aluvians, it was simply height, although some of the visitors had glowing eyes, according to the legends.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a true multi-world magical civilization, then,¡± I said, sniping down a mud golum as we approached, Sifting it for pyreal dust, and we were on to a couple reedsharks she could see. ¡°That¡¯s definitely a height-of-magic factor. The only thing we¡¯d need otherwise is population and prevalence of magic to explain this place. Were they drafted to fight off the creatures of the deeps, or are only protected from them?¡± I wondered aloud. ¡°If they were meant to fight something else, I have to wonder what it could be that could ignore the Wards keeping out a magically-adept and intelligent Aberrant species,¡± Kris said with feeling. ¡°I¡¯m more concerned about the implications of an enemy a world-spanning magical civilization stirs up that they can¡¯t beat and so are forced to go stealing help to fight.¡± The Hag princess was silent a moment as she digested that, violet eyes flickering at the implications. ¡°Meta that?¡± she asked after a moment. ¡°It would have to be a race that is violent, innately resistant to magic, likely numerous and/or breeds quickly, and yet capable of pursuing them across dimensions, even if their Portal network was taken down. Whether they were incited by the mages or just intrinsically conquerors is something else we don¡¯t know. They could be driven by racial instinct, uncaring elder beings, gods, or simply martial tradition and aggressiveness. I imagine if they were to looking at the standing forces of Terra-Luna, any magocracy would find them terrifying. Nulls, Sources, and Voids as the core, integrated standing armies of that world would be horrendously dangerous to a mage-centric society.¡± AF Chapter 43 – Another Town and One More Show Edit: This is actually the correct chapter for #43. Tomorrow''s was cut and pasted here early. Author never makes mistakes, nossirree. ============ ¡°That is nice to hear,¡± Kris admitted with a toothy smile. ¡°I was worried you Powered gamers would utterly dominate everything back there.¡± ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be fooled. Powered sit at the top of the stack because there is so much stuff we can do that you Forsaken can¡¯t. But the bottom of the stack is best run by you types, and your peers are very aggressive at both taking care of themselves and proving they don¡¯t need to have us around powdering their bottoms and wiping their noses, poor no-magic babies. They, uh, just want their dominance through superior firepower back, and I can¡¯t say that I blame them. ¡°Coincidentally, if they can take care of most of the mundane business, it leaves the magically adept to take care of the truly nasty business. Superman Syndrome and its associated tropes kick in a LOT more than any world considers healthy, and Terra-Luna isn¡¯t even done with The Fall.¡± ¡°How far along are the Stages? I vaguely remember them...¡± Kris screwed up her face at replicated memories. ¡°They were into Stage Five, invaders from other worlds coming in intermittently to settle/raid/conquer them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this isn¡¯t that much different from the game. However, its still controlled, just... very active. Trying to defend a whole planet from the heaps of stuff invading is a LOT of ground to cover and be aware of. At the same time, they were trying to rebuild a better infrastructure, invent a friendlier level of magitech and artifice for people, and acclimate to the fact that some things tech just does better than magic. It was an ongoing struggle.¡± Couldn¡¯t mass-produce magitech, for instance, it always had an individual element. On the flip side, once made it lasted a LOT longer. ¡°What do the Sama and Briggs there do?¡± Kris asked, interested. ¡°Sama¡¯s big thing is heading up the Bloodguard, which is the most elite company of Nulls on the planet. They deploy everywhere, all the time. Lots of intelligent animals with them, too, integrated right into the company as full partners, the model for the elite mixed armed forces. Mostly Senior Nulls. ¡°Briggs is one of the huge forces driving the White Magic Zones Artificing, making the magitech that can make the stuff that helps the world recover. Gearsmithing and steamtech drive a lot of it, Sources making the path to a better tomorrow enthusiastically. ¡°Oh, and he happens to be overall Commander and Warlord of the Alliance Forces, but who was going to be able to stop Commander Briggs from taking that chair?¡± I asked reasonably. Kris grinned widely. ¡°Oh, good. I don¡¯t think I could stand to see a Fuzzy sidelined after growing up watching Dad do his thing. Of course, the Casters back home are nothing like those in the game, as your perverse ability is already proving. Don¡¯t make me regret being nice and tanking for you!¡± she warned me with a shaking fist. ¡°Yes, Your Highness!¡± I bowed deeply and automatically, and she just snorted in amusement. A couple more drudge Summons were visible. We¡¯d vivisize those Summons, just on general principle. ------ The night passed long and eventfully, with me getting off hundreds of Castings of spells, sometimes offensive, sometimes defensive, sometimes utility. I had Metas to apply and rep counts to get in, which meant, among other things, three thousand Force Dart Reserves to shoot off at anything that looked like a reasonable target, which would get me to the 3d6, or 3 points of passive Renewal a round when I wasn¡¯t actively Casting. Or maybe if I was actively Casting, but only from the Isparian side of things. It occurred to me that the Ward across the waters, cutting the shallows from the deeper parts, was a Force Screen, and that at Argent Savant Mastery/5 I could collapse a section without much effort... but that was for when I hit Nine. For now, it was rep counts, as Aethra¡¯s Salute passed by at dusk, and we continued skating on. It was many miles later before we saw what looked like an actual town in the distance, a bridge arching over a river that looked to be emptying the entire lake. Except... it wasn¡¯t wide enough to do so. Just ignoring all the small streams and groundwater, the river up by the drudge city was wider than this one by a good margin. If a river this narrow were draining this lake, the speed of the outflow should have picked up tremendously, enough to sweep someone off their feet. Kris caught it too, as she skated across the water into shore. ¡°There¡¯s a large underground flow under here,¡± she said softly. ¡°Look at the bridge there. Notice something strange?¡± ¡°Of course. It¡¯s just like the roads, maintained too well without someone working on it,¡± I said, eyeing the ruined buildings on both sides of the river. The west side seemed more built up than the east, but both had sprawls of farmhouses moving away from them. They were also cold and silent, no fires burning in them despite the shelter they represented, which made no sense in the... huh. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°It¡¯s almost five degrees warmer here than back up at the drudge city, and I don¡¯t think the weather actually changed much,¡± I offered, and Kris craned her neck around to look at the sky. ¡°That¡¯s... almost moving over a climate change zone?¡± she offered, and reached down to test the water beneath her feet. ¡°The water is warmer, too,¡± she informed me, and I shook my head. ¡°That was, what, fifteen, twenty miles?¡± The shoreline was very uneven, and as we¡¯d gone up and down and around it. I had to superimpose my lived-line record of it and then look at it from above. Since we weren¡¯t in a hurry, it had taken most of our night, and we¡¯d be calling it quits to get our two hours of rest in soon. ¡°I see blue sparkles.¡± She pointed to the east side of the river, where fewer buildings gave more lines of sight. ¡°That¡¯s the right hue for the craters,¡± I agreed. The ones she¡¯d before seen I¡¯d blasted all to heck, so this would be her first time. ¡°I don¡¯t see anything organized about the Summons, either.¡± ¡°Militarily speaking, bridges are key points of control, even if a river is fordable.¡± She started skating carefully towards the other side, as we had come down following the west shoreline. ¡°Someone should have grabbed it, if only for moving supplies more easily. That is why you make the damn bridges in the first place.¡± ¡°Alternatively, someone could be stopping them from doing so?¡± I hazarded, narrowing my eyes as we drew closer in the night. ¡°Everything is damaged, burned, and blasted, and it doesn¡¯t all seem old, Highness.¡± She glided in towards the shore, skating to a halt just shy of the sands, inhaling deeply through her nose, testing the winds and whatever else she could smell. ¡°Possible. The smell of the char isn¡¯t old... but it isn¡¯t new, either. It looks like systematic damage, but nothing was razed... residual magical reinforcement of the buildings, possibly?¡± There were other possibilities. ¡°Causes? Undead and shades don¡¯t need fires, nor cold-dwellers and a lot of magical creatures.¡± ¡°Residues of them, but old. What about on the thauma end of things?¡± she asked me, stepping forward, both of us on high alert now. ¡°I see residues of death and shadow, but... something else, too. I don¡¯t recognize it, which by category makes it Aberrant.¡± Kris grimaced nastily. ¡°More magical Aberrants? No relation to the seafood?¡± ¡°No.¡± I turned around, and looked back to the other side. ¡°There¡¯s something over there spewing out some very unusual bandwidths.¡± She inhaled again deeply, but the wind was in the wrong direction. ¡°Let me take a look at this glowey sparkling stones place, and then we¡¯ll take a better look at the digs.¡± I just nodded, and up the steep hillside we went, her misting heels digging in as easily as if it were a set of nice, clean steps for her to traverse. The pit wasn¡¯t too far from the line of the hill. She glided up to it, and spent a moment just staring at the horrific tableau of skeletons fused, melted, burned, and broken, impaled by large chunks of blue crystal that were still thrumming to the bitter pizzle of energies fizzling up out of the center of their formation from three holes in the stone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she was quite unafraid as she reached in to one of those blue crystals, and with strength totally beyond human, wrenched it out of its hole, tossing it onto one of our Disks. She also pointed at the energies fizzling at the center of the crater. ¡°That¡¯s an omnidirectional blast pattern, but we aren¡¯t seeing any blue crystals surviving outside this crater. That means that energy is keeping them intact, and that one I broke off is probably going to start degrading. Any familiarity with that magic?¡± ¡°It¡¯s got alteration, necromancy, and vivimancy involved, but the source of it is so corrupted I can¡¯t track what it came from.¡± ¡°Corrupted, or that¡¯s the source?¡± she repeated back to me. I opened my mouth, then closed it to study the energy further. ¡°I can¡¯t tell. It could be a corrupted source, or a source that¡¯s corrupt.¡± She pointed at the crystal. ¡°If it was originally pure, would these things have survived being hit by a corrupted version of the energy here?¡± I pursed my lips, and flicked the crystal she¡¯d retrieved to my hand. ¡°You¡¯re right, there¡¯s already surface instability.¡± I glanced at that fizzling energy source. ¡°I thought it was tapping a ley line, but there¡¯s no way a ley line is channeling that kind of magic, Kris. It would crack open the landscape. What you¡¯re seeing is a drizzle that¡¯s being rejected by normal matter.¡± ¡°But not the dead, and not those crystals.¡± ¡°No.¡± Now I was starting to grimace. ¡°I don¡¯t know if the crystal channeled that power to appear more palatable or presentable, but clearly it is unstable without it.¡± ¡°And vivus reduced it, so it is clearly neither natural nor harmless, and so is attacked by it.¡± She frowned heavily. ¡°I see what you said about multiple races, and this does look like a really bad teleportation mishap. It¡¯s like everyone decided to teleport to this location at the same time, then the crystal at the center blew up and killed them all in mid-transit, forcing them to materialize inside one another and making the local matter unstable enough to fuse with them. The only ¡®real¡¯ thing was the blue crystals for a moment there.¡± I hopped down off the Disk and put my hand on the nearest set of bones, pulsing some arcane energy through the stuff, which resisted the flow. ¡°I need a very good read of your Tremblesense. Are these bones fused into the rock, as in the rock is actually melded into the bones themselves, or are they IN the stone, barely fused to it on the surface?¡± She reached down and tapped the warped skulls and bones, also frowning. ¡°Okay, I did misspeak. They are not melded WITH the stone, there¡¯s surface fusing.¡± She paused for a moment. ¡°Dimensional merging would either push the stone out of the way, or there would be complete melding,¡± I supplied shortly. ¡°Surface fusing means there¡¯s no microfractures of the ground being pushed out of the way, right?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not seeing any,¡± Kris admitted slowly, black nails tapping a non-human, long-faced skull thoughtfully. ¡°But they do extend into one another.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Her nails skriiiiitched over, scoring the bone, touching areas where skeletons overlapped. ¡°Bone density is greater where they cross. They are completely interwoven.¡± She glanced at me. ¡°Got some horrific idea of what happened?¡± AF Chapter 44 – Crystals of Death Edit: This is actually the correct chapter for today. Yesterday''s chapter was actually skipped, and has been corrected. If you are reading this for the first time, you may need to back up a chapter and read that. ============= ¡°There¡¯s no dimensional magic or residues here on any level I can sense, and if these people dimensionally came together, they would have exploded as they displaced one another. Two objects in the same space and the same time ends up poorly all around. ¡°Therefore, there was no dimensional movement involved. ¡°Verify that there are absolutely nothing besides bone remains and potentially degraded flesh here.¡± The tapping of her nails remained constant as she focused on what the vibrations were telling her through the ground. ¡°No flesh at all. Some should have rotted, carbonized, or fossilized. There¡¯s none of the spaces in the ground it should have occupied, either. It¡¯s just the bones here.¡± I looked down at the silent, staring skulls, warped so horrifically together, the psychic trauma still evident in the air, although Kris likely couldn¡¯t even feel it. ¡°Star Trek transporter tech. You remember how that worked?¡± ¡°Wow. You are going back into the memories...¡± She scrunched up her face. ¡°Okay, they disassembled someone, stored the information in the transporter buffer, beamed it out somewhere, and put it back together, right?¡± I nodded once. ¡°I recall some engineers saying how horrifically energy-intensive something like that could be, and if they could do it, why couldn¡¯t they make anything?¡± ¡°It turned out that they invented transporter-tech because they didn¡¯t have the budget to show shuttles going to and from the planets they were on.¡± She gave me a look. ¡°Yep. Great sci-fi invention was nothing more than a tool to save money onscreen.¡± ¡°You have now destroyed my fond memories of Roddenberry¡¯s achievements. You know ALL of us Ranthas get them, right?¡± ¡°Uh-huh.¡± I pointed at the bones. ¡°They weren¡¯t being teleported. Necromancy, their souls were drawn here. Alteration, new bodies were being assembled for them. Vivimancy, their spirits were being put back into the new bodies. And then, the process was interrupted half-way.¡± She rolled that over in her head, her nails still tapping on different skulls, violet eyes glancing at the prizzling spouts of waste energy at the middle of the place. ¡°So... all of these people died simultaneously, were brought here, new bodies were being made for them, and they were killed in mid-reformation?¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know what this crystal used to look like, but it obviously exploded, and everyone appeared around it. It¡¯s the incredibly horrible timing which is most suspect here.¡± I stared at the scores of dead here, a tithe of what was represented in Cragstone. ¡°All of these beings, human and otherwise, died at the exact same time, their spirits were brought here, bodies being rewoven, and then the crystal exploded in the middle of the process, fusing their partial bodies together, killing them all, and leaving nothing behind.¡± ¡°Which, if the logic follows through, was soon followed by an attack on human society,¡± she agreed slowly. ¡°Okay, riddle me this: were there any former magical items, even remnants of dweomer clinging to them, among the dead stacked up in that city?¡± ¡°No. I was looking for remnants of them. I¡¯ve only seen the most scattered scraps of magical stuff, and most of that was destroyed...¡± My voice trailed off slightly, as I considered that. ¡°The big devices back in the first town, that looked like they blew up, too?¡± she inquired. ¡°Those... were tapping the ley line. Sort of like this thing is doing, but there¡¯s something unclean in the mix.¡± I pointed at it soberly. ¡°So, things that were tapping the power lines were hit with a massive power surge that overloaded them. I assumed the surge had come up and out of the ley lines to do that. What if it was the other way around? The reason we even have residues is because the ley lines drew a bunch of it away if something was tapped into it?¡± She tilted her head, considering that. ¡°So, a wave from space, or something?¡± ¡°What about a wave from the Veil, a major Portal, disrupted by a massive spike stuck into it, and all that gathered energy reverberating out at a bad moment?¡± She blinked. ¡°Mom and Dad disrupting the Viamontian Ritual?¡± ¡°If it led back here, look at the plant growth. Would the timing be about right?¡± She did get up and look around at the trees that were growing around, making her calculations. ¡°That... doesn¡¯t seem to be too far off,¡± she admitted cautiously. ¡°We don¡¯t know how smooth time is between the realms, however. You said it was a day between us, but on Ispar that was a full week.¡± ¡°Temporal imbalance might be greater or lesser after what your folks did, we don¡¯t know.¡± I rubbed my fingers together. ¡°What¡¯s the big difference between Isparian and Matrix Artificing?¡± ¡°All Isparian items tend to be charged,¡± she stated firmly. ¡°There are constant effects you can imbue, but you didn¡¯t see them on noncharged items as often.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. I nodded once. ¡°Which means those items take in power, and those items have a fixed cap with no way to vent it.¡± ¡°Because they aren¡¯t tapped into a ley line...¡± she trailed off, thinking on that. Slowly, she put her fingertips together, then spread them abruptly, an eyebrow raised. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen or heard of it happen, but yeah, if mana could be forced into an object past its retention limit... well, you saw those forges. Given the size and comparing them to the crystal, I¡¯d say a huge amount of the blast went into the ley lines. They didn¡¯t leave anywhere near the impact craters, mostly they just blew apart the building next to them.¡± ¡°So, there¡¯s a massive change or shift in magic, somewhere something happens. Magic comes down, forces itself into all the items using active magical draws, at the same time interrupting constant flows and reinforcing the Veil.¡± She whistled softly. ¡°And the people who have the most of said magical devices would be...¡± ¡°Your wealthiest, most powerful, and most skilled people,¡± I nodded. ¡°So, all the strongest people around die at the same moment as the magical gear they are toting around to be ubermensch exploded and killed them all. Contingencies or something tied to those blue crystals kick in. They are in the middle of reforming new bodies, when the blue crystals explode, and they all die permanently in the same moment, probably to their great surprise. ¡°Suddenly, all the most skilled defenders of the people here are completely dead, the blue crystals with their anti-death contingency are destroyed, and all the most powerful Isparian magical items are obliterated, too. Given how dependent humans tend to be on their Gear, there is a huge and immediate shift in power, and other native intelligent species who are considerably less affected by the magic surge take advantage of the opportunity to attack.¡± Kris¡¯ frown turned into a savage grimace. ¡°That makes too much goddamn sense, Ryin.¡± ¡°Not a single drudge that I killed even had a trophy weapon or armor on, not a single one. That¡¯s unreal, Kris. No fighting culture doesn¡¯t take the best. All the weapons and armor they had were non-magical. I didn¡¯t see anything I¡¯d call even masterwork, as that is the threshold for magic, as if they were instinctively avoiding anything of quality like that.¡± ¡°Meaning some of them got burned, probably while waving around their prize toy, and were killed.¡± ¡°Important.¡± I pointed down at the skulls in front of us. ¡°Contingent resurrection device. You were talking about an army and needing healing? How about die as much as you like?¡± It was totally amusing to see how expressive Rantha faces could be. A savage scowl that made her look decidedly less than human became incredulous astonishment of almost transcendent understanding. ¡°You¡¯re shitting me...¡± she gasped, once again a startling scarred beauty. ¡°Furthermore, even on Ispar, there¡¯s ways to bind Gear to one¡¯s soul, so they needn¡¯t even lose their equipment, if they¡¯d set things up ahead of time.¡± She blinked, looking down, around, back the way we¡¯d come. ¡°Holy fuck, Ryin. What kind of place...¡± she trailed off, shocked at the implications. ¡°Unending karma. Unkillable soldiers. Unbelievably broad magical effects. A dozen sapient species living in close proximity. Monstrous magical creatures.¡± I trailed off, shaking my head, staring down at the three holes in the ground, sputtering with failed magic, in the middle of all those skulls. ¡°Now I want to know why there¡¯s an unclean residue of the magic left behind involving these resurrection devices.¡± Her eyes fell to what I was looking at, almost sparking. ¡°Oh, isn¡¯t that ominous... What¡¯s your first thought?¡± ¡°A device to resurrect is also a device to die. Every death is a source of power, potentially a sacrifice.¡± I knelt down again, staring at those energies. ¡°These energy types are contaminated, I¡¯d have to see a working one. But this stone, it was linked to something unclean, and the evidence is right in front of us.¡± Kris took a deep breath and shook her head, her dark hair rippling. ¡°Live forever, but all your deaths are feeding something monstrous...¡± she murmured. ¡°And look at those crystals, so bright and glowy-nice. They likely didn¡¯t have the slightest clue it was happening.¡± I turned up my lip. ¡°They thought they had a free lunch, and built their entire society around it.¡± ¡°Well, it went south really fast.¡± Kris shook her head again, and turned to survey the cold and fallen buildings nearby, the empty eyes of their windows regarding us with steadfast hollow suspicion. ¡°Vivisize it, I¡¯ve seen enough. Let¡¯s discover what else we can, and hope that everything we deduced is wrong.¡± Both of us knew that we were too smart for that likely to be true, just processing everything we¡¯d seen and trying to get the facts to gel together. We hadn¡¯t seen any up close, but the necromancy auras further north had indicated that undead were probably here. If this resurrection protocol worked for the living, it likely worked even more easily for the undead, and they probably didn¡¯t need a big glowing blue stone to make it happen, either. Living humans matched against undead who kept coming back. Even if the undead were mostly locked in power, that was a death sentence, and no doubts about it. You had to keep killing the undead, but they only had to kill you once, and it was all over. Probably what so many of the races thought about humans with this protocol active, I thought, as I blasted the thing and vivic flames erupted all over it in hunger and serenity. The spluttering energy leakage dimmed and faded, devoured by the misty whiteness Unlimited Karma, unlimited lives to harvest it, no fear of death. This would have been like living in a video game or something, with infinite respawns and simply trying again until you got it right. Killing would have become irrelevant and meaningless, just a game and temporary inconvenience to laugh about later. The deadliest of enemies would just be something to keep trying, or to bury under bodies, everyone knowing it was going to die, and they weren¡¯t. What a crazy and cruel world it must have been, I thought, wondering who could have come up with such a device. A world where death had little meaning meant that life had the same loss of value. And when that world came crashing down and death came roaring back, they had to relearn the value of life all over again... AF Chapter 45 – Eyes for Trouble Our investigations into the buildings revealed that they had indeed been used as shelters after they were abandoned, simply by the locations of nests, abandoned supplies, fires in the wrong spots, crude storage areas, and ruined basic furniture. The ones that had the most charred and ruined walls and ceilings were the ones that looked to have been defended the most strongly. Alas, without magical reinforcement, the buildings people were fighting in were blown and blasted apart by repeated combinations of Elemental and Force magic in great quantity. There were plenty of scattered bones and blasted remains among such locations, and refuse piles near them. Notably, none of them were human. Kris even tasted a bunch of them just to make sure. Different bone matter and marrow taste. At least four different living species had fought over this place and been evicted mercilessly. Kris indicated remains from what looked like a larger version of the mosswarts and banderlings, and the purple-skinned elves, along with an amphibian race like reptilian bipedal frogs that we hadn¡¯t seen examples of. Assay said the race was called the Burun. No other information forthcoming, except that whoever slaughtered them was stronger than they were. No sign of whoever said attackers were. That wasn¡¯t comforting, although the best explanation was the shades, whose bodies would naturally decay before their spirits reformed another at a locus, if they could do so. Regardless, it seemed to have stuck. None of the remains was less than months old. Still, we sat down in one of the better buildings, with one mostly intact wall and stone foundation, and no major holes blown or burnt into the cellar, and did our downtime. --- ¡°-behold the New Day!¡± the Salute to Aru finished, with its gift of vitality and easement of the spirit, combining with the rush of Natural Renewal to gift those who began the day with the dawn with energy and vigor. And I blinked, and looked at the sun. Devasight meant I could not be blinded by the light, just like Devilsight allowed me to see through darkness and shadows. ¡°Something is coming...¡± I said to Kris, who was probably tinking over her own mental levers. Both of us looked at the ruined buildings all about us. We hadn¡¯t left any tracks to be followed, and the trails left behind by random predators prowling about dominated any that we might have accidentally disturbed. Princess Kristie Rantha unceremoniously pushed me onto a Disk and booked it for the edge of the town¡¯s southern border. More trees and cover in that direction. ¡°You can come back if you¡¯re Levitating and Invisible, but we have to get the Disks where they won¡¯t be found,¡± she said, as we zipped along above the snow, leaving no traces of our passing, save some startled rabbits and mice escaping from us. Her head inclined slightly as we entered a particular area of the brush, under some of the taller young trees, giving us visual cover from every direction, including above. ¡°No problem, I want to see what is keeping this place clear.¡± ¡°There¡¯s something approaching in the subsonics,¡± she stated, pulling her raven hair back over a very slightly pointed ear. ¡°A grinding hum.¡± She looked east. ¡°You picking up anything magical?¡± I had lowered the Disks and thrown my mats of interwoven grass over them to make sure they weren¡¯t picked out, completely covered. ¡°Get me to cover along the banks and I¡¯ll see what I can.¡± A minute later we were in the scrub along the banks, me Invisible and Levitating so I wasn¡¯t on a towed Disk. Kris was as silent as the wind, seeming to bend and flow with the natural world, such that I forgot that she was there if I wasn¡¯t looking at her. ¡°Something is indeed bending the magic over there... and it¡¯s at least a PoT Ten in magical power,¡± I said softly. ¡°Moving at a good clip. I don¡¯t want to get closer... fuck! Null up, full power!¡± I dodged behind her quickly. Startled, she nevertheless flared her Null, and my spells all broke under the force, turning me visible and dropping me into the brush. ¡°The fuck?¡± she asked calmly as I stayed behind her. ¡°I¡¯m not looking at them. I need you to carry us away from here, now.¡± She looked back, to see me with my eyes screwed shut. She grabbed me up in a princess carry and zipped away, completely unperturbed by the additional weight... and kept her Null up. ¡°They are going to be coming to investigate the flash of magic. Get a healthy distance,¡± I said into her ear. She nodded and concentrated on speed and haste. I could hear the edge of a hum now. I didn¡¯t have the Sublime Chord yet, but something was echoing along the Chords, like a hideously untuned guitar, a discordant hum that was completely alien to this world and reality. ¡°You¡¯re right. They are getting closer,¡± Kris ground out, veering gently away. I reached out mentally and clutched my hand. ¡°I just dispelled the Disks. We¡¯ll have to restack the stuff on them, but they¡¯ll zero right in on the magic otherwise.¡± ¡°They can see magic?¡± ¡°And me without my anti-divinatory spells.¡± Which was now priority #1. I closed my eyes and flipped the levers I¡¯d held off for a moment. Karma to Zeks. Karma to Crown. Karma to Mark. Mira running down the whole list of Isparian stuff, one dot at a time. Sage Sorcerer to goddamn Five! One Valence III Spell Known, plus Bloodline Spell, plus Favored Class bonus of a II. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Favored Class, grab Non-Detection! New Valence III Rune Engram, Exemplar Surge! Take a point of Health! Take a point of Soak! Take a Paid Feat! Take a Paid Mastery! Note to the bright shithead attracting so much dangerous attention that she can now take /3¡¯s! ¡°Your Aura just popped,¡± Kris informed me as we spun into heavy brush cover, backing in under the pines and tough winter growth, her taking all the scratches. ¡°What are we dealing with?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t get anything more than a casual glance before the one I was looking at rounded right around on me, sensing my Vatic Gaze. Didn¡¯t get to Assay it,¡± I reported quietly. She wasn¡¯t slow. ¡°Aberrant, sensing your Div-sight? That¡¯s bad news.¡± She had her head tilted, and was listening closely to the hum. ¡°They¡¯ve reached our spotter position. The hum is discordant, but layered harmoniously, as if they are all on the same chaotic pattern.¡± ¡°They are some form of magic Elemental wearing constructed suits of metal and white masks. The ones I could make out were levitating in a manner similar to the Disks, although it could have been flight or some form of reality manipulation. Drop your Null enough so I can Cast. I¡¯ve slotted Non-Detection, which should shield me from their passive magic sight.¡± The unresponsive magic around me softened up just enough for me to get the Non-Detection off, wrapping me in obfuscation and blankness specifically designed to foil any effects which duplicated Divs of Valence III or less. The blanket senses of a magic-Element Aberrant would fall neatly into that line, although if they went for higher Valences they might be able to sense the spell. Which is why I Cast it out of a III, so it could defeat IV¡¯s. I let loose a stored breath, and Cast my Exemplar Surge, grabbing for the Extra Spell Known Feat, which gave those who took it a spell up to the highest Valence I Cast the spell from. Normally, the choice was permanent, earning a Sorcerer a new spell forever, taken out of limited Feats. For me, this brought forward a spell Aelryinth had known, which I could then immediately Write to the spellbook inside Zeks, while the Feat itself would fade away shortly. If I tried Casting the spell again, I¡¯d get the same Feat until Natural Renewal. So, one spell a day. Fly seemed particularly appropriate at this time. It flared into existence, I Wrote it off to my Ringbook, and then deposited it into my Sorcerer III Valences as a temporary Rune Engram. It was the only result I¡¯d get from the spell until Natural Renewal wiped away the record of it, and the +2 Dexterity in the meantime was just a temporary benefit. ¡°I¡¯ve got potential Fly on tap, and I¡¯m Warded against their passive sense, but I can¡¯t Cast outside your Null without them potentially sensing the draw on magic. I don¡¯t know the range of their sensitivity.¡± ¡°They are buzzing around the town like busy bees right now,¡± Kris related, her ear cocked. ¡°You can¡¯t hear that?¡± ¡°I can feel a discordant thrum on the Chords of magic. Hear, no, below my range,¡± I said, carefully Casting minor Mana Boosts to regain my mana. I¡¯d also purchased two Reserve Feats today, instead of a Crafting Boost. Cold and Force Blade Reserves! Snowcasting meant all my spells were Cold Spells, regardless of anything else, so I had the Reserve Counts in them. So I had the Counts, and now a +1 to my Caster Level for Cold spells basically affected ALL my spells. Ditto Force Blade Reserve, which I was finally kicking in. The Blade¡¯s bonus to melee damage and ability to change damage types on a whim were highly valued in combat, and it could sit on top of Crown and instantly make it into a spear on demand. It also gave another +1 Caster Level to all my Force Spells, too, which would boost my Shards further. The Mastery I took was Lightning Mastery/1, Born of Two Thunders. Apply Lightning and Thunder/Sonic descriptors to any spell, and it cost +1 Valence. Today I was going to go through five hundred levels of lightning spells, AND I was going to Meta the cost of the Two Thunders down to +0 for I¡¯s, and if I could, II¡¯s. Tomorrow I was going to take the Lightning Reserve for Bolts, which would generate 5¡¯ per Caster Level bolts for d6/Valence of highest Lightning Spell in memory... and give me +1 Caster Level to all my Lightning Spells¡­ which I could literally turn any spell into for no cost, in time. Stacking Caster Level modifiers for the win! Snowcasting was more powerful and cost me nothing, but I could Meta the Two Thunders all the way up to IV¡¯s if I needed to. I was so behind in my Masteries. There were just so many things I needed to take..! Well, whatever. ¡°The Marks are magical, so no telepathy until those things are gone. You¡¯ll be practically invisible to them with your Null, so you should be able to scout them out with no problem. If they even see you, they should think you¡¯re a corpse or a statue or something, totally inert and thus not alive.¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s nice,¡± she murmured, her violet eyes flashing. ¡°I suppose I get to suss out their weaknesses, too.¡± ¡°Killing one will just mean they stick around longer, even if they don¡¯t feel it die.¡± ¡°I want to see what vivus does to them.¡± I smiled slightly. ¡°Then get moving, and see if they are inspecting the pit. There might still be vivic residue in it.¡± ¡°You going to be okay?¡± she asked me directly. ¡°I¡¯m going to retreat another mile behind cover and be real discreet about practicing magic. One of them moving through the brush will silence a huge section of the forest and alert me they are coming. I¡¯ll be fine.¡± She nodded once, and turned to force her way back out of the brush, the sticks and branches grinding against her skin and leaving not a mark on her or me. I brought my Force Armor and Shield back up, another sacrifice to her Null, and this time, let Mana Renewal replace what I had spent. AF Chapter 46 – Floating Aberrants, Bad News As Ryin had guessed, there were a large number of the things gathered around the pit, inspecting it for residual energies. The morning Renewal would have blown the vivus through the rest of the consumable materials, and basically it should have died out. Still, the guttering whimpers of whatever ley line effect it was tapped into might have kept it around. Kris was effectively part of a tumbled building in the cold morning air (but not as cold as it should have been) as she watched them. She could see faint trails of energy underneath the creatures, and there was something about them that reminded her unpleasantly of the Killer Drudge back in the north. The way the air seemed to ripple and bend about them also irritated her on general principle, like they were fucking with reality. Definitely not natural creatures. Their shells looked like vaguely monkish robes draped over them, and the carved masks like something a mime or stage actor might use... except she¡¯d seen them take the things off, and then curved sickles whip out of their arms, scratch at the mask for some reason, and then put it back over a hood full of emptiness and a weird glow from the body area shining up through the neck hole. Her gaze turned to the nearest buildings, where several severe slices and cuts into the wood now had a more obvious source than errant sword swings. She couldn¡¯t tell if the creatures¡¯ ¡®body¡¯ was a shell or a draped cloth, their colors ranging from dark blue-gray to brown, black, and even one in bright red. The material certainly looked metallic, although it could have also been ceramic, and the ¡®hood¡¯ did not actually have a hard connection to the torso, floating just above the shell instead. Thus, the body could rotate like a top, which, when combined with the arm-sickles snapping out of nowhere, could be a very deadly fighting tactic. Their spellcasting was monkish, too, putting together nominally empty sleeves and bowing slightly, the magic issuing forth as it was pulled directly from... somewhere. She wasn¡¯t sure what they were drawing on, and even though it seemed to manifest as ¡®normal¡¯ magic, when they blasted the pit with minor magicks to test it, the vestigial vivus leapt up as the magic struck it, something it should have been largely indifferent to... unless it was contaminated with unnatural energies of some kind or another. Somehow, Kris thought, that wasn¡¯t unexpected at all. The things buzzed and hummed together, what words were spoken sounded more like her memories of computer whines, buzzing wires, and broken records on stereo machines than anything human, or made by vocal cords. As one, the meeting of the creatures bowed their masked heads, then split up in all directions, moving out to search all of the buildings here. They weren¡¯t computer-like in their efficiency, and obviously not a true hivemind. She watched as they didn¡¯t disperse with complete perfect allocation of targets and speed, several initially choosing the same targets, pausing to reassess, and then breaking off to find their own. A couple of times, there seemed to be minor arguments between nigh-identical creatures of the same appearance over who searched what and where. Inefficencies, egos, or just plain inability to think things and make instant decisions? Signs of Lawfulness without the proper overmind link working like it should have, especially since energy beings should have some superior forms of communication. One of the lesser common models levitated past within ten feet of her, its false mask with the slightly glowing eye slits never wavering as it moved slowly through the house, inspecting it for signs of recent use, and even went downstairs to make sure nothing was living down there. She and Ryin had already done a once-over of the nearer buildings, so that didn¡¯t surprise her, but... Her ear perked up as she caught the detonating skirl of a Whirling Blade going off, and was that the high-edged squeal of one of the dog-sized rats here? Something had stolen in here and not gotten the memo to run when the alien things arrived. Well, such was life. There¡¯d been tracks of both reedsharks and shreth, and even a couple ursuin, but none had stayed in the area... and she¡¯d sensed more than a few bones scattered about by scavengers and buried under the snow. The thing poked and prodded the stones and charred wood with the gleaming edge and point of its hand-sickles, and almost passed directly over her as it swept on by and moved to the next building. She noted it didn¡¯t gain any altitude, and maintained a very fixed distance above the ground. That was similar to geomagnetism and how it operated, a repelling from the ground. She didn¡¯t feel that, however, more a repulsion from matter itself, directed down, keeping them out of contact with the ground. She really wanted to jump on one and see what its suit was made of, but she didn¡¯t have confidence she could kill it quickly enough. That said, a Null Strike from her, if they were magical energy beings, would probably be horrendously dangerous to them. If her Interdiction worked on them, then they¡¯d only be able to move by dragging themselves at ground level, too. In time. For now, she took mental notes, stayed aware of how dangerous they were, and plotted and planned for the future. The heavier coats/shells of the more powerful ones with the off-colors and severe styling looked particularly unhelpful in the matter of killing them, but she wouldn¡¯t know until she tried. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. And she would definitely be trying in the future! --- In less than an hour the whole troupe of floating colored armor shells completed their survey, then moved out and back over the bridge. Kris noted they paused and inspected the bridge at certain areas, as if checking on something, and filed that away. Moving with purpose, they headed back to the town, leaving no guards or sentries behind. Having met no intelligent opponents, perhaps they felt they were in no danger? The Waveskating Step was particularly useful when on all fours. Just push the ki out your hands as well as your feet, and you could go skating when down flat. Kris wasn¡¯t about to go wading and get caught in the oddly shallow river that bore none of the speed something draining a lake of that size should have, nor try to run across open ground while being pursued by levitating Aberrants. They didn¡¯t need to know she was around yet. She paused at the end of the bridge, looking out, but the creatures had moved past the first ring of houses, towards the city center and the open square there. Flitting from the shadow of one house to the next, she closed in on them to see what they were doing. The first thing they did was perform the same kind of inspection of all the buildings here that they¡¯d done on the other side. Nothing seemed stupid enough to have stuck around, and finally the creatures converged on the open square in the middle of the town. There were cratered areas in that square, two or three of them. She saw another of the Greekish buildings with columns, once again fallen into a great open pit beneath it. The creatures had gathered around an almost organic extrusion of rock, extending down into the ground, and were... reinforcing some kind of magical Ward around it? Well, now. Isn¡¯t that interesting. Just eyeballing the ground around the thing, heaped up to its sides, that looked like another dimensional pocket that had been forced back into reality. Whatever was inside, the creatures didn¡¯t want coming out... or they didn¡¯t want people going in? Depending on the severity and absoluteness of that desire, it explains why they keep everyone else away from the place, Kris thought, assessing the situation. At the same time, there¡¯s obviously enough dangerous stuff around that they don¡¯t dare leave guards or watchmen around, unless maybe they are Summons, as it would just display to all and sundry that something important is inside? Or maybe they just don¡¯t want to be killed unnecessarily. Kris smirked at the thought, but didn¡¯t discount it. Posting extremely powerful guards who couldn¡¯t be killed readily just indicated how important the place was. Not posting guards, but getting rid of anything that lived here was actually a decent compromise. If something went in and came out, they likely would be warned by the Ward about it, and could simply zip over here to quickly investigate with appropriate numbers to indicate to the intruders that it was a bad idea to remain here... ------ Kris watched the creatures complete their magical maintenance, scatter to scour the remaining buildings, kill a startled bunch of shreth who¡¯d made a bad choice of lairs with massed spell effects blasting them dead in seconds, and then zip off into the west in an orderly line, ignoring the road and heading straight overland towards some other destination. Then she turned back to go get her mage companion, and inspect the larger side of the town. ----- The western side of the town had more buildings, including what were obviously the governmental offices. Or had been, before they were blown all to shit in some ferocious fighting. It looked like some banderlings had gotten some ideas into their catlike skulls and paid the price for it. Lots of razored, slicing cuts around, and what banderling bones we found were either blasted and scored, or chopped right through like something an adamantine sword might do. There were multiple trade buildings around the town, and like our arrival point, more of the odd devices that tapped into ley lines and had exploded, taking out the buildings around them and leaving small craters to indicate they¡¯d been in other locations, rather than crashed through walls and languishing in the burnt and blasted basements of the adjacent buildings. They¡¯d had a protective green Statue and pedestal in the center of the overgrown town square, once a parklike place, now marked with several blasted and fused craters of imploding space, the mound-like structure the Aberrants had been obsessing over, and the hacked, chopped, and toppled pedestal the Statue had used to rest atop. The bronze Statue itself was blasted apart, chopped to pieces, and then seared with powerful fire and acid magic. It wasn¡¯t putting itself back together, ever. You could vaguely make out the fact it had used to resemble a mosswart, but there wasn¡¯t anything else intact about it. The town also had another of those arcane pyramidal structures, still faintly venting some violet light, but shattered and cracked along all four sides, clearly ready to fall apart with even some token bombardment. I had to wonder what it had meant and represented, and just shrugged and shook my head. We split up and looked through hundred of buildings, spread through the town and the surrounding area. I scanned everything for Precious Materials, and found next to nothing, mostly scrap gathered up by whatever residents had come here which had been obliterated by the next visit from those Aberrants, judging by the remains left behind in bone and blasted buildings. Kris didn¡¯t find much more than I did, and her Disk came back bearing maybe a couple hundred Air Gold coins and some geegaws on them that might or might not be worth much in goldweight. All in all, it was disappointing but not unexpected. Unlike the drudge town, this place looked to have been abandoned in time to escape a massacre. We looked down into the pit where the Grecian-style building had collapsed, much like the structures in both cities up north had done. Simple deduction was that there had once been an extra-dimensional space connected to all the buildings, they had phased in underneath the structures they were linked to, at once throwing the stone structures into the air from the dimensional pressure, and then collapsing as hundreds of tons of stone came down on them and collapsed their ceilings from above. Groundwater leakage had turned the whole thing into a stagnant pond, likely draining off into the nearby lake, so its level would never rise too high. There remained only the one thing to look over seriously. AF Chapter 47 – A Bridge over Troubled Waters ¡°There¡¯s a Ward under this bridge. It¡¯s quite big, and quite powerful. The columns of the bridge serve as anchors for the Shoreward out there. It actually flows under the bridge...¡± Princess Kristie Rantha whistled low. ¡°I thought there might be a subterranean river, eating most of the water pressure...¡± ¡°Yes. The stonework here is old and strong, self-regenerating, still tapping the ley lines. I imagine all the extra power that fed into it was just dispersed into the Ward for a time. It¡¯s stopping whatever might move up and down the river from doing so.¡± ¡°So... those sleeches and remoras and whatever,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Possibly blocking the powerful, but not the really weak?¡± ¡°Or eggs or larva or something?¡± I hazarded. ¡°It also means the lake itself is probably much deeper than it appears.¡± ¡°Given how shallow the shores are, that would almost have to be a sculpted effect... which somehow does not surprise me at all,¡± Kris murmured, standing at the edge and looking downriver. ¡°This whole island is starting to feel like it was put together like a child¡¯s playground by something extremely powerful.¡± ¡°No comment.¡± The weather effect was obviously tied to that. ¡°I imagine there is artificial terrain acceleration involved here, too. Multiple types in an impossibly small area, because where¡¯s the fun in not having them all to work on?¡± ¡°Now you¡¯re just guessing, but it¡¯s a good guess, if this is indeed a training area.¡± Kris sniffed the air. ¡°I think that¡¯s a swamp starting to the south of us, if my nose is any indication.¡± ¡°Right where a fast-moving river should be. No, no, not messing with the ecology.¡± I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Let¡¯s get our artificing for the day done, and move on. You didn¡¯t detect much for salvage, did you?¡± ¡°Piddling amounts. This was a clean withdrawal, much like the first town.¡± ¡°But still no idea whereto.¡± ¡°And hey, wandering Aberrants around make me even less enthusiastic about the idea of using random Scrying to go look for people.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t imagine why.¡± ¡°Yeah, getting blinded for impertinence is not high on my list of things to have happen to me,¡± I said. ¡°Normally I could dumpster-dive for a portent or omen or something, see if we¡¯re on the right track, or even do some rough time-sighting through Divination to find a direction, but I¡¯m not even confident of a Commune right now.¡± She glanced over at me, frowning. ¡°That sounds ominous. Communes are generally pretty reliable, as I recall...¡± ¡°Yes, but we¡¯ve not come across anything resembling a temple or place of worship in any of these towns.¡± Her mouth opened and closed as she thought about that statement. It was indeed rather unnatural for most human settlements. ¡°That... is very true. The gods back on Ispar likely aren¡¯t gods at all, given that they don¡¯t respond, and are likely just heroes and legends of the past, or beings aping them. Nobody actually draws on the gods for power unless something dire is planned. It¡¯s just... dangerous.¡± ¡°That sounds more like Mythos stuff than gods. And I met one of them when I was incarnated into this body,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Fucking Milanteans,¡± Kris swore with feeling. ¡°Poking their noses into places for power without a damn care for the consequences to others.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no Alignment representation on Ispar, so that¡¯s not surprising. I doubt these people got to the level they did paying heed to Alignments. Conflict tends to follow contact with valid deities.¡± ¡°Oh, how well we knew. The closest we could get to it at home was the Soul Magic, which at least showed the Color of our souls. ¡°Your parent¡¯s Orders of the Silver, Gold, and Rainbow were widely admired,¡± I acknowledged. Known by the Colors at the edge of their Soulbound Blades, of course! She smiled. ¡°Yeah. That was a damn good idea by the folks. Making a Weapon that ignites with the Color of your Soul was a filter that aspirants just can¡¯t complain about... although those who do aspire are generally Marked, so it¡¯s all about those outside looking on and seeing something they just don¡¯t have, for the most part.¡± ¡°There are a lot of people who don¡¯t want to test the Sphere,¡± I agreed, privately amused at the idea of not knowing your soul¡¯s Color. ¡°They consider it a biased reading in favor of the makers¡¯ own code of ethics, completely dismissing the idea of a greater value code. Why are their own beliefs inferior?¡± ¡°Ah, the joys of Neutral and Evil thinking. Personally, I always considered it to be fear of the truth, and being exposed for the hypocrites that they are. The Alignments don¡¯t care what you think, only what you are. In that, they are very, very honest.¡± ¡°And you just know there¡¯s people trying to cheat the tests.¡± Because spellcasters, of course. There¡¯s a problem, try to find the magical solution, just like any smart person. ¡°Damn hard when you don¡¯t acknowledge Alignments in the first place... and like Mom and Dad aren¡¯t miles ahead of them in that area,¡± Kris smirked knowingly. ¡°No, no, there¡¯s no way anyone would ever want to cheat their way into becoming nobles of the Empire just because they make some Tools glow in pretty colors, nopers.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°What do you want to do with the place the Aberrants are Warding?¡± the princess asked calmly, pointing at the, well, Dungeon entrance. ¡°I can walk right through that stuff and not set it off.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know how nasty you are compared to the creatures here yet. I¡¯d say go for it if we both knew, but we don¡¯t know what is in there. ¡°Get some monstrous atrocity with a zillion health and martial ability, and you¡¯re dead. Get a powerful enough chain-Caster, and even you are dead... and some of those things looked like totally powerful enough chain-Casters.¡± Her face twisted. ¡°You are, like, really dumping on my Null awesomeness against Casters, you know?¡± ¡°Says the woman who just eavesdropped on a bunch of them and got away with it without them realizing a damn thing,¡± I sniffed. She was somewhat mollified as I went on, ¡°So you¡¯ve still got to Level. Big deal. Think about the shit we¡¯ve already seen. There¡¯s some hilariously dangerous stuff here, and I¡¯m not good enough to back you up properly. I want to be able to take on this shit, too, but I¡¯m probably six months away from doing so, and that if I Level every single damn day!¡± ¡°The Isparian Leveling limits just never seemed to matter back home, and nobody Leveled Power of Ten style,¡± she sighed. ¡°Ready to blow this place, then?¡± ¡°Yeah. Let¡¯s go back, get our daily grind for Gear out of the way, and head downriver. I¡¯m curious to what we¡¯re going to see, with an invisible river under the river...¡± ------ It was... a floating red-pink crystal, a Fragment, chock full of abjuration and evocation magic. Or, to put it another way, Binding and Elemental energies, complete with self-healing/repair, hostile Bolts of Fire and Force, and animosity. Kris hacked it apart in a shattered mess as it fell to the ground. We sat there and stared at its remains as the magical energies inside of it leaked out. ¡°That¡¯s not ectoplasm,¡± Kris declared. ¡°It¡¯s more like the golums. A shell of real-world material around the magical power source inside.¡± ¡°It¡¯s... some sort of self-regenerating magical pattern? I can¡¯t sense any intelligence, it¡¯s more akin to an animated object. I... think it hijacked the Summons system to restore itself?¡± I Sifted through the remains, saw a gleam of purity, and lifted out a pure, intact crystal from inside it, still gleaming with strange energies. ¡°¡¯I think we will continue to use weird crystals to control and temper our uncontrolled random magical effects¡¯,¡± Kris muttered, holding up her fingers in quote signs. ¡°This is the echo of a very powerful self-regenerating magical spell designed to hold or control something very powerful, repairing itself and inflicting damage upon its prisoner at the same time. I can¡¯t imagine how nasty a prison that must have been.¡± ¡°Any uses?¡± Kris asked, as I tossed the intact crystal on a Disk. ¡°I have no idea, so maybe? If we find a lot more of them, who knows what they could power? Obviously the prison failed, and shattered the spell. It¡¯s trying to renew itself, but it looks like it dispersed itself into the Summons grid, so that¡¯s basically impossible. The Summons effect means it is constantly splitting up the spell into smaller pieces, instead of rejoining them.¡± ¡°Well, good news for whatever it used to trap,¡± Kris conceded in a dire tone. There was a fwazap from the nearby Summons point, and a leopard-sized lizard of pale blue color materialized on it. Both Kris and I blinked at the new creature, which shook its head, blinked as well, turned to look at us, and promptly roared to the attack. It was moving on two legs that looked like nothing less than a grasshoppers, somehow balancing its scaled body between them... and vestigial wings flapped to the attack on its shoulders, little more than useless flippers. Kris reacted before I did, charging forward to meet it without any hesitation. Completely unafraid as it exhaled some flames from its mouth of minor strength, she batted its head aside with a crunching backfist, and then Quaver was inserted into its eye and ended all of its aggressive tendencies promptly. It kind of whined as it collapsed to the ground, temporary life cut even shorter by an abrupt death. ¡°That¡¯s an Azure Gromnie,¡± I reported to her, frowning. ¡°It¡¯s... a kind of dragon? A really young one?¡± ¡°Yeah? Well, damn fragile for a dragon,¡± Kris reported disparagingly. ¡°And the meta says...¡± She winced. ¡°There¡¯ll be older dragons around...¡± ¡°She gets it in one! Who says the savage princess isn¡¯t wise and insightful?¡± She promptly applied knuckles to my head under my ineffectual protests. ¡°Obviously not her faithful retainer she¡¯s carrying around!¡± she stated firmly. I apologized profusely to Her Highness, we watched as the young gromnie broke apart into ectoplasm, and we were on our way again. ---- ¡°Well, something really doesn¡¯t want something coming up from the sea, I¡¯m guessing.¡± This was the third set of carved stone columns marching across the river that we¡¯d seen. There was absolute no sign of this place being used as a fishery, although it would have done the job, and the elevated tops of the columns gave no sign of having supported a road atop them or anything, nor could Kris sense the fallen remains of one in the shallow waters between the columns. The columns, however, went right down into the muck of the river¡¯s bottom, and extended off onto the banks on both sides. I could feel the magic inside the columns, standing despite everything after thousands of years, and making damn sure nothing passed by them. ¡°Seems like overkill,¡± Kris murmured. Dusk had passed, Aethra¡¯s Watch was on in the night, and the world was a quieter place. Also, warmer. It was getting unduly warm for the winter season as we pressed south, and the water was doing the same thing. ¡°Any relation to those fumaroles?¡± Kris pointed at the nearest one. They were conical things, coming up out of the ground and venting particle effects into the air, glowing magical energies of yellow, green, or red motes that dissipated rapidly in the night. We¡¯d gone out to see how far they extended on both sides of the river, and it wasn¡¯t far. They basically paralleled the flow itself, and not much more. AF Chapter 48 – Wet Wonders and Remnants ¡°They are a venting mechanism for the magic below we can¡¯t see. Fire, Earth, and Water Magic bound into some greater force. Probably multiple ley lines running parallel to and crossing the Wards to power them. The suppressive force must be absolutely incredible,¡± I shook my head, watching the glow of the fumaroles extending off to the south on both sides of us. ¡°Vegetation is getting thicker, and the river is starting to broaden.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s see if there¡¯s something where those lead,¡± Kris pointed at the columns leading off the river, and I just shrugged. We¡¯d been keeping pretty busy on the way down. I¡¯d seen my first Summons of the purple elves, which were called Hea Tumeroks. Something was... off about them, as if they shouldn¡¯t look the way they did, and Kris said something was strange about their physiology when she looked it over before it discorporated, like it was meant to be something else, and had been shifted to look like it did. There were also a lot more of the aggressive Rats about this place, spewing acid and frost of all things. They were as crazy as attack beasts, charging us fearlessly with their squeaks. If they had real counterparts, I was glad the ever-present varieties of reedsharks in all their sizes had something to eat to keep the rat numbers down. We¡¯d also seen some very weak olthoi, even less dangerous than those outside of the drudge city to the north. Kris practiced disassembling them, and we had moved on. And, ah yes, the Wisps. Wisps back on Ispar were dangerous nuisances, like magic Elementals with erratic behavior and unreliability. Such things were quick, hard to see, had copious amounts of magic and were adept if limited Casters, with a penchant for Draining people to death, or sucking away their mana to leave Casters helpless, or leeching stamina and leaving people unable to move, only sit there and be slain. Wisps from the Power of Ten had been nasty things that fed on the slow deaths of helpless living creatures. They were the reason Casters carried Force Magic around all the time, as they were pains to hit with physical weapons and immune to most Elemental damage, as well as going incorporeal on demand! No-miss Shards popped the first one before Kris even had a chance to charge it. She just gave me a raised eyebrow. ¡°Sorry. Academy lessons were to snuff any Wisps you see at range, before they can approach to start Draining you. Shamira ran into a few of them, and her recollections of them doing so to her are NOT pleasant.¡± Kris made a dismissive gesture. ¡°I never ran into one powerful enough to get past my Null, and I¡¯ve never actually been targeted by one.¡± She grinned widely, and I just tossed up my hands. As a Null, she was probably almost invisible to one! ¡°I¡¯m still going to pop any I see first.¡± ¡°I DO have to see if I can hit the suckers. Mom said they were good practice for precision fencing.¡± ¡°Well, call dibs, then.¡± ¡°I can make it a royal command!¡± ¡°My trigger finger has no ears.¡± She grumbled good-naturedly, and our trip continued. ------ ¡°Would you look at that.¡± We both turned our eyes at the sight of a formerly magnificent estate house or palatial mansion, rising up over fast-growing trees and plants, half-covered with vines, yet still visible just off the river, rising above the uncared-for remnants of what must once have been a well-kept lawn and property on some kind of raised mound. ¡°That¡¯s definitely the biggest house we¡¯ve seen,¡± Kris agreed, studying it in the wan moonlight of this world. ¡°I note that there are some sizable holes in the roof...¡± ¡°Like something inside exploded when the magic went wild? No, no, no precedent for that, Princess.¡± ¡°Yeah, true,¡± she agreed firmly, turning to investigate. ¡°Shall we see what we can see?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t imagine the humidity has been good for anything, especially with that roof letting the rains in.¡± Said rains had started up promptly at nightfall, and continued in a cold drizzle that I kept at bay with Protection from Rain, and Kris with her Vajra. --- A minute later we¡¯d cut through the tall grass, reeds, and brush that had wildly overgrown everything, and found ourselves standing in front of what had obviously been a reinforced front door, and was now equally obviously hanging off one hinge, scarred, scored, and mauled by claws. Lots of claws. Claws that had ripped their way up the steep embankment that had no stairs behind us, something you don¡¯t put on an abode, just to get to that door and whatever was inside. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Kris just nodded when I pointed down. Something had burst up from below and lifted this mansion up above the ground all around it. Microtears in the ground told her it was another dimensional reversion. It had left the mansion on a sprawling motte, raised above the swamp, nearly twenty feet higher than its original foundations, if the surrounding land was any measure! ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Kris asked, pointing at a broken crystalline rock over to the right side of the entryway, vaguely lozenge-shaped and cracked into five pieces. ¡°Ownership Keystone for Wards, it looks like,¡± I said, studying the remaining Runes and residue of magic on it and the Wardstone it had once been set in or floated over. That Keystone was also cracked and blackened, fused and warped by magical energy. ¡°Overloaded from below. I imagine it tapped the ley line paralleling the river and the Wards under it.¡± Plenty of excess energy to go around, judging by the nonstop numbers of fumaroles venting excess Elemental energy as we came down the river. The windows were all shattered, although most had remnants of blurry glass still set in them. Kris looked around and down. ¡°Glass fragments in the dirt. Those windows were blown and burst out, they weren¡¯t smashed in.¡± ¡°Do a circuit of it first?¡± I requested, and Kris just nodded, gliding along, her Tremblesense feeling the ground as I studied the sides of the building. The first thing we saw was a shattered, triangular monolith, split and broken, its black stone greasy and revolting to the touch... and a burned-out eye of crimson hue melted and warped down the remnants of it when Kris flipped over the heavy rock with easy twists of her wrist to examine it. I only touched it, and snatched my hand back. ¡°Aberrant connections,¡± I stated calmly, and promptly saturated the whole thing in vivic Shards. True to form, the unwhite fires ignited on the broken rocks and began to feast on something unnatural in them. ¡°Why would you put something like this at the corner of your home?¡± Kris asked, her lip curling in disdain. ¡°There was power running through it. If you don¡¯t care where the power comes from...¡± She snorted again, and we moved on. The next interesting thing was a set of three flowerpots. Nothing too exceptional, except for the fact they were as high as my waist, and there were remains of three plants of great size sprawled and rotting out of them. Kris just pointed. ¡°Those are flesh-eating plants! That¡¯s a giant mantrap!¡± Although withered and split, the jaws of the plant were easy to identify. ¡°A pitcher plant and a sundew,¡± I pointed out for her. The first could swallow and drown a small human, the other could wrap them up in sticky fronds of acidic honey and dissolve them alive. ¡°And they are in proximity, no less. What are... I don¡¯t...¡± I just shook my head. ¡°I have no clue, Princess. It¡¯s possible they were truly magical Plants and were trained?¡± ¡°This place is strange...¡± and motion off to our side and below caught our eyes. We turned, and watched as the side of the swamp below seemed to ripple and bulge, and great plants taller than both of us poked up their heads as if alive and sensing our presence. Glitters of perfume that couldn¡¯t carry in the wet and cold air, and fibrous green jaws and glittering, golden-wet flowers gleamed with inviting nectar for our attention below. There were dozens of each of them spread out in that area. ¡°Well,¡± I murmured, seeing that. ¡°Looks like they¡¯ve been able to stay well-fed down there, unlike their forebears.¡± Kris eyed the wooden, sharp teeth of the mantraps below, maws definitely able to open wider than her chest and take a nice firm bite of hagchild. ¡°I imagine they keep the wasps down?¡± We¡¯d seen a new purple variety here that shot fire, and now that she mentioned it, it looked like some of the plants had burn marks on them. ¡°Nature loves its own kind of perverse magic,¡± I agreed. ¡°Those sundews would probably be putting us to sleep if it weren¡¯t cold and wet.¡± ¡°That nectar on them is supposed to be really good once you strain out the digestive juices,¡± she remarked, her eyes narrow. ¡°For someone Sustained, you sure don¡¯t ignore your stomach,¡± I observed. ¡°I am a fan of great cooking, and so are you, so shut it.¡± It was true, so I did. --- There were pedestals scattered in node locations along the back and sides of the house. They once bore man-sized statues of various beings, all such things blown apart, scattered in the area and into the walls of the building behind them, fused holes bored right through the pedestals they¡¯d stood astride. Kris managed to find a fairly intact head of one, which looked like... a carved scarecrow of some kind? ¡°Not seen one of these yet,¡± I noted. ¡°I am sure we will be blessed at some point.¡± ¡°Such an optimistic little Hag you are.¡± ¡°I have faith in the universe wanting to throw stuff at me,¡± she nodded sagely, completely unmoved as we looked at a pair of what had been circular devices of Shaped stone of some unnatural origin, wrought into spirals about a central point. They were both shattered into clumps, now. ¡°This was some sort of Portaling device, too,¡± I said, eyeing the hole in the ground there. It looked like it went through to some opening below. ¡°Given how identical the holes are, I¡¯d say most of the things on foundations used to be teleportation keys of some kind.¡± ¡°Really. That¡¯s quite impressive.¡± Portal magic was the ultimate high-end wishlist for mages back on Ispar, trying really hard to decipher its secrets. ¡°They... just left multiple teleportation keys sitting around the outside of their abode?¡± she had to ask. We shared a look at just how casually they were treating a wonder that didn¡¯t exist back on Ispar. The security hell alone that was involved with easy Teleporting into and out of places... --- The last discovery she actually kicked up off the ground. It was a spear of some kind, with a black haft and blood-red head. Just looking at it made my eyes wriggle and want to look away. It was also cracked, charred, and basically useless, a vestige of what it had been. We both eyed the ground node with the hole in it, and the remnants of the thing. ¡°This is NOT the same energy as that monolith, and it is not mage friendly,¡± I noted to her. ¡°But both have eldritch ties. They aren¡¯t from anything we¡¯d call mortal.¡± She had to lean her head back and look up. ¡°So... these people were the weirdest, strangest cultists you¡¯d ever seen, opportunistic as Hell and ignoring all the possible consequences for tapping into things they didn''t know and couldn¡¯t possibly understand?¡± ¡°Stop asking me questions you don¡¯t want to believe the answers to.¡± She sighed as we returned to the front of the place, having chosen not to enter the postern door at the back of the place, either. Kris kicked the front in, and walked inside, me following on Disk. AF Chapter 49 – Of Manses and Holdings The first thing we saw, other than the warped boards of the floor, was what might have been an ornate meditative water fountain on a short pedestal, cracked and blackened and fallen in place about another floor node that had burned through the stone and wood. On the opposite side of the door upon which it sat, a crude stone catlike head of some kind was sitting, except it had shattered into several pieces around its own burned hole in the floor. The door of the antechamber itself was slightly open, and Princess Kristie pushed it wide. ¡°Uh, huh.¡± We both blinked at the fact that most of the first floor of the mansion was completely gone. By the back wall, the remnants of a staircase hung against the stones of what must have been a large and high basement, steps going all the way up to the watchtower on the roof. The massive basement was now cracked, broken, caved in, and turned into an even larger basement, which also happened to be mostly full of black scummy water at this point, burying from sight whatever was down there. Moss was on everything, the air was dank and stale, but it looked like the second floor had survived somehow. ¡°Huh.¡± Kris leaned way out the doorway, nails digging into the wood for a perfectly safe grip as she looked around. ¡°Secondary staircase, or remnants thereof, hanging from the ceiling over there.¡± She paused significantly, looking to the right. ¡°I think we should just go in through the balcony.¡± ¡°Sounds fine by me.¡± I couldn¡¯t fly at will yet, and while I was sure she could clamber around like a monkey if she was so inclined, neither of us wanted to waste the time of her proving her superior strength-to-weight ratios. So, outside it was, Kris hopping up to the top of the entryway roof with casual lightfoot, my Disk zipping up with her, and from there it was an easy hop over to the upper balcony, with all of its holes punched in the roof and an easy half-dozen more of the gray stone pedestals scattered all about. All of them were cracked and broken, and the remnants of the statues atop them were also scattered around the place, just like below. ¡°Could you reassemble those statues?¡± Kris pointed out to me, wondering. ¡°A Make Whole could do it, and I can Surge for it after dawn if you really want me to.¡± ¡°Ah, yes, rebuilding the spellbook you don¡¯t have yet,¡± she nodded once. ¡°What were you planning on taking?¡± ¡°Mystic Theurge. Right now I can only take Divine spells in my bonus Wisdom Slots, and I¡¯m saving those for Healing spells, for the most part. With the Theurgy, I¡¯ll be able to take them in my Prime Matrix, and I can start treating them as Arcane and put them in my spellbook, too.¡± ¡°Oh. Advantages of doing so, instead of praying for them?¡± ¡°I have means to draw spells right out of my spellbook if needed, which increase in number at higher levels. Can¡¯t do that if the spells aren¡¯t in there,¡± I informed her, shaking my head. Oddly enough, the door to the balcony was closed, but not locked. Indeed, it didn¡¯t even look like it could be locked, which was totally weird. This wasn¡¯t a safe area at all, and I doubted it had been before everything collapsed. Was pure reputation enough to keep intruders out, or did the Wards actually prevent hostiles from entering? The upper floors did show signs of fighting. However, there wasn¡¯t much ¡®homey¡¯ feeling about the place. The furniture and d¨¦cor was that of someplace to show off and display knickknacks and esoterica, not to live in. Specifically, it only had one devoted bedroom, although we discovered a cot that could be swung out in a back room. Weirdly enough, there was no bathroom on this floor at all. ¡°Well, what do you know,¡± she piped up as we entered the room with a hole in the roof. Moonlight came in, lighting it up, not that I needed it. She pointed at the wall, and I looked over at the painting framed up there. Squinted, and looked closer. It was warped and starting to mold, but it was behind glass and hadn¡¯t fallen off, although the frame was bending and water creeping in. It was a map and drawing of what looked like an island, an artist¡¯s rendition that seemed fairly accurate, for someone who didn¡¯t have access to satellite photos or scrying. More to the point, it had specks for cities drawn on it, although the ink had run and I couldn¡¯t make out the names. Kris¡¯ black fingernails reached out to one of those dots, followed a river down to the northern tip of a lake and another dot, then down along the western shore of that to a third dot on another lake leading out to a darker area, which broadened out, then condensed into another river flowing out east into what was a sea or ocean surrounding this place. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Make Whole it is, I guess,¡± I said under my breath, and Kris just nodded agreement. If we had a map of the place, we¡¯d be stupid not to make use of it. ¡°You want to make a night of it here?¡± ¡°Sure, why not? Wind and rain protection, as long as there aren¡¯t holes in the roof.¡± The furnishings in the room were completely ruined, and the floor was sagging badly under that hole, boards warped and splitting, sagging so the water could drip down from them. We didn¡¯t take the painting down, as it just might come apart if we did. Easier to just Cast on it in the morning. ------ With that done, there was only to see if I could find anything in the basement, or remnants thereof. It looked like there had been a real basement, complete with cross-braces holding up the main floor, and then a ¡®new¡¯ basement had erupted underneath it, taking out many of the timbers as it was forced into reality. The ¡®new¡¯ basement, from above, had a kind of flower design, with two floors, a large central area, and multiple side rooms to put things in. The lower floor and about a foot of the second floor were now underwater, rain coming in with nowhere to go, and the ornamentation and stuff had really suffered for the atmosphere. What might have been magical lights had even been blown off their sockets, so it was no brighter now than it had been before. That said, I still scanned the area for... ¡°Damn!¡± I muttered in shock, looking at a particular side room underwater. I pointed at it. ¡°Kris, there is a LOT of precious material scattered in that room...¡± ¡°Really? Anywhere else?¡± I panned the Detect Precious Materials III back and forth slowly using Crown, even sticking it deeper into the water to be sure, and Kris helpfully made a circuit of the place. ¡°One more time around.¡± She obligingly towed me around on my sole Disk, the rest of them left upstairs with our stuff piled on them. I paused at another side chamber. ¡°There¡¯s something magical under there.¡± I pointed directly at it. ¡°Minor Telekinesis won¡¯t reach...¡± She didn¡¯t hesitate for a second, diving right into the scummy water without hesitation into the area I pointed, so smoothly there was barely a ripple in the water. I had naturally scanned for living and undead things in here first, making sure there were no foul surprises under the water, which frankly surprised me. Then again, with no easy ingress or egress came no food or supplies, so anything falling in was likely dead... unless it could survive on squirrels or snails or something. It only took her a minute, her Tremblesense letting her navigate perfectly and her Vajra making her an incredible swimmer. Then there was a bit of a splash, and she almost poured up out of the water, rising to the top on her Tats and lightfoot. The water and scum sloughed right off her as she shook her head, politely not forcing it away in my direction, and she lifted her hand. She had two Swords in hand, glowing very gently in her grasp, raising my eyebrows high. ¡°They looked like they were crossed on a wall mount, and fell on the ground together,¡± she explained, lifting them up. Both were about the size of human bastard Swords, with a solid yard of blade to both of them. ¡°Longswords, made for taller people?¡± I hazarded as she spun them in her hands, getting the feel for them. She flourished the one with the brighter Blade, and a swirling helix of particles of light began to steal up along the blade from the bright blue of the ornate guard and pommel. ¡°There¡¯s a strange energy running through this one on a passive level. It¡¯s also ready to receive a charge, but seems to be completely empty. There¡¯s crystalline aspects to the blade, it¡¯s not made of a true metal.¡± I eyed it in some consideration at her words. She hefted up the other weapon, which had a set of jewels embedded into it, including forming the anchor between the hilt and the Blade itself. ¡°This... has elements of Isparian design to it, specifically some Aluvian techniques. But the Weapon is made almost entirely of Air Gold, save for these jewels, which seem to be removable.¡± She indicated the large scorched crystal forming the ricasso by itself, with two black stones further up the blade. ¡°It looks like the jewel here took the brunt of the surge, and preserved the rest of the weapon by stopping it from entering the charge pool, which seems to have fused shut as a result. ¡°This other one, the energies inside seem to have simply ignored the surge, although the charge chamber is also crystallized and useless now.¡± She stepped away and cut with the two Swords through a simple, yet rapidly-evolving dual-wield pattern, somehow getting the overlong Weapons to swirl about as if alive, yet never clash or get in one another¡¯s way. ¡°These are finely-made Weapons, definitely magical, quite superior to almost anything back home, but they were just left sitting on a wall, their charges left to bleed away?¡± ¡°Which is something you do with mementos and faithful Weapons that are no longer powerful enough to be of use to you.¡± She looked at me, was about to say something, and thought better of it. ¡°Trophies and memories of younger times.¡± She held both of them up, the very faint illumination showing magic that made the disfiguring Cursemark on the side of her lovely face glitter and move uncomfortably. ¡°These are both made using magical techniques I¡¯m not familiar with, and I know all the Matrix stuff, and I thought I knew all the Isparian stuff that was relevant.¡± ¡°So, from the magical civilization that Called everyone here, or at least derived from them?¡± ¡°Yes. Especially this Air Gold Sword, here. Making Air Gold into a Sword... it doesn¡¯t have the natural material strengths, but it is holding even the passive magic like a champion. It¡¯s like, hmm, they had an excess of Air Gold, and not even real metal, so they subbed magical strength for material strength. There¡¯s a lot of Force structure enhancement inside the blade, reinforcing its structural integrity so it can perform.¡± ¡°Let me see them.¡± I held out a hand, and she passed the brighter, foreign-style straight blade with the bright blue hilt and guard, into my hand. ¡°For the Light! The Light!¡± The Dericostans were everywhere, their foul darkness and animated flesh blighting the world, overcoming the defenders and their shining Weapons. They were trying to reach the source in the Hall, to bind it and cover it in their darkness, for the Swords of the Lost Light were their most terrible bane... AF Chapter 50 – A Sign of the Lost Light ¡°Hwa!¡± I blinked as the vision broke, Kris having tugged the Sword back out of my hand, staring at me oddly. I blinked at the Sword rather foolishly for a moment. ¡°Give it back again.¡± She carefully held it back out, and I carefully grasped it... but the vision was no longer there. What was there was Elemental Fire and Radiant energy, basically a sleeping sun in the heart of this Sword, waiting to be lit and re-ignited. The swirling helix of energies winding around the blade pulsed and grew, meshing with something deep inside of me. Above, the dawn crested, and the light of Natural Renewal streamed across the world. ¡°Truth. ¡°Hope. ¡°Valor.¡± They would not win, the Light would not stay Lost. The Swords would live on, and someday, a true soul would come to free The Light.. Hope never dies, and there will always be a Light in the darkness... I blinked again at the feeling of that last thought fading away, finding Kris there holding her forehead, a little blood coming out of her nose. ¡°Ouch,¡± she said, opening one violet eye to fix me crossly. ¡°And here I thought I was Gold...¡± I inhaled softly, shaking my head. Today¡¯s Feat had auto-Invested, as the call of a bright and shining soul whose faith and belief had never wavered Called across the centuries with Truth, carried on a tide of Hope and Valor, and I had no choice but to respond to it. One doesn¡¯t learn the Words of Creation on a whim, and despite everything, I had inherited too much from Aelryinth to endorse new ones. Kris reached out and scooped away the tear that fell from my eye as I stared at the Sword that was alive in my hand. ¡°What did you see?¡± she asked, both soft and dangerous in that moment. ¡°I saw that we are their Hope, and that is Truth.¡± She blinked once, and only once... and then she smiled. Oh, what a fucking divine, glorious, bloodthirsty smile she had, all eight canines agleam and ready to bite and tear, a living picture of defiance of the darkest kind, of a Hagchild who had beat their Curse and was ready to rip out the throat of any other great Evil she ran into as a result. An incarnation of Valor. ¡°A Quest! A godsblessed overarching grand QUEST! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!¡± she shrieked in total glee, and if the Hag¡¯s edge to it really set the stones to protesting, I wasn¡¯t denying her that laugh at all. ¡°I think... if Quaver Consumes this Sword, you¡¯ll be able to feel the energies inside, and hear that vision, a connection to those who once bore Weapons like it.¡± To my utter lack of surprise, Quaver poked itself out from behind Kris¡¯ waist, and the metal of its pommel seemed to flicker. I passed the Sword back to Kris, who watched the Lights on it slowly die, saying nothing. She was a Null, and this was not a Weapon made for a Null, so naturally it could not respond to her the same way, even if she was a Natural Swordswoman and a Mastersmith. But if it was a part of Quaver, that would not be a problem at all. I held out my hand for the other Sword, my eyes instantly drawn to the three jewels on it. I didn¡¯t care about what it was made of, or the techniques involved, but those jewels were not made by those who made that Sword. There were both darker and brighter things about them. I set the Sword across my thighs, Kris watching me closely, and I put my hand on that burned-out jewel there. Fire. Always, there is Fire. The cold things tap the Fire when it rises to the surface, think to tap the pure essence as they build great machines to slave it, and condense it down in the Earth. But the power of the Fire is greater than they know... I jerked as that vision sparked by an instant surge from Identify and my Bloodline vanished as well, the roaring of Elemental power and fury that had become a mere whisper still sharp and clear in its alien power... and spoken in true Pyrrhic, as only a Fire Elemental could. At the same time, the Sword itself had resonated with far more than just Fire. This stone was a condensed form of Elemental Fire, and basically bestowed Firephasing onto the Weapon! There were three other similar Stones, bestowing Lightningphasing, Coldphasing, and Acidphasing in turn, one for each Elemental power, condensing in places for each of them, Vaults made to gather and congeal the power for use in Weapons like this. And there was a fifth Stone. One that gave the Sword power over all Elementals, woven of all of them and beyond them as a result. I could picture all the Stones, as all of them had been embedded into this Blade at one time or another. ¡°We are going to have to stay here another day, unless...¡± I reached down to the burned-out Fire Stone, Elemental power overloaded by arcane energy, and tweaked the Force Structure that held it in place as an Argent Savant. There was a pop, and it came free of the Sword. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I held it out to her. ¡°The others have similar cuts, but that¡¯s pure Elemental energy, not arcane. It won¡¯t pop for me without Locate Object, which I won¡¯t have until I meditate. Or, you could go searching and finding. I imagine if they had them, they¡¯ll be in that mess there.¡± I pointed to the room with all the valuables in it as I handed the crystal to her. She took it, then watched as I moved my hand to the two dark, diamond-like jewels in the Blade there. Work. Toil. Rivers of Elemental Fire, bound and chained and straining to be freed. The great passage of time, the great machines age and begin to fail, the fire sputters free. Control circuits at the heart of fire, controlling the flames, Source, Maker, and Slave Stones ever-ready to replicate their unending commands to serve... I blinked away the vision of fiery golums forever tasked and slaving away at the running and maintenance of arcane machines that themselves were aging badly, with no sign of repair or upgrades from their very, very absent masters. ¡°These are Blackfire Diamonds, basically control devices for arcane energies. This is a Slave Stone, and this is a Maker Stone the Slave stones are replicated from. There is a Source Stone embedded in the Master Control Golum of the Great Machine in the core of some volcano, and if taken it will end the workings of the Great Machine. ¡°Embedded in the Blade, they enhance its power perceptibly, making it hit harder, move faster, and bite deeper.¡± I presented the Sword back to her, which she weighed, and then looked about for something to set it on. I reflected that we were going to need more Disks, so I whipped up another one for her, and she set both across its concave setting. ¡°We may be here a couple of days,¡± she admitted. ¡°It is a good place to take a break,¡± I agreed. Then she was off into the water to see what she could find down there, and I closed my eyes as a bunch of levers started ticking over. My Feat for the Level was taken, but the Mastery was still open. Lightning Meta/2, Crackling Spell: +1/die of damage to all spells with the Lightning Descriptor. Which applied to Healing spells and how much they cured when Born of Two Thunders applied, which meant Boost Mana was affected, drawing more pure mana out of the power of Lightning. Mystic Theurge/1! +1 Faux Level to Ur-Priest, bringing it to (5) and Valence III¡¯s. meshing Divine and Arcane Magic, Cast Divine spells out of Primary Matrix instead of just Wisdom bonus spells, even select them as Sorcerer Spells Known if I so chose. And, of course, Write them to my Ringbook for instant recall in emergencies. Advance Zeks. Advance Crown. Advance Mark, raised to +2 (3)! Work on the multi-Element Protection Necklace for Kris. Flip all them Isparian skill bars, let the new understandings and knowledge percolate, laugh at Alchemy and Magic Tinkering hitting Rank 2, basics that fed into my Alchemy on the other side of the wall, mostly concerned with making spell components and rigid discipline in doing so, rather than depth of facts and lore. I was done with Sacred Protection +I (II!), working on normal Protection +I now on Zeks. I treated the painting on the wall with Make Whole and Mending, restoring it to pristine condition before we liberated it, frame and all, from where it hung. While we definitely had it up in our Visual Files to cross-reference, the fact was we now had an idea of where we were in relation to other places, and could fill the details in. Kris did her refinement work on Crown, and slowly and carefully fed the Sword of Lost Light to Quaver, keeping hold of both Weapons the whole time as the magical Blade Burned down in the Investing Formation, and her own self-forged Blade took it in. The way her eyes blazed at several points, it was plain she was seeing things that I had not, the power and history of the Weapon transferred right into intimate contact with her Soulbound Blade and the Named Weapon of a Natural Swordsman. It did not surprise me at all when Quaver¡¯s black and gold theme lightened up with traces of azure, and her Blade began to gleam with internal Lights of its own that had nothing to do with Soul Energy. Even the guard and pommel changed shape, reflecting the make and style of the ancient Order¡¯s Weapon that she was both Consuming and emulating. I wasn¡¯t the one going to be bearing their Sword, after all. Although if Kris could emulate the same thing with a Staff, Crown was more than willing to hold some Lost Light itself and do so... In between that, Kris dove for loot, while I both whipped up Disks to stack the stuff up on, and practiced a lot of energetic Rep Counts. My primary focus this time was on No Sound, although that was only partially true, as including the power of the Words of Creation meant there was going to be a psychic chime, even if there was no verbal one, as Sacred power was added to a Good spell. I wanted it to be applicable to my Valence II¡¯s, which meant a thousand rep counts of some II¡¯s with it attached. Likewise, I wanted Banespell to apply to my II¡¯s, another thousand reps. I wanted Split Ray reduced from +2 to +1 for my I¡¯s, and I wanted my new Crackling Spell Meta reduced from +1 to 0 for my I¡¯s, both of them taking five hundred Castings. Needless to say, I also got in all the Rep Counts I might have wished for using Boost Mana Lead through Copper, as all of these Rep Counts took II and III Valence Slots to Cast. The atmosphere in the dark and gloomy flooded basement cleared up enormously as I sent energies through the air, spells both Matrix and Isparian flying around getting rid of a lot of the moss and charging up the atmosphere with new motion. I had a ton of spells to go fetch, but at least I had a course, now. AF Chapter 51 – Idyllic Day of Hard Work The princess spent most of the day and dusk diving for loot. She could hold her breath for three minutes at a time, dragging a Disk down there and heaping it up with the stuff she found in her Tremblesense, or shifting rubble around and out of the way with her inhuman strength to get at the stuff. She said there was a lot of decayed organic stuff scattered around the place, mixed in with the minerals that had survived the times. What might have been paper money at some point broke apart into scattered fragments in the water, and there were definitely several chests that had probably been treated with spatial expansion magic that had exploded when the Veil hardened on top of them, spilling all the contents out and introducing them to what might have been a magical catastrophe at the same time. The remnants of bottles and flasks indicated at least some alchemical supplies had been among the hoard below, now long gone and dissipated into the brackish water. Mostly, it was intermixed collections of raw minerals, of surprising purity once they were scooped up and deposited on Disks, taken upstairs, Sifted, and separated. Shape Stone was a bit of overkill, but it made a nice lining for woven reed platters and baskets to accept the different kinds of materials and stack them up after I used Prestidigitation to clean them up and dry them off. Towards the end, I stuck Crown into the water down near her, using her Tremblesense to guide me as I gathered up the last of the stuff for her to scoop into a Disk, and we called it a night, heading up top to look over everything. --- We had a couple dozen woven reed platters thinly lined with stone when all was said and done. Everything was separated and heaped up by material as Kris examined it all with a grave eye, backing up what my basic Assay had told her, stirring a black-nailed finger through the heaps as we sat on the floor of the upper sitting room. ¡°Well?¡± I asked her, as the last of the minerals heaped up in little mounds of dust, pebbles, and nuggets to the appropriate platters. Some of them were heaped up and quite sizable, like the steel and iron. The gemstones were smaller and scattered, ranging from actual cut gemstones to just powder and dust, and everything in between. Kristie pulled over the Disk that was holding the platter with hundreds of pounds of slivers and chunks of steel, forcing her hand into the mass and looking elsewhere with her eyes. ¡°These... were made using some kind of smelting technique, probably separated by the Quality Level, and then heaped back together when we retrieved them. There¡¯s some very high-quality stuff in here, with excellent nickel and carbon balance, and then there¡¯s some stuff only good for scrapwork. The same applies to pretty much everything else, but there¡¯s a big bias towards high quality in a lot of this stuff.¡± She reached out into the pile of darkened bronze, looking away as she paid attention to her Tremblesense. ¡°If we were to rate this stuff from 11 to 30, this whole stack of bronze is 27 to 30. This is really well-smelted bronze.¡± I was impressed. ¡°The iron?¡± I pointed to the rusting stuff. ¡°Pre-alloy, bias of 28 to 32. Like the steel, there¡¯s some scrap, but not much. Like they were saving the good stuff. Same applies to the brass, the copper, even the silver and gold, and I have no idea why.¡± ¡°The Air Gold?¡± I¡¯d been kind of surprised when we¡¯d found no coins down there at all, but the scattered stuff was obviously the same raw material, with its faint greenish hue. ¡°Same. I imagine it would be easy to use. Oddly enough, the gemstones are mostly all over the place, although some of it is good.¡± She dragged over the heaped platter of diamonds and sparkling dust, and unerringly plucked a stone the size of a robin¡¯s egg from the mound, holding it up to catch the faint starlight. ¡°What really confused me is this stuff.¡± She reached out to indicate a heaped mound of shaved stones. ¡°Earth Granite?¡± I noted. ¡°It contains the power of mass and weight. If you Infused, Invested, or Crafted it, you can instill extra weight or power into an item when swung, right? It¡¯s a Power Component for making things Heavy.¡± ¡°Oh, this is Earth Granite?¡± I nodded back to her. ¡°Weird, I can¡¯t tell it from the normal stone. The relationship must be too close.¡± She glanced over everything else. ¡°How much of this stuff is Energized?¡± ¡°Pretty much everything.¡± That raised her eyebrows. ¡°Not very powerfully, it¡¯s almost residual, and a lot of it is in the lesser Earth bands, so it¡¯s hard to tell. All that ivory, for example, has been treated to Spirit, it¡¯s got aspects of life and souls bound about it. You could use it to fuel a simple Ritual to bind to or sever something from the soul.¡± It had come from at least a dozen kinds of creatures, too. ¡°So, this is Earth Marble? And Earth Alabaster?¡± She touched the mounds of each other kind of rock. ¡°Yes. I am... not sure what they are used for? I only remember seeing them used in carving statues, as they are significantly more durable and able to resist corrosion than the base stone is. I know in the Matrix system Energized Water Alabaster is a filtering material that can be used to contain and purify liquids stored in them, for instance, turning wine into grape-flavored water if you store it in jugs of the stuff.¡± The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Well, it¡¯s obviously considered important stuff if they go out of their way to preserve it for something,¡± she noted, selecting another pile. ¡°But ceramic... really?¡± She gave me a look, and I just shrugged. ¡°I have no clue, although those are also Earth-energized. Mostly silicon, as it were, so basically fire-treated silicas?¡± I just shrugged at her. ¡°I¡¯m blank as far as uses.¡± ¡°Not even as a Power Comp?¡± ¡°Standard enhancement bonuses to armor? Maybe something anti-fire?¡± I could only shake my head. ¡°Most of the uses for E-silicas involve glassworks, not ceramics.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t believe they didn¡¯t have any usable obsidian. Or carbon, aside from diamond dust,¡± she muttered. ¡°Coal and ash isn¡¯t exactly hard to find. Planning on using the iron and steel?¡± I inquired. ¡°Why not? It¡¯s there, I need a Shield, a second Weapon, a Floating Furnace, an Anvil of Silent Thunder, and a Shaping Hammer and other Tools. Although no adamantine is going to be annoying...¡± she complained under her breath. ¡°Nobody is familiar with adamantine back on Ispar, either,¡± I reminded her, and she just grunted, smirking slightly as her shoulder twitched in Quaver¡¯s direction. The Sword was definitely adamantine! ¡°Sounds like someone needs to set up shop and do some Artificing,¡± I noted to her. She glanced at me, and all the assorted stuff around us. ¡°You can probably Shape up a storage container that can travel along on Disk for this stuff, right?¡± ¡°Easily. It would be better if it was wood, however, stronger for the weight.¡± ¡°How about Energizing raw materials?¡± she asked. ¡°Mmm. Each Energize Spell is different for each Valence, it¡¯s not just one Raised spell that progresses up the Valences. I can do it as part of my one a day, sure.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the power comp boost on this stuff without a true Energize?¡± She waved her hand at everything. ¡°Maybe fifteen percent? If used on something appropriate for Earth. But... I¡¯m not sure how much of it we should spend without knowing why it was hoarded like it obviously was. Clearly there¡¯s a use for this stuff not in the Matrix system, and I¡¯d like to know what.¡± A platter of tiny moonstones and fragments thereof slid over to my hand, and I lifted one up, studying it critically. ¡°So just keep Burning the coins, while working with the raw metal. That¡¯s fine. I¡¯d like an Energize III for tomorrow, when I start working on a Floating Furnace. I¡¯ll need it for the metal.¡± ¡°Sounds workable. Make up a list of spells you want from me. I presume Heat Metal is among them, for when it is time.¡± Kristie nodded. ¡°Ready for some Naming Karma quick? We should be able to clear the area of Summons pretty easy.¡± ¡°We also need to determine if this place is on any of the patrol routes of the undead or shades, and if any of the living tribes of creatures check in here. I am actually damn surprised one of them didn¡¯t take it over. Has to be a reason.¡± ¡°Aye, no tracks of anything recent up here, even the birds should be nesting here if nothing comes in.¡± ¡°And the eater plants aren¡¯t growing up on top here next to the house.¡± She considered that in the growing darkness and silence. ¡°What are you thinking?¡± she finally asked. ¡°Either some nasty unwanted visitors are keeping it clear, or something internal, like a haunting.¡± ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure one of us would have felt something off if this place was haunted.¡± ¡°Which leaves the latter, or something else.¡± I could only shrug. ¡°It may not mean anything...¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s a good point. Should have noticed it, just chalked it up to residual magic of the house. Also, I did a full circuit of the floor down there. No real bones or skeletons of anything in there bigger than bugs or rodents.¡± She made a face. ¡°Which is also curious, come to think of it, right?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sensing anything in the atmosphere that¡¯s generally capable of cleaning up like that at all, so, yeah, weird.¡± She frowned, looking over. ¡°Okay, now that I think about it, the moss and mold growth and stuff wasn¡¯t more than a couple months old and deep, either.¡± I inclined my head. ¡°So, something comes through every few months and just scours this place clean, somehow?¡± ¡°The number of things that could do that is pretty small, and almost always start with ¡®o-o¡¯,¡± she remarked thoughtfully. ¡°This place is on the regular hunting sweep of some oozes.¡± Even I thought the idea was incredulous. ¡°We haven¡¯t seen any on the Summons or on the landscape... which doesn¡¯t mean they aren¡¯t there, and they frequently love swamps.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll just have to wait and see. Can be pretty sure the swamp around reacts to their coming, so we should hear them coming by the silence.¡± ¡°So, time to hack some Summons quick, get some rest before the Salute, and see how long we can stay in one place and get some stuff done?¡± ¡°And hope the locals don¡¯t stumble on us while it happens, if we haven¡¯t been seen already in passing.¡± ¡°I¡¯m presuming escape spells are in your dossier of distress,¡± she replied, unconcerned with the possible future. ¡°I always have stuff to accumulate,¡± I agreed, and our course for at least the next couple of days was set. ------ I wasn¡¯t going to catch up on my Masteries in arrears, as I still had far too much to do with Classes and Class Levels, while Princess Kristie was soon engaged with both making more Tools and gathering up the materials for her to do so. It mostly meant going out, finding a suitable tree the next day, and cutting it down. I was unsurprised that Quaver could turn into an axe, as if she could become a dagger, why not? Thus Kris located an oak that would serve our purposes, turned her Sword into a gleaming Axe, and in a blur of hardness-ignoring chops that bit into the hardwood like it was soft cheese, she brought that oak down in almost total silence inside a Sound Bubble, barely stirring up anything. AF Chapter 52 – A Home away from Home She smirked when she realized I¡¯d been thinking ahead, and hadn¡¯t gone for Energize III today, but had instead taken Shape Wood. We could start making things out of this trunk without having to haul it around and chop it apart, creating a trail back to where we were staying. Instead, Shape Wood easily and cleanly divided up the trunk, cleared off the bark, and put it in sections Kris could easily heft onto the Disks I brought up after she quickly hewed off the branches... and we could use the branches to make dowels and stuff, so they ended up stacked on Disks of their own after I remade them into dowels, planks, and boards of various sizes. Actually, given how efficiently I could make use of the wood, she quickly revised her plans and set about making a wagon for us. In place of metal nails, we used wooden nails, dowel points, and wedges I could shape crudely and she could slice down to perfection, working with great speed and ease. Shape Wood out of a II Valence allowed for only simple, basic builds. Out of a III Valence it could get more complex and possibly add some surface detail and basic design work, but it wasn¡¯t whittling, treating, or molding. At IV it could be shaped as well as clay, but that was still a way off. But, you know, when you only want to make smooth boards, posts, dowels, and the like, it really is all you need, and crude doesn¡¯t mean imprecise. I could dry the boards out quickly, treat them with a sealant whipped up out of giant honeytrap juice, sundew fronds, and newly-made turpentine, seal them together, and Kris knew some fascinating rod and catch designs that took no nails to hold things together. We soon made use of them, working down in the basement on a section high enough above the water with stacked rubble so as not to get wet. Kris could also hand-fish better than a crane, and the local fish could be distilled down into glue without all that much work. Given we had the time and the swamp gave us the resources, I broke from my intended path to take an Alchemist Level here, given the need for me to make components, especially tapers, and basic chemical and alchemical needs we both could work with. Emergency Healing Potions were a necessary reserve, after all. With all the shattered glass from the vials in the water, it was easy to melt it all down and set up my own ersatz laboratory I would be able to fold out from the wagon. I illustrated the design for Kris, who clapped her hands in delight on seeing it. She was fully conversant in Rune Chemistry, and there was little difference between the two disciplines, save how magic entered what we were working on. ------ The socketed Sword slowly Burned away, the pyreal and force magicks that made it up consumed as Quaver ate it slowly and thoroughly, the gems set indelibly into it dropping off and plucked up smoothly by Kris as they fell away from the disintegrating Blade. ¡°It wants to lighten Quaver up,¡± she smirked as the last of the Sword was being eaten away by the Investing Pattern. Quaver¡¯s blue-black adamantine steel now had a full runnel of crystalline silver-white, with four socketed holes in it that looked very out of place to any serious smith, something eye-catching that actually reduced the integrity of the blade. ¡°I¡¯m hazarding tungsten must be pretty rare here if they resorted to using this stuff.¡± Naturally she didn¡¯t want her Blade to be any lighter. It weighed four or five times what a normal human would consider wielding, which, since she was as strong as a Jotun and had the heavyfoot to brace it and ki to make it act like it was a tenth that heavy, was just one more example of the things you did when you were an obsessive weapons expert. She could fence with it like a rapier. Me, I could use it to do curls. ¡°Well, at least it looks like a Sword, and not some mage¡¯s approximation of one.¡± The crystal-holding force structure had been an eye-roller, for certain, the equivalent of putting a boob-window on a sword. Just, why? ¡°True. And the best part is, I don¡¯t need the Elemental Stones the other Sword had, since Quaver already has the basic four Phasing enchantments in Arsenal.¡± The primary effects of those Stones had been to change the weapon from physical damage to elemental, after all. ¡°So, I can just go after the congealed Prismatic Stone... as soon as I find out where it is.¡± ¡°Which someone with Divination magic just might be able to do for you,¡± I agreed, and she gave me her standard shit-eating ¡®I love to have a Powered I can order around¡¯ smile. ¡°What do the black Diamonds do for her?¡± I asked calmly. She slid the smallest one into the end slot, the one nearest the point, and it sparked and set, fusing to the blue-black adamantine and nearly invisible. The Sword seemed to perk right up in her hand, and I could see Force magic ripple about and through it. She flicked the long and slender Blade out, much heavier than it looked like, and little jetsilver ripples intermixed with Gold followed it around, spreading out in a swirling helix up her arm and around her from the inherited particle effects of the Lost Light. ¡°Interesting...¡± she said, watching it at work. ¡°That¡¯s a deflection effect,¡± I noted professionally. I flicked a Dart up and sent it her way. She twitched the Sword across its path, and the Dart hit the swathe of ripples and veered off and past her harmlessly. ¡°That is VERY strong,¡± I noted to her, impressed. ¡°I think it is equal to the Enhancement bonus, which I think right now is equal to +VI,¡± she nodded slowly, her violet eyes a-gleam. ¡°It¡¯s a lot of waving around, but yes, this is... nice,¡± she had to admit. And given just how fast she could wave that thing around, she could be surrounded in Gold-and-jetsilver force ripples continuously, the Helix of protection impossible to miss. Quite eagerly, she dropped the second black Diamond in, and the hiss and pop and crack was even louder as it fused into place. Both black Diamonds glowed with tiny white-hot lights in their centers now. The force ripples were even more pronounced, waves shimmering out from it even when she held it absolutely motionless, pulsing and ready to act. ¡°Try Humanbane?¡± I asked shortly, staring at the display in fascination. It was one of the strongest deflection effects I could remember. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. She arched an eyebrow, and invoked the Bane. Scarlet flames the exact hue of fresh human blood lit up over the length of Quaver, hungry for human blood and life, making my hairs stand instinctively on end to see them. The Force ripples flushed with scarlet, growing stronger, thicker, yet sharper and more complex, dazzling and dangerous, They were just oozing a dangerous threat and malevolent protection, the spiral of force covering nearly half her body as it swirled about her. ¡°Another +II, and it looks like a +d6 of pure force damage,¡± she said slowly, looking at the devastatingly dangerous Weapon in her hand fondly. ¡°Stacks with the Bane, too.¡± ¡°A +X Weapon, effectively,¡± I nodded. ¡°Enmity?¡± I asked. ¡°Hah!¡± A harsh and judgmental silver Light joined the display of so many deadly energies, and Quaver looked to be a good six inches across now, what with the layers of Enhancement bonuses magnifying the acuity and force of her edge. Oddly enough, the Bane lost all threat to me, as the Enmity aligned it against Evil, and I didn¡¯t qualify. ¡°Nice, consolidating the two together,¡± I approved. Only dangerous to Evil Humans, as it were. ¡°It was a nice way to stop any potential Curse feedback,¡± she nodded, waving the Sword around as if it were a willow wand, leaving behind a basically solid swathe of Radiance and Force ripples. The Lost Light! A +XII deflection effect attached to a Weapon! ¡°Potential Mastery effect. See if the bonus damage from the Kickers can infuse the deflection effect and ablate incoming damage, instead of adding to your own.¡± ¡°Oh, a solid defensive technique, that would be!¡± she agreed immediately. ¡°I¡¯ll work on it! It¡¯s not something in my memories.¡± ¡°Came to me when I saw the deflection effect. That is totally new to me, too.¡± Aelryinth¡¯s Staff was effectively pseudo-Eternal by similar mechanics. ¡°The slotted Stone effects would be totally great if they could be added to other Weapons, too...¡± ¡°I see no reason why they shouldn¡¯t be, especially to something as flexible as a Staff,¡± she agreed with me. ¡°Of course, we have to acquire the Stones or their production means.¡± She abruptly bounced to her feet. ¡°Surround me with a Holo of the map, centered on our current location.¡± I obliged immediately, a large blown-up flat Hologram extending about her, our current location south of Rithwic centered on her. Our lived-line trace had basically started in the town of Holtburg, going past the road and bridge to Arwic down the River Prosper, ended up in the fallen capital city of Cragstone where the drudges now lived, extended down the shoreline of Lake Blessed, wound up in the town of Rithwic which was cleared by the floating Aberrants, and then extended down the shoreline as the Prosper continued, forming the Blackmire Swamp which the manse we were in was right on the edge of, near to the town of Yanshi off to our south-west. The rest of the map sprawled out, only the settlements and major geography named. The scattered smaller islands around this one, the inland sea, and the fact so much different geography was crammed into one place was all telling of magical influences. The big round black spot in the southwest was pretty ominous, too. Princess Kristie closed her eyes, visualizing something, and Quaver hummed sadly once, spinning and pointing. I extended a line in that direction from our current location, noting it stabbed north and east, intercepting one of the islands out there and the round circle upon it. ¡°Volcano there is the source of the black Diamonds,¡± Kris said, pointing at Aerlinthe Island. I nodded and froze the line, able to picture what was there, and I should easily be able to Scry there as soon as I took the spell. She spun and pointed several times more with her eyes closed, and I obligingly drew the lines to match the angles she was pointing at. ¡°Volcanoes here... and here,¡± she pointed out, her blind aim spot-on to the circles on the map. ¡°The Elemental Fire Infusions that went into the sword came from those additional places.¡± Small script named them Crater Lake and Mount Lethe. Now, the Fire Stone came from here, as well. The line was almost, but not quite parallel to her second one, clearly the volcano there being important. ¡°The Lightning Stone should be around here, Acid here, and Cold down here.¡± Her sense of distance wasn¡¯t exact, so she just circled the approximate area she vaguely felt. ¡°The last Infusion of hidden Radiance gathered up there.¡± She indicated the narrow, dark island up to the northeast, near Aerlinthe, simply named The Dark Isle. Clearly, the mapmakers weren¡¯t going for poetic names. But then, Sawato to the south of us on the swamp literally meant ¡®swamp town¡¯ in Sho, so what were we expecting? ¡°And this one?¡± I indicated the line off towards the southwest, clipping through that round black area named not-grimly as the Obsidian Plains. She circled a blank area, west and north of a settlement called Candeth Keep there. ¡°That is where the last of the Order of the Lost Light fell, where that Sword came from, and where their Hall is located.¡± I could picture glimpses of the landscape, but that battle had been so long ago, it was doubtful anything matched with the amount of geomancy these people undertook. ¡°Well, it¡¯s nice to have things to work towards,¡± I nodded as I surveyed the places. ¡°I¡¯ll fill the terrain in as I get Scrying and Cloudsight working for a satellite view of things, and we¡¯ll see what we can see. ¡°In your estimation, where would be the likeliest spot for us to find living humans?¡± AF Chapter 53 – Still Resting and Artificing! Princess Kristie¡¯s eyes roved over the entire place thoughtfully. ¡°The olthoi came from here, we can strike most of this quadrant.¡± She cleared away the northeast. ¡°The floaters came from the west, as did the shadows and undead up in Cragstone.¡± She wiped away that section of the map as well. ¡°That huge monuga is traipsing around the place, and retreated west towards the inland sea. Humans would just be munchies to something that size, so there¡¯s no chance of them being in that area. Really, the only thing that could hold something of that size at bay is the Shoreward, and even that was not truly effective.¡± ¡°But, we¡¯ve only seen the inland Ward, not that about the larger bodies of water. Might the reason it is hunting here be that it can¡¯t get through the one along the ocean?¡± ¡°Or that the stuff in the ocean is too strong for it?¡± she replied, and I had to acknowledge that point, too. ¡°We¡¯re assuming that they had some manner of egress to those islands. Special boats, perhaps, that could punch the Ward?¡± ¡°They used dimensional magic a LOT,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Site-to-site teleportation is the high-end use of dimensional magic, like Portals.¡± ¡°But the Veil hardened and cut all that shit off,¡± she reminded me, frowning at the map. ¡°You even pointed out a couple places that might have been standing Portal sites and had been fried, and even our own arrival point was a displaced dimensional pocket.¡± ¡°We¡¯d have to assume they had your ships, OR they could get up a Portal fast enough to vacate everyone with combined magic of some survivors, as there would have to be some strong enough who survived the event. I¡¯m leaning towards the latter, with the prevalence of ancient magic here. If someone really adept in Portal Magic could tap the extra energy in the ley lines, they could either reinforce an existing Portal or make a temporary one along the path of one that was closed down.¡± ¡°Then I pick here.¡± She pointed southeast, at a maze-like cluster of islands. ¡°There¡¯s hills, so its above the waterline to be safe from storms in places. It¡¯s painted green, so it¡¯s verdant and likely forested and well-watered. Importantly, there¡¯s water in all directions which means access to fish, even if they have to stay near the shores due to existing Wards. The coloration about the shores seems to indicate they are all within wading or quick boating distance of one another, too, so there¡¯s magical influences at work. ¡°Evacuate here, either ground the boats or Seal the Portals, energetically clear or contain all the Summons, use the forest to rebuild, and pray those floating bastards can¡¯t levitate across the waves in pursuit, and whatever is out in the oceans can¡¯t come to shore,¡± she declared firmly. ¡°I¡¯m of the impression that naval technology would be horrid here,¡± I added after further thought. ¡°They probably can¡¯t get past chest-deep in the waters anywhere. Nobody is going to be building massive evacuation ships after a couple generations of barely needing canoes or rafts. They¡¯ll be lucky if they learn how to swim!¡± Kris inclined her head, and nodded once. ¡°Okay, that¡¯s logical,¡± she conceded. ¡°Any reason not to pick here, here, or here?¡± I indicated the sole island off to the southwest, and both the isolated green island and the half-frozen cluster of islands up to the north-west. ¡°Climate, availability, and the native hostiles. The undead, shades, and floaters all came from the west. All the settlements in the west seem to have military connotations to their names, meaning they are frontier settlements and the area is dangerous. That southwest island has rigid patterns drawn on it for terrain, evidence of geomancy and thus highly magical. I doubt anyone would want to go there. ¡°Likewise, we are in the east, with most of the Isparian towns, and the enemy is coming from the north and west. Thus, we would be pushed in this direction, and would flee this way to gain more distance, not head into the teeth of the enemy.¡± She swept her hands down over the landscape from northwest to the southeast. ¡°Granted, any dimensional transport magic could make a fool of me, and incidentally, means they don¡¯t have to be on this map at all. They could be off somewhere on the rest of the planet. But I like the idea of fleeing to somewhere you know, controlling any means of egress, and the terrain is organic, if convoluted. I¡¯d take my chances.¡± ¡°Good enough for me. We have a potential destination. Last question, can you punch the Shoreward?¡± She lifted her eyebrows thoughtfully, staring at the various waters on the map. ¡°I remember you saying you could Fly now, but you¡¯re obviously sure that the Ward goes high enough to stop aerial infiltration, since those nautiloid niffi things can float.¡± ¡°That¡¯s correct.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t test it, but I can, once we reach open water again.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure that some things out there might find the fact fascinating, but without access to a Portal, out over the ocean is the only way we¡¯re going to make it there,¡± I warned her. ¡°Ho, and we¡¯re going to make a floating wagon...¡± she smiled, her eyes sparking. ¡°Do I work on stretching out my legs, or do you have another method?¡± ¡°Gust of Wind, sustained with concentration, can fill a lot of sail. Or you can drag us, whatever works with the active Disks carrying the wagon.¡± ¡°While it would be fun to get a catamaran out of a floating wagon, I should probably concentrate on sprinting the distance. It¡¯s only a few miles off the shore.¡± ¡°Yeah, only we don¡¯t know what¡¯s waiting in between, so work on that speed, then.¡± ¡°I will!¡± she nodded seriously. ¡°Ranthas do some of our best work inside the bellies of big things, but Mom said the experience still sucks. It¡¯s kind of humiliating, getting swallowed whole and all.¡± Well, that was one way to look at things... ------- All in all, we took five days at the place, assembling the pieces of the wagon inside as Kris worked them over with obsessive care for the QL, taking crude but precise into elegant and fine. In between, she would flit off to cover the landscape, while I flipped over advancement levers, accrued skill points and more Masteries in arrears, grabbed more Feats, and generally kept laying my foundation down. Also, getting in a lot of Rep Counts as I accumulated more Metas and spells. My choice of Class Levels were Alchemist/1, mostly for the double-speed chemistry and alchemical stuff; Artificer/1; Pool Theurge/3; Arcane Theurge/3; and Mystic Theurge/3, finishing up what I took yesterday. This kept me up to speed on my Theurgies across the board. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The Masteries I took started with Holy Spell/3, Blessed Spell, which was a +I Meta that did +50% base damage to Evil creatures, -50% to Neutrals, and 0 damage to Good people. However, my Zealotry Mastery could treat Neutrals as Evil for such purposes, non-Good being the new qualifier, so it would work plenty fine against the uncaring and beasts who had no Alignment if I needed it to. Raise Spell formally powered up certain spells that increased in strength as they went up in Valence, especially the bog standard Cure, Healing, and Vigor spells. Most other spells just increased in Save DC and general effectiveness. It meant saving on Spells Known and Spells Prepared or even needed in my Spellbook, as I could just Cast a lower spell from higher Valence as needed. It was the gateway for improved versions of spells when Cast from high Valences. Raise Spell Mastery/2, Improved Raise, allowed Meta¡¯d spells to count as spells of their new Valence, and allowed other spells to enjoy the expanded damage caps of higher Valences. Spell Penetration Mastery/3, Greater Spell Penetration, improved the basic Spell Penetration to +4, or to +30 on the Isparian side. The last one was Artificer/2, Exceptional Artisan, which reduced the amount of goldweight consumed when Infusing Artifice. Given limited resources (albeit receiving another nice infusion about now), it was a good thing to have. On the Feats side of things, there was Sacred Healing, Imbued Healing, Lightning Reserve, Thunder Reserve, and Extra Discovery. Sacred Healing was a booster using clerical Channeling. I only had enough Channeling to do a Dawnstopped spell, so I had uses floating. Sacred Healing gave a flat bonus to Healing skill checks and +2/die to Healing spells for the rest of the round if you Channelled. That was a horribly nasty combination to use against undead. When that dovetailed with Vivic Spell, well, another sudden +2/die of damage was a NICE little power-up! Imbued Healing was an effect that allowed the magic of a Divine Domain to affect your Healing spells. Silver Magic, for instance, gave anyone Healed a +2 Sacred save against magic from Evil creatures for a number of minutes equal to my Caster Level. Good, on the other hand, gave them a number of temporary hit points, like extra Soak, equal to the Caster Level for rounds = Caster level. However, that only applied to allies. When combined with Zealotry, Holiness, and like effects, when used on Undead and Fiends, that same Healing spell did +1 damage per Caster Level to them!... and given we now knew undead were about the place, it was another timely and very useful addition to the arsenal. I did a lot of rep counts over those days, Shardcasting enabling me to fit in the Elemental reps for both the Thunder Reserve and the Lightning Reserve. Given that Born of Two Thunders let me apply the Thunder and Lightning descriptors to ANY spell... they meant more Caster Level boosts to ALL of my magic. The fact Thunder Reserve gave me a mighty and deafening palm slap for damage if I had a Thunder Spell in memory (I did not) and Lightning Reserve gave me an infinitely repeatable short range electrical bolt if I had a Lightning spell in memory (la la la...) was incidental. The one Feat plus rep counts made the Feats basically a blanket +2 Caster Level to ALL my Valences below III soon enough. Extra Discovery was in the Alchemical Field, and the ubiquitous selection of Preserve Organs was a no-brainer, changing around my internal chemistry, organ arrangements, and vital points to make it much harder to land a critical blow, creating redundancies and internal reinforcements to circumvent the tactic of striking at vital areas. It went all the way up to III/75% Crit Protection, so future Alchemist Levels were spoken for. Other than rounding out some of my Skill Ranks to Use Magical Device and a couple of my Crafting skills to help with the wagon-making, there wasn¡¯t all that much more for me. I was, however, very ready to engage in combat with anything that came raiding, as being able to work out three thousand rep counts over ten hours of practice was helping me rank my Practicals and Efficients all up quickly, restricted only by my active Valences. I also basically had a blanket +8 to my Caster Levels now, with that rising to +15 for my Shards. Given I was Casting at a Six because of my Wizard/3 (6) Levels, that meant a 21... I was going to hit anything coming in at me like I was an archmage, and that applied on my Isparian side, too... ----- Kris came swinging over the balcony, followed by two Disks with dead reedsharks on them. I¡¯d told her I needed the body fat to make more tapers, as I¡¯d been out Sifting stuff and then filtering and distilling raw elements needed to make the little candles... but I still needed paraffin, and the best source of that was fat. She was happy to spit them and broast them slowly down, gathering up the fat in a nice liquid mess for me to work with and add tinctures to... and if the things made surprisingly good steaks, then that was only a nice side benefit to it. It took me two full days to set up dozens of each of the new tapers. Thankfully, No Comps meant I wasn¡¯t actively burning the tapers, but I still needed them to find my Bloodline, and the testing process tended to burn a lot of them. Then it was just a case of linking to what gold scarabs I had, and trying to find the right combination. ¡°That looks extremely annoying,¡± Kris nodded wisely, watching me curiously as I arranged the tapers in a pattern. ¡°You¡¯ve heard of the Father, his seven Wives, and their dozen-dozen children, right?¡± She tilted her head. ¡°Vaguely, something about Item Magic?¡± AF Chapter 54 – Burning Out the Wrong Way ¡°Way back when they were trying to figure out how magic worked and the associations between Elements, the tapers that burned were the only random element that varied between spellcasters.¡± I eyed the array of twelve as I prepared to get started. ¡°They quickly noticed that if you found the first taper for your Irons, then the next Scarab up of spells always followed a virtuous color circle of progression, the Taper Rainbow. ¡°At your Coppers and Golds spells, new taper Slots came in that were always different from the set and fixed first Lead taper. So, the tapers had to react to something personal about each Caster. But once you found ¡®your¡¯ taper, the next tier up followed the virtuous progression of the Taper Rainbow. ¡°They worked out much of the relationships using the Item Magic spells, Impenetrability, and the seven armor Banes that went with it. Since there are twelve colors of tapers, and two sets of random combinations...¡± ¡°The Father, seven Wives, and a mess of children, or bloodlines,¡± she nodded understanding. ¡°Typically poetic Roulean nonsense, I imagine?¡± ¡°There are many who argue over who called it such first, but the name has stuck,¡± I confirmed. ¡°The deeper arguments are about the Bloodlines of the Children, as they call them, and what they signify about those who have them, are there any shared traits, personalities, foibles, skills, talents, destinies, dooms, and so forth.¡± I waved my hand in the air absently. ¡°Naturally some are thought of as more auspicious than others, and some combinations are more common than others, significantly so. ¡°Impenetrability is the baseline spell used for the Bloodlines, as it is common across all cultures. The Red-Red first taper combination covers roughly four percent of the population of Casters back home who have been tested, and so is by far the most common Bloodline, called Blood Aflame. The gray-turquoise Bloodline is believed to be the rarest and most mystical, styled the Misty Deeps, while the violet-indigo Call of the Void is found mostly among Milanteans, especially those who are drawn to the Void and necromantic magic, a fact they try very hard to conceal.¡± ¡°Yourself?¡± ¡°I aim to find out. I am nominally a White. I have set up the components to optimize flow and minimize burn, while making it easy to analyze the results. The taper combinations I am not attuned to will likely burn partially or completely off immediately. If I am partially attuned, but not perfect, I should lose one or two of them. Ideally, the combination I am attuned to I will not lose a single component even if I fail the spell... and my odds of succeeding at the spell should be about ninety percent.¡± The princess reached over, plucked up a red taper extra I had sitting there, and brought it up to her nose, lifting an eyebrow. ¡°Iron oxide?¡± she asked, putting it back. ¡°The minerals mixed in with the tapers are different from the powders. The red taper is often called the Blood taper, and iron in our blood is believed to be the reason why it is the most common.¡± ¡°White?¡± she asked. ¡°Rock salt, NOT from water.¡± ¡°Interesting. I never learned the formulas for obvious reasons. Please, proceed.¡± Not that she couldn¡¯t, but it was grindwork, and she wasn¡¯t a mage, and so would never need them for herself. It was a simple task best left to civilian alchemists to make a living. I nodded and closed my eyes, reaching out mentally to the precise rows of components I¡¯d assembled there, waiting to build the linking bridge of magic and form the precise architecture of the Father spell for the Gold level. Once I had the Father, finding the Wives was easy, and once I had the Wives, I could calculate all the Children in the other spells. The math behind it all was really quite fascinating... I began with red, since it was the most common, and sent the power flowing through it smoothly. There was a flash and flare, and all three tapers involved - the mandatory blue, the derived red, and the ¡®random¡¯ second red one - flared and were gone, taking half the rest of the components with them. ¡°Ouch!¡± the princess observed. I just waved her to quiet, and moved to the next line. Tapers flared, talismans burned, powders were consumed, herbs turned to ash, and reagents cracked and blackened. I completed the twelfth set and looked back at it all in disbelief. The twelve sets were ALL over half-consumed, and all the tapers were gone and melted into lumps of discolored goo, evaporating with residual magic even as I watched. ¡°Forgive me for being blunt, but that was an absolutely horrible performance, right?¡± Kris stood up and gazed over the lines of components. ¡°I know random numbers and chaos are a thing, but that... just looks bad, right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever heard of a performance quite this bad,¡± I agreed with her softly. ¡°Seventy percent component burn is... horrendous. Perhaps if someone had half my skill they would do something like, but most likely they would have fizzled repeatedly. A fizzle would stop most of this before it happened. This... is appalling.¡± I crossed my arms and stared at the results, completely mystified. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°Make another set and try again?¡± she asked. Laws of large numbers meant I should do better the next time, unless something was REALLY bending the results here. ¡°...no,¡± I replied, staring at the ruined sets. ¡°This is far too appalling a result, too far outside the average to NOT mean something extraordinary. I¡¯ve seen people do Gold tests before.¡± Well, Shamira had. ¡°I just Burned six Gold scarabs in twelve combinations. In normal circumstances, doing a twelve-set like this, you might Burn one if your skill was a bit low, two if you are unlucky, and three would just plain suck. Six? Nobody Burns six, even people who can¡¯t Cast Gold. They just fizzle.¡± ¡°So, what does it mean, alternatively?¡± Kris asked, interested despite herself. ¡°That I don¡¯t have a Bloodline that is one of the dozen-dozen Children.¡± The princess made an appreciative face of that very unlikely statement. ¡°If it weren¡¯t for the circumstances of how you got here, I¡¯d call you incredibly unlucky and very arrogant. But you¡¯re a Power of Ten Caster, you know what you are doing, and that... sounds entirely reasonable, given you¡¯ve a Matrix no Isparian would have. Only how do you fit a unique taper or taper array into this, and what kind of taper would it be?¡± I waved my hand, and the default twelve colors of taper rose up and formed a circular Rainbow array in front of me. ¡°Note the missing color,¡± I pointed out to her. ¡°Black,¡± she stated instantly, not hesitating a moment. ¡°Furthermore, didn¡¯t that remnant taper you found have rainbow elements to it?¡± It flicked over to me from the Disk it was sitting on, small and broken, yet still glittery crystalline white with dots of all the colors in them. ¡°Ideally, something like this would sub for ALL the tapers, and all the other components, too. The Alchemy and Spellcraft theory behind them is at least twelve Ranks.¡± I passed it over to her, and she eyed it again, bringing it up to sniff slowly and deeply. She actually blinked and removed it from under her nose. ¡°Wow. That is... quite heady. There are a lot of active elements to this thing. At least threescore different additions wound into it, blended yet distinct. I am impressed.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not Isparian.¡± I gave her a normal taper. ¡°Just look at the internal consistency. There¡¯s some masterful Alchemical skills in those Rainbow tapers, no apprentice could do them, active magical and alchemical manipulation within the mix of the wax and even the wick.¡± She tapped the Rainbow Taper with a black talon of a nail, slowly and thoughtfully. ¡°So... these things have to be made at QL 32?¡± She whistled softly, glancing over my ruined set again. ¡°And it replaced ALL those components?¡± ¡°Everything but the scarabs. Essentially there¡¯s mini-components inside every taper guiding the process, but the scarabs gather and contain the energy to send into the spell. The taper residues aren¡¯t strong enough to do that. Forming a guideline according to the memory of the Caster? Not a problem.¡± ¡°That is an absolutely incredible level of magical technology,¡± she conceded. ¡°Similar to making microprocessors for computers,¡± I agreed, and her eyes shifted as she went somewhere her inherited memories didn¡¯t usually have to go before nodding with me. ¡°Which confirms that this place is or was a hotbed of magical technology, and they either discovered these things themselves or were taught by those who brought them here.¡± ¡°And we know ancient magical civilizations just love leaving records of their core technologies around for barbarians to stumble across and use...¡± she smirked. ¡°Yes, more like high state secrets... and not hard to keep at QL 32, since there aren¡¯t many people good enough to work on them. Unless you¡¯re breeding high-level people like flies, or something.¡± We both thought about all the fused dead people in those pits around the Death Crystals. If we assumed those were high-Level people, there¡¯d been no shortage of them... and we¡¯d only been to three of the towns to see the results ourselves. We didn¡¯t know what the politics were like, either, although disaster had a way of setting a lot of those things aside. Survival had a way of trumping personal ambitions that way... at least for most people. I¡¯d have to think how to get my Golds now. I wasn¡¯t going to be restricted to Silver, but finding the alternative was outside my inherited knowledge, and I wasn¡¯t an inspired researcher or inventor. Just, blah. Mira chuckled at me and rubbed her hands in delight, already starting mental work on how to approach this strange turn of events. ------ ¡°Well?¡± Princess Kristie Rantha asked, as we watched the floating thing take off its white mime-like mask with a mechanical motion and no apparent hands, revealing an empty space inside its metal hood with faint pinkish light fluttering underneath. It either scratched or made a reflexive adjustment to the mask with a sickle it flicked out of its sleeve, then set the mask back in place as the sickle vanished as smoothly as it had come out. It was a Summon, the area underneath it rather badly scored by some sort of reality-twisting energy that seemed to be affecting the vegetation more adversely than something just standing there. Most Summon areas had tramped plant life and dirt, but the plants actually seemed empowered by the energies involved, and were never actually completely cleared, unless the area was already stone or something. ¡°It¡¯s a Virindi Servant.¡± It didn¡¯t seem powerful enough to sense my careful Assay. ¡°No, I¡¯ve never heard of the species before. It¡¯s a quasi-hivemind intelligence, an energy lifeform held from dissipating in this environment by its attire. Disrupt said attire, and it will lose its grip on materiality and return to the central energy structure. I¡¯d hazard that the separate virindi we¡¯ve seen are like sub-personalities in the overall intelligence, and the longer they remain away from the center, the more powerful they get as they accumulate individual rather than inherited experiences. ¡°This is one of the least powerful ones. It has high intelligence, but almost no charisma or sense of self to speak of. It¡¯s an obedient and skilled servant that probably can¡¯t think outside the orders given to it. ¡°As to its true status, I¡¯m guessing that it operates similar to the undead and the shades. Spirits have been bound into the Summoning system and form an ersatz spy network and reusable resource for the primary population. It¡¯s likely a passing patrol of the true virindi can take command of them for their own uses, at least in a local area.¡± ¡°Interesting,¡± she nodded, her violet eyes just barely not glowing as she held herself back. ¡°Combat stats?¡± ¡°A weird mix of Construct and Aberrant. The sickles are the equivalent of fine steel blades, you¡¯ll find its combat style precise but predictable, no real anatomy except energy, and its suit is equal to a fine set of mail. It¡¯s not spell immune, but it has high magic resist for its power otherwise.¡± ¡°You could punch through it?¡± she asked calmly. AF Chapter 55 – Analysis of an Enemy ¡°Easily. One spell,¡± I confirmed. ¡°Its armor is not adamantine or particularly enchanted, Quaver should rip right into it. I¡¯m betting a Null Strike from below would kill it almost instantly. Also, it has spellcasting ability with a Mana Pool, probably a fixed selection of combat spells. It might be a good idea to mess around with it and see just what spells it sets off on you.¡± ¡°Oh, guinea pig time!¡± Princess Kristie grinned broadly. ¡°Fine, you just be ready with a Cure if the thing can breach my Null. I¡¯ll dance around and get its fighting style down, and promise not to take advantage of any opportunities to gut it while it is Casting.¡± ¡°Understood. Pen and paper ready.¡± A Holo popped up of a quill and feather, and she smirked before charging towards the thing. --- It didn¡¯t sense her coming until she quite literally smashed into it and sent it flying, which amused her to no end. Then she start playing around with it, while I sat there and took notes. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, it became plain it only had about a dozen combat moves, which, if you weren¡¯t prepared for them, were easily of the head-taking or disemboweling kind, although its use and timing of them were suspect. It certainly hadn¡¯t developed any combination in tandem with the shock value of its spells, and its choice of spell timing showed either massive unfamiliarity with combat, or a complete lack of understanding of how different magical and martial combat were. I was pretty sure the true virindi would be much more tactical than this thing. Kris confirmed she could shear through its robe-like mesh of crystalline metal, and just swatted the thing around, seeing how it responded, and towards the end, even invoked her Interdiction, dropping the thing down low to the ground where its shell scraped the dirt, throwing off some of its combat routines with the awkward location. In the end, I just waved to her as it Healed itself up for the seventh time, and with a calm One Strike, she actually cut it in half diagonally, plainly testing out her muscles. There was a flutter of pinkish energies dissipating with an odd sound, rising in a sharp note as vivus flashed and consumed them. No, it wouldn¡¯t be reporting what had killed it. Its shell was ectoplasm, and fell apart exceedingly rapidly as the unwhite fires Burned over it. In under thirty seconds, only a white spot on the ground remained of it. By tomorrow, the plants would all be regrown and there¡¯d be no indication this was a Summons point at all. ¡°A very basic combat style, but it could be expounded upon readily,¡± she said, smiling happily as she strolled over. ¡°What have you got for me?¡± ¡°It really was a Summons. It had almost no prior combat experience and wasn¡¯t learning as it went very well. It was programmed to fight like it did and couldn¡¯t adjust based on how quickly you shifted styles, locked into a series of ¡®most effective tactics¡¯ and the like. Probably not intel we want to rely on for the real ones, however.¡± She nodded. ¡°Spells?¡± ¡°It had the full seven Wives in War and Life Vulnerabilities, plus Imperil. Also, it tried the full array of Stat Debuffs from Creature Magic, along with effective negatives to melee, missile, and magical defenses.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a fairly remarkable number of spells for a virtual automaton, but I note it didn¡¯t coordinate them at all.¡± ¡°Almost as if it didn¡¯t realize the relationship between Life and War magic,¡± I confirmed. Trying to Vuln her to Acid, and then hit her with a Copper Whirling Blade made no sense at all. ¡°Again, not something we should rely on for the real deal,¡± I warned her. ¡°It was shooting Silvers, too,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°That¡¯s very impressive for the lowest rung, and the simple fact it could access all seven Wives...¡± ¡°Yes. With a true virindi present to give orders, its effectiveness against particular enemies could rise several times over.¡± Either a straight mono-Element Vuln followed by the same War Magic, or Debuffs stacking on Imperil if they closed to melee... which should be their last option, instead of merely one option equally possible among others. Summons had difficulties building an experience record, since their ectoplasmic minds and bodies were basically set in simple templates that unwound when they died. When it was already an energy-form and interacted with the material world oddly, that only made it worse. We knew that, so this fight was only to see what was possible, not what would actually be used. ¡°A proper hivemind hierarchy would be able to set up a gut-wrenching array of volley fire with little effort,¡± Kris nodded calmly, instantly realizing the danger, especially in mass battles. The thing hadn¡¯t managed to punch her Null even once, but she wasn¡¯t a fool. If something was powerful enough to punch her Null, the nature of Isparian magic meant it was probably Casting beyond Gold, to the Air Gold, or even the Platinum scarabs we¡¯d found. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. That would be INCREDIBLY dangerous. It was left unsaid that the Necklace I was working on for her was going to need continuous power-ups, or she was going to have to prevail upon me for temporary combat Buffs. I had three layered Protections on it: Force, Cold, and Acid. The Slashing, Pierce, and Bludgeon variants were just considered aspects of Force by Matrix magic, and I took advantage of it to save some time. She was already immune to Fire and Lightning, so there was no reason for me to put those in, either. Three spells times CL 1 x Valence I was 3k for the first set of Lead Spells, already completed. Three times CL 3 x Valence II was 18k for the next set of Iron Prots, so another fifteen days of work. Copper and Silver would be 3 x 3 x 5, then 3 x 4 x 7. Total ending cost for a three-way Protection from Force, Acid, and Cold Necklace at Silver, 84k in goldweight equivs, and three months of work. Once I made it, she could replicate it without a problem using Runesmithing, but she needed something to work from because of the Isparian magic. Bringing it to Gold, if and when, would be 3 x 5 x 9, or 135k goldweight, and 5 months of total work. ¡°I did note that it didn¡¯t Buff itself, beyond the Healing, and once it ran through its mana, it seemed to want to use the Transfer Stamina to Mana to get its power back, and it fizzled. Errant programming that is no longer functional...¡± I added in. And that had affected its staying power, forcing it to stay in hapless melee with someone it couldn¡¯t hit if she didn¡¯t want it to, and, it turned out, couldn¡¯t damage much when it did. Kris had at least 16 points of Damage Reduction. An average person whaling on her with a baseball bat would probably break it on her skull. Its sickles were sharp and fast, but the creature wasn¡¯t really strong, per se. She had basically fast-healed right through most of the residual melee damage... when she allowed it to hit her, just to see how dangerous it was. ¡°That¡¯s what it was doing. I thought it bloody odd... it actually has to make the Caster Level check to use the magic?¡± She thought that was pretty funny, too, although it was all part of Isparian Casting. The Matrix side was a hundred percent effective, but was much easier to interrupt, too. Isparian magic was all about starting the process. Once you did, it was self-completing, and getting stuck by a spear wouldn¡¯t stop the spell that was coming, to the dismay of many a spear-wielder. Trying to Cast a Matrix spell in close-combat with a skilled person was just creating an opening to be hit, and you¡¯d lose the spell if that happened. Intelligent Magos stayed away from melee combat if possible! Those who didn¡¯t were called Battlemads for a reason, and even had the Melee/Caster ¡®Theurge¡¯ Class named after them... ¡°I¡¯ll work on extrapolating from there, and maybe testing it out if we run into some higher-Level versions,¡± Kris agreed, thumbing her Necklace absently. ¡°I am not looking forward to the intelligent ones, unless I get my Null WAY up there...¡± ¡°This place is a Karmic Fountain if we find the right area, with tougher things that can be killed repeatedly. Just imagine how fast your Favored Enemy Masteries are going to rise when you can kill the same stuff a thousand times?¡± She grinned at the idea. ¡°Yeah, I agree, that¡¯s a fine thing to look forward to, just like filling up my Slaughter with all the extra Banes.¡± ¡°Planning on assembling the wagon and heading out tomorrow?¡± I asked her, and she nodded. ¡°You going to be able to Camouflage it?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll grab the spell tomorrow,¡± I confirmed. ¡°It¡¯ll work best when motionless, but at least it should draw less attention while we are moving it around.¡± ------- The next day... We hauled all the things we had worked on out through the front door over the course of the evening. Gearcrafting, Woodshaping, wood-working, and Kris¡¯s basic forgework all combined to get everything snapping and fitting together with great speed, Prestidigitation able to screw, fit, and press in everything that was needed quite handily, although wooden dowels and glue did a lot of it, minimizing the metal we needed. The Wagon would nominally move on ten Disks. I was Casting them out of III Valence, so the amount of weight they could take was increased fourfold, their duration was basically all day, and I tied them off to Recast as soon as their time was coming up. I also linked up their guide/follow protocol, so they all worked to the same link, and Quaver could take it over with a tap. Floor, walls, moving walls, internal compartments, folding stuff, sliding parts... it all fit together with machined precision, magic helping fit things together seamlessly where machined tools couldn¡¯t possibly get in, making the job flow a lot faster. It basically only took a couple of hours to fit things together, something that would have taken an entire crew to do without magic to accomplish. We were putting the final pieces into place when Kris turned and cocked her ear sharply. I pushed in four sets of dowels completely out of reach to a normal arm and hand with Mage Hand, and then paused to watch her. ¡°You hear that whooping sound?¡± she asked suspiciously. I tilted my head and listened, just as there was a chorus of booming sounds, like a cavalcade of basic Blast spells going off. ¡°No,¡± I said cheerfully. Kris stuck her tongue out at me as she looked around quickly. All of the heavy stuff was already aboard, especially the salvage. We¡¯d been working towards casting her Anvil of Silent Thunder, once her Floating Forge was suitably powered up, so all the supplies and stuff were basically aboard. She threw open the main hatch on the back. ¡°Extra lumber, and we¡¯re out of here,¡± she stated. My contribution was to lift the lumber off the ground as quickly as possible so she could grab them and fit them inside at greater speed. Mage Hand III, or Minor Telekinesis, did my share of the work smoothly, and even arranged everything inside as Kris plowed in another thousand pounds of spare lumber we might need onto everything inside. I could definitely hear an odd whooping sound now, irregular and varied slightly in tone, and it was coming from the direction of a bunch of bright and colorful flashes coming our way... and explosions of spells that were startling birds into motion, and actually shooting after some of the birds, who dodged them deftly. My Mask magnified in that direction, and I saw... mobile lumps of jello in a spread of colors, bouncing into the air with appropriately-delayed whooping sounds, and occasionally shooting off spells? AF Chapter 56 – No, No, a Wizard would never make Such a Thing... ¡°Uh...¡± I flicked up a Holo of what I was seeing for her to look at, not sure how to explain this. She stared at it intently, noticing like myself that the bouncing and sliding just above the ground hover-style movement of the things was deceptively fast. ¡°I think they are expelling air in bursts to make the noise.¡± ¡°And I think we found our manse-cleaners,¡± she replied, and I realized she probably was right. The things seemed to be ignoring most of the organic material around, and were sliding right towards us. ¡°They aren¡¯t going to like us,¡± she grinned, reaching out and tapping Quaver to the control node closest to her. ¡°I can probably tank all that stuff, but we don¡¯t need the attention. You have an Assay on them?¡± I scrambled around to the front of the Wagon, with seats of reedshark hide stuffed with dried grass for at least some level of comfort, the wood thoughtfully curved and shaped for longer-term rides... although I¡¯d not have to worry about bumpy wheels. ¡°One hundred and twenty paces... okay, they are... called K¡¯nath. Different colors indicate different Elements, oozes with specific diets... these are various sizes, but certainly not the strongest. It looks like they feed on magic-enriched minor lifeforms, as might be found in stagnant water leeching from a ley line connection...¡± ¡°And they instinctively shoot Blasts at moving targets and threats nearby, like the Summons they probably ran into over there.¡± She had all the nearby positions memorized, of course. ¡°Okay, I think we are out of here.¡± The Disks didn¡¯t hum or anything as she moved around the Wagon, and then it smoothly moved after her, dragged by the telekinetic leash to Quaver. She hopped off the ten-foot berm to the former lawn below, at a right angle to the incoming trapezoidal pyramids of gelatin. She forced her way through the waist-high grass without effort, while I peered back in the direction of the things. ¡°Where would such a ridiculous bunch of creatures come from?¡± I had to say, shaking my head. ¡°A horde of dungeon-clearing creatures that sweep up mildew and rot, and heartily encourage the natives of such places to leave them alone?¡± Kris replied with a grin over her shoulder. ¡°That screams wizards to me!¡± I opened my mouth and raised my finger in reproof, thought about the Chaotic members of the arcane community, and shut my mouth. ¡°Clearly an upgrade to a mere gelatinous cube!¡± I recovered smartly. ¡°Clearly.¡± There was a chorus of booms as one of the mantraps that had expanded into the front yard dipped towards the incoming array of colors, and a second later was blown apart by multi-element Blasts raining down upon it. The other Plants promptly pulled in their leaves and shrank back. We paused to watch them hover-jet up the side of the berm/motte with loud whooping sounds, clearing the full height, and then shuffle and jostle their way to the front door, pushing inside in a line of moving gelatin. ¡°Yep, that is REALLY weird,¡± Kris grinned. ¡°You Casters come up with really strange stuff, you know?¡± ¡°I bet you nine to one they taste good, too.¡± Her eyebrows rose as she considered that, weighed the odds, and laughed. ¡°Something to check in the future!¡± she called back, refusing the bet, and we headed back to the river as I wove the Camouflage III over the Wagon. It wasn¡¯t true invisibility, but it would be a big blur while moving, and very hard to spot once parked. Pointedly, it would be nearly impossible to pick out from a distance by a random spotter. We were off and into motion again! -------- ¡°Another five degrees warmer.¡± We¡¯d seen our first purple phyntos wasp Summons, shooting little Firebolts at us to annoy us. The azure gromnies beside the lake had given way to more green and gray ones here in the waters and muck of the swamp, surging through the still waters toward us, all of them universally and stupidly hostile. From my higher vantage on the seat of the Wagon, I pointed off to the side. ¡°That what I think it is?¡± Kris craned her neck over to look, picking out what I¡¯d seen. ¡°Oh, hey, grew a lot of vegetation fast, but yeah.¡± Over on the shore, a whole section of oddly-shaped stone had erupted up out of the narrow banks, sprawling and winding as it ambled along the shoreline and into the bank. ¡°That¡¯s a living reedshark,¡± I reported, staring at the two reedsharks laying down outside the entry to what was another dungeon forced into reality here. ¡°The bigger one is a Summons.¡± ¡°Oh ho. Something for dinner, unneeded as it might be.¡± Quaver hummed into her hand, and without further ado, she took off for them, leaving the Wagon to my control and to follow more slowly as I covered her. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. She didn¡¯t ask for support, so I didn¡¯t lead her, nor was she subtle about what she was doing. Both reedsharks jumped to their feet, the living one giving off an ululating yip of a cry, and then both of them charged to meet her. The bigger Summons took the full force of the sweeping slash from her charge through the side of its narrow beak of a jaw, and the adamantine edge took care of bone, hide, and muscle alike as the charge multiplier and an inordinately Heavy Weapon took off its head. Then the living one found itself leaping in to impale itself on the point of the Sword as Quaver stilled and formed a nice lunging point for it to kill itself on. There were suddenly a lot of yips and calls and sounds of motion from inside the yawning entrance to the dungeon inside the extruded mound, however. ¡°Haha! At least ten are coming!¡± Kris crowed, while I stopped the Wagon and even drifted backwards slightly as the sound of many three-legged bodies growling and barking came from the dark tunnel going into the mound. I flicked up Shards in bemusement as the first of the aggressive local living fauna surged out to attack her, and it paid the price in a dipping underthrust that made it look like her arms were rubber or something with how easily she exploited the proper angle. Because I could, I flicked up minor Imperils on the creatures as they moved to swarm her, just to give myself rep counts. Quaver was moving faster than I could Cast, and the creatures were dropping like flies in the face of the Sword''s remorseless and near monomolecular edge, all that weight and inhuman strength driving it with incredible force and shearing ability. Turning that hide to the toughness of wet paper just meant her Power Attacks were even more lethal when unleashed on them, and if the protective value went negative, they actually took extra damage from her attacks, their flesh splitting like rotting pulp in the face of her blows. In less than a minute, all of the reedsharks were dead. Six of them were real, four were discorporating slowly. I flicked a hand at Kris¡¯ pants, which had just been ripped to shreds by the reedsharks clawing and biting at them, only to find the smooth skin and flesh beneath to be about as permeable as metal. She didn¡¯t have a single serious injury on her, and the mild scratches vanished in seconds as I watched. The ragged leather pants, however, still had to be Mended. ¡°So, how many fights do you end up near-naked in?¡± I had to ask her. ¡°Oh, you really don¡¯t want to know. Also, really helps not having the bust to worry about.¡± She tapped her flat chest meaningfully. ¡°I am Aware of what a Dragon Heart Tat can do when unlocked, you know!¡± I reminded her with a roll of my eyes. ¡°And mom can be such a mankiller when she turns it on, too!¡± Kris grinned unashamedly, then looked at the tunnel. ¡°Mind if I go in? Even if there¡¯s a big tough one inside somewhere, I¡¯m not worried.¡± I eyed the sprawl of the former dimensional space, which ambled over a simply extraordinary amount of area, like the architect had all the room in the world to work with, and so took advantage of it all. ¡°Uh, be my guest. I¡¯ll be fine out here.¡± ¡°How¡¯s your butchery?¡± she asked me, pausing at the entry, Quaver down to a mere eighteen inches for the tighter space. ¡°Alchemist and Healing ranks. I am remarkably good at cutting things apart and keeping the important bits. No Leatherworking yet, however.¡± ¡°Good enough! Save some cuts, and we¡¯ll see how they roast up!¡± Which means I am going to have to identify some more spices, I thought, pulling out my inherited knife. A flick of Force Reserve magic along it gave it a supplemental edge, and I picked one of the smaller, younger animals to start with for slicing apart, recalling how it had tasted from the others Kris had killed. The hides were going to come in useful, too. Acid for curing them wasn¡¯t hard to come by... Mira kept an eye on the relayed eye-view, charting Kris¡¯s progress as she moved through something that might once have been an actual living home or business, but had been completely taken over by Summoned reedsharks at some point. Then the real reedsharks had taken advantage of its hominess when it popped up and moved in, as well. They¡¯d obviously been a lot harder on the cleanliness of the place, and the smell wasn¡¯t anything I¡¯d much tolerate, according to Kris¡¯ nose. Vivus flared inside the place, and the Summons she chopped down weren¡¯t going to come back. If later reedsharks wanted to move back in after she was done clearing the place, they¡¯d do so without the additional security of ever-returning sentries they didn¡¯t have to feed. ------ Kris set a huge intact wooden and brass beer tankard down in front of me. It had been resting on a high shelf and so escaped the reedsharks, although not the local spiders. I cleaned it up with a flourish. ¡°Our first true treasure!¡± I deadpanned as she grinned widely. I had no idea who Ulgrim was, but he obviously liked his booze. ¡°Truer words!¡± she laughed, picking it up and looking around excitedly. ¡°Bartender! Bartender! Your best ale!¡± she called as she waved it about. ¡°Ugh. Now I have to look for hops and barley?¡± I deadpanned. ¡°My folks have whole baggage trains to carry around daily necessities. It¡¯s like whoever slaughtered the humans here didn¡¯t appreciate beer, wine, and trade!¡± ¡°Uncivilized barbarians, the lot of them,¡± I sniffed, finding my taste buds suddenly acting up. ¡°Oh, Mithar, I could use some strong coffee or tea right now. Quit reminding me that camping sucks for amenities!¡± ¡°Mashed potatoes. With garlic butter and salt and pepper,¡± Kris sighed wistfully. ¡°I was looking for signs of spuds among those farms back north, but not too hard. Something seemed to be rooting a lot of them out, but I didn¡¯t see any pigs. Could have been wild drudges or those monugas, the banders and tums didn¡¯t strike me as potato-eaters.¡± ¡°Whatever,¡± I waved it away airily. ¡°We¡¯ll find out soon...enough?¡± I saw her stiffen, and turned around to see what she was looking at. A hundred yards down the river, a light blue head with no hair was protruding from between the leaves of the bushes there, surveying the area. I lowered the barely-discernible Wagon further behind the brush we were using for cover as the undead creature stepped further into sight, clutching a spear and round shield, and clad in old but serviceable metal and leather armor. Its limbs were extremely withered, depleted of fat and moisture, what flesh remained clinging harshly to its bones. It was also at least a good head taller than Kristie was. AF Chapter 57 – The Politics of Undead Relations I pinged for the undead thing with Detect immediately, didn¡¯t even bother with an Assay. ¡°It¡¯s true undead,¡± I confirmed quietly. ¡°Not a Summons. Radiates Evil.¡± Undead could be raised by other than necromancy, although any using negative energy almost always ended up Evil vivivores, destroying the life and light of anything around them. ¡°It¡¯s acting with purpose and intelligence.¡± It also probably wasn¡¯t ready for things with much better night vision than it had. ¡°Might be attracted to the smell of death.¡± She had opened up the reedshark carcasses and sent them into the water. The corpses were bobbing out there now in the very slow current as some of the fish and other critters in the water had their way with them, but the smell of blood was still in the air. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be alone if it has intelligence...¡± I murmured as it turned and called out in an incoherent garbled language. ¡°It¡¯s also not using Necrus...¡± ¡°Its skin is blue,¡± murmured Kris. I shot her a look. ¡°And it¡¯s tall, and armored like a warrior...¡± ¡°Seriously? You¡¯re thinking that¡¯s a Viamontian Ancestor?¡± I had to ask. ¡°I¡¯d know taking a whiff of it. Viamontians with the Blood don¡¯t smell like normal humans,¡± Princess Kristie stated with certainty. ¡°Well,¡± I started to say, and paused as I saw more motion through the trees. ¡°It¡¯s got a company with it.¡± ¡°Pointing this way. It smells the blood about the entryway to the lair.¡± She glanced at me, and I backed away the Wagon from the site, rendering it just a floating shadow in the night as we distanced ourselves further from the site of the bloodletting, content to watch. It looked like a patrol, with six ¡®normal¡¯ undead, two in finer armor with swords and shields, and one in green carrying a staff, moving with more purpose and awareness than the others, who seemed primed to follow its lead and not think much themselves. Still, they were all obviously sapient, even if the simpler and weaker ones had probably given up on most anything resembling innovative thought some time ago. We watched as they moved to the reedshark¡¯s lair, inspecting the surroundings, even bending down to scoop at the dirt and taste it. One of the scouts called out, seeing the corpses in the water, and they even went out and hauled one back, ignoring the leeches and crustaceans and salamanders and squirming fish that fell off of it as they inspected its wounds. Both of us were itching to take it to them. I had inherited a LOT of loathing of the undead, but motivated undead who weren¡¯t actively laying waste to their surroundings were quite different from what I knew, although I did see them sneaking bites and tearing bits off the dead reedshark they¡¯d hauled ashore, sort of like snacking on potato chips. Kris was studying them intently, and the vibes I was getting off her was that she was not impressed. It was just... the insane amount of Soak some of these creatures had could be a problem. I hissed out an Assay at III, going for subtlety. I didn¡¯t want them alerted to the fact I was spying on them, so I went for not being sensed by what were clearly lesser sapient undead, as opposed to in-depth invasive evaluation. ¡°They have their own ranking system. The least of them there are just Undead. The sergeants or officers are Zombies, and that commander is a Lich. They, huh.¡± I blinked. ¡°Okay, they are... pretty wimpy? Health 35, 70, and 90. Although they all can Cast, they are limited to Lead, Iron, and Copper, respectively.¡± She just looked at me, and I looked back. ¡°Firephasing would work best,¡± I noted, and gave her a go-ahead motion. Her violet eyes boiled, that crazy eight-canine smile rose, and fwoosh, she was in motion! Quaver became a solid bar of flame about halfway into her charge. The undead over there had absolutely no time to react before she reached the first of them, and adamantine flame cut through its skull like wet cheese, exploding it in steam and scorched brains. Ah, she was on the charge. A Cleave Train towards the lich in command was right there in front of me, for all the double and triple-damage goodness. A-one, a-two, a-three. Two undead and one zombie down, and then the lich ended up with Quaver sticking in its skull, carried to the ground as her charge ended and half the company of undead was already dead. They raised up their spears as she smiled, completely undeterred, the undead not realizing the strangely vivid white fires rising from the corpses meant their comrades were in no way coming back. Heedless of death, they came at her. Missed her. Riposte, another skull turned to ash, turning to a Cleave as they clustered around her and she twisted, danced among them, interlaced her own attacks, and spears and shields shattered as she sundered them, Sundering Cleave carrying the blows on to their owners. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. I noted that being unafraid of dying was not a very good survival trait, as in less than twelve seconds, a blossoming flower of fire in the air, Kris danced through and between them all, and Burning burning corpses of purple-blue hue fell down behind her, along with a lot of remnants of shattered weapons. Huh, she didn¡¯t even have undead Banefire. That had to be galling. So many kinds to add to her Slaughter. ¡°You just popped all the heads, so no Baneskulls. Can you at least salvage enough for Tokens?¡± I wheedled at her, indicating the lich. A bit abashed, the whirlwind of destruction hastily used her bare hands to carve out the breastbone of the lich before the Vivic energy from Quaver could consume it utterly. It was fine. None of these things could support a higher Baneskull, anyway. ¡°There is definitely a relationship with Viamontians,¡± she declared, shaking her head. ¡°This was a lich?!¡± she sniffed in disdain. ¡°Not a Power of Ten lich, obviously. The word just means ¡®dead thing¡¯ originally, so it¡¯s later writers who gave it the mighty undead spellcaster connotation. Definitely not the same here.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll say. I was severely underwhelmed.¡± Only one had even tried to get a spell off on her, and that had failed miserably. ¡°I think they have some token jewelry on them...¡± She flicked an old silver necklace off the lich¡¯s neck, a keepsake that was who knew how old, and tossed it at me irreverently. ¡°We¡¯ll Burn that away first.¡± I wasn¡¯t impressed. ¡°Can you carve up a Token for us?¡± ¡°Yes. I¡¯ve a feeling this should be priority on my Slaughter, too...¡± ¡°Undead always are,¡± I agreed sagely. ¡°This is effectively a basic patrol squad. In a world of Powered, that means fringe and disposable.¡± I eyed the white stains on the ground, which would rapidly evaporate at the dawn. ¡°Should probably treat the dead reedsharks, and not leave them for munchies, eh.¡± Kris frowned, then reluctantly agreed. Not leaving any traces was a kind of trace of its own, but most of it would be easy to conceal with happenstance. ¡°This is... odd. Military behavior tends to have your most elite serve as scouts, so they survive to get word back to you, and have a better ability to assess the enemy...¡± ¡°You are absolutely correct, with the addition of locals are best. But, you are ignoring the idea that these things are resurrecting elsewhere when they die.¡± The look on her face changed, clearing up and shadowing with loathing at the same time. ¡°Ah. They are sent out, expected to die, and will report immediately on what killed them and where when they do...¡± ¡°An effective scouting system, risking only your least valuable troops...¡± I agreed grimly. ------ We tossed the weapons, shields, and spears into the waters, which would play merry havoc with any scrying, and scattered about as they were, gave no clues to how the undead had truly died. The corpses all Burned down to vivic ash, and no spirits were going elsewhere to form new undead bodies and report on how they¡¯d perished, either. ¡°I have a bad feeling they figured out how to have the necromantic stuff interact with the Summoning system. Plus, undead have the ability to command others of their kind less powerful than themselves. I¡¯ll lay you really good odds that true undead can command Summoned undead sucked into the Summons system here.¡± Kris inclined her head at that as she trotted along beside me on the wagon, me with my feet kicked up and lounging comfortably. ¡°Sounds very logical. We¡¯ve already got a rogue containment spell infiltrating it, and likely those floating virindi things. What¡¯s something else?¡± ¡°Bad news.¡± I looked off at nothing. ¡°It means there are multiple things that can infiltrate it if a random spell effect could. But if you know how the system actually works...¡± Kris whistled softly as we sped through the night, the cool, but not cold, swamp air drifting around us, reeds and even lily pads still alive despite the season, and most of the trees still green. ¡°That¡¯s got implications...¡± she murmured warily. ¡°Yes. And, thinking about it, we don¡¯t know how high the system¡¯s ability to Summon goes.¡± I heaved a big sigh. ¡°At the high end, the whole system could be used like a lich¡¯s phylactery. Bind yourself to the system, and you couldn¡¯t die, you¡¯d just get resummoned elsewhere in a new body. If you¡¯re of a strange mindset, you could even set it to be the body/monster of your choice.¡± ¡°Even... a boss monster, or something?¡± Kris asked softly. ¡°Yeppers.¡± ¡°That... sounds incredibly ominous.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t imagine why.¡± I pointed to the left, and she coasted smoothly to a halt. There was an Undead standing there in a cleared area of dirt, rising just above the cool, murky waters. Visually, it looked little different than the ones we¡¯d killed, perhaps a little more ¡®average¡¯, with no discernible scars or outstanding features. ¡°A Summons?¡± Kris asked narrowly. ¡°Uh-huh. And I bet if you look at the tracks, it¡¯s not a fixed spawn, either.¡± One minute later, she judged the truth of that. ¡°Mosswarts, gromnies, mites, reedsharks all centered in this patch of land,¡± she confirmed, her feet on the ground and reading the impressions they¡¯d left behind. ¡°Definitely a Summons, not just undead...¡± ¡°I¡¯m not impressed with their ability to retain their intellect. No doubt reserved only for the elite and powerful,¡± I sniffed. ¡°Get your dead immortality here! Just leave your brains behind...¡± Kris snorted at the idea, applicable as it might be. ¡°Good soldiers don¡¯t need to think, they only need to obey, right?¡± Her eyes flashed, hinting at things she¡¯d seen. ¡°No need for responsibility, self-preservation, anything. Just obey.¡± ¡°Such a perfect world you¡¯re painting. Referring to anything?¡± I asked, amused. ¡°Viamont¡¯s royal family had some pretty severe views on loyalty to the crown, but given their clan relations, it was not a national mindset, which is totally unsurprising.¡± ¡°Ah, hadn¡¯t made that leap to a national identity, or a worldly one. Well, outside pressures and all that.¡± One of those pressures pushing back. Bloodily! AF Chapter 58 – The Mood is about Blue ¡°We probably did a real good job of hammering their subspecies identity into their teeth,¡± Princess Kristie snorted. ¡°Blue is a really bad color to be back home outside of Viamont, and even there it isn¡¯t what it was. Their skin color is going to have a bad name for centuries and longer after what we did to them, and their dreams of empire are ash. If they try that conquest shit again, they may well be exterminated.¡± I just nodded. Sama and Briggs had just unloaded on the fuckers. They¡¯d brought down an empire in flames and blood, eradicated whole clans and families, taken the fight right into Viamont and scorched the ground and land black with flame. ¡°You do know that at least one member of the royal family chased the Bellenesse into a Portal, presumably to here, way back when?¡± Kris sniffed as she looked around. ¡°I can imagine what kind of deviltry they got up to with not the slightest bit of oversight, and given how massively their family fucked up in Viamont, I can¡¯t imagine they did any better than anyone else when the magic failed here.¡± Given their arrogance and racism, I couldn¡¯t dispute that from Shamira¡¯s side of things. The Viamontians had been VERY full of themselves. I wondered how well that had survived after meeting their possible forebears, and members of a magical civilization as old as this place portended? With their arrogance, they probably only considered it something to dominate and exceed... We watched the serpent-man materialized from the respawn, something called a Sclavus, fall apart into vivus, its Summon spot forever sealing, both of us eyeing it with distaste. ¡°That thing screamed Created Race and unnatural to me,¡± Kris admitted, flipping Quaver over in her fingers and sheathing the happily humming Blade as it shrank to dagger size behind her waist. ¡°Something was off about it that put my teeth on edge.¡± Perhaps it had been the almost boneless, sinuous way its slender body moved, as if its bones were flexible. Perhaps the overall silence, save for some hissing. Perhaps just revulsion for the cold reptilian eyes and emotionless stare as it fought. Regardless, I¡¯d found it unnerving as well. Something had been very off about it. ¡°I don¡¯t think the source creature could reproduce naturally,¡± I offered, going over what it looked like. ¡°But I don¡¯t think it was genderless...¡± ¡°A Created race of servants that is only male?¡± Kris just rolled her eyes. ¡°I¡¯m going home now. I¡¯ve had it up to here with the inane works of you Casters.¡± ¡°We both know alchemists and artificers make the wildest and worst stuff, and they¡¯re open to Forsaken, so shut it, Your Highness.¡± She smirked at me and gave me a rude finger in acknowledgment of that point. ¡°So, with the addition of these Sclavi, that Burun, and those Lugians, what are we up to for intelligent races?¡± she asked by way of ceding the argument. ¡°Thirteen, with another three skeletal remains, but unproven to still be around... and that is not considering the olthoi¡¯s queens are probably sapient.¡± She nodded once. ¡°No, no, this is not some place artificially overstuffed with intelligent races for fun and excitement by interested third parties, nopers!¡± I just tossed my eyes. ¡°Can¡¯t blame just us Casters for this!¡± I complained. ¡°Sure I can. You draw all the attention from the fourth parties!¡± she reasoned, and I just sniffed and waved her off in mock contempt for her barbaric opinion... true as it might be. ¡°Let¡¯s see if we can make it to this Yanshi place. Should only be a couple more miles...¡± ------ ¡°Fuckfuckfuckfuck FUUUCK!¡± I blurted out, and sent another flight of Shards into the old mosswart. It was taller than the ones laying dead all around, the scaled semi-amphibians sliced and chewed up by magic and blades, including the bright green ones that had actually been spellcasters... and which Kris had hacked through. This old one was giving her the business, however. Well, it was trying to. The swirling shields of force from Quaver were probably keeping her alive at this time, while she brought out all the swordplay knowledge she knew to both wound this horrifically dangerous old thing and stay alive. This Mosswart Cynic was level 200 under the Assay! It had Soak in the thousands! Kris had responded to her sudden discovery and being attacked with her usual energy, and the fact only a tithe of the creatures were Summoned didn¡¯t stop her. This old fart charging out of the ruin of the pyramidal structure still emitting faint arcane lights, however, had taken us totally by surprise, both with its speed and its striking power. Kris was using full Seven Dragons swordplay for the very first time since we''d met, yet only the fact that Quaver was also a Blooding Weapon was keeping her in the fight, as the old fart had some natural Fast Healing of great speed, according to its Assay. It simply would have Fast Healed away her damage almost entirely if Blooding were not there! True Casting! ¡°Zojak Quaguz!¡± I straight-up shouted out for the follow-up, and flaming Shards drove into the bastard¡¯s side, punching through a LOT of magic resistance to do so, and set its side on fire. The coiling Ways of all Seven Dragons were fully on display inside the flaring mists and Lost Lights of Quaver if you knew what to look for, yet Kris was still employing all-out reversed Power Attack Rule of Valus Ocean Swordplay, giving up striking deep for more control and speed, just so she could hit this bastard consistently. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The distraction of my Shards impacting it so hard, and a Silver spell of Fire within the Shards exploding on its side, gave her an opening. Quaver flickered in and out in less than an eyeblink, past a blocking hand that didn¡¯t just fly off when a +X adamantine edge skirled over it, and she nearly took out its eye. Incensed, it tried to get around her, only to find her lightfoot wasn¡¯t any worse than its own, and that Hag vitality of hers wasn¡¯t giving way to whatever energies were empowering it. Incensed, it unleashed a deadly flurry of pounding strikes against her... and this time, dark blood bloomed along its arm as Sword Beats Fist triggered and it ran its arms right into Quaver¡¯s edge with its own power. I dumped a Silver Healing spell into Kris, her Null letting the spell through as the impacts of its fists rippled through her Soak with incredible force, punching through her DR with power enough to break stone. This old mosswart was the equivalent of a high-level Casting Monk, and we¡¯d basically just wiped out its students. It was not happy with us! Well, that was fine. Its Aura was a deep Ruby, there was a ton of innocent blood on its hands, probably human, and Holy power blasting into it had clearly made it flinch in shock at the spiritual agony of Heaven not liking it one damned bit. Kris wasn¡¯t giving up anything to the creature in raw strength, and it was clearly relying on an immense pool of Health Qi to just batter her to death before turning on me. True Cast! Another flight of Shards swirled out, the no-miss variety it had no hope of dodging, and it could not help but brace as they came in hammering, the triple array of Arcane, Force, and Holy fires blazing over it for long and hungry seconds after the impacts as Quaver flicked in and almost opened up its throat. Incensed, it just flicked through the process, and the strongest War Magic I¡¯d ever seen began to manifest... and I let it. The powerful Fire Bolt, it had to be a VII, something Mira had no memories of, slammed into Kris with incredible fury. It should have really fried her in place, as it managed to punch through her Null and explode over her with its full power. In return, blood blossomed along its neck as it barely dodged Quaver¡¯s point in its throat, Kris just snarled, and her own whirling flicker-cuts of a Weapon that shouldn¡¯t be wielded so lightly danced around spiraling shield-motes of Lost Light that seemed to become little more than swirling butterflies, cuts erupting on its side, its thigh, and across its cheek in a three-Dragon combo it couldn¡¯t follow. Kris was immune to fire and lightning by her Rantha heritage. It could use both on her all day, even try to make her Vulnerable to such, and it would make no more difference to her than using fire or cold on me would. She didn¡¯t have Bane to Mosswarts, so when the Vulnerability to Fire flashed into existence about the thing after another True Casting by me, the butterfly of shadowed and silvery force pulses was joined by the blossoming flower of a Firephasing Blade being wielded with all the speed in multiple Profound Combinations. Ding! Ting! She even had the energy to Sing, Heartsong swirling around her as her Battledance exploded onto it, and she began to drive it back, back, back as adamantine flames chewed into and through its scales. True Casting! ¡°Cruath Quasith!¡± I made sure she heard, her thoughts completely subsumed into the fight. The familiar gray flash of natural armor being rendered porous flashed over the old thing. Two cuts on its forearm erupted a second later, no longer quite so able to deny the laser-like edge of Quaver. ¡°Blood of the children upon you, crawled from the swamp you came! ¡°Your choices you¡¯ll rue, the payment is due, ¡°And down you¡¯ll come in flame! ¡°TREMBLE! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± she howled at him, her thoughts riding a razor-edge of hurricane fury and elemental serenity, all eight of her canines gaping at him in a ferocious smile that looked too big for her face. Hey, salamander-face, meet an Intimidation check with a VERY hefty circumstance modifier, the flaming flowers of her attacks joined to her Battledance making the thing¡¯s bulging eyes widen as her fury descended upon it. Ranthas fought in all the ways, and inflicting shaking knees and sapping the will to fight was just opportunity in her eyes, while I saw the first knives of fear take hold as this thing fought something it was completely unprepared to face. Fear triggered sneak attack damage with her instant Dazzling Display of Phoenix Flares its Feathers fueling Shatter Defenses, and suddenly +8d6 of Sneak Attack damage was online as it couldn¡¯t dodge her blows with reflexes slowed by fear. It desperately hammered back at her as the yammering of fright pounded on the back of its brain, the swirl of flames and force Lost Light drawing flower after butterfly after bird after sun after serpent in front of its bulging eyes, all made out of flame and silver shadows, and all of them coming for it! I politely kept up with the Healing Magic, which I was VERY good at. Enhanced by Augment Healing and Lightning, Cold, and Power in the Blood for +4/die, a Silver Heal Other doing 10d4+20 in Healing was popped to received an extra +48 boost... with Imbued Healing dropping another 12 points of temporary Soak on top, ablating the Cynic¡¯s next strike. There was no way it could make any headway, and its one attempt to heal its own injuries sparked and fizzled as the bite of the Curse magic on the edge of its wounds prevented both Fast Healing and Healing Magic from taking effect without it being removed, or come the dawn, whichever came first. Dawn wasn¡¯t far, but it wasn¡¯t close enough for this thing to survive with Blooding locking down its recovery ability. Its ability to dodge compromised, Cuts the Waterfall added a further lava-like liquid element to her Swordplay, hitting harder, harder, harder! The blur of her attacks and the fires they were delivering drove the elder mosswart back, completely off-balance as to what it was facing, unable to look past the special effects to the fundamental martial principles powering them with her screaming at it. AF Chapter 59 – Hag beats Cynic, News at Dawn! Having the power and breath to sing while in a fight for your life is a clear display of domination, and the old Mosswart Cynic had no experience with the morale-crushing and raising power of Heartsong, that was evident. ¡°FLEE! You cannot run! Your day is over, your time is done! ¡°DIE! You cannot fight! Your will is broken, as is your might! ¡°WAIL! Your heart is broken! Your will is shattered, your Fate is spoken! ¡°TREMBLE! TREMBLE! TREMBLE!¡± A blazing phoenix surrounded by a swirling silver-shadow dragon rose about her as Quaver came up, and the old mosswart gawked at the show and the Singing, unable to believe what it was seeing, how art and combat came together so beautifully, so... distractingly. And then the Butterfly One Strike fluttered, looking like it was in three places at once, and silver-hot flames removed both its blocking hands and sliced through its neck in one stroke. Kris gasped as she fell down to one knee, heaving for breath, while the startled mosswart watched its callused, scaled hands fall down. Then its world spun as its head fell from its shoulders, blood spurting flaming from the wounds and cauterizing them as its body toppled after it. Even a Rantha¡¯s utterly inhuman vitality had been stretched with the level of absolute effort she¡¯d been burning. ¡°Malar Zhavik,¡± I said calmly, and Healing energy aimed at her Stamina rushed back into her. I belatedly remembered that there was a massive line of Melee Feats that involved the use of Stamina, and I had the feeling that she had just used a bunch of them I hadn¡¯t been able to see, as they¡¯d all been internal usage. Unlike magical effects, Nulls and the like could certainly burn Stamina. Maybe the Stamina stuff wasn¡¯t so inapplicable after all. It might even be incredibly useful, just not for me! Kris¡¯ breathing didn¡¯t calm, but it did deepen. She was sucking in a lot of oxygen, but the trembling in her muscles stopped almost instantly. ¡°Mithar and His Mighty Mutt,¡± she swore, and I could only nod agreement. ¡°Quaver just burned through my entire Ki Pool, Ryin,¡± she muttered hoarsely. ¡°I won¡¯t be able to do something like that again for hours.¡± ¡°Hey, I would have been dead in like twelve seconds if it reached me, so happy to have the meat shield around,¡± I responded lightly, and she snorted and grinned at the point. ¡°You pumped how much Healing into me?¡± ¡°Uh, seven Silver spells, in total? 700ish points plus the Imbued Healing, let¡¯s say 800?¡± ¡°So, I¡¯d¡¯ve been dead solo.¡± ¡°Well, you were letting it hit you so you could rage all over it in return. I¡¯m just not sure you could have outrun it if you chose to go defensive and flee.¡± She turned her eyes down the pristine road south. Despite this outpost being ruined and then reclaimed by these mosswarts in a very primitive manner, the road itself was completely unharmed and unaffected, with nary a stone out of place or weed growing upon it, despite, you know, being at the edges of a swamp. ¡°I am suddenly very trepidatious viz-a-viz our expectations of what exactly is a couple miles down that road.¡± ¡°You¡¯re actually still planning on checking out the city?¡± I inquired in mock amazement. ¡°Can¡¯t believe it, nope-nope.¡± ¡°If these suckers are around to protect their kind, I could see them holding onto a city.¡± I inclined my head in agreement with that. They¡¯d pound any of those virindi things we¡¯d seen down in short order, although I doubt they could have dealt with the Killer Drudge. That kind of combat ability plus being able to use at least fire magic and the Vulns to support it? Nothing much would have lived long... and they were living things, not Summons. If there were Summons this powerful, well, just, wow. Which meant... ¡°The only powerful Summons were the spell-flingers, and they weren¡¯t much. We have to see if they can replicate anything stronger. If we have to clear this place in the future...¡± the princess sighed at the thought, and then something crazy sparked in her deep violet eyes. ¡°If I¡¯m strong enough to take on multiples of these things, and you are to shoot them down, wouldn¡¯t that be saying something?¡± I considered that as her toothy smile sank its fangs into that image. ¡°I still don¡¯t want to get into melee range of these old things,¡± I murmured. ¡°And that¡¯s a lot of Health Qi and Soak and whatever these things had.¡± She heaved herself to her feet, clapping me lightly on the shoulder. ¡°We are going to look, measure, and run. I¡¯m not getting into another of those fights without proper Gear to back me up, promise!¡± I just nodded. ¡°Sneaky-sneak it is.¡± ------ For me, that meant lying flat on a Disk, while Invisible, renewing the Invisibility I was Casting on Kris, only good for ten minutes because her Null forced it off despite anything she might want. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. It was fine. The spell was easy to replace, and it meant we could use the road and they wouldn¡¯t see us coming, which also meant she could run really fast if needed. Thus it was that less than five minutes later she was Waveskating along the stones through the outlying houses of Yanshi, and we were both grimacing. This was a major settlement of the mosswarts. If the human-built houses and barns were all starting to rot, they had at least been shored up with intelligent hands, reeds and rough-cut lumber and even bamboo filling in holes here and there. There still didn¡¯t seem to be any ranching going on, and the trails all led down towards the river itself and further south, making it plain they were working the shallow waters for their food, but taking care not to venture that far north. My guess was that the virindi had made a lethal impression on them, and they wanted nothing to do with the area around Rithwic. There were occasional Summons standing guard, and they were all mosswarts, whatever method was used to attune and affix them to a specific spawn used and in force. The old Cynics were there, too. There were at least a dozen of them scattered through the ruins of the town, although I noticed that the ruins were... old? I was sure Kris noticed it as we scooted through the town, avoiding individual mosswarts out at night for whatever reason, but after seeing the old pillar for the ¡®Town of the Boulder¡¯, there really wasn¡¯t a lot of human buildings left here, just some scattered and burned foundations that had been built over and used by mosswarts. Oh, and the boulder in the center of town, which was now surrounded by four... kinda cutish rounded-cat-head/Buddha idols of some kind, constructs around a carved stone with a walkway up it, festooned now with garish idols and fetishes emblematic of whatever they worshipped here. There were a half-dozen Cynics there... and two were Summons! Such good news. I relayed that to Kris, along with the fact the Constructs might be able to see through the Invisibility, and we stayed well clear. The only other thing of moderate interest was what used to be a Copper Construct of a reedshark by its design, melted and fused and inactive, but then built out with wicker and straw and ¡®completed¡¯ by so doing, looking grim and ferocious on its raised mound there, obviously admired by the natives. Kris made a silent tour of the environment, and then just as quietly skated out of town. ¡°It opened up to the west, the treeline vanished quickly, and the road let out that way, too,¡± I recited as soon as we were largely clear of the place. There were at least a couple thousand mosswarts living in the vicinity of the place, and those I¡¯d noticed tended to have scars of fighting and conflict that had not healed perfectly. ¡°There was only one place of recent damage, you saw the pit spewing out those four elemental flames, and they built a shrine around it to contain them. All the rest of the stuff was damage years older,¡± were her terse observations. ¡°So our map was out of date. That never happens. The farms and remnants extended to the west. If the place was destroyed and rebuilt elsewhere, it¡¯s likely in that direction.¡± She coasted to a halt, turning in that direction. ¡°How far, do you think?¡¯ ¡°Let¡¯s go find out.¡± ----- It wasn¡¯t that far, again a couple of miles, and the walls of the place were soon visible over the rolling hills rising up rapidly from the mosswart town. The landscape Summons seemed to be more three-eyed monugas and reedsharks than anything else, with the occasional cat-headed banderling thrown in. Other living sapients seemed to be avoiding the area, and it was soon obvious why, as all the landscape Summons soon turned into the base Undead. They didn¡¯t have any special ability to sense the Invisible, and Kris warily skated around and between them, both of us unnoticed as the things kept up their ceaseless vigil. There was a new town pillar with the symbol in Sho of Yanshi leading up to the hill upon which the new town was centered. Farms and other buildings had sprung up beyond a certain perimeter, and the area about what almost looked like a castle was actually somewhat picturesque. Also, ruined. Kris glided to a halt to study a series of circular platforms connected by slender stone walkways, except all of them were cracked and shattered, as if they¡¯d fallen from a height and broke apart on impact. They were in a rough circular pattern around what might once have been a church or shrine, but which had been largely razed and was unrecognizable now. Some sort of martial parade area was on the northwest side, downhill of the city, it even seemed to be getting some use, and a small defensive fortification was on the southeast. The area had a number of the unliving moving in and out of it. Some of them were indeed quite powerful, lording it over their kind imperiously, and were obeyed without hesitation. There seemed to be three kinds of them. First were the tall, blue-purple undead, gaunt flesh preserved and eyes glowing black with necromantic power. Second were a number of skeletons, some of them with skulls dancing with flames, all of them moving as if they still had flesh, and generally martially clad and equipped, yet largely subordinated to the undead, who usually towered a head over them. A servant race or people, I deduced, likely ¡®blessed¡¯ with eternal service to their masters in the form of fleshless skeletons. Kris concurred. The last was the least frequently seen, we saw only a handful. Clearly mummified, they were dried and brown of skin, but built powerfully and accorded more respect than the skeletons were, yet still ultimately subordinate to the undead. The town itself was actually mostly intact. There was another of the columned buildings that had fallen into the mound of its own basement being forced into reality beneath it, the pit left open and ignored by all about instead of being covered over or used. The high walls of the town were largely intact, incidental spell damage that looked to have been maintained and repaired in good form, and even the buildings were well-maintained, although much of the ornamentation and cultural artwork had been left to lapse and rot away, or had been actively defaced or struck off. We didn¡¯t attempt to go inside, as the undead were all moving about, possessing a stiff energy that belied their unliving states. Patrols and messengers seemed to be coming and going at a regular basis, judging by how one was arriving from the west, and a smaller one seemed to be heading off to the south. There was another copper statue pedestal there. The statue atop it was active and fully powered... and clearly altered from something else. It now looked like a zombie warrior, complete with their traditional harness, ancient saber extended out to protect the town. Kris had seen enough. We peeled off and headed back east towards the swamp and the river. It was plain nothing living was present here. AF Chapter 60 – Racial Conflicts ¡°What are you thinking?¡± I asked her, having my own ideas. ¡°There was no sign of conflict or combat with the mosswarts. But the mosswarts had their injuries, and were on a war footing. That reedshark lair I was in isn¡¯t that far from their settlement, but it was to the north, and there was little foot traffic in that direction upstream. Their attention is focused south. ¡°Also, they look amphibious, scales or no. We always met Summons of them in wetter areas.¡± ¡°You think there¡¯s something in the swamp,¡± I extrapolated. ¡°And I¡¯m fairly sure the undead are opposed to whatever that influence is, too, and tolerate the mosswarts because of it.¡± ¡°The burun, then,¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°They were obviously amphibious, also. We met the first Summons of them down here, and despite sharing a habitat, there were none living among the mosswarts.¡± ¡°They are opposed tribes contesting for the same territory. What their view is of the undead, we don¡¯t know, but I¡¯m betting it¡¯s poor.¡± ¡°No bet,¡± I agreed, as the last Invisibility wore off, and she headed back in the direction we¡¯d left our Wagon, in the middle of a thicket cluster nothing we¡¯d seen would want to get into. Summons along the way were avoided, as the locals had likely marked what they were, and would be alert to any changes. ¡°Well, I imagine we¡¯re going to be wandering into a skirmish zone, then. One I imagine the burun are winning, given the mosswarts are on the outskirts.¡± ¡°That would be my thinking, as well. We¡¯ve no idea what side is doing what, either.¡± ¡°I¡¯m seldom opposed to creatures that loathe the undead, but my feeling is everything involved is tribal and racial in mindset, and there are no friends, only not-food-right-now of convenience.¡± Her canines gleamed in the moonlight. ¡°Well, that does tend to simplify a lot of relationships, doesn¡¯t it?¡± I just sighed. ¡°It does, indeed.¡± ----- It was just several trees growing close together, with a high stand of reeds all around, but that meant perfect for us. Nobody was going to go into it for much reason, the frogs and snakes weren¡¯t going to report us, and it made excellent camouflage material to work with for the magic hiding our wagon. The princess was putting Bane to Mosswarts in Quaver¡¯s Slaughter Slot, based purely on having to fight those old Mosswart Cynics in the future. Any edge was worthwhile for that. On the flip side, we both knew that if the mosswarts had elders that powerful and were on the outside of the swamp, that meant whatever was holding the swamp was pretty damn tough. Well, it was what it was. She had a lot of things to add to Quaver¡¯s Slaughter in the end, and it was interfering with overall growth of her Blade, but there was nothing for it, except maybe to accumulate Baneskulls instead. Said skulls of which I was accumulating, even if I wasn¡¯t working on them. Instead, she started working on a Shield to use, using the best of the salvaged steel there and having me Energize it all to Earth. Durasteel wasn¡¯t adamantine, but you make do with what you have. She probably would have made herself a suit of armor if speed and maneuverability weren¡¯t so important. But dodging the local magic had taken on a higher level of meaning now, and she wasn¡¯t going to sacrifice that readily, so she wasn¡¯t going to go for anything short of skinplate right now, and we didn¡¯t have the raw materials to make something like that. Soon enough, soon enough. I¡¯d held off taking a Feat immediately, but I took them before and after Natural Renewal, along with the Class choice I¡¯d held off. The only thing I¡¯d taken was my Exemplar Surge¡¯d spell, Camouflage. Choices to make. I took the fatal step, and slotted in my Feat as Arcane Thesis: Shards, using the fact I was a faux Wizard/6 to justify it. +2 to Caster Level of Shards, -1 cost to ALL Metas attached to Shards. Replaced Signature Spell/Shards, which did an inferior version of the same thing. The Mastery was Fury of the Zealot/3, which extended Zealotry to effects coming off Holy magic items I wielded... like the Holy I was adding to Crown right now. Swapping a Feat gave me an extra one. I Selected my Class Level as Bard/1, which started my Heartsong Levels, and the Feat as Of the Invulnerable World, which would allow me to unleash magic without harming the environment. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. As Renewal passed with the Salute to Aru, I doubled down on the choice, taking another Level in Bard, and backing it up with Extra Channeling/3 and Duskstopped Spell. Two spells that could last all day and not be recast. I wanted my Shaping Stone always on hand, and now I had it, in addition to an always-active Shield spell! As for the spell for Exemplar Surge, that was for utility, too... ----- ¡°Taking one of your Surges to grab a Summons so we don¡¯t have to risk smoke or a fire being sensed. Nice,¡± Kris said, as we broke up our mutual efforts around noon for her to fry some reedshark again. She¡¯d managed to grab some onions and leeks and even garlic while wandering around, while I¡¯d managed to sniff out some comfrey and other herbs, and Sifting out some salt wasn¡¯t hard at all. As a result, the rub on the steaks wasn¡¯t half-bad, and we could indulge once we didn¡¯t have to worry about being sniffed out. The Summon Lesser Elemental spell wasn¡¯t about getting a powerful companion, after all. Utility was often much more important in cases like this. ¡°Classes?¡± she asked, as her jet-black nails divided up her steak like monomolecular knives. ¡°Bard/1 and /2,¡± I admitted, raising her eyebrows. ¡°I don¡¯t think I can take Druid Levels here. If there¡¯s Primal magic, it¡¯s being completely overwhelmed by the ley line network here, and the Land is suppressed. However, I can access the full Druid List without any problem via Bard¡¯s Heartsong-related magic, so there¡¯s a workaround... and I want the Sublime Chord.¡± ¡°Ah, of course,¡± she nodded wisely. ¡°Perform Skills of choice?¡± ¡°Song, Dance. If I have extra, I usually spend them on Whistling and Piano.¡± I craned my neck around. ¡°Behold, my performance chamber! I¡¯m sure a Steinway will be materializing soon...¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure it will,¡± she laughed as she munched on reedshark with me. ¡°Now I know what you were groaning about there! How did it feel to have six Ranks of Dance forced into you?¡± Her eyes twinkled as she recalled my face and misery as I stretched out on a Disk. ¡°Exactly as miserable as you might think, especially since I couldn¡¯t go through forms to help offset the insta-conditioning.¡± Thousands of hours of practice driven into muscles that hadn¡¯t ever done anything like that was truly a miserable experience, and that included my throat and vocal cords. I actually sounded rather hoarse at the moment. ¡°Aaand now I know why you wanted a triple steak, and could actually eat it all.¡± She watched me devouring my share with aplomb, as being Sustained didn¡¯t do jack-all for building body mass. I had just gotten a huge amount of muscle toning and stretching by the backdoor method, and my body was screaming at me for some building blocks to make it all official. ¡°Yes, am very hungry right now,¡± I confessed around my chewing. ¡°I also have to do a lot of vocal scales, and actually get familiar with my own Singing Voice, as opposed to just recalling a bunch of Ranks of what to do and applying them without having done them.¡± Happily, Quaver¡¯s Sound Bubble took care of making sure nobody heard us. ¡°I¡¯d offer to partner up on the dance portion, but we are missing a proper hall, and I don¡¯t want to rob the boys of their pleasure.¡± Her eyes twinkled merrily at the thought. I rolled my eyes slightly. ¡°Night Rose ranks already?¡± I had to ask, and the twinkle in her eyes became a bit of a hard glitter. ¡°Of course! I¡¯m a princess, I have to master the social scene, too, and you know we aren¡¯t going to do anything half-ass. Mom went out on the dance floor, with those hips and legs, and it didn¡¯t matter if her face was scarred. All the men were tripping over themselves for a dance with the Empress!¡± ¡°Now, now. No hiding that envy of your Mom for having your dad around.¡± I wagged my fork at her, and she grimaced slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t have any desire for my dad, thank Mithar, but, oh, do I want a Briggs for my own!¡± she admitted without the slightest guilt, her face lighting up with a serene, dark beauty that her Curse Brand could only attempt to hide. ¡°Getting spun around the dance floor by Dad was wonderful! He never had a problem with partners, either, as you might imagine.¡± ¡°Briggs always had a way with the girls back on Terra-Luna. Most of the Amazons on the planet were directly inspired by him, and are in love with him as a result. Sama alternates between beating them off with a stick and inviting them in for threesomes.¡± ¡°That sounds so like Mom,¡± Kris admitted. ¡°They were very good about keeping it tight while we were kids, but now they take breaks from one another, and everyone expects it, so nobody says anything, and between them they seduce half the nobles in the Empire with ridiculous ease.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t say that surprises me in the least, and I imagine you and your siblings find it funny as heck.¡± ¡°Oh, those poor saps who think they run the world have no idea how helpless they are in front of two Night Rose Masters like the folks,¡± she nodded along. ¡°Like you weren¡¯t indulging, too,¡± I sniffed, looking her over. ¡°You DO know you had a reputation for going through the brawny men, right?¡± Her return smile was sweet death for those gossips. ¡°Well, I did go through the brawny men, mainly because they were very fragile and return engagements might have broken them permanently, and totally ruined them for anyone who came after me. I DID try to restrain myself, and I can proudly say that none of them will ever forget me, and none of them want to repeat the experience.¡± She even leaned forward and whispered, ¡°I was directly responsible for sixteen marriage proposals and weddings, I¡¯ll have you know.¡± ¡°Chased them right into proper fidelity?¡± I was scandalized. ¡°What did you do, tell them you didn¡¯t sleep with married men?¡± ¡°Why, yes! And since they weren¡¯t engaged, I¡¯d be coming back for them! It was magical. Within two weeks they all found the courage to propose to the loves of their lives, and wedding bells all around.¡± Her shit-eating smile was quite smug. ¡°You should have seen the way they clutched their wives whenever I was around. Verrrrry satisfying.¡± I could only laugh softly. ¡°What about getting a bondmage? Did that never occur to you?¡± She tilted her head in thought. ¡°Welllll,¡± she drawled, ¡°there¡¯s a problem in that I¡¯m really not attracted to the slender intellectual type, the pretty boytoy, or the charismatic mastermind. Me and my sisters are foundationally like Mom, you know? We want our own Briggs, not a spellflinger. We are also, uh, not impressed with Isparian Casters, for the most part, as the magic we remember is a lot more useful and versatile. We can respect them and their skills, but we¡¯re just not attracted to them.¡± ¡°And you intimidated them so badly as Nulls they probably don¡¯t really want to be around you, and that¡¯s before you threw them over a house for the first time.¡± ¡°Odd that a lot of men really aren¡¯t attracted to physically capable women. Like they like feeling physically superior and useful that way. Odd, huh?¡± She just shrugged, being it was what it was. AF Chapter 61 – Frogs and Salamanders Magic-Fu Fighting ¡°I think we found our conflict zone,¡± Kris murmured, pointing ahead. Maneuvering through the trees over the swamp waters was a bit more difficult now with the Wagon, restricting where we could go easily, but up and down movement was generally not a problem, we only had to worry about width. ¡°Even my nose can smell the blood,¡± I agreed, surveying the area ahead. ¡°Look at the Summons. It¡¯s basically a demarcation line...¡± ¡°Too much ground cover. What are you looking at?¡± She craned her head, but there were a lot of trees and reeds in her way. I flicked up a Disk from Valence and stepped over onto it, the Wagon moving over and settling in just above the water, an extension of a reed cluster, Camouflage on the job. ¡°There¡¯s a line of Summoned undead stretching off to the west, and a line of mosswarts across our path. ¡°On the other side is a whole lot of nasty-looking froggers, including some the size of ogres we haven¡¯t seen before, and very not frog-like. It looks like the Burun subdivide into warrior and crafter subspecies.¡± Kris¡¯ eyes narrowed. ¡°That usually means a leader or shaman class, controlling the warriors.¡± ¡°Not represented by the Summons, but yeah.¡± I touched her with the Invisibility, and she didn¡¯t resist with her Null, fading from visible sight. ¡°Ten minutes,¡± I reminded her, knowing it wasn¡¯t needed, but showing I remembered, and would renew it if needed. Detect Time, on the ball! Quaver tapped my Disk, I let it take control, and she hauled me after her as we went up to see what could be seen. The Summons were still scattered and erratic, set more as ¡®random encounters¡¯ than as a battle line, but as the scarring on the trees and ground attested to, there was a lot of fighting going on here, and the Summons had been pulled in to participate, making me believe that Casters on each side had some means of controlling their own. The drudges... had not? Maybe? Of course, the drudges had struck me as instinct-following idiots, so there was that. There were bodies, too, although not many of them. That indicated that the dead were either hauled off for food, or the living weren¡¯t risked much in these fights. I didn¡¯t know how fast these things could breed and fight, after all, but living people weren¡¯t Summons, and didn¡¯t come back when killed. There were also living spotters, gliding around mostly submerged in the water and muck, keeping track of the Summons, attempting to identify the scouts on the other side, maybe send Summons after them. We found the corpse of one of the big hulks about the same time as we saw the first of them in a Summons position. Its Assay level was in the 160¡¯s, a pale-bellied thing with tree trunk-sized ape-like arms it was resting on easily, over a head taller than I was, and clutching an axe worthy of a Jotun in one of those mitts, size doing what construction did not. The paler front of the creature gave way to a toad-like mottling that looked like gray-green scales of some kind. That layer of protection was probably at least four inches thick by the look of it, spread across the back and sides of its arms, shoulder, legs, and torso. Backstabbing the thing would be like trying to backstab a smiting pelt. It had stumpy legs, squat and stable, with claws to grip the ground and keep it even more unmoved. It didn¡¯t look related to the burun Summons around it at all, but the Assay clearly called it a Guruk Fiend and indicated it was the same overarching species. Soldier ants among the ants, as it were. -Vulnerable to cold,- I /noted to Kris. -Ah, that explains the freeze-burns on all the vegetation,- she /nodded. This section of conflict had razed a lot of the plant life in between, rendering it open ground with a lot of dead tree trunks in the way, the latter both blasted with cold and burned clean through with fire magic, presumably used against the undead and the mosswarts. Another sign that Casters could control Summons and make them use their power intelligently. -On the flip side, they are probably going to interpret the death of that old mossie and the undead patrol as some of these burun getting through and going ham on them.- -And probably wondering why they didn¡¯t find any tracks?- I /sniffed. Kris didn¡¯t leave any with her lightfoot, and I was mostly on Disks or Flying low. -Or why there wasn¡¯t a signal raised?- -A foul ambush and unclean frogger magic,- she /replied easily. -What do you think we should do?- -The mossies lost a Cynic. They have to inflict the same on their enemies, or lose ground. There¡¯s probably going to be a deadly raid fairly soon, which we don¡¯t want to get in the middle of.- -Ah, the war drums, right. That should mean there¡¯s a bunch of these things just out of sight, what with the mossies announcing their intentions.- She tilted her head. -Are those bone horns?- Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Hey, look who had just acquired perform Ranks and more musical sensitivity. -I think so. Hmm, they don¡¯t match the rest of the music.- -I¡¯m thinking the undead are displaying readiness to fight, too.- -None of the undead Summons I could sense were below a Revenant in power, which is a 60, slightly above the little burun I saw,- I /informed her -There¡¯s motion over there.- I turned my head to where she was looking, Devilsight giving us nightvision like the day. -Most of those are Summoned. There¡¯s scores of them.- -Conjured armies moving to go to war, harming nothing but each other and the environment. Although I don¡¯t think they are going to be satisfied with that, what with losing one of their leaders.- -Oops. Perhaps they shouldn¡¯t have attacked me so vehemently after I startled that scout.- She didn¡¯t /sound too apologetic. -Accidents happen in war. There¡¯s no Good side here, and that Cynic was a solid Ruby. You EARN that, it¡¯s not ¡®natural¡¯,- I /told her. -You know what? That does make me feel better. What about these things?- She /indicated the burun and guruk shifting through the swamp ahead of us, grunting and calling out to one another in deep, croaking tones. -Brown-Purple-Green. Very tribal, very savage, as you might imagine.- -Aye, and the leadership always tends to be worse than the common population, I know, I know.- Probably had seen a whole lot of it, given Viamont back on Ispar. Grandiose dreams of conquest aren¡¯t part of the average person¡¯s ambitions, while those seeking power over others were naturally drawn to government. Fwoosh!... Water vapor and air condensing into utter cold had a singular noise to it, and the shimmery magic reflecting through the crystals in the air was visible at a great distance. Croaking calls rose violently in response as the fighting started off over thataway, and the forces spread out here shuffled somewhat in that direction... but not too far. -Time to move!- Kris /exclaimed, heading back out of the area of conflict. -We¡¯ll swing by at speed while they are busy, check out the Sawato town down at the far end of the swamp.- I drew a long arc around the battle line here, centered it somewhat, and imposed it over the map. She glanced at it, and made a face. It probably was centered on Sawato. I had the feeling ¡®Swamp Town¡¯ was going to have a whole new meaning. Blasts of fire were roaring in the distance, and I didn¡¯t miss the shadows moving through the waters less than a hundred yards from us as a multi-pronged attack came in... led by three of the Cynics, who didn¡¯t look very happy. Well, we accidentally started something. I had no doubts all three forces involved had taken advantage of what had happened to the humans here, so I didn¡¯t feel very guilty getting them to fight among themselves. -There¡¯ll be plenty of guruk here to test yourself against in the future,- I /reassured the princess, who looked a bit mopey as we made it back to the Wagon. That did cheer her up. -Okay, fine, we¡¯re going to swing wide of the fight, race on past, and see what we see.- She didn¡¯t look optimistic on finding anything important, as the croakings that were ringing out could be heard for miles now, clear as drums. Definitely a language of sorts, indicating positions and conflict. The blazing colors and distant rolling booms of fiery explosions were joining and overwhelming the blasts of cold, and soon enough both forces would be starting on this side, too. ------ The battle had well and truly gotten rolling by the time we headed back, scouts stumbling across one another, fighting erupting, and magic started flying back and forth rapidly. The Cynics were a cold and deadly force in the middle of the fighting. Looked like one intelligent one and the two Summons from the town under his command, compelled to stay and fight instead of returning to their positions. He was doing the Vulns, Imperils, and Healing, while they were throwing the War Magic and mixing it up with the massive guruks without any hesitation. The powerful, hulking creatures had great difficulty landing a solid blow, while the old mosswarts were hammering their broad chests with powerful punches, or unleashing point-blank blasts of cold that froze their thick hides to brittle solidity, then shattering them. The burun behind their meat-tanks were trying to concentrate magic on the old mosswarts, which left the mosswart shamans there free to concentrate their own blasts of cold on the burun, while the elder Cynics basically tanked the incoming fire magic, or dodged it completely. The mosswarts pressed in with fanatic zeal, much more impressive than any of those free landspawns we¡¯d met on the way coming down, and even the Summons were stronger and tougher, grown and evolved with magic and built up by the fighting... and, I was pretty sure, many of them choosing to be bound as Summons to protect their people, coming back again and again to die in their defense. I even saw one of the mosswart/cat-headed fat Buddha statues bouncing forwards, three sections spinning as it tanked the burun magic and literally stomped them flat into the mud. Four guruk converged on it with huge cleavers and massive clubs to beat it down, ignoring the spells of the lesser mosswarts as they tried to stop the advance of the statue. The mosswarts ignored the destruction of the statue, which likely could be rebuilt and re-empowered fairly easily, concentrating on expending magic on the burun backing the guruk heavy melees, opening a path for their Cynics and the more powerful mosswarts following them, who were far more dangerous. I also saw a jet-black burun in the back of their forces, clearly croaking out directions, giving orders, and sending off spells here and there, including Healing its own forces and commanding the guruk trying to stop the Cynics. The mosswarts also seemed to be trying to make it in that one¡¯s direction. We didn¡¯t see how the battle resolved, instead zipping on by in the rough direction of the next Sho town here. Given the swamp territory about it, they¡¯d probably been famous for their rice, but we¡¯d see what we¡¯d see when we got there. AF Chapter 62 – The Town that Croaked As we ran through the inner area of the burun¡¯s territory, Invisible and camouflaged in the night, magic lighting up the sky behind it, it quickly became apparent that the burun had an iron grip on this territory. Most of the Summons we had expected were missing, likely hauled away for the fighting. Those that remained were often right in the middle of key pathways through the waters, and there were a lot of natural fortifications, such as planted trees, thick clusters of plants, mushroom mounds, and the like scattered about, in addition to actual walls and barriers built up. The burun had busily been engaged in a natural terraforming of their territory, which seemed to involve more mushrooms of a very different intrinsic nature than those of the olthoi, so I could imagine how those species got along. They had managed to create currents and flows where there was little simply by channeling the flows of water expertly with planted vegetation. It wasn¡¯t much, but it kept the water in motion and cleaner than might be expected otherwise. So, I had to give them props for taking care of their new home, because it was plain that they didn¡¯t come from this land, what with the absolutely new ecology they were trying to introduce. Another species of barbaric nature thrown into the mix, although there was a definite druidic/natural/primal vibe about them and their magic that the other species seemed to lack, and actually was rather opposed to the arcane-based magic that was wielded most naturally here. It was probably what had allowed them to usurp control of the Summons in their own areas, while disrupting their foes from doing something likewise. I hadn¡¯t witnessed anywhere near this absolute control from either the undead or the mosswarts, although I certainly didn¡¯t believe it was impossible for the former. They simply... had better things to do, and were content to keep the frogger/toadmen ¡®cooped up¡¯, such as it was, and their actual living numbers limited. If the burun expanded, well, that was a different matter. The undead were unleashing probing attacks all along the western perimeter of the place, Cold spells flashing through the night with dazzling chilled whiteness. Virtually all of that power was being expended on Summons, however, so basically it was all just for show. I wasn¡¯t sure the burun had much of anywhere to retreat to, so they were fortifying their ground and holdings. They seemed to prefer burrows and caves for their sheltering areas, instead of buildings like humans did, and I could only imagine how hellish it would be for a normal attacking force to dig them out of there. Me? Not so much. Earth and Water Elementals would terrify the crap out of these guys if I had to do the job. But, given the natural bias to their magic, I would in effect be teaching them how to Summon Elementals, which might not be a wise thing to do. Eh... Princess Kristie Rantha and I zipped on through the night, the Disk-borne Wagon easily able to follow her up, over, and around obstacles, and none of the sentries alive or Summoned saw much more than a blur of motion that was gone in the night before they could really register anything was there, doubtless considering it all just a trick of the shadows. There were some interesting sights we saw threading through the place, including a shrine left untouched by the burun and guarded by numerous Water Golums, as well as a hill in the middle of the swamp, vomited forth by the earth and water and still seared with the same kind of energies as had suffused that downed tower up by Cragstone, malevolent shadow energies the land just did not like. Nothing had grown upon it, and the burun had ringed it with stands of mushrooms that glowed under the moonlight to stave off whatever energies were inside of it. The massive dungeon pushed into the ground, surrounded by sclavus and yet another new species, the piscine Moarsmen, with toothy fish faces, webbed limbs, and scales of bright green, gold, red, or blue, was not so expected. What¡¯s more, the burun seemed quite hostile to them, and had ringed the whole temple area in their own Summons and living troops... and seemed to be using the Summons of the temple area for training purposes, if what I saw of the arrangements were right. That being said, the yawning doors to the complex beyond were not being assaulted, making me wonder what was within them. There were several other such force-rooted dungeon areas stuck into the swamp, Kris seeming to have a nose for where they might be as she zigzagged through the swampy area, following deployments of living and semi-living troops. We also ran into our first bright golden phyntos wasp, a powerful and quick specimen shooting lightning energetically at the slightest provocation, thankfully out of sight of any burun watchers. Given our need for stealth, I shot it down before Kris could engage it, and she didn¡¯t protest too much. She did like seeing if she could kill them without spoiling their lovely crystalline wings, but that was only something she could do with the living ones, which didn¡¯t seem nearly as common as the Summons. We also met our first Acid Elementals, which often gathered by the fumarole mounds venting magical energy from below. They were innately Summons, meaning the ¡®real¡¯ ones were Summons regardless of anything else, an innate part of the land and the Summoning system combined. I had to admit I¡¯d never fought an ¡®acid¡¯ Elemental before, as it was an energy type, not an Elemental.. But it was obviously a highly weaponized form of Water Elemental when it came down to it, although here wound about a more humanoid arcane matrix instead of a natural or randomized one, so they actually walked and ran about, instead of sloshing and flowing... and their attacks were indeed corrosive, as well as disconcertingly powerful and rigid for being a liquid. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Well, the Fire and Lightning Elementals we¡¯d seen scattered on Summon points had been tiny, but equally solid, and Air Elementals were gaseous and hit like bricks, too. All part of the wonders and terror of magic, in the end, and just how the Rules Were Different Here. ------ There was a raised road cutting across the swamp from east to west, except it had been cut through by carefully dug tunnels underneath it in several locations, allowing the swampy waters to flow unimpeded beyond. That road was also an impromptu fortification point for the major settlements of burun beyond, occupying the edge of the swamp, the fields that had been made out of the re-flooded area where the Sho had once grown rice and more paddies had been planted beyond by opportunistic omnivorous froggers and toadmen, all of it being run out of the transformed but very much standing small town of Sawato. There were a lot of burun, living ones, engaged in the area, getting up in the dim pre-dawn light to start working at their tasks. They were making use of the remains of the foundations of several human buildings, the walls rebuilt with mud, bamboo, and reeds to be more homey. There were clouds of spores in the air from the huge amount of mushrooms growing everywhere, and the semi-musical croaking, belching, and sometimes chirping and squealing of burun coming in every direction under an interlaced canopy of trees grown and rising over everything, sending all beneath into permanent cool shadow. I had to admit the knee-high burun babies tumbling about here and there were kind of cute without all the toothy ridges on their jaws, but the amphibians seemed to be doing just fine here... and, Kris and I noticed, the town wasn¡¯t defended much at all from the south, the crude walls we saw in our quick tour about the place more for keeping out casual vermin than anything resembling true defensive structures. Also, when Kris went stealing right through the heart of the town to investigate their religious structures and see just what kind of offerings they gave to their gods, she found another of the Deathstone pits, still sparking and spitting. Although the number of dead was the least we¡¯d seen so far, the burun had cordoned the area off with plant life and left it alone, as if quietly respecting the sheer power of death concentrated in it. She set it on vivic fire after carefully ascertaining that none of the skulls hanging from the stakes, poles, and hooks of the temple they¡¯d built around the copper pedestal in the town were human. The Sclavus Statue that was supposed to be on that pedestal, however, was impaled by wooden poles, probably three dozen of them, in manners which suggested some deep-seated hatred of the creatures. Its impaled figure was visible from half the town, held high and there to be seen by the population. ----- I had Kris hold up as we came south out of the town, her curious about what was to the south and the rising mountains we could see in the distance there, and me listening with an ear cocked as the dawn approached. ¡°They are singing the death of the moon,¡± I told her, the various croaks and calls reorganizing and changing in meaning as my Polyglot Feat gathered them and connected to the underlying sense of what they were. I¡¯d been listening to them for well over an hour now, enough time to make sense of a simplistic language that nonetheless had surprising emotional depth built into it. ¡°The sun is hot and unfriendly in this strange land, so the moon is always a relief. We¡¯re seeing them winding down for the day, not gearing up for it. Vocal structures seem to indicate they are subterranean, and I¡¯ve been listening to songs about the blessed river caverns and deep lakes they¡¯ve left behind here. They are adapting, as there are some new elements ¨C they love trees, for instance ¨C but they are coming across as folk songs, although there¡¯s a martial beat to them with the fighting to the north.¡± ¡°Interesting. The lower tonals would echo and resonate with stone chambers, and carry great distances. I imagine they did a lot of pounding on the stone, too,¡± Princess Kristie conjectured, her eyes still on the south and those rising hills there. Her violet eyes had that special Aluvian dance to them. Despite having an at-birth imprinting of her Hagdom, she was still raised an Aluvian, and Aluvians loved their mountains. ¡°Someone wants to go off-mission,¡± I singsonged at her, to which I got a casual middle finger in reply. ¡°That curious, eh?¡± ¡°Ryin, look at the height of them, and tell me why they have snow on the tops.¡± I started to reply, squinted that way to observe the salient details that had slipped past me, and just said, ¡°Oh no. No distracting me with odd environmental details. You saw that snow and instantly went, ¡®Cold mountain air!¡¯ after a week of putting up with swamps and mana-spewing fumaroles and mushroom spores. I¡¯m not dumb, Kris.¡± She flashed double canines at me. ¡°Well, can¡¯t blame me for trying. We can always come back, but aren¡¯t you at least a little curious about who is securing their south?¡± ¡°Very. But dawn is coming, and we need to find cover so we can work. Diversions are all nice, but in their allotted time,¡± I both admitted and reasoned further along than she¡¯d bothered to. Sustained folks like us tend to lose track of hours if not kept on course. ¡°Fine, fine.¡± She started into motion again, moving south and a little west, plainly planning to investigate those heights in one way or another. ¡°I¡¯ll find us a little gully or something with some visual breaks so you can practice your spellcasting. What are you working with today?¡± ¡°Bard/3, going for Mass Disk, Beyond Law and Chaos, and Bardsong/1, Lingering Performance, and for the Three Feat, Beyond Good and Evil.¡± She tilted her head, curious. ¡°The Alignment-canceling Feats? Any reason why?¡± ¡°Hiveminds are a section of Axiom. We¡¯ve already run into two Aberrant races. Undead are present running on negative energy. The place is a hot bed of sapient races who possibly had or have an immortality system in place, and there¡¯s a co-opted ley line network in place that is completely harnessing the natural energy of this place, to the point I can only access it through Bardic Heartsong. ¡°There¡¯s Alignment and ¡®outside Alignment¡¯ activity all over the place, except the one we both want to see the most.¡± ¡°Ah. Right. It always seems to fall to mortals to make their own Good in places like this,¡± she shook her head. ¡°Does the universe conspire against Heaven helping out?¡± she asked rhetorically. ¡°Maybe it¡¯s just the places that need a helping hand are the places we get sent to. Too many places are ¡®what is good is what is good for us¡¯ and ignoring higher Good in service to that measurement is what they do.¡± AF Chapter 63 – The Joys of meeting Lugians It didn¡¯t take Princess Kristie all that long to find a hillock to park the camouflaged Wagon by, and arrange enough cover so that I could spellcast without having to worry about being seen. The landscape Summons were fairly random, but I could see that to the south, the shapes started turning very regular. Princess Kristie said she¡¯d check it out later while I was doing Rep Counts. Neither of us were much worried about anything, as there were still flashes of fire and cold magic in the distance, indicating the fighting was still going on, so the undead, mossies, and burun were all busy. It didn¡¯t mean something couldn¡¯t come down out of the mountains and intrude on us, but it wasn¡¯t a huge risk, and we were in a place they¡¯d go around, rather than over or through. We greeted Aru, got in our two hours of Meditation, and set about working for the day. As normal, the early part of the day was spent Investing, me working on Kris¡¯ Necklace, slogging up the levels of Protection day by day, while she had actually finished making her Shield and it was now ready to start being Powered up. She started working on a set of Bracers to wear to complement it, things that would anchor a Force Armor that, while not as good as an actual suit of armor, would at least help her defensive situation against the really powerful stuff if we ran into it again. 16 of 18 days on my Mark, ready to advance to +3 (4), which would be welcome. Crown was up to 13 days of the 18 needed to open its Drei Slot, and Zeks was at 16 days of the 19 needed to open Protection +II. We still had plenty of materials to work with and Air Gold to fuel everything, the coins particularly suitable for making immaterial protective stuff, like the Protection against Elements Necklace and my general Protection Ring. Enough to pay for everything? Probably not. I¡¯d scanned for Precious Materials while going through the human towns, and there was a bunch of the coinage scattered in different places, but I hadn¡¯t been willing to raise the alarm to make the situation worse. Cragstone had definitely coughed up enough for our uses for over a month combined, so there was no overriding urgency... and a month was a long way off. All that, and I was still puzzling over how to go about getting my Gold-tier spells. It was plain I needed a unique taper there, even if it was only once. The all-in taper I¡¯d run across, the only intact one, I knew wouldn¡¯t work because it was carefully stylized for the Isparian magic style, and while I had inherited part of that, clearly the next stage was departing from the standard for them. Of course, I always had Rep Counts to take my mind off of things and get onto a single train of thought, pretty much relaxing as I attuned myself to spells and metas and mana and the magical field as a whole, learning to draw and weave and fine-tune and release ever more smoothly on both sides of the equation. It was very different working with this ley-line field versus what I remembered of both Terra-Luna and Ispar, and I was pretty sure it was an artificial effect. Who or what made the incredibly dense manafield here I naturally had no knowledge of, but someone had certainly taken advantage of it in the broadest manner possible and was exploiting the shit out of it. I didn¡¯t have the Sublime Chord yet, but it was plenty easy for me to sense the taut and controlled nature of the magic here, routed and re-routed through some immensely powerful ley line conduits, condensing the flow and presence of it to something way above the natural standard that allowed for the immense magical effects that I had seen. Where all of that mana was coming from, that was a different story. I had a feeling I wasn¡¯t going to like the answer, and I was fairly sure at least those Virindi creatures had a pretty good idea of it. They were literally agglomerations of magical and psychic power, almost magic elementals, although highly skewed towards Axiom despite their Aberrant nature. I could only imagine they would have an almost deathly attraction to a manafield as strong as this, like being surrounded by intoxicating vapors... vapors which might just have formed a cage and kept them here, even as they soaked in its bliss. Or maybe they were the ones who originally set it up, and were caught in a trap of their own making. I didn¡¯t know, and there was nothing and nobody for me to draw on for that knowledge to get things cleared up. Such was life. Time and perception, or maybe finally meeting some local scholars, would get things cleared up. I had rep counts on all my Metas up through II Valences now, on both sides of the mana divide. I had taken No Materials all the way up to IV, so I burned nothing except Scarabs on the Isparian side of things. No Sound and No Hands were both at III Valences, as was Reach Spell, as I liked my range above all else. I was working up the other Metas slowly but surely, careful to apply the magic on both sides of the equation and make use of Mana Conversion to extend the number of times I could Cast before needing to get mana back. I was Mana Boosting with gusto and pizzaz, driving my numbers up as Mira dutifully hit those one-point improvements every day. Any Isparian mage would have been astounded to see the improvements in my lower Valenced magic with the Metas attached to them. Higher damage, range, Casting in silence, no components consumption, Kicker effects, multi-element manifestations of energy... yes, sure would have wowed them back on the ol¡¯ homeworld of Ispar. Here? They might balance out for the fact I couldn¡¯t use the stronger spells. Maybe. Something to work on. Hadn¡¯t been here even three weeks, after all. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ------ ¡°Those are the second unknown species at the death sites. They identify as Lugians. From the way they were intermixed with human remains, they were allies of ours to one extent or another, although...¡± I curled my lip as I regarded them. ¡°They are set Gray-Brown. As Summons usually reflect the Caster, and all these points have obviously been taken over, that does not fill me with a lot of hope. Races that lean Chaotic have intense emotions and are likely strife-causers, not alliance builders. They tend to be artistic loners where their art is everything, excessively proud warrior peoples, or severely clannish nomads.¡± Princess Kristie eyed the ogre-sized massive figures holding onto equally massive axes and hammers, gripping stones larger than their heads ready to throw, or casually burnishing the thick armor they were wearing. ¡°I¡¯m voting proud warrior peoples with a macho vibe I can feel from here.¡± ¡°So, you want to go fight the Summons?¡± I asked rhetorically, even as Quaver dropped Disk control and she went shooting forwards with a laugh and a smile towards her newest sparring partner. The biped in the purple and blue armor bellowed loudly to see her, a horned helm lifting proudly at the sight of her. The nearest of the lugian Summons turned to see what the problem was, but did not come to reinforce their brother. Normally that kind of honor-coding wasn¡¯t part of a Summons, especially since intelligent Summons should reinforce one another in this kind of sentry situation, but perhaps they had orders they had received otherwise. They certainly had enough lungpower for that bellow to carry a long distance, which would mean you would only need to have a handful of actual living ones listening in every so often to be alerted when a fight started. I also imagined individual fights were ignored far more than other kinds would be, such as a whole band, warband, company, or army marching up to proclaim trouble. If the Summons controllers were smart, these guys would be programmed to act the more of them bellowed, automatically drawing in more of their kind from near and far to reinforce an assaulted position. Which, if done automatically, would be a good way to draw off a defending force and slip in a flanking attack force right through the defensive lines, but that was why you had living forces and officers who could truly think for themselves. I was sure that Kris was going over the odd mechanics and tactics of using throwaway powerful Summons like this on a military basis. Me, I was just figuring the sheer amount of magic being used with Mass Summoning to this scale, especially since everything was replaced within minutes after dying. A battle with anchored and controlled Summoning points could go on for literally forever. Such a battle would end up with the real goals being neutralizing or taking over the enemy Summoning points, if such was possible against an active defense. Meaning, killing the enemy Casters and controllers would be a priority. Taking the ground away was only possible if you could take the Summons points away. With vivus here able to consume and Seal the Summoning magic, we could totally do that, shutting down whole defensive lines, just as we had done up in Cragstone. A whole section of the drudge defenses up there didn¡¯t exist any longer, a big gaping hole an invader could use to drive in on them and wreak some havoc upon the living. That meant Kris and I were a huge nightmare to both the living and the not-living forces working here, since we could turn their military defenses and forces upside down very quickly by cutting off their reinforcements. Given her nature as a Rantha, she would have definitely considered all those military applications, and wasn¡¯t going to be seen doing such a thing if at all possible. We¡¯d immediately become target #1 for all forces who used Summon points, at least until vivus was more widespread. Vivus was such a damn good equalizer for the living, and naturally a huge threat on the other side of the equation, a game-changer of incredible proportions. We¡¯d have to spread the knowledge of it as fast as possible, and suddenly, fighting would come with real consequences again, and magic would probably shift from mastering Summons controls to Healing and Protection once more. Who got to make use of it first would be important, too... All of this was going through my mind as Kris began to dance around the lugian with the gray-purple skin, its squat body extremely powerful as it whipped around an ogre¡¯s axe with speed and ease in a thickly three-fingered hand with opposed thumb. Regardless of its power, physics and inertia was still a thing, it had to brace itself on its two-toed rounded feet not to go flying after its axe, and, well, Kris¡¯ Sword probably weighed as much as that axe of its did. Axe fighting was more subtle than it appeared, involving the haft, locking, bracing, use of bulk and strength for efficiency, binding up, and so forth. This lugian didn¡¯t appear to have knowledge of the subtler aspects of such techniques, which didn¡¯t help when you were fighting a slender Hag with the heavyfoot of a Jotun anchoring her, and the speed of a duelist combined with the Might of a Jotun herself. The lugian might be stronger than she was, and was certainly heavier, but all that meant was it was astonished when it couldn¡¯t beat her around like it thought it should... and its bellows of surprise when Quaver slammed into it and bit into and through its armor were completely unfeigned. She was studying it intently as she fought, internalizing the patterns of its movements, its reach, stretch, and flexibility, as well as its power and speed. Although fairly stumpy, the lugian moved with vigor and great energy, and seemed to enjoy the fight as it swatted at her, chopped at her, hacked at her, tried to shove her, beat her, elbow her, and generally got nowhere with its fighting style. Watching her parry and turn a hacking strike from that Axe, even without the swirling spirals of deflective force about her, was pretty impressive. She wasn¡¯t even using her buckler, pure swordwork on display. --- About ten minutes of that fighting later she decided to end it, sliding in past an overhand chop meant to divide her in two, right up into its broad chest as it kept fighting despite a score of bleeding cuts all over it. It kind of grunted, blinked once, and the lights went out as Quaver slid deep into its throat and up into its brain, putting an end to its fight. There was little to no reaction from the neighboring half-dozen lugian Summons watching all this with neutral eyes. They had their instructions, and obviously single combat wasn¡¯t going to stir anything in them at all. It was also enough time for a scout to arrive from the distance. AF Chapter 64 – Gotroks? We Do! I watched the lugian coming toward us from the southwest, stumping along the stone with surefooted, deceptive speed, an elephantine gait that anchored him quite solidly, even as his bright red and yellow armor made him stand out like a prime firing target. Proud warrior people, indeed. The lugian Summons paid him no heed as he moved between them, turning to watch his progress and little more. He was heading right for us, obviously having picked out the hole in his defenses, and true to form, a minute after dying, there was a hiss and fwzaaap, and another lugian materialized where the previous one had been standing, almost completely identical to the one that had dissipated seconds before it arrived. ¡°Color?¡± Princess Kristie Rantha asked fatalistically, tossing back her dark hair as pale violet eyes fixed on the living controller now only a hundred yards away. I narrowed my eyes, having to range out with the appropriate Detect at III+Reach for the results, but I could do it, so I did. ¡°Gray with hints of Brown. Pack mentality and a warrior¡¯s nature, big believer in strength and prowess, deep pride in his race.¡± ¡°Oh, aren¡¯t those so much fun to deal with.¡± Kris cracked her neck as the lugian spotted us, and slowed down immediately, actually coming to a halt about fifty yards away to study us there. He had a massive hammer in hand, damn thing probably weighed close to what I did, and gripped it thoughtfully as he stared at the two of us, Kris standing there with Quaver out and surrounded by the force ripples of Lost Light, me standing there on a Disk of force above the ground, both of us looking back at him and waiting for him to make the first move. I was actually waiting for Kris to make a formal challenge to him, as establishing dominance in these kinds of dealings were generally best with a warrior species. She seemed to just be waiting for his reaction, however, and was there one. ¡°GOTROK!¡± he bellowed at the top of a healthy set of lungs. Every Lugian in range stomped their feet and pivoted to face him. His massive hammer extended out to point directly at us. ¡°UNS KAV ROK!¡± All their melee weapons disappeared instantly into nowhere. In their place, all of them were now holding small boulders bigger than their heads, cocking their arms back. Kris spun, Quaver tapped my Disk, and I nearly got whiplash as abruptly we were in motion, just as a score of Summoned lugians hurled out those rocks actually like the Jotuns Aelryinth had fought in-game and met in real life on Terra-Luna. The rocks came hurtling in at just incredible speed. There had to be an element of geokinesis to their throwing, as the math didn¡¯t work out for their strength at all. They were throwing massive chunks of stone farther and faster than a major league outfielder could throw a baseball, and with rather more accuracy, too. Unfortunately, trying to hit someone who could run sixty mph while moth-dancing to evade the rocks coming at her was going to be an exercise in futility. The rocks went crashing and cracking down all around us, but none managed to find a target, although a few got within a couple feet of me that I leaned aside from, and they all bounced and clattered very loudly as they hit the mountainside and rolled with crashing impacts along all around us. By the time the next rocks appeared in their hands and were hauled back to throw, we were already out of range of anything but the most desultory volley of fire and getting further away and out of view very quickly, indeed. Kris slowed down a bit to cut down on the wind, and I just leaned down to her. ¡°Proud warrior racists?¡± I muttered into her ear. ¡°If I was in a more modern world, I would have matched that to ¡®Cannons! Take aim, FIRE!¡¯, I think,¡± she smirked back, clearly not put-off. ¡°There was no friendliness, rivalry, or challenge there. He recognized we were humans, and tried to kill us immediately.¡± ¡°Well, isn¡¯t that something special,¡± I murmured to nobody, sitting down cross-legged as Kris zipped towards the Wagon we¡¯d left nearby. ¡°A lot of them died at the same time as a lot of humans. Survivor hostility and/or racial factions are the likely explanations.¡± ¡°That scout did think about coming in to investigate and find out more from us, and just decided against it. Since information is very key, and I¡¯m sure you saw his surprise at recognizing us, that means the indoctrination against us was deep enough to overcome his curiosity and desire to know more, even if just to ascertain our threat level.¡± Her voice was grim and analytical. ¡°I debated asking you to snipe him, just to conceal the fact we were here, but I held off. It might come back to bite us. Did you get a name?¡± ¡°Gro-uk Bouldertoe,¡± I recalled, glancing at the Assay I¡¯d sent out as he¡¯d drawn closer to us. ¡°By the way, the lugian race seems to have a weakness to lightning damage. Their stony bodies conduct it, and their nervous system has some metallic elements that heat up and burn out when it goes through them. They basically suffer a collapse of their whole nervous system, their brains fry, and they die.¡± ¡°I¡¯m guessing they don¡¯t go outside in storms, and really don¡¯t like to mess with electricity,¡± she grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll remember if I¡¯m serious about dueling them in the future. They weren¡¯t that impressive, as you probably noticed. All about the power and the mass, not the skill, but that¡¯s a Summons. I¡¯m sure the living ones are going to be much more organic about such things.¡± Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°They look and move like natural Crystal Dragon practitioners,¡± I had to agree. ¡°Give them the right kind of training, and they could be real tanks. I didn¡¯t see any natural DR like Jotuns have, however. Kind of surprising, given their builds and what looks like an Earthen elemental nature.¡± ¡°Yeah, surprised me, too.¡± She tilted her head in consideration as we came up on the side of the jutting stone where the vaguest of outlines, if you knew where to look, showed the Wagon. ¡°There¡¯s another possibility to the fight. He wasn¡¯t surprised by seeing humans, he was surprised by seeing us THERE... and waiting around for him to order an attack on us.¡± I considered that, glancing east. ¡°If the humans fled to the islands to the east, that is a total possibility.¡± I flicked up the painted map Holo for both of us to look at as she coasted in next to the front seat of the Wagon, and I stepped off onto it smoothly. ¡°The artist does seem to indicate the mountains go right up to the waters around here. So, if humans are coming back ashore to do scouting, it is reasonable to assume the lugians have seen them if they prefer to live in these hills.¡± ¡°Seen them, and reacted with hostility,¡± she conjectured. ¡°Perhaps I should have charged the sucker, Mercied him, and we could have questioned him.¡± ¡°Yes, yes, stoic earth-based warrior culture race, I am sure questioning him would have gone fascinatingly well. Maybe with some performance intimidation, like taking down a dozen of those Summons in martial combat before his eyes, just as easily as he was taken down.¡± ¡°Was he in a Fellowship or Allegiance?¡± Kris suddenly blurted out, flinching upright as we began to move out, back north and east, toward the edge of the swamp and the burun. The fighting in the distance seemed to have tapered off, as we couldn¡¯t see anything from our elevation when looking towards the green of the swamp and its trees in the distance. I blinked, went back to my Assay of him there at the end, and parsed it more accurately this time, feeding in the Assess magic that was more native to everyone... ¡°Both. His Monarch is Muldaveus, his Patron is Ollar. Ranks translate to King and Captain, respectively.¡± ¡°So, an absolute minimum of 256 militant survivors, likely many more with how Levels tend to be skewed to the lower end and heavy with non-fighters,¡± Kris nodded once, mind spinning in political ways. ¡°That hammer it was wielding, did you get a good look at it?¡± I reviewed my impression of it, and frowned. I replayed the Holo for her from my Visual File, noting how it seemed to change color from dark to nearly-transparent, depending on the angle it was viewed from, and how much light was hitting it. I reviewed the albedo from the light hitting it, staring at it intently, just like Kris. ¡°That...¡± I separated the hues reflecting on it across a color spectrum. ¡°That¡¯s aluminum, right?¡± I pointed out the two most prominent marker hues there. ¡°But that... I think that¡¯s the Void hue. Is that... Null Crystal Aluminum?¡± I tilted my head and looked at it. ¡°There¡¯s absolutely no magical sign about it at all, just like plumbum or nihilor.¡± ¡°Can you zoom in on the left hip?¡± she asked, leaning in slightly. I should have been looking at our dear scout more closely, but I zoomed in as good as my memory could fill in. We both leaned it to see what she had seen. ¡°That sparkle isn¡¯t from the hammer,¡± I murmured, seeing the faint glimmer of light coming from the top of an open leather pouch at his side. ¡°It¡¯s crisscrossing slightly and regularly. I thought it was a reflection from the hammer.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a throwing stone in a pouch. I¡¯m gathering it can¡¯t conjure them out of thin air like those Summons did,¡± she judged. ¡°It¡¯s hauling around some kind of magical throwing rock.¡± ¡°Well, I hadn¡¯t seen it so blatantly before, but now it explains why all those minor drudges, banderlings, and monougas were throwing crap at us.¡± She glanced at me, tilted her head, and thorked herself on the nose for not noticing that. ¡°Really, dimensional storage of weaponry? That¡¯s a completely new broad ability for a Summoned creature!¡± ¡°Very convenient, too. Our Mr. Toe turned a bunch of pounding brutes into artillery with one command. Can you imagine the siege usage if they don¡¯t run out of ammo?¡± They could grind down any wall with enough time, unlimited ammo, and arms that lasted long enough! ¡°Rock range seemed to be about sixty yards, so not as good as a true Jotun, but damn impressive nonetheless.¡± True Jotuns started at about twelve feet tall, and the extra arm length was probably why, if everything else held constant. Larger Jotuns could hurl rocks weighing a hundred pounds or more with surpassing ease, only getting bigger and stronger as the Jotun species got bigger. They might carry their favorites around in a sack, too, as unlimited ammunition was not standard with them. They liked tossing siege ammo, too, pre-formed as it was. These fellows were good, but not that good... ¡°Well, that explains how they have been able to stave off enemy Casters. A slew of rocks coming in followed by a massive charge bowling them off their feet would be really hard to face down without a phalanx spear line.¡± Kris studied the image further, and leaned in again. ¡°I think its armor is studded with that NCA stuff.¡± I squinted at it, shaking my head at my own memory of the small bosses scattered over what looked like banded mail. ¡°Anti-magical armor?¡± I judged slowly. ¡°A good idea if you¡¯re facing magic-happy enemies...¡± Like myself. Driving my Shards into nihilor or plumbum was useless, and there was every chance it wouldn¡¯t be good here, either, unless I aimed at his exposed face or skin, since they didn¡¯t seem to have gotten the memo on the wonder of full body armor. Then again, against unaimed Shards variants, and most Isparian magic which went for center of mass, it would be nigh-insurmountable. ¡°Well, they are clever buggers, then. I imagine they don¡¯t have much use for spellcasting amongst themselves, then, or it might be impossible?¡± I conjectured. ¡°No way of knowing. But, yeah, none of the Summons seemed to be Casters. Maybe it¡¯s the magic they are opposed to?... No idea. We¡¯ll find out sooner or later. They knew who and what we are, so there¡¯s more humans around somewhere. We¡¯ll find ¡®em.¡± Cheered up by the thought, she picked up her pace as we got out of there, heading east towards the coming night as the sun set behind us. I was left to consider my options against an enemy who might be throwing magic-ignoring rocks and wearing magic-ignoring armor. Wouldn¡¯t that just suck? Well, I had time and a lot of Levels to acquire. I¡¯d figure out something... AF Chapter 65 – Heading Downriver Again ¡°So?¡± Princess Kristi asked me, arms folded as she watched me examining the fallen pillar there. There were fused cracks all along the surface of the thing where it lay on the ground, joining an entire line of the things spaced about two hundred yards apart in a large circle that stretched... as far as we could see. The fallen obelisks had cut right across the river, plainly some sort of Warding device, and they had floated, because they had no foundation, weren¡¯t planted, and had all fallen over when they dropped. ¡°Exactly what you¡¯re suspecting. The mana surge and Veil reinforcement smacked into them, they absorbed too much energy too fast, fried, vented it out the levitation array,¡± I pointed to the flower-like fused hole melted through the pyramidal bottom of the thing, and the obsidian glass fused into the ground where nothing dared to live, ¡°and they fell over as they collapsed. ¡°The resemblance to the shadow-infused tower is actually inverted. It was designed to absorb and burn away that type of energy, sucking it in and Warding it away.¡± I stood up as I eyed the site and stone, looking left and right, and then started drawing a mental arc I filled in in Holo for her. We didn¡¯t know if it made a clean arc at all, but it was plain that these extended quite far into the distance, and the ¡®center¡¯ of the effect was to the south of us, around the town of Shoushi that was supposed to be there. ¡°You think there was another set to the north around Holtburg?¡± Kris asked, eyeing the distance. Given the height of the riverbanks, we might have missed them in passing. ¡°That¡¯s a LOT of obelisks...¡± ¡°Tremendous consumption of magical resources doesn¡¯t seem to be out of line for this place. Plus, Aelryinth could easily make several thousand of these a day, so it¡¯s far from out of line for a powerful Caster to do the same. As long as the ley lines do all the magical heavy lifting, it¡¯s just Shaping Stone properly, and if these people had infinite mana cycling, just an application of grinding.¡± ¡°Can you Shape them?¡± she questioned. ¡°No, it¡¯s magically treated and infused with magical energies. Maybe a VI Valence or higher could overcome it, I¡¯d have to see. Plus the fused parts would be like wrestling with diamond or something. I could duplicate what was here, to some extent, although I don¡¯t have the Ranks right now to fully understand and do the fine detail. Still rebuilding a foundation here.¡± ¡°If that¡¯s actually doing some Warding function, it would be interesting to see if you could put them back up so they could resume that function,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°Yes, it would. In the future. I¡¯ve a feeling that whatever energies or effects they were Warding against was purged or Burned with the mana surge itself, and so they were redundant... but that doesn¡¯t mean they can¡¯t still be useful against some other mana. They are effectively a Warding effect plugged into this ley line network, and there¡¯s always things you can do with that.¡± She just grinned. ¡°And you have ambitious things planned.¡± My eyes probably flashed. ¡°Oh, I have tons of things planned, I just have to gain the power to DO them. Us Powered, always with the schemes and things.¡± ¡°Follow them around, or follow the river?¡± she asked me, mostly to verify that the fallen things followed a rough circle more than anything. ¡°Let¡¯s stick with the river. If they are a circle, we¡¯ll see an arc downstream.¡± ¡°Good enough!¡± I hopped back onto the Wagon, and we continued on. ------ We actually only went a few more miles before stumbling across another of the formerly-magical Mansions popped up on its own self-made butte just off the swamp¡¯s borders. Like the first one, its bottom floor was trashed from the stress of what must have been a personal dimensional space shunting into its basement and raising it off its previous foundations, and said basement was also flooded from rain and groundwater seeping in through the cracks formed by it entering reality. It also bore the signs of being scraped regularly by the k¡¯naths, so I wondered if they actually had a migration route based upon these places. It was close enough to morning that we stopped for the day. Regardless of the whooping pyramidal oozes, it was still a treasure trove down at the bottom and under the waters, one we were welcome to exploit. Kris went diving for more stuff, Sift gathered it all, multiple Disks held it up, and it was arranged, separated in Shaped stone boxes, and put in with the rest of our acquisitions and the smithing gear she was quickly assembling once she had her Bracers made and started. Just Burning more goldweight, Crafting and doing reps. It was building a foundation for future things to see. ------- Evening... If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°That looks damn weird,¡± I acknowledged as Kris stopped to just look at the thing sitting in place on the shoreline to the east of us. The swamp had given way to flowing water as it narrowed and a current re-established itself. Still, there were subtle changes in the Summons accompanying a rapid change in the vegetation, the mana fumaroles rapidly fading into non-existence here. The river was slightly wider than that near Holtburg, but not by much, and the land was flatter about it. I studied the thing in front of us, about fifty yards away now, kind of hovering in place, the purple-pink energies that made up an amorphous form only made weirder by a porcelain face mask on the thing, a thing twice the size of a full-face human mask and bearing a cherubic smile. ¡°I think we both know that mask is some kind of focusing tool for the magic it is made out of. Recognize that light?¡± I asked her. ¡°It has definite resemblances to the energies inside the Virindi shells. Either a servant creature of the same materium, bound to serve via the mask, or a proto-Virindi. It definitely looks like a bound Elemental of some form.¡± ¡°So, they¡¯ve clearly infiltrated the Summon system. Even if this is a random landscape spawn, it¡¯s still a source of information if it reverts to the hivemind structure of the Virindi themselves. Vivus it and get rid of it.¡± It wasn¡¯t the first new creature we¡¯d seen. For some reason, we¡¯d spotted our first skeletons on the landscape after we¡¯d left the swamp. Yes, we¡¯d seen some at the undead base at the abandoned fortress that was Yanshi, but not as Summons on the landscape, and they¡¯d slowly popped up here and there as we moved along the shore. This... Doll creature was visible at a great distance, and naturally we¡¯d gone to investigate. There were also a lot more of the red-skinned Hea Tumerok Summons on the river edges than there were before, which meant they probably had a presence in the area neither of us had seen free-traveling. Given the number of hostile creatures around, that was completely believable. Hunting was probably a lethal occupation by now. They weren¡¯t night hunters, so they¡¯d be out during the day if they were civilians, and if they had a settlement on the water, there¡¯d probably be fishermen active there. We were looking for signs of them. ------ ¡°That¡¯s what, the second or third of those heads?¡± Kristie asked, as we contemplated the big sculpted head of yellowish stone sitting there in what was some sort of temple complex, ornate and very old pillars around it leading to a circle where some fountain was spewing colored mana irregularly into the air with strange explosive sounds. ¡°Makes you wonder who he was, to get himself carved in stone and dropped all over the place,¡± I agreed, while we studied the crimson-skinned tumeroks milling about the place. They were living in tents instead of buildings, but they¡¯d plainly taken the place over as an extended camp, complete with rafts out in the water with woven baskets to hold fish in. The smell alone was indicative of the fact there were living beings here, and they seemed relatively safe and secure about their lives. A ring of Summons three deep surrounded the camp, plainly taken over and ordered to be on guard duty, treated with casual respect yet taken for granted by the natives there. ¡°I¡¯m going to sneak on up and listen to them for an hour,¡± I said. ¡°Might come in very useful in the future.¡± Kris just lifted an eyebrow and sat back down to relax. ¡°I¡¯ll wait.¡± Invisible and Flying, I ghosted on up to the edge of the firelight, set myself atop one of the pillars, and listened to the tumeroks speaking below. My Assay once again hinted at something wrong about them, as if they weren¡¯t supposed to be the way they were. They seemed very humanoidish in build and size ranges, ranging from maybe five feet for some of the petite females to the most powerful warriors hitting two meters and the like. Pointed ears, notable fangs, and skin ranging from pale red to a deeper almost-mauve. Their garb was harsh and militaristic, even the females looking more like they were in uniforms than casual attire. The males also seemed to enjoy cutting their hair and scalps clean, although the females had darker hair they grew long, but coiled into tight braids and buns so as not to get in their way. There was a certain stiffness and formality between them, an acknowledgment of rank and hierarchy that pervaded them and was an essential part of their society. It changed terms of address between them, and was only slightly eased to deal with children. I noticed that many of the children effectively had similar names, puzzling it out to indicate they were basically ¡®son of¡¯ or ¡®daughter of¡¯, and their names were the equivalent of ¡®First¡¯, ¡®Second¡¯ and so on. A couple of the young men and women had full names of their own, however, so a true name was probably granted upon their coming of age. Gradually, their words became more apparant, even as the fires of twisted grass and branches died rapidly down. The temperature was easily fifteen degrees warmer than it had been in Holtburg, with no snow on the ground here, but it was still cool, and the tents would be warmer. It was with an almost formal air that the local chief rose, taking a single embered branch from the fire with him as he turned towards his tent. Obviously a signal, the other tumeroks, save for the one who had been pointed out to stand watch, did the same, retiring alone or with their mates towards the tents. I eyed the crude fortifications around the place, making use of the existing pillars and even the stone head to add some defensive elements, wondering who they were protecting against, and then just shrugged. I¡¯d likely find out soon enough. --- Kris wasn¡¯t there when I returned to the Wagon, ghosting out in the vicinity to see what was where at high speed when she didn¡¯t have to drag the Wagon and me around. She came back in about ten minutes as I lounged there under the moonlight waiting for her. ¡°The number of monugas among the spawns to the south, especially across the river, are significant, and they are getting taller, too, with different skin colors and even some minor magical abilities,¡± she told me, and I smirked, knowing she¡¯d happily pitted herself against something bigger than herself as part of her nightly Karma, Named or otherwise. ¡°So, they are protecting against potential monuga aggression?¡± I said, nodding slightly. ¡°They were speaking of a fort just downriver, so I¡¯m assuming the next town, Shoushi, has been taken over by them. They also gave thanks for the fallen obelisks that we saw, which seem to be keeping away the undead and the shades we ran into still. The skeletons we¡¯re seeing aren¡¯t under the command of the undead we ran into at all, and seem more like random humans who died and the Summons system picked up on. They did look like they were wearing Sho armor, didn¡¯t they?¡± I hadn¡¯t been certain, but it explained a few things... AF Chapter 66 – Sightseeing on the Road to Shoushi ¡°They did. Saw two more of those Dolls, and a few of the Marionettes. Get this: the scarecrows popped up with magic-defying fists on their arms, a stronger version of that Null Aluminum you were pointing out. Crumbled to less than dust when they died, but somehow they congealed it out of nowhere,¡± Princess Kristie reported. I considered the magical mechanics of that. There¡¯s no way the System could have been created with the ability to manifest anti-magic, that just made no sense at all. It had to be introduced by an outside force, bringing in an outside energy. ¡°Does your Null get a sense of the Virindi from the Marionettes? Because that¡¯s what I¡¯m feeling, although I¡¯d have to examine a real one to be absolutely sure.¡± ¡°The feel about them is alien, yes. The scarecrows are not just generic Constructs, although I don¡¯t know what is animating them, as we¡¯ve seen only Summons. The energies...¡± Her face scrunched up thoughtfully. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I don¡¯t have a good feel for it. However, it was an actively hostile anti-magic effect around the clubs of its arms, not a passive inertness, so it was... like an actively powered-up effect versus what I recall of nihilor.¡± ¡°So... a further energized form of that Null Aluminum?¡± I considered that. ¡°Raw materials are raw materials, Kris. I don¡¯t see the virindi mining an anti-magical material.¡± She jumped on past that to its conclusion. ¡°You think the lugians we saw supplied the raw material to the Virindi, and they improved upon its usage?¡± ¡°I think it is a possibility. Also, the tumeroks in that camp? They had arrowheads tipped with the stuff.¡± ¡°Ahhhh... trading between the lugians and the tumeroks. Interesting...¡± Kris nodded, working out the implications of that. ¡°We¡¯ve got a trio of tribes that, if not in a formal governing alliance, are at least not hostile to their neighbors, with the lugians and tumeroks actively carrying on trade. We don¡¯t know enough of their history, or we¡¯d probably be able to pick up on armor and weapon techniques blending into one another.¡± ¡°From what I heard while listening to them, the tumerok culture revolves a lot around traditional hunting and gathering, but there¡¯s a very, very strong militaristic culture which has imposed itself on top of and around the older, more spiritual stuff. They are aware of the fighting of the burun and could hear the war drums, but it¡¯s not their concern unless it spills over into their lands. ¡°Also, the camp they are in used to belong to the mosswarts as the southern end of their settlements. They chased them away after the burun moved in and the place started to overflow, threatening their camps. Their terms for the mosswarts were pretty derisive as a whole, but wary when talking about their elders, naturally.¡± I shook my head once. ¡°Their description of the lugians amounts to ¡®gray mountain people¡¯. The burun were ¡®fanged toads¡¯, while the mosswarts are ¡®green squealers¡¯.¡± ¡°No doubt mutually eating one another in the past, or something,¡± Kris smirked at the terms. ¡°We don¡¯t know how many there are of any of these, of course, especially if they have other living areas. A few thousand or something is not a major population of anything.¡± I had to agree. One major fight and they could be wiped out completely. Whoever brought the Isparian humans in was cheating by basically adding constant reinforcements to the conflicts, no idea if the same was happening to the others. But this was tribal politics, not civilized politics. The dynamics were extremely different, as the whole population hadn¡¯t branched out and specialized, like what happened in larger populations. A whole population living close to the land in a hunting and foraging style made for good soldier material, but the mindset was VERY different from those who worked farms and dwelled in cities specializing in trades. Tribals tended to have multiple skill sets, as they needed to be able to take over for one another, and there weren¡¯t enough people to allow them to do only one job and make a living at it. Those were developments for larger numbers we weren¡¯t seeing here. ¡°You good at tribal politics?¡± I had to ask her, and she gave me a considerate eyebrow. ¡°Surprisingly, yeah. We¡¯re pretty good at understanding people and where they come from with their beliefs, Alignments and all. Families, Tribes, and Clans are still huge in most of the cultures we deal with, and that¡¯s before you account for subspecies like Aluvians and Sho, or branch out into non-humans. Hags walk outside society at the best of times, so its not hard to deal with different mindsets. What kind of Colors were they?¡± ¡°They start out Brown to Green, but the stronger they were, the more they slanted Blue and Red.¡± She considered that. ¡°Active, powerful racism,¡± she nodded slowly. ¡°We are the People, and everyone else is not-People, basically little more than intelligent animals, and may be killed and abused as desired.¡± ¡°That¡¯s my take, too. They¡¯ve earned and learned a warrior¡¯s respect for the burun and the lugians. My guess is they learned it the hard way against the humans here, too, but the constant flow of immigrants started pressing into whatever lands they deemed theirs, and hostilities erupted rather quickly.¡± ¡°They aren¡¯t natives of these lands, either.¡± I glanced over at her words. ¡°I can smell it on them. They might have been born here, but they didn¡¯t evolve here. It¡¯s... partly how their biology is adapting to the ecology, although that¡¯s pretty weird, too.¡± This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°Like something reached in and tweaked them.¡± It was the magical sense I got about them. ¡°Yeah. The tumeroks, banderling, drudges, and mosswarts all have scent markers that are, eh, affiliated with one another? Reacting the same way to the ecology here, adapting to a place not made for them. The lugians aren¡¯t natives, either. The monugas, oddly enough, DO smell like natives, much like the reedsharks and ¡®dillos do.¡± ¡°Huh. The super-powerful rats?¡± I had to ask. The pesky blighters were nasty, and we certainly didn¡¯t have fire-breathers back on Ispar, although they did grow to the size of cats and dogs. Primary food of the ursuins, actually. ¡°I don¡¯t think they are native here, but they¡¯ve been mutated by the manafield, and their reproductive ability is why so many predators can survive here. Summons aside, there are a LOT of predatory creatures here, and the rats are a big food source for them.¡± ¡°Yeah, the tumeroks had a rack of smoked ones hanging for people to grab and munch on as they walked by, casual as could be. Never got into rodent myself, although I understand it¡¯s a staple food in some places.¡± Shamira was much more into goat and sheep and chicken, standard for the Gharu¡¯n. ¡°There are a lot of rat recipes in Aluvia, but there¡¯s big requirements on size, type, and what they¡¯ve been fed.¡± Kris was ready to wax poetic on the subject, caught my expression, and just grinned. Really, it was no different from eating rabbit or squirrel, when it came down to it... although rabbit tasted better, in most cases. Larger rats also hunted rabbits, too, but rats seemed to be preferred by ursuins above all other munchies. ¡°I¡¯ve just been trying to find some that don¡¯t look like they¡¯ve eaten elemental magic and gone all blargh. Braised giant russet rat in an elderberry wine sauce is pretty damn good.¡± It probably was, as Ranthas had high standards for food. Most Sustained people did. If you didn¡¯t have to eat much, when you ate, you wanted it to be good food, and you could afford to spend time and money on only good food. Being Sustained made gourmets out of most everyone. ¡°You¡¯ve been munching raw rats on your individual hunts?¡± I guessed. ¡°Eh, Quaver Firephases and I sear ¡®em, although they taste good raw to us, too. Hags and all, you know?¡± She was completely unapologetic about it. I waved it off. ¡°Familiar with it. Aelryinth¡¯s memories say you¡¯re not a fan of seafood, either.¡± She wrinkled her nose. ¡°No, most of the stuff coming out of the sea isn¡¯t to our taste, much to the dismay of the Roulean chefs. Not into much pasta or breads, either. We can tolerate it, but the smell of fresh bread in the morning is no more enticing to us than sniffing your lawn is to you.¡± I had to laugh, as technically they were the same thing, in the end. What was wheat, but another strain of grass? ¡°Yes, yes, proud meat-eater and tubers that you are, although I absolutely know you go for salted, buttered nuts and mushrooms like starving peasants.¡± Her violet eyes lit right up, and she promptly licked her lips long and slow. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t tempt me. Missing the snacks of the Imperial Palace right now big time!¡± ¡°Especially the poisonous ones.¡± ¡°Especially the poisonous ones!¡± Her pale violet eyes grew even brighter. ¡°Our head chefs had to have Poison Use Ranks, and be experts in toxicology! They could brew up some deadly shit that tasted like absolute godsdamned heaven!¡± ¡°Sama did love her fugu... poison intact,¡± I recalled. Kris smacked her lips now, visibly drooling at the memory. ¡°That stuff is like an aphrodisiac! Mom would order a plate of it whenever she and dad were feeling moody, and the mood kind of went away fast!¡± she chortled. ¡°I had to be real careful on who was around if I tried any...¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re wondering if those remorans or niffis or nefanes have poison glands,¡± I nodded in confirmation, and she just inhaled expectantly. ¡°The nautiloids do, I can smell it on ¡®em. But the big ¡®nuga we saw tore it out of them and tossed it in the water, rotter that he was.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I sat up, looked around. ¡°What do you suppose keeps that thing away from these areas?¡± ¡°Massed magic and artillery, of course. It¡¯s a huge target. Mass an army and inundate it with magic, it¡¯ll go away. It has to know killing Summons is useless, and it may or may not be bright enough to realize there are real ones among all the Summons, or be able to pick them out. It didn¡¯t strike me as incredibly bright. None of them do.¡± Given the crude nature of their attire and weaponry, that wasn¡¯t a surprise. Except for heft, both were several tiers below the tumeroks and their preference for working with woods and hides, and definitely below the lugians, although they could have used the heavy lugian weapons quite easily, all things being equal. ¡°Well, it¡¯s definitely a type of Jotun, if it is able to be that size and still walk. Reduced appetite for the size would go right along with it.¡± So, get a good big meal, eat away, then smoke it and snack on it for a few weeks. Alternatively, wander around and grab an auroch or two for a munchie. It was all one. ¡°So, head downstream, do a lap and survey of what used to be Shoushi and is probably a tumerok fort now, and keep going?¡± Kris asked rhetorically, obviously going to do just that. ¡°I admit I¡¯m ready to see what kind of fortifications these tumeroks put into place, if they did... or if the lugians did it for them. We¡¯ll soon see, I guess.¡± ------ The first Sho buildings started a couple miles outside the town itself, characterized by the start of some shallow wharves the tumeroks who had taken over the buildings were making use of with shallow, drawn rafts holding baskets for depositing fish from cast nets and the like. The town itself was only visible from there because of magical fires burning on top of the pagoda at the center of the place, seen when I gained enough altitude through the light forest that had come surging gamely back in the past few years after humans had abandoned the farms here. Rice and grain fields had overgrown all about, and the tumeroks didn¡¯t appear to have much interest in maintaining them, although it looked like they were harvesting at least some of it. The tumeroks had actually kept many of the buildings intact, being of the Sho style and made of carved wood, although they¡¯d swapped a lot of the ornamentation out and added their own. It had created a strangely domineering hybrid style, as if their art was slowly consuming the older building beneath. AF Chapter 67 – So, See Something in Shoushi? The tumeroks were indeed far more organized than anything other than the undead that we¡¯d run into, although we hadn¡¯t seen any evidence of the lugians¡¯ settlements at this time. There was another one of those long Ward-bridges built across the river, square obelisks capped with flat platforms as if they¡¯d once supported a road, although there was no evidence of such a path on either side of the river. Nonetheless, it led right through the recovered forest towards the former human town built a mile or so away from the shore, the area occupied by tumerok tents and the scattered human buildings about now, clearly set up to fish the river. I flitted past as Kris did her thing along the other side of the river, looking for new things and points of interest. I had noted another of those weird heads sitting out in the middle of the river upstream, fallen on its side, and again wondered who it was and what it was meant to be used for. With enough altitude, I could also see the very faint sparks and magical Warding of the fallen obelisks that did indeed circle the town. There was a slight but perceptible magical Warding still emanating from them, a mental push attuned to certain things to keep them away. Even shattered, they had a residual effect on the area. Near the start of human buildings and inland, closer to the road, there was a blasted area with the scarring of dimensional ruptures near a broken and fallen bronze pole, the statue of a man that had been atop it melted and fused, pockmarked and warped by the blasts that had torn apart the pole. No idea what it had been used for. The updated wall the tumeroks had surrounding the former human town was built of the swamp trees atop the existing stone foundation, the trunks obviously cut down further north and then floated downstream. Everything was lashed together with rawhide strips cut from shreth-hide, with carefully pointed top and spikes thrusting out from the bases to keep attackers at bay. There were even some attempts made at carving them and introducing a uniform appearance, as if the Hea could not bear to be shown up by the neat woodwork and stones of the lower walls and arched torii that opened in them. There had also been a lot of magic used on the wood to re-root them to some degree, tapping into the ley lines under the village and especially giving the wall the resistance of living wood against rot and aging, as well as resistance to magic. From a point of magical perception, the wall looked almost like a living barrier of spiked trees, rather than a wooden fort. Some of the trunks were even exuding carefully trimmed living branches and bearing leaves in the winter here, starting to grow into one another and really form a living wall. But I was tapping into the constrained and subsumed natural magic through Bard Levels, and I could feel the essence of the plants protesting against the treatment, although it was muted and cool. It was about as friendly as arcane magic could be, maybe done with the help of some spirits, but they still didn¡¯t like it. The Hea had no protection against flyers or levitators, however. I just flew over in the dark and surveyed the town, scanning it for numbers, magic, and precious materials as I did so. Unlike the mosswarts or the burun, the tumeroks looked to have acknowledged the value of the Air Gold coins left behind, and seemed to have cleaned everything up and deposited them into a central building, boxing them up in the corner of a storeroom and promptly forgetting about them as a means of trade. Precious stones seemed to be more acceptable, as they were spread among many dwellings, and often set as embellishments on their Weapons, Armor, or jewelry, although none of that stuff had more than passive Enhancements on them. The town was dominated by the large, multi-story pagoda near the center that was now housing the effective chief of the place, with watchposts on the higher floors looking over the countryside, manned by older warriors standing guard as the younger ones rested with their families. The fires atop it were what I¡¯d seen from the river. Careful Assays indicated that many of the older and more powerful warriors had permanent injuries to their limbs, particularly their hands and arms, as well as massive scarring. There was another Deathstone pit in the middle of the town, surrounded by a fairly ornate wooden barrier carved with totems and spirits and empowered with some magic to Ward away restless spirits, as was only logical. It was larger than the other one north of town by some degree, scores of the mixed slain melded and pushed together in surprise and pain. The magical fountain nearby looked to have been painstakingly maintained, the stones about it indicating most of the village probably drew water from it. I set the bone pit on vivus, since they couldn¡¯t see it and wouldn¡¯t find out anything until someone peeped into what was effectively out of sight and out of mind. The bronze Pedestal with the guardian town Statue looked to have once been a drudge, much like Holtburg where I¡¯d come in. I could only imagine the disdain the tumeroks would have had for such a thing protecting them, and it had been long and laboriously transformed into something that looked much more like a tumerok, although they¡¯d left the feet and something of the chest alone, which was how I recognized it. The Grecian-hall design building that seemed to exist in every major town was also here, toppled into the pit of its own dimensional storage area, although the Hea, unlike the others, seemed determined to make use of the place, rather than have it sit there as a gaping hole in their defenses. They¡¯d moved much of the broken rock of the building above out of the place, excavated the fallen dirt, shored up the walls, and actually built a roof over the place and stairs leading down to it after cleaning it all up. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The stonework was not of their design, nor the reinforcements to it, although it was a very tumerok-style building built atop it, a shamanic hut design where many of the older warriors appeared to live. The area looked to be used for storage for the whole camp, or an indoor assembly area, possibly its original purpose. There were at least four hundred Hea attached to this place, including the women and children, of which there were a surprising number of the latter. I gathered there had been both a major hit to their fighting strength, given the maiming of their elder warriors, and a lack of the armed conflict which might have sapped at them, giving them time to raise families and train the next generation. There were a lot of spellcasters. The tumeroks seemed to have a strong Casting tradition, and with the elders unable to fight or hunt effectively, many of them had turned much more strongly to magic to fight and work with. There were a lot of defenses here powered by magic, but they were things that required constant updating and investment, as opposed to just tapping the ley lines like things had before. The scars of the Fall still dotted the town where Artifice had ruptured, exploded, and the remains of said devices looked to have been melted down and repurposed. There was also a family of lugians right in the town, currently asleep, but they were manning the forgeworks and smithy. They definitely had a stock of the Null Aluminum stuff. Amusingly, I couldn¡¯t TK the stuff at all, as the magic wouldn¡¯t grip it, so I actually had to reach in, grab a piece of scrap, and make off with it physically. Invisibility wouldn¡¯t cover it, either, but I wasn¡¯t too worried about a piece of scrap metal being seen flying through the air in the middle of the night. The great stone pillar in the center of the town had been toppled and blasted, probably by the explosion of the Death Stone nearby, and now looked to be used as nothing more than a drying area for washed clothes and stuff, the carved name of Soushi upon it blasted and further obscured by the elements and time. They had their fetishes, but I hadn¡¯t seen any skulls or similar things, and indeed, they seemed to have kept much of the local natural feel and harmonization with nature of the area, although they didn¡¯t trim the vegetation much and probably had a rat problem because of it... said rats smoked and dangling over several slumbering cookfires in the night, so probably not unintentional. There were three areas of exploded Artifice still creating pits, and one dimensional rupture standing alone, but otherwise the area was remarkably free of combat damage. The feeling I got from everything was safety and contentment. The tumeroks liked it here, and felt safe. It was not excessively militarized, and the number of kids around indicated they considered it safe enough to raise families without much problem, protected by the number of scarred veterans and the eager new upcoming hunters ready to take over for their forebears. And when that happened... well, militaries needed things to fight, and eager young warriors were ambitious. Where would that lead? I knew right what would happen if they were humans, and while their culture might be different, the drives seemed to be close to the same. Perhaps... by design? I considered that as I headed back towards where the Wagon was waiting, my survey complete. Kris pinged me that she had something interesting to show me, and I altered course to go see. ------ ¡°This is a mutated creature.¡± It was a Summons, bound to an area, a hilltop of sand that had been thrust out of the ground by the Land¡¯s revulsion for the energies that had been going through it, and which still existed within it as an unclean residue. I stared at it fixedly as the ectoplasm it was made of started to discorporate, unwinding from the form of meat and bones and returning to the astral it came from, ready to be born again. ¡°What kind of energies?¡± Kris asked smartly, focusing on the key point, and not the unclean part of it, which she was totally used to. ¡°Aberrant. No, not any we¡¯ve seen yet,¡± I added, before she could ask. ¡°Are you serious?¡± she smirked in mock disbelief, raising her hand and spreading her fingers. ¡°Virindi. Whatever that thing is that sent your predecessor Summoned for Moah Powah Pheer Me, supposedly sourced from the beings here. Something with the Deathstones. Whatever is going on with those aquatic things of the deep. And now you¡¯re saying we have a FIFTH Aberrant influence at work here? And that¡¯s ignoring those Shades and how THEY got their power?¡± She waggled all five fingers. ¡°I¡¯m non-confident of the source of power of the mosswarts or the burun, either... or the source of inspiration for what looks like an entire society of necropolitans made from our blue-skinned ancient inspirations for Moah Powah.¡± She actually blinked and sat back at that, doing the political juggling act in her head. ¡°The mosswarts and burun are venerating them as gods. That¡¯s not unusual for Aberrants, I¡¯m sure, but if there¡¯s no true gods, only creatures of power...¡± ¡°No wonder this place is so screwball,¡± I had to agree. There was a fwawoosh, and energies gathered, collided, and formed into two more miniature, spider-like beings, with spindly legs, four clawed arms, and mandibles, carapaces tougher than any hide had a right to be... and naturally, being Summons, they went right for us with their beady red eyes. I didn¡¯t move as Kris split one¡¯s skull and impaled the other in mid-hop, all before they could reach me. This time, Quaver was Burning with vivus, which spread rapidly from ectoplasmic blood into the sands of the mound. ¡°These aren¡¯t born creatures, Kris,¡± I told her, watching them Burn with great haste, a combination of Aberrant energies and being ectoplasm the equivalent of oil-soaked wood to the Fires of Life. ¡°They are copies of children subjected to those energies and made into these... mukkir.¡± ¡°Do we know the children of what?¡± she asked reasonably, revulsion still filtering its way into her voice. ¡°Tumeroks?¡± she reasoned. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think so. You saw the posts nearby, signing that this place is unclean. Not a single animal track on this mound.¡± Said mound expanding the circle of vivus eating away at it with commendable speed. We watched the vivus being drawn up the mound towards a collapsed hole at the center, while the heavy white mist spilling from it cascaded the flames down the sides quickly. Kris glanced around, made sure the mound couldn¡¯t be seen from the distance, and said, ¡°Okay, the fishermen will be getting up soon. We should move along soon, before something is discovered.¡± AF Chapter 68 – It Matties to me, it Does! There was a line of columns bearing signal flames downriver, leading to another of those merrily exploding columns of great age, the wording and artistry of the surrounding columns indicating they were places of celebration for some ancient event lost to history. The fact the columns helped tap and moderate the buried Wards under the river was conveniently hidden by their existence. The tumeroks had set up fish runs between several of the columns, lightening the amount of work they had to do with opportunistic mindsets. Given the nature of it, I was pretty sure they¡¯d been advised by others on how to do that, given it didn¡¯t involve casting a net. There was no permanent guard at the celebration site, the tumeroks seemed to honor the intent of the place, and the Summons didn¡¯t go near it, either. We set up shop behind the temple-like structure with an actual ancient tree growing in it before the sun rose and we Saluted Aru. I noted that there was Natural Mana here, and that was why the tree was enduring. It seemed that this was a release point for the primal energies that couldn¡¯t be totally subsumed by the ley lines, and the tree was used as an engine to draw them out before they could destabilize the network underneath the land. Bardic Heartsong made it easy to tap those energies, however, so the place was like a mana well to me... although it still didn¡¯t allow me to take Druid Levels. ------- ¡°Boosting your Perform somehow?¡± Princess Kristie asked before we settled down to our Meditations. ¡°I noticed the range on your Salute went up immensely.¡± ¡°Aye, I¡¯ve taken Minstrel Levels for three days, prepping for the Sublime Chord. It¡¯s all Perform-related, so I have to boost that check as high as possible. Chorister and Maestro Feats, plus Perform Song Mastery/1, Skill Focus, plus The Voice Feat.¡± Kris screwed her overly expressive face up, fingers working. ¡°Oh, mighty Mithar and his Mutt. What¡¯s that, like, +20?¡± I grinned shamelessly. ¡°You alternate between smoking-whiskey and nightingale with your voice, don¡¯t tell me you haven¡¯t juiced it, too.¡± Just a flexing, and her entire posture and bearing went from casual goofball to princess super-model, Cursemark notwithstanding. ¡°Well, of course I have, dear. I am a princess!¡± She put her hand aloofly on her lack of a chest, which didn¡¯t detract at all from her. She was stronger than an ogre, and actually built leaner than I was, despite being taller and extremely physical. ¡°If I cannot address my imperial subjects artfully, whatever would they think of me?¡± ¡°I¡¯m thinking abject terror, but I could be wrong,¡± I sniffed. ¡°I can tell your Trembling Song is in the +40 area, thank you.¡± She just laughed throatily. It was no wonder the knees of anyone facing her would shiver when facing a Hag Song at that level. Using it for Intimidation was just unfair! ------ Yesterday¡¯s Exemplar Surge spell had been Comprehend Languages, which accelerated my Polyglot learning to a fraction of the normal time needed if I could just sit there and listen to a natural conversation. Knowing the meanings made accessing the akasha to learn the language much, much faster and more organic. Today I went with Invisibility 10-foot Radius, as a subtler hand might be useful, and the natives didn¡¯t appear to have any more experience with true illusion magic than Isparians did. The spell was big enough to cover the entire Wagon, which was the point of it. I also had to put some serious thought into some non-lethal spells, too. I would definitely have to dip further into that, especially since Heartsinger Class Levels were built around the idea of enthralling people. Kris was using Null Smithwork to pour value into her smithing set, which was coming along nicely. She was also Investing Air Gold into her Bracers now, using Naming Karma for Land, her Buckler, when she went out and roved the area, looking for interesting things and maybe a little trouble. I chose Battledancer to complement my last Minstrel level, basically allowing me to internalize the effects of my Heartsong and double the Morale bonuses I got off of it. It turned practiced movements of my Staff to energetic and acrobatic flailing about, as Kris was happy to inform me after some enthusiastic sparring. It didn¡¯t change the fact she was stronger than ten of me, but at least it made me more than a pushover if I had to beat on something... and hey, being me, I had plenty of ways to supplement fighting if forced into personal combat. It all dovetailed nicely with Song of the Heart and Lingering Performance from the previous days. I also had to pick up both Metamagic Song and Lyric Spell, both Theurgist effects. Metamagic Song allowed the paying of Casting Metas out of Minstrel uses of Heartsong. Lyric Spell allowed one to Cast a full spell out of those same Minstrel uses... which meant Minstrel uses had just become a bridging effect to an Arcane Pool, built upon further with Metamagic Song. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Ah, Theurgic synergies. You had to love them! For now, I had to solidify that link with first Lyric Theurge Levels uniting the two Heartsong Classes, then Lore Theurge Levels linking them to Arcane magic. Things would progress from there. I was getting further and further behind on my accumulating Masteries, but at least I wasn¡¯t increasing them in cost any more... ------ As normal, Kris had located something else of interest in the area. She¡¯d gone back across the river toward the mountains, aiming to see if there was a trade road into them... which she had basically confirmed, a well-trod trail that was not one of the magical roads. She¡¯d also located another native creature we¡¯d not seen before. It was a form of herbivore, although larger than an auroch, with a rounded head, forward upcurving horns, and a long body covered in downy white fur, with three hooved legs, two forward and one behind. The family unit of four we were looking at was grazing contentedly, occasionally looking up and around, but the local Summons seemed to be ignoring them as inoffensive animals, and it seemed the creatures knew the alien things of magic weren¡¯t going to harm them if they were not attacked in turn. ¡°They are called mattekar, and seem to be judged by their size. I¡¯d posit that there are probably some very big ones around, as they seem to share some traits with the monugas and the reedsharks as far as magical ecologies go. They are just barely Magical Beasts, although their fur is very cold-resistant and is probably harvested for warm coats.¡± ¡°One would think a useful animal like this would be domesticated.¡± Kris wandered over to pat the head of the closest male, which gave her a wary eye, but didn¡¯t object to his fluffy ears getting a good scratching. The Whiskers of the Wild Soultat gleaming softly on her face was all the reason why. ¡°But they don¡¯t do well in captivity, according to the big guy here.¡± The large animal snorted in heavy agreement with her words, raising its large head proudly for a moment. It certainly wasn¡¯t going to be bothered by the smaller predators, and even the larger ones were probably better off rat-hunting, all things considered. The big black beagle-sized mountain rats around here breathed fire! They were vicious little bastards even Kris didn¡¯t mind me sniping down. I presumed a local reedshark or dillo swooped upon the easy prizes before too long. ¡°Well, the ecology is magically empowered, so it can support more of them than the landscape would normally allow.¡± They dwelt higher in the mountains, where the air rapidly cooled. Less than a thousand feet above the ground was actually a permanent snow level, an almost mind-boggling contrast with what was real ecology. As it was winter-time and still cooler down here, they migrated down come the nightfall, detouring past any Summons in the way, ignoring and ignored by them. The Summons hereabouts were obviously programmed to ignore non-sapient life. I surmised that shapechanging would get us past some, but the Summons who guarded settlements did not ignore wandering animals, effectively creating no-go zones to the local wildlife, who rapidly learned where to go and where not to go as they wandered around, also quickly learning that killing a Summons was a useless waste of time and no food was forthcoming, so getting into a fight with the unnatural-smelling things was pointless. ¡°Does anyone hunt you?¡± I asked the herd leader politely, and he whuffled and snorted and relayed that the gray ones and the three-eyes sometimes came around to take a member of the herd for their own, which was not appreciated, but they were generally unable to stop it. The creatures liked to throw rocks and clubs from a distance, and run away if they were charged, or use long pointy sticks the mattekars couldn¡¯t get past, sometimes even on fire! ¡°It might be fun to train them as warbeasts and give them some heat resistance, but it would have to be for another time,¡± Kris said, giving the big fellow a last raking scratching he actually closed his big eyes to enjoy, hooting softly in enjoyment. With a final pat, the Hagchild sent the herd leader off, and it went trotting back down the hill towards the flatter scrub below. ¡°Anything else of interest?¡± I asked, flicking my hand as a nearby bright orange zephir turned around and thought we would make good entertainment. The damn sprite of a fey ran into a flight of silver-edged black Shards and blew apart in midair with a satisfying meep! Annoying little suckers. As bad as the rats, if not worse! ¡°Wisps of various sizes and types, some cold Elementals as you approach the snow levels, and wood golums with the same pyreal circuits as those of other substances. All the skeletons are human, and are on the other side or near the river. The tumeroks stay within five miles of the town behind us for the most part, with most of the trade running off to the west before turning north along the beach. I presume there¡¯s more tumerok settlements in that direction.¡± I reflected that meant she¡¯d roved over at least thirty miles of ground without me while I¡¯d been doing rep counts. Plenty amusing. Then again, if all she did was run, she could have easily made it all the way back up to Holtburg in a couple of hours. ¡°The star on the map sort of indicated it was the capital of the Sho on the island. Let¡¯s go see if it survived as well as the Aluvian one did.¡± Kris looked at the narrow band of the river a few miles away, just barely visible in the sparkle of the starlight. ¡°Odds?¡± she asked me. I considered what I¡¯d seen so far and knew. ¡°I think the presence of human skeletons close to the river is significant,¡± I admitted. She glanced at me, exhaled, and nodded. ¡°I¡¯m kind of thinking the same. The tumeroks are going down the road to the south, but not in numbers, and it¡¯s always the same group going and returning, by the tracks.¡± ¡°The road isn¡¯t normally visible from the river. You want to stay on the river, or follow the road?¡± I asked calmly, quite satisfied with either route. ¡°I¡¯d like to see what they are doing and running into,¡± she admitted. ¡°They don¡¯t go down the beach more than a couple miles, and that includes them and the wandering mosswarts eking out a living at the fringes of their camps.¡± ¡°So there is something down there they¡¯ve learned not to mess with.¡± I just nodded. ¡°It¡¯ll probably become obvious as we get closer to it, and they obviously don¡¯t stay out at night on watch against it.¡± ¡°Shall we go see?¡± ¡°We shall, I shink. Shertainly.¡± Kris laughed as she took off running towards where the Wagon was parked, and I rode alongside her, eyeing the long shadows under the starlight, and I wondered what we¡¯d find this time. AF Chapter 69 - Hebi your Toe, I Will! There was a northern outpost from the town. The arcane mana leaking out of the ruins of the buildings seeming to attract several gromnies of various hues, and the stupidly aggressive drakes had variously gnawed or breathed on the human buildings there and reduced them to rubble and ruins they were nesting in. Half the gromnies were spawns, half were real. Kris sniffed around the area after we killed them all, and laughed softly. ¡°The tumeroks were treating them as open-range livestock,¡± she smiled, pointing at a rock nearby, covered with various suspicious stains. ¡°That rock has been used at least a hundred times to skin and bone a gromnie. I think we¡¯re going to make them angry when their little farm evaporates.¡± Quaver poofed into vivic flame, and without hesitation she set all the dead Summons on misty fire, including their Summon locations. I said nothing, instead looking at the cracked stone of the magical building, leaking mana off broken enchantments, as well as the pit of bones around the Deathstone pit and the remains of several human buildings, both shops and homes. The ornamentation that survived seemed to indicate that it had been the abode of a famed scholar at some point. Yeah, they could tolerate taking easy gromnie off the menu. I wondered if they had legends of dragons, and if so, were exulting in hunting the things. Or maybe they just liked eating vicious lizard-things with stumpy wings and breath weapons. Who was I to judge their dinner table, as long as it didn¡¯t include humans and other sapients? Anyway, the Princess popped out her soulclaws and butchered them with fantastic speed and skill, a unique skill of Hags Aelryinth had seen on more then one occasion. The speed with which they could peel the skin off and shred meat from bone without waste was supernatural, and one reason why you never wanted to go down wounded in front of a Hag. The true Hags could also eat most of a grown man inside a minute, so the evisceration and flensing was all part of reasons not to get into a nails-fight with them. --- I supplied the light acid Bursts to treat the hides she peeled off them, said were then spread out for me to use Prestidigitation at III on, accelerating the tanning process and drying them out as we moved towards the city whose central pagoda tower was quite visible ahead of us. Tellingly, no flame was burning on it, and the landscape spawns, well. Skeletons. A whole lot of skeletons, interspersed here and there with more corporeal undead in a variety of outfits. A large number of them were Sho... but not all of them. Particularly the ones not in Sho attire, and with more meat on their bones. ¡°Highness,¡± I warned her, as a cluster of undead bracing the road came into view, and she glided to a halt. ¡°Those aren¡¯t Summons.¡± Her own Mask of Clarity was on, so the night was effectively day. ¡°Can they see us?¡± she asked reasonably. ¡°Superior nightvision, forty yards. Perhaps low-light... they can see some humanoid shadow moving along the road. We¡¯ve passed a dozen not-Summons seeded among the skeletons who probably noticed you moving along so quickly.¡± ¡°Clever of them,¡± Kris grinned, completely unafraid. ¡°They aren¡¯t the native ancients, they¡¯re former Isparians. Do you think I should wander over and negotiate?¡± ¡°If I¡¯m not wrong, some of them are in traditional Aluvian raider attire, aren¡¯t they?¡± She only grinned the more widely. ¡°They might even be cousins!¡± she agreed heartily. ¡°You might say I¡¯ve had some dealings with their kind. Intimidating the shit out of them is a decent way to start assembling a navy with a knowledgeable crew. Mom had a great relationship with them, based on abject terror and ruthless exploitation. Some of the examples she made of the rude ones are favorite bedtime stories among the pirate clans of all the nations.¡± ¡°And then some of them arrived here and found they couldn¡¯t crew any ships, and it¡¯s a lot harder to run away from irate victims when you¡¯re effectively landlocked. Maybe got their souls caught up in the ley lines when they called on some unholy oaths and spirits and curses and whatnot and ended up like they are.¡± ¡°Take the Invisibility off the Wagon. I want them to see my ship, such as it is,¡± Kris ordered, and I obligingly dispelled the illusion rendering my ride little more than a passing ripple in the moonlight. The Eternal Lights poofed up, and there was an immediate rustling from the undead ahead when our finely-made mode of transportation abruptly popped up out of nowhere ahead of them. A lot of rotting bows that shouldn¡¯t have held together, and yet did with a combination of negative energy and Curse magic, creaked as they were drawn and centered on us. Completely and brazenly unafraid, Princess Kristie Rantha glided forward with the Waveskating Step, a picture of long legs and hips and waist-length raven hair that even the undead had to linger on as she moved with predatory grace toward them. Then she drew Quaver, and two rolling notes echoed in the night like somber bells. Diiiiiiinnnggggg, tiiiiiiinnnngggg... Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Wrathfire swirled around the Sword, a golden edge of soulfire on the blued adamant, the two black jewels glittering like reversed dark stars in the night in the motes of the Lost Light. Unwhite vivus and black-blooded Banefire to the Undead formed a chorus of absolute reality and annihilation that drew moans from the undead and skeletons looking upon it, because it was far more real to them in their deathly existence than anything else in the world of the living. The bows faltered and couldn¡¯t stay up, staring at the Hag wreathed in cold, hard reality. I, being girt in magic, probably looked like a softly glowing shadow behind the absoluteness of a Null bearing a Vivic Weapon. She slid to a halt about ten yards in front of the assembled motley horde, which by my casual Assay was considerably more formidable than it looked. Their rusting armor and weapons were every bit as effective and more than they had been while in great repair, borne by killers who knew how to fight and do battle... and by the looks of things had probably died a whole lot of times after death, too, undead normally not being afraid of dying. Kris looked them all over with an icy, imperious bearing that had them all instinctively knuckling under, social status being so important in less advanced societies. She opened her mouth, and said, ¡°What scurvy-ridden pox-eating barnacle¡¯s whoreson is in charge of this shit-swilling lot of goatfuckers?¡± In JUST the right Necrus accent, too. I filled in the onomatopoeia of them all blinking in utter shock in my head. ¡°WELL?!¡± her voice rose, with a ki-laden grating edge to it that popped all the nerves on my skin. A taller undead with about half its bones still covered in meat, dressed in a long and ragged leather coat that was probably not all that useful to a non-mariner who wouldn¡¯t even feel the cold, shouldered his way from the astutely commanding rear of the force up to the front. ¡°Hey, now,¡± the undead pirate replied in a rolling Aluvian accent. ¡°Now there¡¯s a right proper woman. Wasn¡¯t expecting one of the living to know proper manners hereabouts now.¡± What passed for a smile was pretty gruesome, but Kris wasn¡¯t fazed at all, marching right on up to him as black and white flames touched with gold Lost Lights swirled up her arm. He flinched back as she stopped within sword¡¯s reach, his crew taking a wary step back from him and making him glance at them in shock that they¡¯d so easily be forced back... which was just what she wanted to do. ¡°You¡¯re a bilge-cleaner stuck out here on sentry duty, barely being worth called a mate,¡± she judged with a disparaging note that seemed to make him shrivel in place. ¡°You¡¯re no more in charge than I am a crabmonger. Who commands you lot? Out with it, or I¡¯ll give the lot of you to true death and go ask my questions in person!¡± A rustle spread through them all as all their eyes fixed hungrily on her Sword. ¡°True death, now, is it, Miss-?¡± I could hear jaws clicking, realized it was the equivalent of licking their lips, be it in fear or desire. ¡°A man introduces himself FIRST,¡± I interrupted from behind her. The empty eyes fixated on her and the rising and falling notes from Quaver flashed over to me, and the dozen wedges of black and silver annihilation now spinning around my hand. There¡¯d be no coming back from the half-dozen energies chiming around them, the gentle roar of Fire and tinkling Thunder worrying at the edges of their chained souls. ¡°I be Second Mate Harnzgo MacGuire of the Callibrae!¡± the leader pronounced quickly, waving his rusting cutlass to encompass the lot around him. ¡°These be part of our crew, with a few recruits,¡± he added carefully. ¡°The MacGuires of Celdon, Vespuyal, or Argol?¡± Kris asked in a clipped voice. There was actually a moment of hesitation. ¡°Argol,¡± the mate finally admitted, staring at her in some shock. ¡°Is your grandmother Callito, Emerelda, or Nina?¡± Kris went on calmly, further shaking him that she knew the major branches of the family. ¡°Me mother¡¯s mother was Emerelda, me father¡¯s mother was Callito,¡± he admitted after a shaky moment. ¡°Oh, you¡¯re the sixth son of Jamos and Isbelda, the one the family doesn¡¯t talk about, going out to sea instead of being a proper rancher,¡± Princess Kristi sniffed, and the sailor undead gawked in shock despite himself as I just smirked in silence. ¡°My mother is of the MacShaunessey¡¯s of Hausser¡¯s End, but she was blacknamed because she married a MacRugal from Omar¡¯s Point and they went up to the mountains to have a family there.¡± Her smile grew very wide at that point. Her teeth gleamed. Those dead men stared at the show of almost divine beauty, utter savagery, and Cursemark all agleam. ¡°Aye, THAT MacRugal,¡± she stated in no uncertain terms. ¡°Although he never used his family name in Celdon, given he was also blacknamed for not tilling the soil. They just called him Commander.¡± The whole crew of Isparian pirates took a step back from her, and rustles that were the equivalent of choking sounds came from dry or absent throats. ¡°You, ye¡¯re the daughter of Commander Briggs?¡± the second mate rasped in somewhere between disbelief, horror, and terror. ¡°That would be His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Briggs, Ruler and Hammer of the Isparian Empire and all of its seas!¡± I stated in no uncertain terms, my words ringing with Truth, rising to my feet and smacking them with Heartsong and a complex melody in Necrus from my Shards as accompaniment. ¡°ON YOUR KNEES, dogs! You speak to Her Imperial Highness, Princess Kristie Rantha of the House of Briggs, and if you dare give her any more disrespect, this night you FEED THE LAND!¡± Crown flared unwhite, Gold, Banefire black, Arcane blue-white, Icy crystal-white, crackling violet Lightning, glass-tinkling Thunder, and glorious multi-hued Holy fires, all of them boiling from the artful carving of its head, down my arm and to my other hand, seething about the waiting Shards there ready to end them all. There was only a moment of hesitation as they digested that, looked at her, and then to a one, even the ones who weren¡¯t Aluvian, they all rattled and creaked and went down on one knee to her. Somehow, Kristie¡¯s toothed smile got even wider. ¡°Begging, begging your leave, Your Highness,¡± the thoroughly-intimidated undead pirate stammered, suddenly aware he was really in a situation out of his depth. ¡°News from the old lands, it be traveling a bit slow, especially these last few years.¡± He didn¡¯t dare to look up at her, either. ¡°The Commander, he got himself a promotion now, did he?¡± AF Chapter 70 – Lest Old Histories Be Forgot... ¡°Were you at Elger¡¯s Roost, or did you stumble through a Portal later, Second Mate Harnzgo Macguire of the Callibrae? Because I distinctly remember that the Callibrae was taken and renamed after Black Tam MacGillium was stupid enough to raid the Roost when my father was passing through with my mother there, and paid for it with an exploded skull. As I recall Dad telling it, Black Tam¡¯s first mate MacNaill led the survivors of the Sea Ursuins in a panicked flight through a Portal that popped up back then, screaming for his miserable life. Your captain Sea Wolf Corey MacTaggrel didn¡¯t quite manage to make it there before my mother took his head off.¡± The dead pirates were well on their way to groveling after that statement, and when she started laughing, that Cackle that no pure human woman could do quite right without having direct exposure to the madness and evil of the Hag Curse, the undead there fairly ground themselves into the soil and stone. ¡°It appears, Your Highness, that they also remember your mother,¡± I said diplomatically, although my Shards did not go away. ¡°Speak, sailor! Who claims command of your damned souls?¡± ¡°Mac, MacNaill is our chief now!¡± Mate MacGuire answered promptly. ¡°I honestly thought his cousin the MacDugal would have taken control, what with being more experienced at banditry on the land,¡± Kris said acerbically. ¡°How did you end up in such a state, sailor? Your tendency to prey on civilians aside, your crews had no known truck with necromancy.¡± A rattling sigh seemed to escape all the former bandits and pirates. ¡°We-we died proper-like, Your Highness. Died defending the people escaping all the things coming from everywhere after Asheron¡¯s Fall.¡± A withered, flesh-peeled hand vaguely indicated the area about them. ¡°Died about the city here of Hebian-to, helpin¡¯ the women and children flee up the peninsula, where they were opening a last Portal to the islands. ¡°When the next night came, me and the lads woke up, dead as door nails. Surprised the life right out of those Hea tumeroks and Gotrok lugian raiders looting the city, and we put much of the lot to the sword before they ran away. They come back sometimes, and we send them packing each time, them and their false armies they bring with ¡®em.¡± Kris and I shared a glance. ¡°That is also the direction we are heading, Mate MacGuire,¡± Kris stated coolly, but her voice had lost much of its edge. ¡°How long have you performed this duty past death, Harnzgo MacGuire?¡± The bowed, rotting undead could only shake his flaking head. ¡°I know not, Your Highness. Time... is not what it is like this. Day and night just seem to pass, and we tally them not.¡± Undead perception of time, lengthened with the absence of the urgency of death to meaninglessness. It did not surprise me. ¡°Is your captain available to speak with, Harnzgo MacGuire?¡± Kris continued, much more gently. ¡°Aye, Your Highness. He commands from the dead city behind me,¡± the mate responded quickly. ¡°Very well. Send a man to escort us to him. And know this, Second Mate Harnzgo MacGuire. I do indeed have the power to send you to True Death. Rise, sailors!¡± Her voice dragged them to their feet, and they even sort of shuffled and tried to stand at attention for her as they did so. ¡°You were fools in life, and equally great fools in death, giving your lives valiantly in defense of others,¡± she said firmly. She held up Quaver, whose notes had changed to something gentle, yet martial, making them all tremble as they stared at the Blade in longing. ¡°This is my foolish vow to some equally great fools. ¡°I will return to you, and when I come, it will be with the living behind me, and the long guard you have stood will be over. I will send you all to sleep, the duty you took upon yourselves will be over, and you can rest, knowing that all that you sought to do and defend is at last coming to pass. ¡°I, Imperial Princess Kristi Rantha of the House of Briggs, salute you, sailors of the Callibrae and free men of the seas, one great fool to a pack of them!¡± It was a very precise Salute, a full ceremonial flourish and dance done by a true master of the sword. It swirled around her with energy and floral grace, beautiful and hypnotic, a dance of the blade performed with a flawlessness that radiated honor and respect behind it, something that made the dead men remember what it meant to live well and die well. They straightened up at the recognition that this salute was something done for them, done for heroes true, a fancy thing of high honors and knighthoods. But it was being done for THEM, and it was not some empty artistic frippery and tale. This was being performed for them by an Imperial Princess, the daughter of the dread Commander Briggs! The Salute of the Rose ended with her on one knee to them, bowing with all the weight of the Empire behind her, Quaver¡¯s burning Blade and its terrible reality extended out and down in salute to them. The dead men were as rigid as statues as they could feel... something pressing down on them, an honor and an acknowledgment of something greater that they¡¯d never felt in their time alive. ¡°Bow to accept the honor, fools,¡± I said softly to them. Haltingly, creaking, the dead men bowed at the waist, accepting the Salute, and all that it meant behind it, a Glory and Duty the dead could feel far more acutely than almost any of the living. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Kris rose back to her full height gracefully and effortlessly, all Imperial pose and a Princess no storybook or tongue-wagger could possibly equal. Quaver¡¯s slowly tolling notes were silenced, a lot of bones rattling in a common breathless sigh as her Sword was sheathed. ¡°Send me to your captain, fools,¡± Kris said formally, respectfully. ¡°Aye, Your Highness,¡± the dead mate stated quietly. ¡°Lao Li, run Her Highness to see the chief.¡± The dead Sho skeleton in armor that shouldn¡¯t have been able to stay on his bones saluted somewhat awkwardly, as if half-remembering it was the proper way to do things. The dead bandits and pirates who¡¯d died in the defense of Hebian-to stepped quickly to the sides of the road to get out of our way, and a fallen pirate left with only clacking bones and memories of a final duty led us on our way toward the former capital of the Sho territory in this land. ------ -What are you thinking?- Kris /asked me as she trotted quickly towards the city. -I¡¯m a pragmatic realist. Wonderful gesture and an Imperial granting of honor and Glory for their deed. Also, their deaths during a time of ley line instability probably resulted in whatever magical system the existing undead use to return to unlife grabbing them and doing the same to them. Fools caught in magic, and unable to free themselves,- I /answered promptly. -According to my father¡¯s stories, they weren¡¯t reavers or brigands, just lazy men who didn¡¯t want to follow any laws and preferred other people do the hard work before relieving them of their gains. So, he made a point of showing them where living by the sword was going to send them, and they ran in utter fucking terror from him into a Portal and were never seen again.- -That must have been early in his career. Almost forty years ago?- I /asked. -Yeah, not long after he met my mother, and before they ¡®retired¡¯ to the mountains to have us kids. The Viamontians were still in power in Celdon, but Mom¡¯s machinations and Dad¡¯s brute competency shenanigans started forcing them out and roadblocked any building influence they might have had in Aluvia. Killing every blue-skinned sot who challenged them to a duel didn¡¯t hurt, either.- My inherited memories of Viamontians were anything but complimentary, so I didn¡¯t speak up against it. She¡¯d been with her mother on campaign and likely seen a lot of things done by desperate blues, and her opinion of them was likely well-earned. -They loved the way he kept all the local pirates and bandits under control, I assume. Of course, I seem to remember all the other lands, especially Viamont, enjoyed a rather tempestuous period of buccaneer raids for some reason.- I glanced over in time to see her smirk. -There were, eh, political and temporal limits to what and who he could pursue. As long as they kept their swords out of Aluvian business, he let them be... with quiet word that Aluvian business could be interpreted VERY broadly when it came to trading with Aluvia. Viamont, however, he didn¡¯t care much about. So, there was also a strange expansion in Aluvian mercantile fleets during this time, and a lot of missing Viamontian shipping.- -Backed and partially owned by a future Empress?- I /reasoned, knowing how Sama did things. -It kind of stunned everyone just how fast mom got her hands on so many naval assets, and just how much money and influence she commanded while living up in them thar green and unblemished hills of Aluvia, away from all the money and centers of power.- -Running the world via Markspace from nowheresville or while on the move is just what I¡¯d expect from her.- ------ We were coming up on the city now, the road rising to the hill upon which it was constructed, giving a natural advantage to it that had been helped with some hasty stone walls in need of repair and maintenance. It also overlooked the River Prosper and the bay said river emptied into, which would have made it a fairly important port city if there was any significant sea traffic. There seemed to have been some simple docks down there for fisherman, but mostly, there were undead. A lot of undead, and most of them weren¡¯t Summons. The neatly arranged farms and fields were abandoned and overgrown, and what Summons existed were more Skeletons of various types, mostly bearing Sho-style armor and weapons, even though the unliving assembled here were a motley display of multiple species. It didn¡¯t miss my eyes that there was a significant percentage of blue-skinned animated corpses among those here, although perhaps only five percent of the total. -Well, at least some of them know how to die properly,- Kris /murmured as we passed by a brute of a corpse in rotting full Viamontian plate. -You know they stole some of Dad¡¯s design work when they improved their armor? He was more than a little pissed at them for it.- -Can¡¯t imagine why adding thief to their list of arrogant racial traits wouldn¡¯t improve their image in his eyes, I truly can¡¯t.- Kris laughed softly to herself, ignoring all the many undead eyes turned our way as the lines of unliving converged ahead of us to block the road. The rattling strides of Lao Li took him up to that big Viamontian, who somehow managed to look dour and pompous with half his face fallen off and the other half rotting aromatically. Kris stopped ten paces short, her posture absolutely overbearing, knowing exactly how to look in the eyes of the pompous, authority-responsive Viamontians. ¡°You are a fool who will believe any story a living soul tells you!¡± the Viamontian commander started to say, lifting his rusting broadsword to point at Princess Kristie, who just narrowed her eyes back at him for the insolent gesture. ¡°Seize them, and we will question them-¡± he began, even if there was a tiny spark of hesitation in his words. ¡°ON YOUR KNEES BEFORE HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS KRISTIE RANTHA OF THE ISPARIAN EMPIRE, DOGS!¡± I roared at them with full Heartsong and Truth. The entire blocking force stumbled back and went down to their knees in proper subservience of lower classes to higher, including that oaf of a dead Viamontian Knight. He actually almost fell over, scrambling to get his sword in place as a proper knight should. Lao Li, tellingly, did not fall over. ¡°Fool, please continue on,¡± Kristi sniffed, and Lao Li, proclaimed a proper fool by an Imperial Princess, straightened right up proudly and led us onward as the skeletons and rotting corpses hastily parted to let us go by. Normally Heartsong didn¡¯t have much effect on the undead, but Truth was truth, living or dead, and a status-conscious mindset getting the brute truth of there being an actual Imperial Noble standing in front of them was all that was needed to trigger all that mental conditioning and back them off. AF Chapter 71 – MacNaill’s Freehold has Moved to Hebian-To The Undead didn¡¯t need food or shelter, nor did they get physically tired or truly need sleep, but they still stored stuff and played morosely at being the living. Thus, the buildings inside those rough city walls were still intact; they¡¯d been roughly maintained, if not lovingly; and if they bore more than a few marks of distant fires and hacking axes here and there, well, given what we¡¯d been told that wasn¡¯t much of a surprise. As normal, the pagoda, which once was probably the home of the most learned person in the town, had been taken over by the army for its superior visibility, and there were skeletal guards out on the upper walkways even now. There was a Deathpit in the center of the town, and contrary to all the other scarred markings of imploded portals, including yet another columned white stone building fallen into its manifested basement, there was a shrine built around this one. The shrine was a bit macabre, with carved emblems of bone, half-remembered faces painfully etched into them, cameos and jewelry hanging here and there, and even broken weapons and armor set around it respectfully, remembering those who had fallen here and while fleeing. It was nearly as big as the one in Cragstone had been, but absent the bones of those later slaughtered by the Killer Drudge. The fallen basement had been turned into a mortuary. The place had been excavated out with unliving strength and patience, niches carved into the walls, and the bones of all the living who had died afterwards had been carefully, even lovingly interred within them by those doomed to never have such places for themselves. Lao Li had silently shown us to both places before taking us to the chief, bowing before each as he did so. A rapidly-growing crowd of rotting corpses and skeletons had followed us as we went to each place, confused as to our presence, but held at bay by the word and actions of Lao Li, who had a strange new status swirling about him now that compelled his former equals to obey him. Recognition as a Noble Fool had done things for him. At the shrine, Kris had glared at the m¨¦lange of merged dead, the psychic torment swirling with the spitting energies still coming from the remains of whatever had held the blue Death Crystal, and just sighed. Before all their dead gazes, she drew Quaver, and the two solemn notes rang out from the Blade as it was covered in unwhite flames more real than anything else in existence to the undead. She stepped forward to place Quaver¡¯s edge on the first bones of that pit, and before their eyes, drew a Burning unwhite circle of vivic flame around the pit, step by solemn step. The gathered undead moaned softly as the misting flames licked at the ossified bones, and the torment in the air began to change. When she was done, she waited calmly there as the vivic flames stole across the entire pit. The unnatural energies, the merged bones, and the embedded blue crystals all began to Burn and fall to white dust, accompanied by the gentlest of patters, scarcely louder than the creaking of bones and stretched dead flesh as all of the undead watched it with her. She didn¡¯t move as the pit Burned down, and the sun began to color in the east. When naught was left of that pit but a bright white stain that would fade with Renewal, she turned to face the watching undead. Pretty much the whole unliving population about the city had gathered at that point, able to see what was happening right through each other¡¯s shadowy existences as the vivic fires did their thing. The swirl of tormented souls and the energies that bound them were all gone, released, and they were at peace. A peace these undead did not know. She turned to face them, hundreds of undead staring at her, and the bared Sword that promised that peace to them. ¡°I have been told that you are all fools, that you died as fools, and you live as fools once again, many of you taking up a duty in death that you avoided in life, all to save the lives and futures of those you did not know.¡± Quaver lifted slowly, droning deeply, solemnly. ¡°If that is how you died, then take a knee and receive the salute of a knight and noble of Ispar, for I name you Noble Fools, and nobles deserve their recognition.¡± There was a creak and a rattle and hollow sighs, and then the undead began to kneel, going down to one knee. At first one or two, then a wave like the rolling of the seashore, sweeping across them and leaving them down on one knee, like the knights most of them had never been, only seen in tales and pageantry off in the distance. Quaver extended over them solemnly, ringing, the most real thing in existence, force-swirls wrapping around her, alive and bound to her will, illuminating her. ¡°This I promise you. I will return to you, and when I come, it will be with the living that you protected and gave your lives for. They will take up your places, and with this Blade, you may rest your bones and finally earn the sleep you desire. ¡°There is an ending to your own pain and torment. Noble Fools, I thank you all.¡± And for the second time that day, the Salute of the Rose was performed in honor of dead men and women who, for the most part, had been born from the lowest Classes, and died without name or recognition, doing what had to be done at the time it had to be done. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it --- ¡°Well, that¡¯s not something y¡¯see every day.¡± I looked over as a living man stepped through the spellbound kneeling undead and swung up into the cabin of the Wagon beside me. He was average height, about the same as my own, dark-haired and with a ruddy complexion from skin that didn¡¯t like the sun, full-bearded black hair that was going a distinguished gray. He was dressed in dark studded leathers I recognized as gromnie hide, with a longsword hung on his back, a mace strapped to his thigh, and a couple long, heavy knives attached here and there. He had an all-weather hooded cloak on of grays and browns, which he managed with the adroitness of long, long use. ¡°Ah, so there was an attach¨¦ in residence, or you were just passing through catching up with a cousin?¡± I asked archly, refusing to be taken by surprise. His dark eyes considered me in turn, looking me up and down. ¡°I haven¡¯t heard a new Gharu¡¯n accent for a good fifteen years. Ye must be fresh from a Portal. Are more people coming through again?¡± he asked hopefully. ¡°No. As a matter of fact, we might be among the very last.¡± He stared at me, then closed his eyes and looked away as something died inside him. ¡°That said, that means that pretty much everyone who disappeared through a Portal for the last fifteen years before us died, as the Portals still existed back home, and still took people.¡± He exhaled softly. ¡°Aye, we thought that might be happening, but we didn¡¯t have the strength to secure the newbie arrival sites at all. Where, if I might ask, did ye come in?¡± ¡°Holtburg. The thrungus and the olthoi were likely eating them.¡± ¡°Och, the bugs...¡± He shook his heads once, old, deep anger radiating across them and gone as it was digested and controlled. ¡°Your names?¡± he asked gruffly, his eyes tracking Kris¡¯ elegant and mesmerizing salute helplessly. ¡°A gentleman introduces himself first,¡± I responded calmly, amused as he fell into her sword dance and failed to respond for a good minute as she executed it. The ripple spreading across the undead as she finished shook him out of his reverie. ¡°Rise and bow to accept her Salute, Fools,¡± I told them softly, but all of them heard, and they rattled to their feet, Noble Fools all, and roughly, even awkwardly bowed to accept the Salute from an Imperial Princess. ¡°To your duties,¡± Princess Kristie ordered them, Quaver sliding home behind her. The milling undead turned away and streamed back to wherever and whatever they had been doing, leaving Lao Li, another undead man with rather more flesh left to him and a better-preserved cut of leathers, this living man, and myself behind. With the area clear, my guest swung out of the Wagon, and I did the same on the opposite side. Clearing his throat, he walked up on the other side of the undead man there, who was staring at Princess Kristie with an intent but unsettled expression in his remaining black eye. ¡°Yer Ladyship, I be Mikal McMikal of the Clan McMikal, everyone calls me the Mick. Allow me to introduce ye to me late, great-uncle Rober MacNaill, who be the leader and chieftain of these undead ye so rapturously performed for.¡± He had a pretty cheeky smile. It dropped after I stepped forward and spoke. ¡°I am Devra a-Ryinthi, called Ryin, scholar and magos, Freeman McMikal. This is Her Imperial Highness, Princess Kristie of the House of Briggs, second daughter of the Emperor and Empress of Ispar.¡± His jaw fell slowly at the ring of Truth in my words, and he swallowed automatically as he realized he had been rather insultingly informal and forward in his choice of words. ¡°That brute is Emperor of Ispar now?¡± the undead chief blurted out in open astonishment. ¡°Ho, we¡¯re cousins three times removed. My mother is of the MacShaunessey¡¯s of Hausser¡¯s End, her grandmother Shalice was a McMikal.¡± Princess Kristie flung her black hair back proudly, and the Mick almost fell down in relief at her friendly tone. ¡°And yes, Rober MacNaill, my father is that Commander Briggs, now Emperor and Hammer of Ispar and all of its seas, so mind that attitude that drew you to the not-so-free seas and sent you running here afore my mother could take your head.¡± If an undead corpse could swallow, he would have. ¡°Aye, aye, Princess, Your Highness,¡± the former pirate almost fell down in his haste to say, carefully gloved hands raised in a placating manner. ¡°Emperor! How did he manage to claim that throne?¡± the dead man asked despite himself. ¡°About fifteen years ago, the Viamontians decided it would be good to do a hard push and finally eradicate any Aluvian resistance in their lands. My mother and my father had retired to raise a family in the high country, and they, in turn, decided that they¡¯d had enough of blues trying to tell them what to do. ¡°They came down out of the hills, crushed the Viamontian army, followed it back to Celdon, annihilated most of the remainder, took the Aluvian army and a whole mess of volunteers, crushed the satrap in Gharu¡¯n, chased them all the way to Roulea, took the imperial capital, and then led a crusade into Viamont, where they butchered the entire royal family, about eighty percent of the Viamontian nobility, and scorched half the country black,¡± she stated in a clipped voice. ¡°That ended about ten years ago. They were elected Emperor and Empress by acclaim, and are doing a fair job of it,¡± I added after she finished, leaning on Crown and watching the living and undead listeners carefully. The Mick was a little wide-eyed. ¡°The last we heard is that there was an army whelming to drive the blues from Aluvian soil, and then naught, until the Fall came upon us. That was nigh on twenty years ago, now...¡± Kris and I shared a look. ¡°The Viamontians set up a great magic ceremony tapping into the Portals, hoping to bring back the Viamontian army that had chased the Bellenesse through a Portal, perhaps with new allies, to fight my parents,¡± Kris stated. ¡°My parents disrupted the Ritual severely, to the point where most of those participating died and it obliterated the Imperial Palace in Roulea. ¡°That may or may not have been the trigger for whatever happened to you, although the scale and breadth of what happened here is far, far beyond what even the Viamontians were capable of pulling off... and time seems to be moving at a different pace here, compared to the other side of the Portals.¡± ¡°Aye, that much we knew,¡± the Mick said softly. ¡°Never solid, sometimes two years to one, sometimes six months, but tending to the longer. Ten years since then back home, is it?¡± AF Chapter 72 – How Time Flies ¡°Twelve, actually. The infighting and backstabbing among the Viamontian High Clans led to an easier victory in Viamont, helped along by the abrupt deaths of those shrilling about unity in their time of strife.¡± Princess Kristie¡¯s predatory smile emerged, and the two Aluvians, one living and one dead, stared at her eight canines accenting her Cursemark and counterpointing her actual mesmerizing beauty and curves, absent any chest to speak of. ¡°And now you are here, and saying the Portals might be closed forever?¡± MacNaill broke in shortly. Kris looked at me, and I harrumphed. ¡°Are you familiar with the name Nuhmudira?¡± I asked them calmly. Their glance at one another showed that they most certainly did. ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick confirmed slowly. ¡°One o¡¯ the most powerful mages that ever lived here on Dereth. ¡®tis said that she even mastered the higher magicks o¡¯ the Empyreans, which no Isparian has managed to attain since!¡± he informed me, complex emotions in his eyes. ¡°That sounds like her, both in managing to attain heights of power, and not passing that knowledge on,¡± I replied softly, and they both blinked at my viewpoint. ¡°Did she pass herself off as Gharu¡¯n here? She was not. She was Milantean.¡± The Mick regarded me for a long breath. ¡°She... did,¡± he said slowly. ¡°She even had the Gharu¡¯n head-wrapped little book guardians wrapped around her finger...¡± ¡°She was under a death sentence from the Imperial Academy for suborning the Zharalim and pursuing studies into forbidden magic... magic that her daughter took up when her mother took her most fanatic followers and fled into a Portal to avoid those hunting for her. Did her habit of sacrificing her students and servants to offer to horrendous creatures from Beyond for power and knowledge follow her here? Because she passed the tradition down beautifully to her daughter.¡± The Mick pursed his lips as he stared at the two of us. ¡°There were... rumors that she was engaging in blood magic and foul rituals, but her followers denied it, or spoke of sacrifices for the greater cause...¡± ¡°That cause being ¡®make me stronger, and vortch the lot of you¡¯,¡± I said knowingly, glancing at Princess Kristie. ¡°The name her daughter was known by in the Imperial Academy was Calliona. Her real name was Xunidira of Milantea, although she passed herself off as Gharu¡¯n like her mother had, and even suborned more of the Zharalim.¡± I waved up a Holo of her appearance, Mira¡¯s memories and mine of her searingly accurate. The malice hiding behind her wise and matronly smile was apparent if you knew what to look for... and Aluvians had always been good at taking the measure of people. ¡°That... is a nice trick,¡± the Mick said thoughtfully, looking at the casual floating Illusion, and I belatedly remembered that Isparians did not have nearly the experience or skill with casual Illusions that Power of Ten gamers did. ¡°I see ye¡¯re not having much problems with the changes in magic...¡± ¡°I am a fully trained magos from the Imperial Academy in Roulea, not a hedge mage!¡± I stated frostily, instantly putting him on the defensive. ¡°While the changes in the manafield here are interesting and many, I have been cataloging and working through them in a proper and systematic manner, as I was taught how to do, not stumbling in blind experiments and Summoning in eldritch soul-eaters for quick lore and foul gifts of sanity-shattering power!¡± He held up his hands, flinching back at the acid in my voice. ¡°Easy, Miss Ryin. I meant nay disrespect. It¡¯s just... the changes in magic have been pretty widespread, an¡¯ the price...¡± He trailed off and looked at MacNaill tellingly, who just looked back silently, and let out an equally long empty-winded sigh. ¡°We naturally have no knowledge of what actually happened here, other than what we¡¯ve been able to deduce by the actions of those real beings we¡¯ve passed on the way down here from Holtburg,¡± Princess Kristie interjected, breaking up the mood smoothly and pulling me back artfully from my ire. Mira was very proud of her magic, and prouder yet of mine! ¡°Well, isn¡¯t that a long tale for the telling. However, ¡®tis late for the living, an¡¯ ye¡¯ve interrupted me beauty sleep.¡± The Mick very carefully did not yawn, but we both could tell he very much wanted to. ¡°Ye seem to be sleeping days an¡¯ moving nights, which is both wise an¡¯ foolish, but then, so is moving during the day on Dereth. Not to put a binder on things, but the tale will be long in the telling, an¡¯ so, would it be alright if we indulged Your Highness¡¯ curiosity in the morning?¡± Kristie didn¡¯t bat an eye, other than to look him up and down once. ¡°Get your rest, elder,¡± she said, and that phrase alone took any smug cheek and turned it into admission of weakness, very much not his intention. ¡°I¡¯ve no ale for your throat, but there¡¯ll be plenty of water, cold and pure, for your tongue in the morning.¡± She nodded at MacNaill. ¡°I¡¯m sure your great-uncle here can fill in a great deal.¡± I could probably do better than that as far as drinks, but he didn¡¯t have to know that. Any idea of getting any sleep was washed from the Mick¡¯s thoughts. ¡°This lying old man is going to be feeding ye history?¡± he proclaimed in disbelief, and even MacNaill grinned rather horrifically at that. ¡°If ye¡¯ve some good sweet water, then let¡¯s be about the tale-telling, even if I be having to stay sober!¡± Kris didn¡¯t blink an eye at the instant shift in attitude. Typical Highlander, I¡¯d been told. ¡°Well, then, let¡¯s find a place I can park my carriage, and we¡¯ll see about filling in some details on what is happening on this world.¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. -------- We had the fires we could put in place to warm his bones, so there was no problem with that. The Wagon made an effective wind-block, and Disks made wonderful seats that the two men couldn¡¯t help scooting around on like little kids while we watched tolerantly. When I Cast Water to Wine on our cold, clean stone jug of water, the Mick spluttered and nearly spilled his entire glass, especially when the Lesser Restoration in the drink went off and wiped away his fatigue, rendering him instantly as alert as if he¡¯d had a full night¡¯s rest and was ready to face the day. ¡°This is... what is this?¡± he asked, looking at the white wine in his glass. ¡°It¡¯s not the real thing, more a memory of it. Al-Blyssa green wine, from the Kovi grapes of Qomiira, my vintage of choice.¡± I made a dismissive gesture at Kris. ¡°This barbarian likes the reds of Monchaveil, but I suppose that is why she is a conquering Imperial princess, and I am a scholar.¡± ¡°I¡¯d kill a man for a handcask of Monchaveil Red,¡± MacNaill admitted, looking longingly at the drinks, ¡°were I even able to taste it.¡± I eyed the undead Fool of a pirate, grabbed another mug with a hand of magical force, filled it, then murmured something rather dark and hostile over the light wine within it. I floated it his way, and he took it with a strange expression, looking down at it with his one remaining eye. He looked at me, I looked back at him, and he took a draw. He jumped right to his feet, his bones rattling in shock inside him. ¡°Gah!¡± he blurted out, then his hand came up, trying to stop from losing any of the pale liquid coming down from the sides of his mouth. ¡°That¡¯s interesting,¡± Kris remarked, while the Mick just looked suitably shocked. ¡°What did you do?¡± ¡°Putrefy Food and Drink, reverse of the standard magic. Makes food palatable to the undead, if totally unfit for anything alive.¡± The former pirate and current Chief Fool was staring at his mug, then at me, and I could well trace the path of his thoughts as he looked at the jug of wine. ¡°I¡¯ll make up a full jug or six for you and your men before I leave,¡± I told him calmly, and a deep rattling sigh escaped him. The dead man collapsed back into his floating chair, and this time the draw he took was not hesitant, but the deep and slow swallow of a man who¡¯d not known he was dying of thirst until he took his first sip. ¡°Ask away, lass. I¡¯ll tell you anything you want to know for another mug of this,¡± Rober MacNaill admitted shamelessly. Kris just nodded, and the questions began. ------- Rober MacNaill¡¯s life had not been easy when he and his cousin MacDugal had led the very demoralized remnants of their bandits and pirates through the Portal into this world, and to this island that they¡¯d named as Dereth, which in an older tongue simply translated to ¡®new place¡¯. Once here, they¡¯d been promptly overcome and enslaved by the olthoi. Kris and I were surprised that the insectile beings would actually use humans for labor, but it turned out that intelligent beings were very useful in expanding their nests, as the Summoned creatures didn¡¯t do menial work and maintenance. The Isparians they captured were obviously new and alien, and so if they were willing to work, the olthoi put them to use. If they weren¡¯t, they fed the vats of goo they nurtured their larvae in, no loss to the bugs. Their weapons barely able to injure the bugs, the motley band had been quickly overcome, but had mostly managed to survive after a few examples of evisceration and disassembly motivated them. They¡¯d learned enough to realize the bugs mostly operated on scent, not sight, and being the cunning lot they were, they¡¯d figured out a way to hide their scent and flee into the night from the bugs, armed with crude weapons and armor made from the chitin of deceased bugs that hadn¡¯t been recycled by the living ones. Their flight was hard, but they were survivors used to living in the wilds, especially MacDugal¡¯s bandits. Still, the bugs were everywhere, the creatures here were dangerous, and the cousins had parted ways when confronted with a random Portal that had popped open in the middle of nowhere, offering an escape from any trackers and the creatures there. MacNaill and his band of scalawags had gone through, while MacDugal¡¯s men had continued on into the hills and mountains the olthoi seemed to avoid. Thus had the pirate come to the Vesayan Islands, and specifically stumbled into an equally fortunate band of Aluvians and Sho who¡¯d started setting up a settlement there. The dangers of the place were evident, but there were no olthoi, there was the sea to fish in, and the weather was warm and balmy. To the motley band of pirates, it was nearly a form of paradise, save for the fact the leader of the Aluvians was a Pwyll-worshipping sanctimonious idiot, and the leader of the Sho was a fanatically depressing Joji adherent. Pwyll III was considered the most virtuous of the Aluvian High Kings, and Joji¡¯s zen-like tradition was revered among the Sho as a harmoniously centered and balanced philosophical lifestyle. I juxtaposed both lifestyles against the free-wheeling mindset of a bunch of freebooters and pirates, and wasn¡¯t at all surprised when Rober admitted he¡¯d eventually taken his men and set up another, ¡®right proper¡¯ settlement on a nearby island, soon enough attracting other ne''er-do-wells from other scattered Isparian enclaves about the islands. --- I sliced up the reedshark into thin strips of bacon, laid them over circles of shreth steak, and seasoned them with peppers from the Blackmire Swamp to the north of us, the place duly named by Rober in passing. Wheat harvested from fields long gone wild, powdered into flour and now cooked into buns, accented the greasy lot, and after a muttered word or two over one plate, I served both of our hosts a breakfast after Kris and I Saluted the morning, the joint Ritual drawing the curious attention of both men. MacNaill would have cried if he could,as the Putrefied food went down, the first joy he could have in eating that he could remember in years. ¡°So, tell me what ye¡¯ve seen and thought of, and I¡¯ll fill in the gaps. There were many a thing that happened atween me uncle¡¯s arrival an¡¯ the Fall, an¡¯ more that happened after, but that can be filled in as we go,¡± the Mick said, watching us. I let Kris handle that in her crisp oratory, commanding and precise, keeping both men fixated on her words, while I politely withdrew to work on Imbuing. I was listening in as I worked, just out of sight of both men so as not to distract them with what I was doing. AF Chapter 73 – A Brief History of the Fall ¡°His name is Bonecruncher, may all the devils in Hell pox his balls,¡± the Mick supplied us, biting off the curse with real emotion, and suddenly the Killer Drudge of Cragstone had a name. ¡°The Virindi made him inta what he is, but they couldnae control him, in the end. He¡¯s just... too powerful. An¡¯ when the Fall took so many o¡¯ the best an¡¯ strongest who could band together to thwart him, well, he took his bloody revenge in the worst way possible.¡± He trailed off, and then gestured at the mug that Kris was holding, with the stylized U symbol on it. ¡°Ulgrim was the one who saved us. Somehow, he bound the bastard to the keep the drudge took. He takes a step too far, an¡¯ Bonecruncher is teleported right back t¡¯ the keep, unable to extend his reach or that of his people. ¡°Tore the old man to bloody gibbets fer it, too. The drudges flocked to his kingdom, an¡¯ they raid from there, safe from even the strongest of the olthoi, virindi, undead, or shadows. Until, it seems, you two came along.¡± He leaned forward with MacNaill, his dark eyes gleaming. ¡°Did ye really do for so many o¡¯ them?¡± ¡°I slit the throats of over five hundred real drudges lairing in the ruins of Cragstone,¡± Princess Kristi stated without batting an eye, utterly unperturbed at the number, a fact visibly impressing and daunting both men. ¡°There¡¯s also now a huge gap in the ring of drudge-spawns around that keep, and we Burned his trophy mounds of the dead to white dust. And I gods-damned swear, when we grow strong enough, we¡¯re going to go back there and feed that monster to True Death, emptying that city of drudges as they did of humans.¡± Her voice was a razor, and even the dead man twitched to hear that Vow. She wasn¡¯t a Source, but that was one dangerous Oath she¡¯d just made! ¡°Ye¡¯re a right red-handed witch, just like yer hag of a mother,¡± MacNaill muttered softly, raising his fifth mug of Putrefied wine to her. ¡°I can see how she made herself an empress, now.¡± The story of our arrival and what we¡¯d seen continued, with the way the extra-dimensional spaces had been forced into reality, the fallen protective obelisks, and the many scattered stone heads all around. The Tremendous Monuga popping up got grunts from both of them, as did the fight against the monstrous nefane out in the waters of the lake, past the Shoreward barrier that prevented passage for lesser beings. The virindi in Rithwic, the mosswarts in old Yanshi, the burun in Sawato, the undead in new Yanshi, the lugians in the hills, the tumeroks in Shoushi, and the undead here. Our working out that the monugas were natives, which of the animals were indigenous, and the interactions between some of the forces here all passed her lips in thorough yet concise detail. What we were most uninformed on was the fate of the humans, although the fact we¡¯d worked out following the water, and deducing the eventual location the humans had fled to, impressed both of them, ending up with us meeting the lone human liaison in these lands, having stopped in to visit his great-uncle from a careful scouting trip around the nearby lands. ¡°It takes a great deal o¡¯ power to open the Portal to the islands, so it¡¯s only done on predetermined nights and times. Scouting is a dangerous job, an¡¯ only the best of us are allowed to do the job, as we lose too many otherwise,¡± the Mick related quietly, scratching his salt and pepper beard. ¡°We¡¯ve... not the magic, nor the equipment that we once had. So much of it was destroyed in the Fall...¡± His voice trailed off, his eyes haunted, and he looked down at his hands. I¡¯d not failed to notice he was missing the ring finger on his left hand, where a wedding band might have been. ¡°We surmised that the incoming flow of magic overcharged and detonated anything magical that operated on charges and reserves of mana,¡± Kris stated calmly. ¡°There was basically a complete absence of most magic, even the simple talismans, that should have been around. ¡°Naturally, the ones best equipped would have been the most powerful people. They would have died as their equipment detonated, and those Deathstones then failed at the same time, killing them all completely and finally.¡± It took a minute for the Mick to nod slowly, his face dark and haunted. ¡°Me wife, me lady, the love of me life...¡± he glanced at his absent finger for a long breath, and closed his eyes. ¡°She wore a Necklace all the time. A fine thing it were, lovely and wrought of pyreal and diamonds, with artful magic upon it. The value of the thing was incredible, she¡¯d been offered loads of loot for it, but she refused them all, and wore it proudly all the time. ¡°When the Fall happened, that Necklace exploded, as did our Rings. It took me finger, and it took, it took me fair Bunita¡¯s head. ¡°I were, I were staring at her headless corpse there, completely stunned, waiting for it to disappear... and then felt the shock as the link to me Lifestone dropped, and her body was still there, blood pumping from the stump of her neck. ¡°And I knew she were dead, that death had come back fer us, fer all of us, and Asheron¡¯s Protection was no more.¡± He took a long and deep breath, and his mug floated out of his hand, refilled itself, and deposited itself back there. He just watched it do so, then took another long draw, saying nothing for a long minute of memories he plainly didn¡¯t want to relive, and equally obviously did all too often. ¡°The days after that were a nightmare. We all knew what was coming, though there were many who were screaming t¡¯ deny it, unwilling to leave behind what they¡¯d built. The power of Isparians in this land were built on magic and ever-improving gear. We¡¯d just lost over ninety percent of our fighting forces and more, an¡¯ the numbers coming through the Portals had been dropping for some time. ¡°There weren¡¯t nobody coming to save us from those we¡¯d taken lands from, an¡¯ when they came for their own revenge, aye, it were right bloody, it were.¡± Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°The Prince lost his own bride and his sword arm, but he still managed to convince most of the people to run. What surviving mages were about, led by Ulgrim, managed to make up a Ritual to open a Portal t¡¯ the Vesayans, and evacuate everyone they could. ¡°The Empyreans, they didn¡¯t make it. Too tied to magic, most of them clad in it, they burned out from inside an¡¯ perished to the last. The Gear Knights, wherever they were, sparked and fused and went inert, their cores overloading and melted. The turned undead exploded as the Light and Dark went to war inside them. The Risen Shadows were as vulnerable as the Empyreans were, an¡¯ most went utterly mad at the energies surging through them, hacking and slaughtering everything about them. ¡°The lugian tribes in alliance with us were gutted, and¡¯ the renegades ye saw in the hills took the opportunity t¡¯ seize power. The Aun tumeroks were likewise reduced to a tithe of their numbers, an¡¯ their corrupted Hea kin pushed into their lands, though we¡¯ve heard naught of Marae Lassel an¡¯ their holdings these many years, as they¡¯ve been shut off from Dereth. ¡°Most of the older generation died covering for the retreat of the younger ones, leaving only a few, like meself, to watch over the younger ones an¡¯ try to train them up for the new world left behind. ¡®tis a strange task, for we aren¡¯t even ready for the world we used to dominate so handily, immune to death and gluttons for combat unending. ¡°Death came back to haunt us, an¡¯ everything has changed.¡± Kris let the silence drag out for a long minute before speaking up. ¡°So, those blue crystals did allow you a form of immortality, much as the undead, virindi, and shades possess naturally. Die, be reborn elsewhere?¡± she pressed him. ¡°Aye, Asheron¡¯s Protection. We could nae even harm another under its protection, so there were no wars or battles between us once the Old Mage laid it down. Since we couldnae die, we could go out, fight, learn from our mistakes even if we fell, collect more gear to face our foes, loot and sell and gain ever-better gear...¡± ¡°Wait, what?¡± I piped up, sticking my head out from the barrier blocking the light show of the Imbuing I was doing. ¡°You were picking up... loot drops? From creatures?¡± He blinked, then smiled wanly. ¡°Oh, aye, that¡¯s been lost, too, be it not? Loot drops.¡± His eyes misted over with longing. ¡°This place were magical, incredible. It seemed ta respond to what our own artisans could achieve, take their skills an¡¯ put them to use. When ye fought the Summons, ye¡¯d be rewarded for defeating them with gear that coalesced out o¡¯ nowhere, sometimes really powerful, sometimes utter trash, completely random, but over time it allowed ye to collect an array of fine an¡¯ powerful items of magic to equip, an¡¯ boost ye in the fight against our foes.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± Kris and I both said together. He was completely unaware, but his ¡®magical loot¡¯ sounded suspiciously like an incentive program baked into a magical system, combining Karmic rewards with material awards. Materializing strong magic items out of nowhere was the equal of a Valence IX spell. There¡¯d be restrictions on how truly valuable or powerful items could be materialized, and if it was happening in massive numbers, naturally the results would be skewed to the lesser objects. This place already broke mortal limits on magic over its knee. Materializing magic items for daring to participate in what was effectively unlimited gladiatorial combat, where the participants couldn¡¯t die? Decent compensation, and a massive equalizer against the age and massive racial modifiers of more innately powerful races. ¡°The amount of magic this place has and uses now is absolutely stupefying,¡± I spoke up from where I was seated at. ¡°Summoning Magic at various levels, repeated tens of thousands of times that we have seen, scaling in level and power and actually allowing for Karmic gain. Island-wide force fields. Resurrection magic of unprecedented power, now combined with personal Sanctuary effects on all those covered by it. ¡°Now you¡¯re telling me that spontaneously-created magic items were made when you killed Summons here, on top of everything?¡± I looked over his gear with a sharp eye. ¡°Apologies, you¡¯ve got fine stuff there, but only the most basic magic is on your equipment now. It¡¯s much more like the Isparian equipment back home.¡± The Mick nodded shortly. ¡°Aye. Most of the stuff that fell off the creatures... just exploded. Or it degraded so rapidly as t¡¯ be worthless. So did much o¡¯ the stuff made when we recycled or smelted the materials from them, evaporating away an¡¯ leaving us with nothing. ¡°Only the things made in older, real styles stayed around, an¡¯ if they were charged up by mana, well, they blew apart, as well.¡± He unslung his scabbarded longsword. It looked like a more traditional Aluvian claymore by the hilt and guard, and he pulled it out. The greemish sheen of Air Gold was unmistakable, as was its resemblance to one of the Swords we¡¯d devoured to upgrade Quaver. Minus the force structures and large gem of needless frippery on it. ¡°We learned to use pyreal in making weaponry years ago, what were known as Atlan Weapons. We had to make a hot enough forge to melt the metal, an¡¯ many o¡¯ the coins of pyreal evaporated on us, too. But as long as we stay away from magic-consuming tricks, the Weapons seem stable enough. They aren¡¯t anywhere near as powerful as they used to be, however, an¡¯ we¡¯ve not the magic that we had back then t¡¯ substitute for it.¡± ¡°Pyreal, is it? In alchemical circles, that¡¯s Air-Energized gold. Do you have mines of it around?¡± I had to ask, gesturing at the wagon. ¡°Because there were hundreds of pounds of coins of it scattered about the two mansions we found.¡± The Mick glanced at the Wagon in appraisal, while MacNaill¡¯s eyes lit up, the undead ex-bandit shot a look at Kris, and the light was snuffed before it could do more than flicker. ¡°Aye, there were mines in the north, the south, an¡¯ across the waters inta the Direlands. Veins of it running through the rock like frozen water, I were told, the stuff somehow rebuilding itself even after it was pulled out. Magical, like the rest o¡¯ the place. So common it became the base coin, as we did nae have the knowledge to employ it until later, when the Empyreans and Asheron shared some of their knowledge with the smiths,¡± the Mick supplied. ¡°So, basically just an ornamental metal then, and you¡¯re just getting back to being able to use it for wargear now?¡± Kris asked him. ¡°Aye. I were told the base metal be not as good as steel, but when tempered and infused, it ends up much stronger than common steel is. There¡¯s more of it about than iron, and if you¡¯ve the magic, it be actually easier t¡¯work and smith. If you don¡¯t, it¡¯s just dross.¡± He shrugged dismissively. ¡°Couldn¡¯t eat it when it was needed, an¡¯ the islands don¡¯t have a lot o¡¯ any of the metals. The miners still say that the veins slowly regrow as they are pulled out, as if being slowly drawn up from the earth.¡± ¡°Endless amounts of raw material to make wargear,¡± I murmured, shaking my head at such forethought. ¡°How bad is the situation with the sea creatures?¡± AF Chapter 74 – Surrounded by Enemies The Mick¡¯s expression took another downturn. ¡°Aye, the sea...¡± He sighed, looking east, to where the broad bay spread out, doubtless once dotted by rafts and broad coracles for the fishermen who kept the city supplied with fish all along the shores, judging by the many buildings and stumps of rotting docks and basic wharves down there. ¡°That, that all started with Grael getting loose...¡± Princess Kristie tilted her head, indicating he should go on, her pale violet eyes sharp. ¡°Well, turns out the Empyreans an¡¯ their predecessors aren¡¯t native t¡¯ this world, either. But they¡¯ve been here for so long they almost might have been... except there are some natives to this world, an¡¯ they didn¡¯t particularly like the outworlders coming in, enslaving them, an¡¯ pushing them around. ¡°The two main intelligent native races on the land are the monugas, and the Rushck.¡± I sighed, put my hand to my forehead, and made another notation in the list of sapient native species. ¡°Grael was a warlord of the Ruschk, who was captured by the Dericost ancients an¡¯ made to participate in their gladiatorial games. Long an¡¯ very sordid story, he made a pact with some very dark an¡¯ nasty powers, got turned into a living horror that almost brought down the Dericost Empire, an¡¯ proved to be unkillable, so they couldn¡¯t beat him, only Seal him away an¡¯ hope his power would drain over time. ¡°The Ruschk seem to revere him as a great hero, an¡¯ he was the loose stone that started the downfall of that whole age. The undead don¡¯t bother the Ruschk anymore, afraid of what they might stir up, but then Grael started getting loose because of some other mistakes the undead made across the thousands of years coming to a head here... an¡¯ we had to deal with it. Repeatedly,¡± he added, with an ironic smirk. ¡°He got sucked into the Summons system and enslaved to it,¡± I judged by his face. ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick agreed after a moment of consideration. ¡°He cannae die, but he¡¯s not the horror that brought down an entire empire of spellweavers that he was. He can¡¯t leave his own labyrinth. I must have helped bring him down a score of times or more. He was a savage thing, an¡¯ a good, solid fight, but not an army-rending fiend that the old tales seemed to infer.¡± Kris whistled low. ¡°That is an especially horrific fate for someone like that. Going from a grand rebel and toppler of empires to a casual combatant confined to your own dungeon, doomed only to be slaughtered in passing as a casual test after all your sacrifices...¡± ¡°He did manage to spread his influence through the system an¡¯ remnants of his people, who inhabit the northern, icy islands to the northwest.¡± He blinked as I brought a Holo map of the island painting up for everyone to look at. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s a cute trick,¡± he murmured, staring at it in some surprise, then pointed out the area he was talking about. ¡°Ice-covered to subtropical with palms trees growing inside a hundred miles,¡± I muttered aloud, shaking my head, and Kris just snorted as the two men blinked after they realized the strangeness of it. ¡°Well, aye. Uh, an¡¯d some of the Ruschk still get sucked into his philosophy, get twisted by the things Grael calls master. Grow extra arms, mandibles, and become all elemental-like...¡± ¡°The mukkir?¡± Kris asked, in a voice part scorn, part relief. ¡°Aye, them¡¯s the things. Most of them seemed condemned to join him in, er, being held by the magic as, ah, Summons, as you called ¡®em...¡± The terminology was furrowing his brow, making him think about things he really didn¡¯t want to as Kris pointed at me, and I sighed as yet another Aberrant influence was confirmed. ¡°This place must look like a banquet of mana with all the things being attracted here,¡± I murmured. ¡°Are there any other mysterious entities messing in stuff here?¡± I groused. ¡°Aye? Well, there¡¯s the Rynthid,¡± I flicked my eyes to him, almost but not quite glaring at him, ¡°and The Deep, and the slithis...¡± He managed to grin, enjoying the way my expression soured with each word. ¡°Then the Dericost have dealt with some damned and unclean schite with the Book of Eibhil...¡± I actually flinched as he said that. ¡°What? That¡¯s the source of the Summoning Ritual Xunidira got a copy of!¡± And it cost Devra al-Shamira her soul! ¡°Your Highness, this place is bloody doomed...¡± ¡°What exactly are slithis?¡± was Kris¡¯ only response. ¡°Well, they came along with The Harbinger...¡± Our blank expressions made him purse his lips, and he coughed at our stares. ¡°They are kinda like spiked tentacles that hide in the earth, and come out to impale ye. We aren¡¯t exactly sure what they are connected to, mind ye. Digging down t¡¯ find out didn¡¯t seem too wise...¡± ¡°Tentacles coming from below...¡± I closed my eyes and sighed, not liking where my thoughts were heading. ¡°The Deep?¡± ¡°Ah, that thing,¡± the Mick said with affected wisdom. ¡°Well, when Grael was bound, it seems they also Sealed the island he chose as a base, an¡¯ drove it down to the bottom of the sea, wise old undead letting someone else deal with their problems in the future. When he got free, his territory was pushed back to the surface bit by bit. First Vissidal Island came free, but it were but a gateway to the Black Isle there, so named fer the tainted energies yet running through all the soil. ¡°When it came up, things of the sea came up with it, caught on this side of the island Wards, and, well, they, er, got trapped in the Summoning, too, methinks?¡± He clearly wasn¡¯t sure how to grapple with the wording. ¡°The Deep is nominally their lord, an¡¯ was a bit incensed that they were basically now guards for Grael¡¯s territory. I dinnae think it understood that they couldn¡¯t really die, as it would pay us fer killing off the betrayers, as it were...¡± Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. He coughed again as I closed my eyes and shook my head. ¡°Status of it?¡± I simply asked in a low voice. ¡°No idea. No one¡¯s been up there in a generation. The Portal Magic commonly used t¡¯ get there doesn¡¯t work, nobody wants t¡¯ take the time t¡¯ try t¡¯ power up one of the old Portals there, an¡¯ those Portals are all in very hostile territory, now. The undead might know, as they were watching the island fer more signs of Grael getting loose, but they¡¯re split an¡¯ factionalized, happy as pigs in mud to kill us on the one hand, an¡¯ t¡¯ pay us t¡¯ kill for ¡®em on the other.¡± ¡°And to tempt us with dribbles and drabs of knowledge that lead us straight into damnable things, no doubt.¡± Kris¡¯ mobile lips twisted in a deadly sneer. ¡°You mentioned Asheron¡¯s Protection, before. Who was Asheron?¡± A mix of emotions passed over the Mick¡¯s face. ¡°He... was the one who set up the Portals to bring Isparians here. The most powerful of the Empyreans, a grand old archmage with incredible power, unequaled by those who came before him. The undead had some grand an¡¯ powerful old corpses among them, an¡¯ the shadows too, aye, an¡¯ the virindi supposedly have some true monstrosities. But only the latter two might have rivaled him, from what we knew. His power held the others at bay, an¡¯ set up the Protection which stopped us from fighting one another, arranged the lifestones...¡± he trailed off as our expressions remained unimpressed, and coughed once. ¡°We¡¯re pretty sure he¡¯s dead now. When the Fall came, survivors from Eastham reported a massive explosion from his island, and it looked like his entire castle were blown apart, at the same time as the Lifestones exploded an¡¯ his Protection went away.¡± ¡°But no body, so there are many myriad ways he could have survived, but his magic and control of the island¡¯s ley line network was overloaded and erased, and it reset to a default state of sorts,¡± I judged, and the Mick nodded hesitantly at the explanation. ¡°To be seen as a peer by the undead and ageless things like Aberrants and the Shades, he was likely ageless himself.¡± ¡°Aye, he was said to be hundreds or thousands of years old,¡± the Mick confirmed readily. ¡°Someone more interested could probably find his birthdate in some of the old records, as he were a noble or royal among the Empyreans.¡± ¡°The ageless have different perspectives on time passing, as death is not looming over them to spur them to act sooner and drive them to get things done. It¡¯s especially true when they are nigh-immortal and can just return from what we call death with impunity,¡± Kris sniffed. ¡°A day, a year, a generation, or a century can all seem as one, and they get jaded with the passage of time, sniffing at all of us who are running around like ants getting things done, knowing that we¡¯ll just grow old and die and be but dust in the time of a short nap.¡± ¡°And then they bring their thousand-year dead rivalries and hatreds up for us to deal with,¡± I spat knowingly. ¡°All of Ispar, just a convenient source of slave labor to deal with problems they didn¡¯t want to, anymore. Rynthids, what are those?¡± ¡°Well, I were told they were counterparts to the Virindi, but like on the opposite side of the mental hill. The Virindi are like all logic an¡¯ law an¡¯ thought an¡¯ discipline, an¡¯ really don¡¯t like any departure from their group structure. Apparently, they fought a really long war against the Rynthids some time ago, as they are things of pure emotion, an¡¯ the Virindi despise them as a result, uncontrollable an¡¯ unpredictable an¡¯ what-all. They could get into the minds of things an¡¯ drive them mad, especially the Virindi, but it worked on all sorts of creatures, including humans.¡± ¡°Chaotic emovores and Lawful hiveminds. What a marvelous fight to bring here. How utterly wonderful of them,¡± Kris snickered. ¡°And I¡¯m assuming there¡¯s more?¡± ¡°Uh, well... the Deru Trees?¡± the Mick hazarded after a moment¡¯s thought. His great uncle had been silent, but now piped up, ¡°Hell of a thing to forget, lad.¡± ¡°Aye, but she wanted enemies, not friendlies.¡± Our waiting expressions didn¡¯t change. ¡°There¡¯s some, uh, intelligent trees about the lands. Hidden if they want t¡¯ be, guardians of the lands an¡¯ the like. There¡¯s a couple in scattered places, an¡¯ one¡¯s been growing on the Vesayans since the Fall, as did one of old. The keepers take as good a care of it as they can, all things considered, although it¡¯s nothing like the big fellows who¡¯ve been around since forever.¡± ¡°And one of ¡®em raised up some dragons!¡± the undead ex-pirate exclaimed cheerfully. ¡°Honest t¡¯ Pwyll, real dragons flying about there!¡± he repeated for emphasis. ¡°Those gromnie wyvern-drakes grow up into something?¡± Princess Kristie asked archly, her face as unsurprised as ever in the face of the two men¡¯s glee. The Mick looked back and forth at us, saw that our quotient for wonders was significantly higher than his, and looked like we¡¯d rained on his big pre-planned parade. ¡°Aye,¡± he confirmed, a bit disgruntled. ¡°What we call gromnies are actually baby gromnatrosses.¡± He spread his arms wide. ¡°The adults, the Empyreans said they grow t¡¯ the size of whales, with wings that could shade a good-sized barn, just like dragons in all the fancy tales and stories back home! They are supposed to be real rare, an¡¯ considered among the noblest of noble creatures, intelligent, patient, and kind, unlike what they are as basically babies.¡± ¡°Noted,¡± Kris said crisply. ¡°I take it these dragons have not been seen around, either.¡± Both men slowly shook their heads. ¡°No, the clutch of ¡®em were the guardians of the Viridian Rise Deru Tree. They¡¯ve not been seen since the Fall, either. I¡¯ve tried to reach the forest area where the Tree rose, but were not able to. The lands were very dangerous to begin with, an¡¯ they¡¯ve not grown any nicer since we¡¯ve lost the Lifestones.¡± Princess Kristie finally sighed. ¡°Deathstones,¡± she corrected him quietly. ¡°They weren¡¯t Life stones. Those crystals were linked to your deaths, and fed upon the power of you dying, powering a Resurrection protocol and siphoning away the excess mana released. In effect, every time you perished while tied to the things, you were a blood sacrifice to whatever the stones were feeding. Part of that energy was used to bring you back, so it wasn¡¯t a massive surge like a true sacrifice, but I imagine you kept feeding yourselves to it repeatedly, over and over and over again...¡± The Mick stared at her, then over at me. I just nodded slowly. ¡°Ye¡¯re speaking truth?¡± he asked uncertainly. ¡°That woman, Nuhmudira, she said the same thing about Asheron and the Lifestones, and not to use them, and even... made her own...¡± he trailed off slowly as he considered the implications of what he was saying, and what we¡¯d said about her. ¡°So, Asheron was using your deaths to power something, and she would have used your deaths to power something else of HER own design.¡± I just shook my head. ¡°And naturally she was not going to tell you, any more than Asheron likely did.¡± ¡°Well, that were not true.¡± I lifted an eyebrow. ¡°He said it was used to sustain the last of the Empyreans in stasis, after he whisked them away from the olthoi hordes of the true Olthoi Queen,¡± the Mick said defensively. I inclined my head slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t know the mechanics of that. It might be possible, and it might be true. But I do know this, and note that I¡¯ve not seen a Deathstone active. Were there three metallic or crystalline objects holding it in place?¡± I threw up a rough visualization of a bluish crystal, with three tripodal prongs supporting it, having no idea what it actually looked like. AF Chapter 75 – Deathstones mean Death Both men, living and undead, blinked at the sight. ¡°It floated an¡¯ spun about between the prongs, it were not supported by them,¡± the Mick said quickly, leaning forward. ¡°The prongs were brazen in color, kind of fluid metal, an¡¯ sharp at the tips. The hue you¡¯ve got, aye, but the crystal itself was much more natural, not cut like a gemstone, each just a little different from the next.¡± I adjusted the Holo of the Deathstone slightly, and the two regarded it with interest. ¡°Close, if ye¡¯d never seen one,¡± MacNaill finally commented in his hollow voice. ¡°The crystal was massive, taller than a man, and easily a pace wide at the middle.¡± I expanded the view accordingly, and both of them nodded. ¡°As accurate as yer going to get without seeing something an artist can make fer ye,¡± the Mick said firmly. ¡°Why be this important?¡± ¡°If you remember your Deathstone¡¯s circular pit out there, there were three holes in the ground corresponding to the triple extensions which maintained the Deathstones. They were spitting energies which probably seemed odd to both of you. There¡¯s been similar holes and energies at all the Deathpits we¡¯ve seen.¡± I could tell I was morbidly interesting both of them, as they¡¯d not paid much attention to that detail. Before they could ask the questions, I dropped the view of the Holo to underground, extending those prongs down as organic tentacles boring into the earth, extending up to the stones from who knew where, but obviously part of something living. MacNaill was the first to speak as they stared at the sight. ¡°When the Lifestones first came about, they grew out of the ground, Mikal,¡± he said in a hushed voice. ¡°The bodies the dead left behind animated as simple undead, ye could end up fighting yer own corpse. Later, our old bodies fell apart to dust, as the Stones were fully empowered...¡± ¡°But they grew out of the ground. Like the slithis tentacles do...¡± the Mick murmured, watching the display and thinking ghastly things. ¡°It¡¯s become quite plain that the spellcasters of the old races this Asheron was a part of had a great deal of knowledge of other worlds and dealing with truly powerful entities of various sorts and types... and they weren¡¯t alone in that knowledge. I imagine that the tribal creatures call the entities gods, although I doubt the ancients bothered to honor anything with so lofty a status,¡± I remarked aloud, considering that. ¡°Nuhmudira¡¯s Life... Deathstones looked different,¡± the Mick said hastily. ¡°As did some of those among the lugians, although that were more stony in appearance than a change. Nuhmudira¡¯s only had two prongs to them, and they were stone-like, and rune-carved...¡± ¡°She obviously wouldn¡¯t have worked with the same entity as Asheron did,¡± Kris cut in coolly. ¡°Naturally the design would be different to accommodate the disparity, and played up as a benefit, not just a parallel alteration.¡± ¡°But... ye don¡¯t know all this fer certain, without seeing an intact stone,¡± the Mick challenged me weakly. ¡°The Deathstones did NOT draw on the ley lines of the land... or at least, not solely on them,¡± I replied with cold, absolute fact. ¡°Believing whatever lies of choice you want does not change the truth, McMikal, bleat it as you will. The energies being Burned by vivus are NOT of this world, not of the Land, or vivus would not touch them at all. Those bones fused into the stone were replete with the powers of death, not of life, caught in a final sacrifice to the creature empowering that Deathstone before whatever appendage it extruded into this space was burned away by the mana surge. Perhaps it completely consumed the souls of the slain, perhaps they dissipated into the aether as they were meant, or they were sent on to their final fates. That fact I am unsure of, and will admit to it. ¡°But there is no question as to what the Deathstones were and did. None, and that is Truth.¡± ¡°AHG!¡± bleated the undead MacNaill, clutching at his head as dark fluids streamed out of his rotted slit of a nose, one empty eye, and spewed out his mouth. The Mick spasmed and lolled back in his chair, dark eyes rolling and blood falling out his nose. ¡°You know, doing that to normal people can be considered cruel,¡± Princess Kristie told me casually, unmoved by the display of the two men being forced to confront a whole lot of untruths they¡¯d not be able to fool themselves about. ¡°Aye, well, that¡¯s why Hope and Valor exist,¡± I responded primly, and both man and undead man shuddered again, but the stuff didn¡¯t come spewing as it had with Truth. Truth was a weapon, after all, whereas Hope and Valor were armor and shield, as it were. ¡°G-Gods in, Gods in...¡± the Mick gasped, trying to control his face. ¡°Heaven...¡± he finally finished awkwardly, unwillingly, refocusing his eyes, hands to his temples, licking automatically at the blood coming off his nose. I kept his stare without effort, Dauntless and Valor were nice that way, all the mental support and fearlessness, none of the engaging in self-doubt and failing to rise to confront challenges. No anxiety, no despair, only acknowledging uncertainty and moving past it to do what needed to be done. Motivation and mental reinforcement, building on the inner truth of knowing who and what you were! The power of the Words of Creation, spinning hopes out of nothing and raising courage where there was none... This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. They could even affect the undead. MacNaill was trembling where he stood, his one remaining eye trying not to look over his shoulder, where the Deathpit had been cleansed free by vivus, and absolution and his proper fate now beckoned him. Instead, his expression hardened as the truth of what he had done at the end, the hope of the future that he had secured, and the courage that came from knowing he was not doomed all stood bare in his mind. But he¡¯d had the strength to stand and do something stupid before, and he had all the strength needed to continue his task until it was done; it was all made known to him. If he had done a lot of things he had no excuse for but moral weakness in the past, and it was all searingly apparent to him now... well, now he knew, and it had no bearing on what he would choose in the future. He could be a Fool, or he could be an arse. He had lived the latter, and died the former, but his fate and doom was still to be determined! He still had hope! ¡°The lads, the lads should hear those Words too, yer Ladyship,¡± the undead ex-pirate rasped softly. I didn¡¯t miss the change in address, or his new attitude towards me. ¡°If they hear Truth, Chief MacNaill, well, many of them were followers in life, and do not have the fortitude to bear up under it. Many will immediately choose oblivion.¡± He shuddered again, but could only nod. ¡°Now, Hope and Valor I would be happy to grant them, and we will indeed work hard to deliver on the princess¡¯s promise to them.¡± And that was that. ¡°Where do you intend to go now?¡± the Mick asked quietly. ¡°To your Vesayan Isles, of course. I figured I¡¯d run across the sea, towing the Wagon behind me,¡± Princess Kristie said calmly. Both of them blinked. ¡°Ye can run across the water?¡± they both exclaimed together. ¡°Yes. And I can push a hole through the Ward to do it,¡± she stated with the absolute conviction of a casual dismissal of any effort related to the effect. ¡°I¡¯ll tow the Wagon behind me, zip across the seas to the island, and we¡¯ll be fine.¡± ¡°But... the creatures of the Deeps,¡± the Mick protested. ¡°They¡¯ll certainly come after ye!¡± ¡°And then they are going to run into Ryin.¡± I smiled hard at the hand-off, and both men considered me in another new light. ¡°They are, they were, very resistant to magic, especially the older, bigger ones,¡± the Mick warned me skeptically. ¡°That was apparent. But I don¡¯t have to kill them, I have to stop them or slow them down, or get them out of the way. That is not nearly as difficult.¡± ¡°Well, ye definitely know some strange and new spells,¡± he muttered, only a mite skeptically. ¡°We could instead show up at the Portal site a bit early, and wait until it opens...¡± he offered to us. ¡°How long?¡± Kris asked curiously. ¡°Uh, the first full moon. That be about... ten days away?¡± he said hesitantly. She promptly waved it off. ¡°I¡¯m not waiting that long, and the creatures need to realize that just because we¡¯re crossing the waves instead of skipping past them does not mean we are prey. It should be fun!¡± The way her smile lit up her face so dangerously left both men staring at her in awe. Flipflopping between imperial dignity and crazed hag kill-happy bitch is wildly attractive to certain kinds of folks, I judged in amusement. Especially Black Aluvians with probably wildly freebooting histories behind them. Oh, yeah. She did say her mother got along plenty fine with those kind of people... ¡°Where is this Portal located at?¡± I asked, flicking the map of the area back up, but zooming in to the southeast quadrant as the only one of relevance. The area leading up the narrow peninsula to the northeast glowed. ¡°Your men related that they were guarding a retreat up the peninsula. That would seem to be leading up to these islands, but instead you went to the ones further south?...¡± ¡°We took the path of least resistance, an¡¯ the hills and roads to the south were crawling with Gotrok lugians an¡¯ Hea tumeroks. Going through the hills were inviting slaughter, so we stuck t¡¯ the beaches to the end, up past Tou-Tou. We knew the lugians were not moving through those hills because of the mad shadows in them, so we set up our camp there.¡± The Mick pointed at the northern set of islands in the southeast. ¡°Those are Bobo¡¯s islands. We weren¡¯t going there unless we wanted t¡¯ end up slaves t¡¯ the tuskers.¡± ¡°Tuskers?¡± Kris asked, arching an eyebrow and glancing at me. ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯ve run into them, yet...¡± ¡°Aye, they¡¯re almost gone from the south, an¡¯ I can¡¯t speak much for the east as a whole. They are... big monkeys, with great long arms they use to move on all fours, mostly reddish-brown in hue, with prominent jutting tusks they say are used in courtship and for cracking open tough shells. They are... mostly pretty dumb, like a two-year old at best, but some get as smart as most of the smarter races, like us. ¡°Their king was changed by the virindi, an¡¯ is both very smart an¡¯ very powerful. What happened to him after the Fall, nobody knows, as the tusker isles were pretty much isolated, just like we were, an¡¯ we¡¯ve heard of very little from the tuskers or the humans who lived there. I doubt they¡¯ve had much problem keeping the Deep¡¯s creatures at bay, an¡¯ those creatures never seemed to bother the apes. ¡°King Bobo is most famous for single-handedly beating the stuffing out of the Tremendous Monuga who used to rule those islands, driving out all the monugas with it. The big fellow who wanders the middle of Osteth might be the same monuga, as it¡¯s been observed to chase an¡¯ eat tuskers whenever it sees them.¡± ¡°A good reason for not seeing any around,¡± Kris observed, which I had to agree with. ¡°The Portal is still there, but the area is precious close to the crazed shadows and things in Tou-Tou there, which is still as dangerous an area as any we know on the world. So, the lugians and tumeroks avoid it, an¡¯ we¡¯ve generally got scouts in the area to harass anyone who thinks o¡¯ setting up shop in the area until they bugger off.¡± The Mick paused a moment. ¡°Lost a lot o¡¯ scouts making sure of that, too.¡± Immortal enemies returning, and humans who didn¡¯t. Yeah, I couldn¡¯t imagine that was a fight anyone wanted to take. ¡°The Portal opened up on Kryst,¡± he pointed out a particular one of the islands, the westernmost main one, ¡°and the shallow, warded areas connect each of the main islands, including the Freehold me uncle here used to claim.¡± He traced a long and winding S-shaped path through the islands, ending up at the largest, south-easternmost island. ¡°This be Ithaenc, where the Cathedral to Lady Adja rises, an¡¯ where our greatest strength now lies. We hold lands and farms through all the islands, an¡¯ we¡¯ve driven off all but some o¡¯ the moarsmen who cling to the ancient temples they guard, isolating over the... Summon points as we¡¯ve seen the other races doing, making sure they don¡¯t threaten us, but marking them all, in case of catastrophe.¡± I imagined that all those friendly Summons dissipating, and then being re-Summoned as hostile creatures could have been a disaster, so that sounded like a wise policy... AF Chapter 76 – A Journey in Which Direction ¡°How bad is the journey there? To this Mayoi place?¡± Kris pointed at the former settlement closest to the islands, located along another bay due south of us. The Mick¡¯s dark eyes shifted. ¡°Bad,¡± he stated simply. ¡°Lugians guarding the roads and valleys, all of them hostile. Mayoi is held by, like me uncle, Ben-Ten¡¯s Moon Legion, and so no intruders can travel along the shores. With the mad shadows of Tou-Tou there in the hills, they can¡¯t travel through there, either, although it¡¯s a dance making our way through, if we dare.¡± ¡°Ben-Ten?¡± Kris asked, noting the catch in his voice at the name. He mutely turned and pointed to the verdigris-bound Statue in the center of the town, depicting a simply clad swordsman in Sho garb, bearing one of their iconic curved blades. ¡°The most famous swordsman of Dereth, an almost painfully good man. Joji adherent, philosopher, wanderer, an¡¯ absolutely loathed by the Hea, who he¡¯s killed a damn lot of. They spent a lot of blood before finally managing to kill the old man... an¡¯ then he came right back from his own grave, gathered up the other folk who died, marched to Mayoi, an¡¯ has held it against them ever since.¡± ¡°Sanctimonious hard-ass is what he is,¡± MacNaill muttered, but it had no force to it. ¡°An¡¯ that is the truth,¡± the Mick agreed without batting an eye. ¡°Although... he¡¯s a mite more bloody-handed after becoming dead, as the reds and the grays have found out,¡± he added carefully. ¡°There¡¯s quite the heady philosopher about him, an¡¯ he¡¯s trying to reckon how the teachings of Joji work with being one of the undead, it¡¯s said.¡± He still had a lot of cautious respect in his voice, even admiration. ¡°This contested area? This... Nanto? Lin? What kind of ground?¡± Kris went on. ¡°Rolling hills and forests between the peaks. Lugians in all the proper hills and mountains, but some forests that weren¡¯t all that deadly, save for wandering nooga tribes and stalking banders, but they didn¡¯t much bother humans that didn¡¯t bother them, for the most part. Lots of random, eh, Summons, as you call ¡®em. ¡°They¡¯re all ready to be fighting, now that the humans fled. Lugians, tumeroks, banders, an¡¯ noogas fighting all the time when you stumble onto ¡®em. Occasionally some crazed shadows come wandering into the area an¡¯ kill everything they see before everything gangs up and puts ¡®em down.¡± ¡°Oh, that sounds like my kind of place,¡± the princess smiled, and the Mick shivered to see it, a flicker of eight devouring canines ready to bite and rip. ¡°But all in due time. So, we take a long detour up and around the peninsula, seeing the sights, and then come all the way back down to get close enough to this island of Kryst to make the run across.¡± I watched her and the way she moved. ¡°Ah, hell. You¡¯re going to sample these mad shadows coming out of Tou-Tou, aren¡¯t you,¡± I muttered, rolling my eyes. ¡°That had certainly arrived on the edge of my thoughts as a fine possibility of adventurous behavior,¡± she grinned without the slightest remorse, absolutely ignoring the way the Mick¡¯s eyes widened in alarm. ¡°Yer, Yer Highness! Those are not creatures to be treating lightly! Even back then they were considered some of the nastiest buggers ye could take on, an¡¯ that were with full Gear an¡¯ Buffs an¡¯ everything!¡± The Mick spluttered quickly. The Princess was supremely unconcerned. ¡°If they are infused with Shadow energy, they qualify as undead OR as Fiends. You have absolutely no idea how dangerous our lovely young magos here is against both of those. I don¡¯t mean that as a threat, MacNaill, I mean it as absolute truth. She could probably wipe out your entire garrison by herself within about ten minutes, and that includes all the surviving undead Summons you bring to a fight.¡± ¡°Aye?¡± The undead chief blinked at me, and I just inclined my head slightly, thought it over, and nodded once. ¡°Well, when ¡®tis time, I hope it t¡¯ be quick, as it were.¡± ¡°When it comes time, you will walk into it knowingly and gently, and you will finally fall to sleep into the rest you¡¯ve earned, and have no doubts on that. The screaming, writhing spirits that wail as they go to their doom is for those who¡¯ve embraced undeath in terror and fear of dying, and you, Noble Fool, are not one of those.¡± He puffed up helplessly at my words. ¡°Aye, proper Fool that I am. Death, death is something waiting for me, an end t¡¯ this cursed state I be in. Let them be terrified of it. I¡¯ll be waiting when ye bring it fer me, Magos.¡± ¡°A promise then, Noble Fool.¡± I drifted over and offered my hand, and he looked at it for a moment before taking it. ¡°We need you still, but I¡¯ll bring them up, I¡¯ll train them proper, and when the bells come, they will come for all of you.¡± He rattled a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯ll hold ye to it, lass.¡± He gave me a firm shake, I inclined my head, and we were done. ------ ¡°What are ye doing here, lass?¡± the Mick asked after taking a short nap, nabbing one of the floating Disks nearby, convenient things that they were, to sit on. He was staring at the Infusing Pattern I had Kris¡¯ Necklace on, a heap of Air Gold, eh, pyreal, sitting in the center of it and Burning away to fuel the magic. ¡°There are other methods to making magic, which aren¡¯t reliant on mana capacitors and recharging. Those are mere extras to the more passive, yet powerful effects. They have their own limitations, it¡¯s true, but they are deadly enough in your own way. ¡°They are more akin to the Biting Strike and Crushing Blow you¡¯ve on your Blade there, rather than subbing for the Blood Drinker and other basic Enhancements which are paid for out of capacitors, and which seem to have led to disaster. I note you¡¯ve no such magic inherent on your Blade.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. His eyes dropped at haunted memories. ¡°Those Weapons were all destroyed during the Fall, an¡¯ many o¡¯ them took their owners with them. Cottages and Villas were torn apart by Weapons hung on the walls or in storage there, shops shredded, smiths slain. That which were our most prized belongings became our doom...¡± He shuddered as he trailed off. I nodded once. ¡°Yet the lack of powerful Weapons means increased difficulty in harming the enemy, and such Weapons have always been a strength of our people. We have to bring them back, but in a different way. ¡°I can see you¡¯ve familiarity with both Creature and Item Magic, but it¡¯s been hampered by the change in magic. It¡¯s a fine time to be changing how you treat both magic and your Weapon.¡± ¡°Aye? I could use a good dollop of the magic I once used so easily an¡¯ widely.¡± He was definitely interested in reclaiming something of the edge he¡¯d given up. ¡°What needs I do?¡± ¡°Well, the first thing is that you must Name your Weapon, Bind it to you, and with it, claim your victories and earn Glory together. From there, we¡¯re going to re-train you to a new paradigm of Item and Creature magic that vastly condenses the two.¡± I held up two fingers. ¡°All the spells of the Creature Magic you knew can basically be condensed down into two spells that scale by level, Master McMikal.¡± His eyes almost popped. ¡°Ye¡¯re pulling me leg!¡± he gasped. I slowly shook my head. ¡°Wieldskill and Animal Affinity. Boost Skill of choice and boost Stat of choice, respectively.¡± He just stared at me, then threw up his hands extravagantly. ¡°Do ye know how many brain cells I wasted learning every single damn reagent for all them spells?!¡± he cried out in frustration. I just pointed at my own head. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And this? How does this work?¡± He pointed at the Infusing Pattern. ¡°Well, there¡¯s not going to be any random Conjured stuff made out of nowhere by the ley line magic here, but you can make your own magic items to your own standards. You do it by sacrificing things carrying natural magic to them and Infusing them to life over time. I¡¯m making this Necklace for the princess. Protection against Cold, Acid, and Force magic. It¡¯s going to take a few months to scale up higher, but it¡¯s exactly what she wants and needs.¡± ¡°Make yer own custom magic, instead of waiting fer random things to drop that ye have to mix and match t¡¯ effect?¡± His eyes lit up dreamily at the thought. ¡°Gods, lass, the sheer amount of dross that we went through trying to sift the gilt from the gold!¡± ¡°Well, the key thing to remember is the time needed,¡± I warned him. ¡°Something that drops out of nowhere off a dead thing as a reward for whatever force of magic is active here is instant gratification. True magic takes time and lasts nigh forever once made, and can only be made just so quickly. If you were used to wearing a Midwinter Tree worth of bling, this will do that, eventually, but it will take you a lot of time.¡± He frowned and thought about that, looking away as he considered things. ¡°The magic here, it were, maybe still is, more powerful than it were at home, aye?¡± ¡°Oh, it definitely still is,¡± I assured him quietly. ¡°The amount of energy to run the Shorewards and power all those Summon points? You couldn¡¯t get enough power to feed such thing with a city¡¯s-worth of Gold-tier mages, McMikal.¡± ¡°Aye, ye¡¯d know more of that. I had precious little truck with magic back home, I were barely cutting a beard when I came here. Magic were something for the big cities an¡¯ the Healers they sent out from there, not for a clansman from the foothills of Urgathgun.¡± ¡°Northwest Aluvia?¡± I asked after a moment¡¯s thought. ¡°I¡¯m sure the princess knows the area, considering you¡¯re cousins. Got a bit of a reputation for banditry and cattle-raiding, as I recall, but that¡¯s hearsay.¡± ¡°Oh, ¡®tis a finely-deserved reputation,¡± he assured me without a lick of shame. ¡°Long an¡¯ honorable tradition of waylaying folk an¡¯ filching some hoofers to pad the larder out there, most enthusiastically! Lots of mouths to feed, an¡¯ not enough good soil to feed them all, so we went a-taking what was needed.¡± ¡°No mining or stone-working endeavors?¡± I had to ask him, undeterred by his family larceny. My knowledge of Aluvia was limited by al-Shamira¡¯s disinterest in the place. ¡°We¡¯d none o¡¯ the craft nor magic to pursue such things, an¡¯ precious few veins of ore to encourage developing either, as I recall of things.¡± He shrugged without rancor. It was the way of the world. ¡°So, it was either leave and go to the lowlands, or raid the lowlands. Understood. There¡¯s always better ways, but I remember there being a lot of clan rivalry over such things among your people, so it was difficult, no doubt.¡± ¡°Aye, another way to keep the numbers down was t¡¯ kill one another, with many a blood feud to keep things spirited an¡¯ encourage the spilling of guts down the mountainsides.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t imagine why you¡¯d like to leave all that behind to spill guts down other mountainsides, but at least they aren¡¯t distant kin, aye?¡± He grinned very whitely in his ruddy face with the thick black beard. ¡°Ye¡¯ve completely the right of it! And more, even, when we kin kill horrid monsters what need the killing, an¡¯ earn a fine living an¡¯ not even die! I had so much practice for me sword over the years, an¡¯ found me a fine woman an¡¯ more...¡± His voice trailed off as his eyes dimmed in reflected pain. ¡°Well, there¡¯ll be young ones t¡¯ teach not t¡¯ make war on their fellows an¡¯ allies, I reckon, an¡¯ not bringing the ills of the old world here t¡¯ find a new an¡¯ bloody home, as so many did.¡± He heaved a dark sigh and shrugged it off. ¡°Ye know of the limits on Gold back home. But here, we went to Pyreal, and Platinum, and even Incantor tier, using what were called Mana Scarabs... afore almost all of those we had blew apart during the Fall,¡± he added on afterthought. ¡°There were also a large number of spells similar to, but outside the various Schools, which were dubbed Cantrips.¡± I held up a hand to him. ¡°Cantrips are, in the magos philosophy, minor spells that can be Cast endlessly, without spending Mana. I think you are referring to spells with slightly different principles, that stack on top of the primary four Schools?¡± ¡°Aye, like minor Strength spells, that stacked on top of the Strength spells of Creature magic,¡± he nodded after a moment of thought. ¡°There were varied levels of those spells, too, although ye could only find them in items, not Cast them yerself... although there were ways to Imbue the minor forms of them, which dinnae seem to work now, much like the easy and artful Rending and Cleaving magicks they discovered here, a step beyond what the smiths knew in Ispar.¡± AF Chapter 77 – Some of the Arcane Lore of Dereth I whistled, and Princess Kristie poked her head over from where she was Investing in silence on the other side of the Wagon. ¡°Smithing stuff. Drag your Hag¡¯s arse over here, Your Highness!¡± ¡°Ye smith, Highness?¡± the Mick asked, startled as Kris hauled her own Floating Forge over, an Investing Pattern on it with her Bracers in the center, surrounded by a small mound of Burning pyreal coins. ¡°Likely as well as almost anyone you¡¯ve ever met,¡± Kris confirmed. ¡°Yerself?¡± ¡°No, but I had a friend who was good with armor an¡¯ weapons. Died with so many others in the Fall.¡± He winced again. ¡°Most of our crafters had good collections of Armor an¡¯ Weapons to be working on, or to Salvage down for use on other gear. We¡¯ve had t¡¯ rediscover a lot of things we used t¡¯ know...¡± ¡°Rending and Cleaving?¡± I prompted him. ¡°Ah, that! Yes, they discovered a way t¡¯ bind the properties o¡¯ the Elemental Vulnerability spells o¡¯ Life Magic inta Weapons, so that they could strike without needing t¡¯ actually Cast the spell onto an enemy. It operated on the skill of the Wielder, an¡¯ got as powerful as a Pyreal-tier spell. It be one of the most powerful effects we cannae seem t¡¯ replicate anymore.¡± He sighed regretfully. ¡°So, your Sword would have a Blade and Piercing Vulnerability built right into it?¡± I asked archly. ¡°Only one or t¡¯other. A Weapon could normally sustain only one normal Imbue,¡± he corrected me quickly. ¡°¡¯twere totally passive effects, too, they were. There were Weapons that were Imbued and had no other magic that survived the Fall, although they be not as strong as they once were.¡± ¡°Cleaving Weapons are almost legends back home on Ispar, the weapons of kings. Whole Families would cherish just one of such Weapons as treasures of the House. Mom and Dad acquired quite a few of them.¡± Kris¡¯ winsome smile was artful in how it summed up the extermination of bloodlines and looting of heritage treasures. ¡°The effect sounds similar.¡± ¡°Aye, so I was told,¡± the Mick ventured cautiously, understanding just what it meant to have an armory of such things back on Ispar. ¡°The Cleaving effect from Ispar is unchanging, based on the skill of the smith who made it, an¡¯ supposedly harder t¡¯ make an¡¯ sustain. A Rending Weapon grows with the wielder in its power, an¡¯ so draws on their own strength.¡± ¡°And could get to Pyreal in power? Interesting. What of the basic Biting Strike and Crushing Blow Enhancements?¡± Krys asked archly. ¡°I believe they topped out at +5 and triple effect back home.¡± ¡°The smiths said the effect of the old Runes went up at Pyreal grade to +10 an¡¯ potentially quadruple damage, but it were extremely difficult t¡¯ carve the Runes that strong. I were not sure quite what they meant with the math an¡¯ all, but the new Critical Strike an¡¯ Crippling Blow Imbues o¡¯ Empyrean origin were far stronger than the old Runes. Weapons could only fit one as an Imbue, but like the Renders, they were based on the skill of the user. They said the chance for a crit could rise as high as fifty percent, or the impact of a crit rise to six times the normal power!¡± ¡°And you tried both, and they both worked about that well?¡± Kris pressed him calmly. ¡°Aye. Me Sword here... which I should Name, aye... has the old set, an¡¯ done well they are, no?¡± He looked at Kris, who nodded once. ¡°Skill similar to the best of those I¡¯ve seen at home, yes.¡± ¡°Aye, the Crit Strike ones did indeed try t¡¯ bite deeper with ¡®most every swing, as if hungering for blood. When the magic whelmed on the Crushing Blow, ¡®twere like a massive hammer as a blade bit in, stronger hits than any other magic. If there were a mage about to Vuln for us, well, they were finer than the Elemental Renders, to be sure. But alone, the Renders were better t¡¯ wield.¡± If a Crit did double damage, and the Render effect topped out at Pyreal, that was probably, what, 250% damage, with EVERY blow? It wasn¡¯t even a contest. But if a mage was Vulning, the Render wouldn¡¯t stack, but the Critical Strike or other imbues would... ¡°Elemental Renders? There were non-Elemental Renders?¡± Kris picked up on promptly. ¡°Oh, aye, me apologies. The third of the Basic Imbues was Armor Rending, which worked much like the Armor Cleaving o¡¯ back home, but stronger, an¡¯ again, were supported by the skill of the wielder, not the smith who made them.¡± I looked at Kris, who seemed thoughtful. ¡°The Cleaving Rune works on the mystic principle of cutting through damage absorption, which Armor is presumed to have. It topped out at about forty percent reduction in damage absorption from armor. There¡¯s several Weapons in mom¡¯s collection with the Rune, but only one at the highest degree of power,¡± she explained. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. There might have been a half dozen Armor Cleavers in all of Gharu¡¯n!, Mira recalled, impressed. The Emperor and Empress¡¯ armory rivaled that of an entire country, then! ¡°So, there were discovered a set of Basic Imbues beyond the two Runes we knew of, and Elemental Imbues in and above them,¡± Kris summarized, interested. ¡°But the effects of such discoveries seem to have been weakened with the change in magic after the Fall? Is it because there is less magic, or because the Runes aren¡¯t in harmony with prevailing principles of magic any more?¡± The Mick hesitated a moment, thinking over his answer. ¡°The impression were that they ¡®don¡¯t work no more¡¯, as I took it. They said nothing about the power of magic, so I would guess the latter reason?¡± He spread his hands helplessly, his loss of his left ring finger standing out with the gesture. ¡°I¡¯ll take a look at what they have when I get there. Do your enemies still have that kind of magic?¡± Kris asked. ¡°Not that we can tell,¡± he confirmed. ¡°If they do have something, they are using the Cleaving effects, not Renders, an¡¯ they seem less powerful. They aren¡¯t throwing around magic quite as powerful as they used to, either, which were a blessing. There were some nasty Curses they could put out, especially the undead, what with that knowledge of the Ancients and all.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like having thousands of years of study and lore to draw on is useful, or something,¡± I noted diplomatically, and Kris just grinned. That was basically what the entire Power of Ten system was, giving us a magical foundation to start our own studies and society on, without having to go through the trials, tribulations, and disasters of not knowing magic ourselves. We¡¯d built upon it all rapidly, however, and integrating useful parts and aspects of other systems into it was all part of the process. ¡°They did a lot of adding those, uh, alternate spell paths into the higher grade o¡¯ Weapons, too. That included alternate Item magic spells, as well as Creature spells, an¡¯ occasionally even protective effects from Life magic,¡± the Mick continued. ¡°The interplay o¡¯ them were very complex, an¡¯ sometimes hard to understand, but they were very useful, especially on the best stuff, helping push what we could do t¡¯ ever greater heights.¡± ¡°And now you¡¯ve lost all them, too.¡± Kris was unsympathetic as the Mick flushed and nodded confirmation of that. ¡°It sounds like this was creating a very unstable magical ecosystem just waiting for a catastrophe to come along and reset things.¡± ¡°Null magic effects. What about those?¡± I interrupted keenly. ¡°Oh, chorozite effects, an¡¯ Hollows? Those were annoying, but hampered by, well, the fact ye couldn¡¯t use magic on them. The Gotrok lugian clans love them, hating magic as they do, but even their hollow rocks aren¡¯t all that dangerous, in the end. The dangerous ones are the creatures who integrate them with something like the virindi method, as the mimes did with their scarecrow-like Minions, an¡¯ the olthoi managed to evolve some species with chorozite in their pincers.¡± He made familiar arcing motions with pointed hands over his head, and we both nodded. ¡°There¡¯s olthoi out there who seem to have taken a lesson from the Minions that were unwelcome for us ta learn. An¡¯, o¡¯ course, you had Bonecrusher, Hell pox his balls, who took it all the way t¡¯ the slaughter o¡¯ Cragstone, damn the virindi.¡± ¡°They¡¯ve popped up bound to the Summons system, so they¡¯re more anti-magic than hollow magic,¡± Kris informed him helpfully, which didn¡¯t help at all, as the Mick just shrugged. ¡°It means the stuff here is being forcibly adapted and evolved. What, if any, other benefits did being here grant people?¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s see.¡± He held up a finger. ¡°We healed fast. Incredibly fast. I could go from near-dead an¡¯ dripping scarlet to hale an¡¯ hearty in under a couple of minutes just by laying down, or from so exhausted I couldnae stand t¡¯ bein¡¯ ready t¡¯ go full an¡¯ proper twice as fast as that! And we sucked in mana all the time as if we were standing on mana fountains or something back home, according to the mages who came through.¡± ¡°Ever go-go-go pawns are easy to train if they never run out of energy,¡± Kris nodded, and he gazed at her as his thoughts went down another unwelcome track. ¡°What more?¡± ¡°We could run.¡± He looked away and sighed. ¡°It¡¯s one o¡¯ the things I miss the most. I could outrun a horse, we didn¡¯t need to be riding any such thing here, an¡¯ we never got tired when running. I once ran the entire distance around the island, just to prove t¡¯ meself that I could do it, laughing an¡¯ dodging anything that came after me. Precious few things could keep up with the fastest of us, an¡¯ even they¡¯d get tired of chasing after us if we kept going. ¡°Nowtimes, the real speed only seems to come if we stand on one o¡¯ the Roads. Off in the grass or something, we¡¯re on our own. ¡°Related to that, we could jump. I could bounce five times me height into the air, easy. Soar clear over a small house, easy as you please. Thirty, forty paces along the ground, if I was going at full speed, no problem.¡± ¡°Were you ¡®light¡¯, or was something just propelling you along?¡± Kris asked pointedly, and he furrowed his brow at the question. ¡°That¡¯s... a strange way to put it. I would say... I were being pushed. Aye, there was something magical to it, as it certainly weren¡¯t inside me. I can barely manage me own height, now.¡± ¡°Oh, this should be similar to Ispar then, stronger muscles and more power with magic going through them,¡± I nodded. ¡°Give us a hop, if you would.¡± He deftly bounced to his feet, crouched down, seemed to tense for a minute, and hopped into the air. It was definitely muscle-based now, although there was a telekinetic side to it. His heels hit seven feet in the air as he bounced, but he crashed down heavily, exactly as if he¡¯d fallen from seven feet, although it didn¡¯t seem to matter to him. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s standard high-level boosted Isparian athleticism,¡± agreed Kris, who got to her feet. ¡°This is what true lightfoot looks like, Master McMikal,¡± she said, and she bounced. His head snapped back as she hit fifteen feet in the air with scarcely no leg flexing at all, spinning into a lazy double layout before falling back to the ground... and hitting with barely a sound, not much more than taking a hard step. He gaped at her for a moment before admitting, ¡°Ye¡¯ve no idea how much I want to learn that from ye,¡± he gasped longingly. ¡°And I can outrun a horse,¡± she admitted, waving him back to his chair as she seated herself regally. He was far more courteous in how he sat down now. ¡°Anything else?¡± He tilted his head again, thinking back over his career. ¡°Aye. Augmentation, the Temples, and the Luminance,¡± he ticked off thoughtfully. ¡°Simplest first,¡± Kris said, and he nodded once. ¡°The Temples, then. They were... places to remake yourself, if ye wanted.¡± We both lifted eyebrows at him. ¡°They could... change what ye were, what ye knew. Given time enough, they could have changed me from a swordsman and scout inta a specialized mage, sure as you please. They changed me physique, made me stronger than nature had, up t¡¯ the limits of how strong a human could be. They could swap Stats around slowly, turning brawn to brains an¡¯ back again, Coordination with Endurance, an¡¯ the like. Knew plenty of folk who gave up fighting almost entirely, lost their strength and deftness of hand to build up their smarts to levels equal to those born geniuses, an¡¯ were just as effective with magic an¡¯ Casting as those who¡¯d trained in them since they were kids.¡± AF Chapter 78 – Wow, Aren’t the Makers of this System a little Cheaty? Princess Kristie and I shared a look. ¡°So, they could change their slave soldier force to optimize in any particular fight?¡± I theorized, as the Mick watched the two of us. ¡°This foe you can only face with magic, turn your elites into spec Casters? This foe, you have to come to arms with, back to primary Weapon-wielders?¡± ¡°That sounds about right for such things,¡± Kris nodded slowly. ¡°The only other reason I could think of doing it would be for novelty reasons. Spells allowing retraining do exist, right?¡± ¡°They¡¯re supposedly of the Sixth Valence, and the stronger ones range up to Nine. You¡¯re basically respinning reality around yourself, moving an alternate past into the present.¡± ¡°An incredibly powerful set of tools,¡± Kris judged, shaking her head. ¡°All you need is slaves with the raw potential and Levels, and you could convert those Levels to anything you needed, within time and reason.¡± ¡°What kind of limitations?¡± I asked the Mick directly, who was clearly considering everything we were saying in an uncomfortable light. ¡°Well, one shift a week up an¡¯ down, of each Stats and skills, later on. Ye could so move ¡®ten points¡¯ of Stats from one Stat t¡¯ another, limited by what humans were capable of,¡± he explained for us. ¡°Skills had the level o¡¯ specialized, trained, or not trained, an¡¯ ye could shift those all one category, move all the practice you had in it t¡¯ some other skill, new or not, or simply wipe one away an¡¯ open up a new one. Doing a full shift from warrior to mage could take a good half-year, if ye were of a mind to do it, because of the Stats, but you could shift the core skills within a month or two, and still be at least moderately useful while you continued the shifting over time.¡± ¡°And there was a primary shift among the people to Casting?¡± Kris asked calmly. ¡°Aye. The higher-end foes be harder an¡¯ harder to bring down with weapons, even the best o¡¯ them. Thicker armor, faster, more resistant t¡¯ energy an¡¯ damage, an¡¯ this were especially true if ye had no Life Mage along to reduce as many o¡¯ those as possible. ¡°War Magic, ye just grabbed a Render Wand, Orb, or Staff o¡¯ the best Element, an¡¯ pounded them down through their magic resistance. As long as ye could survive combat, an¡¯ ye had Healing magic on tap all the time, ¡®cause ye weren¡¯t a fool, ye could pound away in combat, snipe from a distance, heal, Buff up with the most powerful of spells, an¡¯ so forth and so on.¡± He glanced back and forth between us cautiously. ¡°Princess Kristie is a Null, who have no ¡®magic¡¯, as we know such things,¡± I informed him. ¡°However, her defenses against magic are a tier above what we define as magical resistance, even maxed-out magical resistance, as I¡¯m sure you possess.¡± He nodded slowly. ¡°Not having access t¡¯ the Temples is... harsh on the younger generation. With the Temples, everyone was a genius if they needed t¡¯ be, or a paragon of athleticism, not limited by how they were born and built.¡± ¡°Catering to massive specialization and power builds, with the ability to undo them and go into a different direction if desired,¡± I noted to Kris, who nodded slowly. ¡°If you¡¯re raising a fighting population, that is unbelievably powerful!¡± ¡°I imagine the general population of residents here could have absolutely trounced any similar force from back home, just based on optimizing Stats,¡± Kris agreed with a frown. ¡°I¡¯ll have to agree with ye there. There were a certain sameness to it, all knowing we were as fast an¡¯ strong as one another... but also knowing we were as fast or strong as anything human could be, an¡¯ weren¡¯t nobody better just because they were bigger or born gifted. If me Clan had this kind of power, we¡¯d¡¯ve ruled Aluvia, an¡¯ that be no lie,¡± the Mick agreed wistfully. ¡°It were kind of... equalizing? The only difference atween us were the Levels, an¡¯ ye had to earn those. Somewhat,¡± he coughed belatedly. I couldn¡¯t disagree with him. ¡°All of it contingent on feeding them Levels and having the Stats and skills to reallocate,¡± I reminded him, ¡°and this place was designed to do just that. Just what kind of magical empire had the power to pull off making a place like this? It¡¯s just unreal...¡± I did lift an eyebrow at him. ¡°Didn¡¯t have to earn Levels?¡± The Mick coughed. ¡°Clever kids, working the Allegiance Oath benefits. Swear a fighter t¡¯ a crafter or tinkerer, an¡¯ use the pass-up Karma from Loyalty an¡¯ Leadership t¡¯ Level the latter, who keeps the fighters supplied with potions an¡¯ kits, stores their goodies, modifies their equipment, an¡¯ the like. Makes life easier on both of ¡®em. Really annoyed the old-timers who picked up a trade skill t¡¯ do things in the downtime.¡± He kind of shrugged somewhat. ¡°Making combat and non-combat paths further divide into optimized roles. It could even be a ¡®retirement¡¯ for a warrior, using these Temples to convert all that combat experience into crafting experience, then.¡± Kris just shook her head as I whistled softly. ¡°Truly working the system. Augments, and Luminance?¡± ¡°Augments. They were a magic discovered by the Bellenesse, mayhaps something passed down from the progenitor o¡¯ their bloodline. Once knowledge it existed spread, it were eventually duplicated,¡± the Mick related calmly. ¡°It were a method of converting Karma into, eh, other forms o¡¯ tangible benefits directly. Instead of applying the Karma t¡¯ Stats or Skills, as be the norm, with Augmentation Gems ye could sacrifice a heap of Karma to gain a permanent additional ability, of which there were many. Additional permanent raises to Stats, past the normal cap-¡° This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Kris held up a finger, sufficient to cut him off instantly. ¡°You had a cap? Note that.¡± He nodded slowly. ¡°Aye. We could learn t¡¯ carry massive amounts of weight, expand the dimensional space o¡¯ our packs, drop none o¡¯ our gear on dying, finetune our magical an¡¯ combat ability, earn Karma faster, and so forth and¡¯ so on. There were a bunch of them. I can list them out, given a bit o¡¯ time.¡± ¡°Please do,¡± Kris nodded, a polite command. ¡°Luminance, now. That were a power come from, eh, Beyond. Something or somethings venerated by the Empyreans an¡¯ other ancient races, things that stood against the forces that empowered the Shadows an¡¯ spread word of the method o¡¯ becoming one of the undead, or that empowered Grael an¡¯ his mukkir servants.¡± The Mick made a face. ¡°Karma, ye know how ye can gain it fighting most anything, but doing grand quests or great victories, ye get the awesome Glory Award?¡± We both nodded, aware of the mechanic. Reality acknowledging a powerful achievement, worthy or otherwise. ¡°Well, once ye were keyed an¡¯ attuned to the Luminance by one o¡¯ the mystics, ye earned more of its favor by fighting creatures it were opposed to, or completing missions the mystics or other worthies sent ye on. ¡°It were slower than earning Karma, but the benefits were powerful. Increased damage in combat, bonuses to all skills, resistance to damage... not so varied as the Augments, but much more directly applicable t¡¯ combat. Fighting the foes they sent ye against was also a worthy thing, although more often than not, they¡¯d just return again... bound to the System, as ye said.¡± ¡°A good way to experience combat in specific scenarios against powerful enemies,¡± Kris said narrowly. ¡°The Light is as often or moreso a euphemism used by Law than it is by Good, an¡¯ so naturally their enemies are ¡®the Dark side¡¯, which connotates bad in and of itself to most cultures. Not that much I¡¯ve seen of such entities here shows them to be called much else,¡± she admitted. The Mick shifted uneasily. ¡°Some o¡¯ the things the Luminance wanted were definitely hardcore an¡¯ red-handed, aye, but they also had an air of, aye, peace an¡¯ wisdom on a few of the mystics. Lady Adja was a gentle soul, an¡¯ I¡¯ll stand by that to me grave.¡± ¡°Was?¡± I prodded calmly. ¡°She returned as a spirit at the Cathedral of Ithaenc, where she raised her Order in the ancient days before us. When the Fall came, she were... sent away. The living mystics of the ancients, well,¡± he coughed and looked away, ¡°they died with the other Ancients who were not undead. The undead sometimes crow about it, but they are dead things, can have no children, an¡¯ are just walking around waiting until they be tired of walking. Their people are dead an¡¯ gone now, at least from this island, an¡¯ there¡¯ll be no more of them, nor will they raise anything up to remember an¡¯ glorify what came afore them.¡± He spit emphatically off to the side. ¡°If the white fire ye brought can kill them forever, Highness, than I¡¯ll be sending off a right lot of them off to it, I promise ye.¡± ¡°Stat Caps,¡± Kris prodded him. ¡°Oh, aye. We hit the limits of what Isparians can achieve through the magic we know.¡± Kris inclined her head, prompting him to continue. ¡°Through the basic system, Stats can be raised 190 points over their foundation. Skills can be raised 208 points, and if ye specialize in something, 226 points instead. The effective highest Level we could gain were 275.¡± He proudly recited it all from memory. ¡°Two hundred and seventy-five,¡± Kris repeated, her violet eyes narrowed. ¡°And tell me... this Asheron, or the powerful Ancients. Were they restricted to 275?¡± The Mick¡¯s mouth opened, then closed as he considered his reply carefully. ¡°Asheron were over 700. We often spoke about how we might gain such a Level...¡± Kris looked at me, and I looked back at her. ¡°They were using a different System,¡± I said softly, and she nodded agreement. ¡°One perhaps reserved for nobles, or royals, or possessors of some rare or special magic or bloodline... or Pacts with greater powers.¡± ¡°Some of the nobler undead, and the virindi, easily exceed what we could attain,¡± the Mick went on slowly. ¡°Also, the common Empyreans used the same system o¡¯ magic that we did, precious little difference between it, an¡¯ didn¡¯t show any of the special magic that the great Ancients displayed...¡± ¡°To command powerful magical armies, you need to be a powerful magical being yourself, or your soldiers become your masters,¡± Kris explained for him. ¡°Also, if you¡¯re going to create and devise a system of magic like this, you naturally would have to have access to a system of magic already its equal, or better. I¡¯m guessing better, with a much, much higher ¡®cap¡¯. It¡¯s why these Augments allow you to exceed the System¡¯s limits: there is no limit, there¡¯s only what the System you access can teach you up to.¡± ¡°The Eternal limit,¡± I breathed out, getting the attention of both of them. ¡°The default System isn¡¯t strong enough to breach the Eternal Limit. You still aged under the System, but slower, and I presume that salt in your beard came afterwards?¡± He flushed a bit in embarrassment as I pointed it out. ¡°Aye, I be nearing sixty years of age, but the years didn¡¯t start piling up until after the Fall. I¡¯m still far sprier than I remember me Pa, but aye, I can feel the difference.¡± ¡°So, the powerful have knowledge of the same System or a better one, only they are able to break the Eternal Limit with it, and the sky is the limit?¡± Kris asked me. ¡°I believe your Curseline Progenitor confirmed the Eternal Ceiling is there, that it can be broken, and that gods all exist, all at the same time, right?¡± Kris nodded, the Mick¡¯s eyes a little wide as he heard all that. ¡°Aye, the Eternal Ceiling is not a joke... but once you¡¯re in there, the only cap is breaking the bounds of finity and mortality entirely. You can just keep on going if you want to.¡± ¡°That... doesn¡¯t sound all too much different from what the Ancients managed to do,¡± the Mick agreed when we both looked at him. ¡°The Eternal Ceiling. That¡¯s a fine turn o¡¯ a phrase. How did ye learn of such a thing?¡± ¡°We have knowledge of a third System, as it were.¡± He blinked in shock at Kris¡¯ words. ¡°The Isparian System, as you know it, was likely introduced to our peoples in the very distant past, given that we know the ancient Empyrean empires visited Ispar in the old days, and we¡¯ve used it ever since. Our problem has always been the accumulation of Levels, as we aren¡¯t a world with endless, ceaseless conflict and the slaughter of mighty and terrible beings, which drive those kind of Levels the best. ¡°If you think about it, the great heroes of legends and tales always had two things in common: they worked miracles in magic, or they worked miracles in war, and they did it more than once.¡± AF Chapter 79 – Fighting the System The Mick¡¯s eyes flickered as he recalled tales of the past, and how, yes indeed, the mighty always were surrounded by tales of that. Even the great crafters he knew of had names interwoven with this or that grand tale of war and battle... And the legends of home likely never rose above Level 150 here, which was almost a beginner at one point in time! ¡°This island is completely unnatural. Normally you get next to no Karma for defeating Summons, for instance,¡± Princess Kristie Rantha went on helpfully, and the Mick blinked in shock. ¡°Yes. They are too limiting, they aren¡¯t ¡®real¡¯, and they are bound to time and place, with limited tactics and no free will. The amount of Karma you can harness from them is a fraction of that from real creatures, and it goes down to nothing if you fight them repeatedly. ¡°That doesn¡¯t seem to be the case here. It sounds like you could just rampage across the landscape, killing all the Summons repeatedly while the real creatures stayed out of your way, or perhaps just stay put near a particularly advantageous set of spawn points, and work them until you knew the creatures cold and could put them down easily, yet still gained full Karma for doing so?¡± ¡°And loot drops,¡± I reminded Kris. ¡°I imagine the creatures even had different tiers of loot tied to them, encouraging you to fight tougher and stronger foes, instead of harvesting weaker ones.¡± ¡°Aye, all that were also true,¡± the Mick said, picturing the past, and visibly repressing a shudder now. ¡°So easy to string along by the nose, we were?¡± he managed to ask. ¡°It¡¯s just motivation, and if nobody comes down from on high to force you to obey orders you don¡¯t want to obey, it becomes a sort of fun and a job, especially since you ¡®couldn¡¯t die¡¯.¡± I made the air quotes for emphasis. ¡°The real kicker is if there were some sort of whimsical nonsense that happened. That lets you know that something is watching and is vastly entertained by your shenanigans.¡± The look on his face was poleaxed. Princess Kristie lowered her eyes slowly and said, ¡°You have GOT to be kidding me...¡± ¡°There were... certain events that would happen, at certain times of year, an¡¯ there were things on the island that made no real sense at all, but were just here...¡± he got out, his thoughts racing at what that all might mean. ¡°Whims of the gods suddenly become the whims of things which are not gods,¡± I groaned, rubbing my temples. ¡°Do... you have an example?¡± ¡°Aye. The most dangerous beast on the island is a little white rabbit about so long.¡± He held out his hands less than a shoulder¡¯s-width apart. ¡°It can rip an experienced warrior in two with one bite, an¡¯ yer magic won¡¯t protect you. It took a lot of planning an¡¯ multiple blades to kill it... and whoever killed it got a free trip to the... Deathstone, too.¡± ¡°A white rabbit,¡± Kris repeated calmly, her expression completely neutral. ¡°And others?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a Tremendous Monuga in a red an¡¯ black checker-pattern shirt with a huge double axe up in the northlands, with a blue-furred auroch the size o¡¯ a hill helping him chop down the giant trees there. Except, no matter how many times he chops them down, the trunks vanish from where they are stacked, the trees return, an¡¯ he just keeps at it.¡± We both just looked at him, thoughts running through our heads. ¡°Really?¡± Kris said in a droll voice. ¡°Aye. And then there¡¯s the Thunder Chicken, and the Hellcow...¡± A headache was starting again. ¡°There¡¯s a village of Snowmen over in this area, called Frosthaven, snows year-round there. Always being threatened by an abominable two-headed Snowman made by an intelligent and nasty magma golem, an¡¯ we have to rescue them.¡± Kris took a long and deep breath. ¡°Near the village there were a Portal to the lair of a snake-man calling itself Santa Sclavus, who delivers presents to the children on Midwinter. Except it always gets captured an¡¯ imprisoned by an imposter, an¡¯ we have t¡¯ go rescue it t¡¯ save the Midwinter holidays. Only during the month of Midwinter, mind ye. ¡°Kids really did get presents from it, too.¡± Kris looked at me, I looked back at her. ¡°I¡¯d say those Ancients had contact with more cultures than we thought,¡± Kris murmured. ¡°Or whoever was watching them rove the dimensions.¡± ¡°You made note of doing quests, and killing this Grael multiple times,¡± I spoke up. ¡°Did the reasons ever change? The people and beings involved?¡± He shook his head emphatically. ¡°The very, very first time? Those involved seemed t¡¯ almost come out of nowhere, an¡¯ the matter was clearly alive, important, an¡¯ aye, Grael had to be stopped afore things spiraled out of control an¡¯ things happened. So, we went an¡¯ did it.¡± His eyes shifted. ¡°After that, though... well, sometimes, those people seem to have come out of nowhere, an¡¯ if you asked around, people remembered them, but they didn¡¯t know anything about them. Like you¡¯d worked next to someone for years, knew their name an¡¯ face, but didn¡¯t know anything about them. ¡°Once we succeeded at the very first quest... those people were like, well, yer Summons. Like the whole of their life was now part of the process o¡¯ keeping what we¡¯d defeated bound, Sealed, an¡¯ otherwise defeated. There to help our juniors enjoy the great an¡¯ grand quest we¡¯d undertaken in the future, to see what it was like, an¡¯ enjoy some of the rewards.¡± He shifted uneasily at the implications. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. What if he became part of that imprisoning process, a soulless shell only able to spout the same words and phrases forever? ¡°Some of those rewards were very specific, and very powerful?¡± Kris asked knowingly. ¡°Oh, aye! Sometimes junk, sometimes powerful, always unique. Ye¡¯d get an imitation of Grael¡¯s Black Spear for yer home, an¡¯ could use its power, an¡¯ a Token that would make a Weapon lethal against the mukkir, for instance. Reason enough t¡¯ do the same quest multiple times, and there¡¯d still be rewards for doing so. Teams could get quite competitive about how long it took t¡¯ do them, even!¡± He couldn¡¯t contain his remembered enthusiasm, like a star athlete remembering their glory days. ¡°An open-world gladiatorial game of incredible size, with every species here drawn into it,¡± Kris murmured, looking up at the sky. ¡°And they even have access to Terran mythology?¡± The Mick was naturally confused. ¡°Terran?¡± he repeated blankly. ¡°Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are legends of a very distant world called Terra, far, far from Ispar and this world. The White Rabbit is another lethal legend of that world. Santa Sclavus is a corruption of Santa Claus, a pseudonym of Saint Nicholas, who travels the world on Midwinter and delivers presents to all the good little boys and girls, and coal to the bad ones, carried about on his sleigh pulled by eight, nine, flying reindeer.¡± His face showed his astonishment as I flicked up Holos of each of these legends, with the grinning giant Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, men skating on slabs of bacon atop griddles an acre in size, clearing massive forests away for lumber and farms; the White Rabbit tearing the heads off armored knights and feasting on wolves leaping to attack it; and Santa in his red and white outfit, plump and cheerful, flying through the air with Rudolph leading the herd. ¡°This third magical system we know?¡± Kris tossed her thumb at the Holos the wide-eyed Mick was staring at. ¡°It¡¯s the one used on that world.¡± ¡°So, there¡¯s Isparians there?¡± he asked, still rather stunned. Kris blinked at the question, looked at me. ¡°Humans, not Isparians,¡± I replied plainly. ¡°They¡¯d be like cousins? The main difference is that Isparians all have the innate gift to wield magical energy. Terrans do not. A whole bunch are like the princess here, Forsaken by magic, and incredibly strong against it. Their children of this generation, now, a bunch are growing up with the potential for magic, because of the magical system there now. ¡°But Isparian humans, we ALL have magical ability. So, there¡¯s a difference between us and Terrans, even if it¡¯s small.¡± The Mick nodded slowly, considering that. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of these... Forsaken,¡± he said cautiously, looking at the Princess. ¡°None like you, Highness...¡± ¡°Somewhere on Ispar, there are Hags,¡± she replied firmly, pulling back her hair and displaying the vividness of her Cursemark on the side of her face. ¡°Hags are born and powered by a great and mighty Curse that transcends dimensions, and even multiverses. ¡°Rantha Hags are a Curse upon Hagdom. We are born on a world to counter the Hags, powered by that selfsame Curse. The key part of being a Rantha is that we have no magic, or the Hag Curse would take us. It is defying the Curse and staying Null to magic that makes us Rantha Hags. We suck the power out of the Curse, ¡®til all that is left is this Cursemark and its ability to sense the Evil in those about it.¡± ¡°We¡¯re guessing that Milantea might have Hags dwelling upon it, and Nuhmudira might have been one of their acolytes, given some of the knowledge she possessed,¡± I supplied after she finished. ¡°No proof of that, but the fact a Rantha Hag was born on Ispar means there¡¯s Hags there, somewhere. I¡¯m sure the Empress will find them.¡± ¡°Mom¡¯s pretty good at hunting problems down and killing them,¡± Kris agreed with a knowing smile. ¡°Especially if there¡¯s good Karma involved.¡± ¡°She¡¯s a horrible Empress. Instead of being arm-candy to her husband, she¡¯s always out and taking care of problems, usually in the ¡®dies mysteriously from unknown causes¡¯ kind of way. Terrifies all the nobles of the Empire, who whine that she needs to stay in the Palace just so they know where she is and that their unclean laundry isn¡¯t going to come back and bite them.¡± The Mick actually grinned widely at that. ¡°That do be sounding like an utterly horrible Empress! Me mother would have liked her!¡± ¡°She does rather enjoy a lot of support from a lot of places, and the young women turn out in droves to apply to the Swallow Guard,¡± Kris admitted, and flicked a finger my way. ¡°There are far, far more women spellcasters now than there has ever been in Ispar. Mother is very, very big on empowering women, and the best channel for that is magical power. We are exceptions to the fact that women are weaker than men, we know it, and while martial power is certainly open for the quick and able, for the vast majority of women, magic is the equalizer.¡± ¡°And ye¡¯ve nae Temples at home to close the gap,¡± The Mick nodded agreement. ¡°Stronger than men, aye?¡± He eyed her with cautious interest. ¡°She can pick you up and throw you over the Wagon with one hand,¡± I supplied helpfully. ¡°Be nice to Her Highness.¡± Kris¡¯ eight canines gleamed, and The Mick bowed cautiously from his Disk seat. ¡°I¡¯d like to spar with you, when you¡¯ve the time!¡± he admitted grandly. ¡°From the way you move, I can tell you¡¯re better than I am,¡± she stated without any shame. ¡°But, I think I am going to really, really surprise you with what Profound Swordplay can do.¡± His eyes widened marginally. ¡°Ye¡¯ve a way to make bladework stronger?¡± he asked urgently, leaning forward eagerly. ¡°I held off taking the road of battle-magic, an¡¯ ¡®twere a good I thing I did, given what¡¯s happened to it, but the martial road has had great problems staying relevant an¡¯ equal with the magical arts.¡± ¡°That¡¯s actually how it should be.¡± He blinked at Kris¡¯ admission. ¡°The martial arts are the core and foundation of a civilization¡¯s advancement, rooted in the physical. The magical arts are what the martial arts are striving for, looking to put ever more of our intelligence, knowledge, and skill into play, as opposed to just raw physical power. ¡°It could be said that the physical arts of combat exist so that the magical arts of combat can be developed. Without warriors to protect them, the knowledge base and scholarly tradition required for magical development never happens.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He sat back as he considered that. ¡°Ye¡¯ve no magic whatsoever?¡± ¡°What I have is spiritual energy, which is not magic.¡± I nodded to confirm her words. ¡°I have Tats which can channel Soul energy, Essence, but that¡¯s just like wearing a magic item, only on my skin.¡± She held out her hands, and he watched with intense interest as they flowed metallic blue-black, with white stripes leading up to her middle fingers. Long and short bars of hot white ignited on her forearms like brands, too. He had obviously never seen Soul Magic before, and was plainly dying to learn more. AF Chapter 80 – Spreading the Lore ¡°Yer Highness,¡± the Mick said roughly to Princess Kristie, ¡°I¡¯d be honored to show ye what I know o¡¯ the blade, and I¡¯d be more honored to be accepted as yer student for this new magic.¡± ¡°Cousin, the last thing I am going to do is keep this knowledge to myself. Spreading our refinements of the martial way is what we do!¡± she smiled back at him, and a layer of tension left his shoulders as he grinned helplessly in return. ¡°Now, you¡¯ll likely hate the fact that the spiritual side of things probably has a great deal in common with the Joji tradition you¡¯ve spoke about...¡± ¡°Ahg! The meditation, an¡¯ the crossing legs, an¡¯ the feeling of nature an¡¯ harmony with the world?¡± He shuddered with only a little exaggeration. ¡°Eh, the physical positions are more about instilling reflexive mental and physical discipline. If you always Meditate in such a position, then your mind and body enter the state more quickly when you are in it.¡± She folded up her legs into a proper position, feet atop her thighs, as easily as if she was boneless, hand held vertically in front of her. ¡°This is not a natural position, so there is no confusion. If I am in this position, I am preparing to Meditate, and I can enter the state easily. ¡°No different than setting into a proper Stance when about to enter a fight.¡± A light went on in his dark eyes. ¡°Huh.¡± He blinked. ¡°That makes good sense. That unnatural sitting is just a Stance...¡± ¡°The Power of Ten traditions are very broad and deep, much deeper than the Isparian system. And,¡± she half-snarled, ¡°they don¡¯t have a cap. There¡¯s some things they do better, and some things they do worse. You¡¯re going to use what is useful from both sides.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like it¡¯s a system for living, as opposed to breeding a set of magic-powered gladiators for enjoyment,¡± I contributed. ¡°So, ye¡¯re saying, an¡¯ I¡¯m not disbelieving it, as there¡¯s been talk of the gods having fun with us for ages, that something out there were watching us, controlling the magic an¡¯ the system, an¡¯ all these schemes an¡¯ plots by everyone an¡¯ their mothers are just entertainment to them?¡± the Mick had to ask. ¡°And if you die, you might indeed just get sucked into what they made here and become part of it, yes,¡± I stated grimly. ¡°If you think about it, watching a group of freebooters run the same world-saving quest against a dire foe is no different than watching the same play with different actors, right? Only a lot more violence, like a good sporting match or tourney, except nobody is pulling blows.¡± He didn¡¯t want to believe it, it was on his face, but he¡¯d lived through it, experienced it all, and the explanation... it just fit. ¡°The change in magic...?¡± he asked thoughtfully, after a moment. ¡°It certainly mucked up something. How many of those quests, locked souls, and the like survived?¡± He thought that over for a minute, too, shaking his head after a short time. ¡°None that I be aware of... and there¡¯s been no new ones, of late, which were passing odd, but welcome on the face of it...¡± ¡°Almost like all those other world-threatening catastrophes were either contrived or allowed, perhaps encouraged to happen, for the viewing entertainment of those higher on the scale?¡± Kris murmured knowingly. The Mick nodded shortly. ¡°Aye, that seems... fair t¡¯ say, as well.¡± ¡°Well, you need to keep yourself busy for a few hours while Ryin and I get some work done. Once that¡¯s over, we can start on some other things for you, and prep to head off to where there¡¯s some living humans to really get the ball into motion.¡± ¡°I can get him started on the basics of a Matrix. Can you Tat him up a Mark?¡± I asked her. ¡°Do not tell me you¡¯ve been gathering up Inks for Mark-Tats.¡± I blinked, looked at the Wagon. ¡°Okay, I won¡¯t tell you, and presume that you¡¯ll find something when you look at the second rack in the alchemy cabinet, just by chance.¡± ¡°Powered. Such damn busybodies,¡± she groused, kicking away on her Disk and back to her Investing. --- The Mick watched her go, a little wide-eyed at our casual repartee. ¡°Not just a Hag, but an Imperial Aluvian Hag,¡± I sniffed, and that got him grinning. ¡°Come over here and look at what I¡¯ve got drawn here, Master McMikal. This is called an Infusion Pattern. We use it to Burn goldweight, which is a condensed form of saying ¡®anything with the appropriate amount of magical energy, as measured by its matching value in gold¡¯, and instill that magical energy into the items of our own design. ¡°Remember when I told you about time? Well, this is it. There¡¯s a basic time limit to how much and how long you can Invest stuff. Without some powerful magical items helping you out, or working on really big stuff, like monuments or Obelisks, you are totally limited in how much work you can do on the ¡®magic¡¯ portion of a magic item per day. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°You can learn to use less than a goldweight to do a goldweight worth of work. You can learn to use six hours to do eight hours worth of work. You can learn to use slightly less Karma when Infusing. But without outside aid, you can¡¯t do ¡®more¡¯... so the speed you can make stuff at is limited, and every day you don¡¯t work on stuff is a day longer before you get the stuff.¡± ¡°Understood,¡± he nodded, his dark eyes keen as the Infusing Pattern glowed and glittered to his eye, and pyreal coins slowly melted away beneath his gaze. ¡°This... is not that fancy. Some o¡¯ the patterns to the Platinum and Incantor Levels of Casting were far more complex!¡± ¡°That¡¯s because Infusing can start very early. This is no more complex than an Iron spell.¡± He studied it, and nodded slowly. ¡°Generally, instead of carving a new Pattern, it¡¯s easier to just make one and carry it around, if you can. However, you can¡¯t make one out of flexible materials, and a fold-up one or ¡®some assembly required¡¯ models tend to degrade fast over time as the energies move through them, so you need to store them carefully and have something to put them in.¡± I tossed a thumb at the Wagon behind us. ¡°We used to be able to expand the space in our packs to fit in just incredible amounts of stuff,¡± he admitted, and I flinched automatically. ¡°Eh?¡± he asked at my reaction. ¡°It were very common magic, like a smaller version of the magic that created dungeons beyond the Portals...¡± I cleared my throat. ¡°I want you to utterly remove any thought of getting such a wonderful device that uses dimensional magic back. Completely and utterly. We can sort of do similar things with Masspacks, which shrink items placed inside them down to a fraction of their size and weight. We do NOT mess with standing dimensional pockets that aren¡¯t as strong as the Veil of the world. You got a small taste of why.¡± I pointed, and he turned his head to gaze over to what I had been told was the local Allegiance Hall, places where the adventurers of this world assembled in a pleasant area to talk and do casual work. They had become much less important once the Mansions for the powerful Allegiances went up. They were the short buildings with the Grecian/Roulean-style pillars and roofs, upended as the ¡®dungeon¡¯ anchored to the Portal on them was thrust into the real world beneath them, and collapsed the ceiling thereof with their weight. ¡°Classic dimensional storage devices are deathtraps,¡± I warned him calmly. ¡°Not just for yourself, but potentially for all those around you. ¡°Consider the Veil, the dimensional barrier that represents the edge of the laws of our reality, warding those who do not belong here from our space. From their perspective, as tendrils of energy, awareness, and influence probe and touch the edge of the Veil, it is a smooth and unbroken surface of nigh-perfect solidity, keeping out horrors unknown and undreamed... which seem to be all the rage for madmen to Summon up for secrets of power.¡± He stared at the image of shadowy tentacles, tendrils, and eyes roving over an unbroken silvery expanse with wide eyes, and nodded his understanding. ¡°Dimensional storage devices make the Veil bulge from our side, as do dimensional pockets.¡± And on the silvery expanse, the tentacles paused. I zoomed in, and there was a pimple on the surface of the Veil. ¡°Those pimples get noticed.¡± He swallowed slightly as the tendrils and tentacles played over the bulge in the Veil, and the pimple seemed to wobble. ¡°They are weak points in the Veil, and depending on the nature of the Veil, eventually they will break. When that happens...¡± He watched the pimple pop, and the tentacles reach through. On the other side of the Veil, an adventurer who looked remarkably like the Mick here barely had time to scream before a glowing purple tendril reached out from his comfy backpack, wrapped around his throat, and pulled him on through it. Then a whole explosion of purple tendrils erupted out of the new hole that was forced open in the Veil, exploding in all directions, grabbing everything... and then pulling back with a vwoooorp as the Veil closed itself, and left a big hole behind where had once been a busy market in the middle of a city, with a broken and torn backpack sitting in pieces down at the middle of it. Then the screams started, but it was a mite bit late for everything that had been living there. ¡°That¡¯s the kind of shit that lives on the other side of the Veil, Master McMikal. Please do not invite them in here.¡± He just stared. ¡°I was wearing something like that on me back?¡± he asked dully. I waved at the air around us. ¡°The ley lines on this island are unbelievably strong. It is likely they shielded everything against such dimensional hijinks by those Outside Creation. But that protection is no longer there, as evidenced by how hard the Veil cracked down on all the dimensional pockets attached to this place. ¡°Portable storage pockets? Little pimples moving about on the surface of the Veil?¡± My Holo of the little pimples moving around on the featureless expanse, impossible to miss, only made him grimace harder. ¡°They are literally the only things to watch. They are deathtraps!¡± He held up his hands in surrender. ¡°Ye¡¯ve me word, I won¡¯t be trying t¡¯ do something similar!¡± he promised. ¡°But now I want t¡¯ know what a Masspack is, an¡¯ how it works, an¡¯ if I might make one.¡± ¡°Well, a) how good are you at leatherworking, and b) you¡¯ve got to learn some Artificing the hard way first.¡± His reaction to that was to rub his hands. ¡°Lady Magos,¡± he said with exaggerated formality, ¡°if ye can give me back even the simplest magicks I used to use so freely, I¡¯ll be greatly in your debt!¡± ¡°You¡¯ll be the test case, then, because we have a lot of teaching to do. You¡¯re going to be the first, so don¡¯t be afraid to ask a lot of questions, as everyone else will be asking them, too, and it¡¯s best to know the answers ahead of time, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll agree.¡± ¡°Aye, that be true,¡± he nodded. ¡°I¡¯ve taught me share of students over time. Hard to be the wise an¡¯ all-knowing master if ye actually don¡¯t know the answers ahead of time, aye?¡± ¡°That is total truth! Alrighty, we¡¯ll start today¡¯s lesson with basic Artificing and the Infusing Pattern. If you¡¯ve mastered Item Magic to Copper or higher, this will prove to be simplicity itself, and you can move smoothly into making your own Pattern with your own understanding for revision and improvement...¡± The Mick looked on, the hungry light of an eager student in his eyes. He lived in a world that had cast aside the trappings of Ispar for newer, greater things, and this was just one more new Path he could advance down, continuing the long and profitable journey of his life... AF Chapter 81 – He’s a bit Higher than Ten... The undead were a silent, attentive crowd, watching with actual unblinking intensity as the two sparred. At Princess Kristie¡¯s call, I¡¯d Infused the Mick¡¯s pyreal Blade, newly named Bunita, with Mercy so they didn¡¯t have to hold back when sparring. The Mick seemed to find that wonderfully liberating, and went at her with everything he had... and he had a lot. He was indeed impressed when he found out she was at least as strong as he was, was definitely more graceful, and was faster afoot. Her swordplay was unreal in its complexity and depth, whereas his was clean, efficient, pragmatic, and incredibly brutal in its application. And... simple. Remarkably simple. To put it in our terms, he was a One Strike Swordsman, his blade as much defense as offense, moving to find an opening and then plunging for it with merciless opportunism. He was very, very good at finding those openings, leaving me hissing at the speed at which he exploited the tiniest gaps in defense, and his almost surreal ability to block the gaps in his own defense against similar attacks. His style had both flowing surety and grim finality behind it, an intimidating psychological edge to it that said this was someone who had fought and killed a lot, and he was going to slowly overwhelm you, outlast you, and beat you dead, as everyone who tried to do the same to him had failed. And he was running into a cutting whirlwind that wasn¡¯t giving him the respect he¡¯d earned with blood. Princess Kristie was a Seven Dragons Swordswoman. Like the Sama I knew, she was a Natural Swordsman, and moved like she was born to the blade. On top of that, she¡¯d meshed all Seven Dragon weapon styles, and dozens of Feats and Techniques on top of that, and so she was fighting far, far above her level, just as Quaver was a vastly superior Sword to his Bunita. She was also a full Flurry Swordswoman, not a One Striker, although she could certainly fight in that style if she wished to. Quaver moved with the agility of an ¨¦p¨¦e, the brutal chopping power of an axe, the echoes of a crushing hammer and thrusting spear, gutting knife and bashing mace. The length of the Blade Morphed from long to short as needed to surprise and unsettle him, alternately matching his reach or suddenly very inside it with appalling speed. Her ability to pierce his defenses wasn¡¯t pure raw skill, it was sublime mastery. Way of Fire III meant -6 to Dex and Dodge defenses. Way of Air III meant -6 to immaterial, magical defenses. Way of Water III meant -6 to total Armor or Natural Armor. The combination of Profound Skills was plainly beyond his ability to deal with, and he was having real problems overcoming the swirling deflective force sparkles from Quaver¡¯s Lost Light defenses. Kris had adapted to the new ability of her Sword with ease and aplomb, as befitted her Talent, the manifestation of it giving her a defensive edge of incredible depth, something that only grew deeper when she swapped ability to hit for an even greater defensive edge with Expertise. His ability to land a blow on her shrank ever further. Rule of Valus, swapping brute force for controlled precision, also made sure her Sword moved faster than a striking serpent, keeping pace with his own. One of my jobs was to do a Deep Assay of him and his Stat line, figuring out how things conflated. It wasn¡¯t that hard to do, although working out the equivalencies in the system was... interesting, as the Isparian system was much simpler than that of the Power of Ten, lacking much of its depth and versatility for pure brutal power to Level. An Ironskull system, I abruptly realized. Strip away all the non-essential stuff, and drive the basics towards the moon, while avoiding anything which might actually be threatening to the forces behind all of this. Under the Power of Ten, the Mick was basically a stripped-down Melee/20. He had the Melee Attack Bonus of a full +20, far above what Kris had, hers in the +9 or so area. However, that bonus had been stripped of multiple attacks, and he had none of the supplemental Feats, Techniques, and Masteries of combat that a Power of Ten combatant normally would have, and his skill seemed restricted to blades as his specialty and martial weapons as a side effect of that skill. His Strength and Dexterity were at a solid 30 each, his Constitution was 28, his Intellect, Wisdom, and Charisma solid 22-23¡¯s. By any measure, he was an incredibly well-rounded and foundationally solid individual, and he could doubtless succeed in any Power of Ten Class. The martial training and style that he used did not really emphasize multiple rapid attacks at all, relying instead on quickness of the mind and body to deliver single blows more quickly and decisively. Kris was basically slamming him at three blows to one in furious counter-assault against his careful strikes, and it was clearly unbalancing him. He tried to adapt to them, swearing and cursing as she slid past his parries and blocks and counters with what must have seemed like boneless arms and a flexible Blade, for all that when their Swords met, his gave way to the superior weight of hers, and her superior heavyfoot always left her better braced. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Subtle things. It was clear the Mick had a much better straight swordplay foundation than she did, but the breadth of what she was unleashing upon him he simply wasn¡¯t equipped to handle. Even cursing up a black storm of frustration, he was grinning madly. It was plain he hadn¡¯t had a challenge quite like this ever, and even if he lost, he didn¡¯t care. She¡¯d told him that not only would she teach him, she would be teaching a whole lot of people, and she¡¯d be gravely disappointed if he didn¡¯t learn it all properly! With that Stat line, there was no chance he wouldn¡¯t be able to suck it all in. The Mick was fully capable of mastering just about every aspect of the Power of Ten, all at once! The only thing that had held him and the other Isparians back was that Level cap, which was an absolute vertical limit... and there was no horizontal spread. The Isparian route had one road of advancement, that was all, and once you weren¡¯t allowed to master any new skills, that was it. You were done! You rammed your head into the Eternal ceiling and literally could go nowhere else, the magic of the system that empowered you also forbidding you from the chance to grow more widely, even as it capped how good you could be. The Isparian System also had no true Class distinction. Certain sets of skills often earned sobriquets, such as Archers with specialization in a missile weapon and Fletching, Soldiers with their heavier weapons and shields, War Mages with their skill at Mana Conversion and War Magic, and so forth and so on. But there was nothing exclusive or unique about any of that. The Mick could have gone off and learned War Magic if he desired, giving up some other skills from the finite pool allowed him. Importantly, the only social skill allowed was Leadership, which wasn¡¯t a social skill at all, but a function of how good an organizer one was, and how strong the relationship with one¡¯s Vassals were. Skills like Diplomacy, Intimidation, Bluff, and similar things for social interaction were not part of the Isparian System, although Deception, with all its emphasis on concealment, misdirection, and misrepresentation, was often considered part of it. I supposed if Leadership could be considered Diplomacy, Deception could be considered Bluff. Tellingly, mundane arts and professions had almost no representation in the Isparian system. Even the mundane skills allowed, like Fletching and Cooking, had magical edges to them, interacting with at least Alchemy. It was amusing that the Lockpicking skill was also the study of gearmaking, such as it was, but smithing of any kind was not a guaranteed part of the Isparian system, even though it definitely should have been. It seemed that the System didn¡¯t want the people using it to actually make their own Arms and Armor. That had been true on Ispar, too... smithing and Artificing was far more hit or miss when you couldn¡¯t readily improve it, like you could the Tinkering trades that were actually in the System. The Power of Ten was open-ended and flexible. Discover a new Trade? The system accepted it, evolving and growing as the trade or craft itself did, recognizing new tiers as they were discovered, adjusting over time as Ranks of a Skill compressed as the height and breadth of the skill increased, so someone with ten Ranks in a medieval society might find themselves only possessing four in a more modern one. The specialized and unique knowledge and skills they had developed in a low-tech society were, instead of being greatly advanced and unique, merely foundational knowledge in a higher-tech one. The Isparian system here was bleeding out and also being infiltrated... something that had also been happening on Ispar, I slowly realized. The key effect was probably armor, I considered, watching the two start dancing over the rooftops they had bounced onto, using the terrain and striving for any edge, move and counter-move in a sophisticated dance of skirling steel too smooth and fast for most eyes to appreciate. In the Isparian system, use of armor was not a skill, although, very amusingly, using a shield masterfully was. A master shield wielder was very difficult to hurt in combat, such that using martial techniques to avoid the shield entirely was a whole branch of martial study, and one of the reasons flails existed, and scythes could actually be useful in a fight. Armor, armor was like wearing clothes in the Isparian system. As long as you were skilled in avoiding damage in martial combat, you could wear any kind of armor! In the Power of Ten system, wearing Armor was a Proficiency, a form of Martial Feat. Bleeding into the Isparian system, that meant it now cost Skill Points to learn to move freely in armor. Melee Defense skills merely made you eligible to learn the wearing of armor! Chief MacNiall had related how War Mages used to run around in full armor as heavy as any a full knight might wear without problems, and how that had ended up after the Fall, with them unable to Cast any spells at all while in armor. The resulting vulnerability had to be adapted to very quickly, as suddenly the most defensive, enspelled tankers in combat were now horribly vulnerable! Add on their sudden lack of high-end functioning defensive magic, and the cocksure confidence of many an arrogant War Mage had often ended with them stuck on the end of a tumerok¡¯s spear in some disbelief at how easily they¡¯d just been killed. It turned out that enchanted robes and underwear barely at Copper and Silver Levels just wasn¡¯t doing the job they were used to it doing, and not having those heady tiers of magic around as Buffs was very detrimental to the previous tactical thinking of the junior magi who¡¯d lived through the instant death of The Fall... The fact there was a Stealth skill now, not merely Deception, and the Mick had been using it to survive moving around in a very dangerous land, meant that the translation of the Isparian system was continuing. Elements that weren¡¯t there before were opening up, and it was plain that people were going to be able to do ever more and different things and Level them up in so doing. It wasn¡¯t the Power of Ten system that everything was translating to, but there was clearly a lot of overlap, and perhaps just by having us here the evolving field of magic was settling into something different and similar. ------ ¡°That was quite a show!¡± I told the two of them, clapping slowly as they made their way back, both of them sweating freely at the tremendous amounts of calories they¡¯d just used. ¡°You, down the beach to the sea, and bathe.¡± I pointed at McMikal, who grinned and headed off that way at an easy trot, his somewhat ragged breathing evening out as he did. I turned to Kris, who sort of rippled, and her Vajra repelled her sweat from her and dropped it on the ground in tiny beads. ¡°He¡¯s as strong as I am,¡± Kris said brightly, pale violet eyes shining after the show. ¡°And definitely the best fundamentals fighter I have ever met! He¡¯s going to be an utter monster after I¡¯m through with him!¡± ¡°Uh huh. Here¡¯s his Stats.¡± I popped up the Holo, and we both examined them mutely. ¡°Wow. That is a LOT of bio-enhancement,¡± the Princess commented, her eyes sparkling. ¡°Did you know all that was possible?¡± AF Chapter 82 – Differences and Possibilities ¡°Not at all.¡± The list of Augmentations the Mick had from Karmic investment and that Luminance energy he¡¯d spoken of was quite long. I pointed at one line. ¡°Aetheric Vision, ¡®enhances chances of an Aetheric Surge¡¯. Aetheric is usually a euphemism for astral or spirit-psi energies interfacing. I haven¡¯t seen any indication of such things here, but then, except for him, I¡¯ve not seen any external examples of this ¡®Luminance¡¯, either.¡± ¡°Are you thinking it might also be a control conduit?¡± Kris asked what was on her mind. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s an affinity built into it, because the forces of ¡®Light¡¯ wouldn¡¯t want their power to be given away to their enemies, so they¡¯d want a way to take it back. As for direct control... anything is possible. Even if they were ¡®too noble¡¯ to use such a thing, it might still well be there.¡± ¡°Sort of like our Marks,¡± Kris nodded. Since Nulls couldn¡¯t project mental energy any more than any other kind of energy, the control factor built into their knocked-off Succubi Blessings was basically useless without jumping through some hoops using Artifice, and if active, had a VERY different feel to it. I knew, because Aelryinth and the original Sama had tested out such things back on Terra-Luna. Being able to use Charm-type spells through a Mark was an incredibly powerful command and control tool, especially against someone who had been magically suborned themselves. With Sama¡¯s approval and a lot of practice, Aelryinth was able to reach through the Markspace and directly seize the will of the Marked, something he¡¯d had to do a handful of times when the minds and souls of Marked people were seized by powerful forces. In all but one of the cases, said hostile mind control had worked by shattering their minds and reducing them to enslaved vegetables, extensions of the controlling invasive intellect. Aelryinth had shattered the control vector and sent the suborned back against the slaver in best murderous rebellion style, complete with the instant power-ups the entities had given their new toys, much to their discomfort. Only two of those people had been recoverable, the rest he had to euthanize and vivify, purging the alien energies from their ravaged souls and sending them on their way. The ones he¡¯d rescued from the mind-fuckery? They¡¯d been broken badly, and even with Divinely-powered Restorations and similar spells to ease their trauma, they¡¯d given up the active adventuring life for support functions, staying far from the fighting which could result in the rape of mind, body, and soul like that, at least until they could overcome their fears. It had also made a certain fellow named Termerial an overwhelmingly obsessed survivor regarding such entities. When another mindstalker had happened to wander into the area he lived in, ho, Mithar, had Termerial gone off on the bastard with a whole slew of psychic Counters, Spikes, Dispels, Mindshatters, and similar magicks that had torn that psivore a very, very traumatic new one. Its psychic death cry had lingered in the mindscape for nearly a month as it was pulled apart slowly. Ember, the home town of the Lanterns where he lived, hadn¡¯t had a mindfeeder problem since then, imagine that. Termerial¡¯s Kit of Paranoid Techniques for Dealing with Mindfuckers had gone from a kludgy assembly of Feats, Masteries, Techniques, and Spells to an intensely-studied and streamlined program of must-have capabilities for any serious defender of the mental landscape. As they said, ignorance was bliss. Learning that program really made people aware of all the shit that was out there that fed on minds and souls, stole bodies, invaded dreams, and so forth. And yet, learning how to deal with them actually helped you get back to sleep at night. ¡°So, you noticed the horrifying weakness, too.¡± Kris nodded slowly. ¡°The Isparian system has absolutely nothing in it to deal with mindfuckery. All these Augments completely ignore anything other than enhancement of Stats. There¡¯s no mental or spiritual protection at all.¡± It was a hugely glaring weakness. ¡°The magical field here supports Summons, Binding and Sealing, and Necromancy. There¡¯s no way that Enchantments and psychic fuckery doesn¡¯t work here, and that¡¯s ignoring just what Divinations can do, too.¡± Knowledge-ferreting Isparian magic only worked through the various Assess Skills, low magic anyone could learn. ¡°Perhaps this ¡®Asheron¡¯s Protection¡¯ he spoke of included a Protection from Evil or similar effect to it?¡± she asked archly. ¡°After all, there was no functional Charm-type magic working on Ispar that we knew of, and let me tell you, Mom looked for that stuff really hard everywhere. Our Curses love going off on mind-control stuff.¡± ¡°I¡¯m aware. There was a Thought Devourer infestation back on Terra, and Sama there was actually leading around Void Brothers finding the things. Amping up Vajra sensitivity to Mindfuckery is basically required if you¡¯re any kind of serious about the stuff. ¡°There was also a subtle invasion by a group of Homo Mentos fleeing their own homeworld, our first exposure to true psionics. They immediately fucked around with the heads of the local Powered and people, which didn¡¯t raise our opinion of them at all, as you might imagine.¡± Kris snarled in reflexive agreement, staring at the display of Augments, both ¡®normal¡¯ and Luminance-derived. ¡°Do you think this is another capped System, or could we keep adding to this?¡± ¡°Level 700? What do you think?¡± I replied, eyeing the many magical investments. ¡°However, there¡¯s something weird going on with the caps.¡± I pointed at two of the parallel skills. ¡°Look at this. This Salvaging Skill both works on its own or is derived from a Tinkering Skill, whatever is more effective. It¡¯s a magical means of stripping materials of useful raw materials, to be used for some other purpose. ¡°All those scattered bins of materials we have? Likely came via use of this Skill.¡± The Princess nodded once. ¡°If you¡¯re getting tons of random spontaneously-created trash, I suppose that¡¯s useful? The Isparian System doesn¡¯t have a pure goldweight harvesting mechanic to it, where you can strip Artifice of its essence completely, like the PoT system does. What does that have to do with an Augment maximizing that ability?¡± I drew lines down from the Augmentation to below his listed Luminance abilities, an empty area. ¡°At some point, the Mick had Tinker Skills. Weapon Tinker, if I¡¯m not mistaken.¡± I touched the Holo of the Deep Assay, and a section opened up, although it was empty of the filled bars of Luminance. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Enhancement of Craft and Tinker Skills?¡± The line led back up to his Augmentations, where his specializing in Salvaging dropped down, revealing the shadow of a formerly filled Weapon Tinker skill... and the open possibility of three others: Item, Armor, and Magical Item. She blinked at it for a moment. ¡°Okay, that¡¯s enhancement of some specific trade skills...¡± and then she blinked. ¡°It¡¯s specialization. It¡¯s manufacturing Skill Points out of nowhere...¡± The arc of light curved back down to the Luminance Gift of Skill, which had expanded the total Skill points possible by two. The Luminance Gifts of the World and Specialization provided more bonuses to Skills. I drew the connecting line to the Gift of the Craftsman, which provided stacking bonuses to Craft and Tinker Skills selected. Princess Kristi studied the links intensely, ignoring the bonuses, looking at the implications behind them. ¡°Okay, this Luminance can make new general Skill Points, and for some reason has an arbitrary cap of two... unlike all the other Gifts, which go to five or ten levels. Augmentation can also make Skill points out of nothing, but restricted itself to Specializing the Tinkering Skills, for some reason, just like the Luminance arbitrarily restricted the additional stacking bonuses of its Craftsman Gift...¡± She rubbed her temples as she stared at the system. ¡°It sort of makes sense if you are making some sort of warrior system for fighting. Nobody is going to waste Skill Points on side skills without some incentive if they trying to stay alive in combat. It becomes even more important when you WILL die if you fail...¡± ¡°But giving those Skill Points to other Skills may end up giving too much power in the area of combat? Someone made an arbitrary judgment on how many to hand out?¡± ¡°Or the System has a hard lock at 275, even though it doubtless continues on higher. Perhaps past 275 Skill Points unlock Eternal-level Skills, breaking the normal restrictions?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t have that in our slave soldiers,¡± Kris muttered under her breath, crossing her arms and staring at the display. ¡°So, we know that the Skill Points thing can be expanded by Augment Gems. It restricted itself to Tinkering Skills, but reasonably, it should be able to pay the cost for ANY specialized Skills, so we don¡¯t have to.¡± ¡°Probably subject to massive differences in required investment.¡± I pointed out several Augmentations that had required multiple boosts to do what they did, such as the defunct one that allowed them to bring all their belongings with them when they died and were reformed/resurrected at the Deathstones. ¡°But if you CAN do them, you get all those Skill Points back...¡± ¡°Allowing you the opportunity to buy all the foundational Skills, including the non-combat ones.¡± She was definitely not slow. ¡°You just have to crack open the System to allow it. We already know there¡¯s room for at least ten more Skill Points under the cap with the Specialization of that Salvaging and the four Tinker Skills...¡± ¡°And another stacking +1 bonus to a family of Skills, currently restricted to those non-Combat Skills.¡± The Gift of the Craftsman glowed for attention. ¡°If we assume complete modularity with arbitrary restrictions laid down, the Isparian system, bolstered with these Augments, could be fantastically stronger than we know of.¡± And the Power of Ten System, while it had its restrictions and its ceilings, complete with Class-based Leveling instead of the very organic model of the Isparian System, also had extreme power within that system, modularity, and very importantly... no true caps, only ceilings to be surpassed. ¡°You want to use the Power of Ten system to crack open the Isparian System,¡± Princess Kristi grinned openly, double canines on display in a predatory manner. ¡°You¡¯re going to use the Mick to guinea pig the process?¡± ¡°He should love it.¡± I pointed to his Sword Skill, Melee Defense, and Health. ¡°Add those together, and what do they look like to you?¡± She tilted her head slightly. ¡°Melee Defense is the outlier here. But his weapon Skill is basically a restricted Melee Attack Bonus, and Health derived from the Endurance and Health Stats is basically Health and Soak, respectively. It¡¯s the shell of Ironskull Warrior Levels, sans skill Ranks.¡± ¡°Remember that the Power of Ten combat system starts with a base fifty percent miss chance, modified by Attack Bonus and Power/Strength.¡± She blinked as she processed that. ¡°The Isparian System starts with a Coord/Quick-based miss chance, opposed by Strength/Coord. In PoT terms, the starting fifty-percent miss chance varies from six percent with a 10/10 Coord/Quick start, to a 66-percent, with an idealized 100/100.¡± ¡°Coordination and Quickness translate over into a Dexterity bonus, and Melee Defense is a Dodge bonus on top of that...¡± she murmured intently. ¡°Similar to the Dodge Feat stacking with a Melee¡¯s Armor Mastery. Except Dodge works against ALL attacks that require a roll to hit, and the Isparian system for some reason breaks out magic defense, melee defense, and missile defense, which involve separate things.¡± ¡°Closer to Dodge Missile, or Parry Missile,¡± Kris nodded agreement with me. ¡°And most Isparian War Magic is basically variants of Ray spells. All the area-effect stuff tends to be very slow or in very close combat. Magic Defense is basically Spell Resistance in the Power of Ten system. The Isparian system doesn¡¯t have a Skill for dodging magical spells, only directly resisting them...¡± ¡°Yes, it is quite strange,¡± I agreed with her unspoken comment. Isparian War Magic could be trivially easy to dodge at any distance, because it didn¡¯t move that fast and proceeded in straight lines, kinda like dodging a fast pitch at you. Predicting movements and launching spells to intercept moving targets was as much an art for mages as anyone else, but there was no automatic ¡®dodge¡¯ defense, perhaps justified because most War Magic ignored armor, and the neutralized attacks bounced off the armor? Power of Ten battle magic was much harder to avoid. Auto-hit Shards, lightning-fast Rays, area of effect Bolts, Bursts, Lances, Cones, Storms, Comets, Meteors, Fogs, Walls, and so forth. The relatively slow but powerful Isparian Magic looked very restricted in return. That Isparian Magic was basically six different spells Forms ¨C Bolt, Blast, Arc, Streak, Wall, Volley, and Ring ¨C and the only real difference was the Element they used. Well, it was incredibly simplistic to a Power of Ten Caster. The Sculpt Spell Feat basically took all the spell Forms and made them available to any spell with some practice. The Elemental Mastery eventually gave you access to the full array of Elemental energies with any spell that used Elemental power. An entire School of Magic that basically was covered by a Feat, a Mastery, and only needed one spell at each Valence Level was, eh, deucedly strange. It didn¡¯t even have a viable Touch Spell range, although Casting in Combat was a standard part of Isparian War Mage training. Trying to do that point-blank in the PoT System was asking to be slaughtered, and the tales told of dead War Mages who had their spells interrupted after the Fall had driven the point home in blood that Casters now better not try that in weapon range unless they were REALLY good. Monsters, however, didn¡¯t seem to have the same restrictions, which alluded to the fact they might have set abilities that were more like Spell-like Abilities than Cast spells... The holes in the System were being filled in as magic itself had chucked off its restrictions and was either returning to or newly entering a broader area of ¡®reality¡¯. Artificial limits were no longer there, and the narrowness of Isparian magic was loosening up! AF Chapter 83 – It’s All in the Translation ¡°Let¡¯s assume that there is a balance between the two Systems, and a Stat or Skill in one translates to a Stat or Skill in the other,¡± I said, and Kris nodded. ¡°By using Classes, the PoT system bakes more power into a career path. It¡¯s more efficient, less organic, more focused.¡± ¡°The Isparian system is very linear, and it operates off a d100 basis, pure percentage. The Power of Ten system tends to work on the d20, with five percent jumps. They are actually the same thing, except PoT advances in little jumps, and the Isparian System is smoother,¡± Princess Kristie agreed. ¡°And there¡¯s a show of lights with every new Karmic Level.¡± ¡°That was always fun to see during a battle, especially during the Glory Awards at the end,¡± Princess Kristie grinned in remembrance. ¡°Especially if it Healed up a lot of injuries...¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure.¡± ¡°If that is true, and they are equivalents, then Karma spent in one directly translates into the same Stat for the other, be it pure Stat or Skill, right?¡± Her eyes narrowed again. ¡°Power of Ten breaks out Ranged Attack Bonus, Melee Attack Bonus, and Caster Level as unique abilities tied to a Class. The Isparian System considers them just more generic Skills...¡± ¡°While those self-same Weapon Skills are so narrow that Power of Ten calls them part of Weapon Proficiencies. The idea that massive investment in your Sword Skill doesn¡¯t improve your overall Attack ability is not present in Power of Ten.¡± The Princess was warming to the topic. ¡°And the Strength/Coord mechanic that adds to the Isparian Weapon Skills is actually just Power/Strength.¡± Strength having Might, the ability to lift, carry, and swing with great force, and Power, swinging with speed and control. A weightlifter might have great Might, but move slowly and so have low Power. You could have Might without Power, but not Power without Might. Moving something heavy both fast and true first required that you have the strength to move it! There was also the Finesse style based on Dexterity, Coord/Quick in the Isparian system, but we weren¡¯t talking about that here. ¡°The Mick has a Health of 326 under the Isparian System. However, he¡¯s got a +20 Attack Bonus with his sword, he¡¯s a specialist with it, and he¡¯s got a Strength of 30, with an Endurance of 28. As a Melee/20 and Human/4, /5 or /6...¡± She leaned in again, wide-eyed. ¡°Those are Human Exemplar racial Stat bonuses!¡± she blurted out in amazement. ¡°It¡¯s like the System is exploiting an existing avenue of growth, or something,¡± I murmured, nodding along with her. The humans here were not advancing their Stats by Class, after all! ¡°If he maxes Health and Soak...¡± She looked between the two. ¡°The Power of Ten System blows the Isparian System away.¡± His base Soak would be 380, his Human Health 51, and that was without any Feats, Masteries, or Favored Class benefits to supplement things! ¡°We can assume Karmic investment is investment, but how the System translates it is superior on the Power of Ten side,¡± I went on. ¡°It also removes the need for all those Skills and Skill Points from the Isparian System...¡± ¡°Oh. Ohhhhh...¡± Kris murmured, staring at that as the Skills faded from one side of the listing, and Melee/20 popped up on the other. ¡°By transferring them to the other system, we free up a LOT of Isparian Skill Points entirely...¡± ¡°And he¡¯s going to have all those actual Ranks from Melee Levels to invest with the Karma from his Melee Defense Skill, and that Dual Wield he has, and the Shield Skill...¡± Kris looked back and forth. Shield use was a Proficiency, Shield Specialization was a Feat, as were most of the Classic Mitharn Forms in the Matrix system of Power of Ten. Dual Wielding was the Two-Weapon Fighting Mastery tree! Removing all those unneeded Skills from his Skill Point allocations on the Isparian side would remove the need for 40 Skill Points from the Isparian Schema entirely. Massive amounts of investment in Luminance and Augmentations were obviously just filling in parts of the Exemplar Racial Template! Even the Magic Defense Skill was tied into it, with Specialization just a Feat to boost it +2 on the Power of Ten side! The bonuses to Skills were just Luck and/or Insight bonuses applied early and gradually, including as part of the Melee Defense skill, but never ¡®typed out¡¯ and defined as they should have been! The fact some stacked and others did not had been something of a giveaway... ¡°The Isparian system broke up Exemplar advancement into a bunch of manageable chunks, diluting the entirety of its power as an easy advancement road,¡± Princess Kristie breathed, clearly appalled. ¡°It¡¯s a Legendary Template at Full Exemplar, but they¡¯ve chopped it all up so it loses the cumulative power. Anyone who has this should be Eternal...¡± ¡°Aye, talk about your suborning of destiny,¡± I had to agree, looking at all those bonuses. Taken as bits, you didn¡¯t see the big picture, but start assembling them, and it had been laid out pretty obviously. ¡°Look at what they left out.¡± I waved a hand, and the missing bonuses filled in. Her breath hissed out. ¡°The Caster Level, Saving Throw, Health, and Attack Bonuses. Of course...¡± The real game-clinchers, as it were. ¡°Look at that, they even kept in the basic Natural Armor bonus. Unbelievable...¡± Everyone thought it was just another Augmentation gift... ¡°The Fast Healing he thinks is from the land and magic is just his Exemplar Template at work,¡± I agreed. ¡°Improves with Endurance, it looks like.¡± I pointed. ¡°Natural Resistances against ALL physical and Elemental energy types. If you translate those over to innate personal spells, I think that works out pretty close to Permanent Resist Energy of the various types for costs modified by Level, but I could be wrong.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°They use too many zeroes in their Karmic calculations,¡± Kris groused, and I just snickered. ¡°And why can they only Augment it twice in total, in chunks?¡± I eyed the results. ¡°They morphed them into the Isparian Protection variant, not a Resist. So they reduce damage a percentage, they don¡¯t eliminate it up to a threshold. Better for dealing with large surges, not for constant attrition. A combat buff, not a survival or environmental buff, as it were.¡± ¡°So, a built-in Necklace of Protection, as it were, but only naturally effective to Gold Level, with an arbitrary improvement to... two types to Pyreal, or one to Platinum, as it were.¡± ¡°They don¡¯t get the normal Resistances or any Immunities like you do, so don¡¯t be envious. Theirs are just more suitable for dealing with high-end combat...¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s a pretty solid basis of comparison,¡± she admitted. ¡°He¡¯s literally a Twenty in waiting, just need to realign him and get him properly Geared out. Makes me wonder how the people behind him are doing...¡± ¡°Well, between the two of us, I bet we can make a heck of a difference,¡± I noted, and she nodded slowly in agreement. And the Mick was going to be the very willing guinea pig for all of it¡­ ------------------- Pulling out of Hebian-to was a silent affair. The undead didn¡¯t do a lot of scouting of the countryside, content to hold the city and its immediate environs, especially the shoreline. That did allow lugian or tumerok scouts to creep closer to the place and study it from afar, but with undead able to keep their posts for literally weeks straight without moving, it was a boring job with not much to see. The fact that the souls of those cursed undead were simmering with a new light of hope, able to see that their long vigil would, at some point, come to an end, was not visible to the eye of even the best of their scouts. The outside tribes would probably be surprised at just how savagely the undead would fight if pressed right now¡­ The Mick alternated between riding and running. Kris¡¯s first lesson was on the basic lightfoot techniques, and the man was lapping them up with a hungry expression. He had grown to maturity in a world where there was always something new to learn, ways to expand, and having done precious little of that in the last decade and more, instead calcifying into a specific set of skills, the opportunity to expand had instead triggered those basic drives that had made him who he was. If that meant he really had to learn how to Meditate, well, that was what the new Mark to his Wisdom was for, and Kris guiding him along the route to touching the energy inside him that was his and his alone. Ki was not drawn from the world, and if magic crashed and burned, ki would still be there, still be useful, even if the highest functions of it were not. The fact that magic was here, and he was a very Senior Powered in the Isparian style, meant the Arcane Fist was just perfect for him, however. I wasn¡¯t just riding, either. I couldn¡¯t keep up with either of them without using magic¡­ but I could use magic, ergo, I could keep up with them. I had my own lightfoot to get used to, the Sun Stride much more precise than Waveskating Steps, which was the foundation of Princess Kristie¡¯s style. As she was starting the Mick on the Ocean Dragon disciplines, that made perfect sense. Going from relying on drawing power from the ground and superhuman physical vigor to walking on a constant stream of ki coming out your heels might have seemed a stretch, but that was what the Princess did all the time, so she had loads of experience she could heap upon him to help override his reliance and muscle memory of an earlier time. Yeah, he had to muscle around his soul. Yeah, he had to open his dantian and get the ki pumping through his blood. Yeah, he had a LOT of work to do in order to increase the size of it, but he was starting off at a very high point, and as soon as the first point was working, he shouted out in delight, clenching his fists and throwing them at the skies. While ki was great for spellcasters, there was no doubt that it benefited warriors the most. And while he was very Senior Powered¡­ it was in the Isparian style. In the Power of Ten¡¯s Matrix style, he had basically just earned his first Level in Monk, stowed his armor away, and was running around like a fool with a +10 enhancement bonus to his foot speed, leaving only the whisper of a trail as he did so. ------ ¡°Oi, Jacko, we¡¯re off to see the shell!¡± the Mick waved at the skeleton out in the water, wearing a ratty bandanna and holding a rusty cutlass. Kelp was growing on it. The skeletal pirate waved back at him, sort of, watching us go by without moving. It was the dark of the night, and really a bad time to be sightseeing, but the Mick knew we both could see in the dark freely, having shared that with him through the Mark-link (another wondrously useful tool to a scout!), and he knew where he was going. The thing he wanted us to see was a nefane shell, one easily three times the height of the shell of the tentacled thing the Tremendous Monuga had ripped out of the lake in front of us a week ago. ¡°It used to sit offshore, mind ye, not far from the Shoreward, making up its own island of sand and flotsam and whatnot. Enough storms, tho, especially these last few years, pushed it right up on shore, an¡¯ here it¡¯s sat.¡± Kris and I studied it, running our hands over it and looking at different things¡­ and sharing them with him, much to his consternation and wonder. He simply wasn¡¯t used to the kind of tactics and information sharing that we were. At the same time, he was sort of remembering a lot of fights against the things, their acid and force-spitting spells, the psychic charge and smashing impacts of their tentacles, the speed they could move at when a-chase, and really, just how bloody goddamn annoying the things were everywhere they popped up. Kris caught a stray thought, her tremblesense echoing through the steely rigidity of the shell, tracing the veins of runic circuitry basically grown into the thing via psychic crystal growth inside the very structure of it, forming natural defensive enhancements to the material which my magical senses confirmed were still residually active. It was why it hadn¡¯t decayed, grown brittle, and fallen apart over time. In other words, another nefane that could come upon it could likely move right in and either absorb its energies or use them to spur its own growth. ¡°This isn¡¯t the biggest one you¡¯ve seen?¡± she asked him. ¡°Nay.¡± He was equal parts storyteller and grim scout, delighting in the position and realizing the ominousness of the information. ¡°On the Dark Isle t¡¯ the north, when it rose from the sea, there were shells of nefanes or sleeches or whatever they were, left discarded behind. Some o¡¯ the natives staying there used ¡®em for homes.¡± He looked at this massive small hill of a shell, then tilted his head back, picturing it. I brought up a massive square Holo in front of him to give him some perspective, and he actually took a couple steps back, going slowly back through his memories with the tested perspective of a scout. Stood on end, it was nearly twice as tall as this massive shell would have been in the same position. AF Chapter 84 – Why do I feel like, Someone is Watching Me?…. ¡°They grow things big down in the deep,¡± Princess Kristie muttered as we all looked at the Holo. ¡°The seas in worlds of magic are damn nasty places.¡± ¡°The shit in the sea is a total pain to deal with,¡± I agreed with a sigh. Everyone in the Power of Ten knew it. The coast of anywhere was dangerous, not safe! ¡°The worst thing back on Ispar were the sea serpents and the leviathans, and the latter were generally only a problem if you were a whale hunter, no?¡± The Mick nodded at that. ¡°Aye, plenty of stories of whaler ships being taken out by a leviathan. Sea serpents, now, those were seen as more of a challenge, since they had to encircle and crush the ship. Ye could hack ¡®em t¡¯ death before they could do that, if ye had a good crew with strong arms, and didn¡¯t mind losing a man or two to its jaws. Fishing for sea serpents was a rite of passage among the pirate crews, or so me uncle said. Some of the southern islanders knew some great sauces for basting the things, too, and they made for some of the finest feasts he ever had.¡± ¡°That sounds like a properly Aluvian way to think of the pests,¡± Princess Kristie grinned. ¡°Now you¡¯re making me hungry to test that out, Master Mick. I don¡¯t believe I¡¯ve ever had sea serpent fixed other than the Roulean style, and they¡¯re all with the dainty herbs and soups and whatnot.¡± ¡°Cannae help ye there, lass. I¡¯ve not seen a sea serpent in the waters here, nor heard any tales of them. If they exist, the shelled floaters and the remorans drive ¡®em off, I reckon.¡± ¡°Pity. How do the remorans and their masters taste?¡± It was his turn to grin. ¡°The flying rays taste like salted jerky, the few living ones we caught and killed. Ye have to boil it and dilute it something fierce to make it tender, but its not bad once ye do, just takes a good spot of work. The best soups take a week or more to cook proper. ¡°Hide makes excellent rawhide strips and leather for sea work if ye treat it and keep it around salty air, otherwise it rots like nobody¡¯s business and smells to high heaven when it do. The tail stingers make for good fishing spears, too. We tried to put ¡®em on fighting spears, but they become too brittle to be used that way, gotta store ¡®em in water and keep ¡®em doused,¡± he informed us. ¡°Good that you found a way to make use of the things, as they doubtless found the same use for you,¡± Kristie said approvingly. ¡°They use Force magic through their tails. The stinger would probably serve as a carved Wand and Implement!¡± I noted, huffing along behind the two of them as we started running again, the sightseeing over. The Run spell at III gave me good speed and duration, allowing me to keep up with them, and I really needed to get used to being in shape, instead of just rote magic energy doing it for me. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s a good idea!¡± the Mick called back. ¡°Although a Remoran Spear is a point of pride for the fisher folk, and they¡¯d like consider it wasted as a Caster¡¯s toy.¡± ¡°The tentacled species?¡± the Princess asked. Running like this, speech soon slipped into Markspeech more readily than words, another thing the Mick found happily useful. It really made the time and miles fly by. So did the drive-by contests of killing Summons to earn Naming Karma. Once he was told how important the Naming Karma was for improving his gear, it was plain that almost nothing was going to get in the way of the Mick earning his share for the day. It was a mindset he was very familiar and comfortable with. ¡°There¡¯s lots of acid in the meat, and it takes a lot of time and brine to leech it out. Like, a month or more, and it smells like rancid shit even when it¡¯s gone. If ye kin take the smell, they cut it up and make it into a mixed stew, and it were not unlike some real tender calamari if it were done right. ¡°The alchemists swear the acid, once distilled, is some o¡¯ the most dangerous flesh-eating stuff around. It makes the absolute best wood treatment for removing an¡¯ keeping off barnacles and the like from rafts and wharfs, and likely boats, too, not that we¡¯ve many o¡¯ such. Ye just have to be careful not to get it on ye, or yer off to the healers quick, or ye¡¯ll have a permanent hole in yer skin.¡± ¡°Barnacle treatment.¡± Kris¡¯ eyes crinkled. ¡°I love it!¡± ¡°Now, their shells, those can be made into shields, strong and light. Some of the old Tinkering tricks don¡¯t work as they used to, and having a nice shield to fall back on is appreciated, especially if it doesn¡¯t need magic to power it. ¡°Some also drop a pearl that can be made into an Orb that can be used by mages, which, since the orb and wand makers were among those most killed in the Fall, is appreciated, even if it be rare.¡± He was waxing enthusiastically on his own area of knowledge, getting his own weirdness in back on us. ¡°The lack of loot appearing out of nowhere really turned the economy on its ear, aye?¡± Kris asked shortly. ¡°Aye, it totally did, and sad it were when it happened, on top of all the other stuff. From loads of metal and crystal and magical things flooding through the hands of everyone and their mothers, to only those things made by true craftsmen and weren¡¯t filled by mana stones, with none coming in save that which we made ourselves¡­ it were a very different world.¡± His /voice drifted in grim amusement. ¡°I used to have backpacks full of trade notes stowed away, hundreds of millions of pyreal coin in value. They weren¡¯t worth the paper they were printed on after the Fall. So much of the coin itself just burned and evaporated into nothing, and all the things I might have wished to buy weren¡¯t being exchanged for no promises on paper.¡± He sighed heavily. ¡°It¡¯s taken a long time to move past the barter stage once again, and threatening violence for what some others demand for their goods. Seller¡¯s market, as it were. Couldn¡¯t buy a decent sword for a stack of bills once worth over fifty million pyreal!¡± He laughed at himself in mockery. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°It¡¯s a harsh lesson to learn. Once there¡¯s that reliance on magic, it¡¯s really hard to overcome it, or prepare for it not being there,¡± Princess Kristie nodded shortly. ¡°The up-front cost on magical stuff is pretty horrid, but once you have it and it¡¯s working, it¡¯s dirt cheap and nobody cares what was already invested, or wants to work on alternatives.¡± ¡°Yes, unless it complements the magic, science often takes a back seat, especially if everyone is potentially able to use magic. However,¡± my eyes glittered, ¡°there remains the fact that once you are over-reliant on magic, taking it away from being usable is an incredible military tactic and strategy. As was found out here.¡± ¡°Wait!¡± The Mick almost missed a step. ¡°Are ye saying this whole Fall was planned by something?¡± I was silent, so Princess Kristie spoke up after a moment, ¡°Well, duh.¡± She looked straight ahead as his face hardened. ¡°We already told you how much magic is involved in this place, the sheer scale, the power, the quantity of it, and just how resilient the ley line network was. ¡°I don¡¯t care how powerful that Viamontian Ritual back home that my parents disrupted was, there was no way it was going to shake this network here. It shouldn¡¯t have had much more effect than throwing a barrel of water into a creek. Instead, it started a flash flood.¡± The Mick was silent as we trotted along faster than a normal human could sprint. ¡°These¡­ whatever they were, pulling the strings of us and ours, treating our lives like a theater play...¡± ¡°Well, obviously they got bored with something. I imagine there was a period during which there were no new ¡®events¡¯, as you called them. Wild and crazy shit without real explanations prompting you all to break your habits, get up and do something a bit new...¡± she hinted strongly. He thought about that hard, frowning, and finally nodded slowly. ¡°There were nearly three years after the Rynthid invasion where nothing much happened, save the usual holiday odd-stuff recurring. And then...¡± he trailed off meaningfully. ¡°Is there a way to put those bastards to the sword, whoever they are?¡± ¡°Well, they treated your Lord Asheron like just another tool to be manipulated, and no doubt played all the great and horrible threats as such the same way, plus completely control the ley lines to administer Wish and Eternal-Level effects...¡± Kris trailed off darkly. ¡°Not without breaking the cap and becoming Eternals yourselves, at the very least. Probably need a lot of Nulls or Sources, and what I wouldn¡¯t give for a Void Brother to track all the bastards down, as I hugely doubt this level of magic is good for the Land...¡± I added in. ¡°Void Brothers, now? Is that something new to take?¡± he asked hopefully. ¡°No,¡± Princess Kristie said shortly, cutting off his thoughts. ¡°A Void is something you are born as, not something you earn. They are one of the Forsaken paths, the rarest of them, Favored of the Land, hunters of impurities, smart and deadly. I doubt this ley line network would even exist if Void Brothers were present on this planet.¡± ¡°Oh, most assuredly not,¡± I agreed heartily. ¡°I don¡¯t want to think how much this island must be warping the planet¡¯s manafield. A Void Brother would have torn it all out by its key nexus points, taken the heads of the makers, and returned everything back to the natural flows. I imagine the planet wouldn¡¯t be all that different from Ispar without the network.¡± ¡°Someone was obviously not satisfied with Gold-level magic,¡± Princess Kristie smirked. ¡°Maybe getting the aid of whoever made this place what it is was all part of a deal to access more powerful magic. You know world-walkers, never limiting themselves to anything like common sense.¡± ¡°Truth,¡± I admitted. ¡°Ah, we¡¯re coming up on the Tou-Tou Mansion,¡± the Mick broke in, obviously trying to steer away from the gloomy, very personal subject. He pointed up at the top of a sloping hill nearby. ¡°We run up and around that slope, and it be right on the top. Was praised for its view, and a prize of the Allegiance what owned it, back in the day.¡± ¡°Oh, another of the big buildings?¡± Princess Kristie grinned. ¡°We got a lot of raw materials out of those! That¡¯s a decent place to stop, even if it¡¯s early in the night!¡± ¡°Aye, thought that might interest ye. And I get a share, right?¡± he grinned shamelessly. ¡°You do, indeed! Making magic is not cheap anymore, and you¡¯re going to need a lot of capital if you want a lot of gear!¡± Kris confirmed for him, as we veered towards the indicated slope, rising hundreds of feet towards the looming sea-carved cliffs above us. ¡°Well, then, I¡¯ve some other news for ye. There were dozens of villages o¡¯ magical homes, some large, some small, scattered across Osteth here. They were all destroyed in function during the Fall, but I¡¯ve no doubts that a lot of the things that were stored there are still present...¡± Kris sent him a knowing glance. ¡°Sly dog,¡± she smiled at him, and he just grinned back. ¡°I bet we ran by a whole bunch of them on the way south here, too...¡± ¡°Ye did,¡± he affirmed as we hoofed it upwards, the Wagon floating serenely along behind me on its Disks. ¡°I never much dug about in them, just confirmed they were destroyed and weren¡¯t nothing much to recover. But the way ye pulled the stuff out of the other Mansions and have it stored, well, it got me ta thinking...¡± We were nearing the top as both of us laughed softly, but then his expression hardened. ¡°I¡¯ve a sight for ye as we reach the top.¡± He pointed in a specific direction. ¡°Ye can¡¯t see it all, but ye can see enough.¡± We reached the top of the place, the devastated Mansion clearly in view. Like the others, it had clearly been lifted up off its foundation by a mass of displaced stone and earth, rupturing into place with enough force to send cracks running through the stone all about it. On top of that, the place looked to have been assaulted with combat magic, ripped, torn, shorn, melted, fused, and blasted with obvious Bolts of War magic, and in some quantity. Our heads turned to follow his pointed hand, and his silent request to see out our eyes narrowed it down further. It was several miles away, but impossible to miss. Vortexes of shadows spinning like tormented black tornadoes, whipping about and writhing like living things, spewing dark streams up into the sky and the world which seemed to dissipate¡­ and maybe they did, but it still meant they were here, had been spewing that stuff into the world for years, and what was being done to counteract them? ¡°That¡¯s Tou-Tou, the source of the reason why the converted shadows, shades, whatever, all went mad, and the ones that remain behind are murderous dicks to just about everybody.¡± Kris looked it over in a couple spectra, as I was doing in magic. ¡°That looks like a freaking vivic inferno waiting to happen, Ryin,¡± she commented coolly to me. ¡°That it does,¡± I agreed with her. ¡°Although it might be strong enough to swamp a casual effort.¡± AF Chapter 85 – A Dark Contest not on the Horizon... ¡°Yer vivic fire can do something about that?¡± The Mick was properly amazed and delighted. ¡°Set it on vivic fire and devour it wholesale, aye. Turn it from an incoming extraplanar infectious energy to a healthy meal for the Land.¡± ¡°Really.¡± He blinked. ¡°But¡­ ye can¡¯t just light it on white fire, sounds like?¡± ¡°Probably have to set up a proper vivic inferno,¡± Kris admitted. ¡°What, a whole ring of Vivic Torches, Ryin?¡± ¡°Yes. Probably talking forty, fifty of them for one of the pillars, I¡¯m not sure. And then we¡¯d have to get in close enough to place them...¡± ¡°I think I told ye that has some of the most dangerous shadow-infested creatures in Dereth, an¡¯ they are all hungry to fight. When they come wandering out of the area, it¡¯s ta go on killing sprees. They kill everything in their way, usually following the main road down the mountains, but sometimes just spilling out randomly through the valleys an¡¯ looking for a fight anywhere they be finding one. If they be killed, we think the pillars just spit them back up within a day or so.¡± ¡°What do you think your chances are against them, Master Mick?¡± I asked archly. His hand went to Bunita, slung again upon his back, and he just sighed as his fingers caressed the guard. ¡°Nay a chance. The last time I chose ta cross blades with them, I were employing some of the most well-made, finely empowered, an¡¯ proudly Tinkered Weapons that could be found on the island, and I wasn¡¯t among the important combatants. The War Mages handled most o¡¯ the fighting. ¡°With me Sword as it is right now¡­ I¡¯d be lucky to land one blow in four, more likely six, and I¡¯ve not the armor or defenses that I had back then, either. Their magic would tear me up in short order, and that¡¯s no lie, even if they don¡¯t come as a group.¡± Kris looked at me, and I just shook my head. I didn¡¯t even have to see them to estimate my chances at consistently landing spells just weren¡¯t going to be enough. We needed more time, to gear up and Level up, before we could address that place, and seek alternative solutions to handling it, other than raging in and getting ourselves overwhelmed and killed. ¡°It¡¯s going on the list,¡± Kris said coldly, pointedly turning away and giving her attention back to the ruined Mansion in front of us. ¡°Master Mick, it looks like those shadows like to come here and blast away at this.¡± ¡°Never seen them meself, but it wouldn¡¯t surprise me,¡± he agreed, looking it over sadly. ¡°Attended some great parties here, with some romantic sunsets. A fine place it were, with a good crew of folks working out of here.¡± ¡°Looted it at all?¡± Kris asked, starting forward, and we trailed after her automatically. ¡°Mayhap?¡± he responded, shrugging. ¡°I¡¯m sure some tried to see if anything were left behind that were useful, but I doubt we¡¯ll find much that isn¡¯t down in the broken floors o¡¯ the basement.¡± Kris and I both grinned. ¡°That¡¯s where we found most of that scrap we have in the wagon!¡± Kris exclaimed. ¡°I¡¯m gathering that cleaning up underwater salvage isn¡¯t a strength of your people...¡± ¡°Aye, we¡¯re scouts, not scavengers,¡± he had to agree. ¡°I know some lads who could dive in there and perhaps pull up something worthwhile, but nothing like ye have in the floating tub.¡± ¡°Pull it around to the backside,¡± Kris directed crisply. ¡°I don¡¯t want it seen easily from the slope we just came up, or the hills,¡± she explained pessimistically. ¡°What are the odds that we won¡¯t be bothered by a random squad of shades spilling out of the city?¡± She looked up at the sky beseechingly. ¡°Are you cursing us with an interesting night?¡± I swore at her. ¡°The Mick hasn¡¯t even filled the first Slot on Bunita!¡± ¡°If they don¡¯t know we are here, they won¡¯t be prepared for us, and between the Mick and I, and your Healing, I¡¯m pretty sure we can handle just about any one of them, no?¡± she asked the Mick, who pondered the question seriously. ¡°If we can get it alone?¡± he conjectured. ¡°How¡¯s your Healing magic, Lady Ryin?¡± he asked me. ¡°Extremely potent,¡± I admitted to him crossly. ¡°But the only spell I might be able to land on shades as powerful as you are describing is my Shards, and even then I¡¯m not completely sure.¡± Without Truecasting backup, at least! ¡°We¡¯ll just have to see how unlucky we are,¡± Kris purred, her violet eyes flashing. ¡°Although, consider this¡­ ¡°If it¡¯s true that there¡¯s things watching this place, who wrote it off for the entertainment value and introduced a cataclysm here just to liven this place up¡­ what would be more fun, us diving another Mansion¡¯s basement for more spoils, or to send some shaded fun our way?¡± Both the Mick and I stiffened at her words. ¡°Ye¡­ think we¡¯re being watched by the bastards?¡± the Mick asked softly, not turning to gawk anywhere, merely shifting his eyes. ¡°I think that I¡¯m not a Null strong enough to avoid Divinations at that level, Ryin doesn¡¯t have Div Wards strong enough to stop whatever they are using, and as one of the few high-Level survivors, I imagine they keep a fairly good eye on you, Master Mick, wanting to see what mischief you get into as you adapt to the current paradigm. ¡°If they are watching, by now they¡¯ve seen us, that¡¯s almost an absolute.¡± I opened my mouth and closed it. I couldn¡¯t fault the logic of it. ¡°But do they know we suspect? Will they take action?¡± I could only respond. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Well, the key here is that there is no possible way they can know you¡¯ve an alternate Casting system fully ready to go, and what it can do, because you haven¡¯t been showing it to all and sundry. I think they are going to want to see what you can do, Ryin. They¡¯ve a fine source of trouble ready to push you into showing off some interesting new stuff for them.¡± I barely prevented a snarl from rising on my lips. I couldn¡¯t sense anyone scrying me, but if they were powerful enough to wield the ley lines here, that was Valence Ten stuff or the equivalent. I didn¡¯t have anything to stop it, and likely not even sense it! ¡°So, you¡¯re saying we should proceed as if we have trouble on the way,¡± I said, and she nodded. The Mick licked his lips. ¡°Probably no way to avoid it, if it¡¯s coming.¡± ¡°No. They¡¯d just be directed to whatever path we took, if we dared to cut across the way, or go around the shore. If they¡¯ve been sent, they¡¯re going to be led to wherever we are, ¡®random wandering monster¡¯ style.¡± I just let out a long, defeated groan. ¡°Master Mick, are we looking at anything other than deranged shades?¡± ¡°Deranged and empowered shades?¡± he repeated, emphasizing the latter. ¡°What I remember o¡¯ them, and have seen from a distance, are the Void Lords, who are the armored male shades clad in bloody shadow, some of the degenerate females with legs of smoke, and male archers, their eyes all aflame; corrupted zefirs spitting spells out left and right; warped grievvers scuttling to the attack, and iron-tough little marguls racing about and breathing fire like the damn killer pests they are.¡± ¡°Grievvers?¡± Kris and I asked together. ¡°Marguls?¡± we added in unison. I reached out my hand and she clapped it without looking. ¡°Not run into those, aye? Well, no surprise, that. The grievvers are more common to the north, and out in the Direlands across the Inner Sea. Spider-like things, predators from the world of the olthoi, what followed them here to Dereth when they came in pursuit o¡¯ their captured queen. They eat most anything, but they usually stay near the olthoi and what works they¡¯ve done¡­ although there¡¯s a lot of them as Summons on the landscape, sure enough,¡± he added thoughtfully. ¡°The marguls are like little twisted demon dragonlings or something, filled with the energy of shadow and serving whatever Bael¡¯zaeron and his patron are or were completely. Vicious little things, but restricted to areas with a lot of shadow energy about, couldn¡¯t seem to endure long outside them.¡± ¡°Best things to use on them?¡± ¡°Fire or slashing on most anything of shadow. The grievvers had to be cut, as they could endure the fire, but the rest you could mostly burn down. When we did a purging run into the town, it were mostly with fire weapons.¡± ¡°Pick your spell for the day?¡± Kris asked me. ¡°No,¡± I said shortly. She nodded once. ¡°Bane Weapon. We¡¯ll need it to Shades, I think, when it¡¯s time.¡± It was a broadly useful choice, and I didn¡¯t contest it. ¡°Well enough. Now, let¡¯s just hope we¡¯re wrong.¡± ----------- -That is a LOT of Health...- Kris /murmured, as I displayed my Assay results for both of them. The Mick had seen their burning eyes coming from some distance from his watchpost on the half-collapsed balcony on the second floor. He¡¯d called down to warn us of them. Happily, they didn¡¯t seem to be moving that fast, even occasionally letting off some random war magic against the hills and stones about them in wild and random malice. 2800 Health? That was utterly insane by any measure of the Power of Ten. But that¡¯s what the corrupted Void Lord was showing, and the deranged Shadow Archer and Panumbris were both over 2000. The nearly invisible sprite-like zefir flitting about, and only noticed because it had blasted four lesser Firebolts into a boulder sitting idly there minding its own business, was over a thousand! In Power of Ten terms, that was just way, way, WAY too much Health or Soak. More than the oldest of dragons would have. The Mick was doubtless one of the toughest Isparians alive, and was only sitting on 350 or so Health, while Kris, with her insane Constitution score and broken Rantha Hag Racial Class, was still only around 400 combined because of her Level. I wasn¡¯t even close, of course, under 150 and nothing for it. Welcome to the world of Invisibility 10¡¯ Radius, yesterday¡¯s spell, which had politely swallowed the wagon and us. We were communicating by Marktell as Kris had politely moved us off to the side of hill and out of the direct path of the shades. They seemed to be moving directly for the Mansion, except for the nearly-invisible shade of a zefir, which was zipping around like a deranged hummingbird and occasionally letting off spells for no more reason than a pebble seemed to be offending its sense of place. -That zefir is definitely going to run into us accidentally and reveal us,- Kris /said, resigned to the fact we were going to be fighting. -If it does so where the shades see us, wow, I think we¡¯re running, and I don¡¯t know if we can do anything unless we head all the way back to Hebian-to, and we¡¯ll be chased all the way.- We both felt her shake her head. -Need some advice on the killing, here.- -These shades have no specific weaknesses to Light in your history, Mick?- I /asked him directly. -Not a one. Black as ink, drink light in without a problem. Only see their eyes, maybe their hair if they be styling it or it be aflame, their mouth if they be talking.- He just shook his head. -Well, that just sounds utterly wrong to me. There¡¯s new magic integrating into things here. They should have a very healthy vulnerability to Radiance...- I cycled through that Assay, specifically the vulnerabilities, which had restricted themselves to the physical and Elemental ones native to the Isparian system. -Would double damage make that much difference?- Kris /asked reasonably. -There¡¯s no accompanying Vulnerability to enhance it, is there?- -Yes, and no. We¡¯re going to have to go the dreaded route of total cheese, Your Highness.- I /said grimly. -Total cheese?- She glanced in my unseen direction, although she had tremblesense and knew exactly where I was. -No. You can¡¯t possibly mean?- I nodded regretfully. -Save or dies, Highness, if we want to kill them.- -What¡¯s this, now?- the Mick /asked alertly. -Ye didn¡¯t mention this among all the other wild and crazy stuff ye spoke of.- -Magic and martial skills are not limited by mere infliction of damage, however graphic, precise, or brutal you want to apply it. There are and have always been ways to kill things, regardless of how much damn Health they have. Chop off its head, and that Void Lord is dead,- Kris /pointed out, and the Mick nodded slowly. -Likewise, if I drive my Sword through your heart, or cut your throat, you¡¯re dead. Magic has similar things. Death spells, paralysis spells, petrification spells, feebleminding spells¡­ things that, if they go off successfully, mean you are hosed. The only way to resist them is to Save, i.e., resist with will or body, or maybe dodge them at the last instant, or you die.- AF Chapter 86 – The Ruby Hand of Death -That sounds like assassin¡¯s tools...- the Mick /noted slowly. -The Ruby Hand techniques are and should be part of a warrior¡¯s arsenal, for just this reason. They don¡¯t work against a large number of creatures, but against others, it might be literally all we have to use,- the princess /said grimly. -Now, the whole shtick of assassins killing anyone they are pointed at for the proper amount of coin is something very different. Ryin, what do you have to work with?- she /asked firmly. -I have True Casting to get past magic resistance, one spell at a time, and I have Emerald Shards of Paralysis.- Kris¡¯ breath hissed out. -Can they be paralyzed? Will the spell affect them? It¡¯s only a II, right?- -They¡¯ve no immunity to paralysis in their Assay, and it¡¯s not Hold Person, I actually have to hit them¡­ but it¡¯s a touch attack. They still get the save, but it¡¯s a Shard, and it¡¯s in my specialty.- -What level of Save are you looking at?- Kris /asked pointedly. -I¡¯ve been looking for some alternate attack means once I realized how much Health some of these creatures have. So, I worked in Spell Focus for Good, Cold, and Evocation spells into my choices. They¡¯re all on different lines, so they all stack.- Go, go, Paid Feats per day, go! -I¡¯ll Raise it to a III. 10+3+9 Int +7 Spell Focus +2 Staff +2 Banespell is a 33.- Kris barely managed to stifle a laugh. -And you¡¯re a SIX?- she /breathed out in disbelief, while the Mick just listened and wondered, and realized something really deadly was brewing here. -Optimizers gotta optimize, Your Highness. Dare I ask what your Fort Save is?- -You¡¯d never land that, but that¡¯s beside the point. Damn! What are you figuring their Saves are?- Princess Kristie demanded in return. -+20 minimum.- -Those aren¡¯t good odds, Ryin...- Basically, 60%, or less. -Yes, but I¡¯m a Shardcaster,- I /reminded her. -I get two Shards, even Emeralds.- She was silent for a moment, before sighing. -My Ruby Hand save is going to be a 32 with Quaver.- I said nothing. It meant she was a Master Assassin by any measure you wanted to use. She just had to study her opponent, find the weak point, and strike while they were unaware. Death Strike stuff was totally nasty that way. Yet one more reason to get totally broken saving throw numbers, as it were! -How do I help?- the Mick /interjected, not wanting to be left out. -The paralysis effect of an Emerald Shard is Saved against every six seconds, lasting a maximum of six seconds a Caster Level. So if one lands, it could break free in seconds, or it might be tied up for a few breaths. During that time period, you chop off its damn head with extreme prejudice,- I /informed him blithely. -Under the magical system, a coup de grace is a Fortitude Save against the amount of damage applied, which is always a critical hit. Not even Kris would survive one against a weapon with Crushing Blow.- -So, I sneak up, get close, and when one stiffens up and stops moving, I take off its head with Bunita. That sounds like an eminently reasonable and efficient way to prosecute the abrupt termination of our mutual enemies,- he /sniffed in a lofty professorial tone. - I goddamn like it! I have no pissing desire ta duel one of these bastards an'' eat point-blank magic, even with a Healer around!- -That might still happen, but between you and the Princess, there is nothing that is going to last very long in a fight, and with her Null up, spellcasting is going to be extremely hazardous to the thing,- was my /opinion, and they didn¡¯t say I was wrong. -I¡¯m going to take out that damn pixie thing and then run for a line-of-sight break around the Mansion. I¡¯m going to pass you as I do and get an Invisibility hand-off as I do. Then we see if they split up. If we can isolate one, for even a few seconds, we combo up and go for the kill. Then Invisibility the lot of us again, try to paralyze the remaining two, kill whatever is paralyzed, and then duel down the last one is the most likely scenario.- She set action to words, because her Null was already eroding away the Invisibility she was under, and she only had a few minutes left. Totally enough to take out a loopy little fey shadow-maddened thing zipping around and randomly unloading on the environment, and now heading up for the Mansion to investigate a fun place with a lot of doors, walls, and broken windows to zip in and around and through. We didn¡¯t have any problem tracking her, since she was giving us her visual feed as she moved with predatory grace and speed, closing in on the oblivious thing with the silence of a raised Sound Bubble tight around her, and the smooth grace and poise of the Waveskating Step. She was only a ripple fluttering through the tough grass and scrub of the hilltop, and the casually flying shadow-maddened fey that was staying close to the ground had absolutely no idea she was closing in on it. The shades behind didn¡¯t seem to be moving too urgently, either, their light-devouring bodies unnaturally graceful since there was no muscle or skin or anything to contrast their motions. They were literally walking black pools in humanoid forms, only their burning eyes and occasional hot flashes of their mouths opening and whispering something in their sussurant language drawing attention, although the obvious leader was also clad in bloody red stylized breastplate and greaves, and the other male was holding a bow as tall as he was. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The Mick and I slid away from the Wagon, moving quietly and slowly to the sides of where the shades would be coming up on the front door of the Mansion, mindlessly following the trail up like most beings automatically would, path of least resistance and all. Even the flying zefir was keeping to the path, completely ignorant of death coming upon it. It might be as tough as nails from a magical standpoint, but Death Attacks just didn¡¯t care. Kris¡¯ deadly focus was almost harrowing to feel, a murderous intensity and hyperanalytic state devoted to the simple task of the perfect moment, perfect time as she closed in, having no problems keeping up with its steady flight. It even helpfully paused at one point to unleash a blast of fire and knock off a section of the roof that was trying to hang on, laughing in piercingly high, inhuman manner as the tiles fell to the ground. Quaver was solid Ruby as Kris came out of the Invisibility and in one sublime stroke, lopped off its head in midair. Its meep! of shock was actually totally muffled, but there was no denying the shades instantly spotted the flash of bloody red. Then Kris was off and running for the side of the Mansion I was pressed flat against, while the shades all burst into inhumanly fast motion after her. She came around the corner, hit the hand I had held up, and was Invisible the instant she left their line of sight. Instead of continuing to run around the Mansion, she looped back out into their arc of view, Quaver already sheathed and any red light it emitted concealed. I stayed flat against the wall, wringing my hand to get rid of the numbness from hitting a hag princess who felt like moving bronze. The shade in scarlet armor led the way, waving a crimson axe of rather unbalanced proportions like a toy, blood magic curdling around it. The female moving on a cloud of shadows was gliding at speed right behind him, no feet to trip or fall on anything, hands raised to pummel or to Cast, I couldn¡¯t quite tell. The archer came last, arrow swirling with dark magic in hand that he¡¯d obviously conjured out of nowhere, plainly covering the other two, his long, ornate, and why was it spiked? bow ready in hand. The Mick was up by the back corner. Bunita did not emit light, so he had her drawn and ready for a hip-snapping, shoulder-whipping crosscut as he crouched there, invisible. The two melee specialist shades pounded around the side of the building, ready for a fight, didn¡¯t see anything, and raced ahead. The archer, on the other hand, came to the corner and paused for just a moment, moving arrow to bow in perfect form to cover the other two and take a shot at any target who should just be on the far end of the mansion¡­ or to turn around and come back, making ready to shoot her if she was circling around, which, having no target in sight, meant she¡¯d somehow been fast enough to reach the far side of the ruined building already. I spent the True Casting, and Divined transcendent insight into his magical resistance blossomed across my forebrain. Two crystalline green wedges of hard light appeared next to my hand as I whipped them up, and his head turned at the motion and light, halting in shock on seeing me right there, where he¡¯d obviously run right past me. Both Shards drove into his side before he could dodge them, and seemed to resonate for a second as the green glow spread over him. He stiffened into a perfect black statue. The Mick¡¯s long claymore came scything across as Kris slid in low and drove Quaver up and completely through whatever nexus of energy formed his heart. The Sound Bubble from Quaver ate any noise, and I watched the archer¡¯s black head tumble free and clear. Who got the kill didn¡¯t matter, proper Fellowships with supplemental Marklinks shared Karma nicely between all parties, Karmic weight given to everyone who contributed, high or low. After all, even the novice standing guard allowed someone to focus fully on a fight, instead of having to watch their back¡­ Kris levered the shade over, whatever he weighed immaterial as she heaved him back out of line of sight of the other two still running away, just in case. The Mick darted past her and down the side of the Mansion towards me, grinning fiercely, followed by Kris. I spent the Invisibility 10¡¯r again, and all three of us vanished from sight. The two melees dashed down the side of the Mansion ahead of me, Kris in the lead, her tremblesense radiating from the Marklink and placing all of us perfectly as long as we stayed close. I would become visible as soon as my Shards popped up, but not when I cast the True Casting. However, I could only focus on one of them, the other was more than likely to resist the Shard entirely¡­ -You and the Mick take out the female, we gang up on the guy with horrible taste in armor.- It was an order. The Mick shifted position as I stayed back. She¡¯d noticed, as I had, that the two Shards seemed to accumulate the paralytic charge. Maybe a +2 to the DC of the Save needed per extra Shard? Would make sense, and be hard to test if you weren¡¯t a Shardcaster to begin with. Whatever, it should mean a 90% chance of success if things didn¡¯t go sideways. The shades came around the side of the Mansion, back to the front, and slowed down when they saw nothing there. A sound like a burning wind rushing out rose, I recognized it as a call for the archer as the two burning-eyed blots of blackness looked around for an enemy, saw nothing, and wondered where the archer was who should have sniped her. Of course, the weakling human could have ducked into the Mansion, and their eyes drifted that way after a few burning words in their corrupted speech. They glided forward urgently, either not caring about where the archer was or so focused on their prey they didn¡¯t have any other thoughts in mind, and so happily had their backs turned when I popped up and let go. At the same second, Kris charged, and the Mick leapt in, trusting to the magic going off and going for the head shot on the female. Both Shards struck her, hard emerald light flashing over her and locking her instantly in place. I noted that her levitation effect actually had to be some form of physical locomotion, or she should have kept gliding along. The Mick knew and had already compensated for her stopping, and Bunita hissed across in a bright flash of steel, a spark of magic accenting as the Crushing Blow went off. The enhanced crit cut through whatever magical effects were boosting their Health, and he harvested her head. Kris was layering everything. Ways, Spirited Charge, Valorous, One Strike, Power Attacks, Leap Attack: it was all coming in at the unwary walking inkspot as she came down on him. I figured the hit she landed on him did north of 500 damage, before the Death Strike, and it was definitely a death strike, coming down on the side of his neck and plunging in deep as she slammed down onto his shoulders. Didn¡¯t kill him. The Void Lord shade¡¯s whispery shriek of agony only reached us because Kris could hear it. A full yard of golden-edged, Lost Light-enhanced adamantine was driven into his chest and impaling all the vitals anything human should have, and the sunuvabitch still lived. Kris¡¯ response was to kick her legs over, wrap them around his axe arm, and clench ferociously as she heaved at Quaver and made him scream in agony again. AF Chapter 87 – Shadows Die The Mick was already moving in to support, seeing her having tied up the bastard¡¯s arm. Her Null flicked on as suddenly we could hear both of them, just as she opened her mouth and bit down on the shade¡¯s throat with enough force to make all the muscles on her neck stand out in relief. Yeah, he was pawing at her desperately, wanting her off him bad, just as deft sleight of hand undid the top strap of his breastplate and it swung away from from his shoulder. Bunita drove right into the opening, a lethal blow to the arteries under the arm there for a living human, something black and burning spurting free. The armored shade was trying to swing at him, spin around, but there was a supernaturally strong woman on his back, chewing into the side of his neck, binding up his arm, and ignoring the blows he was raining on her. The Mick transitioned to the other arm and legs as the shade kept spinning, trying to keep Kris on his back between them. But the princess was staying up off the legs, and the Mick promptly cut across the hamstrings, shades of black boiling free as he worked his arms and hips as fast as he could, following the shade as he instinctively tried to spin Kris off and, failing that, started crushing her into the side of the Mansion¡¯s decrepit walls, screaming as she worked the Blade stuck so deep into his chest. The Mick kept his attacks low as I got off another True Casting, hyperanalyzed the shade¡¯s magic resistance, and¡­ -Use normal Shards!- the princess /snarled, having no faith this brute was going to fail the save and render two spells useless. ¡­ and my Energized, Baned, Sanctified, Blessed, Sacred, and so many other Metas Shards, wed to multiple arcs of slashing Force magic, spellwarped down into a Ray, Split on a force prism in midair, and as Kris wrenched and twisted and the Mick ducked and pivoted off to the side, drove right into the middle of the shade¡¯s chest as she was smashed back into the foundation of the Mansion¡¯s elevated sides, rocks and dirt exploding at the force of the impact. He screamed in breathy, burning fashion, while Princess Kristie just bit down harder, and then a whole lot of Force, Holy, Anathemic, and Blessed Elemental energies took a ravaging swim through his insides, gouts of shadowy substance bursting in all directions, vivus raging on the wounds as the residual damage ate at him. Yeah, trying to spellcast in this situation wasn¡¯t doing him much better, either. The smashing force of the Toppling impact blasted him off his feet, drove the breath out of Kristie again (-Thanks heaps!-, she /groused at me) and sent him bouncing and reeling along the sides of the Veil-born motte to the ground, smoking and blazing and burning. Kristie twisted away and let him go, her face a mass of shadow-spitting bruises. She did not, however, let his Axe go, and she let him keep Quaver stuck down the side of his neck and into his innards, blazing now with what looked like Banefire, Vivus, Flaming, and Holy all active. The armored shade ripped his breastplate, hanging free and impeding him, off with a convulsive burst of movement, clawing for Quaver and trying to draw the Sword out as he rocked on the ground. Kris was giving him the moves as the Mick went airborne, raised Bunita up high, and came down on the flaming-eyed fellow, all his weight on the point of his Sword. The shade screamed again as the Weight of the Waterfall descended upon him, even if it was executed by a novice, and Bunita punched right through his chest, drove through the bloody pyreal of his backplate, and nailed the thing to the ground. Yeah, that probably wasn¡¯t the best place to be. Especially when the Princess came in like an eel, snaked her legs up under the shade¡¯s arms somehow, hooked her feet behind his neck, and suddenly the writhing bastard was also caught in a Full Nelson with her legs, his feet scrabbling and kicking and not able to do a damn thing about it as she didn¡¯t let him fight back. The Mick reached up, grabbed Quaver, who shrank to a dagger¡¯s size in his grip to hop right on out of that deadly wound, slammed his left fist up under the inkspot of a chin and grabbed it with his hand, then proceeded to saw at the thing¡¯s throat in a manner both very mean and very efficient with Quaver in his right. Whispers became gurgles as the pinned shade had his throat sawed through by a blazing Blade that wasn¡¯t giving him any respect whatsoever. The Mick, being a prudent fellow who had no desire whatsoever for this thing to Heal itself and get back up, continued sawing the burning dagger-Sword through the thick neck until he cut the thing¡¯s head completely off, finishing his trifecta for the day, while the muscles in Kris¡¯ legs stood out like iron cables and prevented the shade from doing anything about it. I walked up and watched as she gripped the shade¡¯s helmed skull with black-nailed hands that looked very much like claws at the moment, and she ripped it off the stump as the Mick finished up. Instead of tossing it away, she beat it on the dirt, getting the vivus especially to go out and sending the helm bouncing away, although she didn¡¯t do the same for its body. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Baneskull,¡± she ordered me shortly, tossing it up for me to catch¡­ which I did, without breaking stride. The neck wounds were already ashed shut, no gooey shade blood for me! ¡°D¡¯ya think the watchers are pleased with us now?¡± the Mick grinned fiercely, getting up from his headless opponent and watching Kris uncoil her long legs effortlessly. ¡°I think they put that whole scene on Holo and are asking one another how much they¡¯d pay for the Princess to put them in a headlock.¡± The Mick pursed his lips, looked at Kris¡¯ absolutely killer legs in her shredded pants, a real counterpart to her punching bag of a face, and looked away, laughing as he did so. ¡°There¡¯s something bloody wrong with them if they aren¡¯t. If I don¡¯t make their background pic at least, I¡¯m going to be very disappointed!¡± she sniffed, tossing her hair across her currently-ruined face, shifting her hip just so, and I had to snicker and absolutely look away. That¡­ was a Night Rose pose that could give the unprepared a nosebleed. She¡¯d told the Mick to look away, and I did the same, just to be safe. She¡¯d probably also dislocated her hips putting that thing in a leglock like she had, from that position. ¡°Teamwork, teamwork, rah rah rah!¡± I said to nobody in particular, already invoking Mana Boost to get back my Pool and replace multiple III Valences I¡¯d had to spend. ¡°How¡¯s your back?¡± I asked her as she shrugged. Several very loud and grindy pops slowly followed, the Mick turning back to listen as she moved this way and that, and several things inside her were fit back into place. ¡°Better than most of my bedmates,¡± she admitted, and I snorted as the Mick just shook his head. ¡°The guy had no experience with proper grappling techniques. Don¡¯t they teach ancient shades proper fighting?¡± ¡°Felt like grabbing slimy hard cheese,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°Who¡¯d want to grapple the bastard?¡± ¡°Point!¡± she conceded to him, catching Quaver as he tossed her Sword back to her. The shade¡¯s corpse was already burning merrily, going up en vivus like it was gasoline-soaked wood chips, or something. With a poof!, the Axe laying off to the side also Ignited, at which I drew a long face. ¡°Damn! Life-linked Weapons are so cheaty!¡± I complained. Denying us rightful plunder! ¡°I¡¯d say we¡¯re gonna make that Baneskull painful, but he¡¯s already dead and won¡¯t care,¡± sniffed Kristie at the loss. Burning enemy Artifice was a great way to earn some goldweight. The crimson Armor was starting to Burn, too, although vivus didn¡¯t normally affect enchanted items. ¡°Ye think they¡¯ll send more?¡± the Mick asked, looking towards Tou-Tou and the whipping funnels of shadow-stuff there with rather more confidence than he¡¯d had before, then wincing at the pop as Kris¡¯ hips snapped back into place. ¡°I think that I don¡¯t care if they do,¡± I admitted. ¡°Although they¡¯d best wait until morning when I can go grab a couple more things.¡± ¡°Oh? Got some new ideas on how to deal with them?¡± Kris was definitely interested. ¡°Yes. You didn¡¯t notice it, but the Lost Light from Quaver was eating into the bastard while it was stuck in him.¡± ¡°Lost Light?¡± the Mick piped up instantly. ¡°Yer Sword is a Sword of Lost Light?¡± he asked in disbelief. Kris raised an eyebrow as she flipped out Quaver, which grew to full length again. The swirls of forcelight around it danced hypnotically as the Mick stepped closer to peer at the proud Blade. He glanced at us. ¡°Ye know of the Lore about the Swords of Lost Light?¡± he asked carefully. ¡°There was a remarkable amount of information transferred to us when Quaver subsumed one such Sword,¡± I replied to him. ¡°The location of the Hall of the Lost Light, and that it is waiting for a new Order to arise to battle the undead and the shadows; the source of the Infusions which buttressed the Blade and empowered it.¡± The Mick was nodding. ¡°Aye, I used to own one of the Blades meself. Actually, I owned four of them!¡± Kris and I blinked in tandem. ¡°Four?¡± Kris repeated wryly. ¡°Why four of them?¡± ¡°Because they were all different,¡± he stated, and we paid rapt attention as he went on. ¡°There were the base Blade, which ye powered up with the three Infusions of Blue, White, and Red Fire from the volcanoes of Dereth. Then there were the Greater Infusion of Radiance ye got from the Dark Isle, where it had been hidden away.¡± I straightened up instantly. That place where the Grael he mentioned had been imprisoned? ¡°Then there were three other Infusions ye could apply to the Blade. The first was a Shadow-Slaying Infusion, which made the whole Blade extremely deadly against the Shadows, Shades, whatever.¡± He waved it off. ¡°Then there was a Skeleton-Slaying Infusion, which did the same thing, making it a great weapon against the skellies, but, alas, ye couldn¡¯t stack it on the same Weapon. ¡°The last was to Infuse it with a portion of the blood of Bael¡¯Zhaeron.¡± Expecting to hear about an Infusion against the Undead, Kris and I both flinched. ¡°That were actually the most powerful of the three. It turned it into a bloody Weapon of acid, what were called a Sword of Lost Hope. It were an Acid Rending Weapon, on top of its Biting Strike and Crushing Blow properties. Probably the best all-around Acid Weapon any of us knew of.¡± He coughed slightly as we stared at him. ¡°It were my go-to Acid Weapon up until the end. The Shadow and Skellie Slayers didnae work as well as straight Renders, and were just wall trophies, for the most part. ¡°They all blew apart during the Fall. I didnae think any of them survived at all.¡± Kris¡¯ lips were thin at the idea he¡¯d corrupt a Weapon of Light like that with the blood of the First Shade, such as it were, but she let it go. Obviously it had been a significant improvement over the base Sword, and the Alignments were not a factor here, nor had there been corruption of the wielders involved. ¡°And nobody tried to replicate the effect with other Elements?¡± I asked the Mick, who looked at me sharply. I pointed at Quaver. ¡°That improved Lost Light torus there is because of the two black Stones set into it.¡± ¡°Those are Blackfire Stones?!¡± He immediately stepped in to stare intently at the two stones. ¡°Damnation and fire!¡± he swore, blinking at them. ¡°They are! How did ye...¡± He stared again, studying her Blade. ¡°Ye¡¯ve room for more Slots...¡± Kris silently reached into her breast pocket and drew out four jewels glittering with Elemental energies. ¡°Atlan Stones!¡± he shouted immediately, holding out his hands. Amused, she poured them into his grasp, and he held the first up to his eyes. ¡°The greater version, too! Where did ye find them? I¡¯ve not a seen a set in years!¡± he exclaimed enthusiastically. ¡°In the muck at the bottom of the first Mansion we cleaned out,¡± Kris replied. ¡°Greater versions?¡± she repeated from his earlier words. AF Chapter 88 – Of Blades and Things He glanced at her for a moment, away from the Fire Stone he¡¯d lifted up. ¡°Aye, there¡¯s Lesser ones around, much less powerful. The, uh, ley lines form them up from the raw energy of the land in set places, naught more than minor Elementals about t¡¯ guard them. We could just run up and pick them off the ground.¡± He looked at the two Blackfire Stones inset on Quaver sharply. ¡°A progression of power?¡± he asked sharply, not unfamiliar with the concept. ¡°Ye could mount Blackfire Stones on Atlan Weapons, and increase their power considerably. They were fine Weapons for a time, until we found the secret of Rending Weapons, and they became mid-tier things, backup weapons only the poor or weak would use. We could infuse them with the Atlan Stones, too, which made them very flexible if ye needed ta change Elemental attack types, given a few minutes, so if ye only carried one Weapon, they were a fine choice in their time.¡± He tossed a thumb at Bunita. ¡°In the day, I used to carry around a dozen different Swords, nae just one.¡± ¡°A dozen?¡± Kris was definitely amused at that, but then put her hand to her forehead, holding her hand out for the Stones. ¡°Before you answer that, I need you to know something.¡± He gave them back to her promptly, sensing this was important. ¡°Highness?¡± he asked respectfully. ¡°Swords of Lost Light have Weapon spirits formed right into them. They are living Weapons. It¡¯s why they can be evolved so easily to greater strength.¡± She inhaled deeply, staring him deep in the eyes. ¡°You corrupting that Sword of Lost Light with the blood of the First Shade was akin to someone forcibly transforming you into a Shade, and then keeping you their slave to use and abuse after doing it, while you couldn¡¯t do anything about it but scream silently and weep blood at the horror of it.¡± The Mick blinked once as the blood drained visibly from his ruddy face. Then he shuddered, licking his lips and looking away. ¡°Oh,¡± he said in a weak voice. ¡°I, I didn¡¯t know, Highness...¡± he whispered. ¡°You said they were destroyed during the Fall.¡± He looked back at her and nodded slowly. ¡°That would have released them from the chains and corrupt cage they were put into. But if you ever see such a Sword intact, you must shatter it and set them free. Do not seek to replicate it that way, ever. ¡°It¡¯s a living Weapon, made for the hands of the great and good. Don¡¯t torture it that way. It can grow to become what you seek through cleaner methods.¡± He reached up to touch his own Weapon, feeling the touch of the growing spirit inside it, and something flickered through his eyes as he pictured that feeling, that link, being fed the corrupt blood of what he had called the Hopeslayer. ¡°Aye, Highness. I swear on me Sword that I¡¯ll not repeat the mistake, and if I see such a corrupted Blade, I¡¯ll end it.¡± She nodded once, turning to look at me. ¡°You¡¯ve a light in your eye, Ryin.¡± I took my own deep breath, looking at Quaver. I reached out and into the torus of Lost Lights swirling around the Sword as if alive. ¡°You didn¡¯t catch it, so I¡¯ll emphasize it. He called the last and more powerful Infusion a Radiance Infusion.¡± I touched the Lost Lights, my eyes glittering. ¡°These are both Force and Radiant magic, Kris.¡± Her eyes widened just a bit. ¡°I¡¯m not a Powered, but that sounds incredibly useful...¡± I closed my eyes, reached out to one side of the swirls that I knew, feeling the motes of Force flickering, pulling them to my hand. I opened my eyes and saw the swirls about Quaver streaming over to circle my hand in delight, even turning silvery in reaction to my Argent Savancy. They were still glowing in faint chromatic hues, however. ¡°Force and Radiance are considered two of the highest energy forms that arcane magic can draw on. Any Tradition, really. And Radiance tends to be very, very hostile to necromancy, shadow magic, and anything associated with lower-planar life.¡± I held up my hand, staring at the dancing motes. ¡°This Lost Light is meant as a guideline to energies which are extremely dangerous to the undead of all kinds, and the Shades. If you aren¡¯t wielding the Sword, then I imagine the energies of the Swords are what you are meant to look at.¡± ¡°What did the minor Atlan Stones do?¡± Kris asked quickly. ¡°Just changed the damage the blade inflicted to the Element, mostly? There were no increase in power...¡± ¡°And these stones were never used in combination with a Sword of Lost Light, only those Infusions?¡± ¡°Aye, there¡¯s no Slot in the Swords as we saw,¡± the Mick agreed slowly. ¡°Pommelstone?¡± Kris pressed, turning her Sword over. The Mick looked at it for a long moment, pursing his lips. ¡°We never tried?¡± he finally offered, spreading his hands wide helplessly. ¡°You¡¯re thinking the Infusions are just progressive power alternates, like the stones?¡± I asked her. ¡°Living Weapons, like any Named Weapon. I think the Minor Stones are a stepping stone taking part of the load so the major Stones can dump more raw juice into the Blade, and the... Blackfire Stones are meant to stack on top of that.¡± She eyed the row of them narrowly. It fit. The Blackfire Stones were definitely a form of modular power conduit. If the Swords of Lost Light were evolving Weapons, it was natural that a basic power-up would be useful on them. ¡°If that were true¡­ could the Infusions be applied to other Weapons?¡± the Mick asked slowly. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°If they are designed for it, or they are living Weapons,¡± Kris replied firmly. His eyes grew intense again. ¡°Like Named Weapons...¡± he said softly, reaching up to touch Bunita again. ¡°Yes. The main difference of Living Weapons is organic growth with their owner, and how good their base shell is.¡± Kris spun Quaver through her fingers like it was a baton. ¡°You¡¯re fighting physics by making your Sword lighter. You want physics on your side. You want to be swinging around a heavy, deadly Weapon, letting your strength and heavyfoot take care of inertia problems. You felt how heavy Quaver is.¡± ¡°Fifty percent more damage,¡± I boiled down her explanation as the Mick nodded, clenching his hand. ¡°With a reduction to hit if you are weak, none if you are strong.¡± I met his eyes. ¡°You can toss me up to the second floor with one hand. You should be swinging around something that would break the wrists of a normal man. Instead you went with that pyreal alloy and Bunita is almost a finesse blade, giving you no real benefits for doing so.¡± His face twisted. ¡°Aye, but the pyreal alloy technique is one of the things we managed to save, and the blade lets the magic flow through it more easily as a result...¡± ¡°At some point, we¡¯re going to have to reforge your Sword into YOUR Sword, not some namby-pamby finesse blade made for some duelist to show off. A Sword meant for carving through armor, meat, hide, and bone in equal measure, crashing against shields and driving down lighter weapons in a fight. If you want to look like a blade dancer, that¡¯s on you. Be strong and agile enough to use your Sword that way, don¡¯t short-change yourself!¡± ¡°Yes, Highness,¡± he sighed, aware that this young woman had very old and lethal eyes, and even if he was technically her superior and elder in most ways, she knew so much that he wanted to learn, and learn right now¡­! Also, she was goddamn vicious and brutal in a fight, a superior team player, and had precious little pride and reservation when it came time for the killing. He wanted to be on her side, in her Fellowship, and that was not a lie! ¡°Alright, we¡¯re going to get back to diving for goldweight, you¡¯re going back on watch. We¡¯ll be up at the dawn for the morning Salute.¡± ¡°And miss me chance to see ye swimming again?¡± he muttered, clearly not meaning it as he clasped his chest, mortally wronged. ¡°Ye¡¯re a cruel woman, Highness!¡± ¡°I am indeed, now off with you!¡± she just grinned, and he headed back to where the Wagon was sitting to take up position again, after I slapped another Invisibility atop him. He¡¯d pace the outside of the grounds and around the Mansion like he had earlier, looking for anything coming this way. Tedium seemed to be something he was very inured to, and given the way he¡¯d gained so much of his experience, was hardly unexpected. --- ¡°Thoughts?¡± I asked her, as we headed inside and down to the much-less water-filled bottom of this particular dungeon, if only because the cracked rock under the tiles had drained most of the water out and down the hill it was built upon, whereas the other two had been built closer to the water table and not drained out. ¡°I don¡¯t think Mom or Dad would have survived me putting a Weight of the Waterfall into them with all the boosts on it,¡± she muttered to me. ¡°I took only a fifth of its working Health. It was surreal. That¡¯s the single most damaging blow I¡¯ve inflicted on anything in my entire life, and it just took it, Ryin.¡± Her expression was feral, deadly, and a little wild. ¡°You missed it, then.¡± She glanced over at me sharply. ¡°Skeleton Slayer. Not Bane. Shadow Slayer, not Bane,¡± I repeated for her benefit. About to drop down the walls towards our goal of the ¡®treasure room¡¯ of the lower floors, she actually paused in place. ¡°Damn! You¡¯re right, I automatically swapped terms, I wasn¡¯t even thinking!¡± she admitted. ¡°What do you think it does?¡± ¡°Well, Power of Ten didn¡¯t have a Slayer or Slaying Enchantment that I know of, we used Banes. Banes are very equal between all Weapons. But other Systems don¡¯t have to be quite so rigid as ten Slots and so much power or less per Slot, or a group of Slots,¡± I pointed out to her. ¡°It¡¯s a more organic system. So a 1.5 or 2.37 Slot power is totally usable here, right?¡± ¡°Skeleton Slaying. Shade Slaying. Should have pressed him on the Slaying mechanics, if he knew them,¡± she murmured, nails digging into the magically-strengthened stone and scampering down the wall without effort, while I rode an evoked Disk down beside her. ¡°What are your thoughts?¡± ¡°Well, in another System I know of, Slayer specifically meant +1/+1, and doubled the base Weapon damage against a foe. So, a Longsword of Giant Slaying +2 was +3 against all types of Jotuns, and went from 1-12 to 2-24 damage against the True Jotuns.¡± She considered that as she started the sloshing around looking for stuff with her tremblesense, her boots neatly deposited on my Disk. ¡°Very similar to Bane, but obviously more powerful on bigger or more powerful Weapons,¡± she conceded. ¡°So, the incentive is to place it on large Weapons used against large foes.¡± ¡°Or Heavy Swords used by a Profound Swordswoman,¡± I noted. ¡°3-15/3-24 with three advances, right?¡± Which would be 3-24/6-36 or somesuch in her hands, and only going to improve with Class Level. ¡°That would definitely help. And you think Slaying is separate from Slayer?¡± ¡°In that system, Slaying was much more specific, but it added +2 instead of +1, and did triple the Weapon damage.¡± She favored me with another interested glance. ¡°So, a Longsword +2, Pyre Dragon Slayer, would be +4 against all Dragons, but it would do triple damage against Pyre Dragons.¡± ¡°And you pointed out Skeletons specifically because they are a broader set of the greater Undead type that Bane uses, but the Slaying is very specific to the type...¡± She nodded understanding. ¡°So all we have to do is ask them if there are Weapons that kill the zombie-type undead here, or those mummies, or perhaps undead spirits.¡± ¡°Even the Slaying effect might be variable in power, given the organic nature of the magic here. It might be ¡®up to¡¯ triple damage, for instance, dependent on the skill of the smith. You know how variable Biting Strike and Crushing Blow can be.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true. Biting Strike varied from 15 to 30% crit rates, on testing, according to Mom, and the higher end was nigh-impossible to find. Crushing Blow varied from 250% to 400% damage, with the latter also being incredibly rare, and she never saw a Weapon that managed to max out both of them.¡± ¡°Even something she or Briggs made?¡± I had to whistle. ¡°Serious Chaos Element. The RNG sucks, Kris!¡± ¡°That is truth! And we¡¯ve got more pyreal coins here to pick up...¡± AF Chapter 89 – Prepping The Salute to Aru was unmarred by anything like a horde of shades descending upon us, and as Renewal flowed past, we got to flip our levers, advance what we needed to, and apply Karma towards Classes and Stats and things once again. The Mick pointedly was going for Pool Theurge, tied to his skill with Item Magic. To reach that, he needed to be a Three in something, and since he had the Monk Levels and needed the extra ki to do lots of things, that was what he was spending on. As soon as he took a Pool Theurge Level, his Item Magic Caster Level would be his base Caster Level for his Arcane Fist standardized skills, but he needed to have the ki to support the boosts, too. What it would mean was seven die increases to his Longsword Bunita, taking it from a d8/d12 Weapon all the way up to 4-28/6-36, if he had the 6 ki needed to support the advances. His Masteries were going to be spent on Extra Ki, because he also wanted the improved Lightfoot speed, the extra unarmored Dodge bonus, and the like. So, get to Arcane Fist/3 and take a Pool Theurge Level, and uberness awaited him, if he had all the ki in hand! His Bonus Feat today was thus Profound Weapon, the Feat that would apply ki from unarmed strikes to any Weapon he had Weapon Focus with, which in his case was the sword. His Bonus Feat was Improved Armed Strike, so he could punish anything that fought him without using a Weapon of their own, something I imagined happened a lot in this world. Tomorrow would be Versatile Unarmed Strike, which would translate over to Versatile Armed Strike, and then he¡¯d doubtless start down the Power-Attack and One-Strike lines, of which there were so many fun things to learn. I was still limited on how many spells I could call on at any one time. Unlike the Isparian System, the Matrix System of Power of Ten required you to keep your Spells in variable Rune Engrams if you were a prepared Caster, or set Spell Engrams if you were a fixed Caster. The better spells were at the higher Valences, which I didn¡¯t have access to yet, and was seriously debating heading for in order to grab early¡­ But I had so many horizontal Levels to grab, I just couldn¡¯t bring myself to do it. The Karmic waste was just going to be too high, and the Levels I was going to be grabbing later were going to need the immense foundation of more Matrix Levels, especially as many spells as I could reach on the fly. That was especially true if I had to go down the rabbit hole of Save-or-Die spells to be viable here, which was extremely annoying. On the other hand, the natives plainly weren¡¯t adapted to dealing with them directly, given the nature of their racial defenses. Massive loads of Health and spellcasting to buttress it meant they were prepared for impressive amounts of spell damage, no doubt delivered on the wings of Vulnerability spells for double and triple damage and the like, and not to spells that brainlocked you, turned you to stone, wrapped you up like a pinata, turned you into a chicken, or the like. In the Power of Ten, people optimized to beat the band to stop those kind of things from working. SOD¡¯s were generally not very useful because of it, as nobody wanted to die from the first spell Cast on them, and so the Sun Saves, the Feats that allowed you to sub a Concentration check for a Saving Throw, were hugely popular. It wasn¡¯t hard at all to get a Concentration check to +20 and higher, Skill Mastery meant you could take 10 on the check and never ¡®roll low¡¯ on the number, and so beating Saves that required 30 and more was routinely and completely possible at Ten. So that was what I was taking today, the second of the Sun Saves, Moment of Perfect Action, also called Action before Thought. Substitute a Concentration skill check for a Reflex Save. The weak side of the Sun Saves is that you needed to be in a state of Focus to use the skill. A savvy person would target you with multiple Saves, so you either had to refocus very quickly, be able to discharge multiple times, or you better have a damn good base Saving Throw to back yourself up with. I had inherited Aelryinth¡¯s Talent for Concentration as Naturally Focused, and invested in it heavily already, for just this reason. Bane Weapon had not been important with Invisibility, the Baneflames would just have given away our positions. In addition, it was a Divine spell, and so I hadn¡¯t needed to Surge for it, instead grabbing for the Emerald Shard of Paralysis. Today I was doing a few things. Exemplar Surging with Lyric Theurge/1, the Class Caster Bonus going to Bard, because it was my backdoor to Druidic Magic through the Heartsong, had gotten me Emerald Shard. I¡¯d taken the Sublime Chord/0 basic Mastery, Song of Power, which gave Caster Level bonuses to those in range of the user. Additional Levels in the Mastery unlocked the Elemental Songs which weaponized Bardic Music something fiercely. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. With a Lyric Theurge Level came an Extra Spell Known for my Spontaneous Caster Level, which was Minstrel, taking a Bardic spell as a permanent Minstrel Spell Known. It was only a Cantrip for now, but permanent Bloom was going to be useful at almost any level. All it did was create flowers, but the reason to create flowers never really changed. I¡¯d also taken the second Sun Save. Today was the follow-up to that. My second Lyric Theurge level, another Minstrel Extra Spell Known, this time Valence I; the Feat for the third Sun Save, Moment of Perfect Will; and Sublime Chord Mastery/1, the Chorus of Unmaking, which did a d8 damage per Perform Rank to all Constructs and similar items within 30 feet, if I could make the Perform base check of 20, which I totally could. Only six Ranks in Song for the moment, so the damage was, ahem, unimpressive, to say the least. However, if tied to a Shout, it could be impressive, indeed. Notably, the Song of Unmaking was specifically considered a supernatural effect, and could affect Constructs normally immune to magic. That was important if it was your only way to take out a True Golem. The Bard spell to be applied to my Minstrel list was Entangle, a Druidic staple and useful spell for trapping and slowing down enemies. I needed alternate options, and it was a safe one. The Exemplar Surge spell I fetched was Shatter. If these things wanted to be reliant on Weapons, then I was going to have a way to break those Weapons, probably shocking the heck out of the bastards, and I informed both the Mick and Princess Kristie of that. Sword beats Fist was going to be the Feat of the Day for the Mick, I had no doubts whatsoever. There were so many things I wanted to get into place and could not. My personal spreadsheet for advances was getting a bit dim as I wrestled with what I wanted to have happen, the reams of spells I needed and was copying into my spellbook, and the simple fact that I couldn¡¯t have all the spells, all the time. Well, I could, it would just get REALLY expensive. --------- We put the Mick to work empowering the Baneskull. Kris didn¡¯t need it, I technically didn¡¯t need it since it was mostly designed to work with Weapons and I could Banespell on the fly to one specific type of opponent, so he was going to get the first one. It was a powerful opponent, so it was going to empower itself up to the normal level, and he¡¯d only have to pay for the Greater boost, which we all appreciated. Oh, and he didn¡¯t take another Arcane Fist Level, since he wanted to Awaken his Sword. He took Soul Warrior, swore a black streak for an hour after Kris opened his Hand and Feet Chakras, and two Soul Essence to his Soulbound Sword later, Bunita flared with a Yellow-Orange Light gleaming around its edge. He looked at the Light around Bunita, the hard Electrum around Crown, and the gleaming Gold on Quaver, and realized he was lacking something somewhere. ¡°Not as strong an enchantment?¡± he hazarded, eyeing the difference in our Weapons. ¡°No, Master Mick. The Soulfire is an indicator of the Color of your soul, no more, no less. The magic upon your Blade is just as strong as ours. The Soulfire indicates dedication and commitment by its hue. Those who have not committed themselves to a personal code of belief have softer Colors than those that have. ¡°By your tales and style, I do not take you for a religious man, nor one to dwell on matters of honor, right and wrong, and the like. You have lines that you won¡¯t step across¡­ maybe. You know that if you are pushed, you will likely step across them quickly, because you don¡¯t see any real, pragmatic reason why you should not. Airy words and beliefs don¡¯t put food in the belly or gold in the hand, and you watch them and keep your own counsel on who to trust, who not to, and who to screw right over sharply, and damn the laws and mores of others that might condemn you for doing so, they can kiss your ass because you don¡¯t need them.¡± His face was a bit long as I related all of that, glancing at his Sword, where the Light very deliberately went out. ¡°Tell all that from the Color o¡¯ me soul, aye?¡± he asked softly. ¡°Yes. Someone who is good at reading such Colors, and I am, can tell where you stand on practically any moral or ethical question put before you, just by the depths and shades of those Colors. ¡°And no, you can¡¯t change the Colors to fake it, save with some external magic or illusions, which can be seen through like anything else if you know what to look for.¡± He crossed his arms, looking at me and glancing at Kristie, who was sitting over there Investing up her Bracers, while he and I were over here Imbuing up the Necklace for her and the Baneskull. ¡°This¡­ makes me very resentful and suspicious of ye,¡± he admitted. ¡°Why? Paranoia, or you feel you¡¯re giving something away you should keep concealed?¡± I asked calmly. ¡°Well, ye said ye can tell all manner of things about me, things I¡¯d like as not have anyone know!¡± he half-spluttered. ¡°It¡¯s true that Soulfire exposes a great deal when it ignites, and people used to lying and bluffing their way through the world don¡¯t like to be revealed by something as pure and uncaring as Soulfire,¡± I nodded at him, remembering literally thousands of conversations about this topic. ¡°For instance, if that Soulfire came up Black, what do you think would have happened to you?¡± He stared at me, at his Blade, and licked his lips. ¡°Ye¡¯d have tried to kill me?¡± he asked softly. ¡°If not, we¡¯d have driven you off for certain,¡± I confirmed to him. ¡°Because Black means you are cruel, destructive, heartless, uncaring, and you¡¯ve done horrible and sinister deeds in the past, and you have no compunctions whatsoever of doing the same or worse ones in the future. A Black soul is a mad dog waiting to be put down¡­ and naturally they don¡¯t want anyone to know they are mad dogs, and hate being revealed for what they are. The only time they like to use Soulfire is if they know it will make their opponents feel afraid. ¡°By the way, that was exactly the hue of your soul in the Markspace, too. So, you now know what you look like to us there.¡± He blinked, realized the hues on our Weapons did indeed match what he¡¯d seen in the Markspace. After a moment, the Light winked back on, and he stared at it, wondering what it said about him. ¡°There are nine major and two minor Colors,¡± I began before he asked. ¡°The Alignments indicate the existence of four great fundamental forces, more essential than Light or Gravity, defining Earth and Air, Fire and Water, and all the other Laws and Rules of reality between them. Time bows to them, as does Luck, and Magic is just one of the minor powers spun off from them, as is Space, and thought and souls and all the wonders of Creation. They all exist because of the interaction of the Alignments. ¡°You do not determine the Alignments, Master Mick. You only determine where you stand in relation to them and what they do by exercise of your Free Will.¡± AF Chapter 90 – A World of Many Colors He struggled with that, as what is good to someone and what is Good are two vastly different things. ¡°What are they?¡± he asked shortly. ¡°Evil is the one most recognize, as the foulness and weight it leaves upon the soul is hard to miss. Good is harder to recognize, as most people consider what is good for themselves to be Good, and that is far, far from the truth. Yet most aspire to dreams for themselves and others of Goodness. ¡°Law is often mistaken for Good, and they certainly try to establish themselves as the highest moral code on their mission to dominate everything. Chaos naturally considers Law a great evil, as the individual and their own Free Wills are everything to it, regardless if what those people want is actually Good or Evil. ¡°The Alignments interact, overlap, compete, and blend together some.¡± I casually flipped up a light Holo of the nine-Color chart, and he leaned in to look at the flows of Colors, and the Runes attached to each of them. ¡°Let us start with True Evil. It appears to all sapient beings as Purple of various hues, the deeper and darker towards Amethyst it is the more willing they are to do whatever is required for their ambitions. They can be disciplined and honest, and then break their word whenever the situation calls for it. Many have said there is a reason it is a Color most often associated with mortal kings and nobility. ¡°It is a darkly seductive and appealing Color, yet to the Good who look upon it, it looks like spoiled blood and rotting meat, disease ready to burst out, and hidden poison waiting to strike.¡± The Mick blinked, for that was exactly what he was thinking as he looked at the hue. ¡°Fuck me,¡± he uttered without thinking. ¡°The creatures normally associated with the Purple are Daemons, the Sinbound of true Evil, and they represent the powers of natural Death upon the world in all its horrid forms. They hunt the living, light, and love, and seek to devour and slay it all, including one another, until they are the only things left.¡± He swallowed once, hearing stories behind what I was saying. ¡°The Black?¡± he asked, looking at the Color that stretched from Chiascuro to the deepest Inks and Jets. ¡°Demonic Evil, born of Chaos and Evil. Destruction incarnate, whims without restraint or care, heedless of the opinions of others, only the consequences of what they might do keep them in check. If there are no consequences, and if they are insane enough, or even if they are not, anything and everything is permissible. They live life on their whims and urges they do not bother to control and can never truly satisfy, and all of us are just things that should be dancing to those whims, and if we die horrifically, it is to entertain them all the more.¡± ¡°Black-hearted knave takes on a whole new meaning,¡± he murmured. ¡°I think I¡¯ve met some red-handed fellows like that, an¡¯ me uncle surely knew a few. Get off on pain an¡¯ lies an¡¯ the suffering of others, an¡¯ ye only kept them in check with fear an¡¯ strength of yer own. Turn yer back on them, an¡¯ ye¡¯d eat a blade if they thought it worth it,¡± he nodded. ¡°Kiss a grandmother, kill a thousand babies before breakfast, which option to do?¡± I made a juggling motion in my hands. ¡°The Blacker you are, the fewer restraints you accept upon yourself and your desires. Truly Chaotic Evil beings are concerned only with their own desires, nothing else, and have no restraints but the consequences of their actions.¡± The Mick nodded slowly. ¡°The Gray?¡± ¡°Pure Chaos.¡± I inclined my head as I stared at the Color. ¡°They like to say they are the purest of the colors, for it is all about them, and they seek not to influence others, and not to be influenced themselves. A Gray doesn¡¯t have active malice like a Black, nor active Weal like the Orange. They have their own goals and obligations, and go through life that way, uncaring if what others call their deeds is good or evil, following their own desires, internal codes, and ambitions in the face of others. ¡°They react the strongest to any limitations on their actions or behaviors, yet they respond well to strong emotions and beliefs, and have incredible drives and desires of their own. They are often elemental, primal, fickle, passionate, and energetic, yet in the end, mostly consumed with themselves. ¡°It¡¯s a fine Alignment for raiders and bandits, rebels and thieves, scoundrels and con men, effete artists, berserkers and mercenaries, savage tribes, and the like. The Grays have big problems with society as a whole, and tend to gather up in small packs, or if powerful enough, live alone to pursue their ambitions. ¡°Those who embrace Chaos become steely, metallic, a rushing wind of force and passion running through life like a seeking storm.¡± He coughed. ¡°May have known some women like that meself,¡± he mused. ¡°Aye, the fiery Aluvian redhead noblewoman ruled by her heart and ambitions is probably a Gray. A lot of Viamontians obsessed with battle honors and glory fall under it, too, as do many a berserker and battle-loving mercenary... ¡°The Orange and the Rainbow. Chaos and Goodness together. Often called the most spirited, bubbly, and unrealistic of the Alignments. Of all of them, it harbors the most passionate fools.¡± My smile made him flush and look around for the joke. ¡°Aye?¡± he finally asked. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°People who follow their heart in romantic ways, wishing good upon the world, puppies and kittens, unrealistic dreamers, artists and musicians caught up in the romance of what they do, folk who live on emotion and goodwill all fly to Chaotic Good. ¡°Happily, it also gets its share of lone wolves and outlaw heroes, good folk who simply want to live their lives and be let alone as they let you alone, but who will step up and fight for kin and kind when it is needed. Deeds, not words, blood and not laws, a handshake and not a worded contract, spirit of an agreement and not the wording of it. ¡°Wandering heroes are often of the Orange or Rainbow, especially if they are not members of a greater organization. If they are, it is because they are friends of allies of another, and they cherish those bonds deeply. Traveling minstrels who simply cannot endure under smothering laws, moving from place to place, are famous Oranges. Rebels against tyranny often become Rainbows, cherishing their freedom and those of others enough to take up arms against any sign of such. ¡°The Orange and the Rainbow are a part of Heaven because they are still Good, despite holding their own views and goals as most important. Heaven realizes that it takes all kinds to be Good, and besides, they tend to throw the best parties.¡± The Mick snorted at my explanation. ¡°Gold?¡± he had to ask, glancing at Kristie automatically. ¡°Pure Good, the Alignment of true Kings and wise men, of mentors and the mundane and the moderate. Willing to follow laws, willing to break them if need be if it¡¯s the right thing to do. Respect the fact every man has to follow their own path, respect the fact that sometimes you sacrifice for the good of everyone and the community, without being ridiculous to other extremes. Can work together in great numbers, can break out on their own if they must. Realize that life is flexible, but that Nature itself has laws and cycles, and you pay attention to both sides of things as you go through life. ¡°Yellow is for the folk who just don¡¯t think about what it is to be Good, they just follow along and go through the motions like those around them. You become Gold by thinking on what you are doing, why you are doing it, and trying to carry that forward and apply it on a broader basis to change the world. ¡°Immaterial, non-pragmatic stuff that can annoy the piss out of a lot of people.¡± He snorted. ¡°And ye fight Evil,¡± he noted whimsically. ¡°Well, yeah. It¡¯s one of the best ways to make the world a better place, removing the bloody monsters from it¡­ and I mean the monsters in thought and deed, not just those in body. Humanity has birthed some outright abominations who make demons and devils cackle in glee at their actions, I¡¯m sure you know.¡± ¡°Aye,¡± he agreed soberly. ¡°Some things I¡¯ve seen, they just need to be put to the sword, an¡¯ there¡¯s no denying it, no matter how much they scream about their knowledge an¡¯ lore an¡¯ power an¡¯ secrets and you can¡¯t kill me, I be too important!¡± I just nodded. ¡°White and Silver. The good, quiet heart of all communities. The people who stand up and defend those places at the cost of their lives. Who take a set of law and rules and live their lives trying to uphold them, showing the world that it would be better if they, too, followed the heart of those rules, and made the world a finer place for all concerned. ¡°Paladins, noble fools, pious clerics, wise wizards, benevolent kings, gentle healers, great teachers. The good ones, not the sanctimonious ones or the self-righteous ones, the mouth-breathers who follow the forms but not the heart. It¡¯s a line clear as a blade¡¯s edge, believing in good laws, good rules, and those just following them because someone else said that they¡¯re the best. ¡°When you look at a person and you suddenly realize that there¡¯s a true blue red-blooded hero, in all the right ways, they are probably a Silver.¡± I tossed a thumb at Kristie. ¡°You probably think she¡¯s pretty heroic, but she¡¯s way too pragmatic and practical to be Silver. ¡°Silvers aren¡¯t common. Whites are, nice cities to live in are often full of Whites helping grease the laws and make them better places to live. To Whites, laws are there to better their lives, not to run their lives. Laws that get in the way of the right thing are laws that need to be removed or changed.¡± ¡°Ye¡¯re¡­ kind of Gold and Silver,¡± he pointed out, wondering how I¡¯d take it. ¡°I noticed.¡± He snorted. ¡°You probably find me stuffy, controlled, rather serene, and almost mystical. I exude knowledge, learning, and education, great discipline and focus, and what you likely interpret as a sense of superiority which you¡¯re carefully trying not to put down as you suss me out.¡± I lifted an eyebrow at him, and he coughed to cover his sudden alarm. ¡°I bend Silver because I believe in organization and education. I am used to working in organizations and doing my part in them. I can subsist on my own, and quite well, but I prefer not to, because I want to make the world a better place, and that is best done with friends and allies helping the process along. ¡°I can serve, or I can lead, or I can go it alone, but I prefer to have friends and family around, and to improve the lives of those around me together. One of the best ways to do that is to teach them to take care of themselves, so I don¡¯t have to, and you have to have a belief in education and organizations to do that.¡± I shrugged. ¡°I bend Electrum because of it. It is what I believe, and if you don¡¯t respect that, it is fine, I¡¯m not going to hold it against you just because you took an alternate route. Exceptional people do exceptional things. ¡°But for the average person, history has shown my way works very, very well, and I¡¯m not here to usher you along my road. I¡¯m here to help them. Broad, low power, not high, vaulting power.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He stared at me, trying to pick a place to put me. ¡°This is why ye¡¯re so willing to teach me all these new things.¡± ¡°I hope, in turn, that you will pass them on to many others,¡± I agreed. ¡°They are not secrets to be clutched for power¡­ and I am perfectly aware that they represent power, Master Mick. What Kristie can instruct you on will turn you into the greatest warrior on this island, without a doubt.¡± He stared at me, and finally whistled low. ¡°Quite a statement.¡± ¡°She¡¯s doing it because you¡¯re Orange and you want to sit on a throne as much as you want to go bathing in lava. You¡¯re not at risk of becoming a tyrant or kicking down a king or the like. You¡¯ve proven willing to do the right thing because you¡¯re the only one who can, striding out here into the danger and death for the benefit of others, despite the fact you¡¯d probably dearly love to return to warm arms, a soft bed, and you¡¯ve probably really been thinking about a family of your own these past few years, someone to pass things on to. ¡°She¡¯s giving you the things to pass on.¡± AF Chapter 91 – A Full Spectrum He took a breath that might have been just a little ragged, his eyes a bit bright, but no tears fell. ¡°I miss me lady every night,¡± he admitted, reaching over to touch the Sword leaning at his side again. ¡°We talked about a family, we decided it was time to try...¡± ¡°And then life drove a dagger into your balls.¡± I looked away myself, inherited memories rising up of their own. Apocalypse, treachery, the laughter of uncaring gods and Entities, the horrors of Creation come to call¡­ ¡°Yes, I¡¯m quite aware of just how shockingly unkind life can be, Master Mick.¡± ¡°Aye. Unkind. Ye know the feeling well,¡± he nodded slowly, his grin mocking us both for what we¡¯d gone through. ¡°I do. And when you have this Markspace active, everyone else realizes everyone else knows it, too. Sharing makes it easier to endure." He nodded slowly, relaxing minutely. There were things we shared, and things we did not. ¡°The Blue, then?¡± he asked, pointing at the Holo of the Alignment Chart. ¡°Law. Order. The triumph of civilization over barbarism. The ordering and directing of reality. Obedience and obeisance to those above you, fealty and loyalty from those below you. One set of laws, one set of rules, one perfectly regimented way towards that future that it will grow to encompass and set all to harmony and understanding before the law.¡± He didn¡¯t miss the twist in my words. ¡°Sounds like a bunch of pricks with sticks up their arse telling other people how ta live their lives,¡± he noted. ¡°I didnae hear no responsibility to those below ye...¡± ¡°Yes. For all that, it is a terrible force when it goes into motion, for it believes in itself to be right above all things, that Laws and Rules are holy things to be obeyed simply because they exist, and to follow them is what makes them great. ¡°In reality, it gives a lot of people the excuse to not have to think about why they are doing things. They need to obey, the ones underneath them need only obey, and life will be fine.¡± His dark eyes glittered as he nodded slowly. ¡°Slaves t¡¯ the system they live inside. An Alignment for a lot of government workers an¡¯ soldiers, I imagine?¡± ¡°Yes, and a lot of common folk, too, and particularly uptight churches who don¡¯t want their flocks following any other rules. For all that, they stick together incredibly well, they are often very disciplined and highly-trained, and they form the root of Empires and Kingdoms of most kinds, as someone has to run the things, and it best be them!¡± He smirked, knowing the mindset. ¡°And we complete the trip with the Red. Law an¡¯ Evil...¡± he trailed off thinking about that. ¡°That¡­ raises me thoughts to those of Viamont. Their way, or the sword. Conquest for the sake of conquest, of ruling the world, with them on top, an¡¯ all others beneath them, with rigid rules an¡¯ castes an¡¯ fierce competition ta be on the top...¡± ¡°Most Empires eventually fall from White, if they ever were, to Blue and Sapphire, and then as they become more self-absorbed and decadent, to Red and Ruby. It is the Alignment of Tyranny and Conquest for the sake of Conquest. Its weapons are unbending ruthlessness, ever-increasing striation and layers of authority and power, discrimination, racism and specism and sexism, and uncaring morality of deeds and choices, as long as the laws and rules are followed. ¡°It¡¯s a very popular alignment for militaries, as it excuses all actions against enemies and civilians as naught but reasonable and pragmatic. It enshrines discrimination based on any metric you care to assign, be it skin color, birth, race, species, magic, wealth, age, gender, military service, education, religion, and any and all other measures, with more being invented to keep those in power in power forever, endless hurdles placed in front of those who might seek to rise up and replace them. ¡°Devils are the poster children of Ruby, and the great Empire of Hell is the most malevolently grand in all Creation. Only the fact it makes war and pursues Conquest all the time, costing it blood and power, means it is NOT the greatest of such Empires, as it makes enemies of everyone, in the end. ¡°It is also the prime sponsor of true underworld Thieves¡¯ Guilds and the like that have managed to legitimize themselves, as under-kingdoms are still kingdoms, and such places thrive on death and backstabbing inside their hierarchies as much as any empire in the sun.¡± ¡°People who follow the rules, and then exploit them all to backstab ye if ye get in their way. Aye, might have known a few of them in me time, them thinking as long as it is not expressly disallowed, it be totally acceptable. Laws become weapons to use against those they should be protecting...¡± ¡°Them¡¯s the types. It¡¯s the most seductive and easiest kind of Evil to fall into, clad as it is in the bright armor of ¡®I followed all the rules, it¡¯s you who is the problem, not me!¡¯¡± I just tossed my head. ¡°When you follow Good, you realize that Laws that don¡¯t help the good are just rules made by someone else, and it¡¯s time to make your own and ignore the ones they are attempting to foist on you. ¡°Which often leads to a lot of violence, but that¡¯s true of most interactions between the Alignments,¡± I sighed and waved my hand dismissively again. ¡°Aye, I can see that. Standing up for what¡¯s right tends ta require a good strong arm to do so,¡± he agreed with a sigh of long experience. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°And then it all gets corrupted by self-interests and what¡¯s ¡®good for someone¡¯ instead of ¡®good for all¡¯. Life.¡± I just shook my head. ¡°And there ye have the middle. A Neutral Alignment?¡± he asked, spreading his intact hand¡¯s fingers. ¡°That would make five, no?¡± ¡°No. Neutrality is not an Alignment, it¡¯s an absence of them, a position standing between them. There¡¯s no active Profound Force called Neutrality. You don¡¯t call upon the power of Neutrality to do anything. ¡°Neutrality is choosing not to stand with an Alignment, or being below them.¡± The layered Colors of Clear, Brown, and Green extended out from the central position, and he squinted at them in interest as I pointed to the first. ¡°Clear. If you look for the Alignment of a tree, a rock, or a true Elemental, it¡¯s usually Clear. They have no ability to choose a way, and so they simply exist. Things with little ability to think, or none at all, truly ¡®natural¡¯ forces, are Clear.¡± ¡°They cannae choose, so they have no Color representing that choice. Okay,¡± he nodded. ¡°Brown?¡± ¡°Brown is what is called False Neutral, things that live on instinct. They can technically think, they have some thought or self-awareness, but simply operate on programming. ¡°Almost all animals are Brown. This includes humans who ¡®just want to be left alone¡¯, and don¡¯t think about their moral and ethical choices at all. Being able to think and not making a choice makes you little better than a dog or rat, and you are Brown thereby. It doesn¡¯t mean you are savage, it means you just react and go on, you don¡¯t consider anything regarding your choices. ¡°Basically you¡¯re Brown because you¡¯re standing in the middle of the road, and you don¡¯t make the choices to move away from it. You¡¯re just there.¡± He considered that for a long moment. ¡°I¡¯ve the feeling a lot of humans fall under this Color?¡± he speculated. ¡°Aye, they do. That¡¯s where religions and gods and philosophies come in, as they get people thinking about the things, and swaying people to the Alignments. Which brings us to the last Color, Green and Emerald. Thoughts?¡± ¡°Well, by the other two, it be people who are actively rejecting the Alignments, no? They choose to be Neutral, they choose to be in the middle and not cling to any direction, follow any one path¡¯s dictates. It seems¡­ pretty reasonable?¡± he had to say. ¡°It does, right up until the Alignments come crashing into you, not caring of your Neutrality. There¡¯s no ignoring or avoiding the conflict, the Alignments are All That Is. Your sitting in the middle just opens you up to assaults physical and spiritual from all sides. ¡°The Alignments are as impartial as gravity. They don¡¯t care if you don¡¯t want to be involved, the choice is not yours. You don¡¯t define them, they define you. Dying Green usually means you have a Divine force backing you which allows for some manner of afterlife or reincarnation cycle or something, but not always. ¡°Sometimes, depending on where it is, it means you die with no more relevance than an ant on a sidewalk. You can have all the high-minded ambitions you want, but in the end you¡¯re just someone who chose to stand in the middle of the road, and you¡¯re going to take your lumps as the Alignments fight.¡± He gave me a curious look. ¡°There be gods out there? Truly, really? Afore the things I be seeing that called themselves gods, didnae deserve the title¡­¡± ¡°Yes, there are gods. That is one hundred percent fact, not opinion, not blind faith. That is, of course, subject to what a person considers gods. But the gods themselves define themselves thusly¡­ ¡°Gods wield Divine power. True gods are not finite anymore. Gods represent Spheres of influence, tropes, and beliefs, like sentient, thinking aspects of Creation. Gods can both harness the power of Faith and return it to the Faithful in the form of Miracles. Gods have dominion over the souls of those who believe in them. Gods represent extensions of mortal choice and free will in Creation, and choosing your god and following them is directly choosing your place to stand in the War of Alignments. ¡°Some parasitic mass of tentacles feeding on souls and sharing eldritch secrets with short-lived mortal ants who feed it is not a god, but the power discrepancy is wide enough that idiotic mortals can be fooled into believing it. ¡°True gods are not even finite. They have the power to end worlds, quench stars, collapse realities, and the like. They mainly exist to stave off the creatures outside Creation who seek to worm into reality and prey on it, much like T¡¯Thuun and its associated Aberrant things, or whatever forms the Virindi, empowers the Shades, or gave Grael its power. ¡°Such things can be very powerful, but they are finite, and they don¡¯t have true dominion over souls, nor do they have true Spheres. When they run into true gods, they tend to run like little shits.¡± ¡°Huh!¡± He looked at me strangely. ¡°I¡¯ve spoken with priests afore...¡± ¡°Real priests, channeling the attuned Will and power of a god, or people serving in a religious organization who happen to have magic others can¡¯t use? Those aren¡¯t the same thing.¡± He bobbed his head, thinking. ¡°Well, they came across as money-grubbing parasites trying to leverage their unique magic inta more gold, power, an¡¯ influence, as long as ye believed and listened t¡¯ them, some airy benefit with nothing behind it would be yers!¡± His scorn was real. Being in a magical world without true gods backing you would rapidly result in questioning most religions. ¡°Aye, most such things are little more than philosophies backed by extremely powerful entities willing to share personalized or unique knowledge you can¡¯t use without their approval. True gods define them as cults. ¡°Superficially, they are very similar in types of power, I won¡¯t argue that point with you, and if all you care about is results, well, you¡¯re not going to see much difference. ¡°But you know your soul has a Color now. That Color determines your afterlife. Pledging your soul and belief to a non-god gets your soul grabbed by them, and they may not have your Color at all. Nothing says an Aberrant can¡¯t lie continuously to its faithful to harness more souls, after all.¡± His face twisted. ¡°Ye¡¯re killing your argument here, lass!¡± he grinned hard. AF Chapter 92 – Yes, there ARE Gods out There… ¡°I am accepting the reality of the situation, and I understand the pragmatic view of it,¡± I countered calmly. ¡°Some people get by on blind faith. I get by on informed faith. I¡¯m much too smart to just follow spewed words and give my soul to them. ¡°So, I don¡¯t just have faith, Master Mick. I know. I did all the homework. I followed the trails of Faith. I looked at the relationships of the Divine and mortals. There are Alignments, there are the gods who exemplify them, and we choose to stand where we stand, usually by following those gods. Nobody is forced to do so by life, much as some of those gods might wish otherwise, but it is largely to our benefit to stand with those who think like us, no?¡± ¡°Cannae argue that, but those who claim to follow gods can be a mite touchy about leaving or not serving their lord...¡± he said wryly. ¡°Well, back on Ispar, they aren¡¯t following gods, they are following a creed. Losing you means losing your support, your money, your influence, your goodwill, face, community impression, and a bunch of other things. They might or might not actually be concerned with the fate of your immortal soul in between all the pragmatic concerns. ¡°True Churches? They are aware of the necessity of the pragmatic side of things, but your immortal soul is the goal. They want to be standing with you in the afterlife, knowing you made the same choices as them, until eternity grinds you down and the wheel turns again. Gods don¡¯t care about your lands, wealth, birth, or other material things, unless it is specifically a part of their creed to do so. They care about your faith and your immortal soul. ¡°So, the task for us mortals is to realize where we stand, find the gods who believe as we believe, and stand with them. There is no one god fits all, despite what a whole lot of their servants might want you to believe. ¡°In your case, you probably want to find a martial god who endorses the individual and independent spirit. If your life had not taken this turn, you might have gone more to the Gold, focusing on family and friends and the father figures among the gods, passing on what the next generation needs to survive.¡± ¡°Recruiting for the temples now, are ye?¡± he asked, his eyes twinkling. ¡°Valus, the Champion of Heaven, has no temples,¡± I replied to that, making him blink. ¡°He is a free spirit who wanders the Heavens, hunting for trouble, finding it, and dealing with it. He is great friends with the other gods of Heaven, but he takes no orders, only requests and tales exchanged, as he roams Creation looking for things nobody wants to consider, and cuts them down with Thunder and the lightning of Heavenly Wrath. He is the Knight Errant of Thunder, the Axe of Storms, the Hunter of Monsters, the Lance of Lightning, Courage Incarnate, the Wrath of the Righteous, and barbarians and knights, rangers and hunters, mercenaries and duelists all have His name on their lips. ¡°His duty is His own, but He cleaves to it despite anything others might say. He is there when he is needed, and He is off doing His own thing when He is not, doing what is Good and Right despite what all might say.¡± The Mick pursed his lips as I finished, looking me up and down. ¡°Ye sure ye don¡¯t worship Him?¡± he asked carefully. ¡°Because I like the bastard already.¡± I smiled slightly. ¡°There are some Stormblooded Casters who follow Valus, but His is a martial faith, and he makes no bones about it. A Weapon raised in defiance of Evil, a heart beating with the courage to stand against death, and a will to die in defense of your beliefs; those are the most sacred things of Valus. ¡°He has no temples, because His servants proper wander as He does, and the churches of other Faiths open to shelter them when they come calling. Then they often get drunk together, and they speak of things bright and cheery¡­ and dark and somber.¡± I looked away. ¡°And then, like as not, they are gone the next day, and something terrifically violent and often terminal has happened to those that thought they were above retribution, that the law protected them, that none dared touch them, and they found out Valus and His people just don¡¯t give a shit about any of that.¡± I reached out, filled a cup with the magical wine, and offered it to him. He took it with aplomb, and carefully clinked my cup to his after I filled my own. ¡°Valus naturally makes many enemies doing what he does, and so do the best of His people. They also have many, many friends, although often the friends are at the low end of the scale, and the enemies, they are at the top.¡± The Mick exhaled long and low. ¡°And He does nae care.¡± ¡°The threats of conquerors and despoilers mean less to Him than tracking down a lost puppy, or putting the latest spawn of the Mother of the Monsters to the lance. If they want to send assassins after Him, well, He enjoys the change of pace and entertainment. Many of the monsters He hunts don¡¯t look like monsters, after all. ¡°Among Independents, explorers, and adventurers, He is VERY popular. He¡¯s a romantic fool, a hunter, a warden, an adventurer, the big strong guy who puts down the bad guys, and He gets lots of good press. Not from the other side of the aisle, however. ¡°Likewise, those who think to abuse His reputation and name tend to pay a grim and terrible price. He¡¯s not much into games of falsehood, and it¡¯s totally possible that if you seek to exploit His name to take advantage of the innocent that a bolt from the blue is going to come down and reduce you to bloodspray for your effrontery.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The Mick snorted, lifting his eyebrows, but my dead serious expression didn¡¯t leave him much room to contest me. ¡°Aye, I could see how rogues would try to take advantage of that freebooting nature to harvest some extras off of it¡­ or create trouble an¡¯ ¡®solve¡¯ it, belike, ambling along afore it were discovered ta be a con.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Valus is a Good god, one of the strong pillars of Heaven, for all His wandering nature. Living up to the ideal of a god who keeps His heart light despite all the Evils He sees... is hard for mortals. There aren¡¯t many old faithful of Valus, as in later years they tend to settle down and their beliefs turn from the Rainbow towards the Gold if they raise a family. But Valus is a fine mentor of the next generation, too, although not much of a father figure. More a big brother type.¡± ¡°Where¡¯d ye learn of Him, then?¡± the Mick asked curiously. ¡°Ye¡¯ve a lot of lore on ye not of Ispar, as far as I be telling...¡± I pointed at the Princess, working away while Investing merrily. ¡°A new Tradition has made it to Ispar while you¡¯ve been gone, and Kris¡¯ mother and father have been dispersing and teaching it to the population, instead of holding it tightfisted to themselves and the like. What I know is an extension of that Tradition. The Princess could be talking to you about Valus cheerfully, too, as her father¡¯s a big adherent of the martial gods, and her mother, well, she takes being a hunter of monsters very seriously, even if she leans more towards the skill than strength side of the equation.¡± ¡°Your own choice to follow, then?¡± I held up two fingers. ¡°I identify most with two gods. One is Sylune the Silver Queen, Queen of the Heavens, the Moon, and the Stars, the Patron of Silver Magic, and basically the ideal for any spellcaster of Good heart to follow. The other is Mithar the Silver Son, Heaven¡¯s General and Strategist, the Grandmaster of Heaven and Mithral Mentor, Patron of true Paladins, and all-around clever scheming noble knightly wise elder Damn Good badarse of the Heavens.¡± I wiggled my fingers. ¡°Sylune stands at the side of Aru in Heaven, as Gold as He, but identifies with the night sky, infinite possibilities, travel, and magic. Mithar is the apex of Silver, the ever-scheming Grandmaster who plays the game on behalf of Heaven like none other, considered the greatest swordsman, strategist, and tactician among the gods. ¡°My tools might be magic, but I really like the way Mithar works, and being a battlemage is a perfectly acceptable road to walk under Mithar. Just, uh, be prepared to get put into a lot of crazy situations that are really going to test your brains.¡± I slowly made a circling gesture around me. ¡°Ye¡¯re not serious!¡± He blinked, and leaned in to look at me. ¡°Ye are!...¡± he trailed off, much to his disbelief. ¡°Ye think yer god shoved ye onto this bolloxed-up shitshow of an island? And ye¡¯re not cursing His name right an¡¯ left?!¡± That made me smile, and then laugh ruefully. ¡°Well, that¡¯s the way it is with the Silver Son, and if you don¡¯t know that going in, you¡¯re a bit daft. If you¡¯re Good and you believe in Him, then He¡¯s going to make use of you, and put you in situations where you¡¯ll be able to do a great deal of Good. The more capable you are, the more likely He is to do so, and the more fucked-up the situation is likely to be.¡± He started to say something, paused, and then looked back and forth between the princess and me. He spent a good long minute thinking over what he was going to say. ¡°She¡¯s a servant of this Mithar too, I take it...¡± He had the horrible realization that this shitshow might be worse than he thought, if we were as capable and talented as we seemed... ¡°Mithar is The Grandmaster of the Sword, the most skilled warrior in Heaven, if not the strongest, as that title goes to Valus. Every swordsman is going to venerate Mithar, and the Ranthas are all Natural Swordswomen. They are born to the sword, and so they all venerate Mithar for the Talent they have.¡± ¡°And ye think He arranged for both of ye to be here.¡± I could only nod. ¡°I do, indeed.¡± ¡°And you think He thinks the two of ye can take care of the wee little problems we be having hereabouts.¡± Perfectly dry delivery. ¡°He¡¯s generally got a pretty good idea of the potential and ability of His servants, yes.¡± ¡°Are ye as deadly natural to magic as she is with a blade?¡± was his next careful inquiry. That was an interesting comparison. I thought about it, and then shook my head slowly. ¡°No. But then, I don¡¯t need to be. The martial path is extremely demanding of the body and somewhat demanding of the mind. The magical path is extremely demanding of the mind and barely demanding of the body. ¡°The Ranthas are made to fight, and make no bones about it. When she¡¯s all grown up, the Princess is going to be one of the most lethally dangerous warriors that can possibly exist. She¡¯s a total natural at the path and will take it roaring all the way to the end, then build a new road and keep right on going.¡± He smirked at the image, glancing at her in appreciation. ¡°The path of magic I¡¯m on? It¡¯s powerful all on its own. Anyone who is smart and driven can take it to great heights of power. I am smart and driven, and so it follows. I just live on the path, and you¡¯re only able to sniff around the edges right now, as it were.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He looked somewhat skeptical. ¡°It¡¯s something similar to what you were talking about with War Mages, and how so many of your associates turned to that path. The path itself was broad and strong, and you didn¡¯t have to be super talented to follow it. The path did most of the work. ¡°Being a great swordsman, however, that took a bit more personal work, didn¡¯t it?¡± He considered that quietly again. ¡°Aye,¡± he finally admitted after a moment. ¡°The mages were¡­ cocky, ye¡¯d have to say. If they could get past the magic defense of an enemy, they had little fear of them. They had armor an¡¯ defenses enough to live through attacks, an¡¯ they had the battle power to bring down most anything. It were¡­ very hard to compete with them. Ye had to act smarter an¡¯ savvier, take advantage of all opportunities, an¡¯ ye had to have the right Gear¡­ so much damn Gear.¡± He laughed again at the thought of it. ¡°And know so much magic yerself, if ye wanted to do the job right.¡± AF Chapter 93 – Of Other Magic ¡°And for that reason, I don¡¯t call myself special. I am very good at staying Focused, and I¡¯ve a natural hand at manipulating mana, but those are not all that uncommon gifts, so no, I am definitely not in the league of a Rantha as far as my path goes. ¡°I am very, very good at it, but I¡¯ve a long way to go, such as it is,¡± I told Master McMikal. ¡°Aye, I saw the¡­ Shards, is it? That ye let off. And ye said that yer Healing magic is potent, above and beyond the strength of Isparian Magic...¡± ¡°The primary Divine Domains I work with as a Priest of the Heavenly gods are Healing, Silver Magic, and Good.¡± He considered that, not knowing precisely what it meant. ¡°To put it in simpler terms, who do you think is stronger: a mage Casting a Good spell, or a Priest Casting a Good spell with the help of a god, in service to their goals?¡± He grunted. ¡°Aye, that makes some sense. The Priest, of course. Who knows why the mage is weaving the magic and calling on the power. Might not even be for a Good purpose, right?¡± ¡°Correct. The gods do gift those who follow them with Eminence in their own Domain. Good and Silver are two of the Domains of Sylune, Healing comes from Amana the Mother and Aru alike. Before you ask¡­ Mitharns also have no temples, and Mithar Himself has no priests. His priests are his Paladins, rare as they are, and like the Champions of Valus, they serve all the Gods of Heaven. They do, however, tend to work out of areas, build them up, and defend them as pillars of the community, not go wandering about and murderhoboing everything.¡± ¡°Murderhoboing!¡± the Mick repeated, his eyes dancing at the word. ¡°Now isn¡¯t that a fine description for the likes of what we do, wandering around just killing random Summons and the like. Murderhoboing...¡± ¡°Said tongue-in-cheek, although from the view of those we are hunting and fighting¡­ yes, adventurers are extremely violent, borderline murderous serial killers of the human species who slaughter anything that might be perceived as a threat to them in pursuit of wealth, Karma, and glory... and we are relentless about it, too.¡± ¡°Ho, isnae that the truth? The way we ran some of those quests offered us, time after time, butchering those same undead again and again, never really getting tired of it, even if we were killed in return¡­ ¡°Really, I be a bit surprised that the undead and the shades didnae do the same back to us, at least until the Fall, when they led their armies of Summoned up on us an¡¯ slaughtered all they could while they stayed safe behind them¡­¡± he pondered. ¡°I would guess that there is something of a greater cost for them to pay than there was for you if they were killed, and especially after the change in magic, they didn¡¯t want to pay that cost. It might be that if they were killed, they were slaved to the ley lines, or something similar, becoming trapped Summons themselves bereft of free will. ¡°When you start messing with souls without the benefit of Divine insight to help you, all sorts of things can go wrong. We know there were no gods involved here, so where do you think the shades and undead learned their own unkillable tricks from?¡± ¡°Something¡­ less than gods.¡± His smile was grim. ¡°Serves the bastards right, even if it does mean we really can¡¯t kill them. Slave ¡®em to a Summons an¡¯ let them rot in some dry corner forever, unable to move unless commanded, an¡¯ returning there the instant they are out of command...¡± He laughed coldly at the thought, his dark eyes gleaming. ¡°I would love ta condemn that bastard Rytheran an¡¯ his bitch of a Lady Aerefalle to that fate, as they command most of the remaining undead hereabouts, with their mysterious Prince Geraine supposedly about in the shadows making trouble...¡± ¡°I will note all those names and say¡­ in due time. With vivus, even Summons can die forever, and the undead and shades are definitely not immune to them. If we can release the unwillingly cursed undead of your uncle and his fellows, we can definitely do it to undead raised on negative energy and the like.¡± ¡°Oh, aye, I meant to ask ye. Do ye know of Void Magic?¡± His expression said the questions was not casual. Alarm bells rang in my head. ¡°There were allusions to it in the book Nuhmudira¡¯s daughter left for me to read. The explanations were flowery and overblown, and I did not get the chance to test anything out. It was¡­ more like an alternate energy than anything else, as I recall.¡± He nodded once. ¡°And it always manifested in black energy chased with purple, and were often helped along by screaming spirits and skulls in the blasts of energy,¡± he kindly informed me. My lips turned down rather quickly. ¡°I don¡¯t think you need much to consider what my opinion of wielding such energies is, Master McMikal. Why would people employ them?¡± ¡°The Void Magic ignores Elemental resistances entirely. While there were no Rends or Vulnerabilities to use with them, nor were there any protection from man or monster alike. So, while it had no great power over anything, nothing was resistant to it, no matter how obdurate they might be normally. It were very simple t¡¯ use an¡¯ employ. ¡°The mages who used it ignored all the screaming an¡¯ skulls an¡¯ blackness as mere flavor an¡¯ fluff, an¡¯ didn¡¯t let it bother them. They were happy enough not t¡¯ have t¡¯ deal with seven different flavors of War Magic an¡¯ memorizing a bewildering array of what to use an¡¯ not use, nor having t¡¯ carry around a dozen Wands as needed to wield in a fight.¡± Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. I just groaned and put my hand to my forehead. ¡°Everything immoral is excusable in the name of efficiency, just so long as you don¡¯t look too close or get called out on it. I am very familiar with the mindset, Elder.¡± ¡°Elder. Makin¡¯ me feel old, lass.¡± He stroked the silver in his beard. ¡°You didn¡¯t notice yet?¡± I was amused. ¡°Well, it¡¯ll probably be more visible tomorrow at Renewal.¡± ¡°Notice?¡± he had to ask. ¡°It won¡¯t change the silver, but if you look at your wrinkles and skin, you look a few years younger than yesterday.¡± I helpfully flicked up a Holo of his own face for him to look at. He naturally leaned forward to peer at it more closely, the image reflecting his own movements. He touched the corners of his eyes and turned slightly to examine his neck. ¡°Well, damn. Ye were telling the truth about the longer years...¡± ¡°Which have three ceilings,¡± I reminded him, flicking up three fingers. ¡°The Natural Ceiling at Six, where you stop being a normal human. The Second Ceiling at Ten, where you go from post-human to superhuman. And the Eternal Ceilings at Twenty, where you step beyond being mortal to become something more.¡± ¡°Immortal?¡± he asked instantly. ¡°No,¡± I denied him. ¡°Immortality is something that comes with Divinity or similar levels of power. Eternals cease to age and being subject to standard mortal forms of death. I¡¯ve been told you get some sense of timelessness so the years don¡¯t weigh on you like they do on us, and you settle into a trope or road that carries you into the future. The Great Explorer. Shield of the World. Staff of the Prime. Chevalier of Souls. ¡°It¡¯s possible to make the jump to godhood from Eternal yourself. Before then, you need the direct sponsorship of a god, or to be born a demigod. Eternal is mostly about gaining those levels of power under your own merits.¡± ¡°Huh. And the Isparian system¡­ won¡¯t get me there? But the full system of the Ancients, that Asheron and his ilk use, would...¡± he murmured thoughtfully again, seeing how the System was being used to restrain them. ¡°Through one method or another, although given the nature of this place, I have a feeling it was subverted and done through unclean methods. They didn¡¯t have an overarching morality to measure themselves against, after all.¡± He thought about that, then nodded slowly. ¡°I heard whispers from some of the mages, that the long lives of the Empyreans were done by the sacrifice of another, taking their deaths upon themselves and locking them away. It were not always done willingly, but there were no age limits. An old woman sacrificing herself to gain endless years for her son, for instance...¡± ¡°Or buy the life of an old loyal soldier with benefits to his heirs, or something.¡± I was able to figure the angle on that really quickly. ¡°All the while mumbling platitudes about who the magic actually worked for, as you couldn¡¯t have the common people get ahold of the secret of long years, now, could you?...¡± ¡°There¡¯s talk that a selfless sacrifice gave you long years, while something forced or bought turned ye into one of the undead¡­ not that the undead much care,¡± he added, not disagreeing with me. ¡°And the undead seem to grow in power very slowly, if at all.¡± ¡°Growth is an aspect of living. Decay and stagnation is an aspect of death. The undead typically only grow in power by ripping it out of others and devouring it for their own, or treating their corpse of a shell like a magic item and infusing it with external energy. All things the living can do much more easily,¡± I pointed out for him. ¡°But if they grow old and die, it takes a very, very long time. Long years an¡¯ knowledge, combined with lore others don¡¯t know, keep them in power, an¡¯ eventually they want to exert power over the living, t¡¯ replace the vitality they once had. Aye, I know that tale. It is what brought down the Gelidites, in the end, an¡¯ the collapse of their Empires. The greed of the dead wanting power over the living, an¡¯ the living not having much use for it.¡± His satisfaction wasn¡¯t hard for me to read. ¡°As it should be. Undeath is a blight upon the living world, and very rarely does anything Good ever truly come of it. Even something as mundane as using mindless skeletons or something to farm with inevitably backfires in the long run. Negative energy lifeforms are not good for any living ecology.¡± He blinked. ¡°That be true? I¡¯ve heard more than a few mages whine loudly about the possible uses of undead, as opposed to Golems or Elementals or the like.¡± ¡°Yes. Fields tended by undead tend to go barren with unnatural speed¡­ unless, of course, they are fertilized with the essence of the living. Blood, ground up meat, and the like, and you might be able to imagine how that changes the tenor of what grows readily there...¡± He made a face. ¡°I imagine ye¡¯d burn the fields en vivus with the skels an¡¯ have ta leave it t¡¯ recover...¡± ¡°Pretty much. And it¡¯s funny how the people who¡¯ll use undead as menial labor have little problem taking the next few steps in making their method viable for themselves, regardless of the cost to those around them.¡± ¡°The gods feel the same way?¡± he asked, steering the conversation back to the original topic. ¡°Well...¡± I trailed off. ¡°Are you familiar with the idea of a pantheon?¡± ¡°A family of gods?¡± There were such families in Isparian myth, although they had no teeth to them. ¡°Often a family, or a clan, or just a bunch of gods used to working together. You get all kinds in reality, but they often have blood relations amongst themselves, are descended from a common source, or arose from common sources. ¡°They also often have a given set of rivals, and both sides pay attention to what the other does. So, if the gods of the Heavenly Pantheon Kris and I are aware of get involved here, soon enough their underworld counterparts are going to come sniffing around seeking to sabotage what they are doing. ¡°Thus, the Alignment Wars play out, even among the gods. The gods are just more players in them, using bigger boards.¡± AF Chapter 94 – See-see the-the Sights-Sights of-of Tou-Tou ¡°Huh. So, follow a god, ye likely inherit the same enemies as that god. Do they, like, wave their hand an¡¯ kill off the servants of other gods?¡± the Mick asked me carefully. ¡°No. The instant that starts, it escalates all the way up, and soon there are no mortal worshipers left, and the reason you wanted them in the first place is ash and dust, while you spent boatloads of Divine power for absolutely nothing. If you want to gain mortal Faith and free will, you have to leave the mortals to do their own things, let their choices matter and have meaning, and work at being a Divine power. ¡°There are ways gods can aid their own. Returning Faith as Divine magic and subtle Miracles is the normal method. Striking directly against minions of another god yourself is very frowned upon, and the backlash is likely to be greater than whatever your own deed was. You can help yours, but strike at mine, and you pay the price.¡± ¡°That¡­ would seem to be very biased against a good chunk o¡¯ the gods...¡± ¡°Not all gods are dependent on Faith of mortals, or even care about it. They are more concerned about subverting the plans of rivals and making sure they cannot be attacked themselves,¡± I explained. ¡°Take Skulos, for example. He¡¯s the God of Death that stands opposite Aru, who represents Life and Light. What use does He have for mortal worship? He just wants us all to die, and He represents the force that does just that. ¡°Mortals being mortals fear death, and so give Him the lip service and respect He deserves, and no other gods contest His hold over Death. If He decides to make a church and demands a few mortals with power-hungry mindsets follow him, what are they going to do, oppose Him? He¡¯s a cheap and easy way to power for some mortals who would never be allowed into such positions in a normal society that knows anything about Alignments. Said religions and churches then attract even more people who don¡¯t fit in normal societies and are lusting for power or knowledge or the like, and fancy that taking it from the dead is a fine way to go about such a thing. ¡°But it¡¯s a religion, not a cult. Cults are things that arise to serve non-gods, by definition. Fiends, Aberrants, Elementals, Fey, even Dragons sometimes, are things that generate cults. If they serve gods, however foul or twisted, they are religions.¡± ¡°So, this bunch of gods includes not just virtuous and holy-types of Heaven, but a whole bunch o¡¯ other arseholes who ain¡¯t quite so noble?¡± he asked piously. I just grinned. ¡°That is entirely correct. Most pantheons include a wide range of deities, because, surprise surprise, mortals are not all alike, we don¡¯t all have the same mindsets and beliefs, and we go looking for gods that mirror our beliefs¡­ or, perhaps, we call in or create gods that do. Matters of Faith at the Divine level and such. ¡°Deities who say they can take all souls under their umbrellas are usually distant and uninvolved in mortal affairs, trying to avoid the Alignment Wars with everything they can. Unsurprisingly, they are often self-contradicting in many ways, and so they start religious wars between their own servants on matters of which doctrine is correct, often nearly as often as that between rival deities. Unbending conflicts on doctrine and correctness between different branches of the same faith are often solved by the blade, and the deity themselves is usually fantastically unhelpful about the whole process. ¡°Thus, serving an Omnideity or supposed ¡®Creator of All¡¯ is usually a bad idea for the individual. The Alignment Wars aren¡¯t going to stop just because there¡¯s no gods to champion them individually in some tiny little backwater of a sphere.¡± ¡°All things to all people just dinnae work, aye? Should¡¯ve explained that to me pa, way back when!¡± he observed ruefully. ¡°Everybody is put together differently. Some march to the beat of different drums, and some want to skin those drums, see what¡¯s inside them, and make new drums out of those around them, just for fun.¡± It was how Heaven got along so well. A little thing called Tolerance! ¡°Aye. Some men are just devils in human skin, an¡¯ just want to see the world bleed.¡± He looked like he¡¯d met a few of those. ¡°Are these gods of yours coming here? More like, do we want them to?¡± he asked directly. ¡°I do not know the answer to either of those questions from your standpoint. However, I will respond with this: If they do come, do you expect them to be worse than whatever entities got tired of their power fantasy story and characters with no true risk, falling into a repetitious rut of behavior by your tales, and decided to replace and start the story again with a gritty apocalyptic survival tale in a world of magic?¡± He looked at me, I looked back, and he closed his eyes first. ¡°At least we¡¯d know their names,¡± he muttered to nobody in particular, and I had to look at the sky and whoever might be watching or listening. Indeed. At least we knew the names of the gods¡­ ------------------- We packed in the rest of the scattered salvage we harvested out of the mansion and headed out come evening. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The trip was largely uneventful, as we basically just trotted along while the Mick pointed out the sights, we killed the local spawn points as we went by, and we took a tour of the peninsula''s coast line. We were also quite aware we might have another visit or encounter with the mad shades of Tou-Tou, but after the night before, we were confident we could handle them, especially with the advantage of Invisibility, which they definitely had not been prepared for. This culminated in the Mick and Kris conferring, and deciding to take a quick scouting trip up the beach and through a narrow pass through the hills bracing the road that eventually led to Tou-Tou. Everything was absolutely fine until we came out of the narrow pass. Our target was one of the nameless settlements that had once housed the adventuring population of Dereth. Nameless, because this settlement had never had a Portal that led to it, and so had never been gifted with anything resembling a formal name. ¡®The nameless Tou-Tou cottage place with the nice little park and water fountain¡¯ was about the extent of it. If it worked, we might as well cut our trip off right there and not go around the peninsula as planned, which I couldn¡¯t argue with. It would cut at least a couple days off our traveling, depending on how much sight-seeing there was. We did stay close to the hills and off the main trail, which was good, as it turned out they were busy. There were Shadow Zefirs all over the area. Spells of fire and lightning had smashed into everything, gouging and scoring things, searing the ground and anything that looked like it was alive. The area was blackened by all the War Magic Bolts that had gone off on everything that hadn¡¯t looked blackened enough, at least judging by how the damn hell-sprites were energetically having fun. ¡°There¡¯s about a hundred of them active in this area,¡± I told the two watching spells go off here, there, in a constant cycle, little streaks of darkness moving through the night to our Devilsight. ¡°What?¡± Princess Kristie asked, startled. ¡°That many?¡± ¡°They are shooting off Silver through Pyreal spells, you can tell by how vivid the colors are. But they are recharging between every spell. That¡¯s ranging from five to twenty minutes or so, depending on their mana conversion skills. So, you¡¯re seeing a lot of spells from a lot of zefirs, not constant spellcasting from a few of them. ¡°Furthermore, these are identifying as Deranged Shadow Zefirs, not the Shadow Flyer that accompanied the group from Tou Tou we saw. These are much less powerful.¡± The Mick¡¯s eyes lit up. ¡°I think I can tank these, then, if yer Healing is on par for emergencies!¡± ¡°Eighty percent fire and lightning usage, Force effects for the rest,¡± Kris said narrowly, definitely paying attention to that important detail. ¡°What are you looking at for Health?¡± ¡°From what I can Assay at this safe distance, it¡¯s staying within ten percent of 250. Way below the thousand-plus of the one you Rubied yesternight.¡± ¡°They should have a boss,¡± the Mick remarked with the air of experience. Although he looked eager to get into the fray and test out the Soulfire edge of Bunita and the new Mauler¡¯s Gauntlets gleaming blue-black on his hands, his natural caution was checking him. ¡°I am not doubting you, but I don¡¯t scan one in range,¡± I informed him, Detect Evil ranging out and looking for something more powerful. ¡°The ruins of the settlement are out of reach, but you can be sure that if they see other lights in the area, the whole flock is going to converge here with speed.¡± ¡°Unless they are Summons, and that leader dies. In which case this energetic activity will abruptly cease as they return to their spots and wait patiently to be picked off,¡± Kris grinned. I gestured again, Invisible eyes lighting up with specific Vatic magic-reading vision. ¡°You are correct. Eighty percent of the motion I am seeing has Summoning magic attached to it. There are really only a handful of the real things there.¡± Both of the fighters grinned and chortled in anticipation at that revelation. ¡°Are each of the real things leading flocks of Summons?¡± the Mick asked quickly. ¡°It appears that way. A flock of four Summons zipping around the location of a real zefir,¡± I confirmed. ¡°I am aware that you might even be able to one-shot one of them, or at the least knock it out of the air,¡± Kristie told me. ¡°But your magic is showy and will draw attention if we do that. Do you have Faerie Fire memorized?¡± ¡°I do. Memorized it in case of the Mick needing to target something, or picking out specific targets. It¡¯s not an offensive spell, so I can even Cast it and remain Invisible.¡± ¡°Highness, wouldnae this be the time fer some proper sniping?¡± the Mick asked, completely willing to not charge in, even if he seemed reasonably sure he could survive what was about to happen. ¡°Yes, it would. However, I¡¯m not a proper sniper,¡± Kris admitted readily. ¡°I¡¯d have to get within thirty feet, and I don¡¯t have a proper weapon to do it with.¡± ¡°Oh, you didn¡¯t take Sniper¡¯s Shot yet? For shame, Your Highness!¡± I chided her. It doubled the range at which Sneak Attack damage and Ruby Hand death attacks were viable. ¡°I do, but for Sharding attacks. Which for some reason I find myself reluctant to unleash upon these things.¡± She rolled unseen eyes at me. ¡°A wee bit flashy, aye.¡± She had demonstrated them for the Mick, whose eyes had stars at the very thought of his melee Weapon also being a ranged attack Weapon. ¡°Lass, I think tried and true grim efficiency is the name of the game today. We shall patiently and bravely hold back as ye creep up on the gallivanting pixies of screechy doom, the fair mage will highlight yer target in happy fires that won¡¯t draw so much attention given how many are lighting off all over the damn place, and permit ye t¡¯ Ruby it down.¡± AF Chapter 95 – Death to Hell Pixies! ¡°It will break me out of Invisibility,¡± Princess Kristie warned me. ¡°I will erect an Illusion of vegetation in a half-arc around you, which should keep you and the zefir out of line-of-sight of its fellows. The eyes of the Summons are unimportant. If they are far enough away from their Summons, they might get one round of attacks before having to fly off, and if they use fire or lightning, you can mock them.¡± ¡°And I should be able to dodge the rest,¡± she agreed after a moment. I tensed just slightly as a whisper of killing intent filled the air, but Quaver was still sheathed, so no sourceless red glow. ¡°Find me a target,¡± she purred. I fed her my Detect data, she glanced at it, and was in motion in seconds, closing in on the nearest one. I overlaid it with my Vatic Gaze, and the only one of the five zefirs in that flock without the telltale glow of Summoning magic stood out fairly readily. The Mick was watching through the mental windows of both of our eyes, paying closer attention to where the other zefirs were, although Kris¡¯ tremblesense was up and out and her very keen awareness of the terrain and air about her was absolutely surreal to experience and try to process for the uninitiated. She also had a wider hearing range, a nose a bloodhound would approve of, and saw above and below visible light. Processing her sensory feed was a trip and a half, and I could tell the Mick found it both a bit overwhelming, and the fact it didn¡¯t discomfort either of us a wee bit disturbing... Kris cut through and between the flitting Summons who were responding to the screeches and subtle gestures and positioning of the real zefir, its hateful little inkface lit with reddish eyes and mouth that somehow highlighted the fact it had needles for teeth. ¡°Hateful little faerie shits,¡± mumbled the Mick, and Kris and I both agreed completely. Hissss¡­ just a blur of sourceless red light, an iajitsu draw, serene and cool, time and moment, harmony and ruthless killing intent blending together, and in mid-flutter Quaver chopped its head clean off. The Sound Bubble her Sword emanated stifled its final shriek even as she popped into visibility. There was kind of a still moment as all four Summoned zefirs about her froze, turning to look at the human who had suddenly popped up in their midst. Way back here, the Mick whistled low in appreciation. -Dodge and stealth!- I /told her, changing the plan to suddenly surrounding her in a thin stone cone with my Dawnstopped Shape Stone, cutting off their view of her. Fire and lightning blasted into the stone a couple seconds later, sending real pieces of it flying, but there was nothing inside. The Summons paused for just a second to study the results, and then started winging their way back towards the ruins of the nameless village a quarter-mile away. The Mick hissed, because Kris was thirty feet away in the lee of a charred tree, completely unseen by the departing zefir entirely. The only thing remaining was the dead real zefir, its body starting to Burn vivic with eager, hungry haste. The narrow shell of the cone flowed down, covered its body up, and there was no sign of anything there at all. ¡°Incoming!¡± the Mick whispered unnecessarily, looking at my Detect Evil III feed. Another small flock was heading this way, attracted by the multiple spells going off, and perhaps feeling the Summons heading back to their spawning points. Kris, just a part of the landscape at the moment, Quaver resheathed and waiting with bloody Ruby eagerness, watched them come in with us¡­ especially the one that was real. -------- There were a bunch of the flocks around the town, but we were patient and wary. The Mick had just the knack of long experience for choosing what angle to attack at and where to move from target to target, and we trailed along after Kris as she slid through the scorched landscape like a ghost and eliminated her targets. Ten of them were dead before a response came from the ruins of the cottages nearby. Something had noticed all the Summons returning to their spawn points, and we could hear the suddenly coordinated buzzing of their wings pick up. -The little shits finally realized something was up!- the Mick /grinned, even as we all, Invisible or simply so good at hiding she wasn¡¯t there, found cover against a cloud of buzzing black wings shooting in our general direction from the town. There were no signs of the real dead, covered up by Shaped stone and being converted to Land-food. The hot purple light of the Shadow Flyer in charge was hard to miss in the Detect Evil, its raging Amethyst malevolence dwarfing the lesser zefirs and the hollow programmed nastiness of the Summons entirely. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. A whole lot of magic was emptying out of the damned faerie things, fire and lightning pounding everything as the wretched pixie-things shot everything that might be a target. There were three other real ones in this swarm, but it was plain the Shadow Flyer was in control and command. Not that it was doing any good. The deranged thing was shrieking and buzzing around like a mad thing, looking for an enemy and driving the whole flock into a frenzy that was going after anything that moved¡­ except nothing was moving, they¡¯d long made sure of that! We weren¡¯t moving, either, and furthermore were Invisible, staying close to the ground as they buzzed around savagely above us, lighting stuff up, and then moved on in frenzied haste to attack the whole lot of nothing that was still around and taunting them. The Mick had actually been run into by a couple of the Summons, who just shook their heads in puzzlement and zipped away, not realizing they¡¯d hit something alive, or not caring since they couldn¡¯t visually verify it. Summons, not your first choice for tactical assessment! -That were surreal,- he /muttered, having barely restrained himself from snatching at the ones that had impacted his chest. That likely would have started a real chase which might well have ended with him dead¡­ although I could re-Invisible him from thirty feet away if needed. -Next target?- Princess Kristie /inquired crisply, as if we all hadn¡¯t just avoided death by swarming shadowed hell-pixies. The Mick laughed, looked at the ground and nearest flocks, the big swarm rampaging all over the empty area we¡¯d been through. -Why don¡¯t we play it sneaky and hit them from the other side, now? Surely there would have t¡¯ be more than one group involved, if it¡¯s seen nothing so far.- -Sounds perfectly logical to me!- Kris /agreed, and we were up and off and trotting for the far side of the ruined town, shifting between the flocks moving uneasily and slowly towards the area their leader was zipping around madly in. ---- Since the spawn areas of the Summons were nearer to the town, abandoning the town meant the Shadow Flyer didn¡¯t notice more spawn points were being reoccupied as flock leaders died. I was using illusions of vegetation to cut off any sight of Kris¡¯ Ruby strikes from the other flocks, so they had no clue what was happening, never seeing the eye-catching crimson stroke, easily mistaken for a flash of fire, finish off its target. Bring up the cone of stone, shelter her from kneejerk attacks, and I could either drop her into a hole below it, or she could duck out the back during the spells, using Hide in Plain Sight to totally bollux them up with a Stealth mod in the +30¡¯s. Either way worked, and the Summons, losing their target, just winged their way silently back to their spawn points as their default programming took over. Nicely reliable that way, they were. Eventually, the Boss did become aware that no other flocks were wandering around the area. Its frenzy reached a new and crazed height of wild buzzing and spells flying in every direction, which we watched safely from the distance. Half the night hadn¡¯t even passed yet. We had plenty of time. ¡°I¡¯d say a nice diversion would be useful, but the whole damn flock would go out after it,¡± Kris murmured as we watched the agitated and erratic movements of the flock around the ruins of the cottages. Anything left standing was getting pummeled flat in the excitement of the flocks. ¡°Wait fer it.¡± The Mick crossed his invisible arms and grinned. ¡°They¡¯ve a lot of mana, true enough, but they have their limits, too. Some of them have already spent it all.¡± ¡°They are actually that stupid?¡± Kris was pleasantly surprised. ¡°That means we only have to worry about being swarmed and covered head to toe in hell-pixies.¡± ¡°Everybody¡¯s dream way to die, I¡¯m sure,¡± I added drolly. ¡°I presume they are vicious but not nearly as dangerous with their natural weapons, Master McMikal?¡± ¡°Aye, like having a hawk or something clawing for yer eyes and face and throat, but nowhere near as dangerous as their magic. Ye¡¯ve an idea?¡± ¡°There are only four real ones left, but they are inside the concealment of their flock. I think I should be able to kite the crap out of them, and use the Summoning programming against them.¡± ¡°How so?¡± Kristie asked keenly. ¡°Well, if I Emerald Shard the real ones, they instantly become paralyzed, and I become visible. The rest will immediately come racing for me. If I go Invisible and get out of the area, they get nothing¡­ but they leave the paralyzed one behind on the ground as they come rage-buzzing for me.¡± ¡°And even if it still retains control, it will probably direct them to chase you, not even thinking. So if one of us is close enough, we can walk over and coup it instantly, rinse and repeat!¡± she nodded in approval. ¡°Are ye going to be able to get away, lass?¡± the Mick asked carefully. ¡°I can Fly. Yes.¡± ¡°Ye¡­ can fly?¡± His invisible eyes swelled right up. ¡°Aye. Basic Valence III spell, first one I picked, for situations just like this.¡± ¡°Damnation. Then Highness should take the first ones, and likely the second. Ye can throw two of the new Shards, aye? If we take out the last two together, while the Summons all chase after ye, then they are meat on the plate as soon as they lose sight of you.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the general idea. Bunita should pop the Flyer, as you¡¯re basically guaranteed a kill with Crushing Blow going off.¡± He grumbled as he considered the wild chaos of the fourscore Deranged Shadow Zefirs. ¡°I¡¯ll be learning that stealth trickery fast, damn if I won¡¯t!¡± he swore, not liking the feeling of having nothing special to offer at this time. ¡°Broad and deep, Master McMikal,¡± Princess Kristie instantly refuted him. ¡°Six months isn¡¯t going to hurt you, and you¡¯ll be standing taller than you ever have in your life, without leaning on magic Gear to be useful.¡± His unseen grin was fierce. ¡°Then ye just be about showing me what I¡¯m going to be learning, lass, because standing here like an old man is getting me twitchier by the second!¡± AF Chapter 96 – Ashes, Ashes, they all fall down White! From there, it was mostly about positioning. I picked the three spots I¡¯d shoot from, approximately where I should be hitting them, and the Mick and Princess Kristie got into position as I squared off from almost a hundred yards away. Picking out the two of the three real Shadow Zefirs actually meant I was aiming with Detect Evil and my Vatic Gaze, as the chaos of all the Summons flitting about made it impossible to visually pick out anything. The Emerald Shards winked up, were noticed very quickly as they spun about my hand in crystalline green, and I let them fly, locking onto the two screeching Zefirs coming my way and screaming for their Summons to do the same. Fun thing with spells like that is you don¡¯t have to be looking at them to look at them, too. I was turning and flying away, willing Invisibility into effect, even as the two Shards slammed into their targets. The Shards did a small amount of damage, something like a base d6, +1 per Caster Level. That did have a whole lot of Kickers on them, sure enough, but nothing to really threaten the little bastards. Which didn¡¯t stop them from instantly locking up as paralytic green energy spread through them, and their screeches stopped as they tumbled through the air and hit the ground out of control. The raging flock buzzing like a zillion demented hornets after me didn¡¯t slow down in the slightest. The Summons were programmed to go after hostiles in normal circumstances, and losing their controller didn¡¯t change that default. Plus, it had told them to chase me regardless, so off they raged after me as I faded from sight. They went right over the prone Kristie, not looking back, and she only had like twenty feet to go to reach the first one, Quaver hissing out and plunging down to impale the helpless thing and stop its desperate attempts to shriek and move and evade. She didn¡¯t even stop as she moved past it to the other one about sixty feet away, a flowing shadow in the darkness, and Quaver dropped silently to end that one as it tried to shake off my magic. Just not tough enough. Staying low enough to the ground to make anyone wonder if she was moving on all fours, Kris skated along the ground on the Wave-Skating Step, endless ki streaming from her heels as her legs were wide and splayed, her torso less then two feet off the ground and staying that way without effort as she moved after the crazed flock which was zipping around and trying to find me after I went Invisible and vanished from sight. They were spread off all over the place, widening their search path, but I was only interested in the two that weren¡¯t Summons. They were even more wildly frantic than the Summons, but I didn¡¯t much care. As long as I had a mental aiming lock on them, well, I was sitting at a comfortable +16 to-hit, unmodified by range, and their concealment tactics in the fluttering swarm didn¡¯t mean anything. As before, I sent off the two Emerald Shards as I began to move, booking for more distance and going invisible as I did so. The Shadow Zefir¡¯s frantic flitting actually dodged one of the Shards, which shot off into the distance and dissipated. The other punched into it and sent it tumbling in a green arc towards the ground, while the raging swarm buzzed on without it. The Shadow Flyer in charge didn¡¯t seem to realize its underlings were going missing, nor did it realize that being faster then the Summons it rapidly outdistanced those around it and was leading the attack on me in seconds, while literally dozens of spellbolts filled the area behind me as I moved straight up after vanishing. No, I wasn¡¯t taking a chance on being hit by any of them. I shifted off to my final shooting area as mad hell-pixies buzzed around everywhere below me. They were looking for the green glow, and were instantly coming after me when it materialized, with dozens of spells leading the way. Unfortunately, they were using Isparian-style magic, which wasn¡¯t all that fast, and was easily thrown off by juking¡­ or by just dropping to the ground. My Emerald Shards hissed out, the Shadow Flyer ran right into them¡­ and it didn¡¯t get to squeak in alarm as it tumbled sideways and fell out of the sky, limned in green. The unseen Mick was crouched in the lee of a stand of weeds not ten feet away when it hit the ground. The raging Summons didn¡¯t much notice, the only thing on their minds getting in an attack on me, or releasing a spell at me¡­ but that one volley had basically cleared them all out of any remaining mana that they had, so they could only chase me in a rage-buzzing swarm. They all swept past the Mick, and after they did so, he spun smoothly, took a step, went up and down with Bunita, and the paralyzed Shadow Flyer was chopped right in two with grim finality. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. All the control effects on the Summons evaporated instantly. The distance to their Summon point yawned in their programmed minds, and as their infuriated charges against nothing fell short of the mark, they came to a halt, stilled as warring impulses duked it out, and then their default commands banished the orders of the dead Shadow Flyer. Slowly and in unison, they turned around and headed back for their spawn points, while the Mick kept his head down in the dark and waited patiently for the dozens of wicked little hell-sprites to zip on back to where they¡¯d come from. A couple of minutes later, I flew on back up to them, Kris already having reached the Mick. The Shadow Flyer was a bright little vivic torch on the ground, staining the charred ground white, but the Summons had just ignored it. ¡°Well, weren¡¯t that an experience,¡± the Mick murmured to nobody, as Kris hauled him to his feet. He brushed himself off flagrantly, and then looked back at the ruined little settlement. ¡°The things I be doing just to scrape a bit more gold out of the bottom of the pan, aye?¡± ¡°Unless you¡¯ve a better way?¡± Kris just grinned. ¡°You might have seen that we¡¯re going through quite a bit of the green stuff a day.¡± ¡°Aye, and weren¡¯t anything much to be made taking the long way around.¡± He did pause thoughtfully. ¡°There IS another of those settlements further up the road, however.¡± ¡°I volunteer Ryin to fly over there Invisibly, let us know the horrifically overpowered stuff that is traipsing around it, and come on back,¡± Kris said serenely. ¡°You going to be able to take on those things?¡± I asked her. It wasn¡¯t really a question. ¡°They¡¯re almost out of magic. The faster we get to killing them the better, so let¡¯s do it all now. Emerald them down, we¡¯ll chop, as fast as you can pick them off.¡± I nodded, blue-white fires swirling on my hands as I Mana Boosted my way back to full Valences and Pool, while the Mick watched with great interest. ¡°What are ye doing?¡± he finally asked, having enough feel for the magic to identify most of what I was doing. ¡°That¡¯s Isparian Life Magic, I can tell, but ye¡¯re not saying anything, or gesturing, really¡­ and it looks like Healing magic...¡± ¡°Isparian Life Magic Heals three things, but most people only ever knew of two of them, because they grew far too used to using the Transfer spells to quickly regain mana. It will Heal and restore Health, it will Revitalize and restore Stamina, and it will Boost and restore Mana.¡± He just blinked at me, and then he swore a bloody green streak of invectives in four different languages. ¡°Ye¡¯re bloody serious¡­!¡± he gasped. ¡°The Life mages are going to be kicking themselves sideways for days fer missing that!¡± ¡°You have to have good mana conversion to make it work well, as you spend mana to make mana, but it works, and that¡¯s really all that is important.¡± I smiled slightly. ¡°Most importantly to me, it¡¯s considered a Healing effect, and the boosts I get to Healing magic from Augmented Healing and the Healing Domain both apply.¡± ¡°Can you use this on others?¡± he asked eagerly. ¡°Of course.¡± He looked at Kris, trying to hold back some bubbling enthusiasm. ¡°Ye might have just turned the whole magical thing around for our survivors by discovering that!¡± ¡°Re-discovering it,¡± I corrected him calmly. ¡°The fact it works at all is a tad crazy, but that¡¯s not my discovery. Given how the magic seems to be evolving away from Isparian standard, I¡¯m not sure it¡¯s a long-term fix, and wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it gets less and less effective over time. Proper amplification of passive mana gain is a much surer road to develop, given what happened last time. I¡¯ve a feeling magic doesn¡¯t want us infinite cycling it anymore.¡± He hesitated, thought that over, and grunted. ¡°Aye, that were one of the big things about the mages, never running out o¡¯ firepower,¡± he finally agreed. ¡°Do this Mana Boost trick work back on Ispar?¡± he had to ask. ¡°I honestly do not know, Master McMikal, but I¡¯d never seen anyone Cast it there. My gut impression would be it might, but the fact it¡¯s not used says there might be such restrictions that nobody bothered to, and so it fell completely out of use.¡± ¡°My guess would be mana converting doesn¡¯t work on the spell, and so the gain would be slim to nothing until you got to the higher Scarabs,¡± Princess Kristie offered. ¡°And since everything starts with the lower Scarabs...¡± ¡°Nobody ever bothered to research the higher ones, or got so frustrated with net losses when Casting they just gave up?¡± I considered that point. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s possible. Just looking at it in Silver, a standard spell would lose you mana every time at Lead, ninety percent of the time at Iron, sixty percent at Copper, and over fifty percent at Silver. If you want mana back fast, that is a thoroughly useless way of going about it.¡± ¡°Now, stop talking spells, and lets get back to wiping this place and sweeping it.¡± Kris clapped her hands softly. ¡°You full, Ryin?¡± ¡°Yes, Highness,¡± I replied promptly. ¡°Swords out, Master Mick! We chop as we go!¡± He¡¯d never resheathed Bunita, so he was happy to hear that. ¡°Let¡¯s go see the layout and how they are clustered. The little shits usually are in groups of one ta three. The faster we kill them, the less we have ta worry about their spells, although I¡¯m not much worried about those,¡± he admitted. I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Someone here doesn¡¯t have great magic resistance...¡± I reminded them in singsong. ¡°And that someone is who they are going to follow the Emerald Shards back to!¡± ¡°Oh, sprightly little fuckers that they are. Shouldn¡¯t be a problem with duos, right, lass? If there¡¯s a trio, we send up the Princess to play cutthroat and murder one out of Invisibility first.¡± ¡°Back-alley bravo, cheap at twice the price!¡± I noted with a straight face, and Kris just grinned. AF Chapter 97 – Let us Grieve, Yes The clean-up proceeded quickly thereafter. While the Summons might activate if they were close enough to another spawn point and the zefirs there were alarmed, it also meant they were predictable and we just had to discern what their default orders considered a threatening distance. If there were one or two of them, I¡¯d Emerald it into paralysis and we¡¯d coup it dead, leaving them burning atop their Spawn Point so we didn¡¯t have to worry about new ones coming in. The Mick repeatedly swore in delight, emphasizing how great it was that we could bull ahead and didn¡¯t have to worry about shit coming in behind us to disrupt our plans or flank us in the middle of a fight. Kris just nodded along with him. It really would be no different from teleporting a bunch of attackers into or behind your own lines, and the havoc that could create in a fight was to be avoided at all costs. If there were three or more of them, Kris crept up to spit one of them, got their attention, two were Sharded down, and then she and the Mick would deal with any fourth, which didn¡¯t happen much. Just like us, the Zefirs weren¡¯t getting the passive mana back very fast anymore, and so they didn¡¯t have the mana to shoot off the spells they wanted to, nor the brains to maybe use the lowest, simple spells. I specifically noted the fizzle of mana burn a few times as they tried to Cast spells they couldn¡¯t pay for, not that they stayed around long enough to regret it, as they didn¡¯t have the brains to realize what the real problem was. The two sword-wielders worked together with amazing smoothness. The Mick knew how to work in teams, and Kris was a Seven Dragons swordswoman who could read the actions of those in combat with searing clarity. The Mick did the thing that would be the best for the moment, and Kris read everything, setting him up and exploiting what he was doing with fantastic speed. It kind of turned into a teaching thing, to the point where they started going up on singles and doubles and working out a blistering set of sword moves, testing out how fast they could kill the overly aggressive hell-pixies. Kris put Sword beats Fist on display more than once, Opportunist and Tactician likewise, and their Swords arced and cut, never really stopping, yet never interfering with one another as the inky zefirs shrieked and tried to dodge them, and basically failed to do so. Kris was always out ahead of them somehow, and the Mick acted like he knew where they going before they did, Bunita already there to greet them. The little bastards couldn¡¯t run away, which was nice, nor did they want to come to a grapple, which would have been a real case of death by soul-claws and superhumanly strong hands squeezing them into multiple pieces rapidly. The Mick proved to be delightfully casual at batting them away from his face and into the reach of his or Kris¡¯ sword, it was fun watching the whole show of tumbling murder-sprites getting shriek-chopped. In a little more than an hour, we swept through the entire set of Spawn Points in and around the ruined settlement, making sure nothing would be coming back and using them for the foreseeable future. Kris had noted things worthy of retrieving as we strolled from point to point, but that was not my job for the moment. As she¡¯d said earlier, she sent me out up the road to see what I could see, a-flight and Invisible, and so largely safe from the enemy, barring unforeseen happenings. I did not believe such simple magicks were going to fool the enemy long, and they probably had methods to stop it that they didn¡¯t even know about since they¡¯d never had to use them. Thus, passive use and exploiting them while not letting any survivors report about it seemed a really good way to go. Really, shadow-things NOT having something to sense hidden opponents really seemed to be impossible on the face of it, right? The settlement was another five or so miles up the road. It was actually in better shape than the one Kris and the Mick were poking through now, but that was largely because of what was occupying it. Those things had to be the grievvers that the Mick had mentioned. This variety was a kind of diseased green with black spots that were wisping out shadowy energy. They were¡­ big in area, but not in size, having widely-splayed spike-like legs that covered ten feet or more, but with slender bodies in the middle of them, and a strange elevated sensory organ thing in place of a head, something more like a feeler or stalk than a limb. They also crackled intermittently with lightning, and spit shadowy acids about, which didn¡¯t do much damage because the area was largely covered in webs. There were at least forty of the things in the area. Half of them were real, and the other half were not-shadow Infused, popping up on Assay as Grievver Shredders and Deranged Grievvers, respectively. I didn¡¯t get within a hundred yards of them, content to survey them from up in the sky, especially when I saw them spitting lightning and acid. The spots on their bodies could easily be photosensitive, but I had the impression they had both tremblesense and a form of blindsight, probably based on reading Kirlian fields, and my Invisibility wasn¡¯t going to be worth anything when facing them. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The Mick was heartily enthusiastic about not investigating those buildings more closely. The whole area was under webs that the grievvers navigated with effortless precision, giving me further proof of the accuracy of the Assay I couldn¡¯t peg deeper without getting uncomfortably closer. While Kris wasn¡¯t opposed to ganging up on one of them to see how hard it was to kill, there were at least two score of the things, and my Assay indicated an average of 1500 Health on the real ones. We all agreed it was something to put off until later. --------- I had to Sift through a bunch of dirt, Shaping some Stone out of the way and into new boxes and containers for what we found. A couple of the cottages had been drop points for personal belongings, mostly bags of what the adventurers here called ¡®salvage¡¯, raw purified stuff used in improving their Gear. True ¡®wealth¡¯ wasn¡¯t kept in the pyreal coins, which weighed too much and took up too much room. Money was kept in the form of personal paper notes, which stacked up nicely, represented a lot of money back then, and were absolutely worthless now. The Mick talked freely about how the value of coins had dropped to nigh-worthlessness over time, as it was possible to make absolute mountains of cash over time with the dropped loot the Summons left behind. Weirdly enough, it didn¡¯t have that much effect on common food and goods, as the demand for that stuff remained constant, and desired, magical stuff that wasn¡¯t sold at the stores went for literal mountains or hills of the paper cash notes, or not at all, and could only be traded for, or gained by service or charity. When the broken magical economy had died, well, the absolute worth of things began to rear its head again, especially since they had to start over from scratch, and lost a lot of the knowledge, power, and materials to recover with. The Mick fetched the Wagon while Kris and I dug out everything of value, finding nothing magical to retrieve despite it all. It had either exploded or disintegrated, who knew what. The Mick said people often stored old Weapons and other Gear in their chests, or mounted them on walls and the like, and that was probably how we¡¯d found the Sword of Lost Light and Atlan Stones that we had. The next community he wanted us to go over was made up of Villas, which were four times the size of the Cottages. Each had their own devoted spatial basement at one time, although not nearly as large as that of a Mansion. We should have more stuff to look at there, and the Mick was racking his brains trying to think of all the communities in Dereth we could now loot and pillage for stuff that was now actually worth the time to retrieve. Or, at the least, remembering someone with a map of Dereth that might have such locations pointed out. Then we were out of there and heading east, towards the sun starting to color the horizon. It was a small haul, but enough to make everyone happy. We made good time, although there were near ten miles to cover, and there were scattered Shadow-things all over the place. There were also random Summons of agitated Elementals of all five kinds, and then more that were distorted combinations of two or more Elements, obviously in great pain with the conjunction and just waiting for two certain someones to gang up and cut them down. --------- ¡°That were a Maelstrom Elemental,¡± the Mick said easily, watching as the Elemental of intertwined lightning and acid collapsed. He twitched, reflexively looking for something to pop up, and instead there was just a white spot on the grass as the vivic fire consumed whatever energies had manifested it and stopped any future Summons. ¡°A reaction and corruption ta what is going on in Tou-Tou. Doesn¡¯t really affect much of anything, the shades there can rip them apart without effort.¡± He thumbed Bunita thoughtfully. ¡°It were strange fighting this one, however. Fighting them afore, it was like they were solid, almost. This¡­ was more like trying to hit it right, like its substance was trying to slide around me Blade, instead of just eating most of it?¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t notice it on the other creatures?¡± Kris asked archly. ¡°Not really? Or mayhap it were less pronounced on them, and it didn¡¯t stand out so much?¡± he answered after thinking about the last few fights. ¡°It had straight-out Damage Reduction, not just armor ablation,¡± I informed him. ¡°DR 15/-, actually, equal to that of a Greater Elemental. You probably noticed that you weren¡¯t doing much actual damage to it unless you got a true clean hit, a crit, off on it?¡± ¡°Aye,¡± he agreed, going over every motion in the fight. ¡°It dinnae have innards like a human, more like where fields of force intersect and blend, cutting through them, especially where the different elements had to meet...¡± He glanced at Kris. ¡°That profound swordwork of yers bypass that, too?¡± he asked with resigned appreciation. ¡°Crystal Dragon associated Feat, Penetrate Damage Reduction. Reduces DR by one point per Melee Attack Bonus in personal combat. Stacks into Anathema, which turns their Damage Reduction against them, if it has a weakness. Doesn¡¯t really apply to most Elementals, however,¡± Kris informed him. ¡°DR 15/- what, now?¡± the Mick asked in confusion, scratching his beard. ¡°It represents an absolute reduction of incoming attack force from physical objects,¡± Kris explained promptly. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have any effect on most energy attacks, unless they manifest as physical blows. Think of it as throwing a rock against a stone wall. Unless you get above a certain level of force, you¡¯re not going to even mark the stone wall. Damage Reduction works the same way.¡± ¡°Okay, that¡¯s easy enough to understand.¡± Our casual trotting slowed as we saw what was ahead of us. ¡°What¡¯s the 15/- for? A 15, for how much it soaks up before the rest gets through?¡± ¡°Yes. The /- means that there¡¯s no special way to get around it, other then using energy attacks, or Penetrate Damage Reduction. Basically, you just have to overwhelm it. ¡°Most Damage Reduction has a weakness to it, however.¡± The Mick shot her an alert look at that. ¡°And doesn¡¯t that require a whole golf bag of Weapons or Feats,¡± I muttered. ¡°Similar to how some things are more vulnerable to some energy types than others?¡± the Mick asked quickly. AF Chapter 98 – Discussing Defenses ¡°No. That¡¯s energy vulnerabilities, the flip side of energy immunity and resistance. You don¡¯t normally try to burn a Fire Elemental or shock a Lightning Elemental, right?¡± ¡°A total waste o¡¯ time,¡± he agreed. ¡°Ye haul out the Frost weapon for the first, or Acid fer the second, or just make do with hacking on the things.¡± ¡°Ryin wasn¡¯t looking for it, but all those Shades had some level of DR/Magic,¡± Kris pointed out. I pursed my lips at the comment. ¡°Right, wasn¡¯t looking for it,¡± I agreed, unsurprised her Null could sense that, more miffed that I wasn¡¯t doing my Diviner job correctly for my Melees. She had all those Feats and Masteries to bypass Material DR¡¯s and stuff, too. I stared ahead of us. ¡°Fortuitous timing, here.¡± The Deranged Shadow Phantom had clearly already seen us, but wasn¡¯t reacting as we weren¡¯t close enough, a good hundred yards away at the moment. It was not going to start shooting at us unless we entered its zone of control. ¡°It¡¯s a Summons.¡± I glared at it, Reach Assay extending out as I burned some Mana on increasing the range. It also noticed my attention, and promptly raised the shadowy bow in its hand to start shooting at me. Noticing the Assay was enough to trigger it, a magical ¡®attack¡¯. Kris immediately broke into a sprint for it, while I just turned Invisible and deprived the shade Phantom of its target. It promptly switched to her, who was coming up on it with terrific speed in side-to-side evasive motions that avoided every arrow being shot at it. The Mick was barreling along behind her enthusiastically, splitting to the left as she glided ever-so-slightly right. ¡°You¡¯ll feel the ablative field if you¡¯re searching for it,¡± Kris went on conversationally, the Marks making normal speech totally possible despite being in combat. You just thought in the right direction, didn¡¯t have to voice anything and waste your breath. It had DR 20/+II. I wasn¡¯t sure where the DR of the other shade-things had been, but he probably hadn¡¯t noticed them because the Soulbound Blade he was carrying was strong enough to punch them, or he¡¯d coup¡¯d them and completely overridden that level of protection. It was still ominous. Quaver came out in a cross-cut blur and impalement that drove right into the center of the Phantom¡¯s chest, somehow cutting its bowstring on the pass and sending it snapping from its hands. It reeled back at the Blade buried in it, and then the Mick¡¯s Bunita arrived, coming around with a snap and arriving at the perfect time to punch right into the black humanoid¡¯s face, right between its angry red slits for eyes, and knock the thing right back off its feet in so doing. It was nailed to the ground by both Blades as it fell badly, but was somehow not quite dead. It quivered, and then my Shards shimmered in, trailing vivic fire, punched through its magic defense, and blew it apart in unwhite fire. The grass was tall enough to hide most of it, but I hurriedly Shaped up the stone to conceal it from sight, regardless. ¡°Aye, felt something. It were actually pretty strong, but it touched the edge of Bunita and peeled away like it were no longer there,¡± the Mick confirmed, reaching down to yank his Sword out of the dissolving ectoplasm of the thing¡¯s head. Quaver leapt up and back to Kris¡¯ hand with a happy but faint ding! ting! and was promptly sheathed. ¡°20/+II. As you might recall, that¡¯s the bonus your investing two points of Soul into Bunita gives it.¡± Kris had it spot on. ¡°The Shadow Flyer? It was 30/+III. You wouldn¡¯t have done much more than scratch it without a crit.¡± The Mick closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°And ye wonder why we hated fighting this shite after the Fall.¡± ¡°No, no, I¡¯m not wondering at all,¡± she promptly disagreed. ¡°They¡¯ve got enhanced armor protection, too...¡± I put a hand to my forehead as the Mick raised his eyebrows. ¡°What now?¡± he asked fatalistically. ¡°Their armor acts as both block and ablation now.¡± She looked at me, and I threw up my hands. ¡°Six points of armor, I read. That¡¯s, what, a base sixty on the Isparian side?¡± ¡°Item Magic goes up way, way beyond sixty on the armor side of things, lass,¡± the Mick reminded me. ¡°It were one o'' our biggest advantages against these creatures. When they got to Armor up or had actually decent Shields or the like, well, it were damn tedious killing them off.¡± ¡°Which I¡¯m sure they also felt about you, but I don¡¯t think that¡¯s her point.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± Kris assured. ¡°The Isparian side of armor is about damage ablation, not blocking. Your damage is absorbed by the armor and diffused. The Matrix side, your blow just bounces and does nothing unless you go around or through its protection...¡± ¡°And even then you can have Damage Reduction going to ablate anyways, which is the mechanic it is using?¡± I asked. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Yes. It didn¡¯t overlap with the natural DR, so it wasn¡¯t noticed, and the Mick used a head shot, which also nicely avoided the armor¡¯s defense.¡± ¡°And you cleaved right through it with Way of Water III,¡± I sighed, and she nodded shortly. ¡°So you¡¯re saying they have Crystal Armor benefits with their armor, replacing their damage ablation?¡± ¡°It looks to be moving that way,¡± she nodded. ¡°Explain!¡± the Mick promptly demanded sternly. ¡°This be important for us idiots who keep swinging about pointy bits o¡¯ metal!¡± ¡°You remember the Crystal Dragon.¡± He nodded, as Kris had gone over it in detail as one of his avenues of growth. ¡°The Crystal Shield disciplines have three aspects to them. Damage Reduction all the time, a passive, the Way of Iron; Natural Armor boosting, a passive, the Way of Stone; and Crystal Armor, which works when wearing armor. Basically, you gain additional Damage Reduction based on the heaviness of the armor you wear.¡± He looked back and forth between us. ¡°I¡¯m gathering the armor in the Matrix system is¡­ actually stronger in some ways than the Isparian System?¡± ¡°More armor in the Isparian system just increases your damage ablation, as I understand things. It doesn¡¯t make you harder to actually hit. But the Matrix System basically ignores the whole Melee Defense skill mechanic unless you go with Parrying. Defense is something you raise by drawing from offense using Expertise or Defensive Fighting or Dodge or similar skills.¡± Kris waved her hand negligently. ¡°You want your ability to hit things raised as high as possible because it¡¯s the engine for raising your defenses. Giving up pure offense for a mix of defense and other applications is part of what warriors do.¡± ¡°Mechanics of it?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°It works off the Armor Mastery of a Melee warrior or Crystal Dragon Warrior. A point of DR per Mastery level for light armor, two for medium armor, and three for heavy armor," Kris replied. ¡°A good reason to be wearing heavier armor once again, then,¡± he murmured wistfully. ¡°Armor Mastery includes rapid movement in armor, the Exoskeleton disciplines, and Second Skin and similar effects, along with potentially making Skinplate at higher levels, which moves about the same as wearing that leather you¡¯re sporting now,¡± Kris pointed out. ¡°It just means you¡¯ve a lot of Feats and Masteries to take, Master Mick!¡± she said cheerfully. He clenched his hand as we kept trotting along, moving away from the scene of the short fight. ¡°What o¡¯ the power of Rending in our Weapons? Can that be brought back?¡± he asked eagerly. Kris looked at me, and I shook my head. ¡°Vulnerability spells seem to be changing in their application,¡± I said, gliding along next to them since my Fly spell was still active. ¡°They are inflicting Vulnerability to a specific Element on the target, which has a fixed damage effect, not a scaling effect. I¡¯m guessing a higher Scarab just changes the duration now, and it probably won¡¯t stack with existing Vulnerabilities. So, Casting a Fire Vuln on an Ice creature is pointless.¡± ¡°Oh, I wondered what were going on when ye did that on the Maelstrom back there, and nothing much happened...¡± he murmured. ¡°I thought the princess would have one-hit the thing, an¡¯ it didnae happen.¡± She¡¯d Firephased Quaver against the crazed dual Elemental, but it was innately Vulnerable to fire, and hadn¡¯t gotten MORE Vulnerable with the spell. ¡°It can introduce a weakness where none was before, so that is still useful. I would have liked it to be a separate function¡­ are there Matrix spells that do that, Ryin?¡± she asked quickly. ¡°There are spells that enhance your fire magicks. There are spells that increase the effect of fire spells in an area. There are Metas and Feats and Class Abilities that increase the potency of your flames. All of those can be reflected over to any Element, and there¡¯s Curse-like transformative magicks which do exactly what that Fire Vuln was doing. ¡°I can¡¯t recall anything that straight up doubles or more the damage you take from spells, even restricted by Element. On the other hand, there are the Paired and Echoing and Admixture Metas, which double the power of the spells they are attached to, but that¡¯s a different effect.¡± The Mick pursed his lips. ¡°So, ye can tap power equal to a Render, but from the opposite way?¡± he asked. ¡°The mechanic raises the Valence of the spell it is attached to, or the Scarab, in Isparian terms,¡± I told him. ¡°It¡¯s basically the opposite of mana conversion, if you think about it. With Isparian magic, you are gradually able to get the full power out of the spell for less and less mana. With Matrix mana, you use the same or more mana, and get more and more power out of the spell. ¡°Unless you reduce the Scarab cost to nothing, most Metas don¡¯t actually work all that well for Isparian magic, although they give it some great flexibility in other areas.¡± ¡°Aye, doubling the range, Chaining the spells, and the like ye alluded to, an¡¯ far more complex and versatile War magic. It sounded even deadlier than the War magic I be familiar with, to be honest.¡± ¡°The upper end is, because it pushes the ceiling up, while Isparian Magic cheapens the cost of the floor. Shooting off a Gold spell for one mana is totally possible with Isparian Magic, but you¡¯d need the equivalent of fifty mana to do the same for a Valenced spell,¡± I told him. He grunted. ¡°So the Isparian system has more staying power.¡± ¡°It¡¯s also quite potent for what it does. The standard spells of Isparian War Magic can easily deal twice the damage or more of similar basic Matrix spells. They are incredibly deadly, as you well know.¡± ¡°Mana Scarab, Incantor spells be not working as they did once. But¡­ how high do the spells go?¡± the Mick had to ask. ¡°No known limit, although they do branch at one point.¡± He looked at me in astonishment. ¡°That should not surprise you. The default seems to be nine tiers, excluding Cantrips, before you hit a hard ceiling. Then you have a choice of pursuing higher Tiers once you break the Eternal Ceiling, or going after the Source Code of Magic, which is basically completely open-ended.¡± He gave me another hard look. ¡°The Source Code is knowing all the components of magic and having a vision of a spell you want in mind. You research the various components and assemble the spell YOU want. ¡°You could make literally any spell you can conceive of, but the cost and difficulty of it may well be prohibitive. ¡°Higher Tiers of spells can be ones boosted by Metas from lower Levels, or possibly fixed spells designed within the tiering paradigm. We don¡¯t know, as we weren¡¯t taught by Eternals as yet, so it¡¯s all just second-hand.¡± AF Chapter 99 – The Cavalry Cometh! Throwing and Returning Fireball?¡± Protection from Missiles?¡± Profound WeaponDodge Missile FlyingInvisibility Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Force ArmorShield Assay -His Color is Gray.- Detect Detect Evil III Detect Non-Good III -It¡¯s usually a sign of self-interest and treachery. Is this fellow a wildly independent sort with a vengeful chip on his shoulder, maybe blaming humans for what happened to his people? Because those manacles he¡¯s got on aren¡¯t locked, either.- You can unclasp those manacles any time, Aun Shumua. We know. Enjoy your new friends and family.> Illusion III Polyglot AF Chapter 100 – A Meet on the Beach Princess Kristie eyed the older young woman, a tanned, classic blue-eyed blonde in the best river valley Aluvian clan tradition, with casual ease. She¡¯d be capable enough, but without the System they were using directly contributing to Stealth skills, she still had only mundane ability at it, more a case of being really careful when moving about and situationally alert than being stealthy. Combat-wise, the young woman was no threat to a Rantha, although she might not believe it, age being experience and all. ¡°Selena, Shumua weren¡¯t a captive, he were bait,¡± the Mick stated firmly as the other half-dozen Scouts all ran up, just in time to hear his words. ¡°We were just about t¡¯ spring the fool when we noticed that his manacles weren¡¯t even locked, an¡¯ he could twist ¡®em free at any time he wanted to. He looked a tad beat up, sure, but he were at full Health, and despite him being tied up fer an hour an¡¯ in the middle o¡¯ a fight, none o¡¯ the lugians ever swore at him, threw a rock at him, called him a traitor to his kind, or the like.¡± Unlike the Mick, who was making that all up on the fly with great sincerity. Kris didn¡¯t bat an eye, having heard much worse lies, and the reaction of the tumerok to the news he¡¯d been found out basically sold it. The Mick had also been looking at the despairing bastard¡¯s reaction, and tilted his head up as I listened to the yammering of the lugians. A whispered Word, Comprehend Languages was in play, and I was decoding their speech perfectly, if not able to actually speak it. Completely ignorant of the fact that there was something invisible in the air twenty feet above them listening in, the gray-skinned brutes were growling at one another about what to do next. They definitely outnumbered us, and were crowing to get out there and put us all to the axe, while they also seemed to be oddly reluctant to be the first ones to do that. Given some of them had arrows sticking out of them, or had some impressively deep lightning burns... -The lugians are tied to the earth an¡¯ lightning rages through them. ¡®tis known they take extra harm from lightning attacks, lass,- the Lord Mick /related helpfully. -As His Lordship says,- I /replied drily to him listening in, not having missed that. It looked like they were working themselves up into a potential charge. He mentally /whistled, and said nothing. -That looks to me very much like they are all tight and clustered up in one place,- Kris /said grimly, ignoring the byplay. I rose a hundred feet higher into the air. The lugians weren¡¯t looking up, because nobody was looking up. Dawn rose on command. I let Aru¡¯s Salute slide through my thoughts, and Lord Mick even turned and bowed to the sun in time with Princess Kristie, startling all the scouts, who wondered what was going on. Natural Renewal blew across the world. Spell Slots refreshed, locks on spells were washed away, and I could grab a new spell. I could have Cast Exemplar Surge and picked Fireball, but I decided a more painful lesson was in order. There were several effects which could turn single-target effects into multiple-target effects. The most basic was Burst, a +II Valence Meta that modified a Ray or single-target spell and added a half-damage, five-foot radius Burst to it to all in the area. The better version was Chain Spell, and its counterpart Mass Spell. Mass Spell turned a single-target spell without a line or area into an area Burst, affecting everyone in that area up to the limit of Caster Level. Its basic use was on Healing spells, turning single-target Cures into multi-person Cures, but it was often very useful on a variety of Buff spells¡­ or Debuffs like Polymorph Other, Petrify Other, Curse Other, Charm Others, and so forth. Chain Spell did much the same, but was made for single-target damage spells originally. It took the original spell, halved the damage, and then Chained it out to other targets in leaps up to thirty feet long. If anything Saved vs Reflex, the Chain missed them and they took no damage as the Chain petered out. The normal maximum number of extra targets was Caster Level up to twenty, plus five per Delimit attached. I had received some major bonuses to my Shardcasting the last few days, the Sublime Chord being the biggest of them. Boosted by the Words of Creation, I could hit the base +3 Caster Level bonus from Heartsong without trying too hard, which meant a +6 Caster Level bonus to all friendly spells within sixty feet of my voice as I played the Chords of magic, and they Sang back to me. The lugians below me didn¡¯t know where the single Note I was uttering came from. I pulled Chain Spell, Battle Meta/3, out of the vaults of memory, slapped it on Shards, reduced the +3 Cost to zero with Arcane Thesis and my two Traits, Delimited it twice to fifteen Shards because I could, Shardcaster changed the damage to Force/Lightning for a moderate damage boost versus lugians, and I tacked on the per-die bonuses, the Kickers, and let fly with fifteen damn Shards down at these bastards. Then fifteen Shards converged to a single Spellwarped Ray, which plunged into a prism a foot beyond Crown¡¯s head, and the single Ray Split into two, which plunged down like a vengeful crackling, bell-like tone of Heaven¡¯s vengeance right atop the Tukora commander. Also, I rode a Silver Lightning Bolt on the spell, because I could and had the mana, and I was very unhappy with the Ruby bastard and his Red, Ruby, and Blue-Red fanatics. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Fun fact: lugians have very thick, stumpy necks. It makes it hard for them to look up. They didn¡¯t see the source of the true Note of the Chord as I Sang it, but they did hear the ringing, soul-jarring condemnation blare through their souls with Sublime Thunder, and then the lightning all lugians feared tore through them! Fifteen Shards at d6 +50% +5 each, x2. Plus a lot of Boosts and Kickers, and then another 85 from the Silver Lightning Bolt on top of it all to the big guy. Plus Toppling, because it was a Force Effect. Oh, it hit hard. It didn¡¯t kill any of them, but the doubled Chains blew through them and sent them flying and falling in Silver arcs of terrible purity and glory, and they could hear the condemnation and wrath of a truly higher being Singing through them of their sins and the evils they¡¯d done as they were blasted off their feet. They all had over 300 Health, and the boss over 500, so they all lived. Aun Shumua wasn¡¯t far enough to escape the leaping Chains, and they sent him screaming and tumbling against the stone motte of the Villa. He wasn¡¯t as vulnerable as the lugians, but he didn¡¯t get away free, horrified to find the Life Protections around himself didn¡¯t stop the attack and the Divine/Arcane energies driving it at all. He was the only one who caught a glimpse of me up there in the air, however, looking down at him, just before I flicked a finger and was gone into Invisibility again. Below me, screaming and burning Gotrok lugians moaned and groaned and shuddered as they felt what it was like to have Heavens pissed at them for their life choices, and knew that if another strike like that came down, they were dead. For some reason, none of them had much appetite to go out and bother with a bunch of dirt-eaters anymore. --------- ¡°Well, weren¡¯t that a show,¡± the Mick remarked to his juniors, the younger men and women gaping at the pyrotechnics they¡¯d just seen. They¡¯d never seen magic like that, shining so gloriously as it came down and spiraled around inside the Villa and the rough fortifications thrown up by the lugians. The tolling, crackling, snarling sound of it just made the soul shiver and dance with energy and purpose, all their eyes lighting up at the sensations it was raising within them. ¡°Well, then, follow me.¡± His completely unruffled and unimpressed demeanor surprised and impressed the crap out of them, as it was meant to. ¡°We¡¯ll shoo them out of there an¡¯ back to their homes. Ain¡¯t much spirit left in them now.¡± They stared at him in shock as he broke into a casual trot for the walls, the strange young woman with him gliding along next to him with predatory, almost supernatural grace. Almost tripping over themselves, souls singing with confidence, the half-dozen scouts hurried after him. There weren¡¯t any spotters left to face them, the lugians all standing around on their broad two-toed feet, trying to apply some Healing salves and Potions urgently to the silvery scars left behind by the magic. To say they were a little shocked when the humans walked right in to the place they¡¯d been meaning to trap them in was a bit of an understatement. Bellows of alarm rang out, and big hands clutched over-sized hammers, picks, and axes as they stared at the humans so bold as to face them, lightly armored and outnumbered more than two to one as they were. Silver lightning crackled and danced, and the entire force of lugians stumbled back in shock and alarm as it rose up behind the humans, snaking over them with the tinkling of a thousand savage bells, dancing on their skin and weapons, cloaking the humans in transcendental wrath as it flowed through them without harm. The scouts were up on their toes, trembling at the power coming through them. An explosive readiness to burst into motion, the world turning slow, and they would be the lightning running through it! Startling them, it wasn¡¯t Lord Mick who stepped forward, it was the young woman with him. Ding! Ting! The two notes broke over the soul like they had razors. The lugians stepped back again as a blade of living lightning, solid as a sheet, like the Weapons that had plagued them of old, Sang out in her grasp. ¡°Quaver! ¡°You stand before the Wrath of Heaven! ¡°You have been given one chance to run away. One and run, or stop and drop! ¡°The Storm has judged you, Hell-bound filth! Blood and death upon your hands! When your black rose blooms in Hell now ere, tell them the Wrath of Heaven sent you there! ¡°TREMBLE AND RUN, OR WE COME!¡± None of them had ever seen lugians exhibit utter terror, especially the warrior society of the Gotrok. The lesser lugians were stumbling back, ignoring the honor and training of their stations, dark eyes wide and reflecting the unnatural silver lightning blazing and tolling their doom in front of them. The Tukora tried to rally them, bellowing at them to hold their ground and die with honor, these humans could not be so- The flash was blinding, the stroke clean, bisecting him right in two, his armor not stopping it at all. He couldn¡¯t even grunt as silver lightning cut him from head to crotch, spurted out every orifice, and he dropped, smoking and lifeless. Ding! TING! The notes were the final straw, slicing at their resolve like raised blades ready to kill them all. They saw the humans move in an arc, move up, flitting with supernatural speed as they did so, and all the fight left them. Stones and weapons in hands were dropped where they were, and the mighty, valiant Gotrok, preservers of the warrior traditions of the Lugians, turned and ran, smashing through the rough barricades on the other side of their fortifications in their zeal to be out of there. --------- The whole group of scouts was up on the crude steps and rocks peeking over the fortifications to watch them run away, stumping along with great purpose and enthusiasm to get as far away from there as possible. With a hiss and snapping, the Lightning about them faded away, and with it the sense of speed and fury it had brought with it. Lord Mick watched them go, a small smile on his face. ¡°Mercy, lass? Didn¡¯t expect it of ye, there. Ye could kill them all with another shot or two, I take it...¡± He turned around, as did the other startled scouts, to see the young Gharu¡¯n woman standing behind them, Staff in hand, hair long and white, and not obviously much different from any other of the scholarly desert-dwelling people who so loved their magic. Except, of course, for the way her eyes burned silver. AF Chapter 101 – The Cost of Mercy is Suffering Well, it''s that time. There''s a hundred chapters behind you, dear readers, and I''m already in the 220''s, so there''s lots more to go! That''s basically the equivalent of 3 paperback novels written out for you to enjoy. There''s two ways to support an author who writes stories you enjoy. The first is to join the Patreon and buy him a cup of coffee, get some future chapters, get the Patreon-only content, and repeat or do a one-off, as you like. (buying the Ebooks also on the table). The other is simpler. Make an account, give a Rating and/or Review, and up the Rank of the Story. I will note that anything but a 5-star is a DOWN vote at this point, and isn''t support, it is punishment!... :P I''ve got 2000 or so readers a day, so I know there''s room for more :) Give an author a hand, and tell your friends and recommend the novels for others to read! ======================== ¡°They will take back word of the Storm, of the Wrath, of the Lightning, and most especially of the Thunder that echoes in their souls,¡± I replied to the Mick. ¡°Every red-handed massacre and bloody sin that they exulted in as true and proper displays of their might will echo and scream in their memories of the vileness that it is, and they will doubt, they will have nightmares¡­ and they will have dreams. ¡°I have done nothing more than planted a small seed, but as you know, the smallest seed can crack the stoutest stone given time, and they are nothing but stone.¡± ¡°I see your good friend Aun Shumua slunk away,¡± Princess Kristie snickered. ¡°My Lord, certainly he told them of the schedule for the Portals opening and closing! The Hea and Gotrok might attempt to raid when the moon turns!¡± Selena Arswick blurted out urgently. ¡°We should have, we can still-!¡± ¡°They¡¯ve known about it fer years, lass,¡± the Mick cut her off shortly, clearly not concerned. ¡°The Hea are hunters. They wanted to find out, an¡¯ so they did years ago. It¡¯s why we always have people on both sides when ¡®tis time, to make sure there¡¯s no ambush. Not that they are likely ta get a large force through the area without the shades smelling them. Dinnae worry about it.¡± ¡°You, you mean the Shadows, sir?¡± the youngest of the group, a Sho lad by name of Mizaya, asked hesitantly. ¡°I hae been blithely informed that former mortals infused with the Essence o¡¯ Shadow an¡¯ Darkness an¡¯ similar energies are known as Shades. Undead incorporeal spirits that can pass through stone and drain yer strength with their touch, ALSO Shadow-infused, are properly called Shadows, because they ain¡¯t material anymore, see,¡± the Mick said loftily. ¡°We shall call them the shades henceforth an¡¯ be proper scholars about it all, because it fits, y¡¯see.¡± The scouts mumbled about the change to themselves, and were surprised to agree that it did seem to fit better. ¡°Did you run into these ¡®real shadows¡¯ somewhere, sir?¡± the wide-eyed Selena asked urgently. ¡°No, but the lasses here have. Oh, oh, me manners! Me mother wouldnae forgive me for such a terrible oversight.¡± He clasped his hand to his leathered chest dramatically. ¡°The bonnie lass with the terrible eyes that are seein¡¯ all yer darkest secrets there is three weeks outta Ispar, a new arrival, by name o¡¯ Devra al-Ryinth, a true blue Gharu with all the magic-loving, an¡¯ a completely new magical Tradition she be carrying around all proud an¡¯ smug an¡¯ whatnot. Aye, lass?¡± I wrinkled my nose. ¡°I don¡¯t know about smug, Lord Mick...¡± Somehow he¡¯d forgotten to mention he was considered an Important Person along the way. Just an oversight, surely. ¡°An¡¯ this tall drink o¡¯ throat-cutting nastiness be Her Imperial Highness, the Princess Kristie Rantha-Briggs o¡¯ the Empire of Ispar. Ye can all bow now,¡± he waved airily. They gaped at him, his light words, and looked at Kristie, who Drew Herself Up. ¡°Bow?¡± the Mick repeated, and there was a dangerous flat note to his voice now as they gaped at the young woman who had barely moved, and suddenly was Very, Very There, dominating everything. They jumped, and hastily bowed to her. ¡°Highness!¡± ¡°Highness!¡± ¡°Highness!¡± rang out urgently, with at least some Isparian attention to class status. ¡°Aye, now,¡± the Mick beamed, dangerous tone dropping away as if it never were, turning and giving Kristie a flamboyant courtier¡¯s bow of his own. ¡°Yer Imperialness, may I present to ye me daft an¡¯ shoddy students, not a lick o¡¯ sense nor a hint o¡¯ competence between them, the infamous an¡¯ much-cursed, completely overlooked, oft-derided, totally unloved, money-grubbing, happily mocked, an¡¯ unscrupulously haggard Royal Scout Legion of Dereth, dirty scamps that they be.¡± I noted they were all smiling in relief at his insults. ¡°If they¡¯re a tenth as unscrupulous as you, Lord Mick, I imagine their levels of incompetence reach absolutely terrifying heights of talent at their jobs,¡± Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs replied wickedly. He beamed even more widely. ¡°Aye, well, they get underfoot an¡¯ fumble about, such as they are. Little cockroaches they are, yer Highness.¡± Selena leaned forwards. ¡°Imperial Highness, Lord Mick?¡± she asked carefully, eyeing Kris carefully. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Either the pair of them be the finest liars in all o¡¯ Creation, sparing me uncle the task o¡¯ finding an heir, or there¡¯s been a lot o¡¯ changes back on the world o¡¯ Ispar, Roach Queen,¡± he said out of the side of his mouth, making no attempt to lower his voice. ¡°Yer mother will be happy t¡¯ know the Viamontians got what were coming to ¡®em.¡± ¡°And how,¡± I added to that. I noted no blues among the scouts. The Mick noticed my glance over them. ¡°Aye, there¡¯s no blues among me roaches, lass. That blue skin a¡¯ theirs ain¡¯t given t¡¯ skulking about like a proper roach, an¡¯ the rats an¡¯ spiders pounce on ¡®em. What of them fled with us tend t¡¯ like the standing army what¡¯s more, not a job that requires great fools, incompetence, an¡¯ the well-heeled cowardice to run away at the drop o¡¯ a hat.¡± ¡°Oh, they still love their overdone, heavy armor, I take it.¡± Kris was sorely amused as the scouts straightened up proudly. The insults were just one way of making sure his students never took themselves too proudly or too seriously, she could tell at a glance, and they ate it up. The subconscious effect of never being good enough, always having to do better, never playing up how awesome they were, filtered through them, keeping them hungry to improve, and made them quiet fanatics about self-improvement, if only to someday earn a real compliment from his lips. The Mick was better at being a leader than he¡¯d led on, but that didn¡¯t seem to have surprised Kristie at all. Better at sensing courtiers trying to play her, probably. Well, he was a Twenty in our parlance. If he wasn¡¯t horribly competent and an important person, I guess they¡¯d be total idiots, although he¡¯d played the roving free-wheeler doing his personal duty so well I¡¯d overlooked the possibility that he really did have some status. ¡°Lass, ye¡¯ve some way to send Messages to those ye know, aye?¡± the Mick asked, turning to me. ¡°I do...¡± I nodded carefully. The Allegiance system ran on Messaging, for example, powered up by the Allegiance Oaths. ¡°We once had the power t¡¯ speak at a distance an¡¯ spread news quick, but it faded with the Fall, which were its own manner o¡¯ disaster at the time,¡± he told me. ¡°Can ye send a Message to people I know?¡± he asked me directly. ¡°Use the Mark to convey to me their names and faces, Lord Mick,¡± I responded calmly, a swirling Holo screen a few feet across rising in front of me. He lifted an eyebrow, opening the Markdoor, and visualized one by one the names and faces of the people he wanted to contact. I popped them up back in the Holo in front of everyone, drawing whispers from the scouts as the faces and figures of those they knew appeared in front of them in very accurate illusions, more precise and alive once the Mick was able to focus in on them and filled in the little details and imperfections from memory¡­ complete with animalistic tweaks here and there which obviously did not belong. They drew knowing snickers from everyone around at impressions of fox, dog, cat, deer¡­ and cockroach on some of them, especially the sour-faced woman in blue robes there. ¡°The Messages?¡± I asked, and the blinking line and cursor I visualized popped up in front of them all, raising more eyebrows. ¡°This be the Mick, reporting that Aun Shumua did finally stoop t¡¯ consorting with the Gotrok, an¡¯ attempted to lure yer fellow Scouts inta a trap. If ye see him, trust him not, an¡¯ belike shove a spear inta his guts if he gets close enough, we¡¯ve no use for traitors.¡± Everyone watched the words type themselves out in remarkably clear and easy to understand symbols, none of the fancy curves of courtly calligraphy. The Mick even leaned in to stare at the font in fascination, holding up his hand. ¡°We be heading down ta Mayoi. Two new arrivals have come through the Portals with some news o¡¯ minor happenings back in the old world, an¡¯ they seem a mite impatient t¡¯ get back t¡¯ what we call civilization hereabouts, gods know why. They seem t¡¯ believe they can get off the shore an¡¯ across the waters t¡¯ the islands without needing the Portal. ¡°I¡¯ll be going along with them, an¡¯ yer all welcome t¡¯ join in with us on this great farthing adventure most likely t¡¯ get us all killed and eaten by a remoran. Come t¡¯ Mayoi, ¡®twill be great fun!¡± I lifted an eyebrow, but nobody seemed at all surprised at his irreverent tone. ¡°Send that to me fellow cockroaches, and then, to the fine upstanding Minister of Intelligence...¡± He cleared his throat as all the scouts rolled their eyes. ¡°Aisely, coming back t¡¯ the islands early. Found some newcomers from Ispar. Full report then.¡± All the scouts broke out guffawing, while Kristie raised an eyebrow. ¡°Command problems, Lord Mick?¡± she asked archly, watching as I illustrated the process, lining up the image of each scout up, and suddenly the Mick¡¯s faint voice echoed out, each word lighting up as spoken for the highlighted image. The scouts watched the process repeat over and over, with one addendum. ¡°Immediately reply to confirm receipt of Message,¡± in my cool voice, at the end. Coms officer, gotta be calm. Surprised voices echoed out shortly after each Message was delivered, stating it was received and they¡¯d be there, with not a few leading with curses on Aun Shumua¡¯s name, too. ¡°She¡¯s a money-grubbing witch with a mind like a steel trap an¡¯ about the same morals,¡± the Mick responded in the closest thing to a hiss I¡¯d heard in his voice, watching and listening to each Message going out, and the replies. ¡°She¡¯ll send men t¡¯ die without batting an eye, an¡¯ wonder why there aren¡¯t more t¡¯ sacrifice on her climb t¡¯ power. The last time she tried to order me roaches around, I nearly took off her head, so we get along like shoestring cousins now. She sends me whatever I request, I report to her when I godsdamned need ta, an¡¯ the next time she orders one o¡¯ me roaches t¡¯ get themselves killed, she¡¯s going for a one-way trip inta the drink, ¡®cause the Shoreward don¡¯t affect the dead, an¡¯ them remorans be loving some fresh ironhearted bitch, they be.¡± ¡°She sounds like my teacher,¡± I opined, Mira nodding urgently in the back of my head. All the scouts were muttering agreement under their breaths, too. ¡°She thinks people don¡¯t remember she were working for the undead before in the Eldrytch Web, the same undead what slaughtered as many people as they could on the flight to the islands. Aye, she¡¯s smart. Aye, she¡¯s good at managing information, an¡¯ she knows their languages an¡¯ how t¡¯ treat with ¡®em. She¡¯s a bloodless witch who lets good men die so she can worm her way in closer t¡¯ power.¡± AF Chapter 102 – Politics and Requisitioning go Hand in Hand ¡°She must have forgotten she was dealing with a Black Aluvian. It sounds like a fine working relationship otherwise,¡± Princess Kristie noted. His dour face lit up instantly, not a shred of hesitation. ¡°Aye, Highness, it be, be it not? The King, he be a big fan o¡¯ me scrupulously accurate an¡¯ timely reports,¡± there was an absolute tirade of rolled eyes and coughing here, which Kris and he completely ignored, ¡°an¡¯ the shameless cowardice o¡¯ me scuttling scamps here. I think he has me reporting t¡¯ the witch just t¡¯ be a dagger in her side, belike,¡± he added in a low, conspiring voice, like he¡¯d figured out some great secret. ¡°Proper royal politics management,¡± Kris agreed sagely, completely unruffled. ¡°Does your King trust her?¡± she asked carefully. ¡°Aye. She feels betrayed an¡¯ used by the undead, an¡¯ no mistake about it. They used her power an¡¯ ambition, an¡¯ tossed her aside like a beaten whore when it were time, no hesitation whatsoever,¡± he confirmed readily enough, only a little surprising to hear. ¡°She wants revenge, an¡¯ she wants us t¡¯ take it for her¡­ an¡¯ get all the credit when we do. ¡°Me Oaths are to the King an¡¯ me Legion of cowardly fools, not a harridan who thinks us what don¡¯t think magic all day be easily replaced idiots.¡± I sent out the Message to her as he finished, and everyone watched with keen interest as the words softly played out. ¡°What? Lord Mick, how are you doing this? How are you intending to get here without the Portal? Who are these new Arrivals? Are the gates working? How did they get here? I need more-¡± the Message reply cut off as I waved my fingers. He grinned widely, as did the scouts. ¡°Mayhap she¡¯ll chew off her crone¡¯s nails a bit afore we get there,¡± he said in shameless satisfaction, clearly in a better mood now. He looked about, cleared his throat, and noted, ¡°Now, I know it were a bit shady how we managed t¡¯ run them off, but it seems to me we did find ourselves a small base o¡¯ operations fer the day, an¡¯ did have the desire to explore it fer certain minor items of interest.¡± His dark eyes twinkled expectantly. ¡°Right. Ryin, can you fetch the Wagon?¡± Kris did not actually ask me. ¡°Sitting outside the wall there.¡± I gestured to the north side, away from the west way the lugians had fled through on their way to the southwest, and everyone craned their heads over there, seeing exactly nothing. The Mick bent down, picked up a rock, and tossed it over the stacked stones and boulders piled up by the Gotrok there. It bounced off something in midair, ripples spread out, and he nodded with a totally unperturbed face as the expressions of his scouts all turned shocked again, wondering just what was there. ¡°Well, bring it in here in the lee of the Villa, an¡¯ ye can drop the camouflage,¡± he said airily. ¡°Er, how many people can it carry, lass?¡± he asked in an aside. ¡°It¡¯s rated for ten tons, but I can put more Disks under it if needed, Lord Mick,¡± I replied calmly. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s enough.¡± He rubbed his hands together expectantly. ¡°Now, let¡¯s see what the prior owners left behind for us t¡¯ Burn. The new magic be calling t¡¯ us!¡± ¡°New magic? What new magic?¡± one of the scouts instantly piped up. -------- It looked like someone put an oddly-shaped blue and white club on top of a staff, then didn¡¯t bother to enchant it as a Weapon, but as a particularly heavy and unwieldy Implement. I could sense the mana channels on the thing were seared and scarred, and it definitely wasn¡¯t operational. However, unlike at least half-a-dozen other trophy items down below, it was surprisingly intact. I ran the Assay IV around it, a lot of interested eyes watching as I duplicated what I was seeing with a combined Vatic Gaze at IV in Holo before me as well. ¡°I see at least sixteen breaks in the patterns,¡± Kris spoke up without hesitation. ¡°That¡¯s not any Isparian design I¡¯m familiar with." She reached over, tapped the thing with a black nail, and the Holo crystallized with her tremblesense feed, mottling and shading with what looked like bands proving to be layers of stacked alloys of different types. ¡°This is a very interesting effect. Once empowered, those alloys provide the resonance for the inbuilt magical effects through the multiple streams. It looks like the central array was the main one to be boosted.¡± ¡°This here fine piece o¡¯ scrap is actually o¡¯ lugian design, one o¡¯ their classic Casting tools, an¡¯ a reward for passing a series o'' tests from them,¡± the Mick stated, watching this keenly, and marking how impressed his students were at what they were seeing. ¡°Different but the same Boosts t¡¯ Self an'' Focus, War Magic, Mana Renewal, Mana Conversion, with the one Cantrip effect¡­ plus it empowered as Crushing Blow and Bludgeon Cleaving,¡± he finished his slow and careful draw from memory. ¡°It actually were a pretty decent tool for general Casting use,¡± he judged calmly. ¡°Those little whorls are a Cantrip effect, everything else is operating in parallel with standard Isparian concepts of magic. The alloy interchange enhancing the mana flow is very novel, especially in that particular series of E-Metals. I think they focused more on control and substance than the geometry of the layers themselves, however,¡± I deduced. ¡°Oh, really?¡± Kris was definitely interested. ¡°Yes. This concept, wedded to proper gearsmithing, could have made them an Implement that could alternate between any kind of the Cleaving mechanic just by rotating the appropriate rings with the proper attuning gemstones.¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Lord Mick and his students all blinked, looking suitably shocked. ¡°Hey, now,¡± he protested lightly. ¡°Last thing we needed back then were the mages t¡¯ be able to carry around just one overpowered toy, instead o¡¯ a slew a¡¯ them!¡± ¡°A slew?¡± Princess Kristie asked over her shoulder. ¡°Aye, yes. Tumerok Slayer this, Tusker Slayer that, Undead Slayer here, Mukkir Slayer out o¡¯ me arse, Olthoi Slayer in yer face. Bloody Implements for every type o¡¯ Weapon under the sun with Renders on ¡®em, and generally the only things we melees what had Slayer effects on were pieces o¡¯ crap only fit fer hanging on the wall, with some minor exceptions. ¡°A toy with Crushing Blow and potentially every Render possible worked inta it?¡± He just rolled his eyes theatrically, although his students remained silent. ¡°Nae doubt I¡¯d be using magic instead o¡¯ straight steel this day, were that t¡¯ have happened!¡± ¡°Well, it won¡¯t work on magical items now, now that I can see how it worked.¡± I blew up the image of the internal rune structure, all blasted and frayed inside, and with a thought, replicated it side by side, but fixed it. ¡°That look about right, Highness?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bow to you on the spellcraft. There¡¯s areas of crystallization and melting internally that are throwing off the natural magic. It should look something more like this in the layout.¡± She fed me the details, and I replicated the material structure of it according to her design. I tossed the thing to Kris, who caught it and promptly spun it around her fingers, working out the balance automatically. She had it whipping about herself in seconds with little effort, the brrr of it spinning impressing the scouts watching her. ¡°This thing has the balance of a tenpin. Whoever made it definitely didn¡¯t want anyone getting ideas of head-thumping with it, which is remarkably short-sighted of them,¡± she judged coolly. Lord Mick coughed delicately. ¡°I got many lugian friends, Highness, but ye can¡¯t compliment them on an excessive amount o¡¯ originality in much matters. Frame things in the context of history an¡¯ knowledge known, an¡¯ they be right terrors in learning an¡¯ mastering it. Something new that has t¡¯ be puzzled out? They go beat on some steel ¡®til us soft dirt-grubbers work it out.¡± ¡°You¡¯re saying that most of their civilized knowledge might be given to them by someone else, or accidental serendipity which they discovered and improved on?¡± I asked him curiously, pausing in my study. ¡°Well, they do have methods fer trying out new things, like when they want t¡¯ try new alloys. It¡¯s all dreadfully tedious an¡¯ efficient an¡¯ boring as watching paint dry, an¡¯ they¡¯ve got walls an¡¯ walls of texts full of their failures in a lot o¡¯ things. One o¡¯ the great things they left behind in Linvak Tukal were the libraries an¡¯ records of all the things they¡¯d done before which dinnae work, I been told.¡± ¡°That¡¯s an extremely useful approach for a long-living, disciplined, and openly sharing society, especially if you get a lot of people working on the same problem,¡± Princess Kristie exclaimed in admiration. ¡°Ten thousand people working on a problem with a million iterations can really narrow the avenue of study down fast by failing to different degrees, and then concentrating on the areas you fail in the least!¡± ¡°Aye, but that all takes time, Highness,¡± Lord Mick agreed patiently. ¡°An¡¯ sometimes, ye need a damn answer right now, an¡¯ ain¡¯t got time ta go through centuries of history to see where it be done before, an¡¯ how to handle it again¡­ especially when it never happened afore.¡± ¡°True enough,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°As a support network in peacetime, however, it¡¯s fantastic. I imagine humans frustrate the hell out of them with our ramshackle approach to things, and utterly delight them with novel discoveries so quickly?¡± ¡°I been told we test their patience in many, many ways,¡± Lord Mick agreed, and gestured at the Staff of Clarity. ¡°Can ye repair that?¡± ¡°Yes and no.¡± I stared at the array of Runework a bit longer. ¡°The detail work is currently beyond me, I don¡¯t have the control to do this. The spells are a higher Scarab than I can manage at this point. Importantly, that Cleave effect won¡¯t work as it did before.¡± That got his real attention, and everyone¡¯s really. ¡°Aye, now?¡± His voice was a little depressed. ¡°Why not, then?¡± ¡°What it somehow did is multiply the energies matching that of its resonance pattern, here, as they were going through the Staff. So, what came out of the Staff was multiple times more powerful than normal.¡± Lord Mick scratched his silvered beard. ¡°Aye, that sounds about how it were described?¡± he agreed. ¡°Well, that¡¯s what burned out the pattern here. This Staff was empty, and even the residual energies hammered their way through the pattern and completely distorted it, resulting in microtears and fractures inside it. This doesn¡¯t really look like it, but one good smack from a mace, and the head of that thing will probably explode.¡± Kris nodded once at my assessment as she set it down carefully on the Disk between us. ¡°There¡¯s no way any Implement could handle that kind of load of active mana with whatever rules are in operation right now. It¡¯s too much energy for any material to handle, and it¡¯s inside the Staff, not outside it. You try this on a normal Implement, and it¡¯ll slag, explode, fry, or crumble in only a spell or two, at least without some massive investment. ¡°Thirty goldweight of Indestructible Adamantine, perhaps...¡± I peered at it, shook my head, and Kris also shook her head. ¡°The more powerful spells would still burn it out. Your Renders won¡¯t be coming back in any historical form you know. They¡¯d be far more limited.¡± ¡°Whoa. ¡®Any form I know¡¯ is doesn¡¯t include forms I dinnae ken.¡± He was definitely interested now. ¡°What means ye saying? They come back in some other manner?¡± ¡°You familiar with darksteel, Your Highness?¡± I asked Kris calmly. She scrunched up her face. ¡°I know the word, but it has multiple implications, so I¡¯ll just say no.¡± I nodded. ¡°It¡¯s not the indestructible metal of artifacting dooooom and destruction,¡± I drawled out, and she smirked. ¡°The older one, associated with dwarfwork.¡± ¡°What, that got solved?¡± she asked, somewhat shocked. ¡°Well, sure. Get some crazy knucklehead artificer-smiths trying to replicate exotic materials and all the Energized fun, and yes, they can discover stuff. And, uh, go asking the right questions to Celestial patrons who might have been happy to give them some clues to guide them.¡± Kris laughed huskily, clapping her hands eagerly. ¡°So, what does darksteel do?¡± AF Chapter 103 – Alternate Avenues of Growth I pointed at the Bludgeon Cleaving Rune array. ¡°It has a natural resonance pattern built into its crystalline structure that looks very much like a similar, natural version of this pattern, so.¡± I spun out the basic natural crystal matrix of the darksteel alloy, reflected it into a greater pattern, and yes, there was a distinct resemblance to what the lugian smiths had done in the Staff. ¡°Darksteel has a kinetic energy transfer mechanism which instills one hundred percent of any blow into what it strikes,¡± I explained to everyone watching. ¡°It¡¯s using the rebound?¡± Kris caught instantly, her eyes lighting up. ¡°That¡¯s like a Shaping Hammer you can use to fight with?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± I turned to the Mick and watching scouts. ¡°When you hit something, there¡¯s a rebound. The math of it is, half the force of impact goes into what you¡¯re hitting, the other half goes back into what is making the hit. That¡¯s why hammers bounce on anvils, rocks that hit walls bounce back, and being big means your blows don¡¯t jolt all the way up your arms as much when you hit stuff. ¡°Darksteel does that naturally with blunt damage. So, for example, let¡¯s say you have a Greathammer that does 2-12 damage. Make it out of darksteel, and it will abruptly do 4-24, as it sends its half of the kinetic energy right back out. All it needs is a basic magical enhancement of any kind, and it starts the process.¡± ¡°No other kinds of bonuses? Strength?...¡± Kris wheedled, and I shook my head. ¡°No, it¡¯s the potential within the metal, what its own mass is doing. External energy added largely goes right around it. Screwball alchemical physics and Weird Science, as is normal.¡± ¡°More importantly,¡± the Mick broke in softly on us, ¡°can it apply to Swords and Spears and similar things?¡± he asked hopefully. ¡°With darksteel, no, it cannot.¡± I pointed at the crystalline structure. ¡°That is what it is, it isn¡¯t going to change for you.¡± My gaze returned to the Rune structure of the Bludgeon Cleaving effect. ¡°However, this is a Rune Structure, NOT an innate crystal structure. It basically weaponizes what darksteel does naturally.¡± ¡°...Huh,¡± Kris said softly, staring at it. ¡°Could you, like, infer what those simpler structures might be if you had examples of Cleaving of the other six or seven basic attack energies?¡± ¡°Or seven?¡± the Mick blinked as he repeated that, the other scouts doing the same until they realized what he meant, and also blinked in shock. ¡°Thunder is the fifth Elemental energy form,¡± I informed them all absently, without looking over to see their surprise at that news. ¡°And yes, that means this is something that could work for other Weapons, be they in Elemental Phase or using stabs or slashes.¡± The Mick looked at us, then craned his head around at his students. ¡°Were ye doubting me saying that either she¡¯s a grand liar, or a true blue Gharu wonder mage?¡± he asked them with a straight face. They all looked overwhelmed at what I¡¯d been showing them. ¡°We¡¯ll be having to take your word for it, sir, but they certainly seem legitimate to me!¡± the Roach Queen and titular second-in-command of the Scouts there Selena Arswick answered carefully. The Mick nodded sagely. ¡°So, ye need examples of the Cleaving patterns, which ye don¡¯t seem to have.¡± I shook my head. ¡°Armor Cleaving is known, but is tremendously finicky and randomized back on Ispar, if you might recall. Looking at this far more elegant Rune Array, I can see why. Look at that Crushing Blow set, too, Highness.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s a solid triple-power crit strength Crushing Blow. Obviously the Rune forms given to the Isparians were much less refined than the ones here, as Lord Mick¡¯s Bunita displayed to us. Well, simple tricks for barbarians, as it were,¡± she sniffed knowingly, but her purple eyes gleamed. ¡°So, this trick won¡¯t help a mage much, but it will us poor savages with our needles?¡± ¡°Kicker effect. A token 1-6 damage carried along on the spell, something like what a properly configured noquar cap might do?¡± The Mick repeated the word noquar, shaking his head slightly. He was a very widely experienced man, but the two of us were just casually tossing out things he had no knowledge of, nor, he believed, did anyone else that he knew. He had to wonder if the Empyreans and their undead remnants did¡­ ¡°All right, I have to be about my Infusing, as do Princess Kristie and Lord Mick,¡± I said in no-nonsense tones, rising and pointing. Kris scampered off to get her own stuff to work on. ¡°Get to work, Your Grace,¡± I told him, staring at him. ¡°The scamps doubtless have some more questions about what went on in the old world, lass,¡± he said, rising to his feet nonetheless. ¡°Mayhap answer a few questions from their dry, dry history?¡± ¡°He only talks about the wars and Aluvia fighting for independence and the damn High Kings trying to make everyone bend a knee, Miss,¡± Selena stage-whispered to me. ¡°Well, I can talk while I work, sure, but only for an hour. There are things you should be doing, too, mostly related to supper and getting rest, because we¡¯re moving out after dusk, and you¡¯re going to need the rest. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Also, I¡¯m just a student of magic who heard the stories. I wasn¡¯t actually there, like the Princess was, wading through the blood and gore and slit throats and poison and explosions and whatnot.¡± They all turned calculating eyes on the Princess. ¡°If you put up a good dinner for her, I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll indulge some questions about that.¡± ¡°I, we have never heard of an active empire in Ispar,¡± Selena spoke up for all of them as they crowded in on the Disks I¡¯d waved up for them. ¡°Ah, well, there are certain mild-mannered and easy-going Aluvians who you just don¡¯t want to piss off, and you especially don¡¯t want to be a blue-skinned entitled reprobate who insults and threatens the daughter and family thereof, or so I was told about how the whole mess started. Then it exploded into the Massacre of Viamont and Ispar has a new Emperor and Empress, long may they reign.¡± I sighed in some exaggeration. ¡°They are ALUVIAN?!¡± Polita Venertolen, a fiery redhead, squealed in clear delight. ¡°DAMN RIGHT!¡± the Princess called out over her shoulder, and instantly had a fanbase starting. -------- After chasing them off to do the chores and get some food going, mostly for themselves, I settled down to do my Infusing, the noble Lord Mick and Imperial Princess Kristie doing likewise. Stained by association, the Royal Scouts were careful to give me the same careful respect, although they definitely knew other powerful Casters. Not ones with a Power of Ten Matrix and magic like mine, of course. Today I was finishing off my Minstrel/Bard cross-Levels with my last Lyric Theurge Levels. Tomorrow I would start on Lore Theurge Levels, which was the Heartsong/Arcane Theurgy. Today, however, I was adding Druidic Theurgist. Normally it required Druid Caster Levels, but Bard Caster Levels, which used Druidic magic, were perfectly acceptable. To wit, when Casting any spell that was on the Druid Spell List AND on any other one you had, your Druid (Bard) Casting Level was added to the CL of the spell. Transferred nicely through layers of Theurgy, too. It was very nice for multiple useful spells, such as Healing spells, Shaping Stone, Dispel Magic, and weather control effects, among other things. Druids and Arcanists shared a LOT of spells in the Elemental area, after all, even if Shards were not some of those spells¡­ Having an overpowered Dispel Magic came in so useful in so many times and ways, after all! Lyric Theurgy also came with the Extra Spells Known I could tack into my Minstrel Levels, taking spells off the Bard/Druid List and giving them to the Minstrel list. A nice way to get permanent access to some popular and universal Druidic spells. I¡¯d already taken the Bloom Cantrip, Entangle, and now I added Heat/Chill Metal to the assortment. My Exemplar Surge spell had naturally been Haste, with the nice little lightning add-ons from Thematic Spells to drive the point home that they were coming in very fast, very hard, and those lugians were completely hosed if it came down to a fight. Well, maybe not, but they weren¡¯t prepared for Kris or the Mick, and the other scouts would have soon been fighting way above their level against the severely wounded and thoroughly cowed lugians at that point. Another round of Chained Shardrays, and they were meat on the plate. The Mick knew something had definitely changed, not knowing exactly what, but noting that I was definitely capable of pulling off something that no War Mage he knew of had ever been able to do. Isparian magic was mostly single-target, and didn¡¯t do AoE¡¯s very well. Power of Ten magic was far more versatile in that respect, and if default Isparian higher Scarab effects were stronger¡­ Matrix magic just kept stacking the more you knew and the higher your Caster Level was. The fact I could now send out a whole lot of Shard attacks without needing Perpetual Spell was pretty broken on the face of it. In counterpoint, the things here were so ungodly tough for their power that it was needed. Kris had a lot of work ahead of her bringing these people up to parity against things that were that hard to kill. Of course, if she had the full power of a Sage of Swords, well, these things weren¡¯t going to enjoy what she was capable of, even given the incredible power of the manafield hereabouts. Just teaching them the mageblade disciplines would definitely boost their strength considerably. Artificer magic, Infusions, would do the same. Work to do. Once again I fought down the urge to go straight for Levels and instead built a more solid foundation. Mira was keeping up with all my Isparian side stuff, and we were about Level 46 or so equivalent in Invested Karma there, with tons more to go to satisfy our waiting Karma¡­ which seemed to be going up, not down. Well, we were getting involved in stuff over my Level, one of the main reasons I was boosting my Caster Level as much as possible. If I couldn¡¯t overcome magical defenses, I was basically worthless except as a Support Mage¡­ which totally wasn¡¯t a problem for me to be, but if they needed firepower, I had to be ready to deliver. It was what Aelryinth was best at, so I had inherited that level of competency, at the very least. The Infusing of Kris¡¯ Necklace continued apace. Still, it was a long term project that was going to take months to come to fruition. As for me, I still had my own question on how to proceed, since my way forward on Isparian magic seemed blocked. Whatever my third taper was, it wasn¡¯t one part of the cycle. That had implications for the potential Pyreal or Platinum tiers that Lord Mick had spoken about: if I had an outsider taper for Gold, it stood that I¡¯d have something strange for the higher Tiers, if they existed. Adding to that the implications of a changing manafield, and how everything was changing and integrating to some extent. It was completely possible that the Isparian spells might just fold into aspects of the Matrix system, if that was acceptable here. More worries, but there was so much to learn and do here, it was plain that this job Mithar had dumped me into the middle of was not something that was going to be handled overnight¡­ AF Chapter 104 – A Wagon Ride to Mayoi Aethra¡¯s Salute passed us by, and we headed south and west, down towards and along the beach to what was once considered the most elite city of the Sho, a well-developed harbor. We left the Villa behind to be used in the future. I had severely impressed the scouts by converting all the extra stone the lugians had heaped up as crude fortifications into an actual wall around the structure, as well as fixing the pipework of the fountain so the water was pure and clear and constant, instead of a trickle. I doubted anything would set up a permanent camp there, as putting on locks or something was pointless. The crazed shades of Tou-Tou swept down all the coasts and hills irregularly but frequently, and were happy to light into anything living they stumbled across. The lugians had only dared put up the rocks for their little trick and trap, and weren¡¯t planning anything long-term. The likelihood of lugian raiders increased the further west we went, but they tended to keep to the hills, having a dislike for water. The race was heavier than water and so swam like bricks, meaning they tended to avoid anything other than the shallowest water. Indeed, a drowning death seemed to be considered one of their most feared ways to die. Thus, we weren¡¯t expecting anything too radical on the way. Hea hunters might come this far south on a devoted mission or raid, but it was unlikely, and they¡¯d run into interference from the wild tribes of banderlings, monugas, and drudges once the influence of the shades started to wane. If something wanted to get in our way here, well, they were in for a bad time. The scouts were largely riding on top of the Wagon, bows and crossbows out and enjoying not having to hoof it. The creatures we met on the way were sniped off and their Summons points vivisized so they wouldn¡¯t prove to be a deterrent in the future, as we expected travel along the coast to increase considerably once Princess Kristie proved the Shoreward could be breached and we could travel across the waters to the Vesayan Islands where the last stronghold of the Isparian humans was. With multiple archers picking off things along the way, there wasn¡¯t much to do for the first ten miles, and we set a good pace. ------ Princess Kristie held up her hand, and the Mick and I slowed down behind her. The archers, who¡¯d doubtless been getting a little sleepy in the cool night and wind going by on the silent and gentle ride they were on, stirred upon us slowing down, looking around in the night to see the cause. There was a large inlet ahead of us, a break in the line of hills that came down to it from the north, before turning around and going up to the southeast to form the eastern half of the Tou-Tou peninsula. ¡°Anything special about this place?¡± she asked Lord Mick as we came up beside her. ¡°¡­ was used by smugglers to offload stuff t¡¯ take t¡¯ Hebian-to without taking the road from Mayoi an¡¯ the taxes there. There¡¯s an old trail up off the shore an¡¯ through the break in the hills there, leads right down t¡¯ the road t¡¯ the old Sho capital an¡¯ me uncle. Totally overrun with wild tribes an¡¯ things clashing over the territory now, o¡¯ course,¡± he informed her without a shred of care. ¡°So, I¡¯m guessing a camp there is either very normal and not going to last long, or very abnormal?¡± She pointed ahead, but there was no fire or anything in the darkness that he could see, so we fed him our Devilsight, and the world lit up. ¡°I hae GOT t¡¯ get me yer eyeballs,¡± Lord Mick murmured, studying the sight in the distance, more as Kris fed Essence to her Mask and the image of it leapt forward in response. ¡°A coral palisade? The moarsmen?¡± He was surprised. ¡°Ho, roaches! How long since anyone ran through Heckler¡¯s Cove here?¡± There were quick murmurs from the scouts. ¡°Been at least ten days, Lord Mick!¡± Selena reported quickly. ¡°Rogar¡¯s team may have gone past it, but we were mostly along the peninsula, sir!¡± ¡°Rogar¡¯s the senior squad lead,¡± the Mick explained to us. ¡°He ranges south out o¡¯ Hebian-to, occasionally west all the way t¡¯ the hills, marking whose territory is what. Most o¡¯ the rogue tribes are territorial, but we try not t¡¯ bug them, an¡¯ they notice we kill the lugians an¡¯ Hea if we can, so they won¡¯t bother or track us unless we really bother them, an¡¯ we will gang up with ¡®em on the shades.¡± ¡°Tsk! Such friends in low places you make!¡± Kris just laughed. ¡°Aye, well, nobody is fooling anyone. They¡¯d be as happy t¡¯ put a spear in us as any o¡¯ them, but the lugians an¡¯ Hea have been expanding their writ an¡¯ putting pressure on them. Since we ain¡¯t going out o¡¯ the way t¡¯ kill them, they don¡¯t go out of the way t¡¯ kill us, especially if they can watch us kill grays an¡¯reds. They are savages, nae completely stupid.¡± ¡°Can they be recruited at all? Mind you, I have an absolute lack of desire to recruit drudges after seeing Cragstone,¡± Kris inquired. ¡°We¡¯ve tried with all o¡¯ them at some point or t¡¯other. The only ones we got anything workable with were the banderlings, who sometimes worked with me uncle¡¯s kind of folks with raiding an¡¯ banditry an¡¯ thievin¡¯. The drudges, now, couldn¡¯t ever get them t¡¯ do more than act submissive an¡¯ be ready to stab you in the back if they thought they had the upper hand. There¡¯s a reason the other tribes don¡¯t have anything t¡¯ do with them, an¡¯ there¡¯s very few o¡¯ em who didn¡¯t flock north in ecstasy when Bonecrusher took Cragstone.¡± Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Kris¡¯ knuckles popped rather loudly. I turned my head as there was a ripple in the water. ¡°We¡¯ve been seen. They¡¯ve got sentries sitting out in the shallows.¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ mayhap we¡¯ll go inta the water ta fight them there like total brave, honorable sorts,¡± he spat in return. ¡°Can ye do anything?¡± ¡°Hydrous Spell can ignore the water/air boundary, but otherwise no. Spells will detonate against the surface of the water and basically do nothing, although the water IS shallow...¡± I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully. I hadn¡¯t been able to get in any Rep Counts on my newest Meta, because Chain Spell was +III and so I needed IV Valence Slots to do a true Rep Count. However¡­ The watcher in the waters had shifted position, but that didn¡¯t stop Detects, which didn¡¯t care about the boundary, being able to go through it just like they could thin wood or vegetation. ¡°Are we worried about showiness at this point?¡± I asked Kris. ¡°Archers need to see their targets,¡± she opined without hesitation. ¡°I trust these things aren¡¯t going to be much of a threat, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°The only things what the Shoreward lets get through after a lot o¡¯ effort aren¡¯t very strong,¡± he agreed, looking in the direction of the new fort. ¡°Moarsmen are drawn t¡¯ the service of the fell powers, be it Light or Dark. These ain¡¯t serving none o¡¯ the Light if they are here. One of Master Ben¡¯s patrols would be along soon enough if word got out, but I see no reason not t¡¯ save them the problem, Highness.¡± ¡°Oh, good. I was getting itchy about my Naming Karma.¡± She tilted her neck, shrugged her shoulders, and an impressive amount of crackling resulted. ¡°Sure, be showy.¡± I nodded. ¡°Lights up!¡± The Eternal Lights all around the Wagon promptly lit up as they rolled out of internal storage, lighting up everything with reflector discs filling the area around with bright illumination for the shooters atop the Wagon. Me, I brought down an Arc of Lightning with an emphatic Sung ¡°Zojak Quasith!¡± in Sublime melody, right on top of that lurking watcher. The moarsmen weren¡¯t particularly vulnerable to Lightning, and it should have been completely protected, the spell grounding and dissipating uselessly, except for a point of minor mystical trivia. A Chained Bolt of Lightning hitting the water immediately blew into a Burst in the water with a radius equal to the remaining Chains, plus twenty feet if including the primary Bolt. This wasn¡¯t a PoT Lightning Bolt, but even if the Burst was only five feet, it was getting a lot added to it, because my modified Caster Level was hitting a solid Twenty now with the Sublime Chord ringing out with the Truth of Creation. Silver Lightning chiming like a glass orchestra descended upon the waters and blew through it in all directions for a good forty feet, illuminating a dark figure in the middle of it who writhed for a moment in shock at being smacked like that. The Shards I¡¯d had riding the Arc had just dumped their load into the resulting Burst. Likely it would have shrugged off just a Silver Lightning Arc, but with the additional kick, welp, the light of the lightning faded away, and a moment later something dark bobbed to the surface in the water out there. ¡°Nice,¡± Kris said without further expression, turning as fires started to light up at the end of the outlet, revealing the walls of the coral shrine for those on the Wagon. ¡°Why don¡¯t we wander over there and your scouts can show me their lousy aim, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°That be sounding like a fine idea. Ye roaches all hear that?¡± ¡°All ready, Lord Mick!¡± Selena promptly shouted back, testing the string on the composite Longbow in her hand, gleaming with the faint magic of the basic Runework that was left to them. Quite the iconic picture of an Aluvian archer she made, right down to the long golden braid. Princess Kristie began to trot, picking up speed without her pace increasing at all. The Mick grimaced and worked on keeping up as best he might, starting to bounce with an energy he likely hadn¡¯t had in many years, yet which came back to him with a casual ease that was amazing the scouts now lined up on the Wagon, the incredibly smooth ride meaning they didn¡¯t fear losing their footing at all. There was also the fact I was riding a Disk I¡¯d whipped up and being towed along just like the Wagon was, completely at ease with what was happening. ------ The moarsmen came boiling out to meet us in a proper loose horde of smelly, scaled, fish-headed, dead-eyed icthyoids, jaws with needle teeth and claws that might or might not have been doused with something nasty raised and ready to rip and tear. Muculent Moarsman, 60¡¯s. Technically above my Level, but not something I was greatly worried about. Also, they were fish out of water. Princess Kristie, towing the Wagon, kited them effortlessly, turning the Wagon sideways as she did so. The line of scouts atop it said nothing as they began to unleash a devastating barrage while Kris skated backwards with ease and perfect control. Lord Mick was towing me, and I flicked an undercast Haste on him, which would only affect a single person. Silver lightning danced over him, and his eyes widened as he began to really move. The fish-men who tried to encircle him and catch him couldn¡¯t possibly catch him, his movements as much flickers of motion as actually dodging back and forth. My Disk juked with him, and I with it, not having to worry about inertia as long as I was towed. I could have Chainsharded the lot of them, held off completely as the Mick had his fun. He was in no danger from the things, Bunita a swirling wall of sparking parries beating them back, reaching out to chop and slice, and when a throat or heart-thrust was suddenly open, flick in and out. Blue blood spurted as the moarsmen gobbled and died, not quite aware about how they had been killed. The scouts were littering the beach with the dead, a trail of their targets charging to the attack right up until there were only three of them left. Kris disengaged the wagon, drew Quaver, and was suddenly in on them. Bodies twice her mass went flying, fishy jaws broke as her Shield slammed into them with brutal force. Bones crunched, scales shattered, and gore flowered around her in a blur of Sword beats Fist as they were introduced to the concept that there was a damn reason ground-walkers used weapons! AF Chapter 105 – Gutting the Fish Haste CrownEnergy Grasps Bolt Dispelled Bunita ShardsCrown Bunita Disk Bunita Disk Detects Bunita Shards BunitaShards Shards If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Fwzap!Shards BunitaHaste Piercing Spell Imperil IV Blade Vulnerability IV Vulnerability HasteCrushing BlowBiting StrikeBunita Vivic Shards Bunita Bludgeon Bolts?¡± AF Chapter 106 – Pooling Resources When I was using the Sublime Chord, the ley lines were much more apparent in the area, and so I found the connecting nodes without much trouble beneath the sand and stone of the beach here. Three Summons points, one devoted to the spawn pool, one to the Matron, and one suborned to protect and empower the small temple-fort they¡¯d put up. The power used to form the connections wasn¡¯t that high, probably the shamans operating together, and I slashed it open, nullified the connecting strands, and broke them off, letting them drift off and rapidly dissipate once they lost their power source. Princess Kristie put Quaver into Axe form, with Sundering and Breaking on her, and let everyone take turns chopping the crap apart. Without the magical reinforcement, the Shaped coral walls and posts started to rot quickly, and proved brittle and crumbly. Alternating axe and hammer heads on Quaver, the scouts hacked away enthusiastically as the transformed Sword blasted through the posts with terrific power. I stood on a Disk and did rep counts with Bludgeon Bolts boosted with Shards for more striking power, shattering the sea stone in sprays of stone and pebbles as the rock lost a great deal of its rigidity. The dome went quickly, being thinner and less structurally intact. Kris proved a natural at weakening the wall, using Quaver in pick form to punch holes into the stone, like hacking into stiff cheese, and then my follow-up Bolts went in and shattered the Shaped stuff in explosions of protesting rock. Soon enough, the coral posts of the exterior defenses were ground down and buried under the sands, and the fort itself was reduced to a rough waist-high collection of crumbling rocks that were in no way suitable for actually building another such structure atop, although they¡¯d protect some from the wind. All of the scrap rock went into filling up the spawn pool, probably the original source of it, and filled it up without too much trouble, everyone competing to see how many big splashes they could make as the rubble was heaved into it. It wasn¡¯t useful as a well, regardless, being even more brackish than normal sea water, and nobody wanted to test the fading, decaying magic worked about it. -------------- ¡°Highness, your little advisor there, she be not trying to hide something or be humble about things, be she?¡± the Mick asked, as they gathered up for another hour of running down the beach until the dawn. ¡°She¡¯s not one to show off, but she¡¯s not trying to mislead you. What¡¯s on your mind, Lord Mick?¡± She was still amused at finding out he was a nobleman, of sorts. ¡°That were some very powerful magic she was putting out, making the stone fly like that.¡± He paused to make sure Kris was following. ¡°I saw the wind-up times. That were Silver Scarab magic she were using. It were hitting like Tier Eight Incantations.¡± ¡°Oh, that. She¡¯s riding her Matrix magic on the Silver spell. It gives it a lot of kick it wouldn¡¯t have normally, but naturally costs extra Valences. She¡¯s probably spending more Mana than any Isparian Caster for the amount of damage she¡¯s doing. You did notice she has to pause to recharge a lot, right?¡± ¡°Oh, aye.¡± He winced. ¡°Made it pretty plain she could have cut down that Matron plenty fast without me...¡± ¡°Well, no, not without flying out of reach first. You were blocking it, as it were, while she was on alert against other surprises coming in. And if she couldn¡¯t kill it, she shouldn¡¯t have been in the area at all. Plus, you¡¯ve a long way to rise, so be patient. You¡¯ve already seen the difference of just minor changes and advances. You haven¡¯t even reached Six and gotten a second attack yet.¡± His fist clenched. ¡°That spell o¡¯ motion she uses...¡± ¡°It¡¯s simply called Haste, and it is very famous as one of the very best combat Buffs that is out there, Lord Mick,¡± the princess supplied helpfully. ¡°Be there a way for me t¡¯ be able to call on such magic meself, without needing her around?¡± he asked directly, eagerly. ¡°Several of them, all of which take time and goldweight.¡± He opened his mouth, closed it, and then sighed, shutting his eyes and letting the stress flow out of him. ¡°Were a stupid question, on the face of it,¡± he murmured. ¡°It¡¯s a very popular effect. You¡¯re not wrong to want to be able to use it. However, the magic of Time is not easy to use, and you certainly can¡¯t have it active all of the time. It is literally bought up in lots of six seconds at a time, and gets pricey quickly. There are even Potions which produce similar effects, but they normally only last thirty seconds at a pop, and they aren¡¯t cheap to make, either. A good Melee can make them last longer, but they are still something you save for a fight that is important.¡± ¡°Understood.¡± He watched the young Gharu¡¯n woman Meditating just before the dawn. He¡¯d been told she¡¯d be Infusing while they ran down the beach to the next settlement of Nan-Zari, another collection of Villas to look over during the day. If all went well, they¡¯d finish up there, take a break for the day, and then come the night continue on past the old trail leading up to the end of the road from Nanto, and down to the other isolated Villa sitting on the hill overlooking the beach, named the Bonewatch by the scouts who used it for a marker and camp. That point marked the edge of the undead patrols coming from Mayoi, as organized by Master Ben Ten. It was kept very clear of raiding lugians and the like, and the shades didn¡¯t often make it that far south, usually getting drawn into combat with the wild tribes in the area of old Nanto and killed there. ¡°There really be no short cut to all of this?¡± he asked, sighing at the time required. In the old days, knowing he had a goal would just incite him to go out there and find some fine opponents, fighting all day to reap the Karma needed to learn things. This¡­ Level-a-day stuff was far too slow! ¡°Hmm. Well, potentially for you, yes.¡± He shot her a sharp look. ¡°You¡¯re at the top, right below the Eternal Ceiling, because of this system, you know? So, once things get straightened out, you should be able to punch that ceiling and step beyond. One of the first things you could do is Eternal Artisan, allowing you to Invest ten goldweight a day, instead of just one.¡± Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Hoooo...¡± The Mick pursed his lips as he considered that. ¡°That would certainly speed things up, tho still not be as sweet as unlimited loot drops of the past, aye...¡± ¡°I think that if you think about it, being able to make exactly the stuff you want to make, instead of it maybe not ever dropping off a monster powerful enough to warrant such a thing, is far more beneficial to you. You just need the capital for the Infusing and Investing.¡± ¡°Aye, that be part of it. ¡®tis a LOT of value to scare up out of nowhere.¡± ¡°You might not be surprised that in the future she¡¯s going to be VERY good at finding mineral deposits to fund that kind of thing.¡± ¡°Aye, a great surprise to me heart, that is,¡± he murmured, clapping his fist to his leather doublet. ¡°And I assume she shares...¡± ¡°Be honest. Can you see her NOT sharing?¡± Princess Kristie asked him. ¡°Well, nae, actually, as long as ye be her friend an¡¯ gearing up for the good fight, aye?¡± he almost surprised himself at the amused observation. ¡°You¡¯re starting to read her well. Just remember to give as well as you get, and things will start to snowball.¡± He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. ¡°I will. Me little roaches, they have no experience whatsoever with having proper Gear, they can only listen to me stories an¡¯ dream about the type of things I be used t¡¯ owning in the past.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t speak for the power of the things you used to own. But I¡¯m absolutely sure that in variety and the ability to customize as you like, the Matrix Artificing blows away anything you¡¯ve had in the past. What Bunita is going to be capable of alone is going to amaze you, especially once you are able to get a few Infusions under your belt. ¡°It all just takes time, and goldweight.¡± ¡°Or Naming Karma?¡± he offered lightly. ¡°Or Naming Karma, although the things you can power up with Naming Karma are limited,¡± she agreed. ¡°What of making a new home for Bunita, o¡¯ the heavy metal in your Quaver, there?¡± he asked respectfully. The craftsmanship of her Sword still amazed him to look upon. ¡°The key is finding the base metal it is Energized from, and Ryin will then be able to make it adamantine. Finding it is the key, but any place that has Null Aluminum, your chorozite, should have no difficulty with having veins of either tungsten or adamantine somewhere around. ¡°How are your plans for Bunita coming?¡± He reached over, touched the hilt of the Claymore slung at his belt now, and popped it out. It was the length of a dirk. He flourished it once between nimble fingers before putting it back. ¡°That Morphing ability be too sweet to pass up. Come the dawn, I be starting on the Blooding that ye showed me. There be far too many things about that Heal up far too quickly in a fight or outside it, and stopping that be too important when fighting alone.¡± ¡°Especially you spellcaster types.¡± The Mick looked flamboyantly wounded as she gave him an artfully arched dark eyebrow over violet eyes. ¡°Always Healing yourselves as soon as you are out of a fight, or ducking and running to Heal, Heal, Heal, or trotting after some valiant thug with a sword and healing them, Heal, Heal, Heal.¡± ¡°Those valiant thugs wearing gold an¡¯ silver on their heads an¡¯ having names like Vespecci and Allianori and Caraprucci and so forth and so on, nae doubt?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve met a few of them yourself, I see!¡± ¡°The self-proclaimed king o¡¯ the Viamontians there were quick to award lots of noble titles to the idiots what followed him through here to Dereth. Ye couldnae walk a mile w¡¯out tripping over a newly knighted, ennobled, enfeoffed, or promoted Viamontian with a chip on their shoulders an¡¯ totally thinking they were superior t¡¯ everything else born. Lots o¡¯ retainers with ¡®em to make them feel important, too, as if being given a new forename suddenly granted ¡®em tons o¡¯ competency.¡± ¡°It certainly seemed to fill their vocabulary with specific brands of insults. My mother always liked letting them know they weren¡¯t all that. I imagine Asheron¡¯s Protection thwarted a lot of that attitude, but on the other hand, those Deathstones meant you could teach them the lesson repeatedly.¡± ¡°I weren¡¯t guilty of such small-minded thinking,¡± the Mick sniffed. ¡°I sent so many Viamontian Hands to the Stones over the years they started calling me Di Niger Manus. Finest Title I ever earned, that one!¡± ¡°That¡¯s probably the nicest play on Black Aluvian I¡¯ve ever heard. Fist!¡± She held up her closed fist, he hesitantly did the same, and she bopped it. ¡°I hate to think I¡¯m closed-minded, and I¡¯m willing to give most anyone a chance, but Viamontians have an incredible aptitude for pissing me off and deserving a beat down, it¡¯s almost magical about how they do it.¡± She licked her lips thoughtfully. ¡°Mother said I may have been killed by one in my previous life. I haven¡¯t done my Preincarnation Dive to find out, yet.¡± ¡°What this, now?¡± the Mick blinked. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s an aspect of our bloodline. My family are all reincarnations of souls who died to Evil. It probably doesn¡¯t help our temperament and tolerance for keeping our nose out of other¡¯s people¡¯s business, when their business is about keeping others miserable.¡± Her smile grew killingly wide, her eight canines agleam, and the Mick repressed a shiver. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of people who wish very, very heartily that we¡¯d keep our noses out of their business, and then we make them our business, and they learn some lessons about not becoming the business of Ranthas.¡± She leaned forwards conspiratorially. ¡°We¡¯re in a very competitive, ruthlessly cutthroat business, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, I can see that.¡± He straightened back up. ¡°And a fine businesswoman ye are, Highness! Keeping a steady margin o¡¯ profit an¡¯ all, very professional o¡¯ you!¡± ¡°The power of muuuuuuuun-eeeee has never escaped us, despite all our lofty pursuits and high-minded ideals.¡± The way she tilted her head back, dark hair across her face to hide her Cursemark, made her look so much an imperial princess that the Mick just had to stare in wonder. Then that killing smile burst out, and a soft cackling laugh that raised the hackles on his skin sounded, spoiling everything with the promise of wild blood and slaughter. ¡°And yer mother married Commander Briggs, and became an Empress.¡± He shook his head in wonder. ¡°Still wrapping me head around that, as ye might guess.¡± ¡°Well, that Voracci bastard shouldn¡¯t have tried to kidnap and rape my sister, got himself and his entourage gutted and disemboweled for it, and then his family of pricks came raging for blood. Dad¡¯s a very nice man, but when he lets go, goodbye! ¡°When all of Viamont turned out to back their own once he started wiping Voraccis and their vassals, he had enough. He promised to return unto them everything they¡¯d done to those about them and more, and Mom was happy to go right along with him. ¡°They treated people like crap, now blue skin is the sign of a savage mongrel and inbred cur, treated like the scum of Ispar. They conquered, dominated, and took everything, and now Viamont is half a wasteland, their wealth is gone, their mightiest and most skilled slain, and most of their nobility slaughtered and encouraged to butcher one another for the scraps of their homeland. Any who get ideas of uniting the land and clans die in their sleep, and nobody even whispers of doing such things without petitioning the Emperor first¡­ and Dad¡¯s not seen any sign of them deserving any hand other than an iron fist.¡± ¡°Yer tryin¡¯ t¡¯ make me smile, Highness.¡± ¡°It¡¯s working, I see.¡± ¡°It is. I¡¯ll be sure t¡¯ wipe it afore we get to the islands. Don¡¯t want to piss off the blues there. They be stuffy an¡¯ arrogant, but not bad sorts, bein¡¯ as they ain¡¯t among their own.¡± ¡°You might want to let word get around that I don¡¯t take lip from them.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make a point o¡¯ it. Maybe after ye beat the first one black, mind.¡± AF Chapter 107 – All about them Crimson Stars ¡°Ho, Lord Mick!¡± There was a quartet of Royal Scouts camped out at the Villa we were heading to. The Villa itself was in decent shape, all things considered, not blasted apart by shades as much as those further to the north. There were signs that a large number of things had used it as shelter, and only the roughest of repairs had been done to its walls, but there were also steps carved out of its motte for easier access to the destroyed windows and roughly-mended door, unlike the other places we¡¯d seen. The man calling out was Aluvian, probably from the eastern clans given his short brown hair. He was also noticeably older than most of the other scouts. He and the three scouts with him were eyeing the Wagon coming up behind the two running people with great interest, especially considering the other scouts sitting or sprawled on top of it. I was sitting up front doing a bunch of not much, Infusing on the way. There was precious little for me to do on the run with a bunch of archers up top and two running cuisinarts in front of me. Anything on the beach that was of interest just died on its Summons point, and said point was vivified to remove it from play. ¡°King Roach,¡± the Mick replied loftily, and earned a grin in response as he slowed down, ending his walk with a warm armclasp with the younger man. ¡°How¡¯d things go on yer end?¡± ¡°A whole battle company of wounded lugians pounded through the area yesterday, getting everyone a bit excited as we pulled out. They left a few of their own behind as the tribes were opportunistic, but mostly we were wondering what was coming that had manhandled the company so bad, enough that they lost even their Tukora.¡± The Mick yawned lazily. ¡°That were us, an¡¯ the nice lady sitting in the front o¡¯ the floating conveyance back there. Be very respectful to her. Oh, an¡¯ allow me t¡¯ introduce a true Imperial Princess, an¡¯ I be not joking, an¡¯ you WILL bow to her,¡± he stated firmly, as all the new scouts blinked in shock. ¡°Meet her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs o¡¯ the new Isparian Empire, which seems to have come about back home after putting a burning boot on the throat o¡¯ Viamont, to much approval from its neighbors.¡± Rogar just rolled with it, turning to Kristie at attention, and bowing formally to her. ¡°Your Imperial Highness!¡± he saluted her, and the other scouts hastily followed his example. ¡°As you were.¡± Once her status was acknowledged, Kris didn¡¯t stand on ceremony. ¡°This is my advisor, Devra al-Ryin, address her as Miss Ryin or Sage Ryin or something suitable,¡± she introduced me. I just waved at them, focusing on the Infusing Pattern riding in front of me, Burning merrily as more pyreal coins were consumed for Kris¡¯ Necklace. Lord Mick introduced the other scouts, they were Visual Filed away so as to never forget their faces and names, and the camp was joined. ------- They were a bit surprised to find out that they wouldn¡¯t be heading out immediately, but they didn¡¯t mind the wait. Kris went into the Villa and down to the ruptured basement, soon enough throwing around blocks weighing five times what she did to get at the things underneath. The scouts marveled at the simple utility of a floating Disk, levitating there with a personally carved stone sectional on top of it to accept the various things Kris was hauling out of the bottom as she made her way through the rubble, dust, scree, and heaped-up filth tossed in there by numerous campers over the years. It was deep enough that nobody had bothered with anything resembling a permanent ladder or access, but that naturally didn¡¯t deter her at all. Seeing an Imperial Princess get her hands dirty like that was definitely a novel experience, except for the fact she didn¡¯t actually get dirty. When she clawed her way back up the wall, the Disk heaped with stuff trailing her, she looked just as darkly dangerous and unbesmirched by the filth below as she had going down. She also offered over an Axe to the Mick, the broken haft of it stained red. It was Rune-carved, and set with more of those holes for gems inset in its broad head. ¡°A Crimson Silifi,¡± he remarked, and over there, my ears perked up. That was a famous, legendary Gharu¡¯n Weapon! He glanced slyly my way, saw I was listening, and smiled. ¡°Nay, lass, ¡®tis not the real one, o¡¯ course, but were named in honor of it. Ye can see the traditional shape of a silifi here.¡± The head, striped with crimson streaks, was held up for everyone to admire. ¡°The legendary Silifi of Crimson Stars was in the possession of Bey al-Turgal, the last I heard,¡± Princess Kristie said, arms folded across her absent bust as she regarded the thing. ¡°Save for the broken haft, that thing is almost perfectly intact.¡± ¡°Were there any residues of rubies on or under the thing?¡± the Mick asked pointedly, turning it over and thumbing the arrangement of four indentations there for emphasis. Kristie turned around, looking down at where she¡¯d recovered it, replaying the experience carefully. ¡°It was down in what was the pocket plane, in one of the side rooms, crushed under the floor and ceiling coming down on it...¡± She played her hand over something invisible. ¡°There was residue of something on the wall, and what looked to have been a weapon mount¡­ and four holes in that arc,¡± she pointed out. ¡°It looks like it was blasted off the wall by whatever might have been in those gem slots.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°That sounds fair enough,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°Probably why ¡®tis still intact otherwise.¡± He held up the haft. ¡°Anyone recognize this material?¡± he asked those behind him, and passed it back. It made the rounds quickly, with Grover, the son of a leathercrafter, identifying it as a large armoredillo spine, much bigger than any other he¡¯d seen. ¡°We knew ¡®tweren¡¯t the real Silifi, because anyone an¡¯ their mother could get a copy of this made if ye but ran the right quest an¡¯ retrieved the Rubies which powered the toy from those creatures what protected them. Know ye anything about the true Silifi, Highness?¡± he asked Kris. ¡°It¡¯s a powerful Crushing Blow Weapon Imbued for lightning damage,¡± Kris replied firmly. ¡°One of the best Axes known to exist in Ispar, actually. Mother said the Rune was at least x4, and might have been x5. It didn¡¯t really have an equal in Ispar.¡± ¡°Oh, ye saw it personally?¡± The Mick was startled. ¡°Bey al-Turgal used it to great effect on a lot of Viamontian knights during the Crusade. It doesn¡¯t look quite like this, but they got the general shape right. The stripes are at the wrong angle, and the Silifi isn¡¯t built for gem slots, plus the haft is finely treated and Marrowshaped ursuin bone,¡± she told them all. ¡°Ye¡¯re moving in lofty circles now, lads and lasses!¡± the Mick called back to the astounded scouts as he accepted the imitation Axe back. ¡°Well, lass, this here Axe were one of the best Lightning Weapons ye could be swinging around on the whole island, as it were one of the rare few that combined a Rending Rune with a Crushing Blow.¡± He tapped the head of it thoughtfully. ¡°The magical Rubies what went here, there were six o¡¯ them. One was mandatory, the other five were yer choice, so different Silifis could be different. The extra magic were what was fueled by the mana, an¡¯ were dependent on the choice of magical Rubies within them. ¡°The last Ruby, now, that truly empowered it. It were what made it an active Lightning Rending Weapon instead o¡¯ merely Lightning damage, an¡¯ allowed it to cut far an¡¯ deep, aye.¡± He patted the head in remembrance. ¡°I were never much for battle-axes, especially a big one like this, but I saw a great number o¡¯ these things over the years. Every axe-man I knew carried one, an¡¯ once they upgraded it to the Silifi of Crimson Night, they never really got rid of it. ¡°For whatever reason, the strength o¡¯ the armoredillo whose spine was carved to make the haft affected the strength of the Silifi. Only a Plate Armoredillo, one of the toughest o¡¯ the things, guaranteed the Axe be at its strongest¡­ tho if ye weren¡¯t of arm strong enough to wield the larger ones, I suppose it were a choice.¡± Kris held out her hand, and he handed the split-haft Axe back to her. Her black nails ran up and down the melded bones and plates, assessing it. ¡°This is indeed surprisingly dense and heavy, and there¡¯s a lightly-burned vein of enchantment going right down the middle of the spinal cord. For a one-handed Weapon, this would have been surprisingly heavy,¡± she agreed, hefting it effortlessly in her off hand. Her nails drummed over the head of the thing, looking at something nobody else there could see. ¡°You¡¯re absolutely right on the gemstones. The Axe itself doesn¡¯t hold any power whatsoever, it was all in the stones.¡± ¡°Stones that might still exist, if they weren¡¯t in an Axe,¡± I spoke up from the Wagon. ¡°Do you know where you could get those Rubies from, Lord Mick? We only need functioning examples of them, and we can replicate them¡­ but I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to find them outside wherever you recovered them from.¡± ¡°Well, now...¡± he murmured, thinking back as he sat back thoughtfully. ¡°I were with some friends as we ran around like dogs chasing rabbits finding the things, aye. Some o¡¯ the places were damn annoying to make our way through, dungeons confusing an¡¯ silly an¡¯ with annoying dead things in them, usually, or levers here to open doors over there an¡¯ such annoying stuff.¡± He shook his head at the memory of it all. ¡°But if we can get the Rubies, ye can replicate them?¡± he asked intently. Kris held up the Axe. ¡°These are slightly different from the Atlan Weapon gem mounts, but not amazingly so. As if they were crafted only to take in a specific cut of gemstone. If you went with a more modular design, they could potentially take any gemstone. ¡°A Blackfire Silifi of Crimson Night sounds interesting to me...¡± The Mick¡¯s eyes widened, and he glanced over at Rogar, who wore a battle-axe on his hip and also looked very interested. ¡°That sounds¡­ very impressive, indeed, Your Highness.¡± ¡°Ryin.¡± She tossed the Silifi my way with a whirling toss that could have taken off a man¡¯s head. I caught it deftly with Minor TK and settled it into my hands. My Mask came down and the eyes lit up with the Deep Assay and Detect Magic at IV, Cast slowly so as not to disturb what I was Infusing. The internal Rune structure and patterns inside the Silifi painted themselves up, as well as the sockets to place the gems. Those I zoomed in on intently, then flicked up next to the Atlan Weapons to compare. ¡°I don¡¯t see an issue with modifying one to the other. You said these Rubies you had to find came in endless numbers?¡± I inquired of the Mick, who was watching all this intently. ¡°Aye, ye could just wait a few moments, an¡¯ they reformed from the spots they were in, however stupid a spot it were. Junk on the floor, in a drawer, in a chest, in the pouch o¡¯ some undead thing ye had to wait to respawn and butcher it again...¡± He shook his head at the zaniness of it all. ¡°And then out of nowhere, you got this fourth slot option?¡± I asked, blowing up the image of the fourth Socket, which had twice the number of connections and thrice the Runic structures around it of the other three. He again paused to think that over. ¡°Aye,¡± he admitted with a slow nod. ¡°The original Silifi of Crimson Stars were a good Weapon, but it became very outdated after Renders were discovered. Lo, an¡¯ not long after, the ability to add another Ruby an¡¯ upgrade it came along out of nowhere, just wandering in to existence so anyone could upgrade the Silifi they already had...¡± I just nodded. ¡°It¡¯s all part of the same system, but forcibly separated so as not to have modularity. Can¡¯t have you making truly effective Weaponry now, right?¡± His eyes were flat as he nodded. ¡°Aye, that sounds about the right of it...¡± AF Chapter 108 – A Meet with the Noble Dead Nothing came to bug us before the evening. There was a sense of excitement about discovering new things, and recovering old secrets and some of the power of the elders from a generation ago, however. The Mick¡¯s endless bemoaning about how much better it were in the old days was all a point of fact, and all Kris had to do was draw out Quaver again, the spirals of Lost Light gleaming around the Blade and the blackfire from the inset stones blazing in it, for the scouts to realize that the Mick really wasn¡¯t spouting a bunch of artful bullshit meant for them to appreciate what they had and work harder. They really did have some powerful crap back then, it was true! The four best melee combatants among the scouts were allocated to four Disks I whipped up, with the rest riding atop the Wagon. They¡¯d all use bows or crossbows as they preferred, but if they had to fight, easier to hop down from a waist-high Disk than off the top of the Wagon. With great fanfare, we pulled away from the Villa, where I¡¯d turned a crude set of stairs running up the motte to the doorway into a sideways arc that was more manageable, repaired good sections of the floor, doors, and windows, and then raised a wall all around it for some additional defensive power. I even put a stairway around the back, helped clear off and reshape part of the roof, and put in an archer¡¯s walkway all around the top of the thing. It wasn¡¯t perfect, but it was better than what had been left there before. ------ The Mick and Princess Kristie cruised down the beach at a casual trot everyone else there would have had to flat-out sprint to keep up with. The scouts whooped as they tore across the ground as fast as a ridden horse, something none of them had ever done. The Mick had politely informed me that there were no horses on Dereth here, and none had made the transition, even in the armies of Viamontians and the like that had come through here. There might be auroch-drawn wagons, but everywhere you went, you were doing it on foot or taking magic Portals as short-cuts here and there¡­ and those Portals weren¡¯t there anymore, either. It was one of the dreams of the humans here to re-establish that network of Portals that had bound them all together so easily, and made reinforcement of fighting forces in separate areas so easy and readily done. With elite companies of soldiers able to move from area to area readily, far fewer actual soldiers were needed to staff and garrison places, basically sentries meant to call the alarm if a place were attacked, while the dispatch force would rapidly arrive to deal with any real attackers. It had been a big evolution in tactics, and one welcomed by those who wouldn¡¯t have to pay for standing forces in what was arguably an extremely violent world. Even if the Summons acted so unnaturally, standing around and waiting for something to wander close enough for them to attack, there were plenty of real and hostile forces even back then, and they were capable of and definitely had taken out entire towns and cities during their attacks. And, of course, there had been adventurers. So many adventurers. Hungry for Karma and loot, and they couldn¡¯t die, so they were always eager to get into fights against invaders of whatever stripe. They should have been there for this fight, but they had been hit by the Fall the hardest, the most vulnerable ones to the mana wave that had ended up slaughtering so many of them. And then nobody was coming back from the dead, and the living weren¡¯t prepared for it. Still, we were making headway getting to where we needed to go, while also scaring up some of the knowledge that we needed to attain. How long it would take us to gain that knowledge was something else. Were the higher Scarabs that were discovered here still Castable, or had they mutated into a new form? Could we duplicate the Blackfire Stones? Could we duplicate or gain access to the Lost Light? Could we duplicate and use the Elemental Stones? What about these new Rubies? Could we imitate and use, even improve on, the traditional Crushing Blow and Biting Strike Runes that existed in better forms here? Would they fit into the new Artificing Matrix system reasonably? Could we access Armor Cleaving and duplicate it here? It was famously unreliable and difficult to make back in Ispar. What would be the cost to do so? Would any of the Imbues they¡¯d talked about be something we could duplicate? Even if it was only with Infusions or spells, the idea of expanded critical hits and threat ranges, added to the power of Renders, was a massive upgrade in lethality. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. How easily could we shift people back and forth from the Power of Ten system and the Isparian one? The Power of Ten system was organic and would respond to attempts to break or exploit it, as magic was wont to, so equality across the gaps was the rule of thumb there. It would be parallel moves, but the sheer volume of Karma involved would be¡­ interesting to sort out. The Power of Ten system seemed much friendlier to combat types, even without access to chi. Everything I could read in the math said the warriors here had been inflicted with a massive dependence on proper Gear. While Gear was always great to have, a true Melee could be a massively threatening combatant without them, and that didn¡¯t seem to have happened here. The Mick was going to be terrifyingly dangerous once he was fully kitted out with Feats, Masteries, Ki, and Soul Essence working for him, in addition to decent Weaponry. All that, in addition to retraining all the Isparian Magic to a new paradigm. Well, that was life. And then maybe humanity would start making a return to the main island, instead of being crammed into a small island home. -------- Kris and the Mick covered a lot of ground at the speed they were going, and it wasn¡¯t long before we ran into the first group of the Moon Legion of Mayoi coming our way. The skeletal undead rattled a lot in their armor, but none of it fell off. The shore spawns were almost all undead, who the Mick hailed and went right on past, and the undead had let him by, obviously recognizing him somehow. I presumed he had a blessing or item on him from his Uncle that enabled them to pick him out and understand him, and the officers of the scouts did, too. In any event, the company of sixteen skeletons in Sho armor, haphazardly maintained and in various stages of decomposition, came up to meet us, led by a more intact undead individual who had an almost recognizable face left to him, clad in bright blue and white armor that was actually in good shape. Wasn¡¯t hard to pick out the rending line left behind in it that had probably killed him, however. ¡°Tokukawa-san!¡± the Mick called out in greeting, while we glided to a halt behind him. The undead in the half-mempo held up his hand, and the armored skeletons clattered to a halt instantly. ¡°It is good to see you again! How has the Master been?¡± There was a momentary delay as the burning undead eyes studied the lot of us, especially the floating Disks and Wagon. ¡°The Master is well, Mick-san. What is this floating box you have with you?¡± his hollow, slow voice intoned with some difficulty, resting his naginata to show his neutrality. ¡°That is the property of her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs o¡¯ the House of Briggs, Emperor of the Isparian Empire,¡± he replied matter-of-factly. The undead samurai guy had the grace to look startled. ¡°Your Imperial Highness, this be Gunzo Tokukawa Menji, student o¡¯ Master Ben Ten, adherent o¡¯ Joji, dead at Hebian-To these many years past, an¡¯ commander in good standing o¡¯ the Moon Legion of Mayoi.¡± ¡°I see. Another noble fool who declared that duty does not end, even in death.¡± Kris drew herself up in front of the undead warrior without any fear whatsoever, staring him in the dead eye. ¡°I am here to see that one day you may walk into the fires and finally embrace the serenity you crave, Gunzo Tokukawa. I thank you for your service until I can deliver upon that promise.¡± ¡°Your Highness!¡± the undead warrior returned, clapping his chest, a gesture instantly replicated by all the skeletons there, who bowed in unison to her. ¡°Are you of the Tokukawas of Minyoi, or Oshu?¡± Her question plainly startled him. ¡°The Portal took me from Minyoi these many years past, Your Highness!¡± he replied quietly. ¡°Time has not passed evenly between our realms, but Tokukawa Nunzuo, son of Anaoi, son of Kossou, is the patriarch of the Tokukawa of Minyoi. Are you of relation to him?¡± she asked calmly. ¡°Nunzuo is the Clan Lord now?...¡± he trailed off. ¡°He is the son of my father¡¯s brother, Tokukawa Kossou is my grandfather. What has become of the direct line? Our grandfather was only the third son...¡± ¡°Tokukawa Ossuo perished of the Wasting Plague, and his line was superceded by his brother Ajikuo. Ajikuo was an apologist and ally for the Viamontians, and with its defeat, his line lost all power and influence. Nunzuo served in the Crusade against Viamont and was rather quickly appointed Clan Lord when the Emperor took his seat. His son and daughter are students of my mother. I crossed bokken with them frequently.¡± ¡°Hai...¡± the dead Sho trailed off, his burning eyes focused elsewhere for a moment. ¡°It is good to hear of my old home. Is the Clan doing well?¡± Kris reached out to knock the Mick on the shoulder, to which he protested loudly and was ignored. ¡°The pirates have largely learned to leave the trade vessels alone, and your cousin has made wise investments in trade, especially the spice trade. The Joji temple in the capital is also in fine repair, and the Philosophy of the Sword grows with its own adherents. Your clan and people are indeed doing well. They own the most-admired Sho restaurant in the capital, and a daughter of the Tokukawa serves as the Sho cuisine cook in the imperial kitchen.¡± ¡°Ah-yee, these are good words to hear! The troubles at sea and with Viamont expanding were causing great problems in our homelands and courts...¡± He shook the remnants of his head. ¡°I trust you are here to see the Master?¡± Kristie looked at the Mick, who answered, ¡°The Princess here believes she can punch through the Shoreward an¡¯ make a run over the water t¡¯ the islands, without needing a Portal to bring us there. We are going to be moving through Mayoi an¡¯ over the hills to a place on the coast closer t¡¯ Kryst for the attempt.¡± ¡°Are you not worried about the things in the water?¡± the undead soldier asked immediately, waving his polished naginata over at the dark, moon-dancing waves to the east of us. ¡°I would gamble fine odds that one of their kind is watching us in passing from the deeper waters past the Shoreward, even now!¡± ¡°Aye, that¡¯s what I said, but she dinnae seem too worried about it, an¡¯ after seeing what she an¡¯ her advisor can do, I be not betting against them,¡± the Mick replied with a shrug. ¡°There were a moarsman temple fresh erected at the smuggler¡¯s cove up the shore, which we destroyed last night. The things o¡¯ the Deep be not giving up on us, Gunzo.¡± The undead soldier¡¯s head turned past us, looking up the coast, and he nodded shortly. ¡°We shall return with you to Mayoi, and escort you to the Master, Mick-san, Your Highness.¡± He bowed shortly again, turned smartly, and pointed. The skeletons clattered as they turned around, still in good formation, and set out at a tireless clip. Without another word, Kris and the Mick followed, and the wagon followed afterwards. AF Chapter 109 – The Master Speaks Quaverding! ting! This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Quaver Quaver ¡°I am Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs of the Empire of Ispar!¡± ¡¯¡°There is an old saying in many cultures that have a warrior¡¯s code, that ¡®only in death does duty end.¡¯ ¡°You have proven that saying is a lie. ¡°You have abandoned what should have been your rest to take up your duty and safeguard those who yet live, your kin and kind, your friends and family. ¡°You are fools. The most noble and valiant kind of fools. ¡°I promise you this. I will return with those you have warded with your lives and your deaths. They will take up your duties, and finally allow you to rest, to be free of this foolishness you chose on their behalf. ¡°Receive the Salute of the Rose, noble fools, on behalf of all those living you have saved, and who will one day Quaver Quaver AF Chapter 110 – A Sword to Drink With The swordmaster was delighted to receive honored guests, and there was nothing for it but to serve us tea. Unsurprisingly, given his reputation, he had been a simple man in life, wandering about and engaged in a personal meditation upon the sword, the philosophy of Joji, and putting his talents to use where they were most needed. He had even been the Master of a faction of noble-minded adventurers called the Celestial Hand before the Fall, dedicated to helping protect the people of Dereth from the overly ambitious among their own kind, as well as the machinations of other races seeking to exploit us. Perhaps it was that very duty, when all the dire predictions and worst nightmares of humanity came true, that had kept him in his cursed state, and perhaps drawn so many of the dead to his cause who might otherwise have passed on. --- ¡°Master Ben has lost his sense of smell.¡± The slow pouring of the tea paused as the skeletal swordmaster acknowledged Princess Kristie¡¯s words. His execution of the Sho tea ceremony was sublime and precise, a master at the craft, and he handled the unexpected words with unruffled grace and calm. The Mick looked ready to explode at her comment, however. ¡°Is there something wrong?¡± Master Ben asked calmly. ¡°You are a master of the tea ceremony. There is no way under heaven you would serve this tea, were you capable of smelling it.¡± Master Ben paused significantly, and then slowly set down the ornate porcelain tea kettle he had been pouring from, before sitting back with a hollow sigh. The Mick looked confused and grateful at the same time. ¡°It is as you say. My unliving students find nothing wrong with it, but they have little sense of taste or heat. The few living have been too polite to say otherwise, knowing how much I loved fine tea.¡± Kristie reached out to take up one of the poured cups, raising it to her lips to take a sip. Without any ceremony, she lowered it, and flicked it out behind her. All eyes followed the liquid as it arced impossibly through the window and outside, vanishing from view. ¡°Very polite students,¡± she confirmed, setting the spotlessly clean cup back down. ¡°Temperature, consistency, and the leaves are all horribly off-balance, Master Ben. Your sense of taste and ability to discern temperatures have also suffered, I see.¡± Another hollow sigh escaped him. ¡°It is not so much they have been lost, but they have¡­ changed, Your Highness,¡± he explained sadly. ¡°I am¡­ incapable of discerning what used to be so obvious. I must confess that I can both smell and taste little of the tea that I make now, and that which seems palatable to my few living guests is now repugnant to my new tastes.¡± Kristie took that at face value. ¡°Then we must teach you how to drink again. Lord Mick, you have some tea among your supplies, and I saw at least three different flavors among your scouts. Could you round those up for us?¡± He arched an eyebrow, and was about to say something when she turned to me. ¡°Ryin, there¡¯s a sample pot for you. We¡¯re going to need four more, with cups to go with them.¡± ¡°With Master Ben¡¯s permission?¡± I asked, and the skeletal swordmaster inclined his bony head. The teapot wafted over to my hand, and I rose and headed outside, followed hastily by the Mick. ¡°Oi, lass, is she playing at something?¡± the Mick asked carefully once we were outside. ¡°Mocking the old Master is not very respectful.¡± ¡°She is displaying grace, Lord Mick.¡± I unceremoniously dumped the tea off to the side on some rocks. ¡°And, I think, going to be administering a profound lesson you will find most helpful.¡± I smiled at him. ¡°Remember she has experience with Sho teachers. She is not going to insult him, she is going to reward him for his nobility. I need do my part as well.¡± He thought that over, and hurried off to the building nearby where his scouts were bunking. They were dozing, but he¡¯d soon have them digging out their private supplies for our use. I flew over to where the vivic fires were still burning in the Deathstone Pit, and reached out with Shaping Stone. It wasn¡¯t fired clay, but emulating such with stone wasn¡¯t difficult. I flicked up a Disk, and the purified white rock flowed and settled into new forms and positions. Soon I had four new tea sets available for use. ------ My hand glowed red, and soon the conjured water in the pot was bubbling. I passed it over to Kris, who took it with deft aplomb, uncaring of the heat, and she poured out four cups with carefully spooned tea in each for us. ¡°Masters, draw and cross your swords,¡± she stated calmly, lifting up one of the cups. Quaver slid out behind her, and extended over the tea tray. ¡°Lass, it could be construed an insult to ask a sword to be drawn without drawing blood,¡± the Mick warned her, with an uncomfortable glance at Master Ben Ten. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°His blade is going to drink the blood of the land,¡± she replied serenely. ¡°As is yours.¡± She held forth Quaver without effort. ¡°Cross our blades, gentlemen.¡± Bunita finally came out, Master Ben not missing the way it Morphed in size as it touched hers, forming two legs of a triangle. With a nod, he cross-drew his own blade and completed the triangle, his katana resting atop Quaver, and underneath Bunita. ¡°The unliving energies of the dead are not the same as the living, but one thing has remained pure and true, Master Ben, and that is your Blade. The ki upon it is strong¡­ you have started on the path, but without a teacher, you have stumbled along. Yet the foundation is strong and pure, and it rings along your Blade in a technique we call a Profound Weapon.¡± The Mick glanced at his master sharply, who looked back, clearly feeling something on the Mick¡¯s Weapon he had not before. ¡°Ki is an extension of the soul, and you both have strong ki.¡± She lifted the cup, bent forward, and very deftly, poured one drop each onto each of their Swords. ¡°Ki like water.¡± The very gentle swirls of Lost Light around her Sword broke apart into ripples and waves, running up and down her Blade, and both men muffled little gasps as they felt it against their own. ¡°Feel the water of the tea, Masters. Too acidic, too bitter, if not overmuch.¡± ¡°This...¡± Master Ben said excitedly, leaning forwards, while I watched the lights of the Runes on his own Blade begin to ripple and flow in time with hers¡­ and the Mick¡¯s did likewise. ¡°Ki like wind.¡± The tea steamed in her grasp, and this time, she waved the cup under the triangle of Swords, the Light on Quaver curling into whorls and wisps, a change rapidly reflected by both Swords touching it. ¡°Imbalanced, is it not? Astringent, pungent, not carrying the headiness and depth of truly fine tea¡­ ¡°Ki like fire.¡± The light flickered and ran into active tongues of phantasmal flames, random and racing about as if alive, if subtle and not outstanding, like a fine coating over the steel of the Weapons. Fascinated, I watched both men make the same adjustments in feel and flavor with her there providing exactly the guideline both needed to do so. ¡°This blend of tea needs to be served even hotter to break down the acids. You can feel the temperature caress your ki.¡± One drop on each Sword, plop, plop, plop, not spilling, not even bubbling, simply hissing there on each rock-steady Blade as it went to steam directly. ¡°And lastly, ki as moon. Balance.¡± A gentle, uniform radiance, somehow underscored with shadows within the light, danced over Quaver, and the other two Swords followed with amazing ease and speed. Yeah, both of those men were Twenties, no doubt about it. ¡°You can tell this is not a drink in balance, and in which direction it needs to be balanced.¡± Drop, drop, drop. This time, the tea spread out in an impossibly thin film, slicker than any oil, until it vanished into the subtle light on all three Swords. ¡°This is extraordinary,¡± whispered Master Ben. ¡°You are a true master of the sword, Your Highness.¡± ¡°No, Master Ben. I am a student,¡± she corrected him mildly. ¡°You and Lord Mick just imitated ki structures that normally take students a year to achieve, each, and you did it in seconds, with nothing but feel and harmony with your swords to guide you. ¡°It did take me a few months to learn each of those. I think that readily displays who is the student and masters here, does it not?¡± The men looked at one another, unable to argue that point. ¡°But I know of no such techniques myself!¡± the dead swordmaster protested humbly. I didn¡¯t see the ki pulse, but all three of them pulled their Weapons back at the same moment, and she set the cup down. ¡°If someone wields a club and you wield a katana, are you a great master because you have the finer weapon? ¡°If someone wields a katana with Biting Strike, and yours is a Crushing Blow Slash Rending thrice-enchanted masterpiece of smithwork, does that make you a great master? ¡°I am merely using techniques you have no knowledge of, training you have not been exposed to, and thus you cannot emulate it. ¡°Your foundation is as solid as a rock, and only your lack of a teacher means you are not eclipsing me, Master Ben. I am not so foolish as to proclaim that because I know things you do not that I am a master.¡± ¡°Aye, but that does qualify for us t¡¯ be calling you ¡®Teacher¡¯,¡± the very amused Mick interjected. ¡°You will both surpass me in short order, but that is what a proper teacher does,¡± she sniffed right back at him, before picking up the tea cup one more time, motioning the Mick to do the same, and taking a drink. She made a face, one soon reflected by the Mick. ¡°Rogar¡¯s brew is an acquired taste,¡± he said diplomatically. ¡°I note you¡¯re not saying where he acquired it,¡± she fobbed right back. She tinked the pot with her finger, and I retrieved it and the cups. The next batch of tea was set before her, and I began heating another pot of water. She sniffed the tea experimentally. ¡°Floral accents.¡± ¡°Gillifor¡¯s. He takes his light, just to clear his head.¡± ¡°Well, then, let us have our Swords drink, and measure it accordingly.¡± Two straight Blades and one curved reached out precisely, locked together, and Princess Kristie poured again. ------ ¡°Miss Ryin? The cup seems to be done.¡± ¡°Thank you, Selena.¡± I waved the black cup over from her hands to my own, the faint gleam of silver Rune-lines upon it, and she backed out of the room respectfully. The Mick¡¯s blend had received general approval, if not raves. He promptly raved and complained about lack of good leaves and cultivation like a proper tea snob should, and there was nothing to do for it with proper materials lacking. Princess Kristie poured out a cup for Master Ben, held it out for him, and he took it from her hand, pausing as she clasped his skeletal fingers. There was a swirl of darkness, and the tea within the cup went black. Master Ben brought it back, looking at it strangely, and then slowly and carefully, despite having no tongue nor lips nor anything, tilted it back to sip. Black rivulets ran up his face and down his jaw before dissipating, none dripping through, despite the lack of an oral cavity to catch them. ¡°Ah. Ahhhh...¡± he whispered. ¡°This, I can taste...¡± He took another sip, and looked over to the Mick. ¡°This is the Kryst Jungle Lily blend, but the leaves have not aged enough...¡± AF Chapter 111 – Lessons to and from a Master ¡°Aye, Master. The islands are not good for the leaves. Wait any longer, and they start to rot instead of to dry,¡± the Mick explained to Master Ben Ten. ¡°It was always a problem there, and the solutions always involved too much salt in the air,¡± the skeletal swordsmaster agreed, before turning back to me. ¡°How is this done, Your Highness?¡± he asked reasonably, to which Princess Kristie turned to me. ¡°Putrefy Food and Drink,¡± I explained to him. ¡°The spell changes food and water in exactly the wrong way, making it palatable to the undead and completely unfit for the living.¡± I nodded at the cup. ¡°I am having a teapot and the other three cups Empowered by the scouts as we speak. You will soon be able to share the equivalent of tea with your comrades. Merely make fine tea and serve it as you would, Putrefy it into un-tea, and enjoy.¡± ¡°She did bribe me uncle with the same in ale,¡± the Mick added in a low voice. ¡°This would work on sake?¡± The august swordsmaster was trying to hide his delight. ¡°You can¡¯t get drunk, but yes,¡± I nodded in confirmation. ¡°Ahhh, what great gifts you have brought us. An end to the suffering of the damned. A gentle light at the end of our duty. A way to grow for the spirit, even in death. And¡­ a little bit of flavor, in a stale and cold world.¡± He raised the cup. ¡°Kampe!¡± he said with sepulchral cheerfulness, and we all slowly drank it down. He was not even able to slurp and show his pleasure to his audience, but clearly enjoyed being able to drink and taste something, finally. ------- Every student of Master Ben Ten with untarnished blades, and that included the living scouts, was out there exercising come the dawn, caught up in the wonders of a teacher unleashing and opening a foundation both mystical and magical at the same time for them. Kris couldn¡¯t open Soul Chakras on the undead, as the leakage might just destroy them outright. But Naming Weapons and crystallizing the very rough outlines of the spiritual swordsmanship that Master Ben Ten had been pursuing all his life was a no-brainer, and gave these bunch of sword fanatics something wonderful to focus on. Even the simple benefits of the Salute to Aru were praised by Master Ben Ten, the undead able to feel the sublime power of Renewal stealing past their souls, giving them a subtle new strength from the light of a new day that they¡¯d not had before. I had no doubt that soon the entire undead force would be Saluting the Dawn, staving off the gray and colorless despair of a cursed life, showing them the dawn of a new day. Aru was the greatest foe of the undead¡­ and as merciful as any doting father to truly noble self-sacrificing souls. The newly named Giri in his hand swirled about as he moved through the advanced katas carefully, watching Princess Kristie going through the forms, then imitating them as best he might from observation and a level of active instruction that he had likely never experienced. She had informed him that he could only learn five of the Seven Dragons, and that was if he was careful to learn them in balance. Some of his undead students would be restricted to four, three, or perhaps even two of them, depending on their mental chops, spiritual strength, and talent for the discipline. She couldn¡¯t teach the Chi Techniques and Forms of the Dragons, of course. But even the lesser Ki Feats, based upon the Way Feats that were the foundation of each Dragon style, were stacking, powerful supplements for any melee combatant, and the simple achievement of Profound Weapon linking a newly-Named Sword to its wielder¡¯s soul was an extraordinary, spiritually uplifting experience to all of them. I found myself holding court and a question and answer session with a number of experienced undead Casters. They were long locked in their power and unable to progress, but under Master Ben¡¯s constant cajoling had managed to keep exercising their magic, and their skills had not decayed. All of them were Gold Scarab at the very least, and most of them had achieved the Pyreal and Platinum Scarabs tiers that I had no knowledge of. They were happy to expound about them while I was Infusing at the same time. Mira had never been both the student and teacher to so many accomplished Casters, even if they were undead, and was giddy with delight at the chance to learn, teach, and brainstorm with them. Holos spun out around us as dead souls whose thirst for the knowledge and power of magic still hadn¡¯t left them vied and collaborated under gently cajoled supervision towards a new and expanding field of magic. If they couldn¡¯t take advantage of it themselves, well, I was there to teach it to all I could, and that included their living descendants and other students. -------- A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. We ended up staying two full days. Kris was busy giving instruction on ki usage. Undead couldn¡¯t grow much, it being difficult for them to gain new Karma. But¡­ they could reallocate old Karma from what they did know, and change it to something new. Like, changing a ton of Karma dumped into the Sword Skill into a ton of Karma dumped into Melee Levels, and just shooting for the moon in it. As they gained Levels, they could also change the Karma dumped into Endurance and Health, especially since the Undead operated on Charisma and willpower instead of bodily vigor. I, of course, was responsible for putting all those teachings down on something. I ended up having to Exemplar Surge for Reed, the Valence II spell that makes things flexible without inhibiting their hardness, just so I could make up thin stone plates that wouldn¡¯t crack and shatter if handled roughly for Shaping and retaining the information. There was nothing for it but to do the same thing on the Caster side of things as well, putting down the basic principles and introductions of the Artifice and Arcane systems from the Power of Ten. I put down how they could totally empty out their Creature Magic at the very least, and probably their Item Magic, pouring that Karma into the two new paths, along with Pool Theurge, and start bringing back some of the power they¡¯d once held. It wouldn¡¯t be quick, nor would it be easy, and good communication between everyone on what worked and what did not was going to be essential to getting this done in a timely manner. I also left Vivic Eternal Lights ablaze around the place, letting these Cursed dead know there was a way out, and there were Lights that even they could see in the gray and dark of their world. If the Gotrok lugians came boiling down from the hills again, there was going to be a surprise. --- ¡°Get anything done that you wanted to?¡± Princess Kristi asked me as we headed out of the city staffed by the undead, leaving Master Ben Ten and his new ¡®tea set¡¯ behind for him to enjoy. There was no accompaniment by the undead, as we didn¡¯t want to draw more attention to us from seawards. It was entirely possible that they were paying attention to us and the movement of undead troops, if as no more than a curiosity and because they were able to. The undead troop patrol had moved out the day before, heading out along the peninsula to make sure there were no surprises waiting. We didn¡¯t expect any, but the lugians might have gotten their knickers up for some revenge. If they came back, there wasn¡¯t going to be any mercy this time. That would be the other side of the ¡®don¡¯t piss off Heaven¡¯ story, and oddly enough, the first one being delivered meant the same people could deliver the second one without actually physically doing so. The Deep might have tried something, too, after we took out another of its temples. Another, because right down in the Mayoi harbor I was shown an old temple the Deep had once had its moarsmen throw up there, right in the face of human aggression, back when it was nigh impossible to destroy buildings easily. Its minions were tied to the Summons points and kept respawning, impossible to keep away, just like it couldn¡¯t stop the local humans from going down there and killing them over and over again. Obviously it didn¡¯t care much about the psychological well-being of its servants. They were there to die at its command, and it had so commanded. After the Fall? Not quite so lucky. The Mayoi undead had razed the temple with great energy, in doing so disrupting the ley line structure and any of the spawn points involved. If minions of the Deep tried to rebuild it, they were summarily chopped apart and turned into chum for the waters to disperse¡­ by which point I was informed that sharks did exist here, but only the smallest of them could breach the Shoreward, and weren¡¯t really a threat to humans. The route we took was overland to the south, to the Islandwatch Villa sitting alone there and looking out over the sea towards the islands. Having been introduced to the fact that we could make magic items out of some of the salvage from those places, Master Ben Ten was quick to haul out what stores of pyreal and other coins he had recovered and stashed away about the place, putting my instructions on Artificing to the test eagerly. Plans were now to stop at the Villa, loot it, and then move a couple miles further down the coast to the Mayoi Mansion that also looked out over the southern beach. Once that was Sifted through, we¡¯d proceed through the small Cottage town a few miles further along. From there, we¡¯d go down to the beach, line it up, and make a beeline over the waters to Kryst. ¡°Twenty-five days. I am fifty Mastery Advances behind optimal allocation of Karma. I¡¯ve finished both Lore Theurge and Lyric Theurge, and will be taking my first Archwizard advancement come dawn. I do, however, have Hydrous Spell online, and I¡¯m sure you saw me practicing it yesterday. I¡¯ve got it Weirded up to Valence II.¡± ¡°I did. I also heard you were making some progress on cracking your third taper?¡± Kris asked with interest. ¡°The undead are diligent collectors of herbs, if not gardeners, and I¡¯m sure you visited some of the small mines they control around the city. The assembled masters theorized that since I didn¡¯t respond to any of the prismatic tapers they had in supply, it is likely that my taper is made of a derived substance not normally found or employed in them. I believe I might have found the solution.¡± ¡°Oh? That didn¡¯t take nearly as long as you expected...¡± ¡°Serendipity. It was because I brought up these.¡± I held up a glittering crystalline scarab in my hand, refracting the moonlight we were traveling under as we headed up the low hills towards our first stop. ¡°A Diamond Scarab?¡± the Mick asked, listening in from where he was trotting off on the side. Like before, the Marks made it easy to talk without actually taking any breath to do so. ¡°I had no idea that these were not a spell tier, and asked if they represented a separate branch of magic or something.¡± ¡°Ach, me apologies, lass. I knew the answer t¡¯ that. Nay, the Diamond Scarabs are carved from the hearts of Diamond Golums, fething nuisances that they are, an¡¯ are used to channel an¡¯ control additional energies inside a spell. They be used in Ring and Wall spells, and some of the more custom Recall spells that were employed.¡± ¡°So the masters informed me. But¡­ they react to my magic.¡± ¡°Aye, now? That be interesting...¡± ¡°I posited that since I have a black/light theme going on, and the crystal took the bright side, obsidian might very well be the counterbalance.¡± The Mick chewed that over. ¡°Obsidian, now? Not onyx, nor coal¡­ I can¡¯t think of anything anywhere that uses obsidian as anything more than ornamentation, lass...¡± AF Chapter 112 – Some last Delving before Running ¡°Which is passing strange, as in the Matrix system, obsidian has a clear affiliation for necromancy, binding souls, and bloodletting. It¡¯s the preferred thing to make a sacrificial knife from, for instance,¡± I informed him. He was silent for a minute with that, as was Kris. ¡°Well, that¡¯s a right ominous thing t¡¯ learn. And in combination with a Diamond Scarab, no less?¡± ¡°Yes. I ground up some supplies of each, as we have some among our salvage that we sifted up, even if it was mostly inert and useless. Hoarded against the chance someone might find a use for it, I guess.¡± ¡°That sounds like an unwholesome combination, Ryin,¡± Princess Kristie commented, still trotting along at the speed a normal man could only sprint. We should reach our first destination within the hour, despite the terrain and our occasional swerving diversions to clean out Summons and get some Naming Karma. ¡°Boosting the power of necromantic magic in your spells?¡± ¡°What? No, no!¡± I laughed softly. ¡°The obsidian tracks and absorbs the darkest elements in the roving mana, and the crystal component incinerates them, purifying the magic and cleansing it for the next stage. ¡°Of course, it took me quite a few tries to get the mixture and formation of the taper right. I was lucky that some of the dead masters there were also experienced alchemists involved in the making of the prismatic tapers, and had some very useful examples on how to proceed with the formation of the things.¡± ¡°No doubt eager to see what else might be done with such an odd combination of reactive elements, too,¡± Kris observed dryly. ¡°One doesn¡¯t just shut off the thirst for knowledge, and I confess to being interested with what they might find out¡­ although I warned them that if they tried the combination for the manner in which you commented, they might well damn themselves and all those around them, so stay away from blatant empowerment of vast negative energies, mmm?¡± ¡°I doubt they be wanting to make their condition any worse, but with the dead, eh...¡± the Mick trailed off, shaking his head. ¡°We can only trust their duty at this point.¡± ¡°Which has availed us well, so let¡¯s trust in it. It¡¯s not the undead Tradition of the Empyreans, which is significant at this point, nor the corruption involved with the shades.¡± ¡°Fair enough. Did ye manage to work out some Gold spells, then?¡± he inquired. ¡°Technically, no. However, I managed to boost my Silvers to Gold level, as it turns out. The power of absolutely nothing rose¡­ but I was able to affect duration, range, and so forth and so on, instead.¡± ¡°It applies a Meta to your spells?¡± Kristie asked sharply. ¡°Exactly two of the Basic Metas, of my choice at the time of Casting. Double range and double duration, or affect two different targets. Same cost as a normal Gold spell.¡± ¡°That be interesting. What o¡¯ the Pyreal, and Platinum Scarabs?¡± the Mick inquired. ¡°I don¡¯t have the skill level to vie for either of those, and won¡¯t for some time. The masters are aware of the one point a day limit, and like you lament its existence. It certainly didn¡¯t exist during their rise to power, and they were somewhat surprised when I reminded them that it was the normal limit back on Ispar, too.¡± ¡°It were never even important a detail t¡¯ consider until we came t¡¯ this world,¡± the Mick agreed calmly. ¡°Raising multiple Levels or points in one day, when might that have ever happened to any o¡¯ us? And we wouldn¡¯t have known it were even possible elsewhere, since it were not at home.¡± ¡°Karmic buffets didn¡¯t happen too much at home,¡± Princess Kristie agreed. ¡°Do you have to keep the new tapers on you, or can you ignore them like you do most components?¡± ¡°I have to use the Diamond Scarabs or the tapers, but not both. No Material Components won¡¯t let me waive both of them,¡± I reported. ¡°I¡¯ve a supply of both, the dead Masters were kind enough to scare up a few dozen Diamond Scarabs between them.¡± ¡°Hunting down Diamond Golums t¡¯ scavenge a heart be a dangerous an¡¯ time-consuming task, lass,¡± the Mick stated with the air of experience. ¡°I be not sure how many reserves o¡¯ such things we have left, but they won¡¯t be cheap.¡± ¡°I might be able to barter with some knowledge of my own, Lord Mick,¡± I replied calmly, and he half-laughed. ¡°Aye. They¡¯ll want ye to share everything with them, an¡¯ then pay ye nothing for it all, then demand taxes for what favors they did bother to give you, like room an¡¯ board, or the pyreal coin yer burnin¡¯ away, shameless waster of precious metal that ye are.¡± ¡°I see you understand the proclivities of government revenue units and the educational institutions funded by them.¡± He guffawed at me. ¡°Actually, I intend to do some reinforcing and empowering of the Diamond Scarabs I have to massively increase their resilience and resistance to consumption, which should greatly reduce or completely ameliorate their vulnerability to such things. If successful, I might be able to do things like create Eternal Scarabs of the various tiers, meaning you¡¯d only have to carry one of each, ever.¡± Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°And the Feat ye mention means no more carrying o¡¯ the tapers,¡± the Mick mused, patting the satchel at his left hip. ¡°Lass, ye¡¯ll turn the heads of the old, wise blowhards on their ears if ye dare revolutionize the magic like that!¡± I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Avoiding unnecessary wealth sinks is like common sense, Lord Mick. I¡¯d almost say the Isparian system¡¯s proclivity to burn away components is almost designed to be a money pit you never grow out of.¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ aren¡¯t no cheaper now that pyreal is scarce an¡¯ the need for magic be no less than it were a decade ago,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Oh, before it escapes me. I actually know the fellow what used to own the Islandwatch Villa, though he be gone during the Fall with so many others.¡± ¡°Interesting, if not surprising. How about the owner of the Mansion we¡¯ll be stopping at?¡± ¡°I knew OF them, but we weren¡¯t friends. Cloudrider Allegiance, kind of snooty fellows with elitist attitudes,¡± the Mick scoffed. ¡°Now, Fremont, he were a bit o¡¯ a madman, crazy Life an¡¯ War spec mage running up to kill things in personal combat before it were all stylish an¡¯ the like. ¡°He were a bit of an odd duck, a musician on the side, always hoping they¡¯d find some kind of combat magic that involved singing or playing a yitar or drumming really well. When he finally got tired o¡¯ charging into bands of virindi an¡¯ getting himself blown apart, he did a lot of pub rounds as an entertainer to keep himself amused, knew everybody everywhere. ¡°Must not have given up some o¡¯ the prime gear, tho, as he¡¯s not been seen since the Fall, like so many others...¡± he trailed off, flexing his left hand and its missing finger without noticing. ¡°He have anything interesting we could hope to salvage?¡± Princess Kristie asked smoothly, pretending not to notice the gesture, either. ¡°Probably not. The place is high up an¡¯ fairly dry, an¡¯ I be sure the inside¡¯s been poked around by the curious many times over the years. ¡°But the magic ye have has been capable of Sifting out things I¡¯d no idea were there, so mayhap we¡¯ll have a bit of a surprise.¡± ------ ¡°Huh. Well, color me surprised,¡± the Mick admitted, as Kris pitched the last three-hundred pound chunk of stone out of the way, and a swirling play of lights arose from beneath it. It was a small shield, not much bigger than a buckler, and a rough circle of lights was rotating about it. I cocked my head at it as I looked at it. ¡°That¡¯s more force structure than material, and not very strong. Use that as a shield, you might as well be waving around a shield of paper,¡± I analyzed at a glance. ¡°Ho, lass, that¡¯s not a real shield. That¡¯s an original Aegis!" The Mick had been helping move stuff around and shedding light, with a couple of the scouts interested in speeding matters up also shining Lights about. Our trip to the Villa had been without incident, and Kris and I had gone through the floor area with a fine tooth comb. The area around where the basement dimension¡¯s chest had been had yielded up a handful of salvage, those most associated with various Imbues: high grade steel, iron, and granite shards, mostly, with several handfuls of the fire opal, black opal, sunstone, black garnet, aquamarine, emerald, jet, imperial topaz, and white sapphire associated with Weapon Imbues on top of that. It all went on the Disk, along with a single surviving Ring of delicately-carved purpled ruby that the Mick had blinked to see, but refrained comment on until later. He picked up the Shield, the halo of magical particles it emitted instantly expanding to encircle him as he clasped the buckler-sized Shield in his fist. ¡°Huh. Fremont were an Advocate at one point. Didn¡¯t know that about him,¡± he murmured, watching the color of the lights going around. ¡°These Shields were more an identifier of the status than useful in a fight in a traditional manner.¡± He sent me a keen look. ¡°I can see the abjurative qualities, Lord Mick.¡± Kris lifted an eyebrow my way at that. ¡°It¡¯s an ablative field, weakening incoming magical damage effects. It¡¯s not very strong, but it is there. Perhaps ten points?¡± ¡°Like an omniversal Energy Resist?¡± Kris was naturally interested. ¡°Aye, but it stacked with most of the Protection spells about, which were nice if ye were facing Casters.¡± The Mick took the thing off with care and reverence, the orbiting circle of lights rapidly shrinking back down to just around the Aegis itself. ¡°They¡¯ve made stronger versions o¡¯ Aegis, both in real and magical protection, but this was the first. These were given t¡¯ those tasked with greeting an¡¯ helping newcomers brought in t¡¯ Dereth through the Portals, back in the day, making it easy t¡¯ identify them. In time, they mastered the Portals enough t¡¯ centralize where folks would arrive, an¡¯ set up formal training paths fer new arrivals. But during the wild an¡¯ woolly old days, when people were arriving right an¡¯ left an¡¯ the world were new an¡¯ strange, the Advocates were some o¡¯ the few you could turn to fer help an¡¯ some advice on what t¡¯ do next.¡± He turned it over in his hands. ¡°The Madman was an Advocate. Well, Fremont, yer secret is out, an¡¯ I¡¯d shake yer hand for it, were ye here.¡± He set it atop the Disk quietly, respectfully, and lifted out the Ring, holding it up in the Eternal Lights everyone had up at this point. ¡°Seems dark,¡± he judged, peering at it closely. ¡°Internal pathways are scorched. The runeways are intact, but it¡¯s like having nodes with no working lines to connect them,¡± I informed him. ¡°I see you recognize it.¡± ¡°Aye. ¡®tis a copy of the Royal Ring o¡¯ the Queens of Aluvia.¡± He glanced at Kris with a small smile. ¡°The Rose of Celdon? The Ring of the Orts?¡± she said immediately, stepping forward and holding out her hand. The Mick handed it over, and Princess Kristie held it up close to her eyes to examine it. ¡°Hah. The style is almost identical, and the shade of the rubies is only a little off.¡± She looked inside the band. ¡°They even replicated Urbek¡¯s inscription? Thorough! The real Rose is still in the Aluvian treasury, awaiting a proper Queen in the court there. How did they manage to make such a close replica?¡± AF Chapter 113 – A Rose by Any Other Name ¡°There were a Quest ye could undertake, dealing with a missing husband an¡¯ one o¡¯ the priestesses o¡¯ the T¡¯Thuun movement on Vissidal Island, or something. Undead harridans tossing magic all get messed up in me memory after all this time. But ye go back to the wife at the end with the fate o¡¯ her husband, an¡¯ the woman, the¡­ NPC?¡± Kris nodded at the use of the term. ¡°Aye, she gave ye a copy of the Ring, saying it were the wedding ring he gave her. ¡°Also, Lord Harlune were an Empyrean.¡± We both looked at him in surprise, as Harlune was the name of one of the two men who had made the original famous Ring, one of the prime sponsors of the Orts who had stood against Queen Alfrega the Mad. ¡°Aye, a distant cousin o¡¯ Asheron himself, an¡¯ a fellow student at the same Academy on this island. Not sure if he made another Ring an¡¯ pawned it off t¡¯ be replicated fer the quest, but ¡®tis likely it¡¯s related.¡± He looked pleased at the connection he¡¯d made. ¡°Huh. Well, if so, it should duplicate the powers of the original.¡± She tossed it to me, and I caught it to re-examine. ¡°It seems almost identical to the original. That should be increased healing rate, a Ward against Fire, an increase to foot speed, and a boost to Healing skill, as my memory serves me.¡± I studied the burned-out Ring of purple-red metal and gemstone, its signet intricately carved in the shape of a rose, more intently than before. Like prior magic items, it must have been empty of mana at the time of the Fall, so it didn¡¯t have any internal reserves to explode and break it. The scorching of the mana veins inside it was the only damage. I could probably restore it with a Make Whole V, when I reached Nine. But¡­ I turned the Ring over, following a lot of burned control veins and small nodes dancing all throughout the Ring, not just in the top of it. Aelryinth was a Ringlord. I didn¡¯t have the Title, but I was still sensitive to Rings! ¡°That is¡­ the lowest order of spells on this Ring,¡± I told her calmly, startling both her and Lord Mick. ¡°You focused on the primary Node atop the Ring, which masks most of the effect. This only has the stamen of the rose symbol energized. There are potentially six different upgrades for this ring, based on the number of internal petals layered through this.¡±* ¡°What?!¡± the Mick blurted out in shock, his eyes locking on the Ring. ¡°I never heard o¡¯ another quest t¡¯ increase the power o¡¯ the Ring!¡± I tossed it back to Kris, who this time didn¡¯t look at it after she caught it, simply holding it in her fingers and dancing the black nails of her other hand upon it, visualizing it more and more clearly as she fine-tuned her tremblesense down into it with her ki. The Mick could tell she was working with ki, and was dying to see if he could do the same as her nails clattered on it quickly. ¡°You¡¯re right. Unenergized, inactive Rune-nodes, mana veins that were never opened and empowered, but plainly could be. This is potentially a very powerful magic item, although it seems designed for defense and reinforcement, not attack.¡± She looked at me, I held out my hand, and to the Mick¡¯s astonishment, I slid it onto my right ring finger, opposite Zeks. ¡°I¡¯ll get it working again, and when I do, I should be able to divine a path forward for it. We¡¯ll see if there¡¯s something hidden it was supposed to do, a quest that was never discovered or found, hidden under the nose of those doing it.¡± ¡°Can ye replicate the effects of an Aegis, lass?¡± the Mick finally asked, after he finished digesting this new turn of events, gesturing at the not-shield on the Disk. ¡°I¡¯m sure between Kris and I we can break down the effects. It would be best to find someone who actually worked on such things and had knowledge of the lore related to it to see if it could be improved, however.¡± ¡°There should be a smith or two who survived the Fall who worked on Aegis shields. Come to think o¡¯ it, Lord Harlune¡¯s not been seen since the Fall, either. He an¡¯ Master Ben Ten actually founded the Celestial Hands Society together, although he were more hands-off making the supporting magic an¡¯ teaching some of the members, as opposed to directing people hither an¡¯ yon on valiant tasks in defense of Dereth an¡¯ all its peoples.¡± I noted his irreverent but wistful tone. ¡°You weren¡¯t a member of his Society, I take it?¡± ¡°No,¡± he admitted with a straight face. ¡°I were in the Radiant Blood. We were a fine bunch of lads and lassies, running all over Dereth prying secrets out o¡¯ the cold, dead hands of whoever we could take it from, bringing it back to researchers for the benefit of us Isparians and ours¡­ and, I¡¯ll add because ye think so highly o¡¯ her, Nuhmudira, who were the inspiration for those ¡®sacrificing themselves for the benefit of all Isparians¡¯ in the Blood, she were.¡± His dry sarcasm didn¡¯t escape anyone listening in at all, but they obviously knew all of that. ¡°You had some connection to Aisley, it would seem?¡± Kris smirked knowingly. ¡°She were one o¡¯ the heads o¡¯ the Eldrytch Web scouts. Used to run into them all over the place when we had disagreements over the proper ownership of uncovered knowledge an¡¯ lore an¡¯ magic an¡¯ who deserved to have knives put into ¡®em an¡¯ whatnot. Her personal knowledge an¡¯ managing ¡®em is what got her the position she¡¯s in. I never had the stomach fer making up the jobs, I just got sent out on ¡®em in the Blood. ¡°She were still an eager pawn an¡¯ tool for the undead. I were never a high-minded an¡¯ noble fool, an¡¯, well, ye know me clan¡¯s nae had much use for the Kings of Aluvia, so I had nae use for Strathelar or her boy claiming they ruled me. So, the Radiant Blood were fine by me, an¡¯ if it had nae use for Lugians, Tumeroks, enlightened Undead, Shades, or Gearmen, well, that were sure no skin off me nose now, was it?¡± ¡°Given you were likely in competition with him, I am surprised of your relationship with Master Ben,¡± Kris wondered aloud, an elegant eyebrow raised. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°The man be the first actual hero I ever met,¡± the Mick confessed with a straight face. ¡°Didnae care about money, nor magic, or gear, or anything. He lived for the sword an¡¯ swore by his Joji mumblings, an¡¯ were just as kind and generous as the legends said o¡¯ him. ¡°I thought he were a total fool, but I took some lessons from him when I were just starting me light-fingered an¡¯ throatslitting career that I use t¡¯ this day, aye, an¡¯ will for the rest o¡¯ me days. ¡°And then the noble idiot got up out o¡¯ his own grave t¡¯ defend the last survivors fleeing the undead an¡¯ Gotrok an¡¯ Hea, drove them back, an¡¯ has held the line on them ever since. ¡°When ye lose the coin an¡¯ the gear an¡¯ all that¡¯s left is the people, Highness, yer view of the world changes. It were something Master Ben knew all along, an¡¯ I came to it too late t¡¯ appreciate who an¡¯ what I had. But Master Ben will always be that first true hero t¡¯ me, an¡¯ now more than ever, I can finally appreciate what a real hero be¡­ an¡¯ I definitely were not one, blatherings o¡¯ the Radiant Blood an¡¯ everything included.¡± He didn¡¯t back down as he said it, dark eyes looking her straight in the eye, deep sorrow and deep serenity mixing there. I could see he¡¯d probably had a lot of talks with the skeletal swordmaster. Princess Kristie just nodded once, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, ¡°We¡¯re done here. Let¡¯s get to that Cloudrider Mansion, see what we find, and then on to the next.¡± --- Nobody said anything else as they got on the Disks that would lift them all up and out of there, and we headed back upstairs. The Black Aluvian clans were known for their wild independence and not having much use for outsiders of any stripe. I could see how an organization devoted to Isparians alone would have sucked him in, especially with his mercenary leanings. His zealous protection of his scouts was likely a direct result of the losses he¡¯d suffered in the Fall. I could imagine just how much he didn¡¯t want to lose any of the young men and women under them, and just what he¡¯d do to that end. He also would probably never forgive the Hea, Gotroks, and undead, either, although I noted he specifically invoked the clans responsible, not all lugians or tumeroks. Well, I supposed he¡¯d be getting his due at some point, because after what she¡¯d seen and heard, Princess Kristie probably wasn¡¯t going to be satisfied until those responsible were vivic dust ground under her heel. Couldn¡¯t say I didn¡¯t feel the same, either. ---------- The Cloudrider Mansion was visible from a couple of hills away, still standing fairly tall. It had the normal knock-on damage from time and the elements after losing its ley line tie, and the walls showed definite signs of having been hit by some big rocks and spells at certain points. Still, it was largely intact. There were stairs leading up the motte to the front door, and even a slide down the rear one, so you didn¡¯t have to risk breaking your ankles with a jump down it. However, it was still Kris who pointed out, ¡°So, this place is on a K¡¯Nath feeding route, too?¡± All the Royal Scouts blinked at her in shock. She just pointed at the scatter patterns across the facing of the front of the Mansion. ¡°I¡¯ve seen those blast patterns before, at two Mansions up in the Blackmire Swamps we went through. I¡¯m assuming the basement is flooded, then?¡± The Mick clapped his chest in exaggerated pain. ¡°Aye, now ye¡¯ve done ruined our surprise, Highness. There¡¯s always a pack o¡¯ the jelly blobs around here, an¡¯ if they see light here they hurry right over t¡¯ cause some excitement. ¡°A whole herd o¡¯ ¡®em comes through about every six weeks an¡¯ cleans the worst o¡¯ the muck out of the place.¡± ¡°Upper floors still intact?¡± Kris asked perfunctorily, only nodding. ¡°Aye, we an¡¯ the Gotrok will sometimes use it t¡¯ camp out against the weather. Sometimes with knives in the dark, depending on who gets here first.¡± I watched the hard smiles break out all around at that news, the nods showing that they¡¯d likely done that more than once, and the Gotrok probably didn¡¯t come back often. The Mick pointed at a big rock stuck under the main balcony. ¡°The lugians will clamber up on that and can generally reach up just enough to pull themselves up. We have t¡¯ be a bit more acrobatic about it.¡± He cupped his hands, and without missing a beat, Selena stepped up, into his hold with her lead foot, and with an easy surge of his back and legs, the Mick sent her flying up and over the edge. She did an easy tuck and roll, and landed smoothly on the balcony above us. Without stop, he heaved the other scouts up one after another, basically ignoring what they weighed, and without having to put down a rope or anything, the scouts rapidly fanned out through the place, looking for any squatters or surprises on any of the floors. We just went in the front door, the Mick going first, just in case. ¡°Gotroks find using traps beneath ¡®em, but the Hea who make it out here consider it good fun t¡¯ leave a surprise, even if it¡¯s just shit tossed in yer face,¡± he explained, making way into the entry hall, where one of the common colorful Joji fountains was fallen over to one side and never put back up. He pushed open the hanging door beyond, and we looked over the gaping hole that was the main floor, having fallen into the basement just like the other Mansions, and then into the dimensional chamber below that after it was forcibly brought back into reality. The dark gleaming of water that hadn¡¯t drained out greeted us. It was more than twenty feet deep, completely covering the second floor of the dimensional area and most of the walls. ¡°Must be a flow coming in through the walls,¡± Kris judged, looking at the black surface without expression. ¡°Going to be a problem, Ryin?¡± I just looked at the gleaming surface, and shook my head. ¡°Hydrous Spells breach the water divide without a problem. It¡¯ll take more time, especially if we have to move stuff, but we can still get it all, whatever is down there.¡± ¡°Good. Spin up some Disks, and let¡¯s get to work.¡± -------------- *There was an interview with the developer Stormwaltz over an early quest line he made up that he never actually instituted, one that was eventually rewritten into the quest where you get the Rose of Celdon. He wanted it to be a Ring that you could upgrade over the course of your career, putting in new quests to improve it as time went on¡­ but naturally that never happened, although it was a very nice Ring for its day, back then. Well, Stormwaltz, someone was listening. If anyone can get me into contact with him and he would like to give me some details in a timely manner, I¡¯ll happily work them into the story. Otherwise, I¡¯ll just wing it. AF Chapter 114 – Banderlings and Blades Once again, Princess Kristie had little problem stripping down to underclothes/swimwear and diving for loot, taking it all right in line, showing matchless hips and legs along with Nothing to See Here with a complete lack of shame. There was a lot of salvage, but the intact magical stuff was severely lacking. The Cloudrider Allegiance had been one of the first large Allegiances, which also meant one of the first to give up the grind and back down to more casual activities, leaving the relentless hack and slash of the lifestyle to younger adventurers and newer Allegiances who¡¯d risen to replace them in influence. They¡¯d barely done enough to hold onto their Mansion, the Mick informed me as I scanned for stuff down there, and he joined Kris down below with Water Breathing active to move stuff out of the way so it could be Sifted and gathered up top. There was a decent amount of the stuff, heaping up several Disks, the Allegiance having put in a supply for all the members that they regularly dumped into and drew from, a common occurrence from what The Mick related. The explosion and expulsion had combined to scatter the contents all over a corner of the space, fairly localized, but any true treasures were likely to be dispersed all over the place on wall hangings as trophies, so the entire place had to be scanned. It was hard, wet work, with the scouts up top keeping watch in case something happened, and I sent up the Disks to them as they filled up, just to keep them out of the way. --- Grumbling slightly, the Mick grabbed a Disk and heaved himself dripping up out of the water with one hand, making it look fairly effortless¡­ but not as effortless as Kris simply rising up out of the water on Vajra and lightfoot to stand there, the water draining right down her and leaving her completely clean instantly. She was holding up a long dagger in one hand that hadn¡¯t been there going down, with two others like it in her off hand. They¡¯d been slathered in oil or something, and so hadn¡¯t rusted or decayed. ¡°These don¡¯t seem to be magical, but someone went through a lot of care to preserve them,¡± she said, holding the single one up. ¡°Take a look at this.¡± She made to toss it to me. ¡°DON¡¯T TOUCH IT!¡± the Mick shouted, all wide-eyed, just as Kris fobbed it to me. I twisted and juked, but Kris was faster, her hand whipping out snake-quick to nab the dagger she¡¯d just tossed before it could land in my lap, barely. Both of us froze for a second, then turned to stare at the Mick. He, of course, was staring at the dagger she had just caught, and breathing a sigh of relief while glancing at her other hand. ¡°Highness, if you¡¯d kindly make sure that none o¡¯ us who use magic touch those things.¡± He reached over to his undershirt laying on another Disk with his Armor and Weapons, and handed it to her without blinking an eye. Kris gave him an assessing look, before calmly taking his shirt and carefully bundling up all three daggers in it. She wrapped them up securely, and I even Presti¡¯d up a simple cord for her to tie around them securely. ¡°Damnation, the things we stumble across in the places like this,¡± he murmured, giving the bundle an odd look while shaking his head. ¡°I didn¡¯t think any o¡¯ those existed anymore.¡± Kris hefted the bundle warily. ¡°There¡¯s no magic on this that I can sense at all, which means no Curses or the like. Why the alarm?¡± she asked directly. ¡°Those are Gertarh¡¯s Daggers.¡± Our utter lack of comprehension could not have been unexpected. ¡°They were made, or acquired, by a banderling trader, the only one o¡¯ his kind we ever met with a fixed location. No Isparian was ever able to duplicate ¡®em. ¡°Lass, can ye Assay them through the bundle?¡± I just lifted an eyebrow, and Cast the spell. Gertarh¡¯s Dagger, right enough. Weight, Value, Speed Factor, Damage, Threat Range¡­ ¡°Wait, what?¡± The Mick¡¯s hard smile held a hint of relief. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s about the right of it. Are they still as nasty as they were back then?¡± I flicked up the Holo of the Assay. It wasn¡¯t all that important, especially the throwing range, and they weren¡¯t magical, or technically even Masterwork. Except for... Damage: 7-8 Kris blinked at it. Blinked again to make sure she wasn¡¯t seeing things. ¡°Are you serious?¡± she murmured in disbelief. The Mick sat back and sighed as he stared at it. ¡°No bonuses t¡¯ hit. No bonuses t¡¯ damage. No spells on. Just the absolutely tightest damage variance we ever encountered. Even Atlan Staves didn¡¯t compare.¡± ¡°Which is another question-?¡± Kris queried. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Damage 9-12 on those.¡± I opened my mouth, closed it, looked at him. ¡°Okay, different systems. What were the best axes and swords, then?¡± ¡°Axes and Swords, 8-16. Single-handers, mind ye. Tachis, takubas, an¡¯ broadswords, the heaviest ones the smiths made back then. Eventually they made stronger and stronger weapons, somehow taking the damage up higher and higher¡­ but all that seems to have dissipated and gone now, and we¡¯re back to what were not even starting weapons before the Fall.¡± ¡°Those are Isparian damage ranges. A reaction to the high magic environment?¡± Kris theorized. ¡°The ridiculous amounts of Health that creatures have here would have necessitated more powerful Weapons to keep the balance. What did powerful Weapons range up to?¡± she asked, hefting the bundle of daggers. ¡°Powerful Axes ranged up to 73, 74, top-end, without magic?¡± he replied, thinking back. ¡°Swords were 70 or so. But they all had wide variance, with Staves being the tightest, with a top-end o¡¯ 68 or so, as I recall.¡± I shared a glance at Kris, who looked entirely bemused at that number. ¡°Such Weapons could slaughter with a flick of the wrist,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°Aye, but ye couldn¡¯t even wield them if yer skill wasn¡¯t high enough, so there was obviously some magic involved, mayhap some arcane version o¡¯ Profound Weapons that be no longer working on the Weapons themselves.¡± The Mick shrugged. ¡°Ye could pick them up off the ground when they dropped as Summons loot, but try to put one in hand? If ye weren¡¯t one of the best Melee specialists in that weapon about, it weren¡¯t happening.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ totally possible?¡± Kris slowly nodded. ¡°The way pyreal was reacting to the magic going through those Atlan Weapons is very similar. Seven Profound advances plus Heavy¡­ it¡¯s not that far off a damage range like that. Having the skill to modulate and overcome that kind of magic would take tremendous skill, and is probably why you learned Profound Weapon so easily, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, the feeling be familiar, if not so aggressive¡­ an¡¯ it comes from me, now, not the Weapon,¡± he agreed, more than a little satisfaction in his voice. His effective Item magic Caster Level at Twenty had increased the power of his blows with Bunita to something far more acceptable to him! ¡°I could see why a tight damage range would be so dangerous. These daggers are basically as lethal as your average broadsword, if not more. With the way Blooddrinker works to enhance damage, keeping that tight variance as your Weapon improves would be very dangerous,¡± Kris mused, considering the point. ¡°Ye¡¯ve the right of it. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but one day Gertarh ended up dead, an¡¯ suddenly the Green Huntsman, Oswald the Assassin, became famous fer being able t¡¯ absolutely kill things right through Asheron¡¯s Protection. Too, the Daggers started disappearing, falling apart at the touch of those who used an¡¯ swore by ¡®em, an¡¯ soon enough, they were almost impossible to find or see.¡± He gestured at the bundle in her arms. ¡°Trust the Cloudriders to have some squirreled away, and likely mostly forgot about them as better Daggers did indeed come around in time.¡± ¡°You¡¯re thinking that anyone wielding them who has magic makes them decay?¡± she asked, carefully setting them on top of a Disk heaped with beads and nuggets of fine steel. ¡°That be the only theory that held any teeth to it, an¡¯ o¡¯ course, the WHY it were suddenly so bamboozled everyone.¡± ¡°Someone watching decided it was boring, and got rid of them.¡± I rolled my eyes at the sky, and the Mick sighed and slowly nodded. ¡°They weren¡¯t stolen. They weren¡¯t misplaced. It were suddenly they weren¡¯t in pack or sheath or chest, or whatnot. Some people would go ta check on ¡®em, handle ¡®em an¡¯ look ¡®em over, they¡¯d be fine, an¡¯ they would go back the next day an¡¯ they¡¯d be gone. ¡°Some didn¡¯t touch them at all, an¡¯ they seemed to endure¡­ unless they started showing them off to others, word spread, an¡¯ soon their little stash evaporated like a dream, too.¡± ¡°So, you want me to see if I can replicate them?¡± Kris asked, one hand on the bundle, tapping it with a black-nailed thumb slowly. ¡°Granite Infusions, if ye remember me talking about them.¡± We both nodded. ¡°It made no sense from a real standpoint, sure enough, but alchemically, nobody contested it. Granite tightened up the damage variance of a weapon. Spend enough o¡¯ it, an¡¯ ye could get a damage variance like a Gertarh¡¯s. We never were able t¡¯ Imbue or Infuse a Gertarh¡¯s, so belike it were already Infused?...¡± he trailed off. ¡°So, the banderlings discovered how to do that before you did, or perhaps these daggers led to that?¡± Kris ventured into the silence. ¡°There is indeed something going on with the crystalline patterns of the metal itself, how its laying and layered, something like folded steel, but more faceted than wootz or traditional tachi butterfly steel methods. You can¡¯t do something like that with a hammer, flame, and anvil, although a Shaping Hammer could attempt something similar.¡± ¡°So¡­ it¡¯s a magical spell?¡± I smiled slightly. Kris inclined her head. ¡°Or an Artificer Infusion. Perhaps with those very chips of granite as the material component?¡± We all glanced at one of the Disks there, a section of its stone dividers heaped up with sharp-edged flecks of granite stone I¡¯d brought up off the ground after Kris and the Mick had cleared off obstructions to doing so. ¡°An addition to the Crafter¡¯s Pentad would be quite a coup,¡± I said, ¡°even if it¡¯s purely Weapon-based.¡± ¡°Crafter¡¯s Pentad, now?¡± the Mick immediately asked eagerly. I held up my left hand, splaying my fingers out, Zeks gleaming there. ¡°A set of five spells, one per Valence, in the Matrix system. Some would say there¡¯s six, or seven, but the five are the base of it. ¡°Rune. It ties you to an item of craft with blood, and is the start of Naming Karma, as I showed you.¡± He pursed his lips at the thought of the custom sigil now on Bunita. ¡°Some would say Edge, allowing you to preternaturally sharpen a blade in an instant, is one of them, but it¡¯s temporary, and more a buff. ¡°Reed, which immensely increases the flexibility and ductility of an object, without affecting hardness. Something which is incredibly hard but brittle suddenly becomes incredibly hard and malleable. For instance, Quaver there could easily be bent into a half-circle and snap right back to true without any issues¡­ but you¡¯d still have to be a Jotun to be able to do that.¡± ¡°Hard AND flexible? That be like why steel exists at all!¡± the Mick blurted out. Iron had the problem of being one or the other, not both! ¡°Yes. The third is Stone, sometimes called Dwarfcraft. It doubles the amount of damage a thing can take, once the damage gets past how Hard the item is in the first place. Items of Stone take a long time to destroy, resist weathering, and just last a long, long time.¡± AF Chapter 115 – Crafting a Better World ¡°That would¡­ cut down on costs t¡¯ repair things, or the need t¡¯ replace ¡®em,¡± the Mick considered thoughtfully. ¡°Would play havoc with the repair economy, no?¡± ¡°What happens is that people start getting their hands on better and better stuff lower and lower on the income scale, poor people grabbing up what the wealthy set aside for more artistic stuff, and the money that used to be sunk into constantly replacing stuff is spent on other things. Yes, it means the smiths don¡¯t do as much repair work. The money starts being in doing better work, more artistic or ergonomic, and the like,¡± I related. ¡°That is, if some guild or organization doesn¡¯t manage to monopolize and delay the use of Stone for their own benefit,¡± I added, and he grinned in grim understanding. ¡°People also end up owning and passing on more things, as they last longer,¡± Kris added on. ¡°Also, things don¡¯t break as easily, or wear down, so they simply endure longer without being broken up as sets via accidents or something.¡± ¡°Aye, those be indeed Crafter¡¯s spells,¡± the Mick agreed after a further moment of thought. ¡°The fourth?¡± ¡°Valence IV, Iron. Gives a metal object the hardness of iron, or 10, while retaining all other properties. There¡¯s variants for most substances, Ironwood being the most famous. But there¡¯s Ironstone, Ironkilned, Irontwine, Ironleather, Ironhide, and the like.¡± The Mick sat forward. ¡°Ye directly make wood as strong as iron, before any other magic,¡± he pressed for clarification. I nodded. ¡°How do that work with fire?¡± he asked instantly. ¡°Its harder to set alight, but once it starts burning, will burn just as long. Amusingly, a Stone torch will burn twice as long as a normal one, by other example. Still, wood is by its very nature susceptible to flame, and its fibers align to be able to be split with hacking damage, so none of those factors change¡­ they are simply harder to affect.¡± ¡°And you can still treat the wood with oils and slakes and alchemy and other things to resist fire,¡± Kris informed him, to which he inclined his head in acknowledgment, familiar with those treatments. ¡°Lastly, Adamant, or Harden. Directly increases the hardness of any object it is applied to by one-half the Caster Level of the spellcaster. It¡¯s a V Valence, but very, very valuable,¡± I finished up. ¡°One-half the Caster Level¡­ could become very, very hard,¡± the Mick murmured. ¡°Cast multiple times?¡± he was quick to ask. ¡°No, it doesn¡¯t stack on itself. It does stack on Iron, however, and it does stack with direct magical enhancements, if applicable.¡± I waved at Kris. ¡°Her Quaver probably has a Hardness around 50, all told, and a Titan couldn¡¯t break it, probably barely bend it.¡± I smiled winsomely. ¡°Yet you¡¯ve seen it seem to bend and twist in her hand with her ki, flexible as an epee, if needed.¡± ¡°That strong?¡± He¡¯d plainly not seen the like before. ¡°Can ye demonstrate?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°Certainly.¡± There was a flash of motion, a ding!, and Quaver was full length, Lost Light spiraling out its point, and buried a foot into the surviving stone wall with one flicker-quick thrust. Without apparent effort, Kris rotated sideways on the hand holding the hilt of her Sword, flipping upside down on one arm and balancing without any effort, her long black hair not even bothering to fall down as it wrapped about her neck. There wasn¡¯t the slightest bend to Quaver at all. Kris began to bob up and down, flexing her upside-down one-handed push-ups, her long legs shifting only the minutest amount for balance, and she might as well have been working on a balance bar as the Sword just didn¡¯t bend at all. The Mick whistled at the show. Then Kris smiled, tapped Quaver, and suddenly the Blade sagged a full foot, bouncing and then snapping all the way up and back, as if suddenly made of rubber or something. Kris tossed herself a few feet into the air, reversed herself, and landed on the Blade as it snapped back to an obdurate bar, not giving a millimeter as she landed on it with one foot. The Mick clapped his hands in delight. ¡°Every smith I know would kill fer the secrets o¡¯ steel that can do that,¡± he declared honestly. ¡°The lugians will come crawling t¡¯ learn it!¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s worse than that,¡± I said, as Kris stepped back down onto the water, and the Sword that had impaled the stone and failed to move was pulled out of the rock as if it were greased, not stuck. ¡°Her Sword is made of adamantine. I don¡¯t know what the lugians call it, but in Isparian the source metal is worldbone. In the Matrix system, it¡¯s called tungsten.¡± ¡°Worldbone?¡± The Mick turned the name around on his tongue. ¡°I only heard some whispers about it as some unworkable metal, too resistant t¡¯ heat t¡¯ work on a forge without some incredibly powerful fire magic t¡¯ help. Ye said the source metal?¡± ¡°Pyreal is Air-Energized Gold, if you remember.¡± He nodded quickly. ¡°Adamantine is Earth-Energized worldbone.¡± He gave Quaver a look. ¡°So, ye made a damn-near impossible t¡¯ work metal even more impossible t¡¯ work?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Kris said, as Quaver shrank to a long dagger size, its spirals of Lost Light similarly contracting. ¡°But adamantine has two additional characteristics. The first is that it is twice as Hard and Tough as steel. The second is that it cuts through any substance less than its natural Hardness as if that substance has no Hardness.¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. She reached out, grabbed a thumb-sized chunk of raw steel on the Disk there, turned Quaver on edge, and dropped the steel on that edge from about a foot above it. There was a quiet protesting chink as the thin sliver of steel hit Quaver¡¯s edge, and was sliced neatly in two as it did so. The Mick¡¯s dark eyes narrowed intently. ¡°Damnation...¡± he managed to say. ¡°That must chew through enemy armor and weapons like nobody¡¯s business!¡± ¡°That¡¯s the narrow way.¡± She picked up one of the two chunks, and turned it the thick way, dropping it again. It hit the edge, but only sank through a millimeter before stopping, stuck there. ¡°To cut into something, you overcome Hardness, then attack Toughness, just like getting through armor before attacking the meat. So, armor will stand up to a certain amount of attacks, and considerably more if magically enhanced. Adamantine doesn¡¯t just pretend the armor is not there, but the armor will just have a lot more gouges, gashes, and holes in it than when dealing with a mere steel weapon.¡± ¡°But if they not be prepared for it...¡± the Mick hedged. ¡°Shattered swords, splintered spears, and broken shields behind you,¡± she nodded, smiling sweetly. ¡°Sundering Cleave is a very nice Feat for exactly that reason.¡± ¡°What about hides, shells?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°No real additional effect. Most organic Natural Armor is a combination of Toughness and thickness, not so much Hardness. Steel can cut most Natural Armor, so Adamantine can, too, it¡¯s just got to get through the rest of the stuff involved to get at what¡¯s important,¡± Kris pointed out as she flipped Quaver back home behind her waist. ¡°Hrm.¡± The Mick¡¯s dark eyes glittered. ¡°Be nice t¡¯ have something that could chew through olthoi shells.¡± ¡°If it relies on rigidity, adamantine can work on it. The real world effect, I¡¯m not sure. Halving the effectiveness of the natural armor? Ignoring the first so many points of it? The interactions with Natural Armor can be pretty complex, considering how many kinds there are.¡± ¡°Armor as Shell, Armor as Ablation, and Armor as Damage Reduction are all true,¡± I pointed out to both of them. ¡°It¡¯s just the real world is a bit more complex than one way or the other, here¡¯s some easy math.¡± Both he and Kris laughed softly. ¡°True,¡± the Mick said. ¡°Armor as shell¡­ making an attack bounce?¡± he asked, and we both nodded. ¡°Armor as ablation?¡± ¡°The armor takes the damage instead of you, until it can¡¯t take anymore and falls apart. Attacks which avoid the armor naturally are not ablated.¡± ¡°Huh. And Damage Reduction¡­ it softens the blow, but doesn¡¯t really take any damage itself?¡± He scratched his beard at the thought. ¡°You can see it best with blunt damage on leather. If someone slams you in the gut with a mace while you¡¯re wearing leather armor, some of the force gets through, but it is softened. The leather doesn¡¯t really take any damage while protecting you. ¡°Taking a hacking cut from a sword that doesn¡¯t bite into your breastplate, but you might end up with a bruise regardless, is another example,¡± Kris added. ¡°Aye, aye, I can see it. And various armors at better at certain things than other kinds, an¡¯ magic trips them all up somehow.¡± ¡°I think we¡¯re starting to see some of that start to manifest as magic becomes more complex,¡± Kris said. ¡°But, yes, the ratings on what can be done are not simple, but there¡¯s a damn reason humans have been wearing armor for all these years. Armor is very good at what it does, compared to not wearing armor. ¡°Magic, magic just makes things annoying.¡± I pursed my lips and looked away. ¡°It¡¯s like smart people try to come up with ways to get around armor, or something,¡± I said under my breath, and they both snickered at me. ¡°And the other side promptly decides to make it relevant again,¡± Kris rejoined with a haughty sniff. ¡°Are we done here? We can probably still get to the last site before dawn if we run.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t sense anything more. Let me Call up a minor Water Elemental and task it with emptying the place out. The next time anyone comes here, the floor should be dry enough to really agitate the K¡¯naths.¡± ¡°Mayhap even rebuild the first floor, then?¡± the Mick pondered, looking up at the remains of said floor another thirty feet above us, and the second floor ten feet above that. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone would turn down more shelter, and this basement is big enough for two, three stories in between, easy. Be a nice building project when I¡¯ve got more time,¡± I noted. His eyes widened slightly. ¡°Aye, ye can work with stone. Did ye fix the leaks and all?¡± he asked shrewdly. I pointed at a corner. ¡°You can¡¯t see it, but I put a drain into place there, while I was fixing the cracks in the walls. The pipe is getting clogged up on goo and gunk, however. The Elemental just has to keep the pipe clear, and this place will drain out within a day.¡± ¡°Ho, I can see me using this as an advanced base, then, if we are going t¡¯ be using it t¡¯ transit to the islands. I¡¯ll hold ye to the rebuilding then, lass!¡± the Mick said, as Kris hopped on another Disk, and all of us rose towards the entryway above. ¡°I¡¯ll get to work on some plans, Lord Mick,¡± I replied calmly, as we headed up and outside, the Mick calling up to his scouts to get ready to depart. --------- Before we departed, I took another tour around the Mansion there, putting up a low screening wall around it, fixing the steps going up the motte, and generally tidying up the place and leveling out the ground all around it. The Called Water Elemental didn¡¯t mind the task it was given. As soon as the water was all drained out, its job would be over, and Elementals always preferred water that was living and in motion to that which was still and stagnant. It didn¡¯t want to be in that dank pool any longer than was necessary, and so was quick about getting the water moving and pouring out through the pipeway I¡¯d extended down and out the hillside there. I¡¯ll have to do something a little more ecologically sound with the sewage when it is time, I considered, as everyone piled aboard the Wagon or accompanying Disks, Princess Kristie started running, and the rakishly shirtless Lord Mick matched her pace, to the hooting enjoyment of his female underlings who were with us. AF Chapter 116 – Nothing to see in this little Town The official name of the place was the Vesayan Overlook, as like the other two places we¡¯d been you could see the Vesayan island of Kryst on the horizon without much difficulty. Reaching the island, however, was virtually impossible. Cottages didn¡¯t have the problem with dimensional spaces returning that the Villas and Mansions did, and so didn¡¯t have structural problems. They also had very standardized designs, weren¡¯t built very efficiently, and didn¡¯t have the kind of space to be putting up treasures and trophies and the like. That said, there were a bunch of them, and they did have a chest each with dimensionally-expanded space inside, which had all naturally burst at the Fall. The cracked and shattered ownership crystals laying broken beside each of their doors were also ubiquitous. The thorp was in the shadow of the Snowtop Mountains, which meant lugians weren¡¯t far away, all of them considering all mountains their territory wherever they were. So, they came down from the mountains to here regularly, looking for trouble¡­ but oddly enough, had never wiped the buildings away, despite not having a lot of respect for anything built of wood instead of stone. Instead, the town had become a frequent brawling site between different tribes of creatures that wanted to use the buildings as the basis for a new settlement with access to the sea, the lairs of wandering creatures like reedsharks and shreth looking for suitable dens, and of course shelters for warbands on the move between the seas and mountains. The undead of Mayoi regularly came up here and cleaned everything out. If the lugians had one of their Summons bands ensconced here, it could turn out to be quite a fight, too. Yet somehow, the buildings were still roughly in shape, although there were a lot of holes in the roofs, burn marks, bashed doors, all the windows were basically shattered, and the internal furnishings had been ground up for cookfires or used as bedding in lairs. They were, however, surprisingly clean, as the undead also cleaned them out when they cleared them out. All of which meant when we rolled up that there were likely things to kill here, the scouts knew it, and fanned out with the discipline of experience to flush out what ended up being a whole pack of shreth that thought they¡¯d found great lairs. Hooved crush-jawed predators, including a Hunter Shreth taller than any of us, roared and rumbled and fought for their new territory. For their efforts, they were poked full of holes, the Hunter Shreth in charge getting a crossbow bolt under the jaw from Rogar to settle down its defense of the territory, and the shreth and the two litters there were all hunted down and killed. Which naturally led to skinning and butchering, as shreth steaks were a prime source of meat for the scouts and the hides were very much appreciated, as any form of good leather was. A lot of leather armor was made from shreth hides, although these hides were far from the highest quality. I noticed Princess Kristie standing over by one area, a frown on her face, not moving as she looked out over the sea about a mile away, the dark line of our goal for tonight there on the horizon. Dawn would come in about fifteen minutes, and nobody had really noticed what she was doing as the scouts efficiently got to work under the Mick¡¯s snapped orders, butchering the shreth and setting up pickets to make sure the smell didn¡¯t attract any reedsharks or anything from the area. Not using any explosive magic also helped not draw attention. ¡°I see a scowling princess, I tend to get curious,¡± I asked, walking up beside her. The amount of Healing I¡¯d had to do had been minimal, as the scouts were used to dealing with shreth, and spears and missile weapons had done most of the work. ¡°You choose spells after the dawn, right?¡± she asked in return. That didn¡¯t sound ominous, no. ¡°Yes? It¡¯s still my Renewal time. I¡¯d like to set it to midnight, but there¡¯s not been a free day to do that.¡± She waved slightly with her off hand. ¡°There¡¯s a dead scout buried under this mound here, about three feet down. It wouldn¡¯t have attracted my attention much, except the death wound is a knife wound in the back of the head, up through the cortex.¡± I couldn¡¯t help glancing at the nondescript stand of grass and weeds growing atop the patch of ground. Not even a bulge to indicate it was there, and buried deep enough nothing had dug it out. ¡°Someone hid a body in a high-traffic area, hoping that if it was disturbed, it would be rapidly torn apart?¡± I theorized slowly. ¡°You can access Speak with Dead, right?¡± was all she said. ¡°After Renewal, yes.¡± Clerical spells, just ask Heaven and if they approved, you got the spell. So different from grabbing after random Arcane spells. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°Find out who it is and why they were murdered. I¡¯m sure the Mick will have a good idea who it was.¡± ¡°How well can you read the body?¡± I asked her. ¡°I know it¡¯s a scout by the armor. Definitely male. No identifying jewelry, and if there are scars or tats Tremblesense can¡¯t read them. No idea how long it¡¯s been buried, although at least two years by the depth of the roots reaching down for him.¡± ¡°You should be a forensic investigator. Dug with magic, hands, claws, paws, or a shovel?¡± I asked her. She gave me a glance, then looked away as she read the ground. ¡°Interesting train of thought. A short shovel.¡± A variant of which was part of the kit of some of the scouts. It helped build sheltered fires and the like, as well as windbreaks to curl up in at night. We knocked on the Mick¡¯s mental door, he glanced our way, gave the scouts a last set of glares to make sure they were sharing the jobs properly, and stalked over our way, his scowl vanishing to an even smile as he glanced towards the coming sun. ¡°What can I do for ye lovely ladies?¡± he inquired, then saw Kris¡¯ face and let the winning smile slip. ¡°Bad news from something?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve told you of Tremblesense,¡± Kris replied, somewhat tersely, and he nodded, glancing at the ground automatically and seeing nothing there. ¡°It¡¯s an application of heavyfoot, allows you to see and sense anything solid within an area you are in contact with. Mostly, that¡¯s the ground.¡± She slowly raised and lowered her foot. ¡°It means you always know how good the ground is and where to put your feet. It also tends to reveal everything underneath where you are standing, which can also be interesting.¡± He followed her extended finger alertly as she lowered it to point directly down. ¡°There¡¯s a dead human scout three feet down that way, been there at least two years. He was knifed in the back of the head.¡± Lord Mick¡¯s eyebrows rose for just a moment, and then his dark eyes turned very hard. ¡°We take a lot o¡¯ pains to get the bodies o¡¯ our dead back,¡± he swore quietly. ¡°We¡¯ve been damn vicious about it if we had to be, an¡¯ we don¡¯t mess with the dead o¡¯ our enemies, save to burn them in fire an¡¯ send them off. There¡¯s not a lot of scouts who¡¯ve gone completely missing, because we operate in teams, an¡¯ survival is the key. Can¡¯t report if ye don¡¯t survive.¡± He paused a moment. ¡°Not a grave, not killed in a fight?¡± he asked for clarity. ¡°Is there a specific protocol you use for the dead?¡± Kris asked, just to be sure. ¡°Necklace o¡¯ copper.¡± He indicated the simple chain about his neck, a small pendant on it, no magic to it, just a symbol and a number. ¡°Tear off the necklace, bring it back with ye. A team will go out to recover the body, if we can.¡± She glanced down deliberately that way, filling the Markchat with her very clear impressions of the ground. The Mick and I shifted our attention through the scattered stones, dirt, layers of roots old and new, the thrumming of leaking energy from a ley line conduit down beyond actual sight, and the thing of worm-eaten meat and bones standing out in the rest of the stuff Right There, cold, silent, and unmoving in the dirt, but obviously not dirt itself. ¡°No necklace,¡± he muttered, looking the impression over. The long slice of the knife wound in the back of the head was readily sensed in the mummified flesh, definitely not an arrow wound or sword strike, dead flesh quite transparent to her Tremblesense. ¡°No jewelry, either.¡± Which meant he¡¯d been looted, as all the scouts wore at least a ring, somewhere, usually with a clan sign or name of their family on it. The Mick stared at the image for a moment, plainly having several names in mind. ¡°Can ye focus on his right foot,¡± he asked at last. Princess Kristie stepped sideways, and began to tap her feet with profound strength. Miniscule vibrations spread out on waves of Crystal ki, washing through the ground with ever more detail as she alternated feet to get dual images and consolidate them. And there it was, inside his boot. The Mick sighed as he saw the missing little toe inside the decaying woolen sock and leather, the bone gone and not in the soil anywhere about it. ¡°It¡¯s Ian.¡± He took a deep breath, but his expression didn¡¯t soften. ¡°Well, that be a relief an¡¯ a curse alike. Fer some reason, he don¡¯t seem to have died forty miles t¡¯ the northwest scouting out the undead trying to find the Deru tree what was in the area, who took his body t¡¯ make an undead slave out of an¡¯ all.¡± Kris and I just looked at one another. ¡°I gather he was on a team, and they returned with his necklace and ring?¡± Kris asked with a dangerous edge to her voice. ¡°Of course, fine, loyal chaps that they were, doing their duty proudly. Not mentioning that someone knifed him an¡¯ they buried him were only them being discreet an¡¯ not wanting to upset the higher-ups, be sure of it.¡± His completely droll delivery belied the ice in his gaze. ¡°You knew him?¡± Kris persisted keenly. ¡°Aye. Ian, tagged ¡®Foefinder¡¯ o¡¯ the Radiant Blood because he were so good at sussing out where the Celestial Hand and Eldrytch Web were going about finding stuff, not t¡¯ mention the virindi an¡¯ the undead. He were injured in the escape from Cragstone, got his little toe cut off, an¡¯ were called ¡®Ninetoes¡¯ ever after that. ¡°He were one of the officers who sent out people on missions fer the Radiant Blood. Experienced, committed, very independent fellow who had no use for a High Queen o¡¯f New Aluvia and whatnot¡­ until so many o¡¯ us died in the Fall, an¡¯ the Queen and Prince showed their character in the face of so many of our own acting like, well, the total self-interested twats we are.¡± I could imagine the utter failure of his Society to deal with what had happened would vastly disillusion someone who actually believed in the professed ideals of it. ¡°He changed his coat?¡± I asked without judgment. ¡°Aye. The Radiant Blood¡¯s ideals did nae match the reality of what so many o¡¯ the Society actually did when the chips were down. Why, I¡¯m sure it were not a coincidence that he were in contention for the position the lovely Miss Swiftfoot holds right now.¡± Kris tilted her head slightly. ¡°And you were shuffled off into training new recruits, instead of taking control of experienced scout teams.¡± ¡°Surely that were a coincidence too, it were,¡± he replied blandly, but his eyes were black diamonds. AF Chapter 117 – A Silent Skull Speaks Speak with Dead was only a Valence III, so I had no problem Slotting it. In service to Truth, it was considered White Necromancy, because it only asked questions of the dead, it didn¡¯t enslave them. It was a mandatory spell for the Priests of Harse who embraced His aspect as the Judge of the Dead. It could be abused, by taking advantage of the dead to make them tell you things they would never have done so while living, but it didn¡¯t otherwise bind or control them. The actual spirit of the dead was almost never involved, just a shadow of them empowered by the vivimancy of the spell. A Salute to the Morning, which the Scouts all participated in now after experiencing the real benefits of it, and they got back to their butchering while I Meditated on spells. After that, I then set up the simple ritual, Shaping the tools needed from the local stone. I was not coming into this with hostility or force, so there should be little resistance. Indeed, Justice was first and foremost on my mind, and the remnants of his spirit should be fairly keen to avenge himself. ¡°Ian the Foefinder, Ian Ninetoes, Ian of the Radiant Blood, Ian of the Rossu Mortu, Ian of the Royal Scouts,¡± I intoned, Lord Mick helpfully supplying me with the names of Ian¡¯s past, things he might be tied strongly to and identify with. ¡°Rise up, old bones, stir from your rest. Your heart is unquiet, and there are final matters to attend. I will help you set things at ease, and then you can sleep until all is quiet.¡± Magic both dark and light swirled under me, death magic that didn¡¯t inflict death, speaking with the departed. Positive energy gave life to the remnants left behind, and slowly something rose out of the ground in the shadow of the cottage where I¡¯d set up, staring at me for a moment with the blank eyes of the dead. He¡¯d been a tall, broad-shouldered man, shaven bald, with scars on face and eyes, his self-image preserved despite his body mummified and rotting below us. ¡°Nod if you recognize the man behind me.¡± It wasn¡¯t a question, it was up to the spirit, and it nodded after a moment¡¯s hesitation as it studied the Mick. ¡°We have discovered your body, and the fact you have been murdered. Our intent here is to find out all the relevant facts we can about your death, and bring your killers to justice. Nod if you understand this.¡± Again, not a question. Voluntarily, he nodded his spectral head after another moment. ¡°Ian Ninetoes, if you would relate to us the circumstances of your death, as a Royal Scout would so report?¡± The coming response could be incredibly literal, incredibly misdirecting, incredibly terse, or quite verbiose, depending upon the spirit. Empowered by the spell, the spirit spoke, ¡°My squad was in the abandoned Vesayan Overwatch settlement, taking cover for the night as we prepared to pass back to Mayoi, and then press north to investigate an undead incursion into the woods surrounding the Deru Tree at the Viridian Rise. I was taking my turn at watch, the second night shift, the other three members of my squad were resting. I sensed just the faintest shadow of a presence before something grabbed my jaw, and all went dark.¡± I glanced back at the Mick. ¡°Well, I gather ye didn¡¯t make it to the hills near Baishi where the undead were said to have caught and killed ye, Ian,¡± the Mick remarked laconically, clearly not discomfited by the presence of the spirit, who looked reassured at the remark. ¡°Master Ian, to the best of your knowledge and ability, why would someone have murdered you?¡± I inquired calmly. The spirit¡¯s hesitation and the expression crossing his incorporeal face indicated there was more to it than what was obvious. ¡°There are two reasons I may have been killed. One, Aisley Swiftfoot was contesting with me for a higher position in the Royal Scouts hierarchy. She is a ruthless woman who is not above eliminating her competition if it will serve her aims.¡± And he paused. ¡°Continue,¡± I ordered, not making it a question, not letting him delay and let the rest of his answer fade. He was compelled to order, could feel my will behind the command, and could only helplessly continue on. ¡°I had been getting information fed to me by a Handmaiden of Xik Minru on the movements of the undead.¡± The words came out unwillingly, but they did come out. ¡°I did not solicit nor seek out such information, but for some reason the Handmaiden chose me to receive it. The information was both clean and timely, and I never encountered her in the flesh, only a sending, but it may have been witnessed regardless. If someone had observed me receiving such information from the loathsome thing, it may have been reason to think I was a pawn of the undead and remove me.¡± The Mick grunted behind me, clearly a little surprised by that, but not overmuch. ¡°Well, ye did have all kinds of sources, back in the day, Ian,¡± he said without judgment, and the spirit¡¯s troubled expression eased slightly. ¡°What, if any things would you like us to accomplish to set your thoughts and soul at ease?¡± I asked, not lingering on the fact. Spectral eyes flickered. ¡°See my killer brought to justice. Ensure that my name is not blemished. I would desire that you tell Prince Borelean that I was proud to serve under him, that my Loyalty in no way was compromised, and I was faithful to him and our people until the end.¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I nodded, as did Lord Mick. ¡°For the sake of completion, if you would name the members of your squad who participated in covering this up, and those who might have known of it?¡± The spirit of Ian Ninetoes rattled the names off, none that I knew of having been mentioned before, possibly peers of the Mick who operated solely on scouting endeavors and not on training the younger folk to do the job. The Mick¡¯s grunts indicated his complete lack of surprise at the mention of the three names, although the additional four drew a frown from him. ¡°Is there any other matter you care to bring to our attention before you go, Master Ian? Something that will otherwise die with you?¡± I asked him, preparing to let him go. ¡°The Deru Trees are the greatest impediment to the undead taking control of the ley line network of Dereth, and the Viridian Rise is the greatest of the Deru Trees of Dereth. You cannot let them take control of it. ¡°I¡­ have a stash in the forests outside of Kryst. Potions, and gemstones, and pyreal, such as I was able to scrape together over time. It is located at¡­¡± he mumbled things about trees and buildings and paces, and the Mick nodded along, doubtless following mentally. ¡°I¡¯ll see that it gets to your daughter, Ian,¡± he grunted. Spectral eyes widened as a smile bloomed on the spirit¡¯s face. ¡°I have a daughter¡­¡± he whispered, and if there was sublime satisfaction on his face as I released any hold on him, his eyes closed, and he was allowed to dissipate. I was plenty sure that at the end, the peace coming from him wasn¡¯t for doing his duty to his chosen lord. I reached out to pound the Mick¡¯s hip lightly. ¡°Well-timed, and well-done, Lord Mick,¡± I told him quietly. ¡°Aye, I been keeping tabs on her and her mother, there in Kryst. She¡¯s a baker there, makes excellent trailbread, an¡¯ I be a steady customer. Mayhap we can stop by, give her fair value for Ian¡¯s little retirement fund.¡± He shook his head slightly. ¡°Strange, but she never mentioned those three ever visiting her when I stopped by. Just the roaches an¡¯ me, as it were.¡± ¡°Well, you¡¯re all a bunch of self-interested arseholes. Am I correct in judging those three are Web or Blood?¡± ¡°One Blood, two Web. Chulie had a nasty reputation among us, wanted to take anything not moving. If ye shared monster loot drops, he¡¯d suck it all in for himself, and be more about the looting than the fighting. Odd that he¡¯d not share the wealth so much after, however.¡± His face was deadpan flat. ¡°Nudik were assumed to be a Tanada agent working fer the Web. Klover were known to have absolute lust fer magical power the undead might give her, wanting her own undead servants and the like, and ta live forever. ¡°I¡¯d not trust a one of them with me gold or life if a single coin were on the table. Speakin¡¯ from the point o¡¯ not being too different from them meself during me heyday,¡± he pronounced dryly. ¡°What of someone judging him for the undead stuff?¡± I asked. ¡°Possible, but not that lot. They¡¯d¡¯ve blackmailed him instead, looking fer an angle to profit from. Me thoughts be that they were bought off, or mayhap even warned off, or both, as someone brought in an assassin t¡¯ off Ian. He were a skilled scout, weren¡¯t no normal killer going to be able to take him out. Especially with a knife.¡± He had an odd look on his face, a shadow of worry that wasn¡¯t there before. ¡°You¡¯re thinking you know the assassin?¡± ¡°Knife-work kill on a Scout master? I be thinking Oswald the Green Hunter his own self, aye,¡± the Mick admitted. ¡°The same one who killed that banderling Gertarh permanently?¡± I remembered. ¡°Aye, the same one. Considered the best assassin in Dereth, not that a number of them weren¡¯t trying for his head. Especially after he an¡¯ Nuhmudira had their falling out after him what failed to kill Queen Elysa at Nuhmudira¡¯s order, an¡¯ him taking all the heat an¡¯ her none o¡¯ the blame. He hadn¡¯t any use for Web or Blood after that, an¡¯ he used to take out whole teams o¡¯ agents on both sides an¡¯ send ¡®em to the stones, just to remind everyone that he was still out there. Kind of a learnin¡¯ experience for a lot of folks, especially once they realized he could have made sure they didn¡¯t go to the stones.¡± ¡°That would be a rather bloodchilling lesson in proper manners. Yet he took the time to kill Ian? Are you sure it was him?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Not at all, it could be someone near his skill level. He had some rivals who never got a wake-up call on how many people loved the Queen back then. I¡¯d heard he¡¯d stopped taking contracts, but that didn¡¯t mean his peers did, nor any students he might have had, an¡¯ he did have a few o¡¯ those, too. ¡°But if there were a killer who¡¯d off Ian for dealing with undead for no coin, Oswald would definitely top me list.¡± ¡°You¡¯re just a bundle of welcome news, Lord Mick. Am I to hazard by your words that there is an actual assassin¡¯s guild or the like in Dereth?¡± ¡°Aye, there is. Some o¡¯ them made the trip from Ispar an¡¯ brought their ways with them. I be imagining a number o¡¯ them died during the Fall like all else, an¡¯ a number o¡¯ them survived an¡¯ are making their services available. P¡¯raps even t¡¯ the undead, who do like their easily bought-off pawns an¡¯ minions. Huh...¡± He blinked and glanced away. I could see where his thoughts were taking him. ¡°You¡¯re thinking it¡¯s possible that one of the undead realized Ian was acting on ¡®good information¡¯ from somewhere, and so paid an assassin to off him, the pawn of one undead taking out the pawn of another.¡± ¡°It be their way, a tit-fer-tat usin¡¯ lesser beings t¡¯ shift the playing board around. If that were the case, it weren¡¯t Oswald, as he had less use fer undead than fer dirt on his feet. He might even find the time t¡¯ kill the fool takin¡¯ pyreal from the undead, after what were done t¡¯ us by them.¡± ¡°If that is true, then there¡¯s also the possibility of a deeper game at play, one meant to draw him out¡­ and we aren¡¯t seeing all the pieces in motion,¡± I noted. He grimaced. ¡°We¡¯d have to find the killer¡­ or what¡¯s left o¡¯ them.¡± ¡°And I¡¯m thinking that there¡¯s a trio of fellows who¡¯ll point us in the right direction, although you may have to drag them out to the Shoreward, prop them in front of a hungry remoran, and ask your questions while pointing out the Shoreward doesn¡¯t stop corpses,¡± I acknowledged. ¡°Huh. An¡¯ they won¡¯t have any idea when or where I¡¯ve made it back t¡¯ the islands, if¡¯n we¡¯re not usin¡¯ the Portal.¡± His eyes narrowed slightly. ¡°Ye said before ye can look inta the hearts of others an¡¯ see their Color, like lookin¡¯ through the Door.¡± He didn¡¯t tap the side of his head, but he thought it. ¡°This lot?¡± he asked, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at his students and subordinates, still working busily away and chatting softly as they did. ¡°You made some good choices, Lord Mick,¡± was all I said. He smiled in relief, and turned away. ¡°I¡¯m going t¡¯ talk t¡¯ them about some things we might have to do in the night t¡¯ protect our own.¡± AF Chapter 118 – A Foray into Strange Seas Excitement for the day was over. There was no intact magic pulled out of any of the cottages, to nobody¡¯s surprise. The salvage and scrap, however, was much harder to clear out, and was basically swept aside as junk and detritus in most cases, there but just trash. As a result, it wasn¡¯t hard to find what did remain, and it wasn¡¯t a small amount, given the number of Cottages scattered around. However, it was also being Burned away at great speed, as we split all the findings with the Royal Scouts, who had all Named their Weapons and had their own little geegaws they wanted to power up and help them out. Kris did her eight hours of Investing, helping the scouts do the same, then worked on getting the Wagon ready for the overchannel trip. Using her new Mask of Clarity she was easily able to see the angle and run she should be using, and the sun would be setting behind the mountains, so the shadow would make night come early. We¡¯d be able to take off very soon after dusk, and she wanted to be ready for it. The razored prow we¡¯d made up for the Wagon was mounted on the front, razored steel over reinforced Shaped Stone, just for the recalcitrant things at sea that might want to get in our way. She didn¡¯t want to have to ram anything, but if we had to, it was going to hurt. Especially if I dropped Greater Magical Weapon onto it, in addition to the other kinds of reinforcing I had to do. I couldn¡¯t Ironwood yet, as it was a IV, but in time. The Scouts were a bit worried the Wagon could carry them all, but that wasn¡¯t an issue. Putting a couple Castings of Mass Disk up under it gave multiple tons of weight limit, and they were all slaved to the master Disk under the front seat. Touch that, and everything was absolutely fine. Their only problem would be holding on, and we also put in a Shaped windbreak up on the front. Even crystallized it, so it could be seen through. Handles on the top to hang on to, or of course they could just ride inside, backs up against the seats and furniture, if they so desired. None dared to, not wanting to miss the sights of riding on the top of it. I spent my rep count time working on Vulnerability to Slashing on the Isparian side of the equation. Most of the aquatics had proven to have some vulnerability to Fire or Slashing damage over time, and using Whirling Blade could turn Shards into slicing crescents instead of typeless damage, with a nicely improved crit rate on top of things. The Scouts were all prepping broadhead and crescent-tip bolts and arrows in expectation of trouble, which hopefully should be minimized with our speed and the shortness of the run. Also, they were going to be Invisible, the miracle of which they¡¯d already experienced once and didn¡¯t have to be told about again. To whatever was waiting, Kris would look like the only thing that was out there running across the surface, a novel enough thing that it should surprise them. We knew there were species that could glide above the ground and surface, if not outright fly, and the Mick had assured us they could move damn fast when doing so, as fast or faster than the fastest humans had been able to achieve. Well, it basically meant I had two tactics I could use for dissuasion. I could blast the crap out of them with Toppling Shards, which would knock them out of the air and mess with any pursuit, or I could drop a Slow on them, and Kris would then outrun them without any difficulty, but they wouldn¡¯t actually be harmed. An Emerald Shards would paralyze them, but that wouldn¡¯t necessarily stop magical flight, which worked on will, not physics. Likewise, doing a Stillflight Field might be a bad idea when your ride was mounted on Disks and your engine was someone Lightfooting it across the water. A Wingbind, the targeted Stillflight, was an option, but I¡¯d never Surged for it, so c¡¯est la vie. I would have more success landing the Shards than a Slow or a Slashing Vuln. We¡¯d already seen a broad range of the aquatics, and after that meet and greet with the Tremendous Monuga, the Mick had made it plain the things deeper in the lake were going to be nothing but more common versions of the stuff we would meet in the seas. That, of course, begged the question of how this society could have any kind of naval presence at all. The size of the stuff in the sea here was huge, they were magically powerful, intelligent, old, and really didn¡¯t like us land-dwellers much. Anything that was put out to sea in this world was likely just sending out free lunch to inquisitive ocean-dwellers. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. But then, of course, there was the fact this island was just sucking in so goddamn much magic to power its effects, and the simple fact that it could maintain Shorewards of such size and efficacy spoke volumes, all by itself. So did the fact that there weren¡¯t any remains of Empyrean ports anywhere we¡¯d seen as yet, despite both Hebian-to and Mayoi being ideal locations to set up actual harbors for ocean-going vessels. It was an island: out of necessity, it had to have developed ports, right? The original inhabitants weren¡¯t natives to this place! There were none. As if the natives didn¡¯t dare to go out onto the seas without very, very good reason, and/or a whole lot of magic on their side¡­ or said ports had been emphatically wiped out enough to lose all signs of them. Kris wasn¡¯t discouraged, of course. In the Power of Ten game, Sama had been the only person who could reliably get a ship from the mainland to the jungle island and high-level playground of Coralost. Teleport was interdicted by expanses of water, and there were rifts in the skies which horrendously distorted Linejumps, while trying to fly the whole way was asking for some horribly dangerous Elementals or aerial creatures to take a shine to you. Taking to the seas had also stirred up monstrosities to take a run at you, but the Intrepid had considered such things to be entertainment and Karmic bonuses, not truly dangerous. The krakens and sahaug and sea demons and sea serpents and undead whales and the like she ran into found themselves agreeing with her, often to their own surprise. The problem wasn¡¯t as bad back on Terra-Luna, as the large numbers of aquatics weren¡¯t there, and there were things fighting back against such creatures taking over our seas, often Jotuns of various levels of friendliness themselves, as well as the various whales. The Hardmen and other Wavelocks weren¡¯t allies of the invading aquatic races, either, as the world¡¯s oceans knew what was native and what was not, and if they weren¡¯t respected, neither did the Father Oceans care for infestations in turn. They were The Shit in the Seas. It was the reason that in any reasonable magical world, nobody was going to have cities on the oceans. It was just too damn easy to get overrun and destroyed by the things that lived there. We had no hopes whatsoever for friendly relationships with the creatures of the oceans. The Mick had made plain The Deep saw us as little more than expendable tools, and its moarsman servants were always hostile, while the various niffis, nefanes, remorans, sleeches, and the like were ¡®turn to acidic sludge first, give a damn later¡¯. --- ¡°Ye¡¯re still keen t¡¯ do this, Highness?¡± the Mick asked one more time from his seat on the front of the Wagon. ¡°You just keep your eyes open and mouth shut, Lord Mick,¡± she responded, down to shirt and shorts, bare feet streaming the Waveskating Step, long legs and killer butt on display, plainly ready to move, even her long dark hair braided behind her. She was Breathing, taking in more than lungs could hold, swirls of Rising and Racing Winds adding in as she prepared herself for pure speed. The men were enjoying the sight, but plainly she wasn¡¯t going to back down. She was on the shore, standing behind a convenient boulder as the last of the light slipped away behind the shadow of the mountains to the west. The Wagon was completely invisible, as were those on top of it. I was sitting on the very back of it, eyes wide behind, while a Detect Aquatics at III and Detect Aberrants at III, long-cast and attuned for natural surroundings, ranged out three hundred paces in front of the Wagon in a sixty-degree arc, the details of which I was feeding to both the Mick and the Princess. Anything we ran into was likely to be Aquatic, but the tentacle-dripping shelled things were also Aberrants, and we wanted to know if any of them were ahead of us. I was looking backwards because I had better night vision than the Mick did as yet, him getting his Levels one by one, day by day, and having a lot of things to pick up. Time the ally, time the enemy, depending on what you wanted. ¡°Hold on tight, everyone!¡± Kris shouted, bracing herself, inhaling one last time, ki swirling unseen a last time about her Vajra. Then she was around the edge of the stone, a trot becoming a run, a run becoming a sprint, and a sprint becoming a speedskating blur of motion as she hit the water a hundred meters away from her starting point in under five seconds, and we were all in motion. The shore here was shallow for a hundred meters out, the lulling motion of the waves on the shore lapping lazily. The only things on Detects were scattered schools of scavenger fish, likely using the Shoreward as shelter from things bigger and stronger hunting them, a fact preyed upon by what fishermen along the shores worked them, giving them improbably-good hauls for the shallow water they were in. I couldn¡¯t Holo our progress to the rest of the scouts without betraying the fact to anything watching that the Wagon was keeping easy pace with Kris just an arm¡¯s-length away as we picked up speed. Then the Wagon shifted over behind Kris as she expanded her Null to full, and she rammed into the Shoreward. The Ward was only tangible in the spiritual sense. We could throw rocks through it, shoot bows through it, even launch magic through it¡­ but we couldn¡¯t physically pass it unless it didn¡¯t regard us as intelligent or a threat. It was obviously tuned to let through non-intelligent fish for a food source, for instance, but would only allow in the smallest of aquatic predators in turn, or perhaps their random eggs. Likewise, we couldn¡¯t get out. As soon as the water was deep enough, the Shoreward kicked in and we couldn¡¯t pass. Not being an actual field of force, but an abjurative ¡®Thou Shalt Not Pass¡¯ effect, her Null hit it like a load of solid magic, and punched a hole in it instantly. There was nothing of relevance except a couple sharks within range, and they weren¡¯t going to be leaping out of the water to pass through the Shoreward before it auto-sealed. Kris was out into the open waters and power-skating for the Vesayan islands! AF Chapter 119 – Kruising to Kryst I wasn¡¯t looking at the sea floor, but the arc of my Detects made it plain the sea bottom was dropping away as more and more things were popping up further and further down, and they were growing rapidly in size. I didn¡¯t have the hours of time I would need to focus on which creatures were which, and be able to Assay them right through a Detect yet. Learning to identify things at that level of detail required hours of practice and fine-tuning sensitivity to the magic, exactly like learning to sift the details of Evil out a rote Detect required for Casters, Paladins, and Heavenbound alike. So, that said, I could basically only Detect the location and ¡®size¡¯ of what was out there, which could itself be very misleading. The Magical Beasts could well be smaller than many of the creatures there, but were far more dangerous, and the Detect would ping them as ¡®bigger¡¯ for that. Aberrants almost certainly were, which was why I had both Detects up at the same time. The dual-feed of the Detects would zero in on exactly what the Aberrant was, and hope to heck we didn¡¯t run into a big pack of them prowling around the place. Nobody thought that was going to happen. Princess Kristie¡¯s progress was fast and quiet, but still visible, streaks of motion cutting across the surface of the water. Sure, whatever was below might not see more than a distorted blur, but they were still be able to see her. From there, it was shout-outs underwater, done by clicks and screeches and shrieks and snaps and whatever, traveling through the sea at close to Mach 5, something we couldn¡¯t outrun and which could potentially enable them to circle us and close us down. Whatever, Kris was moving, and they were going to have a time of it if they wanted to intercept her and outrun her. The goal was to hit a speed of 60 mph, which was pretty much the fastest any natural creature could achieve in the water. That translated to about 500 feet per six seconds. Her base racial speed as a Rantha/8 was 50, with +10 from Fast Movement, +15 from Dash upped by Melee Levels, and +10 from a Succubus Mark, bringing her to a sweet 85 base speed, able to run twice as fast as most human sprinters, and all but the very fastest of horses. Using the Run Feat, she could do x5 movement at max speed in a straight line, which was 425 feet in six seconds. Her Lightfoot gave her three advances, at 1/3 her base speed each time, taking her up to 170 equivalent. I wanted to slap a Run spell on her, but it wouldn¡¯t stack with her Lightfoot, so I didn¡¯t bother. It was fine. 850 feet in six seconds, 8500 feet a minute. About 95 mph, around 150 kph. There shouldn¡¯t be anything in the seas that was faster than that. The waters just wouldn¡¯t allow it without truly gargantuan strength and magical power, in which case we were hosed, anyway. Like, if Godzilla wanted to catch us, it was going to happen. They¡¯d probably have to breach the surface to achieve that speed, however. Reasonably certain we couldn¡¯t be caught normally, and the scouts were all trying not to laugh and shriek with joy with how fast Kris was going as she pumped for velocity, we moved out over the waves. Ping! The Aberrant was sixty feet down and off to our left, the most dangerous thing in its area, avoided by all other life-forms, including those that were nominally at its level. Wait, no, it was being shadowed by a school of four other forms of similar Challenge Rating, but not Aberrants. Likely one of the niffis or sleeches, and a guardian pack of servant remorans. Alternate senses the things could use included lateral lines and echolocation, neither of which were going to tell them squat as Kris shot by overhead, and the Wagon cruised invisibly past above the waves right next to her. The things definitely responded to the sudden passage, beating towards the surface as we swept by. ¡°We¡¯ve company coming up behind,¡± Kris¡¯ Voice informed the scouts, ignoring the howling of the wind streaming past. ¡°Don¡¯t panic or react unless we tell you to, but hold on to those grips if I have to juke.¡± With multiple eruptions of sparkling spray, the sleech and four remorans breached behind us and came down on the surface of the sea, still not taking actual flight. Predator instincts instantly sent them after Kris, going after fleeing prey, and they hurled themselves in our direction. The shelled sleech, looking like a nautilus mollusk on roids, hurtled after us with pure magic, while the remorans had to beat leathery wings, but kept pace with their master without much effort. Hah, that looked like a base move of 90 out of water, a basic Flight magic speed. Kris was Running at 170, there was no way they could catch her V8 heels. Eat her saltspray, suckers! 90 was also about the maximum speed of a standard Lightfooter not using stacking speed shenanigans to really motor along, which explained how they were able to keep pace with the running high-level humans in the past. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Or, I considered, it is also the triple-speed boost of the Exemplar Template, which so much of what the humans here had gained seemed to duplicate. I noted the shell and hide patterns were different from those I¡¯d seen previously. The remorans had gray hides lined with purple, while the shell of the sleech was tightly-wound blacks and greens. I fed the view to the Mick, who was watching the Detects like a hawk, and he stared at the feed intently for several seconds before admitting he¡¯d never seen the color patterns before. Par for the course. The vast majority we¡¯d seen had been raised in either shallow or fresh waters, while the Summons he was aware of were influenced by the magic of the formerly-submerged islands to the north. The flock of aquatics couldn¡¯t possibly keep the pace, and they quickly realized it. I didn¡¯t hear the command, but I felt the magic coalescing, and fed Kris my eyes as the five creatures ¡®glided¡¯, bringing magic into play with more speed than a human could and not slowing down while they did it. Hissing Pyreal and Platinum-grade magic spat out at us. The scouts behind me all swore at the size and vivid sheen of the magic, far beyond the levels of what they normally saw. It was at least equal to that employed by the insane Shades of Tou-Tou, or the most powerful of the undead. If that stuff hit us, or hit Kris, we were indeed hosed. It wasn¡¯t going to happen, of course. Kris had speed to spare, and juking sideways slightly was easily done without actually sacrificing any lead. We were still pulling away as she slid right, and we watched those racing blasts of shining green acid, whirling blades of force, and spiraling needles of piercing death shoot on past and by us¡­ and not by us very far, before the gathered magic destabilized and collapsed back into random motes of magic. Before they could possibly Cast again, Kris was out of their spell range and pulling away with every step, never looking back as she did so. They tried to maintain pursuit, but it was fruitless. Kris was hurtling along and covering ground nearly twice as fast as they were, something they¡¯d likely never encountered. With her incredible Constitution, she could maintain this sprint for miles and miles. She hadn¡¯t even pulled out Speedy Soul to buff her running speed, saving that for a true emergency, as the Soul Magic would be kind of showy when it lit her Vajra up and turned her into a Golden-footed blur of motion. Save that for when she really had to make an impression. --- The aquatics finally dove back into the water in sulky sprays of sea water, not that they were done messing with us. ¡°They are calling for help, I can hear them clicking through the water,¡± Kris informed everyone. Both of us promptly had the same thought: if we could get them talking for an hour, we could learn their language! I tilted my head to listen to the feed. Sounded, not unexpectedly, like a bitter and spiteful blend of the Elemental language of Water called Hydrus, and Aklo, the discordant and rules-free mad language of the Aberrants. Well, that would mean Kris would have to put on a Breathing Mask, go out and sit underwater, and listen to them yakking while I listened in so we could engage Polyglot. Loved that Feat. The only way to learn languages!¡­ except maybe inheriting them from your spiritual progenitor, but we couldn¡¯t have everything, right? We probably wouldn¡¯t like what they had to say, but then Kris could assail them with The Trembling Song and see how they dealt with Heartsong and an Intimidation check in the ¡®Flee! Flee!¡¯ range. There were faint cheers from the scouts as our pursuers fell away, and the islands themselves were coming up at a cheerful clip. It was only a shade over five miles, Kris could easily maintain this clip the whole distance, and that didn¡¯t give the aquatics a lot of time to respond to much¡­ Which didn¡¯t mean no time, so we were still on alert. ------ The first alert we had was the number of creatures down low dropped off abruptly. Well, stopped, and then began to rise. It was the opposite of getting deeper. The sea floor was suddenly getting much, much shallower, the number of creatures hugging the surface and populating the slope increased by an order of magnitude. ¡°Coral reef?¡± I guessed aloud, having to focus not to turn around. Something big moved into the area of the Detect, and Kris instantly swerved aside. Some of the scouts who¡¯d relaxed a bit cursed reflexively, as they had to clutch at their rungs at the abrupt direction change as Kris veered off. The sea floor was rising on the edges of the coral, and something had been moving along it, waiting for us, and was now rising to our flanks as Kris veered abruptly away from it. Detect Aberrants said it was not a natural creature, and nine¡¯ll get you ten it could also feel the Divination magic, too. Aberrants were famously sensitive to intrusive stuff like that, so I very, very deliberately did not sweep my nominally passive scan back in its direction. It was about fifty yards away when it breached the surface. Pink shell, orange and green patterns to it, and thirty bloody feet tall. It had a full dozen tentacles drooping down from it, magic fluttering about it with a lot of power, and I heard the Mick swear in alarm as it came up. I also saw a shift in its lightless eyes as it registered the Invisible Wagon at Kris¡¯ side. She had its location and shifted direction smoothly to directly away from it. When the spell came screaming off, a buzzsaw of a Whirling Blade a full six feet across, she veered aside sharply again, the scouts clamping down on their shouts of alarm as they saw the shell of the looming nefane or sleech or whatever it was (I wasn¡¯t going to Assay it!) looming considerably higher than the Wagon, even its head protruding down and out of its massive shell floating above the water higher than we were. It had still aimed at Kris. She slid aside from it without effort, the blades of force spinning past an inch from her arm and heading into the water, tearing up a nice spray as they churned through it like a blender, continuing on just like a Hydrous spell. The spell shredded a half-dozen smaller fish attracted to the motion and riveted by the light just long enough for it to sweep by and process them into chum. It didn¡¯t seem to like the fact it had missed, and it surged after us, tons of not-mollusk-squid and shell on the move. Pings ahead of us. Kris promptly headed right over the coral shelf, the scouts staying absolutely silent at the shift as she resumed course for Kryst, just as a flight of bright yellow remorans twice the dimensions of those we¡¯d seen earlier came shooting out of the ocean ahead of us. They¡¯d plainly been expecting her to run right into the midst of them and be swarmed, but she¡¯d responded too soon, and she was moving too fast. They tried to swoop around and intercept her, beating hard as they fixated on her, while the whale-sized nefane was zooming after us, pulling on more mana¡­ AF Chapter 120 – Scoot and Shoot! Well, someone else is going to become visible, I reckoned, and flicked up my Shards. The Aquatics all instantly saw the dozen poly-colored Force Magic manifest, especially since it was wound about with several colors of magic totally anathemic to them, Banespell to Aquatics working just fine, and Holy magic being totally outside their realm of knowledge. If I put up Bane to Aberrants and started hitting the big one with Cerulean effects, I wondered what it would think, and decided I didn¡¯t need to cause that level of alarm. The watery red Banefire to Aquatics was hostile enough to them, even if their blood wasn¡¯t red. Four oversized boss remorans and one big-arse floating nautiloid thing got to eat a dozen Toppling Shards, one for each of the flying stingrays, eight for the big thing as I didn¡¯t want that spell it was gathering mana for going off. The instant I let them go, I also became visible, not just the Shards. Lidless eyes shifted to me, but there was no dodging what I was throwing. Shards moved very fast and if these were not auto-directed, they were still guided by thought and will, even if they weren¡¯t bullets. An expanded rainbow of Shards, ROYGBIV expanded to include Black, White, Gray, Cowspots and Reverse Cowspots, shot out in glittering, divergent spirals. The pack of remorans was only ten yards off, and were hit practically instantly. The big one, eighty yards back, had an extra lidblink before a bunch of kinetic energy smacked it in the face. Isparian magic was really hard to disrupt once it got going, and that thing and the remorans were plainly using the primogenitor version of it. It didn¡¯t matter, as this was a contested check against my Intellect + Caster Level, and I had a functioning 25 Caster Level with Shards right now. Even their sizes didn¡¯t save the remorans, who were smacked out of the air like they¡¯d run into I-beams, spiraling away and crashing into the ocean in tumbling, awkward sprays of water and wrenching wingflaps, hopefully breaking some bones at the very awkward landings. The big thing ate the Shards on one tentacle per. I was totally aware the thing had far too much Health Qi for me to do anything to it, but the Shockwave split up among the Shards still meant it was a lot of kinetic force, aimed specifically to just knock stuff around. The nautiloid thing was blasted spinning, and the huge green blast of magical acid it let off went sailing randomly into the sky as it spun around wildly, tentacles whipping out with inertia. One of them dragged in the water, physics did its thing, and it slammed sideways down into the surface of the sea and skidded along before going under in confusion, probably disoriented by the inexplicable turn (hah!) of events. The remorans were thrashing feebly in the water over there, likewise stunned and confused, and Kris just motored away from them, out of range of their magic within seconds. ¡°Nice ambush,¡± the Mick muttered tersely, Markchat carrying his words clearly. ¡°I hope it lives there and I can hunt it down and kill it one day,¡± Kris said without actual words, cold and grim. The Mick just snorted at the typical reply, then his eyes narrowed at the thought of doing the exact same thing. There were large blips ahead of us, but they seemed to be confused, and too deep to actually do anything, as if waiting for orders. I imagined the startled and panicked calls of the things behind us making them uneasy hadn¡¯t helped matters much. We swept above and past them without incident, Kris grim and intent as we swept past the larger creatures in the open ocean and closed in on the beach to the island of Kryst. That was right about when the ocean in front of us vomited up a whole lot of stuff. It was like the stuff was Summoned, although that was not what was happening. It was just random flocks of stuff normally scattered throughout the sea, now being ordered to come to the surface and intercept us. ¡°Now this looks inneresting,¡± Lord Mick observed fatalistically. ¡°They won¡¯t see us the first time. Make it count, Lord Mick!¡± I told him, quickly making my way over the prone invisible scouts to the front, my Shards flipping up, charged with Whirling Blades this time. Hey, with -1 Metamagic Efficiency, my Gold spells were +50% damage. Not that I was going to kill anything, but I was going to knock a LOT of stuff flying, especially since they were staying in tight packs. They could see me up there, standing on the air, bright Shards visible in the night, even if they could only barely read Kris¡¯ presence. They had to get in range of us to start any spell bombardments. Isparian magic was not very good at damaging objects, but it would rapidly pound the shit out of the Wagon, which was not set up to deal with spell assaults yet. Unfortunately for them, I had a lot more range than they did. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Hissing streams of polythaumatic force-light shot out, and remorans and shelled Aberrant things in a scattering of colorful hides and shells went tumbling down out of the air before we got into range of their spells. They were scattered all over the place, sure, but they could converge on us and our course, even if we were moving much faster than they were. If they drew close enough together, then I could Chain out and catch a whole lot of them, too. Kris adjusted to me favoring the left, veering that way as I cleaned out those coming from that direction, opening up an oblique path as remorans crashed into the drink and the smaller shelled stuff spun away crazily to bounce and skip and sink into the dark waves. ¡°Ramming!¡± she announced, as one pack of remorans swung in straight ahead of us, all of them preparing to jump on her. The scouts all held on as the Mick put his hand on the dash in front of him, and then fed it some mana to manifest a Ward Wall. She juked left as the remorans reared up, and then a few tons of Invisible Wagon, thoughtfully outfitted with a razor-sharp prow and a hasty Ward Wall, smashed right through the center of them. I ducked as two remorans went tumbling overhead, one of them missing its left wing. The now-visible Wagon shuddered, but didn¡¯t really slow down since it was tied to Kris. She took off the tail of the remoran that lashed at her, just before one of the sweeping blades on the sides of the Wagon caught its wing, sliced it off, and sent it tumbling in a bloody mess behind us. The Mick pulled the switch that turned on the forward Lights, and the whole sea in front of us lit right up with literally eye-popping brilliance from a LOT of overlaid Eternal Lights mounted in concave reflective surfaces, with Fresnel lenses for that properly eye-blinding approach. The shit in front of us suddenly couldn¡¯t see anything for a damn, except for the fact that something was screaming as the Mick also opened the wind vanes to start shrieking at them very loudly. The Wagon was big and bad and had come out of nowhere. They got out of its way damn fast as it now oriented on and came directly at THEM without slowing! Kris was forgotten and invisible in the brightness that was reaching out a long way toward the beach. The incoming flocks and pods of aquatics slowed right on down as suddenly stealthy fleeing prey became a very loud and bright oversized flying shadow with a lot of shining eyes glaring at them in the night, and incoming size and speed had their normal effects on the predator mindset. Oh, flashes of bright magic and groups of them splashing into the drink did, too. The Shoreward came sweeping up on us, the Wagon shifted behind us as I popped one group of sleeches that didn¡¯t get out of the way fast enough, probably intending to shoot a few spells our way. There were crisscrossing streams of magic shooting every which way behind us, but we were out of range and they could only light up the night and not catch us as Kris juked away from them without slowing. Her Null expanded, the Shoreward was shoved out of the way, and she glided past it into shallow waters, the hordes of creatures behind us converging as the spellcasting at us was cut off like a knife. They couldn¡¯t target anything past the Shoreward, it was part of the abjuration. Otherwise, they could have sniped off humans off much closer than the Ward itself was to the shore. No, we were perfectly fine. We, on the other hand were not so constrained. The scouts rose to their feet as Kris glided in an arc and around, presenting them to our pursuers. Bows and crossbows lit up with Bane to Aquatics and Greater Magical Weapon. Arrows and quarrels trailing pinkish flames zipped out into the clusters of aquatic creatures floating and flapping impotently outside the Shoreward as a side-Light on the Wagon illuminated them clearly. The things obviously had little concept of ranged combat outside spells, as missiles don¡¯t travel in water, and naturally were taken completely by surprise by the sudden appearance of a whole company of archers. I gave them targets by Blade Vulning pairs of targets at a time, my spells having a nice little effect of highlighting whoever they were deployed on in little sparkles, so they all knew what to shoot at. The scouts were also pretty good shots. Streaking volleys slammed out from a dozen Weapons, one row kneeling, one standing, crossbows creaking as latent Item Magic pulled back the strings, and the first Remoran dropped almost instantly. Mana Boost to restore reserves as I filled Valences, Vulned again, keeping pace with the volleys from the scouts as they walked down the edge of the flocks, and pinkish neo-tracer fire from just thirty feet away slammed into the furious, impotent creatures. They chittered and squealed and sqwiked, but the scouts just focused on who and what I Vulned, and pincushioned them out of life. It took the creatures nearly twenty dead to get the idea that they couldn¡¯t reach us through their heads, and something looming out in the distance in the deeper waters gurgled something which made the ear want to retch. The scouts managed one last volley before the creatures of The Deep turned and dove back into the water, removing them from our line of fire. Kris turned the Wagon fully around, spot-Lights swept out to sea, and there, a quarter-mile away, the massive shell of the boss nautiloid loomed and stared back at us. Then it, too, turned about, retreating as it re-entered the deeper waters with a wide wake, and was gone from the bright Lights illuminating everything¡­ especially a whole lot of dead higher-Level niffi-things and remorans. ¡°Break out the nets and haul in our catch, lads!¡± the Mick said with a smile. ¡°We doubtless woke everyone up, so at least let us bring them some food for the inconvenience!¡± There were a lot of torches igniting and moving along the beach, people woken up by the brightest Lights they¡¯d ever seen in the night sweeping across them, like staring into a lighthouse beam. They naturally had no idea what kind of creature was out there in the dark, emitting such lights, and likely they were all ready to panic. I lit up Crown, clearly showing a bunch of humans out here standing atop a long vehicle of some kind beneath the glow of my Staff. Then I conjured up some silvery Disks, and the scouts bailed off onto them to grab their kills and haul them to shore for a feast and prize haul the people here would likely be very appreciative of. They all hailed from the islands, and were used to handling seafood in one manner or another. We watched them go to it with enthusiasm and energy. After all, they¡¯d been the only ones to get any real kills on this trip! AF Chapter 121 – A Late Night Welcome Ten minutes later we were pulling up on shore, with several dozen people from the homes nearby under torchlights waiting to receive us. ¡°Lord Mick!¡± someone finally shouted in recognition as the Wagon moved smoothly towards shore, Kris still skating across the water, much to the gawking disbelief of those there. Most of the Lights were dimmed down, so it wasn¡¯t so bright, but the low setting was still enough to completely overwhelm their torches and render the area as bright as day. ¡°Elder Jerman! A pleasant evening t¡¯ ye! I know, I know, belike it¡¯s late ta be out fishing, but this kind o¡¯ catch, ye gots t¡¯ be taking special care, an¡¯ ¡®tis the best time to be spittin¡¯ the lot o¡¯ em.¡± He looked around winningly. ¡°Now, ye know the Scouts got little use for a lot o¡¯ this here, so if some of you fine, noble throat-slicers an¡¯ butchers could be grabbin¡¯ yer knives, ye¡¯ll be earning some hides, meat, an¡¯ skin for yourselves an¡¯ your kin. Anyone be interested?¡± Irritation faded away, replaced by anticipatory smiles, and comments that it wasn¡¯t THAT late at night, since it wasn¡¯t, took over. ¡°What¡¯s that ye were ridin¡¯, Lord Mick?¡± another man spoke up, pointing at the floating, somewhat gore-spattered front of the Wagon. ¡°This? Oh, this is the Wagon, a bit o¡¯ an experimental wrought by some nasty smart artificer-types, all very secret and hush-hush. Had a bit of a mind t¡¯ take it out fer a fishing expedition with the lads an¡¯ lasses, an¡¯ it seems t¡¯ be workin¡¯ just fine,¡± he explained without batting an eye. ¡°A secret project, is it?¡± the man mumbled, the crowd edging in to poke and prod carefully at the sides, ducking to look under it and assure themselves it wasn¡¯t actually on any wheels. ¡°Aye, so secret I ain¡¯t even heard o¡¯ it meself, an¡¯ that¡¯s the truth,¡± the Mick said with a perfectly straight face. All the fisher-folk there snorted knowingly, but didn¡¯t ask any more questions of him. ¡°Now, how about we be about cleaning these kills, an¡¯ mayhap even giving some thirsty souls a drink or three in return?¡± ---- Very practical folk, the natives of Kryst Island were quick to get to work. It turned out the Aquatics were all edible, but took various periods of time soaking in brine to get some acidic portions of their anatomies out of them, although there was an alchemical sauce that could be used to help fry the tentacles in oil, which turned out to be a local delicacy. The locals were soon vying for the chance to munch them down like rather rubbery but somehow delicate-tasting dumplings. I was kind of impressed, really. The nauts were basically being pickled and preserved for a leaner time. I was told by one of the scouts that their meat was an acquired taste, and there were a bunch of pickling recipes among the clans for the ¡®proper¡¯ way to leech them edible. The shells of the nauts could be taken apart and polished, and were used for everything from plates to cups to ornamentation, and if large enough and intact, even melded together to make fairly sturdy shields. The remorans were a source of leather, the tips of their tail-stingers used to make prized spears, and the meat something that was dipped into dozens of competing sauces, every household proudly bringing out a cup of their own for people to sample as the meat was sliced up with deft speed and skill by a lot of very fast knifework. The Mick did appropriate about forty pounds of meat for kin and the families of former Scouts, and the fisher folk didn¡¯t begrudge him any of it. After the impromptu feast, they¡¯d still be left with hundreds of pounds and a whole lot of leavings, all of which would be useful. Even the guts were gathered up to be composted with sand and leaves and turned into fertilizer for the gardens every household had. The scouts helped with everything, even those who¡¯d plainly not grown up among the fisherfolk knowing what to do and how to do it. The Mick himself was with a circle of elders, laughing and joking with them as he drove his arms in up to the elbow to pull out the ugly corpse of a naut from its shell, its grip weakened by death, and held it up for everyone to appreciate just how ugly it was. Of course, the things also had a lot of arrows sticking into them, which were carefully removed, examined for defects, and returned to the scouts. ---- ¡°They seem to have forgotten all about you,¡± I told Princess Kristie in amusement. She had ducked out of sight, put some fairly normal clothes back on, and just kept quiet as Quaver''s much-too-sharp edge cut up several remorans, impressing the locals with how keen her Knife was. It was also obvious I was a spellcaster, and the locals weren¡¯t exactly condemning me, but it was plain they didn¡¯t want to interact with me, considering me something unlucky. Couldn¡¯t blame them, given the Fall. ¡°Probably thinking it was just a trick of the Light, once the Mick got their attention,¡± she said, brown, black, red, and yellow dollops of sauce on a small plate in front of her. She stuck a fried tentacle in the yellow one, rubbed it around, and took a carnivore¡¯s bite of her two-foot snack. ¡°That¡¯s a mustard with some zing to it.¡± Her thumbnail twitched, and the fried length was cut in two, half handed over to me smoothly. Like me, she didn¡¯t need to eat for energy, so she ate for enjoyment. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. I dipped up the rest of it and took a bite. A chewier kind of shrimp, with an oddly delicate aftertaste¡­ and the mustard was impressive. I chewed slowly, savoring it, having no memories of anything too similar to go back on¡­ and that was after living in the Imperial Capital, and all the stuff Aelryinth had sampled. ¡°Trusting your nose,¡± I told her, watching the Scouts mingling, some having kin among the locals here. ¡°Are they going to keep this quiet?¡± ¡°They already offered to send a runner out to the nearest garrison, and the Mick made a big show about being caught with the secret project he didn¡¯t know about. None of them will say anything about us being here as they pull one over on the crown.¡± ¡°Peeling half a Suggvat Remoran off the side of it might have helped,¡± I noted. The impaled bright yellow wing had gotten a lot of attention for its size when it was cut off the razored prow. A local even sliced his hand on the prow¡¯s edge, cursing after he did so and the others just laughing at his lack of caution. I watched her dip the brown sauce and chew on it thoughtfully. She made an ¡®okay¡¯ face, and I followed her. Earthy, kind of a garlicy ketchup, points of tartness. Had character, if not great appeal. ¡°Mushrooms,¡± I said of the source, and she nodded agreement as we both chewed. Around us were lots of palm trees. We hadn¡¯t come eighty miles, and we¡¯d moved from mixed pine and leafed trees in the cold of the north, with snow on the ground, to the low sixties Fahrenheit and palm trees everywhere on what would be an idyllic island paradise if we didn¡¯t know what was waiting beyond the Shoreward. ¡°Thoughts?¡± I asked her, knowing she was contemplating future moves. ¡°I intend to present myself to the local rulers. I don¡¯t have an intention of supplanting them, per se, but I¡¯m not going to give up the advantages of my station without a very good reason.¡± ¡°Better to be noble than to not be noble,¡± I had to agree. Especially in a feudal society. She swirled around the third sauce, bit in, and smiled dangerously. ¡°Heat,¡± she warned me, and I arched an eyebrow. Mira perked up and got very excited. She loved spicy food. I wiped it up and went all in, biting down. My eyes popped open, and Kris smirked at my expression. Hot little knives were biting into and all through my mouth excitedly, letting me know I was invading their territory and they didn¡¯t like intruders eating them whole! A few of the locals who¡¯d been paying attention also smirked at my expression, which faltered as I smiled, opened my mouth, and steam literally wafted out. ¡°Nice,¡± I admitted, licking my lips and chewing with obvious relish. The impressed locals decided that maybe we weren¡¯t two soft women after all, although Kris¡¯ Cursemark sure wasn¡¯t hurting in that area¡­ and her face looked like she¡¯d been eating buttered bread, or something. ¡°That¡¯s as good as some of the Sho stuff I had back home. Some potent peppers there. The Scoville on that has to be about two hundred thousand, I¡¯d say. Definitely an acquired taste.¡± ¡°The Mick has that personal business to take care of, which I approve. Without someone actually sending word, nobody is going to know we actually are here, so they¡¯ve got a few days to move. We¡¯ll be gone before dawn, the locals will spin up some yarn about bright lights luring in some stuff to be killed, maybe trade some fresh remoran meat, some Scout trainees happened to be running by to help, and life will go on.¡± The red stuff was last, and she tilted her head as she chewed, making the best face of the lot. I wiped the heat residue of the black sauce off my tongue and took the rest. Rich and vigorous, a decent seafood cocktail sauce, with just the right amount of zing on three different levels. ¡°This is fit for the Imperial table!¡± I pronounced as I chewed. ¡°Yeah, Dad would love it. Mom would complain it needs more fugu.¡± I opened my mouth to say something, thought better of it, and just kept chewing. Yeah, that was about right. ¡°The other sauces are just lesser variants of these, for the most part. I think I got the best of the bunch, or at least the most extreme. I¡¯m sure they all have a good following, depending on tastes.¡± ¡°Yeah, that wouldn¡¯t surprise me.¡± I cleaned the plate off with a sparkle of magic, setting it aside. ¡°What do you think of the rum?¡± I hoisted the rough flagon of the stuff, which everyone was enjoying broadly. ¡°Needs work, but it¡¯s got a delayed kick to it, so what else can you expect?¡± She squeezed a provided lemon into it for some flavor. ¡°Mostly it¡¯s sugary tastelessness with a kick. Just the thing to knock you out at the end of a long day.¡± ¡°We should get going during the night. We can move during the day, but big invisible objects are a bit hard to maneuver, and people will wonder why you are running around.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure the scouts will all be enthused to keep moving after such a fun celebration, but life goes on, and headache remedies work better if you don¡¯t actually sleep enough to get the headache before they are cured.¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ll get the cold water ready for them.¡± ---- Some of them were sprawled on top of the Wagon, some of them were inside on the stone boards overlaying over all our salvage. None were in particularly good shape, that rum doing its potent work, but I didn¡¯t allow them to go to sleep without drinking down a mug of cold water. It would mean frequent stops for piss breaks, but the last thing I needed was a bunch of scouts with hangovers to worry about. I also left the fisherfolk some gifts of Eternal Lights, Shaping up the lotus-style braziers that would close over the Lights to stifle them, or open up to provide strong, steady, heatless illumination. Furthermore, I informed them all that they were location-sensitive. The first time they opened them, the Lights would be locked to within fifty feet of that position. If anyone stole them, they¡¯d just be getting a stone brazier, albeit one nicely made. I also got the names of each of the recepients and inscribed them on their brazier, then cast Reed on the thing so it wouldn¡¯t be brittle and shatter if dropped or knocked over. They had mixed expressions of accepting magic into their home, but the thought of not having to spend money on oil or torches or the like was enough for them to accept the gift for what it was, and incidentally make sure they thought well of us and clammed up before they retired for the night. We were long gone before even the fishermen got up, of course. AF Chapter 122 – Island Hopping The Vesayan Islands were as old as the main island of Dereth, and like it, had a lot of geography crammed into a small space. Unsurprisingly, that geography had a lot of history behind it. We could have gone traipsing across the unwarded waters between the islands, but the Mick advised us to just take the tour and understand where we were going, while he related the history of the place in terms both entertaining and grim. Princess Kristie had no problems with agreeing to that, merely asking once if it would change his own plans, and was told it would not. MacNaill¡¯s Freehold, the town his uncle had founded, had been the initial target of the evacuation Portal during the Fall, for the dual purpose of it being well-situated at the center of all the islands, and it was also down near the waters and could support the fishermen who were going to be vital for keeping everyone fed during the early days. What surviving human warriors remained had fanned out across the islands with nothing but extermination in mind, followed behind by the scholars marking the locations of each and every Summons point, even as the refugees were dispersed with equal speed and haste along the many shores and to some of the few human communities here. The only other settled races here were the mosswarts and the moarsmen, both of them tending to be based around dungeons or temple complexes which had also been forced back into reality and were openly exposed to the elements now, with the mosswarts having one major town at what was now Fort Mouth on Fishtail Island. They were all slaughtered without exception, spawning pools purged and sanitized, and the areas around them cleared repeatedly until they were known cold, precautions could be taken, and the people were settled in. Their method for dealing with the random landscape spawn points was novel and pragmatic. They ¡®caged¡¯ them. The Mick pointed out to us some of the older style ¡®cages, basically a teepee of sorts made of cloth, or a net interwoven with vines and other plants. The whole idea was to isolate the spawns so they couldn¡¯t see any intruders to charge and harass them. Putting them inside barriers cut off their lines of sight and hearing, meaning they were less likely to react to intruders. The things had to be fairly high to cut off the Summoned Wasps and Wisps who frequently popped in as replacement creatures, but otherwise they didn¡¯t have to be that sturdy. Each such Summons site also had half a dozen brightly painted blue markers around them. Most were wooden, but as we came across wooden gates and even stone enclosures closer to the small villages, the markers were also made of more permanent stone or actual carved poles. The markers indicated the ranges at which points the things inside the cages would react to intruders and might come bursting out of their confines, climb the walls, or otherwise seek to make it to an attacker. Every man, woman, and child was drilled on what those creatures were, what they would do EVERY SINGLE TIME if they were bothered, and not to bother them unless you meant to test yourself against them and kill them, because they were mercilessly going to try to kill you, every single time! The village we¡¯d arrived nearby was called Mayoi Point, one of several dozen on the five-mile island that hadn¡¯t been there before the Fall. They were the closest village to the mainland, and sometimes signal fires or reflectors would be used to communicate with the garrison just north of the village from on the shore. Runners would then carry messages along the long, circuitous route to Freehold, the central island where the administration of the human realm was run from, or carry the signals to other light towers to relay on. It was something that both delighted his uncle and caused the dead man a lot of chagrin, the Mick informed us grandly. His bandit uncle¡¯s little settlement to larceny and laziness, taken over by an Aluvian King and now the new Isparian capital, of all things! We skirted Mosswart Harbor, a shallow inlet near the town of Kryst, now one of the three major settlements in these islands, with an actual population of a thousand. Given that the entire refugee population had once numbered less than the population around the former capital of Cragstone, it was a significant center of trade here, with several schools for general education and the trades, and it had gained considerably in size over time. The Mick headed out into the jungle as we neared the town, coming back shortly with a backpack weighted down with certain things he hadn¡¯t had when leaving. There was a bit of a delay as the Scouts headed into the simple town, most of the buildings done in the Sho style with bamboo foundations and wood accents that worked best in the jungle air and resources that were available. The Scouts all separated to get some buying done, while the Mick went to visit a particular baker¡¯s shop. Kris and I stayed outside the town and down the dirt path to the south, and they were all done within an hour. I noted the Mick had disposed of the fresh meat when he returned, the backpack was no longer with him, and he had several loaves of bread he broke up and shared with everyone. It was indeed good bread. We headed down the island, noting the Spawns. Most actual living predators and threats had been exterminated with prejudice, so only the Summons were important now. Island Armoredillos, some large and vicious reedshark variants, zefirs, and tough, strong mosswarts dominated the Spawns, particularly on the large, open area that had been cleared out to connect to Wasp Island to the south, with mud and water Golums of enhanced size along the beaches. Karma being what it was, most of those spawn points were cleared in passing for exercise, a standard training tactic for the military patrols and cadets. It was easy to tell if they¡¯d been cleared recently, because if they hadn¡¯t, the first respawn only took a couple minutes or less to manifest another set of foes. Longer respawns stretched all the way up to ten or fifteen minutes, I¡¯d noticed, wondering if it was the ley line connection, the power of the points, or the power of the creatures that affected anything. Kris and I noted the bridge needed a lot of work, and the Mick agreed. It was running on a ley line which had helped stave off some environmental damage, but the amount of traffic hadn¡¯t driven any demand to get it fixed up properly, yet. Wasp Island (formerly Laesvos Island) had a surfeit of phyntos wasps of the Jungle and Mire variants, although thankfully mostly as Summons and not living things. Phyntos Wasps were totally capable of attacking and killing humans, and so hunting down each and every nest of the things was a duty whenever one flying free was spotted. The main problem is that new ones were always coming in from Freebooter Island to the north over the waves (the ones not sniped and munched down by remorans, that is), and so they were never rid of the pests. Archers got in a lot of practice hunting them down. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The main other spawn was a lot of mosswarts. The Vesayans used to be one of the race¡¯s main holdings, until it became the refugee center for all of humanity and they were basically exterminated. Wasp Island had a smaller island to the west of it, called Hive Island, whose rocky center seemed to attract new phyntos looking to nest regularly, just like its neighbor. It was pointed out to us as we were crossing the shallow waters between Kryst Island and Wasp Island, and we headed out along the northeastern shore towards the next island, Fishtail Island. --- ¡°Lord Mick, question?¡± Selena asked from where she and the other scouts were trotting along after the tireless Black Aluvian and Imperial princess. As the tenderfoot mage, I was riding alongside on a Disk, and if I turned eyes, well, I was obviously a spellcaster, and obviously spellcasters were weird. A bunch of Royal Scouts running along the shores were obviously us out for a long morning hike and conditioning, and there were plenty of calls from the fisherfolk and villagers we passed by to good-naturedly pick up the pace. ¡°Aye, me Roach Queen?¡± he called back to her idly. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we be turning off the spawn points with the, uh, vivic fire, so people don¡¯t have to worry about them?¡± ¡°Och, me little roach is feeling so responsible, she is!¡± he called back. ¡°Lass, explain to me scrabbling students why we dinnae wanna do that quite yet,¡± he challenged me, being as I was the one sitting down and all. I was massaging my feet ruefully. Tenderfoot, indeed! ¡°First of all, I¡¯m assuming that Spawn Points are still used as training tools for the people of the island on both a regular and irregular basis. That makes them valuable. If we suddenly start shutting them all off, then whoever has control of the remaining Summons points suddenly has the means to make their own people Level up faster than anyone else. ¡°Your Lord is a bit of an independent sort and doesn¡¯t want to willy-nilly start that process.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± She got it quickly. ¡°That¡¯s right. I was trading spears with the mosswart spawns outside my village before I was ten!¡± ¡°Second, if suddenly those spawns didn¡¯t have monsters in them, imagine the panic that might happen if people suddenly thought ALL magic might be going away.¡± Her blue eyes widened in alarm. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s just about right. The Shorewards going down would be next, would they not?¡± All the heads turned to look out over the mild sea to the north of us. There was little wave action, broken up by the islands here as it was, but even glittering under the morning sun, it did not look peaceful. Not after last night. We knew what was under there. With no Shorewards, those things could all come up here¡­ Panic would be putting it mildly! ¡°Third, they need to verify they have the means to open said spots back up in the future, and what other factors might re-open them if they are closed. We don¡¯t want to ignore the possibility of another huge mana surge like the Fall suddenly forcing them all open, and woe to someone who decided to build a house next to one because a Summons marker got moved for whatever reason, or a farmer working a field suddenly has a moarsman pop up next to him.¡± ¡°Understood!¡± she said firmly, taking the lesson in stride. ¡°Which dinnae mean we can¡¯t empty a few more in passing for our Naming Karma fer the day, lads an'' lasses,¡± the Mick proclaimed, pointing ahead to a stacked clay brick enclosure on the beach ahead, posts driven in around the thing and painted bright blue. ¡°It did reset at the dawn, so let¡¯s add a touch o¡¯ excitement here. Ye all took Archer Levels before. Today, ye take a Melee Level. Pull out yer melee weapon an'' prepare to feed it, Hundig!¡± The dark Gharu¡¯n scout unlimbered his Saber and picked up speed, racing ahead of us to attack whatever was inside the enclosure, likely a moarsman or mosswart, possibly a nefane. Most such things would pop in, gradually starve to death or die of exposure or thirst or something, fall, discorporate, and something new would trigger in. No attempt had been made to align the Summons with, say, humans here, as the very idea of enslaving human souls to the spawn points would likely get those who tried to do so ganked with all speed. That wasn¡¯t to say that there weren¡¯t places that had human Summons in the past. The Mick had related a few of them, and made the observation that it seemed to be a fate that awaited prominent bandits, brigands, thieves, and murderers, fated to become spots of practice on the way to greatness for others. There was a shriek of challenge, and then the square-jawed Hundig was backing out of the enclosure, parrying the clawing swipes of a mossy green-scaled, pale-bellied mosswart, thrusting when he had openings, confident and sure in his movements and motions. We all stopped to watch him fight, Hundig dancing with assurance through the duel as his cuts on its limbs bled freely, slowed it down, and the much-too-tough mosswart was finally spit through the throat and dropped, giving Hundig only a couple of swipes on his chest and arm to remember it by. ¡°Speed, but not power. Definitely a preferred Archer,¡± I remarked, lifting an eyebrow, and the tall, rangy young man flushed at the observation. ¡°This is true,¡± he agreed with my assessment. ¡°Lord Mick¡¯s skill with a blade is actually very strange among the Scouts, Miss Ryin. Most of us prefer the bow, and only the fact we see combat too often with monstrous things means we do not rely on the knife more.¡± He saluted the Mick once, who just nodded as the moarsman fell apart into ectoplasm, and with it the blood and gore on the Scout¡¯s Blade. ¡°And why is that?¡± the Mick asked rhetorically. ¡°Because you¡¯re a stubborn old man!¡± his students promptly sang out in unison behind him. He nodded in aloof approval. ¡°An¡¯ dinnae ye forget it!¡± He pointed down the beach, where another enclosure was visible. ¡°Charge!¡± he shouted, and whooping wildly, all the Scouts followed him on a race down the shoreline. ¡°That¡¯s actually going to attract less attention than just running around. Surely he can¡¯t be planning anything nefarious while acting so openly!¡± Princess Kristie said, starting after him with the unseen Wagon trailing her, and my Disk gliding along next to her. ¡°They also use low-strength Bows,¡± she mentioned to me as she trotted after them. I blinked. ¡°What?¡± ¡°It¡¯s part of the Isparian system, right? There¡¯s actual magic involved in archery. You can see it best with how fast a crossbow can be hauled back, without use of tools or anything. There¡¯s no real need to build in a huge draw strength when magic is doing most of the work, and your damage comes from hitting a target more precisely and maintaining a proper pose for the shot, not actual draw strength. They all use the same classic Archer Stance, the one that the more sublime your Stance, the more damage you do with an arrow!¡± I thought that over. ¡°If you can Level, however, the Isparian system allows for monstrously fast Stat raises. Is that a problem?¡± AF Chapter 123 – Down the Beach, Up the Beach, Around the Beach... ShardsAs is only proper!, Mighty Shards Sacred Spell Force Blade. BaneVivicTwo Thunders Hands as Weapons Arcane StrikeSacred SpellSacred Strike, CrownSacred Spell Crown Stolen novel; please report. Delimit Shards Assess Assay Assess Creature Vodatron Nefane AF Chapter 124 – Fishtail and the Tadpoles, The Crow We made it to the next bridge, leading from Wasp Island to Fort Mouth, with another long, gradual approach to it where no trees grew and even the grasses and undergrowth were low. Like Kryst Island, there were a lot of Mosswart Summons along it, but these were part of the morning clearing ritual of the guards at Fort Mouth on the other side of the bridge there, and didn¡¯t respawn all that quickly as the Scouts swept through them. Yeah, they made me take on a Mudlurk Mosswart, and yes, I managed to beat it silly with my Staff, hitting far harder than they did and being deucedly hard to hit in return, despite not parrying much. They did see the flash of the Force Armor about me deflecting some swings and loudly proclaimed I was cheating, but only in jest. When I spit it through the throat and fried its brain, the air was full of comments on my lack of skill, but nobody was otherwise digging at me. I was actually untouched, and the deft precision of my fighting style impressed them. The next island was once called Thesalene Island, but now everyone called it Fishtail Island for its shape, with four minor islands around collectively dubbed the Tadpoles. Fort Mouth was the only city of note, serving as a trade center for the island. Once it had been the center of mosswart influence in the whole chain, and there had been a LOT of purging done to get the smell out of the place as a result. The wooden walls cut from jungle giants were still decently high and in good shape, because this island was also where Wisps and Zefirs started manifesting in larger numbers out of nowhere, and unlike Summons, weren¡¯t necessarily bound to a Spawn point, although they popped up on those, too. Likewise, moarsmen sometimes alternated with mosswarts here, showing the two races had fought a lot, keeping one another¡¯s numbers down as the undead on Ithaenc Island kept dispatching moarsmen to keep back the rapidly-breeding and spreading mosswarts. Those mosswarts weren¡¯t an issue, anymore, nor were the aggressive wild reedsharks and armoredillos that used to wander the place. Jungle Phyntos wasps sometimes were, and so bows with shields on backup against those stingers was common equipment for anyone living here. Constant killing of wasps was a good way to make a living here, I was told, and wisp-popping was a popular pastime. Archery was basically the national pastime, and nobody moved outside settlements without some form of missile weapon at hand. The Tadpole Islands were cleared repeatedly in seasonal exercises, since they saw little traffic otherwise, and only the Big Tadpole on the western side actually had a settlement on it. All of the Scouts had participated in the purges in the past, always finding something had taken up residence, be it zefirs coming out of nowhere, wisps manifesting, moarsmen spawn growing up with too much speed, and naturally more wasps happily re-occupying the nests others had been cleared out of earlier. The various extruded Caves and Dungeons where the mosswarts had laired were all pointed out, extradimensional holdings they¡¯d taken over for their own, pushing apart the landscape as they returned to reality. All of the living mosswarts had been cleared from them, and now they were training areas for the soldiers, who quickly honed their skills against the rancid-smelling Summons. Two of those areas were located on the Small and Round Tadpoles, with crews constantly rotating through them to test themselves, and were also open to any civilians who wanted to try their luck. Big Tadpole and the Nibbler were wide open, having no reason for constant military presence, and the local militias took care of them constantly. Fishtail Island was also where the first sclavus Spawns started to manifest, showing the growing influence of the undead. Like the moarsmen, the serpent-men were minions of one of the factions of the undead, used as caretakers of temples and religious areas. Apparently, according to the Mick, both were races evolved out of lesser animals or beings by the undead, given some level of sapience, and used by them as guards and attendants, respectively. In the case of the moarsmen, a number of them had escaped, bred with speed, and were even taken in by the Deep and other Entities as willing servants, owing to their magical origins. The Fort was happy to see the Mick and the Scouts, the Wagon parked discreetly outside Invisibly so we could tour the retasked area. The current standings of the clear times in the local Dungeons were all examined, soldiers getting complimented or poked fun at for their performances, all of them eager to get better. Much to the delight of the soldiers, even if the magic made them a little uneasy, I Shaped some common trails through the town, alleviating the dust and muck problem that plagued the place with the humid weather and frequent rains. It meant they would have to maintain the drains, but it was a small price to pay for not tracking dirt everywhere all the time. Plugging in an artesian well close to the ley-line and making an ornamental shaded fountain in the center of the central plaza was appreciated, too. --- We didn¡¯t take the time to run clears of the local Dungeons, as the Mick proclaimed they were on a schedule, but he¡¯d be happy to show the locals how it was done on their way back. So, in the early afternoon we piled out of there, and headed north down the main trade road towards the tail of Fishtail Island. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. ¡°Lass,¡± the Mick asked me, ¡°that trick with the plaza were sweet, an¡¯ no denying it, even if the hicks here were giving ye funny looks. Can¡­ ye do stuff like that, here?¡± He waved his hand at the trail we were trotting along, only taking breaks to clear out each enclosure we passed. ¡°Yes. If I had higher Valences, I could make a thirty-foot wide road a foot thick, with a decent foundation, at the pace of a slow walk,¡± I replied to him, attracting a lot of attention for the remark. ¡°Ye¡¯re serious. Ye could just¡­ walk along, and pull up the stone and make a road?¡± he asked, not sure if he should believe me. ¡°It would probably not surprise you that there is stone under the dirt here, Lord Mick, and it is all connected. Yes, that is exactly what I could do.¡± Aelryinth had made thousands, if not tens of thousands, of miles of roads in exactly the same manner, and that was only counting the main roads connecting across the landscape. If you counted those forming blocks and neighborhoods in cities, it was much, much higher! ¡°Bridges?¡± Kris inquired crisply. ¡°They won¡¯t look like the ones currently in place, and they would take longer since that¡¯s a lot of stone in smaller areas¡­ but yes, bridges are definitely part of existing roadways. ¡°Note that I¡¯d probably have Earth Elementals along to smooth the way out, as roads that go up and down like foot-trails are not what we want to have happen.¡± ¡°Well, of course!¡± Kris smiled, while all the Scouts looked impressed. ¡°What¡¯s an Earth Elemental?¡± Selena promptly asked for everyone. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen an Elemental made of¡­ dirt?¡± she asked hesitantly. ¡°What you call Elementals, and what a Summoner calls Elementals, are two very different things,¡± I explained to all of them. ¡°I¡­ am not sure what causes the Elementals to pop up here that I have seen in the recent past. They are clearly things designed as aggressive attackers, being composed of magical energies as they are, not true Elemental substances. ¡°True Elementals are composed of Fire, Water, Earth, or Air, living manifestations of the natural world around us.¡± ¡°Ye said ye pulled a small Water Elemental up in the Islandwatch Mansion,¡± the Mick remembered. ¡°I dinnae remember actually seeing anything¡­¡± ¡°Because I didn¡¯t make a show of it, and it was actually part of the water there, down low keeping the drainpipe clear. I can pull up an Earth Elemental up for show and tell, if you like.¡± The Mick considered that. ¡°When we reach the downslope on the Tail. I think we¡¯ll take a break there for the night, and ye can show us then.¡± ¡°Sounds reasonable,¡± I agreed, and we continued on. ------ Like the Mouth, there was a long, cleared downslope area on the Tail of Fishtail Island, leading to the next island¡­ but this time, the bridge over the seawater gap was obviously of much more recent make, with stone foundations and wooden slats that allowed at least some wagon traffic through the area, and definitely helped all the foot traffic that was regularly going by. This didn¡¯t take any of us by surprise, and the Scouts busied themselves setting themselves up at a well-used campsite situated a comfortable distance between several spawn points. Everyone waved at the semi-regular traffic heading past, exchanging calls and greetings. The Royal Scouts were obviously well-known and on good terms with the people, judging by the reactions we received. --- They all crouched down to examine the little chest-high humanoid figure, only the roughest approximation of limbs on it. It was clearly made of dirt and stone compacted and alive, and did not look at all like any kind of Golum, which they were half-expecting, and definitely did not have the swirling, active energies of the Elementals they were familiar with. It was a solid, animated piece of the ground, and it quickly spread itself out and helped level the campsite area out, after which time I could add benches, heavy chairs, a small fountain, a fire pit, and other niceties to the area. Aelryinth had the plans for dozens of types of campsites in his memories, so picking a couple out to use here wasn¡¯t hard. I just Shaped Stone until everything was in place, and the delighted Scouts found themselves able to sit on things other than the ground, along with convenient areas to pitch tents nearby all laid out and ready for them. I even included an area to rest wagons in, because why not? They watched me doing all that with concentration, while the Earth Elemental smoothed things out and reinforced the foundation underneath so it all wouldn¡¯t just slide away in the rain, or something. I thanked it for its time with some salvaged crushed diamond, and it fell back into the ground, leaving nary a trace it had ever been there behind itself. ------ ¡°Ye can see Freehold over there,¡± the Mick said quietly. We¡¯d climbed atop one of the supporting pillars to the bridge between Fishtail and Crow Island. Indeed, there were quite a few lights, both flames and magical, on display about five miles to the east, spread all along the shoreline. ¡°There are boats in the water?¡± Kris asked, her Mask of Clarity now in place and thus able, like me, to see a lot more detail than anyone would expect at such a distance. ¡°Aye, anchored points out in the water, used fer relaying alarms off the Small and Round Tadpoles, instead of having the delay of going around the Crow.¡± He was drinking a bottle of the local rum he¡¯d picked up at Fort Mouth, this one a bit better-flavored than that used by the fisherfolk at Point Mayoi. ¡°I told ye of the post a mile down the shores on each side, and pointed out the trails to ye. If there¡¯s fast messages, they¡¯ll run messengers across the Tail, signaling the towers at Kryst and likewise, helping spread the news since we¡¯ve lost the ability to farspeak so readily as before.¡± ¡°Using Isparian back-up systems. Wise,¡± Kris nodded. I doubted she had to face the same problem, with her mother dispensing Marks that would allow exactly that unbroken communication, and literally opened up the whole world to people with a Markspace Map. ¡°Is it my imagination, or is the area between the Freehold and Small Tadpole almost navigable?¡± AF Chapter 125 – About these Islands ¡°It¡¯s a deathtrap,¡± the Mick stated flatly, getting the attention of Princess Kristie and I. ¡°There be coral banks just outside the Shorewards there, aye, less than three hundred paces apart. The current in there be vicious, circling about the entire area with the tides, and the channel be at least five hundred feet deep in that narrow area.¡± He circled his hand over the entire bay to the east of us. ¡°It don¡¯t show itself often, but there be a large amount of nasty stuff in those waters there, an¡¯ they be rapidly deeper then ye can see, dropping off almost like cliffs in some places¡­ and that¡¯s the areas close to the Shorewards, where ye can toss a weighted rope and see how long it falls.¡± ¡°How¡¯s the currents under the bridge here? Wouldn¡¯t they mitigate a lot of that?¡± Kris asked quickly. ¡°Nae. The Shorewards slow the flow of water down so that ye can traipse from one island t¡¯ the next with no worry fer yer footing at all. As ye might imagine, if the water can only flow fast through a small area, it be flowing very fast, indeed.¡± He waved at the area under the bridge we were on. ¡°This should be a riptide area, take a man right off his feet an¡¯ send him out into the sea were he t¡¯ dare to cross it. Instead, ¡®tis no different from wading along an easy shoreline, just like the rest o¡¯ the islands here.¡± ¡°I imagine there¡¯s whirlpools out there, then,¡± Kris stated, looking at the bay to the east. The Mick slowly nodded. ¡°Aye, me Uncle said he saw a few form close to the Freehold, during particularly vicious tides and storms, the water tryin¡¯ t¡¯ go this way and that. Hard to be sure if any occur in the middle o¡¯ the bay from this distance, but wouldnae surprise anyone, the water having to be circling about an¡¯ going back out the way it come.¡± ¡°And that island over there?¡± I asked, pointing northwest. ¡°The Crow¡¯s Egg,¡± he informed me after pivoting around on his seat to take a look, more out my eyes than his own. ¡°Nobody has been able to get onto it fer years, an¡¯ even then, it were only during some weird confluence o¡¯ events concerning the shadows. Eh, Shades. Apparently, killing a Shadow Child Summons might pop a Portal to the place, where they were engaged in doing¡­ something, nobody were sure what. The only exit Portal from the place dropped ye by Kryst. ¡°What be going on there now, only the phyntos and the Deep¡¯s creatures might know.¡± ¡°Did that open water really help the Freehold that much?¡± Kris asked, resuming her examination to the east. ¡°Aye, it did. First, reedsharks and dillos cannae swim, an¡¯ loathe salt water, Summons aside. Two, sclavi hate salt water, as it be getting under their scales an¡¯ makes them itch. Three, moarsmen don¡¯t mind salt water, but they have to rinse off or the salt shrivels their scales, so they have ta stay damp if they go in, or clean off, so they avoided it. Five, the mosswarts didnae like having to cross so much salt water t¡¯ get back to their sacred spaces, an¡¯ didnae like the salt residue, either. Six, the undead never bothered t¡¯ come to the Freehold, it were off the travel routes. Seven, the slithyr tentacles never touched the sea proper, only the beaches, and so couldnae make it to the Freehold. ¡°Eight, once the King cut down a lot o¡¯ the jungle trees, the phyntos stopped coming, which really eased things up. ¡®tis indeed the safest island in the whole of the Vesayans, may me uncle tear out his beard at the thought!¡± he grinned in amusement at the idea. ¡°Slithyr?¡± I asked quietly. ¡°Tentacles, somewhat between flesh an¡¯ plant, both, neither. Throw dark Life magic ta Harm and Drain ye, Curse magic to weaken ye, try to grapple ye an¡¯ impale ye, or just batter ye dead t¡¯ feed upon. Two varieties here, the slithys and the slithyr. There be larger varieties down further along the Road, such as on Ithaenc, Freebooter¡¯s, and Xi Ru¡¯s island, and Moarsman¡¯s Island. Be whispers they are linked to T¡¯Thuun, one o¡¯ the prime things one o¡¯ the undead factions serve. ¡°The Crow were where the moars an¡¯ the mosswarts fought the most, scattered in warbands the length of it. The Summons still reflect it, but we rooted out most all o¡¯ the real things. Zefirs and Wisps still pop out o¡¯ nowhere, the wasps are still damn pests, an¡¯ the slithyr still worm their ways up here and there, but the living, dangerous stuff we killed, an¡¯ keep killing. The Wing Roads an¡¯ the Crow¡¯s Road are pretty safe, but the Summons, they still be dangerous fer newbs. Most of the fighting folk stationed at the Freehold regularly go out t¡¯ keep themselves in shape against ¡®em. ¡°Further west is Avalelle Island, an¡¯ where the undead really start showing their influence. They still pop up rarely on the Summons, an¡¯ the toughest mosswarts pop up on the Summons, too. More slithyr, tons o¡¯ returned Dungeons, Empyrean buildings, the Golum Bridge connecting it ta the Crow, sclavi and moars all over¡­ aye, ¡®tis a hard place fer the younger ones, an¡¯ where all the Scouts have to hone their skills before I¡¯ll let them to the mainland.¡± ¡°But not to you and yours?¡± Kris asked, and he just grunted. ¡°Nae. Even now, without all me pretty toys, I¡¯d be fair to not threatened by most o¡¯ the stuff there. Oh, it be taking me longer t¡¯ kill them than back then, but I be not in any true danger, though I does hate me the tentacles popping out of the ground still.¡± He took another swig. ¡°Ye¡¯re wondering where to find the senior Scouts and surviving high-Levels, aye? If they aren¡¯t in Freehold serving the King or off on the mainland investigating something, they be about Ithaenc Cathedral. ¡®tis where all the big kids be playin¡¯ now.¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. While not far as the crow flew, and we could have made a short jump between the Big Tadpole and Ithaenc Lighthouse and cut the whole trip down to a few hours, that was forty miles of overland travel along the Island Road otherwise. Unless you could pop the Shorewards, traveling the Island Road from beginning to end was a lot of walking. ¡°You¡¯ve some high-end Dungeons there,¡± Kris deduced. Lord Mick tipped his bottle to her. ¡°Aye, the only readily accessible ones on the island. Basically, they be the only things left to really test ourselves on, and challenge those who want to break 100 an¡¯ really play with the rest o¡¯ us self-important types. Without the Gear an¡¯ magic o¡¯ before, they basically be impossible t¡¯ clear without hordes o¡¯ us going in together. I dinnae think we¡¯ve managed a mere Fellowship clear o¡¯ the Quiddity Seed dungeon in all the years since we fled t¡¯ the Islands, an¡¯ the other areas with dangerous things in them, well, it takes a special kind of fool t¡¯ attempt a solo clear of them, what with stuff respawning behind ye before yer done killing the stuff in front of ye.¡± ¡°I gather it¡¯s taken on almost gladiatorial aspects now. Solo clear times, team clear times, subdivided by Level and accomplishments and so forth?¡± I asked knowingly. Just like Fort Mouth had, rankings to motivate the soldiers with their own accomplishments. He shot me an amused look. ¡°Aye. From inside, it can be pretty heated, people defending their times an¡¯ titles an¡¯ boasting about how awesome they be. From the outside, it¡¯s a pitiful group of arseholes who used to be atop the world, clinging ta whatever shred of notoriety they can salvage.¡± ¡°And they all have their fans and supporters who praise them for being so good.¡± I just sighed as I shook my head. ¡°Well, o¡¯ course. They ARE good. They just lost their stomach for the real fight, an¡¯ so convince themselves what they do is important as role models, teaching the young folks how ta take on these dangerous, deadly things, all in a nice controlled way where nothing can go wrong a¡¯tall.¡± ¡°When you go from immortality and not being able to die, to very sudden mortality and death all around, finding out that you¡¯re actually not very brave can be crippling,¡± Kris said softly. ¡°It¡¯s no longer the thrill of combat, it¡¯s the specter of death around you in every direction. One mistake, and its not a trip to your deathstones any more. It¡¯s done.¡± ¡°Aye, that¡¯s it. The fear is in the marrow, an¡¯ they don¡¯t know how t¡¯ fight it an¡¯ dig it out. They ain¡¯t never had a cause higher than themselves, going out an¡¯ fightin¡¯ an¡¯ lootin¡¯ an¡¯ drinkin¡¯ an¡¯ whorin¡¯, an¡¯ then going back an¡¯ doing it all again, knowing they couldn¡¯t die, they looked good an¡¯ stayed that way, an¡¯ it was all going t¡¯ last forever.¡± He closed his eyes and sighed, looking at his mostly-empty bottle, which Kris snagged out of his hands and promptly completed its service with professional grace. ¡°They need to be young and stupid again, or sit down and have a lot of kids so they have something to protect. Are they doing that?¡± she said as she returned the empty bottle to him. ¡°Some o¡¯ them,¡± he admitted, holding onto the glass. Recycling and reusing was a big thing hereabouts. ¡°But the kids be just coming o¡¯ age, an¡¯ Ithaenc be the wrong place to raise them, the stuff about be too tough for ¡®em, an¡¯ Summons, they don¡¯t care none about how old you are. So, the ones with kids aren¡¯t the ones you¡¯ll find around the Cathedral up there. Just the frightened, bitter souls trying t¡¯ cover their fear with drink an¡¯ irrelevant games an¡¯ ego plays over nothing that matters.¡± ¡°And your trio of faithful Scouts will be up there?¡± Kris asked narrowly. ¡°Aye. They get t¡¯ sneer at the ones who don¡¯t go off-island, sure enough, who hang on their every word of actual deeds that matter, playin¡¯ at being important. It don¡¯t matter they can¡¯t beat a clear time for those who¡¯ve run the same dungeon ten thousand times or whatnot. They be doin¡¯ the stuff the others won¡¯t, so everyone knows who the true warriors are, right?¡± ¡°Are you going to see the King, and your Miss Swiftfoot?¡± I asked him in turn. He actually paused and thought that over, plainly considering his next move. ¡°Aye, I¡¯ll go see the King, belike I should do it on the sly, however. If there¡¯s a rot, I¡¯m going to clean it out, an¡¯ for all I admire His Majesty, it will be done even if he wants to take another road.¡± He almost shattered the bottle in his hand, carefully restraining himself. ¡°If the assassins are back an¡¯ preying on us like they did before the Fall, an¡¯ back on Ispar, they need t¡¯ be finally taken out.¡± ¡°So, we¡¯re going down the Crow¡¯s Road to Freehold. Miss Swiftfoot will want you to report. I imagine you¡¯ll want to get there a bit early and surprise her,¡± I conjectured. ¡°Aye, I walk in the gates, she¡¯ll know within minutes,¡± he agreed. ¡°Well, Kris already eyeballed the distance. She can punch the Shoreward and cross by the Little Tadpole, have you there in the city in half an hour. As far as skullduggery goes, I¡¯ll think you¡¯ll find Her Highness uniquely equipped for it. You can be in and out of the city in no time at all.¡± He looked at me, at the Princess, thought about it for a second, and asked, ¡°Ye coming along, lass?¡± he asked shortly. ¡°Someone has to sift the truth from the lies in what she¡¯s going to be saying.¡± --------- It wasn¡¯t that the city of Freehold wasn¡¯t defended well, because it actually was. Stout stone walls, at least rudimentary ley line tapping to render them mostly invulnerable to magic, encircled the entirety of city that dominated all but the pasture lands to the south of it. While there were plenty of cottages along the water where the fisherfolk lived, they were much better kept up than in most of the villages about, and herbs and small gardens flourished everywhere. They were not designed to keep out flying intruders, especially Invisible ones riding Disks and the like so they were moving faster than a speeding horse. The Mick knew right where he was going, and with the Sound Bubble from Tremble, nobody was going to hear anything we didn¡¯t want them to. AF Chapter 126 – Unburdening the Soul Aisley Swiftfoot was on the short and trim side, blonde and blue-eyed, and would have been a rather cute older woman if it weren¡¯t for the harshness of her eyes and grim set of her mouth. She woke up out of the Deep Slumber when the Mick doused her in the waters of Vesayan Bay, spluttering and shaking and protesting, trying to kick and move. Her arms wrenched and nearly popped out of their sockets. She screamed and thrashed again, and they bore down until she stopped kicking and just quivered in pain. The man standing there staring at her with cold dark eyes, waist-deep in the water, made her blood run cold. ¡°I told ye, Aisley,¡± he said patiently as she stopped to draw desperate breath. ¡°I told ye what I¡¯d do to ye when I caught ye playing games with the Scouts.¡± He slowly lifted one hand and reached out, and there was a shimmer in the air as his hand hit something. The Shoreward. Aisley went stock still. ¡°Ten feet away and under the water there be a remoran, watching us. I can stick ye under the water an¡¯ shine a light, yell see it straight enough. ¡°The Ward don¡¯t affect the dead, Aisley. If I slit yer throat an¡¯ shove you through to it, the stinking shark-ray will take its meal an¡¯ flit off to the depths, an¡¯ the only one who¡¯ll know what happened t¡¯ ye is the King when I tell him what I did an¡¯ why. ¡°So, ye better stop yer screaming, ye haggard bitch, or I¡¯ll bleed you here an¡¯ now, an¡¯ mayhap your chained spirit be giving me the answers I want.¡± Aisely shuddered at the sight of the cold, hard man in front of her. He¡¯d always been a rebellious, cantankerous bastard, as quick to draw a knife on you as spin a word, true to his gutter hill clan heritage. He was her subordinate in name only, but she¡¯d never been able to touch him, because he did too fine a job bringing up the next generation of Scouts, protecting and training them with a bloody zeal that caught many by surprise when they ran afoul of it. Just like his damn uncle, whose leadership of the undead in Hebian-to raised an unspoken umbrella over the one man who could talk to the dead brigand amiably. ¡°What do you want, Lord Mick?¡± she finally gasped. Someone with phenomenal strength was twisting her arms and keeping them locked behind her. She wasn¡¯t worried about him raping her, a thought which actually made her blush furiously. The scorn whenever he looked at her assured her that sharing a bed with her was the last thing he ever had in mind, even after his slut of a wife had died in the Fall¡­ ¡°Ian Foefinder. Ninetoes,¡± the Mick said coldly, and Aisley flinched. ¡°We found him.¡± A dull knife twisted in her guts. ¡°Did you now,¡± she responded. ¡°And how is he feeling?¡± A knife was in his hand, flicker-quick, and was arrested in mid-motion for a cross-strike that would have opened her throat instantly, she knew. He hadn¡¯t even thought about it, it was just a reaction to her response. Still, defiance was all she had at this point. She raised her chin to make it easier for him. ¡°Trite, hag.¡± His voice was as cold as the grave, but the long knife didn¡¯t come down. ¡°Ye know he were murdered, I be seein¡¯ it in yer eyes. An¡¯ his team knew it were done, buried him an¡¯ covered up the truth o¡¯ it. He never even got t¡¯ see his daughter.¡± The Mick wasn¡¯t blinking, only measuring. ¡°If ye hired the blade what did it, I¡¯ll make it quick an¡¯ clean, an¡¯ inta the Deep you¡¯ll go, never t¡¯ be missed. If ye just covered it up an¡¯ used it t¡¯ yer advantage, then I¡¯ll be seein¡¯ ye thrown out on yer ear an¡¯ word yer a traitor ta the serving Scouts spread, an¡¯ we¡¯ll see what kind o¡¯ revenge ye be takin¡¯ against the undead then. ¡°Lie t¡¯ me, an¡¯ I¡¯ll know. I¡¯ll cut off yer head, toss yer body to the stink-ray over there, an¡¯ we¡¯ll tear the truth out o¡¯ your screaming soul before we consign it t¡¯ the Hell I be told be waiting for traitors an¡¯ the faithless.¡± She tested the grip holding her, and it promptly crushed her arms behind her, making her gasp. ¡°I didn¡¯t order him killed!¡± she stated, staring at him. Slowly and deliberately, he lifted his eyes to someone behind her. There was no sign of emotion, nor did his knife come down. ¡°Ye helped.¡± She shuddered, wondering how he could have caught that. Her words were absolute truth, she hadn¡¯t ordered the hit. But the one who did the deed needed information on when to strike and where, and someone was going to give it to her. Payment and removing a competitor to her goals, for a man who was going to die anyway? It was an easy choice to make, as doubtless the assassin had known. ¡°He was a dead man, regardless of who informed on him!¡± she stated with certainty. ¡°Mayhap not, if he were warned. But that would nae been the right thing to do fer ye, aye?¡± She could tell she was going to die. There wasn¡¯t a jot of mercy in Lord Mick¡¯s voice. ¡°Was his team paid, as well?¡± he asked, and she grimaced slightly at the casual leading edge to his voice, as if he already knew the answer. ¡°Did you know he was dealing with the Fiazhat?¡± she half-screamed, writhing in the iron grip behind her. She was at least twice as strong as a normal human woman, but all the grip did was get even tighter, her bones starting to crack under the grip. ¡°That worm, selling us out to the undead, again!¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Aye, his dead self done went an¡¯ told me a Handmaiden of Xik Ru was using him as a cats-paw, giving him good intelligence he used against the other undead on the mainland. He never asked for the intel, they just gave it to him, an¡¯ so he used it,¡± the Mick replied coolly, shocking her. ¡°Ye¡¯re too bitter and paranoid a bitch not to have investigated him in depth, an¡¯ ye knew he¡¯d never sold anyone out. Too, ye would have found who wanted him dead, who killed him, an¡¯ why. Speak, Aisley. They be your last words alive, but if I don¡¯t hear what I want, they be not your last words dead.¡± She shuddered again at the image he was painting. ¡°You can¡¯t do this! I¡¯m the Royal Scout Commander! The king will-¡± ¡°Learn after the fact that ye sold out yer fellow Scouts to an assassin in order to gain yer commission. He¡¯s a royal, a politician. Ye know his main concern will be the face o¡¯ unity an¡¯ makin¡¯ sure all this infighting murder an¡¯ rot will be swept under the rug. His main concern will be finding yer replacement, as I be havin¡¯ a job already.¡± Her mouth opened at his cynical assessment of the situation, but she couldn¡¯t say he was wrong. Borelean was a good and noble King, but he¡¯d also proven he could be ruthlessly pragmatic about some matters. ¡°Ye¡¯re dead, an¡¯ I¡¯m goin¡¯ t¡¯ be killin¡¯ ye fer the backstabbing witch that ye be, as I did promise the last time ye tried to pull shit on me an¡¯ mine,¡± he stated with unblinking, deathly calm. ¡°Now, ye goin¡¯ wailing an¡¯ spittin¡¯ defiance, ye crone, or ye got some final words that need be said, an¡¯ mayhap something worthy can fall off yer tongue that needs doin¡¯, as ye had only the venom, but not the spine t¡¯ do yerself?¡± She sagged as all the fight went out of her. ¡°I, I just wanted revenge for what was done to us, Lord Mick. What was done to all of us...¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ it were so important that ye nicely killed off a few more o¡¯ us t¡¯ get it, sure enough,¡± he said with mock understanding. ¡°Especially the nice ones, the committed ones, who might be a threat t¡¯ yer advance up the ladder. ¡°Now, man up, crone, or go t¡¯ the Deep with nothing. It won¡¯t bother me baby sleep either way. I dream o¡¯ far worse things than yer fate every night, I do.¡± Her head bowed, to weak to support herself. ¡°I-I have some files, buried under a board in my cupboard. On the undead I know, what they¡¯ve been doing¡­ and the assassins they¡¯ve been using to do it.¡± ¡°There she is, the cold-hearted witch looking for any signs o¡¯ weakness ta exploit. Be right proud of ye, Aisley, revenge right ¡®til the end, as were only proper.¡± Her face twisted at his words, the dry cutting of them truly a knife. ¡°Any last requests? I already passed on Ian¡¯s t¡¯ his woman. She had some words for me t¡¯ say to ye, but I think I can leave t¡¯ yer imagination just what a wife has t¡¯ think o¡¯ the woman who helped kill her man.¡± ¡°I¡­ I would ask the Queen to forgive me. I have failed her, failed to gain vengeance for the dead, and for that I am regretful.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll pass it along.¡± She saw him nod, and was expecting something violent from behind her. Instead a hand laid gently atop her head, there was a soft light, and then there was nothing. ------ Vivus could have taken care of her body, burning it away below the waterline, but Lord Mick was, in the end, a man of his word, something he prized as one of the very few things that he and he alone had control over in his life. Thus it was that, holding her by the skull, he thrust the corpse of Aisley Swiftfoot, former scout, former officer of the Eldrytch Web, former Commandante of the Royal Scout Legion, up against the Shoreward and held it there. There was a gentle ripple as the remoran, colored a bloody red, rose quietly from the waters there, its shark-like jaws opening and closing as soulless dark eyes stared at him¡­ and he stared right back. It glided forwards, and the jaws closed smoothly about the parts of her skull jutting through the Shoreward. The Mick let go, and the remoran retreated, drawing her corpse smoothly after it. With a muted splash and swirl, the crimson of the creature submerged, turned, and jetted smoothly away underwater. ¡°No chance she¡¯ll come back as undead?¡± he asked once. ¡°None,¡± the quite voice of Magos al-Ryin stated, softly but grimly. His eyes turned on the second person there, a young man clad all in black, Gharu¡¯n by the hue of his skin, his eyes bulging as faint green sparkles danced over him, paralyzing him, not allowing him to speak or say anything. He had been an Invisible watcher on Aisley Swiftfoot. Obviously, her probings hadn¡¯t gone unnoticed, but she¡¯d been too useful a contact to have to just burn immediately. Magos Ryin had noticed him instantly, overconfident in his magic that no normal person could have, should have been able to wield, and Princess Kristie had taken him out with merciless efficiency. Reapplication of Emerald Shards ensured they didn¡¯t have any problems with him. ¡°Now, then.¡± Lord Mick¡¯s eyes were flat and cold as he met the panicking gaze of the young assassin. ¡°I knew Aisley fer damn near thirty years, boy. She¡¯s been me boss, such as it were, for the past five. She got what she earned in this life, an¡¯ now, boy, yer about t¡¯ get yers. If you¡¯ve the blood o¡¯ us or ours on your hands, then yer about t¡¯ follow her into the deep.¡± He pointed precisely, and there was a short delay before another form, this one purple-blue, hesitantly surfaced in the water there, wide wings spread out for balance, razor-toothed jaw working, hoping for a meal of its own. ¡°I dinnae care how ye were raised, boy. I¡¯m sure they took ye in, trained ye, conditioned ye, an¡¯ I be fair sure yer a fanatic loyalist t¡¯ their twisted codes of buying an¡¯ selling lives. At one time, I¡¯da respected an adherence t¡¯ that killing code, an¡¯ admitted the necessity o¡¯ it, totally unsurprised that killers like ye were about an¡¯ doin¡¯ the bloody work whats bein¡¯ needed done. ¡°But that were a time ago. Before I lost me own sweet lady t¡¯ the caprice o¡¯ the gods, an¡¯ too many friends an¡¯ kin t¡¯ those who¡¯d kill all o¡¯ us, treatin¡¯ us all as rats an¡¯ boot scum. ¡°So, lad, I don¡¯t care about yer moral code, an¡¯ what ye been taught. Ye are smart enough t¡¯ know there¡¯s a better way, an¡¯ there¡¯s nothing noble about ye an¡¯ yer own. ¡°Living or dead, yer going to tell me exactly everything I need t¡¯ know. If I dinnae like what I hear, yer feedin¡¯ the Deep, an¡¯ another worthless leech o¡¯ the human race be gone, an¡¯ damn ye all fer it. If I do like it, then p¡¯raps ye gets to live, an¡¯ find a better path in life. ¡°Now, then, let¡¯s start with yer name.¡± AF Chapter 127 – Pardon me Intrusion, Yer Majesty The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Flight! Invisibility! Very, very dangerous abilities, AF Chapter 128 – Issuing Final Contracts ¡°And now you¡¯re here to inform me that you¡¯re going to finalize the contracts for the members working for this¡­ assassin¡¯s guild?¡± King Borelean inquired knowingly. ¡°I did have that in mind, Yer Majesty. Ian never got t¡¯ see his little girl, an¡¯ while cowards have their uses, traitors an¡¯ backstabbers are there t¡¯ be disposed of as needed. Given I can¡¯t throw them inta a batch o¡¯ undead an¡¯ watch them be blasted t¡¯ bits with great satisfaction as they fight fer their lives, I thought they¡¯d just disappear on some secret mission an¡¯ never return. Filed away under ¡®unknown¡¯ with heavy hearts, I wager, may me mother pray fer their poor souls,¡± the Lord Mick replied lightly to the question. Borelean turned that over in his mind. Arresting the wretches and giving them a public trial was the other option, but how long would that take, and where would the proof come from? The files of a bitter woman already missing and also working with the assassins? ¡°You can do that quietly?¡± he asked calmly. ¡°They¡¯ll no more know I was there than yer guards will now, Yer Majesty,¡± the Lord Mick answered honestly. ¡°You have my permission, my condolences, and my backing. Know also that they won¡¯t vanish quietly. I¡¯ll have the wordsmiths start putting out word that they betrayed the nation and were working for the assassins. At the very least, they aren¡¯t going to be given a noble legacy, even if it is after the fact.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be right happy to inform them o¡¯ that afore I give them a second smile, Yer Majesty,¡± the Mick grinned in appreciation. ¡°I do be having one request from ye, tho.¡± ¡°And what might that be?¡± Lord Mick would argue murderously for the support and backing for his scouts, but he had plenty of cash of his own and didn¡¯t need to be paid to do what he did. His salary went to support the survivors of those who died in the line of duty, and he had a quietly large support network below him who thought he was their guardian angel as a result. And the King supposed he was. Messing with the people Lord Mick put under his protection was a fast way to an early grave, and more than a few troublemakers who¡¯d tested the rep of the old adventurer had learned hard and ugly that not all the older members of that breed had lost their nerve. ¡°If ye¡¯ve the power to contact Oswald the Green Hunter, now¡¯s the time t¡¯ call in your marker. There¡¯s an active Assassin¡¯s Guild re-establishing itself, it¡¯s recruiting young blood, an¡¯ it¡¯s taking money from all comers, especially the undead factions, an¡¯ even the virindi, Gotrok, and Hea. If it¡¯s not stamped out now, well, soon enough ye¡¯ll only be king because they let ye live, Yer Majesty.¡± Borelean sighed. ¡°You¡¯re going to send Oswald out against the new blood. Probably ones trained by one of his fellow throat-cutters.¡± ¡°We both know the Green Hunter don¡¯t take no human lives no more, unless they¡¯ve betrayed our kind. It¡¯s time he proved what he believes, an¡¯ if¡¯n that means taking down some old friends whose god is gold, well, he¡¯s earned himself a hard death t¡¯ go with a hard life.¡± Borelean couldn¡¯t argue with that. ¡°He¡¯s been looking for a chance to be forgiven in the eyes of my family and the public ever since Nuhmudira used him. Whether or not this is the kind of thing he thought he¡¯d end up fighting for, I¡¯ll leave to you.¡± He crossed over to his desk, opened a drawer there, and took out a slender scroll tube from near the back, black, with no markings on it. ¡°Take this, follow the instructions on it, and he¡¯ll contact you. How long it might take, I do not know.¡± The Mick took the scroll tube, still not rising from his knee, and tucked it away in his belt. ¡°Then with yer leave, Yer Majesty, I¡¯ll be taking mine.¡± The Mick offered a casually sloppy salute, grinning mischievously at the younger man as he did so, and rose slowly off the ground. A moment later he was flying, flying!, right out the window, and as he was halfway through it, clearly visible in the moonlight, something washed across him and erased him from view completely. Borelean crossed to the window and looked outside, suddenly marking that all the little noises he hadn¡¯t missed had abruptly come back, as if they¡¯d been isolated in their own little world. He could see the area before and around the courtyard and grounds quite well in the night, and there was nothing moving out there that was visible at all. He sucked in a breath. Flight! Invisibility! The Mick¡¯s new contacts had a pair of terrifying tools at their disposal, and he could only trust in their goodwill for now that they were not going to abuse such power readily. What it meant for the future, he¡¯d have to deal with when the time came. ------ Less than a half hour later, the three of them touched down at the campsite of the other Scouts. The Mick whistled to alert his students that he was coming, and the trio came down smoothly out of the sky while visible. ¡°Well, sir?¡± Rogar asked for all of them, the students waiting and listening. ¡°There¡¯s three elders in the Scouts who don¡¯t know they be not Scouts no more, by word o¡¯ the King. There¡¯ll be nothing in writing o¡¯ what is going on here, but then, then we¡¯ve a different job.¡± He unslung his pack from his shoulder and pulled out some thick files that had been stuffed within. ¡°It seems our remit be changing. There be killers for coin out there, taking money from the undead, the Gotrok, the Hea, even the virindi, perhaps even what shades stayed sane. Someone has to go out, hunt them down, an¡¯ kill them all. ¡°Guess who has been volunteered for that fine an¡¯ patriotic duty?¡± he asked with a lightness that hid a razor¡¯s edge. ¡°We¡¯re going to be going up against assassins?¡± Selena asked, just to be sure. ¡°Aye. Doubtless trained since they were kids, fanatic believers in the cause, all tied up in secrets an¡¯ ancient traditions an¡¯ mystic philosophy an¡¯ the like. Probably orphans whose parents were killed in the Fall, taken in, an¡¯ brainwashed ever since. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°They¡¯ll likely have Levels on all of ye, equipment given them by the undead beyond what our smiths can make, an¡¯ they¡¯ll be ruthless an¡¯ cruel as they need t¡¯ be t¡¯ get the job done.¡± His smile was wide. ¡°I be happy t¡¯ inform ye that they also know something of the new magic that the lasses bring with them, an¡¯ that¡¯s the foundation o¡¯ their power. It did surprise the one we found that the Lady Ryin could see right through their invisibility an¡¯ the Princess, well, she could have killed him with her eyes closed, so being Invisible did nae mean too much, poor lad that he were.¡± ¡°So, what¡¯s the play, sir?¡± Rogar asked neutrally, accepting the change and forging on ahead. ¡°Well, first we¡¯re goin¡¯ ta be doin¡¯ that horrible, stressful, boring, taxing, an¡¯ excruciating task known as thinkin¡¯ an¡¯ readin¡¯, or mayhap just readin¡¯ will be too much, an¡¯ we¡¯ll leave the thinkin¡¯ for later.¡± He held up the stack of folders, pointed at the tables that had folded down into visible extensions of the Invisible Wagon, and as Lights blinked on there, he added, ¡°Grab some o¡¯ this foul abomination called paperwork from me, an¡¯ get to it, roaches!¡± he added cheerfully. ------ ¡°Magical Scouts. The Rogue variant, if you recall.¡± Kris frowned and sent her mind back to duplicated memories of the game. ¡°Magical Scouts, magical Scouts, Rogues¡­¡± she squinted, trying to remember. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m coming up totally blank. Did anyone ever use the variant?¡± she asked with a shrug. ¡°Not really, but it was a way to get spellcasting without high mental reqs.¡± ¡°How did it work?¡± Kris asked reasonably. ¡°You give up the Sneak Attack damage for the ability to take the full Magical Knack Mastery tree with your Talents. Since Talents are a Class ability, you completely sidestep the Casting reqs, in effect tricking the universe into doing what you want it to. Instead of spells, you learn them as Spell-Like Abilities, SLA¡¯s, just like monsters might have, usable three times a day each.¡± ¡°How many do you get?¡± Kris asked thoughtfully. ¡°One per Level. Plus you still get Talents, which you can spend on them, and Feats, which you can spend on more Talents. You can¡¯t have more Magical Knacks of a higher Spell Level than you can of a lower one, however, so basically two to three per Level as you advance, cherry-picking your best spells.¡± Kris considered the implications of that. ¡°Because it¡¯s a Talent, not research, it¡¯s something they just could have stumbled into, then taught one another. Picking Invisibility, Silence, and similar stealth-related magic would be a no-brainer, while vastly enhancing their stealth capabilities. It¡¯s just a trick making the universe do what you want it to...¡± ¡°It¡¯s also an SLA. There are Meta Feats for SLA¡¯s, giving you additional uses per day, making them more powerful, and so forth and so on,¡± I reminded her. ¡°They still need to grow powerful enough to use the more powerful spells, and would they even know of what spells they could choose?¡± she asked archly. ¡°I don¡¯t know, but Talents being what they are, they will stumble into things based on what they desire. It¡¯s what the Class does, after all.¡± ¡°And they give up Sneak Attack damage. Do they lose Cunning entirely?¡± ¡°Yes. Magic for Cunning. However, they still get 8 skill Ranks a Class Level, have that big skill list, and the other Class abilities are still in place.¡± Evasion and uncanny dodge were extraordinarily useful in low-magic combat and survival, too. ¡°They just rely more on luck and magic than pure skill.¡± ¡°But a very restricted number of spells, albeit¡­ as SLA¡¯s, they¡¯d require nothing more than an act of will to get off. That could be extremely useful,¡± Kris nodded slowly, picturing the ramifications. ¡°The one we captured knew Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Vanish, True Seeking, Invisibility, and Darkness,¡± I reviewed. ¡°He knew of others with Dispel Magic, Devilsight, and Oswald the Green Hunter is reputed to know Improved Invisibility.¡± At least by the description of the effects. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s quite a combination of spells. Their only limitation is not knowing what they can gain, or how to advance.¡± ¡°Mmm. It also means that the Green Hunter has reached at least Seven in a Powered Class,¡± I pointed out. It took Kris a moment to realize why I had mentioned that, then she glanced at me alertly. ¡°He¡¯s got the age extension. He probably looks to be under thirty now, just like the Mick.¡± ¡°Only disguised by the distinguished white in his beard,¡± I nodded to her. ¡°People are looking for a man in his sixties or seventies, not a fellow young enough to be his son. They just don¡¯t know it.¡± ¡°And¡­ it¡¯s likely the assassins ran into the Ceiling at Six and don¡¯t know it, relying on the Isparian side to bull through, and they just don¡¯t have the right mindset.¡± She narrowed her eyes. ¡°We¡¯re going to go looking for the mysterious Green Hunter, and run into someone who might look like his son. He could be living on these islands right under the noses of those looking for him somewhere!¡± ¡°The contact information the King gave us probably means he¡¯s living close by there under an assumed identity?¡± I just shrugged. ¡°The odds he hasn¡¯t continued to develop his powers?¡± Kris asked rhetorically. ¡°Slim to none. I imagine he knows Fly, Blink, Dimension Door, Teleport, and a couple other SLAs to give himself an edge. As a result, he¡¯s probably extremely well-traveled over the whole island, as he can get into and out of trouble quite easily.¡± ¡°Blink past the Shoreward, Fly while Invisible to the mainland, and then Teleport around to where he¡¯d like to go as he wishes. Given his reputation, I¡¯m assuming his Lived-Line would extend pretty much everywhere, and so he¡¯d have no problem traversing the length of the island to do what he wants to do.¡± Kris nodded. ¡°A supremely dangerous man, then.¡± ¡°Yes. The ultimate agent provocateur in a world where they don¡¯t know what is magically possible any more.¡± His only limit was not being able to Teleport across the waters, as Teleport was basically a variant form of Earthjumping. ¡°But not a big surprise to those who know his potential Class abilities, although I¡¯m assuming he¡¯s also a max Level person, a paramount like Lord Mick.¡± AF Chapter 129 – The Trip Along the Island Road Continues ¡°Remember that he worked for Nuhmudira, just like Lord Mick did through the Radiant Blood. They likely have met, and I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the Mick was one of his students in scout work,¡± I said quietly. ¡°Certainly he¡¯s pretty forgiving of the man.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ entirely possible. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if there¡¯s a family relation in there somewhere, given Oswald is an Aluvian name. At the least, they traveled in some of the same circles.¡± She¡¯d probably ask him directly, enjoying lineages like she did. She¡¯d already chatted with the other scouts and had all their family histories down cold, and had even drawn connections out to clans back on Ispar for eight of them, astounding them that she¡¯d know of such distant cousins. ¡°I admit to never having heard of him back home, although if he earned an appellation and they commissioned him to taking out the Queen, he has to be something of a legend here, right?¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s true for just about everyone here. Everything I know of Elysa Strathelar and her husband seems to indicate she comes from a low-country clan in Aluvia, and he was the son of a cobbler in Celdon. Commoners both, rose to royalty here on the basis of what they accomplished. Even MacNaill was really nothing special at home, but now everyone knows the Undead Lord of Hebian-To, even the Empyrean undead.¡± ¡°Yes, jump through a Portal to a land of opportunity!¡± I rolled my eyes. ¡°Or get turned into food for a mound of fungus or olthoi soup.¡± Princess Kristie¡¯s response to that was only a cold glare back north. ¡°Just means there¡¯s a whole lot of butchering to be done, Ryin.¡± ¡°Aye. After you get the whole process of starting up an Allegiance and training to raise the floor accomplished, I know, I know.¡± She just nodded shortly. Holding Ranthas back from a fight probably was not a good idea. Sama Rantha had been called The Tip of the Spear for a reason, as one of the most dangerous vanguard fighters and infiltrators in the game. Kris was perfectly ready to get the blood of humanity¡¯s enemies on her hands. ¡°So, we have a whole crew of new Isparian Warriors and gamer Rogues to deal with, in addition to some experienced older bastards. In addition to drudges, burun, Gotrok lugians, red tumeroks, virindi, shades, at least three different factions of undead, and the minions of various Elder Entities, including one of the deep seas and one of tentacles through space, such as it is.¡± ¡°The Mick mentioned Rynthids or something, too,¡± I reminded her. She gave me a beady eye. ¡°I¡¯m not forgetting the mosswarts, banderlings, monugas, or the like, plus all the damn Summon points scattered across thousands of square miles of landscapes.¡± ¡°Peace, peace!¡± I held up my hands, laughing softly. ¡°Or I¡¯d say don¡¯t forget about all the extra-dimensional spaces forcibly returned to the world, too¡­¡± Kristie made an exasperated noise as she sat back against a tree, watching the Scouts poring over the notes of the late unlamented Lady Swiftfoot. ¡°This place is utterly insane. Expecting so many mortal intelligent races to just get along, and then prodding them to start fighting on command for fun and games? Just¡­ what kind of insane entity does stuff like this?¡± she asked helplessly. ¡°Gamers?¡± She glanced over at me. ¡°They are just playing games with mortal lives. The level of power being wielded here is definitely divine, or, if not, Eternals with resources so vast we can¡¯t really grip them. Just think of it from the point of gods playing games, getting bored with the current game, changing up the rules and setting, and seeing if they like the new game better.¡± ¡°Or they could wipe the whole thing and start anew?¡± she asked rhetorically. ¡°There¡¯s that, or they could just go away somewhere else, try something new, and perhaps come back to here in the future when they get bored again, and see what has happened without them meddling, and if it¡¯s interesting enough, start up the games again. ¡°Consider all the crazy stories Lord Mick told us, how many potentially catastrophic world-shaking events from so many sources happened in just the span of a few years, when we know the active history of events on this world goes back for tens of thousands of years by his own word. The undead played their events across centuries and millennia, and then suddenly ALL of their shit comes to a head at almost the same time, plus extradimensional invaders by the boatload?¡± We both shook our heads. ¡°Fate loves its grand schemes, and the more Chaos the better, from that side, but it¡¯s too grand, too trite. There was an active hand stirring the pot for entertainment, especially on just one little island here.¡± Kris glanced at me. ¡°Was it like this for Terra-Luna, and Aelryinth?¡± ¡°It was the Stages, exactly as the Archmage laid out. You should remember them as Power of Ten ¡®history¡¯. You were in Stage Eight in the game, as real as it seems. They are on, eh, Stage Four or Five, depending on how you want to see it, after about ten years. ¡°So, yes, there were world-threatening events taking place, but they were across the entirety of the planet, and damn if there was not a LOT of globe-trotting going on to cut some of those things off at the nub.¡± Just the continual meteor-drops from the bug-world of Verdan took up the time of dozens of teams! ¡°Stuffing all that into an area the size of Rhode Island is just crazy, and then this fantastically overpowered ley line field¡­¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Mmm,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Well, happily they seemed to keep their paws off of Ispar, or Mom and Dad might have had more of a time of it.¡± At that, I just had to laugh. ¡°What?¡± she asked archly. ¡°Just what do you think the Ranthas are, but one sneaky and underhanded game piece shoved into position on so many different worlds?¡± I asked her. She opened her mouth, closed it, and stared at me. ¡°That¡¯s rather an appalling way to look at us¡­¡± she sniffed haughtily. ¡°Well, you¡¯re one of the Good pieces, deployed right on top of a massive artifice of Evil, the Hag Curse, which is itself a corruption of a Lawful punishment for wicked souls, purpose bent by Chaotic magic to fouler ends,¡± I pointed out. She sneered at the thought. ¡°Gamers one-upping one another,¡± she muttered, shaking her head. ¡°Yeah, but you¡¯re FORSAKEN. The Divine powers, and probably the Eternal ones, can¡¯t even see you Ranthas unless they are manifested through physical senses, and thus can¡¯t tell how you are upsetting everything on their pet worlds hither and yon. If Mithar and Sylune are the ones responsible for you, it shows a huge amount of trust in you and yours to do the right thing without them watching over you.¡± I tipped an invisible hat to her. ¡°Congrats. The ultimate free agents of Good, set into motion to save whole worlds!¡± ¡°Damn straight! Who else could they possibly nominate?¡± she promptly spoke up, then turned a sly and knowing eye on me. ¡°Yeah, well, there¡¯s bound to be bunches more of you than there are of us. The last Sending I received was that there are a whole seven of us. There¡¯s potentially a pair of you Ranthas, and whoever your sons and daughters end up as, on every single world that the Hag Curse touches.¡± She thought about that, and then really THOUGHT about that. ¡°Well,¡± she finally admitted, ¡°that does leave a whole lot of us running around, doesn¡¯t it?¡± And true to form, she grinned widely at the thought of it. ¡°Forsaken bitches and brutes running around setting things right! I really like the sound of that!¡± ¡°Yeah. You¡¯re so much better for the average person than having Powered folk there it¡¯s not funny. Low, broad power,¡± I had to agree. ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ you need the spikes of the high ceiling there. And Powered at the top of the game can just do shit the Forsaken can¡¯t, and against some of the shit that¡¯s out there, you need that.¡± I shook my head slowly. ¡°Ael had some experience with that on Terra-Luna, too. Opportunistic post-Eternal shit trying to sneak onto the world and get themselves set in place for stuff. ¡°Hells, Kris, Ael and company had to make up Gear for the World-Angel and his subordinates, just to get them up to an acceptable level of power. There was some NASTY crap involved out there, such that they had to help power-level Planetars, a Solar, and Devas!¡± Kris had the grace to wince. ¡°Yeah, yeah, I know. Superman has to fight the super-villains, heroes fight the villains,¡± she agreed. ¡°You deal with what you can deal with, and you get better so you can deal with more stuff and tougher stuff, trying to keep pace with losses. After all, losing just once could be goodbye planet, right?¡± ¡°No pressure, then,¡± I murmured, remembering a few Significant Events, and Kris laughed under her breath. ¡°What are the implications if we succeed?¡± she asked softly, eyes narrowed. ¡°I don¡¯t intend to stop, and I¡¯m not a good patsy for those who want me performing for them. The fight to win is going to be exciting, and I might lose, and that¡¯s all fine. But if I win, this is suddenly going to be a very boring place for those bastards.¡± ¡°We¡¯re an island,¡± I reminded her quietly. ¡°Didn¡¯t the Lord Mick remark that the living Empyreans were sent into stasis by Asheron to protect them from the olthoi? And those olthoi might occupy the rest of the planet?¡± Her eyes widened slightly. ¡°Oh,¡± she murmured once. ¡°That¡­ is pretty ominous¡­¡± she conceded. It was a LOT of potential bugs, and alien ecologies, and the like. ¡°And the Empyreans are world-walkers. Almost all the other races here were brought here from other spaces. Tack on the fact they dealt with what are basically Mythos Entities, and do you really think we¡¯re going to be allowed to become boring?¡± I just shook my head slightly as she nibbled at her lip. ¡°At best they¡¯d give us a generation to rest and recoup and to grow, testing how well we can prepare, and then they¡¯d start unloading shit onto us again.¡± ¡°Because it would be fun to watch!¡± Kris proclaimed in a nasty turn of voice, a special gleam in her eye. ¡°Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of battle... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat! The human drama of murderous competition!¡­¡± ¡°That dates you soooo much,¡± Kris sniffed with a roll of her eyes. ¡°It does, it does!¡± I agreed sagely. ¡°His memories of the Schoolhouse Rock series are also particularly keen, if you would like me to sing them.¡± ¡°I have no idea what those are,¡± she admitted. ¡°So, no, I¡¯ll have no context.¡± ¡°But you can probably recite to me the tactics and battlelines of four thousand years of military campaigns.¡± ¡°Those Skill Ranks of Military Lore are there for damn good reasons!¡± she sniffed in reply. ¡°Juuuust because you¡¯re a Warlord¡­¡± I rolled my eyes theatrically. ¡°The Mick has no skill or experience as a soldier. His total experience is feudal vassalage societal norms and small-unit skirmishes,¡± she sniffed. ¡°Someone has to be the general with experience in a magical world!¡± ¡°Hey, guys! This eighteen year-old is going to be your general for the campaign to kick ALL the bad guys out of your little island, no matter how powerful they might be, and then she¡¯ll start on the rest of the world!¡± I called out in a whisper. ¡°Damn right I will. If they don¡¯t like it, they can arm-wrestle me for it!¡± ¡°So typical.¡± Her knuckles popped like cracking rocks, earning a few startled looks from the Scouts reading over there. ¡°So, what¡¯s your accomplishment list look like?¡± she asked me. ¡°The big one? Break the ley line network here, chopping the mana down to the standards of the rest of the planet, probably Isparian level.¡± AF Chapter 130 – Plans upon Plans ¡°That sounds much more grandiose than ¡®Kick the arse of all the other factions¡¯,¡± Princess Kristie sniffed. ¡°Without all that additional mana, I¡¯m pretty sure all the other magical factions are going to be severely hampered and lose a LOT of their mobility and power. As long as we aren¡¯t dependent on high-end magic, the fighting will go much, much better for us,¡± I explained calmly, which piqued her interest. ¡°Including the bugs?¡± she asked narrowly. ¡°Without the excess mana, their ability to introduce their ecology will collapse, and they are Magical Beasts. This island will go from being a tolerable place to exist to feeling like they are living at ten thousand feet, or maybe in a desert, every breath an effort of will as they slowly starve.¡± She turned that over in her head. ¡°That would mean the olthoi in the rest of the world aren¡¯t nearly the threat that they are here,¡± she judged thoughtfully. ¡°I hope so.¡± ¡°And the creatures of the Deep?¡± ¡°Magical Beasts and Aberrations drawn here by the immense amount of mana being siphoned from everywhere else. What do you think will happen when that mana evaporates and they have to stay up here in the heat and light and shallows instead of the cold and quiet dark of the depths?¡± ¡°They¡¯ll leave voluntarily. And if they lose their superior spellcasting ability while they are up here, that could also mean control over their servant races¡­¡± ¡°Which would mean they would leave QUICKLY. They¡¯d go back to deep places in the ocean where the mana is thicker, and we¡¯d only be left with outcasts, renegades, and the young, who could tolerate a more normal manafield.¡± ¡°The undead factions are not martials, much as they might pretend. They all use magic, and it ramps up quickly, according to the Mick. While Gold Scarab isn¡¯t weak, if that is their limit, that is far, far more survivable than what we¡¯ve seen of the top three Scarabs.¡± ¡°Especially if we get Energy Resistances and Evasion and Mettle and such going?¡± I remarked wisely. She was flexing her black-nailed hands like unconscious claws. ¡°It all adds up. What would it be to deny a Vuln going off on you?¡± ¡°Fortitude or Will Save, hmm. I¡¯d say the former, as you¡¯re trying to resist a temporary physical alteration in your body from Life Magic. If it set up an Aura about you that increased damage dealt to you, that would be a Will to shift the target off into clear air. Never had to Save against a Vuln?¡± I asked archly. ¡°I never tested one out, as I would have had to drop my Null, so there was no real reason, as they couldn¡¯t get past my Null with them. But if we can introduce proper Saves both general and Sun-sourced, resistance to magical attacks should skyrocket quickly. How about Energized Armor?¡± she asked softly. ¡°Making armor effective against directed magic would also be a great defense,¡± I acknowledged. ¡°Don¡¯t forget those Aegis shields and how they worked.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t, trust me. Resist Energy combinations with Vulnerability resistance means that direct energy damage Isparian-style War Magic can be nerfed into the shadow realm. If they get decent weaponry on top of that, we can play the joker and turn the tables on them in very unexpected fashion.¡± ¡°Especially if we can Seal away the Armies of Summons doing most of their fighting, and make sure they can¡¯t come back themselves. If they want to come back from Death, they are going to have to find much better methods¡­¡± I reminded her. ¡°Vivic Seals aren¡¯t an effective long-term solution. That¡¯s why you want to collapse the ley line fields!¡± Kris blurted out, catching that key point. ¡°It might warn them we are coming, but when they lose their basically unkillable armies and reinforcements, my, won¡¯t things change at the tactical and strategic level.¡± ¡°Death will really be coming,¡± Kris whispered, two pairs of canines gleaming dangerously from this side of her profile. ¡°First, though, we need to get rid of a trio of opportunistic and experienced cowards.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not a new thing for me,¡± Kris smiled even more widely. ¡°I imagine not,¡± I nodded. ¡°But we¡¯re not in a hurry.¡± ¡°Everything takes time, even the basic stuff. Sure, a few days won¡¯t make much difference, but Naming Karma waits for nobody¡­ especially in a place where it¡¯s basically free!¡± Kris laughed. The fact was actually quite reassuring. If bloody conflict was the best way to earn Naming Karma, having stuff nearby where you could avail yourselves of the Karma was extremely convenient. It wasn¡¯t the Karmic Banquet that killing seven billion undead was, but I wasn¡¯t ready to do anything like that. Besides, I might have to do it against seven billion bugs, so was it that much different? ------- There were a few hours of Investing and Infusing by eager students grasping at new magicks they¡¯d had no idea they could learn, but were definitely eager to¡­ and the more Karma they earned, the steadier would be their climb! The farms and settlements of the Crow were, like all the islands, dominant among the shorelines, with the forests cut back there and gardens planted to grow food. There were some plantations and fields, but not many, as land was at a premium, and as always, there were Summons everywhere getting in the way which had to be worked around. It was particularly funny to see a thatch of greenery a good thirty yards wide, grown so thick and tall you couldn¡¯t actually see anything in the middle of it. Somewhere in middle of it, a Summons was sitting there, maybe listening to the world go by, dying of thirst or hunger, discorporating, and instantly being relieved by another Summons doomed to perish in a similar manner. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The area along the roads actually had the most exposed Summons, purely for the benefit of traveling ¡®adventurers¡¯ and the regular military patrols coming through, of which the Mick¡¯s crew was representative and went to the task with great enthusiasm. Sclavi, moarsmen, mosswarts, zefirs, wisps, reedsharks, and stands of slithyr tendrils died under rains of arrows, bolts, some spells, and a lot of hacking as they dashed from one to the next with great energy, determined to earn as much Karma as they could towards their next Class Level. ¡°Hoi, lass, question for ye,¡± Lord Mick asked, as the Scouts energetically retrieved the ammunition used to pepper a group of mosswarts down, hurrying to do so before the respawn. ¡°Answer for you!¡± I replied calmly. ¡°Be there somewhat t¡¯ address the ammunition problem?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°Problem?¡± I repeated blankly. They had plenty of ammo that I could see, each archer or arbalester carrying a full quiver, and since the Wagon was there, they¡¯d picked up an extra quiver each at Fort Mouth. ¡°The archers I worked with during the great an¡¯ wonderful old days would sometimes carry around a thousand arrows or more at a time, an¡¯ never bothered t¡¯ reclaim the ones they shot.¡± I blinked once in some surprise. ¡°Aye, looking back at it, it were both hilariously unreal an¡¯ extremely wasteful, but¡­ it didnae matter. There were unlimited arrows made for ¡®em, an¡¯ a person could carry around tens o¡¯ thousands o¡¯ them if they wanted. Damn me if a ¡®quiver¡¯ then wasn¡¯t a thousand arrows by itself!¡± Kris was listening in. ¡°OMA Quivers?¡± she asked me calmly. ¡°That will help with ¡®normal¡¯ arrows of one kind or another, but not with any specialty types,¡± I nodded slowly, caught the Mick¡¯s raised eyebrow. ¡°OMA Quivers. One More Arrow Quivers. They always have one more arrow in them.¡± ¡°Hooo¡­¡± he breathed out. ¡°But only one type o¡¯ arrow, likely an armor-punching shaft?¡± ¡°Basically, yes.¡± ¡°Ye know, we used to be able to make elemental ammo nigh as easy as normal broadheads? Just a dash o¡¯ alchemical oil, an¡¯ there they were, what ye call Elemental Phasing ammo, clean as could be. Stored in a normal quiver, too.¡± His self-mocking smirk was firmly in place. ¡°And then there were invented the Prismatic ammo. Changed its nature to reflect the Bow ye shot it from, t¡¯ whatever matched the Elemental damage the Bow boosted!¡± I looked at Kris, who looked back at me. ¡°Not if it was Rended or Imbued?¡± I had to ask. This was another new tech. ¡°Oh, nay, nay. This be new to ye?¡± He warmed to the subject as the Scouts scampered away from the spawn point with their arrow salvage. ¡°The best o¡¯ the high end Bows were made t¡¯ enhance a particular type of damage fired from them, an¡¯ so they gave damage bonuses to that kind o¡¯ arrow if it were shot from them.¡± Kris slapped her forehead. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me, let me guess. Archers used to carry around multiple Bows, too!¡± ¡°Sometimes ten or more, depending on how well-prepared for a fight they wanted t¡¯ be,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°A Render for each basic damage type. At least one Armor-Render, if a mage be working with ye, perhaps two or three fer specific Elements, normally Fire and Blunt, and the like for a Critical Strike Bow, too, if the enemy were of a sort that were over-vulnerable to Imperils.¡± ¡°Over-vulnerable to Imperils?¡± I repeated. ¡°Aye, that were a great thing. Creatures that didn¡¯t have much armor, but a mess o¡¯ natural resistances. If an Imperil went off on ¡®em, it were explained to me that their armor went negative in protective value, an¡¯ actually increased the damage done t¡¯ them!¡± I blinked at him again. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t recall anything like that happening back in Ispar,¡± I said slowly, going through Mira¡¯s memories of use of Imperil. ¡°All it did there was neutralize existing armor or natural armor. You¡¯re talking about it¡­ going negative?¡± I boggled at the idea. ¡°That were how one o¡¯ the brainy types explained it with simple math t¡¯ me. Pointed out that it worked with reversed Armor Banes, if ye could land them on an enemy. Baits were specific, too, but could take a shield t¡¯ negative, an¡¯ instead o¡¯ protecting an enemy, it would help ye cut right through them.¡± ¡°That-!¡± Kris frowned and shook her head. ¡°I don¡¯t even want to consider how that would work on a shield, and if you did it to armor, the armor would end up destroying itself granting an attacker the benefit! Magnifying the damage to something that wore it? I mean, that is totally possible from a magical standpoint, but how would it work when the armor is tearing itself and the person wearing it apart under your blows?¡± ¡°Well, t¡¯ be fair, lass, when we pulled it on someone, weren¡¯t much intact by the time we got done,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°Did you actually chop the shields apart, or something?¡± she had to ask. ¡°Nay. When Baited t¡¯ the negative, armor or shields basically become transparent t¡¯ the Baited damage, an¡¯ magnify it when it passes through. ¡°Those Ruschk I told ye of, far t¡¯ the north? They liked to pull that stunt. If ye didn¡¯t have yer Shield Baned, but it had Impenetrability on it, its factor to frost damage went from, oh, .7, t¡¯ negative 1.3, well,¡± he coughed in mock embarrassment. ¡°Had that happen t¡¯ me once. Banes went down on me, wasn¡¯t paying attention at the time. Had a nice Shield with built-in Impen, more than 400 Shield Level, aye? Nice an¡¯ strong, take a Gotrok hammer or olthoi pincer-spear, no problem! A Ruschk Drakhten Frost Baited me Shield, then tossed one o¡¯ their nasty ice darts at me. Nae a problem, it would bounce off me armor and shield, no issues¡­¡± ¡°And you took a quick trip to your deathstone.¡± ¡°Aye. Going from full Health ta me chest being instantly frozen solid were quite the surprise. Never lost track o¡¯ me Banes duration again, especially fightin¡¯ the Ruschk.¡±* ¡°Armor¡­ probably doesn¡¯t work quite that way anymore?¡± Kris hazarded. ¡°Although that¡¯s an impressive result!¡± I assured him. ¡°Aye. Funny as Hell t¡¯ see if ye arranged for it, too. Mind, we didn¡¯t fight a lot o¡¯ things that used Shields, and ye couldn¡¯t Bait the armor o¡¯ the enemy. So opportunities to pull it off were limited, but fun when ye could.¡± ¡°And the things you needed to do it against would be even rarer, I¡¯d imagine?¡± Fwzap! A cluster of angry dead mosswart Summons was suddenly replaced by a knot of angry bronze-scaled moarsmen Summons. With a whoop, the Scouts fell upon them with melee weapons, brandishing their newest Feat: Improved Armed Strike, or as it was normally known¡­ Sword beats Fist! One Attack of Opportunity a round against a foe that is not wielding a weapon or does not have reach on you, per foe! AF Chapter 131 – All for your Entertainment Moarsmen clawed, swiped, and bit, and blades and axes were there to get in their way with the speed of Fire-path weapon techniques. The killing speed of the Scouts had just doubled with one Feat against these enemies, and Outflank drove the wolfpack-style team-up techniques that enabled both parties flanking a foe to seize openings faster and more smoothly, improving the normal bonus from +2 to +4 to hit¡­ or dropping Melee Defense by ten to twenty percent, it was hard to tell. They swung faster, and they hit more. Perfect recipe for faster killing. The Mick was absolutely delighted to see the marked improvement in their performance. ¡°Wait until they get the Scout Levels and start taking Way of Shadow,¡± Princess Kristie said, watching with folded arms. She¡¯d slaughtered her way through multiple clusters of these things, proving her combat ability was no fluke, and although the Mick was getting better and faster, he still couldn¡¯t equal her speed at slaughter. The Scouts had just kind of gaped at how fast she could kill things, barely able to follow her blade. ¡°Aye. Unique Hea tumeroks, mostly, or those that popped up in the Valley o¡¯ Death.¡± We turned to look at him again, and he sighed and shook his head. ¡°A place out in the Direlands, on the other side o¡¯ Dereth. Popped up a bunch o¡¯ powerful an¡¯ nasty stuff t¡¯ test ourselves against. The only place ye could routinely find Tremendous Monugas t¡¯ fight, if ye cared to. And, eh, some powerful and annoyingly tough Hea tumeroks. Some o¡¯ whom liked t¡¯ use Shields.¡± He smiled back at the memory. ¡°Let me guess. Imperil, Vuln, Bait. Annoyingly tough Hea goes down in¡­ one hit?¡± Kris guessed. ¡°If ye got lucky and crit, aye. Normally two, three hits tops. There were other creatures there what went negative on the armor to Imperil, it were where the effect were first noticed. It was there on weaker stuff, but we never noticed the difference, it were always Imperil, dead. Were a bunch of odd combinations because o¡¯ it. Like the Lugians which spawned there. If ye just fought them straight up, ye¡¯d use Lightning, as they¡¯ve a racial weakness to it. But if ye Imperiled them, well, the mages would still use Lightning, but the fighters an¡¯ archers would break out the Crit Strike Frost Weapons, an¡¯ tear through the blighters like cheese. They¡¯d be ten times tougher than a Gotrok, but die even faster than one.¡± ¡°Ensuring that you had to carry around a dozen Weapons to attack everything optimally,¡± Kris sighed once, shaking her head. ¡°Ye telling me there be Artificer Infusions that can make me Bunita the Element o¡¯ the moment whenever needed warms me heart, Yer Highness!¡± the Mick agreed with her. ¡°And you used Crit Strike Weapons, instead of the more powerful Armor Renders, because the Armor Renders would halve the effect of going to negative armor back then,¡± I noted. Because they reduced armor by half, regardless of how much it was¡­ or how negative it was, not eliminating a fixed amount of it. ¡°Well caught! Aye.¡± The first moarsman dropped, the second and third following within a breath, and then the last of them had six Scouts on it and dropped in a flurry of stabbing strikes and cuts. ¡°It were always a great feeling t¡¯ watch this creature with its utterly impossible Health totals get crit inta oblivion with fantastic speed. There was this one construct-undead thing in the Colosseum that were a total frustrating fighting experience. Regeneration waaay too fast t¡¯ kill it with the amount o¡¯ Elemental Resistance it had. But ye Imperiled it enough, and suddenly it were just another tree waiting t¡¯ be chopped down in great honking measure.¡± ¡°The Colosseum?¡± Kris and I asked together, staring at him. His smile opened, faltered, and he looked away again. ¡°Quit reminding me that some o¡¯ the most fun times o¡¯ me life were naught but dancin¡¯ on a stage, ladies,¡± he muttered, mock-crossly. ¡°Performing for others can be damn fun. Performing because you¡¯re a rat in a gilded maze led along by the nose, that¡¯s a different matter,¡± Kris agreed as I moved forward to administer the Healing spells to the happy and enthusiastic Scouts. All of them had been smacked, slashed, or cut somewhere, but any contagion from the blows vanished with the death of the Summons, and knowing a good Healer was present helped morale tremendously. I was actually able to perform almost like someone from the tales the Lord Mick told them¡­ and I could even quick-Mend damage to their leather armor! ¡°The Colosseum¡­ were a set o¡¯ challenges for individuals or teams, as ye like, mostly the latter. Ye entered a room, rang a bell, an¡¯ specific monsters be Summoned in for ye t¡¯ fight.¡± The Mick frowned as he recalled the memory. ¡°Some were best killed by spells, some by weapons, an¡¯ they ranged through all the Elements an¡¯ types, so ye had to be up on yer Weapons, an¡¯ then time and error t¡¯ figure what each room was best fought with an¡¯ how, an¡¯ the tactics to use t¡¯ kill them the fastest. It took some time fer us to make it through all twenty rooms in under the hour limit. ¡°It were quite the thrill to be on a team that beat the challenge, at the time. It set the tone fer what the teams do up at the Quiddity Dungeon up on Ithaenc now. Well-oiled machines tearing through stuff with teamwork an¡¯ good timing.¡± ¡°There¡¯s just something magical about good teamwork that stirs the soul. Giving up individual glory just to make sure the whole team wins is something everyone but the most self-centered can understand and appreciate, and every community appreciates it when everyone pitches in and contributes together,¡± Kris nodded, able to appreciate how he was enjoying the memory. ¡°Ritual Casting can work much the same way for Casters,¡± I agreed wholeheartedly. ¡°Start doing it with multiple spells, and you¡¯re paving the way for Eternal-Class spells, among other things.¡± ¡°Teamwork, teamwork, rah, rah, rah! Just make sure we don¡¯t forget to do our Infusing and Investing,¡± Kris mock-cheered. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Blaring Visual File alerts tagged to Detect Time,¡± I nodded with exaggerated care. ¡°Good! Let¡¯s continue the Karmic Harvests. I¡¯ll be very, very happy to work a set of spawns near wherever we camp once our Investing is done and the others are all zoning off,¡± she said in anticipation. We still had to post guards. Slithyr tentacles could still come randomly manifesting right into the middle of a camp, their eye-stalk popping up, registering prey nearby, and then the tentacles themselves lying in wait in ambush below as the eye-stalk quickly withdrew once potential prey came closer. Wasps could fly in from the north, and this was the main island they came to, meaning we¡¯d seen over half a dozen teams of archers moving through the place over the course of the day, whooping as the teams set upon the static spawns. Zefirs could coalesce out of the shadows between worlds, Fey things just warped into a strong location of magic, and Wisps, random creations of the bent and overpowered manafield, could spontaneously pop up anywhere. I mentally noted that the universal hostility of the Fey was probably an effect of the twisting of the manafield here, too¡­ Regardless, evening would be coming, and we were planning to halt for the night by the Golum Bridge to the next island in the chain. --------- ¡°The spawns are fixed and set, an¡¯ pretty famous, overall. They also got in the way of a lot o¡¯ traffic. Making the enclosures for them were a true pain in the arse. The builders had t¡¯ run in, get their work done as fast as they could afore the next spawn, an¡¯ when it came, we¡¯d have t¡¯ kill the Summons as fast as possible so they didn¡¯t damage the enclosures. ¡°Took us days t¡¯ build the damn things, but at least people can move along the road now, without that damn Dark Magus, its pet Diamond Golum, an¡¯ the Obsidian Golums with it messing with the traffic. Maybe it even be appreciatin¡¯ the quiet, who knows?¡± the Mick mused as he showed us the famous archway to the next island. ¡°You said it¡¯s a relatively fast spawn?¡± Kris asked, eagerly eyeing the multiple spawns of Golum clusters around the eastern end of the bridge. There were three along the road, the major one in the middle ahead, and one more off each side. ¡°Aye. A good team can bounce between them an¡¯ juuuust keep up with the rate of the respawns, barring having t¡¯ heal in between. If there¡¯s a good working Healer, well, it becomes a lot easier. Have t¡¯ have the proper weapons ta do it right still, an¡¯ since the fall, well, the bludgeon arrows work barely at all. The only way ta use bludgeon damage on them, the best type, is a sling or sling staff.¡± He smirked at nothing in particular as he crossed his arms. ¡°Ye can use pierce ta go for the fractures in their force structure, but blunt force be best fer obsidians an¡¯ diamonds. The Dark Magus, we just used a flaming Weapon, or slashing if we didnae have one. Unfortunately, ¡®tis a lot tougher to kill now than back then, an¡¯ its magic hasn¡¯t fallen that far. ¡®tis dangerous to dance with it.¡± ¡°I would teach you the Mage Slayer Feat, Lord Mick, but learning it would create discordance in your own magic, so it¡¯s not appropriate for the Powered, like you are.¡± Kris glanced at me. ¡°Are the undead using true Isparian Casting, or SLA¡¯s?¡± ¡°They are Summons. Whatever spells they knew have basically been transformed into SLA¡¯s of a sort, as they can¡¯t change what they have access to. They operate on a limited set of tactics and choices due to being Astral Templates. Plus their effective Health Qi shields them from the pain of blows and makes it hard to disrupt their Concentration. The best thing to do is simply to Dispel the spells as they are forming,¡± I replied. The Mick¡¯s dark eyes widened perceptibly. ¡°Ye could¡­ just deny someone their spellcasting like that?¡± he asked shrewdly. ¡°It¡¯s a reason why Girding your magic and Dispelling spells are equally important sides of the same coin, Lord Mick. Also Counterspelling, Spell Turning, and similar tactics!¡± I explained. ¡°Aye, that ability would come in so handy when fighting things!¡± he agreed quickly. ¡°A Dispelling Enchantment on a Weapon Casts the spell on whatever it strikes at the Level of its wielder. It takes up 5 Slots, but if you¡¯re looking to shut down a spellcaster you are fighting, it is not a bad choice at all.¡± ¡°FIVE Slots of the ten? Yer givin¡¯ me a heart attack here, lass!¡± He knew he only had ten to work with. Such a commitment would take away a huge portion of his potential offensive power! ¡°That¡¯s why most people who use it are Artificers Infusing it temporarily into a Weapon.¡± His hands clenched at the air. ¡°Ye¡¯re actually making me thirst fer more magic now, instead o¡¯ less, lass!¡± he called out hungrily. ¡°You¡¯ll need to Cast at Fifteen and spend a V Infusion to do it, but it can definitely be done,¡± I assured him. ¡°What about problems for Kris?¡± ¡°The Diamonds and Dark Magus cast Pyreal spells,¡± the Mick said promptly, with the dry voice of a teacher and much experience. ¡°The Obsidians are only Silver, likely cannae touch ye. If the Golums can land on ye, it¡¯s best ta retreat, unless you¡¯ve some major resistance t¡¯ bludgeon magic or spells in general. The Dark Magus be not very inventive or clever with its magic in the past, but after the Fall¡­ well, they learned to Vuln, then follow with the same War Magic, an¡¯ if it didn¡¯t work they¡¯d try a different set until they found one that did. If ye couldn¡¯t beat one, they¡¯d Heal themselves up quick-like and wait for ye to return, remembering ye an¡¯ what worked against ye.¡± ¡°Summons aren¡¯t innately dumb, and they can definitely learn as they go,¡± I said quietly. ¡°They are echoes of living souls after all, just set to a particular standard when they die. Give them long enough, they either develop habits or start manifesting them from the souls of those they are made of. Granted, few remain manifest long enough to do that, but the research is there. ¡°Very, very importantly, if you give them a Truename, you can bring them back, and they¡¯ll retain knowledge of you from life to life. You can also then upgrade them with more powerful magic, so that they come in as a stronger version of themselves, once you do that.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± The Mick thought that over. ¡°That¡­ be very different from the Summoning Magic o¡¯ the past that we knew...¡± AF Chapter 132 – The Proper Tools for the Job dare Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Quaver Die Harder Mana BoostMana Renewal AF Chapter 133 - Avallelle Island Stand Shockwave Shape Stone Disk VulnedProtections Blunt Protection IV¡¯s If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. BunitaShockwave Bunita AF Chapter 134 – Progress Continues toward Ithaenc Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Traits?¡± Kris repeated gravely. AF Chapter 135 – Mentioning Mundane Matters ¡°Visual Files!¡± Visual File?¡± Holos The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. insane might ¡°Hope Valor.¡± AF Chapter 136 – On to Ithaenc!… Or Not? The Manafield Sang. The Mick staggered back and fell to one knee, and this time the hand that he clasped to his chest wasn¡¯t in mockery. Tears were streaming down his face, but his eyes were black and shining with a grim and terrible resolve motivated by sparks within that had barely managed to manifest as duty and revenge, and now were revealed as something more. It was a wish for more and a drive to go find it, so small and nameless he¡¯d never even seen it in the rush and chaos of all the other emotions that rode upon his soul. ¡°Och,¡± he managed to gasp out, descriptive as it was. ¡°Och, damn. That were, that were much harder-hitting than the first time¡­¡± he shuddered. ¡°Well, you aren¡¯t undead, and I was saying it for them back then,¡± I said gently, keeping his eyes. ¡°On the flip side, you must be horrified. Only Good men can truly appreciate a Word of Creation, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Ach, I¡¯ll be havin¡¯ t¡¯ scrub me brain after all this, ye be sayin¡¯?¡± he rallied back, getting back to his feet with only a little sway, ignoring the tears coming down his cheeks. ¡°Ye¡¯re a right horrible influence on people, lass. Stealin¡¯ hearts an¡¯ souls is far, far worse than anything I stole in me life¡­¡± ¡°Rubbish. Those kids you are training all have stars in their eyes when they talk about you, all the girls have crushes on you, and all the men want to be able to fight like you and have such great stories to tell to impress the girls. You stole their hearts and minds and futures, and you did it magnificently well, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Aye, I did do it well, did I not? Well, something I did right that wasn¡¯t for meself, after all these years¡­¡± he sighed deeply, looking at things in the sky from a long time ago. ¡°Aye, I believe ye, girl. Ye trot out those Words, ye give them back their dreams, a bit of a spine again, an¡¯ ye¡¯ll grab some o¡¯ them. The rest¡­¡± he shrugged fatalistically. ¡°They just won¡¯t care enough to. They gave up on life a long time ago.¡± ¡°You can lead a horse to water, but you can¡¯t make him drink,¡± I said fatalistically. ¡°If they¡¯ve truly lost all nerve and hope, well, they are just walking dead men, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, well.¡± His dark eyes had a special burn to them. ¡°I think if we add a bit o¡¯ revenge to the matter, yer soft and stupid Hope might have a bit of an accompaniment.¡± ¡°Is that so? Why, it would seem the negative emotions do appeal to some kind of people, amazing as that may be¡­¡± ¡°We¡¯ll just have t¡¯ be ready to give them a show, I be thinkin¡¯¡­¡± ----------- Ithaenc Island was not really a place where the Royal Scouts should have been training. It was very dangerous for their Levels, with threats that could one or two-shot them, and, well, they weren¡¯t optimized. They didn¡¯t have access to the magical Temples that the Mick had. They couldn¡¯t align their Stats to be the most optimal, designing themselves to be a perfect melee, or mage, or archer, like they were making up their own character sheet, like all the old-timers had done. They only had average to above-average Stats, as a result of the constant training under Lord Mick and the military here. None of them were ¡®geniuses¡¯, or ideal candidates, with the equivalent of natural 18¡¯s, or 100¡¯s under the Isparian system. However, the Isparian system was pretty forgiving in how it allowed Stats to accumulate, so they Scouts were actually building towards ¡®optimal human¡¯, it was just through growth, and not focus. It also meant they were well behind what the optimal builds were, and they¡¯d literally never catch up. They could only make it up with skills, especially specializing certain areas, and Gear and techniques. Happily, most of the Summon threats were Enclosed, and could be dealt with one by one in somewhat controlled conditions. The roaches could plot how to attack, whether to use missile fire or dare a straight fight, and then execute. Having the Mick, Princess Kristie, and me there to back them up and provide Healing if they were injured was also important. I could also layer the Life Magic Protections on them against common magical attacks from certain of the enemies, which reduced the risk a lot, and I was on standby if the War Magic went off, although I had my limits, too. -------- ¡°Alchemical Healing kits?¡± I asked doubtfully, lifting up the tightly-wrapped roll of bandages for my inspection. I sniffed at it warily, caught the hint of sage and thyme and other herbs associated with healing. The magic on the thing was very faint, certainly not anything I¡¯d trust with my life. ¡°What¡­ is this supposed to do? Fast substitute for a true Healer¡¯s pack?¡± I asked archly. I hadn¡¯t seen any of them use the things in a fight, because I was there, and Healing Magic was better and faster, and perfectly reliable. The Scouts didn¡¯t look particularly confident after my remark, as I handed the thing over to Kris, who also picked it up, smelled it, and looked vaguely suspicious of it. The Mick sighed forlornly. ¡°That¡­ is a good description o¡¯ things,¡± he finally nodded after thinking a moment. ¡°They were once very powerful, and there were a Skill devoted just t¡¯ using them properly. There were power in them, an¡¯ ye could pull it off t¡¯ heal yourself, though it were a bit tiresome t¡¯ do so.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I looked down at the rolled bandages after Kris handed the kit back with a shake of her head. ¡°Tiresome? It drew on Stamina to heal you?¡± ¡°Well, aye. I think I remember that it healed at five t¡¯ one,¡± he remarked, as I lifted it up and scrutinized the faint power inside it. ¡°Was it perfectly reliable?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Just peel off a bandage, slap it on an injury, and call on your power to heal yourself, or something?¡± He frowned. ¡°No. The more injured ye were, the less likely it were to work, and the less it healed. Ye could heal light injuries without fail, an¡¯ sometimes ye could get it t¡¯ heal more damage than even the most powerful Healing spells¡­¡± I just arched an eyebrow. ¡°So, when you needed the Healing most, it didn¡¯t work, and when you didn¡¯t really need it, it did?¡± He glanced at the Royal Scouts, watching all this with trepidation. ¡°Aye¡­¡± I looked at them all. ¡°And you all know how to use these things?¡± I asked them. A chorus of confirmations came back at me. ¡°Can you MAKE them?¡± I asked them archly. Silence. I looked at the Mick, who slowly shook his head. I looked at Kris, who just threw up her hands. ¡°Lord Mick, this¡­ does not seem to have the power to do what you said it can do.¡± ¡°Aye, ¡®tis true,¡± he agreed immediately. ¡°The bandages have only a one-time effect on any wound now, an¡¯ heal much less damage when they work.¡± ¡°That sounds like battle chiurgy,¡± Kris murmured. ¡°A use of the mundane Heal skill in a fight? Just by slapping on a bandage¡­¡± ¡°It transforms Stamina into Health, by your words.¡± The Mick inclined his head. ¡°Exchange magic is no longer working like that, Lord Mick. This¡­ is not much more than a purified alchemical bandage with vestigial healing properties attached to it. What about Potions? They have been the mainstay of portable Healing since forever¡­¡± I asked carefully. ¡°Aye, well, it seems it be no longer so easy t¡¯ make such Potions as it were, an¡¯ the amounts are limited, an¡¯ go t¡¯ those who can pay. Plus, well, they be heavy, an¡¯ loud, an¡¯ take up room in a pack now that we ignored afore. I used t¡¯ be able to carry a hundred o¡¯ them, if I liked. Now, I carry but five¡­ three t¡¯ heal, one fer stamina, an¡¯ one for mana, in an emergency.¡± ¡°But you can take this kit, and pull out enough energies from it to basically equal what a first aid treatment with non-magical equipment would give you?¡± ¡°Aye. It won¡¯t repair a broken bone or a lost finger or whatnot, but it¡¯ll ease through burns, seal up gashes, an¡¯ stop bleeding an¡¯ bruising.¡± The Mick was frowning now, too. ¡°The lack o¡¯ healing is one o¡¯ the huge things hurtin¡¯ us compared to afore. Not everyone has time t¡¯ learn the ins an¡¯ outs o¡¯ Life Magic, or even the inclination.¡± I held up my hand, and he fell silent. ¡°This was a crude vehicle to turn Stamina into Healing power, that is all. The magic was in the Stamina, the bandages were just conductors of the energies involved. ¡°You just said the process still works, it is just much less powerful, and slower?¡± ¡°Aye. Try to do it in a fight, like as not get your head lopped off,¡± the Mick stated. ¡°An¡¯ ye cannae use them multiple times on the same injury now.¡± ¡°You do know basic first aid, how to bind broken bones, the signs of internal bleeding, and the like?¡± I asked him slowly. ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick said, as his students nodded also. ¡°Actually, learning t¡¯ use the kits proper, ye gain a very good understanding o¡¯ the body an¡¯ how it works, how to use the energy more effectively.¡± My face lit up slightly. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s good, then. You know how to use the Healing energy properly, you¡¯re just getting very little of it now?¡± ¡°Aye. Have ye a way t¡¯ help with the Healing problem?¡± ¡°Hmmm. Would I be correct in surmising that none of you use your mana for anything but the occasional weapon or armor Buff with Item magic?¡± I asked them all. They all nodded, including Lord Mick. Kris looked at me, I looked at her. ¡°Start on Artificing?¡± I asked her calmly. ¡°That would be best,¡± she agreed. ¡°They need to start on the Vigor, Resolve, and Focus line of Masteries, too, and probably the Healing Masteries.¡± ¡°Healing skill plus Infusions on a Healing Kit.¡± I held up the bandages to her. ¡°Emulation of Healing spells¡­¡± The Mick straightened up, as did the others. ¡°Ye kin teach us t¡¯ use Healing magic without Life Magic?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°Artificing ignores all Traditional typing of magic. It¡¯s all just magic to Artificing.¡± I eyed the roll of bandages considerately. ¡°It also means you should be able to make both Healing Wands and Potions without too much trouble. The key to making the Potions is to have something to hold the Healing magic in place, and these kits are already treated to do that. I can probably turn each bandage here into a basic Healing Potion equivalent without much trouble. If they can use Healing Wands with Wand Chambers, in-combat Healing should not be difficult.¡± ¡°The Healing enhancement on Armor is eminently reusable, too,¡± Kris pointed out. ¡°They¡¯d need to be Eights, but yes,¡± I agreed. ¡°There¡¯s also Vampiric, Greater Vampiric, and the Healing Edge Enhancements to melee Weapons,¡± she pointed out. ¡°The last is by far the best of them over time, but the first two are great for fast in-combat Healing if you¡¯re willing to get in there. If we meld the Healing Skill of the Isparian System with the mundane Healing skill of the Matrix system, that opens up those Feats to nice abuse,¡± Kris mused. ¡°We just have to redefine it as the channeling of energy to improve Healing effects, source variable.¡± ¡°The line of Healing Masteries is pretty robust, but they definitely need the Combat Focus line first,¡± I told her. ¡°Combat Vigor is effectively a passive that is always useful, especially if boosted by Blood and Soul.¡± ¡°With Wands as burst alternatives and Potions as backups, and a Healing skill for out of combat?¡± Kris reasoned, considering all of those things. ¡°That seems the best way to go, doesn¡¯t it?¡± We both turned to look at the Scouts, Lord Mick, and that temple behind them, all of which had no idea of what we were talking about. ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to be moving the camp today, Lord Mick,¡± I told him. I pointed to the North. ¡°Go and find the closest spawn enclosures, work them until everyone has satisfied Naming Karma or better, then return. Kris and I are going to work on getting a few things set up for everyone to work with when they get back.¡± AF Chapter 137 – All Things Take Time Locate Plants Shaping The Enduring Road Assay The Enduring Road RevitalizationStamina Replenishment Revitalizing Arsenal RevitalizingThe Enduring Road Lesser Restore Vitality Sustained Zeks Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The Enduring Road Sustenance RestorationRevitalization Dragon Heart Surge Sending RevitalizationHealing Edge Vampiric The Enduring Road RevitalizingThe Enduring Road The Enduring Road Power Attack CombatExpertise Lesser RestoreShocking GraspBarkskin,Cure Moderate Wounds, Vigor Vigor Vigor AF Chapter 138 – Holding out for the Healing ¡°I¡¯m not holding out hopes for unlimited, but instead of Healing Kits, I¡¯m thinking a Wand, Amulet, or other device that does the same thing, instead of being a Consumable,¡± I ventured as I started to work on the shells of the device, doing with Shaping Stone alone what Kris was doing with her Tools. ¡°You were alluding to the fact that the Healing Kits basically allow an instant Mend Deadly Wounds Heal skill test on a person, which is limited by Ranks in the Heal skill in how effective it is, and takes only seconds,¡± Princess Kristie said slowly. ¡°That ability to heal is amplified by the Skill Unlocks and certain other Healing Mastery Feats,¡± she went on thoughtfully. ¡°I don¡¯t think a Null can do it without a Tool, because you can¡¯t spend a Pool with your hard souls. But there is a Tool.¡± I pointed at the herbal slurry where the Healing Kit was all chopped up. ¡°Can a Tool spend it for you?¡± ¡°No. Otherwise we could tap our Forsaken Matrices with Tools and just ply Wands and Staves we fuel from within, the only exception being Item Familiars.¡± I conceded that point after a moment. ¡°But Vigor uses aren¡¯t a magical Pool resource. They¡¯re more like saved-up Healing. In the case of a Rantha, that would be more like saved-up Fast Healing¡­¡± I whistled softly. ¡°Okay, so basically forming an accelerant of what you can already do, powered by Stamina to make it happen. You turn your Vigors from an x/day thing to a rechargeable reserve, like having an extra bank of Health to draw on?¡± ¡°Not really that much different from how Warshapers handle faster healing, right?¡± she asked. ¡°Shapechanging Healing is not that much different from Heal skill and Vitality-driven healing, in the end.¡± I couldn¡¯t deny that. It would mean she couldn¡¯t chain-Heal to an unlimited extent¡­ but she could blow all her Vigors, and then recharge them with Stamina-fed Fast Healing. It wasn¡¯t as purely good, coming in surges instead of just going and going, but it also gave her massive amounts of potential Burst Healing when needed in waves all day, instead of just a few times per day. She just needed to recharge them in between. Needless to say, a Powered who had Fast Healing would be able to do the same thing, and possibly pull off this Stamina to Health trick with a Tool to get them past the conversion limits, basically using a ¡®healing kit¡¯ in a different format. ¡°You¡¯re going to make The Enduring Road something grand and monstrous, aren¡¯t you?¡± I suddenly realized. She glanced up, revealing a feral glee and hunger in them that my Aelryinth memories recognized very, very well. Sama Rantha, taking swordplay to the limits of what a mortal could do without drawing on magic, monstrously powerful¡­ and now, that template of sword-obsessed power gaming optimizer Forsaken had suddenly found the prototype to all Seven Dragons buried right in plain sight. ¡°Fuck YES I am going to take this all the way to the heights, and drag everyone along with me as I do so! What happens when Stamina usage becomes Efficient? What happens with specialization in specific Feats with Stamina? What happens when you break the five-point cap? When you extend the effects over more than one attack or move? When you have Mastery over ten, twenty, or more different applications of Stamina?!¡± All eight canines were showing on a terrifying smile, a great beast shown a feast in front of it, and all, all too willing to take a bite at it. ¡°Grandmaster of The Enduring Road?¡± I wondered aloud, and Princess Kristie Rantha, Rantha Hag, Natural Swordswoman, inherited Grandmaster of the Sword, laughed low and long, and I knew she was working on some nasty internal stuff just by the way her ki was churning. Nulls lived and died by Constitution, literally, so there was no better person alive to dive headlong into a potentially endless series of Mastery accomplishments than a Null Forsaken! She had the ki and internal physiology mastery, she had the brains and the Skill Ranks, and she had a martial drive and zeal to it that just wasn¡¯t going to quit. She was going to make a killer of a martial art for the melee people on this world who were ready to make the commitment, and that was no lie. All the mages who gave up being melees could go cry into their beers, as far as she was concerned. Well, I was giving them the Matrix system, so they were going to end up just fine, regardless. But the warriors here were going to be getting some massive upgrades, there was no doubt about it. Which was going to be a nightmare for those she was fighting, I had no doubt. ------- ¡°Several things are going to happen here before nightfall,¡± I instructed the Scouts after they came back for the fourth time, completely beat up and exhausted and loving it when I mended them right back up to full. ¡°The first thing is you¡¯re going to help us with that.¡± I tossed my hand over the slowly rotating pot filled with cherry-red liquid, with handles and swivels turning and cycling as it bubbled slowly without heat, little sparkles dancing above it. ¡°That there is a Healing Cauldron rated for six people at a time. What it does is instill the energy input into it as the Healing power that empowers Potions for emergency purposes. The more powerful the energy that goes in, the more powerful the Potion that results. So, all of you here can produce at least Iron in directed Item magic, yes?¡± There were affirmations all around. ¡°Excellent.¡± I held up the vials I¡¯d Shaped from rote sand. ¡°So, every day, you will be making yourselves supplies of emergency Potions to use on yourselves and one another. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°These will save your lives, and you can make one a day. Every day. As long as the basic components are in the Cauldron, you can make one Potion a day for yourselves, and stockpile them.¡± ¡°No limit on how many people?¡± Selena asked quickly, amazed. ¡°The functional limit is keeping enough ingredients active to keep the mixture going. That works out to a hundred different people a day.¡± ¡°A hundred Potions a day!¡± the Mick blurted out. ¡°That¡¯s better than any Potion house in the whole Kingdom!¡± ¡°The Potions they can likely make are probably going to be more potent than the ones you are. However, a Potion in hand is worth infinitely more than a powerful one sitting on a shelf somewhere when you need it. How powerful it is depends on you. Six volunteers, you, you, you, you, you, and you.¡± I waved them over the cauldron. Eager to see it at work, they trooped by me to the thing, grabbing the vials I held out as they did. ¡°Grab a handle. Uncap the vial and insert it under the tap in front of your handle in the slot there.¡± After only a little bit of bumbling around, they all did so as everyone sat there and watched them. ¡°Alright, Hunding. Pretend you¡¯re Casting an Iron spell, and pour mana down your hand into the handle.¡± The tall and slender Gharu¡¯n focused, and blue-white light glimmered around his hand as he concentrated. The handle in his grip lit up, and so did a section of the device in front of him, glowing with gentle green Runes flowing up the side of the Cauldron. The tap on his side opened up, and a stream of rich scarlet liquid flowed out of it, glimmering with internal lights swirling within it. A few seconds later, it shut off, leaving the mostly-full Vial behind, and as it did, the green light of the runic display in front of him did the same. ¡°Pull your vial out carefully. Cap it. Milee, take his place. Mizaya, pump some mana.¡± The cycle continued, each of them pumping the proto-Healing Potion mix full of the energy that actually allowed it to actualize as a Healing Potion, taking their spoils, and backing away as the next person started up, their place taken by an eager Scout waiting there. It didn¡¯t take more than ten minutes, and all of them were holding eagerly on to Potions they¡¯d made with their own hands. ¡°This was made from one of your Healing Kits, and will supply about fifty Potions,¡± Kris said calmly, capping the remnants of the mix after pouring enough sparkling waters into it to fill it to the brim. ¡°We will do this in the morning until there is a generous supply among you. ¡°The next thing we¡¯re going to do is your Marks.¡± The Mick straightened up alertly, while the Scouts merely looked interested. ¡°Due to the lack of strength among you, we¡¯re going to start with that. You will be filling it each and every day with the same Karma of victory as you are your Named Weapons.¡± Kris already had the Disk ready, and her set of Tatting supplies and inks, thoughtfully made over the days of our trek, was ready, while golden blades on the ends of her hands were all the tools she needed. ¡°They are going to be necessary because the next part of the process is going to involve some immense amounts of telepathic education, likely more intense learning than you¡¯ve ever experienced in your lives. ¡°You¡¯re also going to be introduced to telepathic communication. ¡°Once we do that, you¡¯re going to be taking Levels, and you¡¯re going to start making stuff for yourselves as Artificers with, well, breathtaking speed, but still only one day at a time. ¡°Rogar, you¡¯re the King Roach. You get to whine and scream and show everybody how damn much getting your Chakras opened and soul poked is going to hurt. Lord Mick has already been through it and had tears coming down his cheeks like a six-year-old tenderfoot, so you¡¯ll be in fine company.¡± They all looked at the Mick in disbelief. ¡°Er, let¡¯s just say the pain was like nothing I¡¯ve ever felt before, an¡¯ I¡¯ll be ready next time!¡± he said defensively¡­ but he didn¡¯t deny it. ¡°The hands and feet are the easy chakras,¡± Kris murmured to nobody in particular. The Mick looked suitably chagrined as the uneasy Rogar was sat down on a floating Disk. He did manage to hold out while she poked his skin and put in the Inks, black Mark with empty insides, but he couldn¡¯t hold back the squealing shout as she punched the Mark down into his soul, and it lit up with hot white light on the delicate Runes on his tricep there. He actually stumbled a moment as Kris hit the Mark on the back of her hand against his arm, and he linked up with the Markdoor to her. He blinked in shock at the arrival of the mental construct, and looked suspiciously at the two of us. ¡°Open it up,¡± Kris smiled at him. It could have been seductive and encouraging, except her canines seemed to gleam a little bit too much. He pushed open the Markdoor and mentally stepped into the Markspace. Lord Mick, Princess Kristie, and I were all sitting there waiting for him, mentally towering over him in all aspects. His mental gawking was clearly reflected on his face as he looked at all of us in both reality and the mindspace. -Her Highness is doing the Tats, I¡¯m punching the chakras,- I /told him cheerfully, patting the Disk beside me. -Sit.- As everyone watched, he got up hesitantly off the chair, swayed a little bit, then walked over and sat down next to me. -Yelp, it¡¯s absolutely fine.- A spiritual edge gathered around my fingertip into a single point as everyone watched, and I grasped his right hand, turning it over, and with only a moment to center the point, jammed my finger down. Yep, he squealed pretty damn loud. =========== Note: Vigor uses are self-healing powers of the Melee Class. They are Extraordinary and non-magical, more akin to ki use than anything. A number of times a day that increases with Level and Feats and Masteries, a Melee can call on their Vigor to turn Health and Soak damage into temporary damage, which is naturally healed at the rate of Class Level/hour, or which is Healed 1:1 in addition to normal damage if subject to Healing magic. The healing rate/hour of temporary damage also increases with Melee Level, representing their ability to walk off injuries ever more quickly. It¡¯s not all that different from Healing Surges, although the intermediate step of turning to Temporary Damage first means it is not an instant curing effect like Healing Surges are. AF Chapter 139 – Prepping for the Big Time Feats, Masteries, Levels. The torrent of information about the Matrix slammed into them with overwhelming amounts of data and thoroughness, at least by real life standards. Telepathic communication conveyed so much more than mere words so quickly, however, that they were learning at least ten times faster than anything they¡¯d ever processed in their lives. Their job was to work the System and get every benefit out of it they possibly could. They weren¡¯t idealized students, and they weren¡¯t geniuses. They were hard-working, devoted people trying to survive in a magical world, get good enough to do so, and maybe do something more so they could get back at the enemy. Their ¡®balanced¡¯ Stat lines meant they weren¡¯t going to be as good as the specialists at a task, but that was fine. They could be better, and they could be versatile, applying knowledge and skills from multiple avenues of advancement to do what they thought they should. And oh, there was so much Gear that had to be made. They were sort of stunned when they were told I could cycle Mana as fast as I could with Mana Boost IV, and could power up an entire Healing Wand holding 100 charges in just minutes, dozens of time faster than just Meditating and relying on Mana Renewal to accelerate matters, as most mages did now. They couldn¡¯t do the same, so one of the things we were going to be learning was advanced Meditation with their handy-dandy new Skill Ranks, so they could conjoin efforts and really start using their Mana for what they needed to get done. An Amulet or Ring that could enable them to do what the Healing Kit had done and was not consumed while doing it was also a welcome idea. The idea of The Enduring Road powering Vigor uses for more monstrous self-Healing was also very well received. Now, they just needed time, Karma, Levels¡­ and loot to power Gear. All of which would be helped on the front end by having a Caster here who could Buff them up to perform beyond their Levels, and Heal them up when they were injured so they could get back to the fight. And we still had a trio of arseholes to go meet, and leaders of the Aun tumerok and Royal lugian enclaves. That was okay. We were just going to have to be careful about the enclosures we raided. ------ The undead of the ancient temple complex were left unenclosed within it, mostly because infiltrating undead always tore down the enclosures before being killed themselves, and putting them back up was a pain. Thus, overland traffic diverted around the temple, the undead didn¡¯t bother with the random Summons on the landscape so much, and the temple itself was a wild and woolly fight where those on the edge of greatness could test themselves against powerful creatures to see how they really rated. The sheer number of Gold and Pyreal-tier spells they were dodging let them know they weren¡¯t being rated all that high, but that was simply par for the course. Ithaenc was not a cakewalk, but teamwork and good tactics suddenly became very important. The Evasion Class ability from Scout and really good Reflex Saves to avoid the Bolts of magic flying from all directions were really, really important, too. I did a lot of Healing during the clearing of the temple, a lot of Buffing them (mostly Prots against Elemental damage to save them from spells), a lot of Dispelling (to stop the Vulns dropped on them which could mean one-hit kills), and only occasional uses of combat magic, mostly Emerald Shards to paralyze some of the sclavi, or flaming Shards to soften up some of the undead. Pointedly, I didn¡¯t actually kill anything, but that was by design. Because I could feel something waiting. There was some old and powerful magic laying here, the ground covering up something old and powerful. It definitely was reacting to my presence on several levels. As a result, I was extremely wary of doing any Casting to kill, especially with vivus tacked on, fearing that I¡¯d rouse something truly nasty. We could have shut down the Temple entirely, but the Mick outright forbade it. Ithaenc was the least settled island simply because it was the high-Level playground. Even now the post-100¡¯s living down at the southern end wandered out whenever they got antsy to wipe the landscape spawns, it being the only readily available place to really test themselves. The temple was just an area with concentrated respawns that were ideal for testing both individuals and teams. Lord Mick still had no problems clearing the place himself, even without the Gear and Buffs that he¡¯d once had. Of course, the real reason it wasn¡¯t much settled save for the hunters and high-Levels was also the high incidence of wasps, zefirs, wisps, and slithyr tentacles, which manifested more strongly here than on the previous two islands. Again, while they could pop up on Summon points and did, they could also form spontaneously off the manafield or come here via immigration. As anything that could survive here was at least letting off Gold spells, that turned it into a high-risk hunting ground. The lugians and tumeroks who dared to live here only did so because they had decent Wards and secure areas for their families. Even they had to work up their younger fighters to the risks here. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. After a review of the fighting tactics, what worked, what hadn¡¯t, and what they needed to work ON¡­ it was off to the lugian¡¯s area first, as we¡¯d get to it before the tumerok encampment among the falls below the cathedral. ------- The enclosures were looser and less formal than on the other islands, more danger zones to prep for the encounter than shields for those traveling by. The random creatures that wandered free of the Summons points also had to be watched for, so everyone was definitely on alert. It was a good thing the slithyr were the only ambush predators. The wisps were basically dancing balls of light and easy to see, the zefir couldn¡¯t remain still if their life depended on it, and the wasps were generously loud and brightly colored. The archery side of the roaches¡¯ skills got a definite workout as we trekked slowly across the island, alternately ganging up on stuff in melee or with ranged attacks to see how fast they could be taken down. Got in a lot of work scattering to avoid sprayed magical spells, too. ------ We had come down out of the jungle out into the water, towed out there by Kris at the Mick¡¯s insistence. From the distance we could see a tiny island out there, and there were Summons points under the water here and there, with sclavi and undead standing around rotting away, or the fliers hovering in place above the waves until something came by and swatted them. We cleared the way through with ranged fire on the approach, Kris rarely needing to break stride as we ended up a quarter-mile offshore in the shallows, and paused about fifty yards off the shore of the island there. ¡°Those are Ruschk,¡± the Mick said, pointing out to us the extremely brawny, light-blue skinned humanoids wielding crude spears of ice there, keeping watch along with a trio of shades. They seemed to be guarding a very dark passageway leading into the ground, one leaking energy associated with both shadows and cold¡­ both of which were fluttering about those Ruschk. It was a jungle area, but they were wearing crude furs and veils, and ignoring the constant wet congealing about them, melting, cooling, melting, cooling. I could only imagine how many times they had died out here from starvation, then been re-Summoned. ¡°This be one of the higher-Level playgrounds, with more mukkir, twisted an¡¯ corrupted versions of the Ruschk, down below, magical traps, jump tests, and o¡¯ course, an aspect o¡¯ Grael his many-clawed self down at the bottom, waiting for ye. As ye kin see, there¡¯s at least some sort o¡¯ arrangement a¡¯tween the shades and Grael¡¯s people, beyond the fact that they likely hate the Empyreans together.¡± ¡°I gather they had to be Summons because no living Ruschk would tolerate living in a damn jungle?¡± Kris spoke up. ¡°Their body temperature is literally below freezing. This place would be insufferably hot and annoying to them.¡± ¡°Aye, they be cold-blooded in the literal sense o¡¯ the word,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Masters o¡¯ cold magic, an¡¯ mark the spears, those be enchanted ice, Coldphasing, as it were. If ye want a good fight with weapons, they¡¯ll give it to ye, an¡¯ they be tougher than Isparians, overall. O¡¯ course, the shades might decide t¡¯ jump in.¡± ¡°Lord Mick, I see three Shades over there,¡± I said softly. ¡°But I only see two Summons points¡­¡± He bounced instantly to his feet, staring at the shades himself, two of whom didn¡¯t react¡­ and one of whom turned her head to look at us. ¡°Piss-boiled scumrat scrotum crackers!¡± he swore loudly. ¡°Being clever an¡¯ hiding in plain sight, are they now?!¡± he spat, Bunita leaping off his back into his hand. ¡°Vuln the bitch t¡¯ Slashing, lass! Highness, if ye¡¯d be so kind to Firephase yer head-taker there and lead me in so I can pass the Ruschk. ¡°Broadheads up! Fire at the leftmost shade as soon as it reacts to me!¡± The Royal Scouts all had missile weapons up, and bows and crossbows were drawn back in seconds. ¡°Lass, as ye wish on the rightmost!¡± Kris blurred into motion, the Disks let loose and now drifting forward slowly under my command, only the Mick¡¯s following her as she was in a full charge with speed that would have blared all sorts of alarms to anyone with any experience of physical combat. They were Summons, their programming didn¡¯t care about such threats, so only the real one had any of that common sense, and it paused for a second as ding! ting! rolled past it. The Mick infused Vivic Weapon atop Bunita, the killing ki about it and its Orange soulfire edge doubling the width and all the ominous presence of his Blade. The two pale-blue-haired Ruschk Laktar turned to charge at Kris a bit on the late side, allowing her to make the beach. I Cast the Silver Blade Vuln on the spying shade, which decided to use the better part of valor and started to turn towards the hole leading into the ground. Kris smashed right into the advance ruschk, KE = .5MV2 , and it was bulled right over with a blazing Sword with burning Light flowing around it buried right in its throat. The Mick simply jumped before he lost any velocity. Okay, he had invested in his Lightfoot, because he cleared over ten feet from his starting height, hurtling forward as he raised Bunita high. Hissing broadheads spun past him on the left at the shade there, biting deep and pitching it backwards off its feet with a grunt. The spy shade didn¡¯t get more than five feet before Lord Mick was coming down on it in a bright and very, very smooth Weight of the Waterfall. It wasn¡¯t one of the madly-infused shades from Tou-Tou. Multipliers tacked on one another, and he hewed completely through the female floating on a cloud of darkness in one glowing wall of dawn of the soul. The other shade was turning on him and whipping its arms back to administer some handy-dandy War magic on him, I could see the magic converging. -Roll left!- I /ordered him, and my burning Shards streamed out, a Silver Fire Bolt riding them hard as they slammed into the side of the female Shade. The Mick fluidly rolled off to the left, and the five-foot whirling star-cutter of the Slashing Bolt raged past him, not touching him as the Caster was blasted sideways and over by the impact of the spell, sending it spinning wildly off into the distance instead of hitting the Mick at point-blank range. AF Chapter 140 – A Deadly Hole in the Ground QuaverQuaver ShardsBunita Shards Disks DiskQuaverDisk Cursed Wisps Nightmare Wisp two four Shards Shards This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Shards Shards DrainsHarms Shards Mana Boosted Mana Boosted Shards Seeking Spell ¡°Tremble, tremble¡­¡± Disks Disk Split RayChainedChainRays AF Chapter 141 – Lots and Lots of Wisps PairAdmixEchoFastcastMana Boosting Chained ShardsShardrays ShardsPiercing Bolt Shardrays Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Polyglot Disks Archer-warriors with a scattering of magic, using the traditional bow, spear, and knife, PolyglotNuareaItea exquisite Disk Disks AF Chapter 142 – Greetings from the Tonk A warning buzz murmured through the forest. It was nothing special, as phyntos were anything but uncommon here, but the key point was that it was the middle of the night, and phyntos were diurnal predators. Only Summons flew in place at night, and even then, they would land for a time if they were the slightest bit tired. It might mean that something had stumbled across a resting, hidden phyntos, but there weren¡¯t any close by, the Auns and our scouts had made sure of that. -Hsst,- Kris /whispered into the Marklink, and abruptly everyone linked who was dozing or sleeping was quite awake. -South side,- /confirmed the Mick, listening to the rise and fall of the immaculately-imitated thrumming. He cleared out his throat, and to pretty much everyone¡¯s delight, let out a subdued coughing warning that sounded exactly like the vicious dark red reedsharks that still popped up on some of the Summons. The thrumming died away. Message received. Our spotters zoning off in the night were now very much awake, although the active nocturnal life of the jungle made picking things out rather difficult. Just because they¡¯d been noted as coming from the south didn¡¯t mean they wouldn¡¯t have more coming from the north. Which proved to be the case. A whooping warning of a nightbird echoed from that direction, and the Mick whipped out a delicately-carved bone flute that warbled back something from a different bird when blown. -Well, at least two coming in. Must be that time of month,- he /muttered into the Marktell, but there was only silence in the camp as everyone remained motionless. -I¡¯ve got something moving!- the petite Milee /said, although she couldn¡¯t see anything from her vantage point, and didn¡¯t move a muscle as she sat there in a tree under a vine shroud the Aun had quickly woven together for her position. There was a moment of moonlight, and light reflecting off a pale skull and the purple-blue flesh it was covering. -We¡¯ve undead involved. Surprise, surprise,- the Mick /murmured as the undead moved silently but without a great deal of care through the undergrowth. -Still an arrogant shite, even as a scout,- he /sniffed, enough to draw snickers from the Royal Scouts also watching. Princess Kristie had already left the camp, moving like a shadow, gone before anyone realized she was absent. I gave her a silent thumbs-up for the Batman move, and she /snickered back to me, heading for that undead moving through as the closest target. Our main beach spotter was buried in a bunch of flotsam artfully arranged to look as if it had washed up with the tide, a veil over his face to deny the crabs and things scrambling over the sands and stuff. Rogar was pretty stoic and disciplined, and it was about to be rewarded as he saw something hop off a forty-foot cliff and hit the ground, the utter darkness of its form standing out against the paler stone behind it and the reflective sands beneath. -Move out to the south,- the Mick /ordered quietly, and the scouts slid out in disciplined pairs after him as the southern intruder was ahead of them, so they could head for one of the slope points down. I was along Invisibly, and Flying now, into the tree level and heading for Rogar to make sure nothing happened to him. Another mental call, and we looked at the relay as Rogar watched an undead, probably a Dark Magus by the ranking of its attire, clamber down the central slope with an awkward grace and strength that nevertheless displayed artful control¡­ and a lack of the usual limitations of human movement imposed by muscle and sinew. He didn¡¯t see the last one jump down, as it was too far away, but the undead and shade went out closer to the water, waiting only a few minutes before a female shade drifted up on vaporous smoke to join them. Together, they headed out into the waves toward Black Wisp Atoll. --- The Aun and the Scouts were only a minute behind them, all of them making their way down to the beach and rendezvousing at Rogar¡¯s position. He was pulled unceremoniously out of the soil, I cleaned him off with Prestidigitation, and then everyone piled onto the Disks the scouts had brought with them, dark mats of vines and branches thrown over them to hide the dull silvery gleam of Force Magic they represented. Everyone was also dressed darkly or painted the same, weapons sheathed or also blackened. Still, there were a bunch of us, and we¡¯d be a big shadow on the water, so a little Phantasmal Force in front of us, displaying the hills and forests behind us to anyone watching from out in the water, was put in place by yours truly to hide our advance entirely while not stopping our vision at all, since we knew it was an Illusion and could look right through it. Having to wade through the water, even if it got no higher than the chest, had slowed them down. The female¡¯s levitation didn¡¯t seem to work above the water, although she cut a smaller wake than the other two. Superhuman strength seemed to compensate for less mass as they headed towards the island, and we stayed about fifty yards back of them once Kris caught up, watching as they advanced on the atoll¡­ and then ground to a halt about a hundred yards out as they realized the area above the abandoned rock was writhing with motion they couldn¡¯t clearly make out. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. No ruschk on guard, either. So, not perfect night sight, and they couldn¡¯t hear the vibratory notes of the wisps over the waves as yet. Clearly curious about what was going on, they edged in closer and closer, wondering what exactly was going on. Selene¡¯s arrow hit a wisp, not doing enough harm to do any damage, but the reaction was instantaneous. DOZENS of wisps came boiling off the island directly towards the trio of returning infiltrators! The trio realized what the writhing darkness was a wee bit too late, and turned to run through the water from the very quick wisps moving over top of it. Naturally the wisps spotted them before they got very far at all. There were dozens of booms as Pyreal Lightning and Fire Bolts went roaring out for the trio, along with other wisps just charging them. The spies tried to juke and dodge, but there was just too much stuff, and the droning keel of Harm magic randomly smacking against Health, Mana, and Stamina erupted off them in motes of venting red, blue, and yellow light. They looked like they wanted to scream as they raised their hands, and then the wisps were on top of them, point-blank War Magic was going off, and an orgy of destruction blew them out of the water and existence in a very wild extravagance of expended spells. Kris had backed up an additional fifty yards, and my Illusion was still up. I didn¡¯t know how the wisps perceived the world, but if they saw magic, all they were going to see was a block of magic if they looked our way, with nothing behind it. As a tribute to just how far the vivus had spread, there was a spurting from under the water, ghostly white light started to dance, and vivic fire began to eat the blasted and scattered remnants of the spies¡¯ corpses. Perhaps not unexpectedly, instead of returning ¡®home¡¯, the twenty or so Nightmare Wisps swirled and danced in place for a while, and then began to randomly wander off in all directions. Clearly the hole in the ground didn¡¯t have the same allure if it wasn¡¯t right in front of them, and they didn¡¯t have the longest of memories. It looked like we were going to be getting some late-night hunting in, as I wasn¡¯t going to be Shard-sniping them so close to the still-huge mass of them on the atoll. I¡¯d have to wait until they were out of curiosity range of the huge mass of Wisps on the atoll, and definitely out of doubled respawn range. That was fine. There was still some crackling and new wisps coming into existence there, so something down below was still trying to make a fight of it. I wished them good luck, as Kris took the scouts and I took the four Aun Hunters, splitting up to hunt down the wandering wisps before they made it to the jungle and created some havoc there. Having a Nightmare Wisp pop up made out of shadows that you couldn¡¯t see at a distance, versus the hot pink of a Cursed Wisp, was definitely a way to get killed if you didn¡¯t flee immediately! ------ Kris tossed an orange rind at me, which bounced off my Force Armor as I gave her a haughty smile. ¡°Just because you can see magic and follow them at a distance doesn¡¯t make you better hunters!¡± she scowled at me menacingly for daring to beat her in wisp-popping, fourteen to eleven! ¡°Strength bows,¡± was my rejoinder, which got attention from the scouts. ¡°Done in the old Aun tradition, not the Stance tradition common among the Isparians. You actually need muscle to draw those things.¡± The pleased Aun found themselves quickly swarmed by human scouts anxious to test out their bows, finding that they indeed could not smoothly draw the tumerok Hunters¡¯ bows much at all, while the Hunters scoffed at the Scouts¡¯ own elegant bows as the tools of children, if well-made. It meant the famed archers of the Aun actually were shooting out stronger arrows, without using Profound Archery. The Stance-based archery Tradition of Ispar was all about channeling energy and perfection of form and release, imitation of perfection turning into damage in a variety of Zen Archery based on Coordination. It meant anyone nimble and smooth in movement, with great hand/eye coordination, made a great archer, and strength was only a minor concern overcome with some Karmic Investment. There were plenty of archers back home who were even weaker than I was, relying on Stance Mastery to put the arrows home and do more damage. Or, you know, you could also use more powerful bows and shoot heavier arrows, at the cost of having to get the arrows custom-made for your strength and draw. Stronger archers DID have an advantage over their weaker rivals, or the Welsh longbowmen would not have existed, right? However, there was absolutely no denying the efficiency of having your main to-hit Stat and your main damage Stat be one and the same. The fact that Strength contributed to range, damage, arrow size, and so forth was often simply swept under the rug in the glory of getting more accurate and more deadly by simply raising Coord¡­ and being able to use the same normal arrows that everyone else did. ¡°I think you just started a massive interest in the Bowyer Skill,¡± Kris mused to me quietly, while the Aun found themselves lecturing to a suddenly very-interested collection of humans about the composition of their bows and arrows and how to make them. The Mick was listening with us, an odd expression on his face. ¡°¡¯tis strange,¡± he mused. ¡°They be talking about horn an¡¯ sinew and¡¯ bone and wood all together, melding them into something greater. They did something similar when making a Composite Bow in the past, but the Bow were still dependent on skill to use an¡¯ make, nothing with strength, though the magic Bonded it to ye so others couldn¡¯t use it.¡± ¡°The folks started introducing Mighty Bows to some of the archers back home,¡± Princess Kristie admitted quietly. ¡°It was why the archer companies under them started developing such deadly reputations. They didn¡¯t even bother making the bigger and stronger bows, just added Mighty so that the archers could use thicker arrows and shoot them farther and harder. ¡°They had a full-out Strength Archer training program going behind the scenes when I left. The archery companies they field now are at least half-again more lethal than they were during the Blue Crusade. The discipline is slowly finding its way out to routine hobbyists, competitions, and hunters, so it¡¯s not an issue like it is here.¡± ¡°Aye. Frantic enough to rebuild what archers we could, not upset the apple cart,¡± the Mick agree solemnly. ¡°Now that we¡¯ve got some, time to improve a wee bit, mayhaps?¡± AF Chapter 143 – Those Who Work with Stone Giving a Shout-Out to the Longwinded One, the fellow who recently did a interview Podcast with me. He has started writing his own story here on Royal Road, and sent me advanced chapters to read and review. His story has gone live today. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/88011/children-of-the-cold-moon-the-four-treasures-saga It is a VERY well-written story. My sole detraction is that the MC is not my ''style'', it''s the older, classic style of a Lucky Fool (which a lot of people prefer). I encourage everyone to give it a try. If you like old Celtic stuff with a dash of modern updating, you will enjoy it! I rated it a 4.5, and the only reason it isn''t a 5 is because of me, not the author or the story. Even if it isn''t my cup of tea, I think a lot of people will greatly enjoy it, and it''s very well done. ================ The Aun hunters took their leave at the dawn, bringing word of the traitor to their clans back to them, which would rapidly filter through all the allied families where it wasn¡¯t known before. Auns took their oaths seriously. An oathbreaker like Aun Shumua had just cut himself off from his family entirely, probably not something he had ever been expecting to face when he just wanted to make Isparians pay for the injustices life had heaped upon his tribe. I wondered where that was going to go, and I imagined ¡®not well¡¯ was a part of it. Redemption could always be part of it, but that was always a hard road to travel. ------ The Lugian lands were Warded by significant magical effects carved into stone, and all the extant Summoning points were boxed in and caged, effectively dying over and over in cold and silent stone cages as they were brought in. Certain areas were used as combat practice for the younger warriors, and other areas were natural, subtle channels for the wandering threats of the island. We entered along one of those channels, an incline between hills sharp enough to be hard to climb, and harder to balance atop without sliding down. As geomagnetism instead of true flight seemed to be the rule for many creatures here, adding a touch of gravity to thwart the true fliers shoved them into a killing zone. I could see the nicks and scrapes of a lot of rocks bouncing off the walls here. The Wards gently pushed any zefirs, wisps, or wasps around and along to the channels, they entered, and the watching spotters splattered them with hurled stones. There were only a couple of the rocks in the channel, and the Mick directed the roaches to pick them up, indicating it was considered polite and neighborly to bring them back to the watching lugian sentries at their posts on the walls. Greetings were called out from the big grayish-blue fellows, the great gates were opened, and we passed into the hillside. Mines for the stones and walls without had been expanding into living quarters and chambers for beings taller and stronger than rote humans were. Inside we were stopped by fully-armored lugians wielding Heavy weapons appropriate for Jotuns, taking advantage of their extremely solid builds and stumpy, splayed feet. They seemed to be reluctant to overarmor their limbs for some reason, but I was quickly told by the Mick that armoring the limbs was a sign of going to war, while breastplates were easy to wear even while traveling. Even the Gotroks we¡¯d fought had not fully armored their limbs, probably because they had to run around so much. A lugian strapping on a full suit of armor was going directly into a fight, make no mistake about it, and NOT strapping on a full suit was basically belittling an opponent that they weren¡¯t worth the hassle of putting on the extra armor. ¡°Or,¡± Kris spoke up from the side, ¡°it¡¯s probably harder to swing those forty-pound weapons they are using with heavy armor on their limbs.¡± ¡°Real world physics become default traditions? Too reasonable, Highness,¡± I replied, as we passed into the central living area of Ithaenc Tukal. The lugians had basically hollowed out most of a mountain with great energy and skill, and given they averaged eight feet tall, it didn¡¯t feel cramped at all. Massive open antechambers were a rule, not a feature; sunlight streamed in from overhead and multiple windows, lighting the area without need for magic. There were simple but well-done carvings everywhere, the lugians as a people more into strength and stability than intricacy, saving the latter for either writing or tattoo work, I was informed, and it carried through under observation. They did love adorning stuff with pageantry and symbols, however, so everywhere you looked there were tapestries, frescoes, dioramas, and blazons telling stories, representing feats and ideals, memorializing the fallen, and so forth. Artistic and lovers of history, without being flighty or anything. Given the place was already a fortress, you¡¯d think they wouldn¡¯t build another one, but the standard lugian design for a throne room was to build it atop an advancing spiral tower, which meant intruders would have a massive uphill fight if they managed to breach the insides. ¡°They don¡¯t seem to like walls and rails too much?¡± I asked Lord Mick, who was leading us three up said spiral to the throne room of the aged Lord Kresovus, the one-handed king who still reigned over his people. The spirals wound around the outside of the tower, meaning on our right was open space, save for the corner column areas extending up to the roof. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The rest of the Roaches were scattered out getting supplies and renewing contacts. ¡°It plays to their strengths,¡± Princess Kristie called back to me. ¡°They are big and heavy and strong. Tossing their enemies over the side is all to their advantage, and their big feet and stockiness give them excellent footing. Plus, I imagine the magical nature of Soak and Health here means they can survive accidental falls, so they aren¡¯t too worried about it, and going over the edge is just going to generate chuckles about people who can¡¯t keep their balance on good, solid stone.¡± ¡°Fair enough,¡± I replied. Creatures that could fly didn¡¯t believe in rails, either, so why would things close enough to the earth? ¡°How¡¯s your relations with the King here, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Fair,¡± he responded evenly. ¡°We know one another, we get along, but we don¡¯t much share drinks. He¡¯s a busy fellow, an¡¯ I never got along that well with lugians in general. But I¡¯ve been happy to share information with him, an¡¯ he appreciates the blunt honesty, at the least.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re trying, he¡¯s seeing it, and he¡¯s patient with you?¡± Kris reasoned. ¡°Aye. Also, he carved the headstone for me lady with his own hand, when he heard she were buried in an unmarked grave.¡± ¡°And for that, he made a friend forever,¡± Kris said softly, her pale violet eyes gleaming as she shared a glance with me. ¡°That he did,¡± the Mick answered firmly, as we finally reached the highest ramp and the open doors of the throne room. There were no lugians on guard duty at the door, those had been stationed on the floors below. If someone were coming up to be stopped, it would have been done so before we reached here. The lugians were also a very disciplined and organized society who didn¡¯t like bothering their king with stuff. From the description, the main thrust of his office was settling disputes, and running the kingdom just sort of happened with thousands of years of precedents of behavior to draw on. He was a big fellow in dark armor, nearly nine feet tall, although he¡¯d set his helm aside to reveal the unique Tattoo marks of his station, building on what I had deduced were warrior, stonecrafter, and smithing patterns, a sure sign of mastery and respect from the greatest trades of the lugians, probably a true requirement for their King. He was standing to meet us, as the rigidity of lugian bodies actually made sitting for long periods very uncomfortable, and they could literally stand around for hours without much effort. Sitting was only done for formal occasions and potentially eating, or among us smaller races so as not to be that overwhelming. ¡°Lord Mick!¡± he boomed out with the casual ease of massive lungs, waving his remaining huge hand. The Axe it normally gripped was as big as any of those used by his guards, a double-bitted thing of chorozite no normal Isparian would have tried to wield in two hands, let alone one. ¡°It is good to see you, Scoutmaster! Did your visit to your lady go well?¡± ¡°Aye, your Majesty. She¡¯s resting just fine, waiting for the flowers t¡¯ return t¡¯ bloom with the spring,¡± he replied easily, coming up to take the king¡¯s hand in a warrior¡¯s armclasp, smaller hand vanishing into the king¡¯s massive grip. ¡°How are matters with you? Your son was time t¡¯ take up a trade, last I heard¡­¡± ¡°He has chosen the hammer!¡± the king replied in open pleasure, not holding any doubts or reservations about the choice. ¡°He is just beginning the journey of steel, but one day our warriors will bear his craft upon shoulders and hand!¡± he stated proudly. Naturally, he also leaned forward and directly asked, ¡°And you, proud Scoutmaster. Have you found another female to pass on your bloodline with?¡± The Mick took it right on the chin, as if expecting it. ¡°They all go for the young an¡¯ reckless these days, Your Majesty. The old an¡¯ reckless be just fools, as ye know.¡± ¡°Hah!¡± The massive lugian king pounded down on his throne¡¯s arm solidly, a blow that likely would have cracked ribs on an Isparian. ¡°Perhaps they will learn wisdom sooner, Scoutmaster! Do not give up hope!¡± ¡°Would nae dream of it, Your Majesty,¡± the Mick replied smoothly. ¡°I be not here t¡¯ talk about meself an¡¯ me failings now.¡± He half-turned to include us. ¡°I be here to introduce these two lovely lasses, who belike may change the world for us all, an¡¯ I neither boast nor exaggerate to ye, Your Majesty. Diamond eyes, Your Majesty.¡± That seemed to startle the king, who looked at the Mick in surprise, and then turned to stare at us warily. ¡°Diamond eyes, is it?¡± He looked us over from head to toe, lingering on my Staff and Kris¡¯ Cursemark, the latter of which did not deter him in the slightest, given lugians were basically bald. ¡°Your clothes were not made in these islands,¡± he said slowly and thoughtfully. ¡°That Staff seems familiar to those used by Aluvian Masters of Ceremony, at least the older style. I am not familiar with the smith who wrought the Buckler there, nor your bracers. You bear the air of a spellcaster, but I sense only martial power about you.¡± He looked between Kris and I, then back to the Mick. He nodded once. ¡°Your Majesty, may I present Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs, second princess o¡¯ the Imperial Family o¡¯ the Isparian Empire back on our original homeworld. Also a merry throat-cutter, dancing butcher, and one o¡¯ the finest sword-wielders ye¡¯ll ever see. ¡°Also, she¡¯s also a Knight of the Lost Light,¡± he added in an airy aside, and Kristie smoothly swept Quaver out with the first note hanging in the air. The king¡¯s gleaming eyes widened as her Sword expanded from the length of a long dagger to a full bastard sword, and the blue-black adamantine edged in Gold spiraled around with a nonesuch force radiance spiral that I could see he recognized instantly. It was fair to say his breath caught in his throat. ¡°An intact Sword of the Lost Light,¡± he murmured, staring at it. ¡°And¡­ are those Blackfire Stones, Your Highness?¡± he asked respectfully. Rather than answering him, Kristie flipped Quaver up on her palms and offered it to him for examination. ¡°If it pleases Your Majesty,¡± she replied calmly. He did not stand on ceremony. The overlong hilt could fit two human hands, and if it was a bit slender, he hefted the Sword without problem, shooting her another glance at its weight as he did so, and the way the Gold about the edge faded away in his grip. ¡°Ho. Hooooooo¡­¡± he trailed off, hefting it up, and then carefully swinging the Sword back and forth. ¡°My people have no love of the sword that you humans do, but this is a magnificently made Weapon,¡± he said with a warrior¡¯s appreciation and a smith¡¯s knowledge. The way the Lost Light swirled after and about the Blade he found particularly entrancing. ¡°Of what metal is this made?¡± he asked, raising it up before his eyes for a better look. ¡°Worldbone, Your Majesty.¡± AF Chapter 144 – King and Smith and Sculptor Giving a Shout-Out to the Longwinded One, the fellow who recently did a interview Podcast with me. He has started writing his own story here on Royal Road, and sent me advanced chapters to read and review. His story has gone live today. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/88011/children-of-the-cold-moon-the-four-treasures-saga It is a VERY well-written story. My sole detraction is that the MC is not my ''style'', it''s the older, classic style of a Lucky Fool (which a lot of people prefer). I encourage everyone to give it a try. If you like old Celtic stuff with a dash of modern updating, you will enjoy it! I rated it a 4.5, and the only reason it isn''t a 5 is because of me, not the author or the story. Even if it isn''t my cup of tea, I think a lot of people will greatly enjoy it, and it''s very well done. ============== The lugian king actually blinked at Princess Kristie in shock. ¡°You¡­ found a way to forge worldbone? To this level?¡± he asked in disbelief, looking back and forth between her and the Blade in his hands. ¡°You aren¡¯t considered a master smith in my family until you can forge your own Weapon of worldbone,¡± she replied lightly, smiling slightly, and he blinked again at the sight of her eight canines. Even if they weren¡¯t prominent they were highly noticeable. ¡°You are a smith!¡± King Kresovus exclaimed with approval and delight. ¡°A rare trade for women among your people, Princess!¡± he pointed out for her. ¡°Aye, mostly because of the strength required.¡± She held out her hand, and the king politely stopped his perusal of Quaver and respectfully returned it to her grasp. The Gold on its edge returned the instant she laid hand upon it. The Mick stepped out of the way as she turned, adopted a basic stance, and began the Salute of the Rose. There¡¯s dancing, there¡¯s swordplay, and then there¡¯s profound swordwork being used by a Grandmaster of the Sword. Kristie hummed, Quaver beat its two Notes in time, and we all watched spellbound as she went through the Salute of the Rose for the lugian king. He had wielded her Sword and knew how heavy it was. That she could move it that lightly and that fast, flicker-quick and with such grace and ease, bespoke a level of strength even a lugian had to respect. When it was all done and she bowed to him with dipped Blade, there was naught he could do but salute her and bow deeply in return, completely overwhelmed by a display of art and swordsmanship he had not imagined possible, and no parallel of which existed in his culture. The Lost Light gleaming for just a moment as a swirling golden rose about her at the end there was just surreal, too... ¡°A magnificent display, Your Highness,¡± he said deeply. ¡°You know your steel well!¡± We could all tell it was a deep compliment by the king of a race of metal workers. ¡°I do indeed, Your Majesty,¡± she inclined her head back to him, stepping back to her place with us. ¡°An¡¯ may I also present the Magos Devra al-Ryin, called Ryin, bearer of the Matrix path of magic o¡¯ Imperial Ispar,¡± the Mick immediately went on, as if the whole Salute of the Rose hadn¡¯t been more than a breath of interruption in his introductions. King Kresovus¡¯ eyes were bright as he looked at me. ¡°And do you work in steel as well, young Magos?¡± he asked expectantly. The perfectly carved and mirror-smooth tiles next to me flowed together in stones of white and black, smooth as water, precise as geometry, forming a slender footed stand, atop of which the spare crystals from the stone below gathered into a slender vase, out of which grew an entire bouquet of white and black roses for him, which I sent gliding across the floor towards him. Notably, not a single tile on the floor was altered in the slightest. The stand stopped in front of him. He just stared at it a moment, as if fearing to touch it for its delicacy, and then slowly reached out to grasp the slender vase, finding it the perfect size for his massive hand. He brought the bouquet up to his face slowly, and stared at the carved flowers from mere inches away. He even inhaled of them deeply as we watched, and I saw a faint tremble pass through him from head to toe. ¡°I smell only stone, or I would not know they are not in bloom¡­¡± he breathed out, opening his eyes to look at me. He blinked, looking left and right, because he did not see me. The Mick and Kris leaned their heads back. Lugians having stumpy necks, the king actually had to bend his body back slightly to see me up there, floating upside down in midair close to the forty-foot dome of the ceiling, looking down at him¡­ and my hair wasn¡¯t even falling down as it should have, nor my clothes. His glittering dark eyes really widened then. ¡°You¡­ can fly?!¡± he blurted out in amazement. I flipped over, swooped left and right, and back upright, then glided down the air as if skating on the air until I landed next to Kris once again. Crown gleamed, and the king¡¯s dark eyes followed it as I reached over with my Staff and poked the Mick. The Mick promptly leapt into the air, laughing like the rogue he was, and zipped on up to apex of the ceiling before taking a couple rounds about the chamber, then drew his Claymore and began a spinning, wheeling flashing display of bladework up there in the air, displaying enough precision and control to make it obvious this was no mere levitation, and that he had total control of his speed, trajectory, and inertia. Stolen novel; please report. He came falling smoothly back down to the ground with a wide grin on his face¡­ and then Bunita shrank back down to the size of a dagger and was sheathed at his side. The king had no doubt noticed the basket hilt, but thought the sheath a trick or strange Isparian representation of the Mick¡¯s Blade, not realizing it was his Sword shrunken down. He looked at the sheathed not-dagger, over to Princess Kristie, and then back to me. He very carefully set the vase of Shaped stone roses back down upon the equally elegant stand, and stepped away from it with equal due care. ¡°Lord Mick, you have indeed brought to me something worthy of diamond eyes,¡± he declared firmly. ¡°I believe that your people call that ¡®scoundrel¡¯s luck¡¯, or somesuch thing?¡± ¡°Ach, Your Majesty, dinnae wound me so. Ye¡¯d make me uncle envious an¡¯ all,¡± the Mick replied instantly. ¡°No doubt I would,¡± the king agreed in dour amusement. ¡°I appreciate the courtesy of your introducing your comrades to me, Lord Mick, and I sense that you are here for something more. What is it you came here to ask of us?¡± he inquired sternly. ¡°And no talking around the subject!¡± he chided the Black Aluvian firmly. ¡°I would nae dream o¡¯ such, Your Majesty,¡± the Mick lied without blinking an eye. ¡°Me fair companions here have questions of your smiths an¡¯ learned ones, regarding the changes to magic an¡¯ the knowledge of the lugians. If possible, they be wanting to sit down with some of the elders an¡¯ plot our a new road of knowledge with them, one that will lead our peoples off these islands once more.¡± ¡°Hooo¡­¡± the king murmured, giving Kris and I a sharp gaze. ¡°One who can shape worldbone, and one who can meld stone like water and give the gift of flight. The elders would throw me from the throne rather than be denied a chance to meet with the two of you! ¡°I can have a meeting called within an hour, in the sternest language that even the most reluctant of them must respect. Would that suffice for your purposes?¡± he asked generously. Kris inclined her head. ¡°It would, Your Majesty. We do not intend to stay for now, but soon enough, we will be bringing together the sages of all races to start disseminating a new way forward. You saw a faint glimpse of it in the show of the Sword. Such knowledge and power applies also to Axe and Hammer and Mace.¡± ¡°I shall also be in attendance with you, then, preparing for such, if it all be true,¡± the king agreed promptly. ¡°What matter draws you away from such important work?¡± he asked patiently. The Mick stiffened only slightly. ¡°Ye understand if it rolls off me tongue poorly, Your Majesty, but ¡®tis actually a matter of honor.¡± The lugian king actually went quiet, staring at the Mick long and deeply, obviously thinking on those words. The Mick endured it without batting an eye, and we were more curious at the weight behind the silence than anything. ¡°Treachery?¡± the king finally asked softly. ¡°There was word passed from the Aun Hunters just before you arrived of a tumerok seduced by the Gotrok. But for one such as you to claim it a matter of honor¡­¡± ¡°Former paramounts and Isparians being used as assassins and paid by the undead,¡± the Mick stated quietly in very clipped, precise words. The knuckles on the lugian king¡¯s one hand creaked with almost deafening intensity in the sudden quiet. His breathing was very deep, indeed. ¡°Even our kin among the Gotrok, the Hea, and the frogs do not treat with the undead,¡± he breathed softly, but oh, the weight on every syllable. ¡°Treachery in every breath from those who do not breathe, and yet, some are still so weak¡­¡± He shook once, a baleful light in his gaze. ¡°I know you do not wish this to be some great show. I will send two of my Guards with you. They will say little, they will obey your every word, do nothing if you do not require it, and do whatever is needed if you do.¡± The Mick took that on its face. ¡°Then I hope to not need them nor sully their names. Make sure they bring black masks, for I¡¯ll not have what¡¯s done tracked to them or their kin.¡± ¡°Petty vengeance and spite from rats in the tunnels!¡± the king spat knowingly. ¡°They will be waiting for you when it is time to leave, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Thank you, Your Majesty.¡± The Mick placed his hands to his chest and bowed respectfully to the one-handed lugian. Kresovus turned to us, only a bit of the ire lingering in his eye. ¡°And I will await your words at the meeting to come. Please refresh yourselves in the city while they gather.¡± Our meeting with the lugian king was over. We all bowed respectfully to him, and headed out the room. --- ¡°Not a good relationship with the king, aye?¡± Princess Kristie asked lightly. ¡°I¡¯ve never asked him fer a thing all these years, only given what knowledge I could pass along, an¡¯ done favors for him on the mainland.¡± ¡°Favors,¡± Kris repeated knowingly. Favors to kings were never light things. ¡°Run to the old homelands of Linvak Tukal, under the eyes of the Gotrok?¡± Kristie wondered aloud airily. ¡°Lot o¡¯ holes in those mountains the Gotrok don¡¯t know, odd as that may be. Lots o¡¯ lugians in the city who aren¡¯t happy with the Gotrok, either, an¡¯ word still needs to go back an¡¯ forth. The Gotrok set themselves up with the sponsorship of the Virindi, while the elders appoint a true king. For all their claims o¡¯ legitimacy of the Warrior Tradition of the lugians, they have broken the customs of their people an¡¯ ignored the ancient laws. ¡°I may have offed a few particularly egregious examples o¡¯ Gotrok hate-spewers, too,¡± he added as a light afterthought. ¡°He wouldn¡¯t have sent you as an ambassador or negotiator, but I¡¯m sure you escorted those he did¡­¡± Kristie said leadingly. ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick answered simply, as we continued down the ramps. ¡°They¡¯ll nae let a Gotrok, Hea, or burun through the Portal to Freehold when it opens, so it always be us sending ambassadors t¡¯ the main.¡± ¡°Did the undead hammer the lugians like they did us?¡± ¡°The undead moved against the lugians back during the ¡®good times¡¯, as it were,¡± he replied after a moment. ¡°They were wantin¡¯ the chorozite an¡¯ other metals for their people, an¡¯ they captured a bunch of lugian miners, then sacrificed the weak to turn the stronger ones inta undead, forcing them t¡¯ slave away around the clock mining for them. ¡°Ye might say they¡¯ve never forgotten that horrible insult, be it par for the course on the undead ¡®rewarding¡¯ their servants with ¡®immortality¡¯.¡± ¡°Aye. From their perspective, it was probably a glorious reward and inspiration for these new servants of theirs, and they should be grateful for their status,¡± I spoke up from behind the two of them. ¡°Their own desires on the matter were completely inconsequential, of course, primitive earth-grubbing brutes that the lugians obviously are.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like ye know the type intimately or something, lass,¡± the Mick drawled, as we reached the bottom, and he led us towards the nearest place to grab something to eat. I didn¡¯t reply, because Aelryinth¡¯s views on the undead were very, very deep and very hard to break away from, etched in the death of worlds. Undead had put him and I into this situation in the first place. There was next to nothing Good about any undead, and precious little that was ever good. I set it calmly aside, noting we had another strong ally through the Lord Mick, who was promising to be a better resource than either Kris or I had ever predicted. AF Chapter 145 – On Rending The lugian fare was normally pretty plain and stolid, but they had plenty of Isparian guests and could cater to our tastes and preference for less, eh, tough food. ¡°So you¡¯re going to be giving a presentation,¡± Princess Kristie began, and I held up a finger. ¡°I¡¯m not the smith. You¡¯re going to give the presentation. I am going to be giving an addendum at the end for future meetings regarding magical lore.¡± Her expression soured instantly. ¡°I could order you to do so?¡± she hedged fiercely. ¡°So you can ride in and save the day when I bollox up all the smithing and metallurgy terminology and have to give it anyway? Why not do it right from the start?¡± I asked with an upraised eyebrow. She scowled at me, I just looked back at her, and she finally threw up her hands. ¡°Fine. How do I start?¡± ¡°Ye establish that ye¡¯re a master o¡¯ the craft fast an¡¯ clear, knowin¡¯ the important stuff so they can acknowledge ye as an equal. Then go from there,¡± the Mick related, nursing a stein of hard ale and watching us both in amusement. ¡°Normally, that would involve questions an¡¯ answers, give an¡¯ take from elders doubtin¡¯ ye¡¯re all that.¡± ¡°Meh. We¡¯re Isparians. Do something dramatic. Plant Quaver in the middle of the floor, declare that you made this Sword of worldbone, and anyone who can make a better blade of the same stand forth and you¡¯ll call them Master. If they can¡¯t, they¡¯d best shut up about your age, because you¡¯re going to be talking some deep stuff, and the stupid and foolish can just leave now.¡± Kris looked at me, then over at the Mick inquiringly. ¡°Aye, that sounds like something stupidly rambunctious an¡¯ customs-cutting that an Isparian would do. If they get uppity just point at yer Sword an¡¯ challenge them t¡¯ make its equal. I¡­ dinnae think they can. Ye¡¯ve got nothing they know of in the way of magic on it t¡¯ compare to.¡± He inclined his head thoughtfully. ¡°Ye didn¡¯t use the Biting Strike or Crushing Blow Runework on yer Quaver there¡­ an¡¯d I¡¯ve not seen any use Cleaving Runes on any Weapon. Seeing it on the Staff o¡¯ the Mind there in a strange form were a bit o¡¯ a shock, once I understood what it meant.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I glanced at Kristie. ¡°They had a Bludgeon Cleaving Rune formation before arriving here on Ispar, or discovered it soon after. If the Staff wasn¡¯t improved after it came here, it¡¯s the former.¡± ¡°That layering system used was novel and nothing like the patterns in the fake Silifi of Crimson Stars,¡± Kristie murmured in consideration. ¡°Yet they¡¯ve not used it in anything else since, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Nay, and I¡¯d know. If it only worked on staves, well enough. For the chance t¡¯ wield a Cleaving Weapon, every man on the islands would be armed with one, an¡¯ the smiths would be going wild applying it t¡¯ every mace, hammer, an¡¯ staff design t¡¯ see if it could be adapted to other Weapons.¡± ¡°But they aren¡¯t. Either they lost the knowledge, they can¡¯t replicate the Staff currently with the means at hand¡­ or they never made it at all,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°And since they don¡¯t understand it, that means they can¡¯t make it on their own.¡± ¡°So, point two, do a Holopoint breakdown of the Staff of the Mind, laud whoever designed it, and ask for their name, you want to shake their hand and punch them for not making more of them!¡± I encouraged her, drawing out her smirk at the image. ¡°Aye, sounds reasonable. If¡¯n they know not how t¡¯ make more o¡¯ them, ye just shamed them in the knowledge o¡¯ design an¡¯ construction o¡¯ one o¡¯ their own magical craft!¡± the Mick mused aloud. ¡°That should definitely establish my crafting bona fides,¡± Kris had to agree, nodding slowly. ¡°The Lost Light? Silifi? Elemental Stones?¡± ¡°The Rose of Celdon?¡± I added, shaking the powerless Ring on my finger. ¡°There¡¯ll be finesmiths among those coming, right?¡± Kris asked the Mick quickly. ¡°Aye. Did ye ken the axes o¡¯ the brutes? Most o¡¯ them have cosmetic stone an¡¯ finework on ¡®em. If it¡¯s metal or crystal, the lugians love t¡¯ work with it. They¡¯ll be there, an¡¯ hanging on most every word ye speak, have no doubts. They have a special love o¡¯ diamonds in the culture, too.¡± ¡°Purest of the earth¡¯s tears, can¡¯t imagine why,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°How deep do we want to go with the spellcasting at this time?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll go with a demonstration of the minor powers and potential, but I¡¯m not going full depth and painting an assassination target on my back immediately. I have to have a LOT of passive defenses up before then. ¡°Also, I don¡¯t want a Matrix design that the undead can pilfer in any form to their advantage. Negative energy matrices are usually unique in that they form to undead made from mortal Casters, they aren¡¯t learned after the fact¡­ but I don¡¯t trust them not to find a workaround, although they didn¡¯t strike me as a particularly innovative culture. Obsessed with secrets they could bargain from elder powers does not good innovators make.¡± I shook my head at the thought of an undead civilization getting ahold of Metas, Weirding, and Efficient spells, especially with the mana restoration possibilities here. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°You started with a straight Arcane Matrix, right?¡± Kris asked, while the Lord Mick just listened attentively. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°And you¡¯ve been adding Theurgic components to the other Traditions?¡± Kris went on calmly, accepting a bottle of wine she¡¯d called for earlier. ¡°Yes. Divine and Heartsong, and the Pool Theurgy with the Isparian Tradition,¡± I confirmed. ¡°But you said there¡¯s no Primal magic here¡­¡± Kris reminded me. ¡°There¡¯s not. I¡¯ve been feeling for it, and if it¡¯s there, the gridmap of the ley lines in this place is totally obscuring it. I could potentially take Druid Levels, but there¡¯d be nothing there except skill points. ¡°Divine magic,¡± Lord Mick spoke up, eyeing me. ¡°We¡¯ve¡­ no active priests, wielding magic sacred to anything ye might truly call a god. It¡¯s just¡­ other magic, save the Void Magic ye¡¯ve confirmed t¡¯ be unclean, although it all be usin¡¯ the same Mana Pool¡­¡± he trailed off uncertainly. ¡°I believe one of the reasons the manafield here is so powerful is because so many of the various forms of magic are slurried together in a rough and unstable mana only kept bound by the power of the ley lines. It¡¯s just¡­ breaking the ley lines is probably going to do something immense, and given the nature of at least one of the magicks bound there, probably bad.¡± ¡°Bad?¡± Kris and Lord Mick asked together, staring at me. ¡°The Ley Line network under this island is effectively a massive Wondrous Machine on a geographic scale. The whole island is a magic item.¡± I let that sink in before continuing. ¡°Arcane energy is very flexible, but Eldritch energy in particular has a very powerful aspect that concerns me when you¡¯re talking stuff of this size.¡± The Mick just looked at Kris, who nodded slowly. ¡°Binding and Sealing¡­¡± The Mick slowly put down the ale he was raising towards his lips. ¡°I remind ye that I be familiar with some o¡¯ the shite Binding an¡¯ Sealing crap puts about. The Vissidal an¡¯ Dark Islands were both shoved t¡¯ the bottom of the sea when Grael were Bound by the Empyreans, an¡¯ the power required might well have doomed their Empire at the time.¡± ¡°Aye, shoving the problem forward in time for unfortunate later generations to deal with, hopefully after he¡¯d lost his power,¡± Kris nodded, having torn off the cork of her wine with her teeth and taking a long swig, which she rolled around in her mouth for a minute before making a politely satisfied sound. ¡°Palm nuts, bananas, and pineapple? Well, in a pinch¡­¡± ¡°Well, if you think about it, you have this hugely powerful thing backed by the power of god-level entities definitely interested in messing around, powerful enough that the Deep feels threatened by them. They bound it here, instead of the heart of their Empire where their power was the greatest, and close to a sizable population of Ruschk, by your accounts, although we don¡¯t know if the Ruschk aren¡¯t found elsewhere,¡± I pointed out for them. ¡°Only that never seen a Ruschk female have I, nor any being I know,¡± Lord Mick supplied helpfully. ¡°They could have come here after Grael be bound, I dinnae know, or been just a minor tribe overlooked in the fighting.¡± ¡°The location is the key part,¡± Kris analyzed. ¡°Grael came here, they obviously couldn¡¯t easily force him to an island of all places, and they chose to Bind and Seal him here,¡± she tapped the table with a black nail like a small hammer for emphasis, ¡°rather than removing him to a more custom location which they could tailor to his specifics.¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°And customizing is key to Binding and Sealing. Yet, they still chose to do it here.¡± I repeated her own tapping. Lord Mick looked between us. ¡°Oh, weighty thoughts. There be something here they could draw on that were more powerful than making our dear Grael-thing its own custom cage?¡± he asked, frowning, and then blinking. ¡°Ye¡¯re saying the entire island is a Seal on something, lass?¡± he asked in a low voice. ¡°I don¡¯t have a proper Commune with the land to find out, but I have a great suspicion that if I can map out even parts of it, they are going to look a LOT like a customized and ungodly powerful Sealing Formation. ¡°Just what is Sealed, I have no idea. It might not even have a physical body. It could be an entry to a cage at the center of the world. It could be thoughts, concepts, energies. ¡°It¡¯s warping Fate and causality enough to draw in stuff from all over the multiverse to here, on this island, and get everything to fighting atop it for who knows what reason. I¡¯m not even sure the Entities being drawn here have any real idea why, and I severely doubt the undead Empyreans have any amount of understanding of the real significance of this place. They only enjoy its power and benefits, choosing to run here while the rest of the world was overrun with olthoi¡­¡± It was Kris who broke the silence that followed. ¡°Could it be the gods who are Sealed away here, so no true Divine entities can exist here?¡± ¡°Aye. It could be the Worldheart and awareness of the Land Sealed away, that it not rise up and strike the makers down for daring to mess with its lifeblood of mana the way they are. It could be some great Evil not even the Entities messing here realize, or it could be some great Good whose foes captured it and bound it away, disguising its prison as a paradise of power for others to come and defend unknowingly to claim for their own. ¡°We don¡¯t know, but I¡¯ll stand by my supposition that the ley line Formation is a Seal of the highest size and power.¡± ¡°How be that working with yer theory of us being stage actors for something in a play of their own design?¡± the Mick asked with frosty undercurrents. ¡°Someone had to make this place. Given the sheer amount of effort expended to do so, what makes you think they aren¡¯t still looking after it, in a fashion?¡± The Mick weighed that idea, and nodded slowly. ¡°And¡­ they been guarding for so long, an¡¯ wanted a bit o¡¯ entertainment?¡± he hazarded. ¡°Or we are a research project. Or a tool. Or a resource.¡± I put up my hands helplessly. Both of them took a drink in tandem. ¡°Bah, thinkin¡¯ about shite above me pay grade,¡± the Mick groused sourly. ¡°The sad thing about being a proper senior adventurer is that there are very, very few people more qualified to think about such things,¡± Princess Kristie said philosophically, and held out her bottle. The Mick hesitated, sighed, and reached out to tunk his tankard against the bottle of tropical wine. ¡°¡¯Tis true,¡± he admitted. ¡°Tis the ones who never face down the horrors of the dark, never see they really exist, who doubt they do exist, that get themselves set in political chairs an¡¯ really fuck things up for those who know what is Out There.¡± ¡°What was your moment?¡± Kris asked with a knowing air. AF Chapter 146 – Discussions and Displays ¡°Me moment,¡± Lord Mick repeated, tilting back his chair and looking to the wisdom etched in the featureless gray stone of the ceiling, stained by smoke and humidity. ¡°Seein¡¯ the T¡¯thuun tentacles? Nay¡­ Not the Deru trees, nor the Graveyard emergin¡¯ out o¡¯ nowhere, nor the Portals to Bur an¡¯ the alien temples and places there... ¡°Even the Virindi mazes and places, nay¡­¡± he closed his eyes for a moment, and then opened them slowly, a dim fire in them. ¡°Grael¡¯s Chamber,¡± he admitted softly, looking down into his mostly-empty tankard, and lifting his arm to signal for another. ¡°There be eyes there. Eyes o¡¯ things not ever born nor died, things from beyond, an¡¯ the pure malice an¡¯ hate an¡¯ scorn in those eyes, lookin¡¯ down at all of us like we were less than ants an¡¯ still darin¡¯ to kill their little tool¡­ ¡°Aye, that were me moment I be realizing that there were some truly monstrous things out there in the night, with no love for anything mortal-born, an¡¯ e¡¯en now, knowing it might well be a game t¡¯ them, I know they still need be fought t¡¯ the death an¡¯ beyond.¡± Those words thrummed with my memory of the Title Aelryinth was most proud of. Not Ringlord. Not Sage of Focus. Not even Monarch, or Heavenbound, or Lord of Pyramids. Champion of Creation. Standing between the Mortal World and all the things from Outside Creation that wanted to do it harm, things slipping through the Veil and the vigilance of gods and elementals to wreak plans unspeakable upon the hapless creatures living upon the Prime Plane. Things like the¡­ Thing (I coughed and looked away to hide my expression at the unavoidable revulsion in the memory) that had almost eaten Terra, with no gods around to protect it. As there were no gods here to protect this place, and yet so magic-rich a place was only populated by random Aberrants and looked at by such Entities, and not completely overrun. One had to wonder why that was so. ¡°Did ye both have moments, too?¡± the Mick asked carefully, eyeing us both cautiously. ¡°Yes and no here,¡± I nodded, glancing at Kris. ¡°All Ranthas have them, as soon as they are born,¡± Princess Kristie sniffed. ¡°At birth?¡± Lord Mick exchanged tankards with the stolid lugian maid smoothly. Nobody harassed lugian maids, of course, as a stony fist was like to smash them right to the ground instantly. ¡°Us Ranthas are imprinted at birth with the founding memories of our Curseline progenitor. Which was a mite confusing until my mother and sister explained to me what was going on. So, yes. I¡¯ve been awake, aware, and capable of fully independent thought since the day I was born, Lord Mick.¡± He studied her calmly. ¡°So, like as not, yer near as old or older than I am?¡± he asked leadingly. ¡°Hah!¡± She reached out to tunk with him again. ¡°Now there¡¯s a proper rogue¡¯s mindset, Lord Mick! I¡¯ll be sure to tell your mother you¡¯re a fine Black Aluvian still!¡± ¡°Aye, she¡¯d be right proud o¡¯ me, palling about with princesses an¡¯ kings an¡¯ whatnot, right around her cursin¡¯ me for giving her no grandkids t¡¯ spoil shamelessly despite all me efforts.¡± He looked away a moment. ¡°She¡¯d probably have t¡¯ do so from the grave though, aye?¡± Princess Kristie nodded slowly. ¡°Aye, pretty sure she has passed on, Lord Mick, though I¡¯ve no true news as to that effect.¡± ¡°Well, I did give up on seeing them a long time ago, an¡¯ enough o¡¯ me brothers there were t¡¯ look after them.¡± He lifted a salute toward ceiling and took a draw. ¡°And you, lass?¡± I smiled brittlely. ¡°Oh, that would be when a greedy mage eager for power arranged for a Summoning ceremony and I lost my previous soul.¡± He blinked at me. ¡°No need to fear, I have a new one, and the thing that ate the old one paid dearly for it. But it was still my moment.¡± He looked down at his tankard, then offered it to me. Well, it was appropriate. I reached over and took the drink made from phyntos honey and barley for a good, hard pull of my own. Mira didn¡¯t particularly enjoy ale, but this was new, and even if it had a stiff bite to it, not bad. I kept my eyes closed as I handed it back and wiped the foam off my mouth. ¡°I don¡¯t like remembering the moment,¡± I confessed. ¡°Well, I only were under the countless eyes of things that wanted t¡¯ eat me soul, it never actually happened,¡± the Mick shuddered on my behalf, and took a drink of his own again. ¡°Now, thinking things like them might be responsible for losing me lady an¡¯ all me friends an¡¯ colleagues an¡¯ so many folk I knew¡­¡± he trailed off darkly. ¡°We don¡¯t know that they were, or that anything intelligent was. I can totally promise that the thought of doing so definitely wouldn¡¯t deter any of them from doing so, just like pouring water into an anthill to see the fun isn¡¯t going to deter you, even if a bunch of the ants are going to die.¡± Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Until the fire ant stacks come bouncing along on the water, break on you, swarm, and take you down?¡± Kris smiled fiercely. ¡°Yeah, if you¡¯re dumb enough to wade through the water into them. Which, mind you, I¡¯m not saying they aren¡¯t dumb enough to do. ¡®Hey, what¡¯s this?¡¯ tends to be a gateway to interesting events among more than Isparians.¡± ¡°Fire ants?¡± the Mick asked fatalistically. ¡°Dinnae tell me ants get big enough to eat people, too¡­¡± Kris and I both laughed lightly, thought about his statement, and stopped laughing. ¡°They totally do,¡± I informed him, and actually flicked up a Holo of an average giant ant, about eighteen inches in length. ¡°Standard giant worker ant.¡± He looked at it and its mandibles in disquiet. ¡°Overgrown giant soldier army ant.¡± The whole tavern quieted down as a deer-sized, angry ant with dripping mandibles and a very obvious plunging stinger shimmered into view above our table. ¡°You actually ran into something like this?¡± Princess Kris asked, wrinkling her nose. ¡°Ran into them? They made use of them! It turns out the army ants in the Amazon are good for eating undead, if mutated correctly.¡± ¡°No shit. And the rest of the places?¡± ¡°We hunt them down and exterminate them at all costs. One of the moons around Terra hosts all manner of giant-sized insect life of various sorts, and they keep trying to colonize Terra.¡± I flicked up images of life-size giant bees and bee folk, giant wasps, giant dragonflies, hideously dangerous giant mantises, giant scorpions, giant beetles, and of course giant ants and dozens of varieties of giant spiders. Had quite an audience by the time I was done, watching this parade of enlarged insect life in horror and fascination. ¡°That be nigh as bad as the olthoi an¡¯ the grievvers,¡± the Mick pronounced after I was done, and the mixed crowd around murmured much the same feelings. ¡°We¡¯ve very good reason to believe that the progenitor creatures of each of these species are Devastation-class monstrosities, kaiju, the size of castles and bigger.¡± I inflated the scale of one of the beetles, a scarab beetle, up and up and up, with a human standing next to them getting smaller and smaller in comparison, and some of the tavern-goers actually choked in horror at the size of the resulting monstrosity. ¡°How do you kill something like that?¡± an older lugian looking on gasped for everyone. ¡°Ah, it gets worse,¡± I told them wisely, and they just stared at me. ¡°Bugs that size all have magical powers of some kind or another. Spitting out virtual rivers of acid. Cracking pincers so loudly the sound can break bones. Venomous auras that can reduce everything organic around them to gooey sludge. Carapaces that bounce spells off like sloughing water.¡± I considered the last image of a massive horned and spiked beetle, then let it all fade. ¡°But fire ants aren¡¯t anything like those. Fire ants are a completely mundane pest.¡± The Holo this time was a simple ant mound, but with an Isparian hand next to it for scale. ¡°They are called fire ants because the little buggers are all venomous, and they are all very aggressive. If you get caught close to their nest, they swarm out, and they start stinging and biting you.¡± A stream of dark red bodies scuttled up and out of the nest, and proceeded to start biting and crawling all over the hand and up the arm of the nameless man there, who quickly snatched it away. ¡°Naturally if you don¡¯t know they are there, and, say, pitch a tent right on top of them, you are in for a very active night. ¡°More to the point, they are ants. They spread. And they have no problem setting up shop at the corner of your home and heading indoors. When they stumble across you in bed, in a chair, in anything, they are happy to repeat the same behavior, and they are a true pain to get rid of. ¡°So, fire ants. Proof of why you need to get rid of hostile bugs, and that¡¯s way, way before they get to giant-sized or start walking upright.¡± ¡°Olthoi,¡± came the answering rumble, heads nodding all around. The lugian settlements hadn¡¯t been troubled by them, but their warriors had all fought the bugs, as had everyone else, and they were well aware of how dangerous the things were. ¡°The grievvers, too, even if they aren¡¯t as sly and cunning about it.¡± ¡°Aye, heard the olthoi were the dominant species on their homeworld, the grievvers just nuisances keeping their numbers down¡­ or trying to. Haven¡¯t seen much about ¡®em that suggests they are good at killing olthoi, unless they get them in webs. Olthoi don¡¯t seem to use webs,¡± the Mick grunted. ¡°Oh? The grievvers actually spin webs?¡± I hadn¡¯t known that, and hadn¡¯t done a good study of the random Summons we¡¯d seen to discern the fact they had spinnerets. That village had been festooned in silk, but that had been more like¡­ cocoons, not hunting webs. ¡°Aye. There were a Dungeon out in the direlands stuffed full o¡¯ grievvers, festooned with the silk o¡¯ their webbing, and wrapped-up prey inside. Ye could even find wads of it in some o¡¯ the critters after ye killed ¡®em, good for making silk.¡± His face segued into that look he got when he realized how damn odd that was when the bodies of the grievvers had dissolved into nothing after mere minutes. ¡°Loot drops. Miss ¡®em so!¡± he called out, and some of the older lugians shouted out in support and drank with him. ¡°Who wouldn¡¯t miss free, easy money?¡± was Kris¡¯ only comment to that under her breath, her expression wry. ¡°Welcome to the real magical world, where things still don¡¯t make sense!¡± was my contribution to that insanity. ¡°Hear hear!¡± the Mick agreed, and had another pull. --------- Oddly enough, the lugian speaking halls were full of standing lecterns and posts. Lugians tended to either stand or lay down, as sitting for long periods of time annoyed them and wasn¡¯t very comfortable, partly because they weren¡¯t the most flexible of folk. Given they were eight feet tall, that also meant a human needed quite a boost to be visible to all of them, which I satisfied by just having Kris stand on a Disk as she made her speech to the gathered lugian elders. There were about forty of them, and like Lord Mick had said, they came from all three main branches and the ancillary disciplines of them: Warrior, Miner, and Maker, as it were. Maker included both smiths and mason/sculptors, and even a few who worked with hides and wood, although such were not held in the same esteem as the classic jobs. They were still looking at the Sword with the spirals of Lost Light flowing around it, driven a foot into a nice chorozite boulder that should have defied any such magical effect which could do such a thing¡­ but adamantine¡¯s ability to cleave through softer materials wasn¡¯t a magical effect, it was Weird Science, and Earth Tungsten was a step up from mere worldbone, or plain tungsten. None of them dared to claim they could make a better Sword of worldbone, although half a dozen had stepped up to examine the Blade shoved into the semi-transparent hunk of rock closely, eyeing the Blackfire Stones embedded into it, forming their own silent questions as they considered the level of smithing skill needed to do such a thing, integrate so many different applications of power, and defy the null-magic property of chorozite that they so loved¡­ AF Chapter 147 – Diagrams and Discourse ¡°I have a question of the esteemed elders, now that you have seen fit to examine my Sword and address your own reservations about my qualifications,¡± Princess Kristie began, holding up the blue-and-white Staff she lifted out of her Masspack for them all to look at. ¡°An advanced Staff of Clarity!¡± one of the elders, with bright golden rune-tats on the left side of his face called out immediately in recognition. ¡°You have one that is intact?!¡± he cried out in delight. ¡°My question is this,¡± Kris went on without answering the obvious question. ¡°Who is responsible for the design of this device? I would know the name of the Smith and Artificer who wrought such a marvel!¡± I was watching carefully, and saw several mouths open to answer her, old and strong smiths who honored their elders¡­ And slowly, almost in confusion, she watched their hard purple-gray brows furrow in consternation, and there was no response to her question. ¡°Elders?¡± Princess Kristi reported. ¡°Elder Vroekor?¡± she pointed out the gold-tatted Elder specifically. ¡°Surely you know your own history well enough to credit who makes such an object so integral to the higher tests of character in your society?¡± He was staring right at her, rather inflexible face still managing to frown sternly at her. ¡°I¡­ cannot remember the one who designed the improved Staff of the Mind,¡± he admitted after a moment. He slowly looked around, and the lugians around him all looked back, then shook their own heads in confusion. ¡°I see. Am I to deduce from your confusion that this level of Staff did not exist on your homeworld?¡± she went on calmly. ¡°I¡­ that is correct!¡± Elder Vroekor responded. ¡°I was of the circle that designed the tests and helped forge the rewards for passing them! My associates and I are well aware of the work that needs to be done on the rewards of the Arm, Mind, and Heart!¡± he declared firmly, his words supported by fully two-thirds of the elders calling out support and indicating they also knew the specifics. Kris just snapped her fingers. I put up the Holo of the internal workings of the Staff above her, and the calls and rumbled words were cut off like a knife. I displayed the runic structures from the base all the way up the mace-like tip with its alternating bases of alloys, the Runic structure and the resonating effect that the layers of crystalline metals had upon the magic that went through them. The Makers in the room were silent as they stared hungrily at the display, unable to hide their surprise and consternation at such a thing existing in an item that was such an emblem of their people. ¡°This is a Bludgeon Cleaving Runic Formation, a unique and powerful design that matches nothing I am familiar with. In particular, it is meant to work with this resonating alloy pattern, and thus be unique and restricted to bludgeoning magical energy moving through the Staff, and nothing else. Attempting to replicate this effect to a proper Polemace or other true Weapon would be useless. ¡°So, very powerful, very valuable, and very useful only for one very limited application¡­ an Implement that shoots bludgeon-style force magic.¡± She surveyed all of the staring elders. ¡°By your expressions, am I given to understand that you had no knowledge of this Rune structure, nor the resonant effects of the layered alloys?¡± The most skilled and learned members of lugian society looked at one another blankly, including King Kresovus himself, unable to believe that NONE of them knew what their own Artifice could do! ¡°I see.¡± If she sounded a little disappointed in them, well, she was an Imperial, and really good at manipulating people, especially proud people who knew duty. The lugian elders all flushed slightly under her gaze. ¡°Ryin, can you work up a suitable Artificing Template for them all to see and study as they might like, to learn this particular Formation?¡± ¡°If it pleases Your Highness, I should like to do more.¡± All eyes snapped over to me in sudden interest as I rose to face them, obviously the source of this marvelous illusion that was the absolute best visual representation of an Artificing Rune Formation that they had ever beheld. ¡°If the elders will focus their attention on the elements of the Cleaving Formation there, and the resonant patterns there¡­¡± I indicated, blowing the details of them up into massive close-range fineness, and the elders instinctively leaned forward for closer looks. An elder with dark purple rune-tats spoke up first, ¡°Those are Elemental Runes in shaerzdig placement there!¡± he called out. I made the indicated Runes glow, and they all saw that they were filtration and attunement Runes. In return, the physical structure of the surrounding alloys was removed and replaced by interfaces and connections¡­ to which I began to add things. The elders choked up as multiple Rune Formations were etched in the circled spaces of shaerzdig, just turned a degree away, linked and connected, but very, very different. The connections between the harmonic layers spun and shifted to accommodate the change in energies as I added each one. Different metals and alloys to the connection points, different layers and flow patterns. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. All at least partially recognizable. ¡°A multi-Element modular Cleaving Rune Formation?!¡± King Kresovus roared out in disbelief, and the whole meeting erupted in calls of how impossible it was. ¡°Silence.¡± It was a Warlord¡¯s and Minstrel¡¯s Voice, and it cut the hubbub like a knife. Mouths clamped shut in spite of themselves, the lugian elders startled to find themselves obeying a voice like that so readily¡­ and at the way that Kris¡¯ voice had an edge of its own. ¡°Your answer is incorrect, King Kresovus. Or at least, it is not correct, yet.¡± I indicated the eightfold Master Runic Pattern, gleaming and whole, each separate iteration of it full and complete on its own, spinning and shifting to bring each into master alignment. ¡°That is the correction I came to inquire of the Elders here. ¡°I have come to ask them if they would be willing to fail, and fail, and fail again, to find these.¡± The harmonic contact points, the strips of metal and crystal that had to exist there, glowed in series as the Holographic Staff of Clarity spun through them, as did the additional Rune Structures. ¡°I apologize if I seem to have startled you,¡± I went on, as the elders all calmed down, but now their gazes were just as thoughtful and intense as they had been excited. ¡°One, I do not know a single Element Cleaving Formation beyond this one, and I have been told this one is likely very specifically modified and limited to Bludgeon so as to accommodate the Crushing Blow Runic Structure also built into the Staff.¡± I backed the detailed view out, and the familiar Crushing Blow Runes glowed into visibility about the central Formation. ¡°Two, I do not know the combination of crystal and metal resonances that would be used to produce the modular flows for each of the other Elements. ¡°This Staff of Clarity clearly shows the way for all of these things to be applied. Equally clearly, it does not give us the slightest real method of managing to attain any but what is likely the simplest and most basic Element of magic. ¡°If one were optimistic, one might see this as a guidepost and the unlocking of a door through which we might step further along on our understanding of magic. ¡°If one were a skeptic, one might see it as a test of our ability by something greater¡­ whatever force or individual actually designed such a revolutionary methodology that might advance our own magical understanding and artificing. ¡°If one were a pessimist, one might say that it a slap in the face, right in front of our eyes, not discovered despite being right there¡­ or perhaps concealed from us as not being worthy of the true secrets of even the least aspects of this more advanced system.¡± I let them ruminate over that as they studied the Formation, processing it, realizing it was not complete, not true¡­ but that it could be. ¡°Lady Ryin,¡± King Kresovus rumbled for them, knowing more than they, and so something of what was to come, ¡°why do you have EIGHT potential paths to follow, instead of the Elemental Seven?¡± ¡°Because the Fourth Element of Force, or the Fifth Elemental Energy, however you care to see it, is Sound, also called¡­ Thunder.¡± I spun up the thirteen Shards around my hand, each of them chiming a different Note, ascending up the scale, the air rippling and warbling around them visibly, clearly leashing and controlling a pure energy they were both familiar with and not. Who among them had not felt thunder breaking upon them, the force of a ringing hammer smashing against ears and skin, knowing the power of a great noise to ripple the muscle and pound at the blood? But the fact there was an Eighth energy solidified my pedigree as an advanced spellcaster who knew more advanced magic than they did instantly, simple and basic and yet there it was, right in front of them all this time, never tapped. Princess Kristie stepped forward, her pale violet eyes flashing deadly serious. ¡°This is the task we set before you, Elders. One, we wish to take the Bludgeon Cleaving Rune Formation revealed here and broaden it once again to include Implements. We may have a way forward there with the discovery of a metal called darksteel.¡± They repeated the word in wonder and expectation, clearly salivating for a display of this wondrous material. ¡°Second, we need to find the proper Rune Formations for ALL of the Elements, and the Alchemical resonances for the materials that work with each of them. ¡°Third, we need to unify that knowledge into the Master Rune Formation that Sage Ryin has shown you, breaking through ALL of the barriers that have been placed in front of us. ¡°To that purpose, I ask you this: how many Elemental Cleaving Weapons do you have that yet remain, and can we add their Formations to the existing knowledge base for all of our peoples?¡± ¡°The Explorer Weapons!¡± Sage Vroekor spoke up promptly and earnestly. ¡°There should be examples of Bludgeon, Slashing, and Piercing Cleaving Rune Formations among them! There are still examples of them left in the old supplies, although none dare employ them, and they seem frail and damaged!¡± Kris raised her fist and clenched it. ¡°Samples are all we need, Elder!¡± she promised firmly. She reached over and lifted up the broken Silifi of Crimson Night, raising it up. ¡°A very, very specific question. Do any of the Rubies to this Weapon still exist among you? Because Lightning Cleaving was among its options!¡± AF Chapter 148 – Setting Them up to Fail Princess Kristie¡¯s question received no affirmative answers, which was disappointing. The lugians preferred their own oversized weapons to what was basically an Isparian-made hand axe to them. ¡°I believe I still have an old Assault Orb among my belongings. It was empty of power and so did not explode during the Fall,¡± another lugian clad in heavy robes instead of leathers or metal spoke up in a somber, cultured voice. ¡°The advanced version had the power of both Slash Cleaving and Tumerok Slaying, although the basic version does not¡­¡± Kris pointed directly at him. ¡°Elder, I think we are going to find that your Assault Orb actually has those powers already within it, they simply were not turned on. If you would be so kind as to fetch it for us?¡± His dark eyes widening in great interest, the robed lugian nodded shortly, spun about, and stomped quickly towards the door as a path was opened for him. ¡°Crum Vuloth, a human paramount, up by Ithaenc,¡± rumbled a burly warrior in mail nearly as big as Kresovus. ¡°He is known to possess the only known remaining copy of Bloodscorch, the Firesword of Clan Mhoire, which possessed Biting Strike, Fire Cleaving, and Undead Slaying.¡± ¡°I knows that prick. He¡¯ll be demanding a pretty price just t¡¯ look at his precious toy, now that he¡¯s the only one who has one left,¡± the Mick added to that. -We¡¯ll give him a consolation fee after the fact. You know where he stores it?- Princess Kristie /asked him through the Marks. -Aye. Just a trophy he keeps locked away. Probably fall apart if ye dropped it, nobody is going t¡¯ just steal it from him. ¡®Til now,- he /amended cheerfully. ¡°There are at least four different Paradox Olthoi-Slaying Weapons known to survive, too, including the Mace I dare not wield,¡± another lugian spoke up. ¡°Did not the Royal Guards make Acid Cleaving Bloodstone Wands?¡± another lugian spoke up with great interest. I looked over at the Mick, who just nodded shortly, and actually answered the lugian¡¯s question. ¡°Elder Groeun, I think that situation be just like yer own Staff o¡¯ Clarity there. Were I t¡¯ go to the High King an¡¯ his Guards, I imagine they¡¯d all be puffed up an¡¯ proud o¡¯ their achievement with the Bloodstone Wands, an¡¯ then not a one o¡¯ them will nae remember who, what, nor how they made such a thing.¡± The lugians rumbled among themselves, the earlier incident plainly still unnerving them¡­ and both continued to do so, yet mollified them when they realized they weren¡¯t the only ones it had affected. ¡°My brothers and elders, it is plain that this is an¡­ unnatural occurrence,¡± King Kresovus spoke up grimly, receiving many grunts and short nods of acknowledgment for the fact. ¡°Lord Mick, why are we all aware of this right now? What has changed?¡± ¡°Eh, it¡¯s her.¡± The Mick tossed a thumb at Princess Kristie, who remained unmoved. ¡°She be what¡¯s called a Null Forsaken, Your Highness. Has nae ability t¡¯ Cast the slightest Cantrip. ¡®Tis like a fog is clearing about her as she cuts through something that were there, an¡¯ yet I never questioned it, nor thought about it.¡± His face were uncharacteristically serious. ¡°Point o¡¯ fact, Elders. ¡°There be a man in Zaikhal, the old Gharu¡¯ndim capital, ye remember.¡± General grunts of agreement. ¡°He were a Stone Collector. Rain or shine, snow or fog, day or night, ye¡¯d find him on the upper landing above the smith¡¯s shop in Zaikhal, where he lived an¡¯ traded.¡± Thick heads bobbed again, remembering him. ¡°I knew that man fer well o¡¯er a decade. I can picture his face even now. He were always happy t¡¯ see me. He always had the coin or the goods to swap me for whatever rocks I brought t¡¯ him, no matter how many I did dump upon him. ¡°Ne¡¯er once in nigh on twenty years did I ever ask him his name, his family, his clan, or even think t¡¯ do so. ¡°He were just... the Stone Collector of Zaikhal.¡± The Mick didn¡¯t keep the unease out of his voice, and the lugians shuffled as they considered similar things. Their faces weren¡¯t expressive, but the way their eyes shifted focus showed they were aware that it was a fantastic lapse in good manners and common courtesy, if nothing else. ¡°I dinnae where that man is, what he¡¯s doing, what happened t¡¯ him. Was he bound nameless in a dream, slave an¡¯ servant t¡¯ the same magic what dropped loot from monsters, like random blessings from the gods? Did he up an¡¯ die on his little balcony in Zaikhal, unable to flee when the undead tore through the place? Is he still there, damned an¡¯ doomed, unable to die, even his bones cursed to take me rocks an¡¯ give me lucre in exchange?!¡± I could hear the lugians breathing deeply. They had their own experience with damned and cursed undead of their kind. ¡°Think ye, elders! Back t¡¯ all the quests an¡¯ missions we could run! Run them over an¡¯ over again, like the great need t¡¯ complete them were always there! It were almost never once an¡¯ done! ¡°Think o¡¯ the people who gave ye the quests! How many o¡¯ them still live? Aye, go deeper! How many of ye know any damn thing about them? Their names were there, an¡¯ their faces, even their bodies! But who knows anything about them!? ¡°Kresovus! How many times were ye kidnapped by the virindi!?¡± The king¡¯s mouth started to open. ¡°I¡¯ll have ye know that just among me an¡¯ me friends an¡¯ vassals, ye were kidnapped an¡¯ rescued a hunnert times or more!¡± The king¡¯s mouth clamped shut in shock. The other lugians looked at one another, stunned as they realized the same thing. Some of them had ¡®rescued¡¯ him from the fake Kresovus Prodigal Lugian and the Gotrok infiltrators suborned by the virindi, been celebrated as heroes, and simply gone on with life. It¡­ simply was not really possible, was it? And yet¡­ they could all remember it happening! ¡°All that shite, all those people, it were done,¡± the Lord Mick went on, and then pointed again at Princess Kristie. ¡°But until I be speakin¡¯ t¡¯ the bloody-handed lass here, none o¡¯ it mattered, ne¡¯er dwelt on it, it were just part o¡¯ the crazy world.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Slowly and emphatically, he reached up to tap his skull as he looked around at the lugians. ¡°Someone, something, had messed with me head. It had messed with yer heads, ALL our heads, Elders. I be recalling things now, people, names, faces that were just blurs o¡¯ unimportance, events an¡¯ deeds just repeated cycles o¡¯ violence, done over an¡¯ over again. But now¡­¡± he shook his head slowly as his eyes passed them. ¡°Summat fucked with me head. Fucked me grand an¡¯ hard, they did. I were a fuckin¡¯ puppet dancin¡¯ t¡¯ the cheers an¡¯ clappin¡¯ o¡¯ things whats I don¡¯t know, an¡¯ the more I think about it, the more I remember, the worse it be gettin¡¯, the clearer it be gettin¡¯, an¡¯ the madder I be getting¡¯, an¡¯, I think, so be ye. ¡°So, dinnae worry how it dinnae all make sense,¡± he said grimly. ¡°There be a crack in a great lie. The fog be clearin¡¯. An¡¯ soon enough, a whole lot of shite that went on back then won¡¯t make any damn sense at all, either, an¡¯ ye¡¯ll all realize that all together, it all do make sense in the very worst sort o¡¯ way.¡± There was absolute quiet among the stoic lugian elders as he finished up. Kris and I just sat there and watched him. ¡°We all been puppets, elders. You, me, all lugians, all Isparians. I be lookin¡¯ at some o¡¯ the shite these lasses are bringin¡¯ up, an¡¯ be like¡­ I should know ALL this shite. Do ye ken the same?¡± He pointed at my Holo of the Staff of Clarity. ¡°This be Item Magic! Aye, a bit advanced, but I SHOULD KNOW THIS. ¡°All o¡¯ ye Makers¡­ SHOULD KNOW THIS. ¡°An¡¯ I just be lookin¡¯ at this shite an¡¯ askin¡¯ meself like a first-spell apprentice¡­ I gots no damn clue what be goin¡¯ on here.¡± The lugians stared at what I had displayed. ¡°Ye know, elders¡­ I be wantin¡¯ ta know what¡¯s going on here.¡± A long, quiet rumble escaped the elders. ¡°That be why we brought it here, to ye all. Not t¡¯ me Isparian associates beneath the Kings. Not t¡¯ the paramounts up in Ithaenc who¡¯d be seizing on all o¡¯ it for scraps o¡¯ the power we all once had. ¡°Because we want t¡¯ know what the fuck is going on here¡­ an¡¯ we want ta take it back, ta really make it ours, an¡¯ not some mystery magic foisted off on brain-fogged bastiches who can¡¯t remember hide nor hair of what they supposedly fucking made an¡¯ gave away! ¡°Ours!¡± There was a roar from the lugians, fists coming up, keen minds finally starting to understand how they¡¯d all been fucked over. ¡°Lugians¡­ know how ta fail. They know how ta do it over an¡¯ over an¡¯ over again. And then they exhaust their failures, an¡¯ what be left!?¡± ¡°SUCCESS! LORE! THE TRUTH OF THE WORLD!¡± the elders, including the king, roared back at him. ¡°Aye, that be right!¡± the Mick shouted right back at them. ¡°The Lore existing right under our noses, what we weren¡¯t even allowed t¡¯ realize existed afore now!¡± He turned to look at me. ¡°Sage Ryin, just how much failure are we looking at?¡± Wow, that was a lot of hungry eyes looking at me. ¡°Millions of failures.¡± If anything, the eyes looking at me only got even hungrier. ¡°The greater the failures, the sweeter the success when it is time¡­ and we know that success is possible. It is right in front of us, crack the diamond and call me sandstone!¡± King Kresovus roared out, raising his one hand to point at that Holo. ¡°Do you see it, my peers, my mentors? That Formation does not require mana flow!¡± Horn-like breaths blaated out from them as the Elders abruptly realized it, too. The doom of the exploding magic of the Fall did not exist there! ¡°About that.¡± Kris¡¯ Voice cut through the rising excitement like an exquisite knife, warding it back, holding it. She snapped her fingers, and the lugians all blinked as the sound broke across their skin, they could feel it passing them by. She laid her hand upon Quaver, and pointed at me. Obligingly, I translated her full Tremblesense awareness of her Blade in its current configuration to Holo, blew it up, and let it shine there for them to gaze upon. I watched all their jaws drop, too. Out-takes blinked up around it, magnifying the internal Enhancement Slots, zeroed in around the Jewel Slots for the Blackfire Stones, the waiting Pommel Cap for the Elemental Stones, noted the underlying spells and residual crystallizing patterns typical of Full Tempering, the artistry of wavor forging techniques inside and through the unique patterns derived from Earth-worldbone, i.e., adamantine. I even magnified the inset Blackfire Stones, and the special patterns unique to the Lost Light particles concentrated around the guard and quillons, the Wand Chamber in the hilt, and the mystifyingly complex arrangement of Runic Formations too small to see that represented an Item Familiar coming to life with magic and organic growth of its own. The QL on it was post-40. Ranthas do NOT mess around with their Swords. ¡°Item Magic Enhancements, even attached Creature Magic, never needed mana flows to function, although that is a simple and cheap way to make such things,¡± Princess Kristie went on coolly, a subtle scorn in her voice. ¡°It is possible to permanently imbue the basic Enhancement magicks, and many, many more, into Slots Einz, Zvei, Drei, Vier, Funf, Zeks, Zeben, Akt, Neun, and Zehn.¡± Each Slot lit up in series, and not all of hers were lit up yet, sitting there cold and empty, the Runic structures extending out up through Zeks not present at Zeben and later, and the four remaining Slots non-Energized. ¡°One of the things I will be prevailing upon the Elders for is their knowledge of all iterations of Slaying, Armor Cleaving, Biting Strike, and Crushing Blow. ¡°Back home on Ispar, it seems these Runes are inherently chaotic and unstable, and lack any sort of reliability. That does not seem to be the case here. ¡°I seek to codify and stratify the knowledge of these Runes, from least effect to greatest effect, so that we know how to craft the best of those Runes, and the least of them. ¡°This, Elders, is the proper forging of Magic Arms and Armor, and as you share with me and we work together, this knowledge will all be yours. ¡°I seek to remove the randomness, and make the forging of such things a matter of skill, not a matter of luck, elders. A thing where failure is¡­ not even possible, if you are skilled enough. ¡°So, you may set aside your revulsion and fear for Weapons using Mana Flows, we need not ever employ them again. The replacement method is before you, and although it is slower, pricier, and perhaps even less powerful¡­ it is stable, predictable, reliable, and it works.¡± AF Chapter 149 – Proper Equipment is Key The elders were humming, deep in their chests, rising and falling. The Mick indicated it was a sign of deep excitement and approval, and the only thing preventing them from stamping their feet was that they wanted to hear what she was going to say. She made a wiping gesture, and I let the Holo fall. ¡°But let us not get ahead of ourselves. This is all a new path to you, and that means to start with the basics, and the basics here mean the proper Tools. ¡°I will insult none of you by talking of tempo, heat, quenching, and materials. These are mere details to masters of the craft, and you will master them quickly and surely, I am certain. ¡°But, to smith rapidly and in control, there are three Tools that are of IMMENSE help.¡± She snapped her fingers, making them blink again as they felt the snap cross their eyeballs, and the Holo switched up. ¡°A Shaping Hammer. It turns the kinetic force of every blow into the finest of controlled instruments in your grasp, for just an instant softening the metal and making it move and mold in accordance with your will. ¡°An Anvil of Silent Thunder. Every ounce of kinetic energy concentrates in the work hammered atop it, and it rings out in your bones, allowing you to picture and see each and every detail of what is being worked upon it. ¡°And a Floating Furnace, which burns with flames hot enough to melt worldbone, or cool enough to barely melt tin, as you wish, yet needs not coal or other fuel, nor takes up a massive furnace that cannot be moved. ¡°Wielded together, even if you barely know what they do, they increase your smithing speed by a factor of eight. ¡°If you do know what they can do and are masters of them, that speed doubles again.¡± For a moment, stunned silence. And then the broad, splayed feet started hitting the stone floor, stomping the ground hard as the Master Makers here digested just what that would mean to their smithing efforts! ¡°Your Highness!¡± a Miner called out, a short hand pick at his side, his expression urgent. ¡°Are there such tools for the Secret of Stone?¡± ¡°Worldbone has several names among humans as the hardest and among the heaviest of the pure base metals. Earth-Energized Worldbone has a special name. It is called adamant, and when alloyed properly with steel, it is called adamantine.¡± Diamond-metal, it translated as, hushing all the lugians as they digested the implications and wonders of that name. She reached out again, drew Quaver forth from the lump of chorozite the beautiful Sword had impaled without effort, turned her ninety degrees, and drove her back into the semi-transparent Null Aluminum like it was cheese. ¡°Things made of adamantine carve up lesser stone and metal like it is meat for the butcher. Picks with Enhancement bonuses, Sundering, and Breaking Runes carve through it like rotten cheese.¡± A Pick glowed in the Holo overhead, displaying three Slots that glowed with unique Runic diagrams, and the blue-black metal of adamantine gleamed there. The sharp-eyed might have seen that, perhaps unsurprisingly, that those Runes had been among those in the complex layering that was the Arsenal of Quaver. ¡°And such things exist for the other trades, and magic?¡± asked another Maker, this woman one of those who worked in hides, judging by the exquisitely stitched and cut shreth-hide doublet she was wearing. Kris pointed again, to acknowledge the question. ¡°Elder, they do. But first, we learn to make the Tools that can make the Tools, and then, then we begin to make the Craft once that is done.¡± The stomping thundered down in approval. It was the way to go about this! ¡°Sage Ryin has the paths and means by which the Master Rune Formation of Elemental Cleaving should be researched. We all will be informed of the advances in Rune Forming for the lesser, singular Runes, their evolution and advancement.¡± Her Voice had no problem cutting through their approval. ¡°Now, be silent. I am going to start your first lesson.¡± The stomping stopped so abruptly some of the lugian elders almost fell over. --- I was still working the Holo as the Mick /noted, -Ye didn¡¯t even get to show them that ye know how t¡¯ fly, lass!- -Look at their faces, Lord Mick. If we break it to them that Cast Magic is more than Buffing warriors, tossing Elemental War Magic, Healing people, defending people, and enhancing weapons, I fear some would faint of sheer terror that magic might actually be the true and mighty path of existence, instead of just a convenient supplement to and rival of martial might.- Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He looked at me, thought about that. -Aye,- he finally /admitted. -Let ¡®em glorify in the basics, an¡¯ then find out magic can help them fly. Or move twice as fast as be possible. Or build floating invisible Wagons.- Ours was waiting for us outside the city proper, no reason to bring it all the way in here. What was meant to be sold had been carried in, and what was needed to resupply it would be carried back out and deposited there. Princess Kristie had them hanging on every word and example as she went through the process of making a Shaping Hammer in theory and exquisite detail that the Makers there soaked up like the very thirstiest of sponges. Even the Mick was drawn in haplessly, following along with everyone else in great interest as she went through the process of forging the Rune Formation for a Shaping Hammer that was unique to each and every lugian who would wield them, instead of being almost perfectly identical¡­ and, in fact, the best Shaping Hammers were those beloved hammers used by their makers and handlers for many years! I¡­ had lists of stuff that had to be done. The amount of Isotopic experimentation that had to be done was staggering. We had to replicate the resonance effects of the materials of the Staff of Clarity in controlled conditions, then change them to something more modular, controlled, and stratified, instead of unstable and organic as seemed to be here. Once we had the operational effects down of what was actually happening with this Bludgeon/Force Formation, then we had to start on Isotopic variants of all elements and alloys and crystals, looking for similar resonance effects between them, how to link them up, and deliver the same sort of magnification effect for energies that did NOT act anything like Bludgeon/Force did. It was millions of variants, and then countless patterns to those variations. The various Elemental Resistance Cleaving Formations that the legacy items might retain would give us some guidelines, but for others, it was going to be brute force cranking through what worked and what did not, and some of it was bound to get explosive and messy. Explosive failures were great failures, a sign that you were generally close to something. I studied the Assault Orb that Sage Roekruen had brought back. It had tons of microfractures through the blood-red crystal and the iron prongs which enveloped it. The Orb itself was artificial, and had definitely been made using the blood of Hea Tumeroks, the Slayer effect seemed based on it. The Slash Cleaving, however, was based in the iron prongs grasping the crystal, not the Orb itself. Neither effect had been activated, the Rune structures not formally linked to the rest of the magic in the Orb, along with greater Rune structures not connected in the Orb itself, powering up the basic effects there to higher Scarab tiers. A Weapon Upgrade Kit, purchased from the place called the Colosseum, and some other specialty vendors, had improved the Orb. Nobody knew if the people or creatures who had sold them still existed. -------- ¡°Off on your matter of honor now, Lord Mick?¡± King Kresovus asked in a low voice. The meeting had dispersed with startling speed. Rather than stand around and attempt to bother us with minor details, the lugians present had seized upon what was presented to them and were hurrying off to make them a reality. Shaping Hammers, Crafting Tools, the Anvils, the Forges. I¡¯d made up crystalline representations of each of the things, non-empowered, but easily examined by those who used Artificing Magic as examples of what to follow. The master copies were in Kresovus¡¯ possession and available for any lugian who needed to examine them, if they didn¡¯t have their own copies. Those who did have copies were also going to be sharing them with others, and collaborating with them to get their Tools made all the quicker. The quicker the Tools were made, the quicker the Crafting could begin, and the failures to accumulate! The scribes were already preparing in great joy the tomes that would record each and every failure, the nomenclature to be used, the who and why and date and results. Failures would begin, crossing out the wrong paths, the incorrect paths, and narrowing the road that needed to be traveled, the True Road of Lore, ever down. We were bumbling in the dark, but even the blind could find the way, as long as they marked the proper road, and where not to go! ¡°Nae, Your Majesty. We be going to the Aun first. They be sure to be as enthusiastic as ye an¡¯ yer own, for all they work in wood and bone and hide, and need know what is going on,¡± the Mick answered. Two darkly helmed, generically armored lugians nearly as tall as the King waited nearby, silent and still and easy to miss, bland expressions on their face that did not indicate any of the violence they were no doubt very ready to unleash. A casual Assay put their Levels at 200. Not peers of the Mick, but no slouches at what they did, and certainly better than all but the very best of the Gotrok. ¡°Address this matter, then return. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, and all will be provided for,¡± the lugian king said deeply. ¡°Hah!¡± Lord Mick answered to that. ¡°I be not needed a¡¯tall, Your Majesty. Only the two lasses here. I¡¯ll be asking how they want me an¡¯ me Scouts around underfoot, an¡¯ we can go from there.¡± The old lugian warrior laughed, and saw us off from the city of stone carved into and up from the mountain. ------- ¡°We don¡¯t want or need to know your real names,¡± Kris told the two lugian brutes, who looked down at her with grave interest. ¡°And we can tell nobody what we do not know. You are going to be addressed as Gross, and you as Kopf,¡± she pointed to each of them in turn. ¡°If all goes well, you will not need to do anything but watch and report on your return, and this matter will be done. ¡°If all goes poorly, no dishonor will fall on your names or that of your kin. Nod if you understand this.¡± Both lugians nodded firmly, thin and grim smiles escaping them at her polite consideration for their personal and family honor. ¡°Good. All aboard the Disks!¡± I flipped up a set of them, and the Scouts who had stowed their supplies all hopped aboard. A bit warily but interested, as the buzz of the new magic had pervaded Ithaenc Tukal, the two lugians clambered atop them, and found the slender things of silvery force holding their weight without any trouble. They found the Wagon floating there without supports quite wondrous, but said not a word about it, content to watch and to obey. ¡°Lord Mick, where are we heading?¡± she asked him. ¡°The Aun hold the end of the island, below the waterfalls that spring up on Mount Ithaenc out o¡¯ nowhere. Be a bit of a hike, an¡¯ we be bound to have some distractions along the way.¡± Hoots and calls from the Scouts atop the Wagon or around it on Disks cheerfully conveyed that they wouldn¡¯t mind some more distracting Karma at all. They had Naming Karma to make, and Levels to take, Masteries, Feats¡­! AF Chapter 150 – On the Beach The trip was uneventful, as far as random surprises. Expected surprises, those were pretty common. As normal, the known Spawn Points were marked and indicated, and bore the signs of frequent visits and practice. Reedsharks, undead, sclavi, and jungle armoredillos alternated with tougher moarsmen and obdurate water golums, in addition to Summoned copies of the random wasps, wisps, and tentacles that were wandering about. We saw both humans and tumeroks working the creatures out here, with the result that most of the living wandering creatures were actually exterminated along our route, having to pass the hurdle of the lugian border patrols and these committed hunters. The tendrils, coming from an extradimensional source, could circumvent all such precautions, and so had to be spotted and hunted away one by one, constantly pruned back as they extended past the Veil into this world. All such ones we found were also killed, but we laid off on the vivus. The Aun Hunters from before would have preceded us, and it was evening as we trotted in along the shores to the short river that led down from the picturesque, layered waterfalls descending from the white stone of the Cathedral above and guaranteeing fresh water to the Aun settlement below. Ithaenc City was around the other side of the mountain, and so there was no spoilage or sewage coming down here. On the other hand, there was a virtual field of Tentacle Summons waving in the shallows of the final falls, which was more than a bit unnerving to see. The Mick caught our concerned expressions at the sight, and laughed softly. ¡°Ye wonder why the Aun are such fine archers? Ye need look no further. Look at the posts.¡± He directed our attention to finely carved markers planted along the beach. ¡°Range markers on where to stand. You¡¯ll see it tomorrow morning, when the Aun wake, and after they eat. Any not going out for the hunting will line up here with their bows, and they will shoot the tentacles down in series, smooth and relentless. Then they¡¯ll recover their arrows, and the warriors will ready spears and shields and axes while waiting for the respawn, and do the same again. ¡°Every single day, they kill all those tentacles at least twice, and the more experienced warriors two, three, four times or more. The Shamans have to Heal ¡®em like mad to keep them in the fight, they work on magic defense and dodging the tentacles trying to spit them, grab them, constrict ¡®em, bash them against the ground¡­ aye, ¡®tis a dangerous game, an¡¯ they do it every day, without fail.¡± ¡°So, we probably don¡¯t need to offer to get rid of them permanently,¡± Princess Kristie ventured softly. The Mick was waving at the open sentries, but we¡¯d already been noticed and passed by more hidden ones behind us. ¡°Well,¡± he said carefully, ¡°I¡¯m sure they wouldn¡¯t mind havin¡¯ the option, an¡¯ bein¡¯s like these bits o¡¯ T¡¯thuun might just lead back to the big beastie itself, might they be what¡¯s allowin¡¯ it t¡¯ still keep coming here?¡± ¡°That was my thought,¡± I agreed quietly. ¡°You¡¯re talking about a true Aberrant, a thing from Outside Creation. Astral Template or no, it¡¯s an echo of the real thing, allowing it to zoom in and locate where it might manifest from beyond the Veil. ¡°Every single tendril on a Summons point should be destroyed, and then every tendril on the islands exterminated. I think you might be surprised when not a one can manifest thereafter.¡± ¡°Ye should mention that to the elders.¡± ¡°Among other important things. Priorities¡­¡± He just nodded, greeting the green-furred Aun loudly and warmly as we came in so late, and were invited to join their fires. ------ Unsurprisingly, the Scouts in general got along very well with the Aun tonks, possessing similar skills and appreciation for the land, hunting to get by, and the like. The Aun hadn¡¯t quite heard of the magical revolution that we¡¯d started among the lugians, but as the last of the hunters returned home, with or without kills for the cookpots, naturally the circles changed and melded and merged and split as different business was brought up, those concerned listened in, changing as different matters were addressed, most of it coordinated by quiet drumming to the side. Talk of the return of magic was taken very seriously, and all the surviving Elders rapidly were summoned over via the drums to listen in and consider what Kris and I were saying. They were very sad one of their own had decided to betray their alliance with the humans and lugians, but the tribes were also very firm that such rebellion could not be tolerated. There were human and lugian racists, and they got murderously short shrift from people, too. The Gotrok were considered outright rebels by the lugians, and the Hea basically brainwashed slaves by their cousins, the Aun. Endangering the relationships between the races because of petty difficulties was given the scorn and disdain it deserved. I wondered who had leaned on the young Aun to give him such a negative view of humanity, or maybe he just wasn¡¯t mentally geared for a Black Aluvian¡¯s teaching methods. The Aun had examples of their own versions of Biting Strike, Crushing Blow, Armor Cleaving, and were happy to bring them out for examination. They showed the same consternation as the lugians had, however, when the Mick brought up the topic of their Totemic bows and weaponry, and how they were upgraded¡­ and the fact they couldn¡¯t seem to do so anymore, despite them being ¡®iconic¡¯ weapons of their culture and people. That REALLY bothered them. Stories and tales and passing down knowledge were very important to their tribes, and suddenly realizing that not only had that knowledge vanished, it might have never been there to begin with, was severely unsettling to them. ------- ¡°What,¡± the Mick asked, mirroring questions Mira had asked earlier, ¡°is that thing she¡¯s using?¡± It was dawn, and the Aun had come out to beat up on the many tendrils growing from the Summon points under and near the waterfalls. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. There was nothing for it but the Scouts to show how skilled they were, too. Aware they were probably going to get shown up by the more experienced hunters, the Scouts nevertheless were eager to show off¡­ and pointedly asked if I was going to be available to Heal them, which I confirmed I was. Princess Kristie was with them. She had bargained off some specially treated horn and sinews from the Aun Hunters, supposedly made from armoredillos before they¡¯d been eradicated, as well as some remoran tails, and she¡¯d been at it for hours last night, molding, bending, carving, and fixing things up. She¡¯d also had me work up a couple magazines of ammunition for her. Nobody there had ever seen an Autobow up close before, and she was drawing a lot of attention for its very unusual, sparse, and efficient ¡®modern¡¯ design. ¡°Never seen a magitech crossbow?¡± I asked him rhetorically. ¡°With¡­ wheels on it?¡± he asked, pointing at the thing. ¡°You can make bows the same way. Vastly increases the draw length without needing a massive bow.¡± He blinked. ¡°How¡¯s that, now?¡± ¡°Look at the Autobow. Look at the wheels. Remember that the power of a bow is the length of the draw, which is dependent upon the length of the string and how far it can flex. Just how long is the string of her Autobow there?¡± A lot of interested eyes were trying to get better looks at the thing, but I¡¯d just given the Mick the proper perspective. He held his hands apart, then doubled them, tripled them¡­ ¡°Its string be longer than I be tall, aye,¡± he murmured. ¡°But the draw?¡± ¡°If you look really carefully, you¡¯ll see that the middle of the rail there¡¯s a ripple there.¡± He squinted his dark eyes, and nodded after a moment. ¡°Extended space. It doesn¡¯t look like it, but that rail is four times as long as it seems.¡± His breath hissed out. ¡°That alone be powerful, then. I see no stirrup, nor claw on her hand. She be strong, but if she¡¯s got the tension on it, she needs something to grip it with, no?¡± He gave me a careful glance. ¡°Or be that done with magic, too?¡± ¡°There is magic out there that will auto-cock a crossbow as soon as the trigger is primed. There are Cantrips for bringing arrows and bolts to hand, too, or for simply teleporting the arrows to the string.¡± I nodded at Camwise, a crossbow-wielding Scout, who was staring at Kris¡¯ Autobow in unabashed desire. ¡°She doesn¡¯t have them active yet, therefore she¡¯s going to be using the pump-action on it.¡± ¡°Pump-action?¡± ¡°Best to let you see it in action first.¡± He humphed, crossed his arms, and sat back to watch with a lot of curious hunters and archers as the Scouts came up, took their aim, and let the tentacles have it. At the first shots coming in, the tentacles writhed and began to hurl thorns, Drains, and Inflict spells at them energetically, meaning the archers were constantly shifting positions and grimacing against the spells coming in at them. Chain Cure Moderate Wounds zipped through anyone injured, Healing up multiple people at one time, the boosted Healing enough to completely mend their injuries quickly. I Mana Boosted before the wide eyes of their Shamans and got my Mana back extremely rapidly in between. The scouts mowed down the tentacles with commendable speed, having plenty of practice doing so. The Aun basically applauded them politely, and then showed them progressively how it was done. The big longbows of the Aun had much more intrinsic punch than those of the Isparians, who were relying solely on Stance magic to increase the damage of their shots. With the higher base to draw on, the Aun arrows hit harder and punched deeper than those of the Scouts, who watched with great interest as first the younger Aun, then progressively older ones moved into loose formations that allowed each archer clear arcs of fire, while also laying out who was shooting at what. With remarkable teamwork and great accuracy, the Aun proceeded to sweep the tentacles away. I could tell they really wanted to add Mighty to their Bows quickly, and then up their Strength to take advantage of what was heretofore an unappreciated mechanic. Mira had informed me that the old, non-magical bow style simply didn¡¯t increase the damage the same way that Stances did, and furthermore forced the nimblest archers to also be the strongest to draw the best and most powerful bows. They hadn¡¯t stacked before, and they might not now¡­ but the Strength bonus definitely was making more of a difference than a pure Stance style was. When four stands of slithyr unnatural tentacles were gone, including a respawn, Kris stepped up before the seniors not going hunting took their turns, raising her Autobow, which I happened to know was Named Drop, and brought it up in classic shotgunner style to her shoulder, not even cocked or loaded yet. With a hiss and fwzap!, the Summons points were re-energized, and more slithyr tentacles erupted out of the ground to coil about sinuously, while the vestigial eyes on them blinked and looked around at the new tentacles¡¯ environs. With a quiet, smooth klak-klak, Kris worked the action, and the string snapped back into place on an internal roller-pin, snapping back into place. As she pulled the action back, the bolt sprang up out of internal miniaturization from the magazine, sliding perfectly into place on the rail. The string lit up with Golden light, and the Mick knew the thing was Soulbound, just like Quaver, Bunita, and Crown were. AF Chapter 151 – Autobowmatic Respect Princess Kristie squeezed the trigger, and the bolt rocketed out with a thruum and hiss that had the experienced archers there blinking in shock. The broadhead bolt smashed into the base of the nearest slithyr, and plantflesh gave way explosively. The tentacle jerked in obvious pain, rearing back to automatically throw a thorn at her, but before it could do so, the second bolt was already on the way in a flash of black and gold, and its base was torn apart by the impact. The shattered top of it writhed and fell, its thorn discharged haplessly and powerlessly as it dropped. The rest of the tentacles turned on her, and began to throw things back at her. She calmly stepped back and forth as the thorns were whipped at her from forty yards away, and not a one of them found her. As for the magic coming at her, she ignored it entirely, and I plainly was just standing there unconcerned, knowing that even if something hit her, it was going to do next to nothing, and she¡¯d just Fast Heal it away in no time. Klak-klaks chained together like some machine, Kris keeping perfect form and stance even as she moved just enough to dodge any incoming thorns. Racing bolts chopped down the tendrils there one after another, two shots enough to chop through the bases and ¡®kill¡¯ the things. Eight tentacles dropped with fourteen bolts, as two of them she managed a crit on and must have blown right through their nerve bundles, instantly dropping them into limp uselessness. It was an impressive show, equal to anything the senior Hunters could do. Then she tossed Drop to me, I caught it by stock and barrel, and she was charging just as the third respawn churned at the magic and erupted out of the ground. Quaver flashed out, Lost Light swirled in a swathe of Force and Radiance, and she was in the middle of the tentacles, then she was on the other side of them. The petals of a rose made of particles of gold and crystal were slicing through the clustered tentacles, and then they all fell down, chopped apart by an uncompromising adamantine Blade in a blur of motion. The Aun all gawked. They had their great warriors, of course, but their weapons were the knife, spear, and axe, not swords, and few even used greatclubs or maces, although they were naturally familiar with such things given their lugian allies and all the humans wielding strange weapons. While the Scouts had been as amazed and impressed as everyone else at the power and ferocity of her Autobow, they¡¯d all seen her mess with slithyr nests like this by now. They just nodded along with carefully bland expressions on their faces, belying their burning eyes that really wanted to be able to do that, too. ¡°I suppose I should be showing off a mite, as well,¡± the Mick grinned, pulling Bunita out of a dagger¡¯s sheath and flicking her out to full length. Orange-gold Light swam up her edge, and he went right into a run at spawn five before spawn four could come back, and Kris was still walking back. He didn¡¯t have her Damage Reduction nor her missile evasion, nor could he kill the whole thing at once. He could, however, Cleave, and Sword Beats Fist¡­ or, in this case, tentacle. He was like a powerful, energetic buzzsaw going through them, chunks of plantflesh flying as they swung at him, tried to grab him, and he just hacked them through, their magic fizzling as it struck him, and the thorns just nicking him and his armor, doing nothing as he ripped into them. The Aun knew how good he should be, and their eyes popped at the speed with which he tore through the tentacles, greater than any of their surviving paramounts. It took him less than thirty seconds to hack the slithyr tendrils apart, and he barely took any damage, strolling back in our direction as he flicked bloodsap off his Blade hard enough to make the sticky stuff slap the water to the shock of the Aun, sheathing an unmarked and completely clean Bunita calmly as he waded out of the shallow waters. Helped to know someone with Hedge Magic who could instantly dry out your boots, too, and take care of those nicks. ------- Our words of the night before suddenly carried a lot more weight. Everyone wanted to examine Kris¡¯ Autobow, and were dumbstruck by Kris¡¯ swordsmanship and the Mick¡¯s miraculous improvement in killing power and speed. Kris promised to make a compound bow for them, often called a Dwarven Bow for laughs during the game, and they promised to send some of their Shamans up to help the lugians with the research into the Elemental Cleaving Formations, bringing their own unique insights and techniques into the discovery process. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. And then it was time to move on to Ithaenc City. The Scouts didn¡¯t come with us. They were given specific orders to practice and keep practicing, putting their new knowledge to use, and we¡¯d be back down. The two lugians with false names did come with us. So did two Aun hunters a head taller than the Mick. Humans weren¡¯t the only people slaughtered by the undead, and Ithanec City, it was the home of the paramounts. Paramounts was the name given to the people who had reached the level cap of 275. They may or may not have maxed out the Luminance system that had been introduced by the Empyreans, but they had largely maxed out the Augmentation System, and of course the normal experience/Stat/skill limits of the Isparian System. Most of them had used the Retraining Temples to specialize their Stats to extremes, becoming as talented as it was naturally possible to be in their chosen field of endeavor. They were people like Lord Mick, except they weren¡¯t, because most of them never left Ithaenc without a very good reason. The white Cathedral to Adja was built on top of the highest mountain point at the end of Ithaenc Island, an ancient and holy place where the spirits still sang gentle praises to the Empyrean woman said to exemplify Life Magic more than any other. No one was allowed to build on the grounds of the temple, so the city sprawled around and down the slopes below it that led up to it in what must once have been a processional ramp and spiral, and had now become the home and playground of the most powerful remaining members of the three races. They were men and women who now could die if they went out into the cold, wide world, die as their friends, lovers, spouses, mentors, students, vassals, siblings, parents, and sometimes children had done, all in one brutal stroke, and then more as they ran, ran from the undead and the shades and the virindi who had come for them. Ran, from even the drudges, the most comedic of enemies, led by a pale Prodigal Drudge they no longer had the weapons or magic to kill, one no longer pinned in a fort and trapped behind a flaming wall. The experience had shattered many of them, the dark fear of their own mortality driven deep into their hearts. And so, they had come here, to the greatest place of power in Ithaenc, to drink away their time and their fears, and set up competitions between themselves to confront that fear in controlled conditions and pretend it did not rule them. Even the servants here were over level 100, people who would be living legends back on Ispar were mere bartenders, maids, and waitstaff. You didn¡¯t receive any respect here unless you were level 200 and had basically maxed out your Stats¡­ but if you were ¡®new¡¯, that meant you didn¡¯t have access to the Temples, and you were stuck with the Stats you trained yourself to while growing up, which basically made it impossible to equal the paramounts. Thus, you were Gimped, and there was nothing you could do about it. The paramounts had no rivals or equals except one another, and so they played games against one another. Most of those games involved Dungeon runs now, and Ithaenc naturally had the only truly higher-level Dungeons that we could access. In particular, there was one Dungeon it had that was a threat and a challenge even to paramounts, one that had once been entered through a token on the upper floors of Ithaenc Cathedral. It was a place where a shard of the spirit of Bael-zaeron was still bound and held captive, much like Grael was in his rumored dungeon. The Quiddity Seed Dungeon, now usually called The Seed. It had ruptured back into reality, a dark and brooding tunnel plunging into the ground behind the Cathedral, leading down to a place with bound virindi spirits, automated magical items, and a place with powerful grievvers and deadly shadows not found closer than Tou-Tou. Bereft of the powerful weapons and massively reinforced armor of prior times, the creatures within were great challenges for both individual paramounts and teams, whole Fellowships needed to dispose of things one man might once have soloed with the same speed¡­ or to survive them once they swarmed to attack. Only the most committed teams with powerful Casters to soften up their enemies with Debuffs ahead of time would actually take the final plunge and head down to the meet the shadows at the bottom of the Dungeon¡­ and they would no longer leap willy-nilly down the central shaft two hundred feet to do it, either, taking the circling ramp and winding their way down as they had not bothered when magic was different and they were immortal. There was another Dungeon at the opposite end of the Cathedral, supposedly involved with Lady Adja¡¯s personal chambers when alive, staffed now by moarsmen and wisps, also spiraling down into the ground near the broad ramp that ran up into the Cathedral itself. Running that whole Dungeon solo was a lesser achievement, done with skill and speed and timed so that you rated among your compatriots. It was easy enough to help camp and keep the spawns under control while someone ran it, so they need not truly fear death if something happened, a paramount observer tagging along to monitor the ¡®training¡¯ of their lessers with idle benevolence that kept them in funds and food. There were other Dungeons on the island, but those two basically kept the people moving into Ithaenc City to try them out. They were great sources of Karma, were very well known, there were always paramounts there to pull your fat out of the fire if you were too stupid, and the competition and boasting that went with being able to kill the powerful grievvers there and harvest the Karma coming off them was unmatched on all the islands. Not being over level 200, Kris and I were basically going to be treated like young women come to rub shoulders with the elite and look to get into their good graces, or personal students for Lord Mick, basically gold and Karma diggers trying to seduce a paramount for personal attention to get ahead. It was far from unknown, and the hundred or so surviving paramounts certainly didn¡¯t mind the attention, by their behavior. The Royal Scout uniforms weren¡¯t hard to fit on, in the end. The lugian and tumerok paramounts were not free from similar behavior, even with stronger racial bonds than most Isparians had. They might travel back and forth between their clans and here, but they had once been adventurers, too, traveling back and forth across the island of Dereth, striding everywhere as titans who could not be killed. The loss of that aura of greatness, as well as so many of their kin, had devastated them at least as much as any of the humans, if for slightly different reasons. The paramounts still formed the single deadliest fighting force anywhere on the islands, if anyone cared to stick a finger into this nest of deadly hornets and stir it up. They still occasionally rampaged across the island, killing Summons and random creatures with abandon, just to prove to themselves they were still all that. We were going up there to find a few people who had probably sold out to the undead, and then we were probably going to kill them. AF Chapter 152 – Hard Questions Aun Corethua and Aun Uatan completed the image by leading a party of Aun hauling along some fresh remoran meat from kills, gained by us luring in a school of them and promptly blasting the utter shit out of them with Hydrous Chained Theurguic Slashing Shardrays before they could run away. The Aun were very happy to prepare the meat and keep the rest for use after netting them and hauling them in. A bunch of tumeroks headed out ahead of us to deliver their prize up the mountainside, and incidentally make sure our targets were in residence. Ithaenc City numbered about a thousand people, with homes largely built into the side of the mountain now, the wealthiest building up at the edge and down into the stone for the best views. Lugians had done the foundation work, so it was all very solid and respectable, ornamentation put on it or carved into it afterwards, with a solid eye for defense in certain areas, including multiple walls that could be drawn into place across roads, streets, and alleyways with haste if required. There were poles for rapid descents, narrow stairwells at places, or you could just follow the ramp as it wound up and down the side of the mountain. Some people even had internal staircases spanning levels for secret ways up and down the mountain, paranoia alive and well among the paramounts. Finding Chulie, Nukdi, and Kluver wasn¡¯t that hard, as all the paramounts had favorite spots to hang out among their own kind. As members who dared to go back to Dereth and actually do some fighting, the three actually had some notoriety and prestige above and beyond those who didn¡¯t dare do the same. Who cared if they didn¡¯t have the same clear times in the Ancient Cloister or Excavation Site? They actually went out where the fighting was unpredictable, and they could actually gain REAL treasures again! If it happened to be a nice story to hide their compensation from the things they were actually doing out there, well, that was just fine, wasn¡¯t it? ------ The attacks, when they came, were simple, brutal, and pragmatic. The trio of targets didn¡¯t stay together, fighting as a team as a matter of convenience, not friendship or even much trust. Steel-Black, almost Amethyst, and deep Violet, I informed the others, with Kris snarling at the Colors of their souls. You didn¡¯t get Colors like that just by imagining bad things happening to others. You got them by doing bad things in the past, and believing it was the proper way to do things in the future. Emerald Shards, strong ropes, strong hands, stones in the mouth in the dark of night, and Gros and Kopf hauled them away, nobody taking a side glance at lugians with heavy bags over their shoulders. ------- It was very late, and the crowds who usually were waiting their turn at the Catacombs were gone, so we didn¡¯t need to fear anyone looking over the falls down at us on the second set of the picturesque waters. Healing magic went through Chulie¡¯s head as the gag was drawn out of his mouth, but the ropes were still there, his hands were still tied, and he was up to his neck in flowing water. A couple yards away, the water streamed over the edge of the Ithaenc Falls, considered the loveliest site in all the islands. He could look over the edge, watching the water fall away, the distant campfires of the Aun along the shores, the moon twinkling on the seas, and the barely-visible other islands of the chain. ¡°A beautiful sight, ain¡¯t it, Chulie?¡± the Mick said in a conversational tone from next to the helpless Senior Scout, who jerked in shock at suddenly sensing him sitting in the water next to him. ¡°Mick! Lord Mick!¡± he hastily corrected himself, trying to wriggle, to look around more, and instead found himself held firmly and remorselessly in place. ¡°What is going on? What are you doing? Help, anyone, help!¡± He hollered at the top of his lungs, and the Mick just took a drink of some potent rum, looking out over that view, and let him scream. Chulie eventually realized nobody was going to come, nobody could hear him, probably over the rushing of the upper falls behind them, and lapsed into quiet. When he finally spoke, it was because his eyes were lingering on two dark figures, their heads extended over the edge of the falls, silent and motionless. ¡°Why, why are you doing this, Mick?¡± he asked, his voice cracking. ¡°We were comrades, friends!¡± ¡°Like Ian Ninetoes was?¡± the Mick asked, his voice wistful and calm. ¡°Ye treating friends like that, I be glad I be not yer enemy, eh?¡± ¡°We, we didn¡¯t kill him!¡± the man spluttered instantly, even as his face fell. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Nae, that be true enough,¡± the Mick nodded absently, still not looking at him. ¡°But ye¡¯ve killed three other Senior Scouts, have ye not?¡± Before Chulie could deny it, the Mick gestured to the still figures in front of them. ¡°Nudik an¡¯ Kluver, they didnae want t¡¯ talk, either, but the truth be a powerful thing, an¡¯ they couldnae hold it in. ¡°Now, two o¡¯ those ye could have cleaned off an¡¯ the world fair be rid o¡¯ them, working for the virindi an¡¯ the shades as they were. If¡¯n ye¡¯d told the King, like as not he would have rewarded ye fer the fine job o¡¯ uncovering their treachery. ¡°But ye killed Aito Shuiken, bless her noble an¡¯ naive soul, because she wouldnae sleep with Karsmoor, that pompous arse.¡± The Mick lifted his other hand from the water, and the amulets dangling from the necklaces in his fist caught the moonlight, making Chulie stiffen in apprehension. ¡°An¡¯ ye¡¯ve been helping the assassins who been working for the Filinuvekta, caught the taste fer the Crimson Craft, an¡¯ blood o¡¯ yer own on yer hands pays the same as the blood o¡¯ those what slaughtered so many of ours. ¡°We did the work already, finding out who were responsible, Chulie. Karsmoor ain¡¯t living t¡¯ see the dawn. I already left word with Alicia Bladesworn, an¡¯ she an¡¯ hers are paying the goat-fucker a final visit right about now. An¡¯ unlike him, they ain¡¯t bein¡¯ afraid t¡¯ die just t¡¯ kill the pig-wencher.¡± The Mick took another swallow of rum, still not looking at Chulie. ¡°I¡¯m not here t¡¯ bargain with ye, Chulie. Yer a lying fuck, you¡¯ve always been a lying fuck, an¡¯ yer gonna die a lying fuck. I am gonna tell ya, when yer fucking dead an¡¯ gone t¡¯ wherever traitors an¡¯ oath-breakers go, we¡¯re gonna pull yer damn spirit out o¡¯ the Hell yer in, we¡¯re gonna force ye t¡¯ tell us where all the loot is an¡¯ what-all the secrets ye¡¯ve gathered in yer black heart are, an¡¯ then we¡¯re gonna watch again as ye get called back t¡¯ burn proper-like for the shite ye¡¯ve done. ¡°So¡¯s I don¡¯t need no blubberings from ye. Ye can¡¯t buy me with nothing, as I¡¯m gonna take it all from yer screaming spirit when yer dead, I¡¯m gonna learn all the secrets ye¡¯re keeping tight fer blackmail an¡¯ coercion an¡¯ t¡¯ buy back yer skin. ¡°This be just a courtesy. Ye get to look out at the beauty o¡¯ this land one last time. P¡¯raps this time ye¡¯ll finally appreciate it what ye¡¯re losin, p¡¯raps not. If ye got a final request, I¡¯ll listen, but mind, I ain¡¯t gotta fill the request o¡¯ one of the Crimson Trade. ¡°Oh, an¡¯ within a week, the three of ye vanishing is gonna be known it¡¯s because ye were hiring out t¡¯ the undead, an¡¯ that the wealth an¡¯ spoils ye were wavin¡¯ around weren¡¯t prizes o¡¯ war, it were payment fer murder. Yer only legacy, yer names, is going t¡¯ be trash an¡¯ shite, just like the three o¡¯ ye, an¡¯ yer going deep into the dung heap o¡¯ history, scrubbed from the records, an¡¯ you¡¯ll just be FUCKING GONE.¡± He took another drink, saying no more on the matter. Chulie slumped in the grip of whatever held him, which still didn¡¯t relent an ounce. ¡°Damn you, Mick! We had such a good thing going! We could have cut you in!¡± ¡°Nae, Chulie. Ye had a BAD thing going, an¡¯ ye couldnae see it. Ye work the Crimson, ye die in crimson. Ye consider that a good thing, the Trade leading ye here, now?¡± He was idly amused at the idea. ¡°Well, ye always were a contrary sort.¡± ¡°Mick, you know the undead have power, wealth! They can get you anything you want!¡± Chulie tried to struggle, but even with his superhuman strength, he couldn¡¯t move a whit. ¡°They only thing I¡¯d ever bargain from them would be the return o¡¯ me fair Bunita, an¡¯ she¡¯d only come back as an undead thing with a soul rotting in the prison o¡¯ her dead meat,¡± the Mick answered coldly. ¡°If ye think ima bow t¡¯ yer paymasters, ye don¡¯t understand the McMikals at all, an¡¯ I be thinkin¡¯ damn near everyone with sense knew what ornery bastards we be.¡± ¡°I can help you, help you get revenge! I know who some of them are, where to find them-!¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need the word o¡¯ an oathbreaker t¡¯ wipe me arse with, an¡¯ ye expect me to trust ye in a fight? Ye¡¯ll tell me all I want t¡¯ know during yer brief respite from the burnin¡¯, Chulie. I don¡¯t need ye stabbin¡¯ me in the back t¡¯ boot. ¡°Now, ye got a final request? Make it brief, an¡¯ then yer going Down t¡¯ rot an¡¯ be forgotten.¡± The Gharu-born former gutter thief sagged in horror, staring out over the edge of the waterfall. ¡°You can go to Hell, Mick!¡± he managed faintly. ¡°Oddly enough, I¡¯da agreed with ye a month ago. Got enough black on me soul t¡¯ think I earned it, belikes. An¡¯ then a fair miss told me I hae a soul like a burning ball o¡¯ ornery fire, that bein¡¯ a good man don¡¯t mean being nice about it, an¡¯ Heaven takes all kinds, including scurrilous hill clansmen tryin¡¯ t¡¯ muddle on through this shitehole of a life an¡¯ not be total dastards. ¡°So, I¡¯ll havin¡¯ t¡¯ be disappointin¡¯ ye, Chulie. I keep t¡¯ this windin¡¯, torturous, unnatural road o¡¯ good cheer, honest work, an¡¯ hope fer the future, I ain¡¯t gonna be there t¡¯ join ye in yer reward for skullduggery, greed, treachery, an¡¯ murder. ¡°Off with ye, now.¡± He waved his hand, and never once did he bother looking the dead man in the eye. Chulie¡¯s last view was of the sky just starting to brighten to the east, a view of hope coming that he would never embrace. Then his view tumbled as something came down, and everything slowly went black. --- ¡°Light the fucker up an¡¯ make sure they all disappear,¡± the Mick said, rising dripping wet from the water and walking off towards a nearby stone to watch the sun rise. I added the third head to my impromptu collection, Vivic Darts plunging out to impale each of the three corpses at the edge of the waterfall and set them en vivus. Gros, Kopf, and Princess Kristie grabbed a corpse each and heaved them over the edge, towards the next set of falls a few hundred feet below. Aun Corethua and Uatan¡¯s group down below saw them coming, and converged on the splashes as they hit the water. They waded over, grabbed the corpses, and heartlessly dragged them towards the last edge of the falls, heaving them out and over the edge¡­ right into the reborn Summons of the slithyr tentacles, which rose up as they hit the water and grabbed them with malicious glee and frothing, water-splashing excitement, quickly dragging them below the surface entirely. The Aun were going to lose three Summon Points permanently when the hungry tentacles found themselves devouring vivic flames. But they wrote it off blandly, happy to do their part to kill off some traitors, and there were many tentacle spawns to make use of. The implications that keeping the Summons around meant that the slithyr could keep spawning on the island were also weighing on them, and they were debating what exactly they could do about it¡­ AF Chapter 153 – Behold, the New Day! ¡°Being the nice guy in charge sucks bad,¡± Princess Kristie told the Mick as she sat down next to him. ¡°I don¡¯t think ever in me whole life I been referred to as a nice man, Yer Highness,¡± he replied neutrally. ¡°Well, I¡¯d say the same of myself, but Ranthas have different standards,¡± she half-laughed. ¡°Where to next?¡± ¡°Depends on the skull-talking the lass does,¡± he asked, waving at me sitting on a Disk nearby, Gross and Kopf withdrawn silently to a discreet distance. ¡°I¡¯m thinkin¡¯ there be at least four more Royal Scout paper-pushers who deserve the deaths they been pushin¡¯ t¡¯ advance themselves.¡± ¡°It can wait a few months,¡± I spoke up from behind him. ¡°Why be that, lass?¡± he asked over his shoulder. ¡°Because I can then Geas the arseholes to active field duty until they die with honor, overcome by their duty and the glory of dying for their people and country.¡± ¡°Hoh, another spell that ain¡¯t nice. Yer living up t¡¯ yer words, lass.¡± ¡°Damn Good, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, fucked be we all.¡± He took another swig of his rum, the expression on his face unreadable. ¡°Hoped I¡¯d put all this shite behind me¡­¡± He heaved a deep breath. ¡°You talk about the Crimson Craft like someone who indulged in it?¡± Kris asked neutrally. ¡°Fah. I were worse than any assassin, but I didnae broach Asheron¡¯s Protection, that were true. I killed dozens of things for naught more than a hearty clap o¡¯ empty Karma and sheets o¡¯ paper not worth the spit used t¡¯ make ¡®em, now. Killin¡¯ others, forgoing the Protection so ye could, that were just entertainment, with the deathstones around. More sending a message than aught, an¡¯ it still only worked with those who chose t¡¯ go red. ¡°An¡¯ the mages had the advantage, o¡¯ course. A mage-archer sniper team were pretty deadly.¡± ¡°Entertainment. Not the real Crimson Craft. Going to contact Oswald?¡± Kris waved dismissively. ¡°I knew where the old man were as soon as I read the instructions, an¡¯ then thought over what ye said he could probably do.¡± ¡°Do tell?¡± She leaned in with interest. ¡°Aye, he¡¯s up abouts the Plateau or Stonehold in the North. This drop be an open point in the Tukals. There be no cover, ye can see anyone coming fer a mile or more. He just pops in once a week or so, then flits off home. No one to see him come in or leave. ¡°He weren¡¯t going to leave his woods behind, an¡¯ the northern people always been independent sorts. With the Portals shut down, they¡¯d¡¯ve needed his help badly, yet the place is out o¡¯ the eyes of the likes of the undead, shades, an¡¯ virindi, an¡¯ wouldn¡¯t take much t¡¯ fortify against anything wandering around, being only one way up as it has. The olthoi don¡¯t go that far west, the Viamontians be stuck in the Vesayans again, an¡¯ he could flit over there t¡¯ cause mischief, or see ¡®em if they try t¡¯ land on Dereth with boats or the like. ¡°Aye, he¡¯s up there now, mebbe usin¡¯ a new name an¡¯ nobody knowin¡¯ or carin¡¯ who he is, just another paramount who knows his shite teaching the folks what they need t¡¯ survive.¡± ¡°The Plateau or Stonehold?¡± I asked, trusting his opinion. ¡°I dunno, lass. Stonehold would be harder t¡¯ defend, an¡¯ close t¡¯ the Frozen Zone,¡± Lord Mick said, taking another sip. ¡°The tuskers an¡¯ gurogs there, not t¡¯ mention the frozen Gellidite undead, probably swept over the place an¡¯ erased it if they were workin¡¯ together. If they were not, well¡­¡± He trailed off thoughtfully. ¡°Nobody¡¯s gone far enough northwest t¡¯ see if they survived, see, what with no quick way back or avenue o¡¯ retreat. The undead don¡¯t tire, see, an¡¯ if ye got some intent on running ye down, that¡¯s exactly what they¡¯d do, never giving up until ye¡¯re flat on the ground in exhaustion, not like the old days, an¡¯ they can butcher ye with ease.¡± ¡°And it not helping that they couldn¡¯t die¡­ unless you¡¯re someone who could kill them forever¡­¡± Kris murmured. ¡°Aye. So ye kin bet the undead know he¡¯s there, an¡¯ that t¡¯ attack there is t¡¯ risk the greatest human assassin comin¡¯ after ye an¡¯ yers, an¡¯ takin¡¯ ye out forever. Aye, the high-ups, like Rytheran, an¡¯ Geraine, an¡¯ Aerefalle, probably got nothing to fear. But all their underlings? They¡¯d get the knife, an¡¯ the power o¡¯ their faction would plummet. The old man would hunt them all patient-like, he¡¯d run away when he needed t¡¯ run, an¡¯ he¡¯d pick them off, while they¡¯d get nothing in return. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°Aye, it¡¯s off their sight, they got no ambitions in the area, an¡¯ they¡¯ll just let things lie.¡± ¡°No, they wouldn¡¯t,¡± I countered. ¡°I believe you mentioned he was on the outs with the Assassin¡¯s Guild. Wouldn¡¯t they send some after him?¡± ¡°Of course they would. Ye think he doesn¡¯t know who they are, that he hasn¡¯t been watching ¡®em? If he can flit across the world an¡¯ nobody else can, he¡¯d use it. ¡°Anyone they sent after him either never made it there or vanished inta the woods. He likely knows who any an¡¯ all of them are, an¡¯ if it¡¯s time t¡¯ clean house, it¡¯s gonna be fast an¡¯ brutal.¡± ¡°You believe he has access to the Halaetians, too?¡± I spoke up. Those were the islands in the northwest the Viamontians had first arrived at all those years ago. ¡°If as ye said is true, aye. It¡¯s said he first came to the world fleein¡¯ the Viamontians, an¡¯ ended up there. Escaped from there years ahead o¡¯ them.¡± ¡°Then he¡¯s probably a contact for the Aun tribes at Marae Lassel to those in the Vesayans. Or¡­ he¡¯s been evacuating them slowly, one or two at a time, getting them off the island there and bringing them here.¡± The Mick paused in his drinking, thinking that over, his eyes falling on the campfires below. ¡°Well, isn¡¯t the old man still a clever bastard,¡± he finally agreed. ¡°I always thought the Aun were consolidating the wanderers who survived, but aye. When I be thinkin¡¯ about it, an¡¯ adding up the numbers of Aun through the islands¡­ that number were quite a few less than the adults spread about the Vesayans now. ¡°He¡¯s probably the patron saint o¡¯ the Aun now. O¡¯ course they wouldn¡¯t give him up, or even mention he¡¯s alive, even t¡¯ the likes o¡¯ me. They know what he did, but that¡¯s a great debt o¡¯ honor t¡¯ them, an¡¯ they¡¯d belike t¡¯ die before speaking o¡¯ it.¡± ¡°Would he have evacuated Isparians, too?¡± Kris asked, curious now. The Mick considered that. ¡°The Viamontians had two factions, the royalists in Sanamar an¡¯ the rebels in Silyun. The former hunted an¡¯ captured Oswald at one point for daring t¡¯ kill off a few of their priggish nobles at the behest o¡¯ some other nobles. The latter, led by the Bellenesse Clan, had enough of the royalists an¡¯ rebelled back in Ispar, fleeing here. The King butchered the Lady Bellenesse in captivity, so there¡¯s no love lost with what survivors there be there between the rebel clans, an¡¯ they had no ill will towards Oswald. Fairly decent folk there, really.¡± His dark eyes narrowed. ¡°I not be knowin¡¯ what the islands were like after the Fall, but the royalists an¡¯ their madman o¡¯ a king were doing crazy awful shite, looking back on it all. Like Binding loyal knights t¡¯ their armor t¡¯ give them more strength an¡¯ assuring their loyalty. They mass enslaved these creatures called eaters, unnatural things made up by the Fiuns in a mad accident, turning them inta their hounds an¡¯ tools an¡¯ breeding ¡®em like crazy as attack dogs for their forces. ¡°I be imaginin¡¯ what happened when an¡¯ if they done lost control o¡¯ their armored slaves an¡¯ the eaters, an¡¯ their vaunted armies started killing ¡®em.¡± ¡°Comeuppance for massive arrogance and foolishness is always fun to watch, right up until it swallows you, too,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Now, how much of those armies were real, and how many were Summons?¡± ¡°I dinnae know,¡± the Mick admitted. ¡°They had some form o¡¯ deathstone protection, so they kept coming back, an¡¯ the eaters ended up dominating whole swathes o¡¯ the Summons points, hard t¡¯ tell the real from the fake. Were one Viamontian Hand, Sir Toricello, I think belike I killed the bastard forty times over the years. He didn¡¯t much like me,¡± he said dryly. ¡°Could you take him without your maxed Gear?¡± Kris inquired directly. His free hand moved thoughtfully to Bunita¡¯s hilt, caressing it unconsciously. ¡°It¡¯d be a close thing, aye. I¡¯d probably need fair better armor, at the least. The Hands had fine armor, an¡¯ were as strong as any paramount, fast an¡¯ mean an¡¯ vicious. A normal soldier had no chance against them, be chopped apart in no time. Only the fact the blighters never got Buffed by their own kept us on top in the fights. Their mages were always concerned more about blastin¡¯ ye themselves instead o¡¯ setting ye up for the warriors¡­ or, p¡¯raps, so many were Summons it were hard t¡¯ tell their honorable pride an¡¯ foolishness apart from blindly followin¡¯ orders an¡¯ the like. Proud and arrogant shites that they were, more concerned with how good they¡¯d look than aidin¡¯ their peers or lessers.¡± ¡°That sounds about right for the flower of Viamontian nobility,¡± Kris agreed sagely. ¡°Right up there with slavishly obey your superiors for the chance to show off in their sight and maybe be elevated with an empty title or battle honors, or just die trying.¡± ¡°Ye know ¡®im well,¡± the Mick agreed blandly. ¡°Some get over it, but they ain¡¯t the ones born noble, for the most part. And, o¡¯ course, any non-Viamontians were just dirt under their heels, t¡¯ be treated as however they wanted, less than their beloved cattle in their eyes.¡± ¡°Well, of course. Cattle give meat and milk and cheese and leather, non-Viamontians are squatting on the land you want and consume all that food that should be theirs. They are barely acceptable as peasants, not knowing their places!¡± Kristie agreed in a perfect bored Viamontian noble¡¯s stuffy accent, her nose in the air. His laugh was dry and hard. ¡°Well, ye definitely dinnae like Viamontians, an¡¯ ye¡¯d find some fine, fine representatives o¡¯ the culture in the Vissidals, aye. They took the worst parts o¡¯ their people an¡¯ done found new an¡¯ unholy limits to ¡®em. Here¡¯s hopin¡¯ it bit ¡®em in the arse at least as hard as the undead bit us.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re saying a visit to the north is in the works, or do the contact before then?¡± I inquired from the side. ¡°Oh, we can leave a message for ¡®im, but it might not hurt t¡¯ let him know that he¡¯s not as deadly an¡¯ untouchable as he thinks, aye?¡± the Mick nodded slowly. ¡°That¡¯s not nearly as hard to do as he might think,¡± I confirmed. ¡°His teleportation ability can¡¯t be anything but the most rudimentary, and I imagine he doesn¡¯t go into any place that¡¯s been Warded against unauthorized Portaling previously, as I¡¯m sure the undead have. I can rap his knuckles without actually threatening him without too much effort.¡± ¡°Well, then we should rap away, when we take the time. In the mean, ¡®tis time for ye to knuckle down an¡¯ start some hard learnin¡¯ an¡¯ teaching, I reckon?¡± he asked the both of us. ¡°Two viable Dungeons for Karma to keep me busy right close, and some others only a few miles of hiking away? This is decent for us to keep getting our exercise, and to challenge your scouts,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°I have so many Masteries to catch up on,¡± I sighed softly. ¡°Then let''s be about upgradin¡¯ an¡¯ startin¡¯ a new day for the people again,¡± the Mick agreed, and it was set. AF Chapter 154 – Skipping Some Time Months pass¡­ The Drain Mana came in to reap some of my power and restore some of the Affliction Wisp¡¯s own, ran into my Death Ward, and was immediately denied as a negative energy Drain effect. I stepped around the side of the corridor, and Crown chimed a piercing note as a set of jetsilver needles sped out, impaling the whirling thing as it wondered what had happened. Sparks popped, there was a distant shriek of energy discombobulating, and I burst into a run towards the doorway behind it, ignoring the disintegrating bodies of the physical moarsmen spawns as I ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time as I headed back to the upper level. There were two ways to run the Catacombs here: To Completion, and To Clear. The latter naturally included the former, but doing the first was much faster if you were capable of running past the many guards and wouldn¡¯t get hung up by them. I¡¯d already done that yesterday. It turns out that Invisibility and Blink are absolutely wonderful for bypassing doors and guards without having to go through the rigmarole of running back and forth pulling levers that this dungeon wanted you to do. As long as I minded my scent, the Summons were only confused when I slipped past them, and Chained Seeking Split Slashing Shardrays hitting a whole slew of the wisps and moarsmen from surprise was a great way to kill a batch of them very quickly. It did turn out that the northern door at the top and the vault for the jewel were Warded against dimensional hijinks¡­ but the former was not against Knock spells. Given it was a slightly magical lock that changed its combination every time to match the random key dropping off one of the sclavi guards that opened it, there was no memorizing it if you wanted to pick it, it was a fresh try every time. Waving my fingers and opening it saved some time. I¡¯d killed everything fast and smooth enough that nothing had respawned as I headed back up to the top level, and once there booked it for the northern end. There were two more wisps floating there beyond the door, but I blew the Split Chained Slashing Shardrays as I came in, one primary to each, Chaining to the other, and as I leapt over the mana trap in the floor there, they both blew apart. I headed down and around the stairs, a green-scaled sclavus and red-scaled moarsman at the bottom blocking the split there. The same SCS Shardrays drove through them, tearing them apart and getting them out of my path as I came down the steps at a trot. I stepped over the torn bodies, unafraid of gore which was already falling apart into ectoplasm, heading for the jump room leading to the final area. It was a pit a good sixty feet deep. The sclavus and wisp there seemed to react to my presence up above when the door opened, already trying to reach out with Drains that couldn¡¯t harm me in the slightest. That was fine, I also reacted to theirs. The Piercing Shards went punching down, impaled and blew away the pink swirl of the wisp, then the Echoed set joined the Slashing version in slamming into the sclavus there as I hopped off the edge. Once, the innate magic of the world would have allowed adventurers to jump off these ledges without any problem, but no longer. It was a good way to get broken bones trying that, and grabbing ropes to rappel down was actually something the younger adventurers had to do to avoid taking damage. A paramount could still make the jump, sure, but even they hoarded their Health far more than they used to. Featherweight grabbed me a foot from the floor, my plummet down became a casual drift as I set down easily, and I trotted down the hallway quickly, but not quickly enough to keep my Repeated and Residual Metas going. It was fine, the final room was a bunch of moarsmen and wisps in a convenient circle. I came down the steps silently, marked the non-Good presences on my Zealous Detect Evil, and let the same Split Chained Slashing Shardrays go at them, targeting the two strongest directly, then the Chains ripping out to lash through all of them, moars and wisps alike, in a wild whirlwind of rotating blades of force chewing through all of them with violent power. There were two moarsmen up in a side room and stairs to the east, the final creatures to be cleared, and the mossy jade key was on one of the dead moarsmen in the main room. A specific Locate Object at short range was enough to pick it out, Minor TK brought it to my hand, and I was heading back for the jump down. Once, there had been a Portal to the outside at the bottom here, the sheer incongruity of having an instant exit from a Dungeon that the monsters never used basically screaming the fact that this place was completely arranged and artificial, even if the endlessly repeated Summons didn¡¯t blare the fact to anyone with a lick of common sense. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. No, now you had to climb your way back out, which meant that rope you threw over into the pit had to be prepared ahead of time, and you had to know how and be able to use it. Instead, I touched the wall, and Shaped the Stone there in the corner. Getting some masons in here to do the work was a no-go with the continual respawn of the monsters, sometimes drawing the whole horde from the main room to join the fun if things got loud and unfortunate enough. Nobody high-Level wanted to babysit some masons working in harnesses to make a stone ladder in the wall, or set up some stairs. Basically I made a set of stone rungs set into the wall that anyone could use to climb out of this place¡­ including the Summons with limbs, if they¡¯d been able to leave their posts to do so. I also made a ¡®fire pole¡¯, a four-inch column of stone leading right up to the ceiling above, that the daring and strong could use to slide down without trouble. Myself, I just Levitated up, parkouring up the corner as I did so, rapidly making it to the top and heading back up the stairs to get out of there. ------ The watcher up above blinked at my very sudden return, far sooner than he¡¯d had any reason to expect. I held up the moss-jade key, and he stared at it in disbelief. Only one of them could exist at a time, and if it wasn¡¯t used in Lady Adja¡¯s Chest, it faded at Renewal (dawn), so nobody could stockpile them. I scampered past him to the outside, ignoring the shocked calls as I came out, while everyone looked at the clock there. Five minutes? For a Total Clear? That was, that was impossible! Just like my Completion yesterday, which had been under three minutes! ¡°Out of the way!¡± Princess Kristie snarled, and the people who¡¯d been shuffling forward and blocking the ramp up to the Cathedral hurriedly stepped back to let me race past at speed. Up the stairs to the second floor, climb out the window, jump to the floating ramp, follow it around, jump through the third floor window to her private study up there, and under the eyes of the judge there, insert the moss-jade key into the intricately engraved floral chest there. There was a hiss and click, the key dissipated, and the chest sprang open. ¡°TIME!¡± the judge shouted, and the clock stopped at 4:55. I could hear the crowd¡¯s roars of amazement and disbelief from up there in the room, and even the Judge there shook his head in disbelief. The chest itself was completely empty, whatever magic that had once powered it inactive and spent. The only thing it retained was a lock that could only be opened by that specific key, no goddamn logical reason for it being on the bottom of the Catacombs except to make people jump through hoops to get it. ¡°That is an incredible achievement, young lady,¡± the judge, a seemingly middle-aged paramount called Cluster, complimented me while looking at his watch. ¡°Do you know how to Cast while sprinting, Magos?¡± he joked, but his eyes were glittering with great interest. Odd names were very common among the paramounts, a tradition that had begun long ago with the first people to come through the Portals. It was considered a sign of leaving the old world behind and embracing this new place and all the strange magical things that happened here, becoming a new person and what it meant to be a true adventurer here. Plenty of people did carry over their family names, and often the adventurers returned to them in time. But still, nobody called Lord Mick anything but The Mick now, even if they knew he was a McMikal. Likewise, Princess Kristie was The Hag Princess, a name she embraced with proper fervor and the ability to become extremely violent at the drop of a hat, enthusiastically beating the utter shit out of anyone who chose to mock or belittle her. Me, I was just Ryin, The Lady Magos¡­ which, while completely true, had become a clear mark of respect during the last six months. ¡°I understand slidecasting was a precious skill before the Fall, Elder,¡± I replied respectfully. ¡°Surely you don¡¯t think such skills didn¡¯t have a broader foundation?¡± I asked him. His eyes almost lit up. Knowledge of the things coming out of the lessons I taught were only whispers, things my students used but did not talk about with anyone outside their numbers. Everyone was trying to learn what I was doing. Magic was power, and everyone wanted power now. Much of their attention was distracted by ¡®The Hunt for Cleaving¡¯, as it was coming to be called, but it was all still there. ¡°I trust that this is something that will be shared with others?¡± he asked leadingly. My generosity to my students was quite well-known. To others outside them, not so much. It wasn¡¯t much different from how Kris was teaching Royal Scouts profound Feats and Masteries, and introducing the Matrix Classes. I just laughed softly. ¡°Everything in time, elder, everything in time,¡± I replied with a wink at him. I hopped towards the window, and then down to the ground, Featherweight catching me and slowing my fall ten feet above the ground, turning a plummet into a casual wafting to the green grass about the Cathedral. --- Kris was chortling as we walked away towards the trail that led to the opposite side of the Cathedral, where the gaping hole to the Quddity Seed Dungeon yawned open, ready to take all comers. ¡°First time you do a Complete, and you set the record for it. I see why you held off doing an official run all this time.¡± The demand for the Dungeon and the Karma of its spawns was high, so people were typically restricted to one run a day, and that for the upper levels, since few wanted to jump into the Pit at all and have to clamber or be hauled back up. I¡¯d run the Dungeon a few times to get the lay of it, the many Drain Traps present there, and where all the levers and things were, but mostly I just did it for the Karma. The fact I was fast on my turn had been noticed, but since I¡¯d never declared going into the pit at the bottom, they¡¯d not called me out on it, other than noting I was damn speedy for my perceived Level. Said Level now sitting nicely at 114, my backlog of Karma cleared after all these months, and steadily added to, day by day. I didn¡¯t get to shift all the levers at the same time, as I used to, but I still managed one or two for Mira a day. ¡°Apologies for setting the bar high. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll note it was a Caster soon, so as to avoid any ¡®real¡¯ competition,¡± I replied to her. ¡°Oh, and I put in the pole and the rungs, too. Should be more people clearing the pit, now that they are there.¡± ¡°Good. I¡¯m signed up to do a Clear on it tomorrow, we¡¯ll see how well I measure up to those paramounts.¡± I just laughed softly, as Kris didn¡¯t spend much time in the Catacombs, not when the Quiddity Seed was there, and much more fun for her. That was where we were going now, getting ready to do a Timed Clear on the most dangerous Dungeon of the Vesayan Islands. AF Chapter 155 – Gimme Some Quid The Mick and the chosen Scouts for this mission looked a lot different than they had six months ago, and it wasn¡¯t just the new sleek blue-black adamantine Armor. Their professional job for the crown was still scouting, and that meant stealth, which meant light armor. But Dungeon-going in this place was largely not about stealth. Summons didn¡¯t react to noise the same way living creatures did, but fighting would draw them in fast. They also weren¡¯t subject to the morale and panic of surprise attacks, never running away or trying to save their own lives. A different strategy and something to take account of when planning a run. Months of time had passed. Plenty of time for Naming Karma to do its slow and steady work¡­ and for a Forsaken Smith to work the kind of wonders that Powered needing precious materials to make their stuff couldn¡¯t truly do. Everybody knew who The Hag was now, just like everyone knew who The Mick was now. And The Magos. They knew who I was, too. And the Roaches, they knew them now, too. There was a lot of rivalry and competition among the younger generation. With sources of Karma restricted by availability, time spent killing was time growing, and certainly the enemies on Dereth weren¡¯t going to be slowing down in their own fighting. The growth of the Royal Scouts had been basically meteoric compared to the rise of all their peers. One Level a day, one point to any Stat or Skill was a metric known to almost everyone. Those Levels, when taken in the Matrix system, had allowed a level of specialization and versatility that the Isparian system simply didn¡¯t allow¡­ or stacked on top of them to greater effect than spending points in the Isparian System. I was still the only devoted Caster in this bunch, but they were ALL Artificers to one level or another, which was just crazy useful compared to their former circumstances and restrictions on the gear they could use, especially customizing it to a specific opponent. There were only three opponents in this Dungeon: virindi constructs, floating armored suits with only the crudest intelligence; Bile Grievvers, among the most powerful of the powerful spider-aliens from the olthoi homeworld, and down at the bottom, the Black Breath and some other powerful shades, including a derived remnant of the Archshade himself, Bael¡¯Zhaeron. Only teams of paramounts dared the bottom and the potential death there, but we were going to turn that on its head today¡­ although we hadn¡¯t told anyone else that. A Clear and a Total Clear were very different things here. Chewing through the grievvers was almost a daily ritual for a lot of the higher-Level people here seeking their daily dose of Karma in a controlled environment. It took a lot of very bad luck for the paramounts to die here, and one was almost always trailing the younger teams that took the place on, Healing them in emergencies and ordering them out if they overextended. The Mick was our paramount, and he definitely didn¡¯t need a nursemaid from another paramount interested in how we were going to approach the problem. Certainly a team of melee-dominants was interesting, as it was known that melees didn¡¯t have the damage output to really dominate the place¡­ but junior Casters didn¡¯t have the punch to harm the grievvers, so it was what it was. ¡°I be hearin¡¯ the whining from all the way over here, lass,¡± the Mick called out to me, arms crossed over his breastplate. His beard was trimmed very short after Princess Kris had used it to throw him into a wall face first several times, still salt and pepper enough to give him a rogue-like elder look that attracted a lot of women¡¯s eyes. He also had a harder, sharper air about him, something that made other paramounts get out of his way and wonder what they were missing. ¡°Obviously I am a sedentary person, a secular scholar, and I am unfit for active field duty as a Warcaster, Lord Mick.¡± There were low laughs from the others, including Kris. They all knew that all the teaching I was doing was something I tolerated because it had to be done, and that I only had fun when I was Warcasting to beat the band. What nobody knew who wasn¡¯t Marked was that I had a second personality who basically took care of all that very boring scholarly stuff on my behalf, and was basically always in contact with other scholars worth being Marked. Mira was exulting in the intellectual work. All the most important work on integrating Matrix and Isparian Magic, advancing Artificing, and discovering the purest, higher forms of the known Runework, Cleaving, and Slaying effects, knowledge that was indeed being disseminated among all those people who had Item Magic, was all mainly happening in the Markspace, Visual Files shifting back and forth furiously as the best remaining experts of magic put their heads together over matters. The collapse of the four Schools of Isparian Magic was also underway, bowing to the power and breadth of Arcane magic. Lifelong scholars of magic were completely revising how they approached magic as the two types of magic were being integrated into something new and greater. The roots of it were Pool Theurgy. The Power of Ten system didn¡¯t use a Mana Pool, so being able to have one certainly meant the magic here was stronger than back where we were from in some regards. Valences were alternate methods of Casting here, not the best means, and there was some very spirited discussions on long-term viability going on in the back of my head, with Mira riding herd on everything. The sheer amount of mana that could be stored in Valences was a huge selling point, however! ¡°Formal Fellowship,¡± I spoke up, Crown glowing softly and extended out. Everyone automatically reached out to grasp it, and the Karmic bond settled in. Full Karmic sharing and enhancement for the sharing, nine people getting 30% each, instead of 11.1% or whatever personal performance would be. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Formal Fellowships really drove the teamwork mechanic. You didn¡¯t have to kill as long as you did something that helped the group make more Karma: Debuffing, Healing, trap location and disarming, lockpicking, scouting¡­ as long as it led to more Karma, it worked for a Fellowship. Rogar, Selena, Hundig, Milee, Mizaya, and Kopf were the ones joining the Mick, Kris, and me for this trip, meeting the nine-person limit for this run. Kopf, the big lugian, had elected to stay with the Mick, with his king¡¯s permission, after seeing some of the things we were doing, and was now bearing an ogre-sized Moon Axe and a heavy Shield as tall as a human. The Feats Kris had beat into him had turned him into a true Heavy Melee and tank, the eight-foot mountain of muscle finding much to enjoy of the ¡®combat magic¡¯ of Feats and Masteries that had turned him into something far, far more dangerous than any melee combatant the paramounts of Dereth were aware of. He¡¯d been back to Dereth and put them to use in real fighting, too. The Mick didn¡¯t stop his duties even as he Leveled in the Matrix system, after all. -Call it, Warlord,- the Mick /said simply. Kris was plenty ready to go to Dereth, and in fact had become the primary mode of doing so for the Scouts, her and the Invisible Wagon capable of carrying whole teams forth and back as required. Sometimes there was an attempt by the minions of The Deep to intercept, but most of them had learned the lesson that to get in front of the Wagon was to die. The Wagon only got deadlier as we had time to work on it, and the skill of those aboard it increased. -Slashing. Let¡¯s get a Mass Slash Vuln on the virindi Constructs and wipe them fast, get the Skull, and move on to the next,- she /said predictably, just as she had a score of times before. My role here was to conserve Mana unless it was needed. The Mass Vuln was equivalent to cutting the Health of the Virindi almost in half. While a Chained Shardray could likely do the same kind of job, the damage it would do would have taken multiple spells to actually kill most of the stuff here. I was helping them practice rapid removal of enemies, while I Countered incoming magic. Letting them handle offense was a safer play in this circumstance. Kopf was in front, his Energized Shield Scutum leading the way. It was the single biggest piece of adamantine Gear currently made, and it had proven every bit as valuable as expected once made Impervious. Energized meant it wasn¡¯t ignored by Isparian AoE¡¯s and Ray-type attacks that normally ignored armor, meaning he was a moving wall for every single thing behind him. A Shield that finally acted as a shield against magic! It was a fantastically unwelcome development for a lot of enemy Casters who found him a rock that they simply couldn¡¯t crack. The Mick and Kris followed him, Selena and Hundig next, me at Six, and Rogar, Mizaya, and Milee backed me up. --- The air of the tunnel down was cool and dank, the substance of the tunnel becoming something attuned more and more to Shadow and Blood magic, the unclean corruption that had long ago seized Tou-Tou and never given it up. The top level was a bunch of hallways with shade guards. While powerful, they weren¡¯t really there to stop anyone, more of a test to determine if anyone was tough enough to keep going. If you couldn¡¯t take them out, what were you trying to do going to the rest of the Dungeon? -Left. Magos, start Vulning,- Kris /said, and Kopf veered instantly to the first tunnel as I snapped up a Disk, Rogar tapped it to take control and keep me moving while I stepped up on it in a crouch. Mizaya and Milee stepped up onto their own Disks, both of them pulling back racking their Autobows, leg muscles working as they took the force of the action pulling back the strings, and thick razorheads cycled up into place. Rogar and Selena raised their Bows, and broadheads flickered themselves into existence on their bowstrings. Everyone¡¯s pace increased as Kopf led the way. My Detect Evil at IV was both going off on the latent malice in all this corrupted ground around me and looking past it to the animated incarnations of it posted in these side corridors. The shades heard Kopf coming, as half-ton lugians further girt in heavy armor are not quiet in the slightest. Happily, the Summons didn¡¯t retain knowledge from one life to the next, and so when a literal moving wall was racing towards him, the yellow light of the Slashing Vulnerability went off around him, and his instinctive Pyreal Fire Bolt went off, the shade still watched it smash harmlessly off the Fire Baned Shield in amazement, the fires playing wildly on the floor and walls, which writhed and burned under the blazing magic. Then the shade was smashed right off his feet, his lighter-than-meat mass working against him this time, crushed into the wall with brutal force and down to the ground. Bunita whipped across his unarmored chest with lethal force, blazing with Banefire and Holy energies the Summons had likely never felt¡­ and a swirl of Radiant Force from the Lost Light that ripped and tore at it internally as the Mick moved on. Kris added a cut across the throat as she also moved past. The two One Strikes were probably enough to kill it, but Milee and Mizaya finished it with a glowing quarrel each into its head as we moved past, towards the next guard. My Vuln led the way, but this time Kopf had to turn right, so he smashed the shade left, and Hundig and Selena released, bolts punching deep into his chest. Bunita cut low, Quaver sliced across the throat, and Rogar stabbed into the shade¡¯s head with his Glaive Accent as he pulled me past it, the two Autobowers punctuating it all with precise side-by-side shots into its eyes as it hung there. AF Chapter 156 – Planting a Seed With the ease of long practice, we swept through the top layer, not even stopping as we did so. Standard practice was to stand back and either Bolt or snipe the shades down, which was kind of a run-and-stop procedure of going to the proper approach places for long shots, staying out of melee since most of the paramounts were Casters. Mana conservation was very important here, however. My wonderful Mana Boost discovery had rapidly started to loose its efficiency and power, eventually faltering and falling completely out of the Isparian paradigm under normal circumstances as the manafield glitched and distorted around me when I used it. A lot of manipulating mana tests had followed, trying to determine how it had transformed, and it was plain my temporary honeymoon with magic was over. It could be Cast from a mana pool over the course of a minute, while basically in Meditation/Aurora Stance. That was still incredibly fast versus relying on pure Mana Renewal, but it meant I didn¡¯t have effectively unlimited mana. It could also be Cast from Valences, but the Slot to do so was then absolutely Burned until Natural Renewal. Naturally a lot of effort was put into maximizing the amount of Mana I got out of those Valences, as emergency sources of mana if required. Energized, +5 per die, +8 per Valence Level, Topped off, Positive Edge, Healing Mastery¡­ yeah, I got a LOT of mana back when I used the Valence, but it was still for emergencies. Those facts meant none of the new students I was teaching ever got to enjoy unlimited mana, which was why I¡¯d never had them focus on it. The rapid mana draws of old had yet to return, but I¡¯d still managed to get in a lot of rep counts using it¡­ perhaps the very thing that had tweaked the manafield and glitched it. Eh, ah well. -Get that Slash Vuln,- Princess Kristie /ordered crisply, as she trotted and some of us rode down the ramp to the next level. Once an aspect of Isin Dule, the leader of the Shade Rebels, such as it was, had stood here, vetting everyone who wanted to pass through to the next level and opening the way via a custom Portal. That shade had spazzed out and gone crazy like the original had, and now needed to be put down like his former self and his master had been. That was fine, as we didn¡¯t play nice. True Casting hissed by, another Valence gone, but I didn¡¯t replace it now unless I had mana to spare and was in a safe location. I watched my spell expenditures very closely, as any Caster should, and maximized them when I spent them. That generally meant letting others do what they were good at, and spend only one or two spells so they were better at doing it. The shade in its black armor and boiling red eyes was there, promptly unleashing a full volley of Mana-Tier fire magic at us, even as the Slash Vuln shimmered yellow about him¡­ magic which bounced uselessly off Kopf¡¯s blue-black adamantine Shield, much to the shade¡¯s astonishment, as the Ray effect should have conducted right through it. Then it saw the lugian wasn¡¯t slowing down in the slightest, and tried to get out of the way¡­ but Scutum was transparent from behind, and Kopf shifted just enough to catch the bastard squarely. This was actually the biggest fight of this level, as the crazed master shade was no slouch and had very powerful magic. It was generally wolf-packed, cut down as fast as possible while everyone grit their teeth and ate his magic. He wasn¡¯t Casting much when he was flat on his back with a half-ton of lugian splayed out on top of him. Trying to lift the lugian off meant his hands were occupied. Two shining Blades came in side by side over Kopf, driving down with merciless speed at his exposed head. His howl of anger and outrage was cut short by the plunging Leap Attack Valorous One Strike Charge combination, the Weight of the Waterfall descending in a wall of death down onto his head, one at the neck and one at the flaming eyes. The chok as they bit into the stone was pretty final. The archers were already spreading out, Bows and Autobows aimed unerringly at the first of the artificial Virindi down the hallway just ahead of us. Kris and the Mick grabbed the pauldrons of Kopf¡¯s armor, and the heavy lugian, not made for acrobatics, was heaved back up to his broad splayed feet in a surge of motion, still holding his Shield. The shade was left to die as Kopf oriented himself silently, the archers now spreading out behind in a flying wing, two to each side, me behind the lugian as he charged ahead. Closer, closer¡­ the chalky-white virindi Construct, called a Dream Marauder, put its arms together in a monastic manner, just like its makers, prepping to Cast, and I dropped two Valences to push the Chain through the Isparian spell. The spell became almost beam-like, flashing down to the Construct, limning it in yellow, and then leaping forwards to the next closest enemy the spell could sense, a series of sharp notes sounding as the spell lit up on each one of them with +75% damage from slashing attacks with the Blade Vuln. The slamming force of the Pyreal Shockwave¡¯s telltale circular manifestation shattered loudly against Scutum, Kopf just grunting as he planted and diverted it up sideways, passing it in front of the Mick to shatter uselessly against the wall as the Mick turned his head, stones flying and pattering off his armor. I had pounded this formation of theirs with spells literally hundreds of times, just so Kopf could get used to handling his Shield and what it could do. That naturally meant Kris zipped ahead, Quaver rising to the side, ki and momentum building as she unleashed a screaming kiai, and a swath of the Lost Light took off the floating thing¡¯s head in one blow. Kopf smashed through it a second later and sent the disintegrating thing flying. -Marauders in positions there, there, there, there, there, and there-, a thoughtfully added afterglow of the Vulns clearly marking them for attention. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The archers glided to a halt and released over the heads of the three melees splitting up to draw attention to themselves, and the Summoned Marauder Constructs fell for it. The Mick and Kris had little to fear from their spells, both having very high resistances, and I had everyone on Status through the Fellowship effect, watching like a hawk in case one of the Constructs got lucky, which had happened in the past. Four gleaming Bolts laden with anti-Construct magic punched into one Marauder in the second rank, while the three melees smashed the closest ones backwards, hacking as they did so. Shards of metal sprayed and strange energies escaped as the shells of the things were badly damaged, even as the remaining two virindi Constructs unleashed their magic at the Mick and Kris. The Lightning magic shattered around the Mick, his Magic Defense too high¡­ and also something he¡¯d invested Matrixed Mastery Ranks in these past few months, driving it ever higher in combat against the grievvers here, as well as against myself, trying to withstand the high-end magic loaded with Spell Penetration that I could unleash against him. The spell targeting Kris just faded into nothing, the Piercing Bolt diving into her Null of unmoving magic and vanishing like raindrops into a lake. The Marauder in front of Kris flipped out its sickles and broke into a slashing pirouette, like a floating razor top, the things hard and sharp enough to score magical metal. An artful flip of her Sword tilted the spiral up, and the Construct tilted backwards, the triple-spin upended and hitting nothing, leaving it off-balance and vulnerable. Quaver ripped up and down in a two-toned note of finality, and tore it apart. The skirling as another pair of sickles lashed across Scutum hurt the ears, especially when one broke against one of the bosses there and went whining away. Kopf¡¯s massive Axe Land came in over the top and drove the thing towards the ground under the force of impact, caving in the helmet that served as its head. Before it could rise back up, the broad lugian spun with a grace and speed that he had spent a lot of time working on, getting full hips and back into a massive whipping circular blow that took it in the side of the head, bit in, and tore it cleanly off. Bunita sliced up and down with deadly speed on the third, catching both arms as they extended out for him, and metal shrieked as it was sheared through and the deadly sickles went spinning away towards the wall, driving into it and staying quivering there as the Construct¡¯s forearms were chopped through and now spitting purple energies out. The Construct wavered uncertainly, its options extremely limited with its arms so truncated. The Mick ripped it up the front of its chest and let out the energies inside as it froze, trying to determine what to do from its programmed options, and ended its confusion in a plume of thauma-purple. The second group of missiles punched out together, and the fifth Construct sagged as its stony chest was impaled clean through, false metal shattering and spewing out the animating energies as it fell. The last one was charging Kris, sickles spread wide, gleaming sharp and deadly. She brought up Quaver, grinning as she locked into her Stance, the Archer Stands Thrust lowering to a point of perfection, ready to accept the charge¡­ and Rogar came in from the side, slashing down with his Glaive Accent to take out its right arm and destroy its balance, tilting this side down. The Construct¡¯s other blow whistled over Kris¡¯ head as Quaver drove into its nexus and popped it instantly, the thing almost falling apart around the point of Quaver as the pale, greasy gray-white Construct Banefire around a raging core of Lost Light did its job. She probably would have taken the hit without any problem, but that is what teams did when they worked together. ¡°Next!¡± Kris ordered, pointing through the doorway to the last set of Virindi, where their ¡®boss¡¯ Marauder, the Thief of Dreams, spawned. It held a reforming ¡®key¡¯ item, the Skull of Avoren, which opened the ramp to the true prison. That meant we needed to move into the next chamber where three more Constructs waited beyond the range of the first Chain. Kopf led the thundering way into the next chamber as this time I sent a Blade Vuln to the left. The archers took that guard out instantly; Kopf rammed the Thief in the middle straight right back into a pillar with brutally crushing force, and Kris and the Mick chopped off the arms of the other guard, then sliced it open front and back in a dance of swords. They split wide, and then came together into driving lunges into either side of the boss Thief that Kopf had pinned with his mass and weight, and the double Charge attacks from them finished it instantly. Kris snatched up the Skull from inside the Thief before it even hit the ground, and we went racing back towards the stela in the main chamber, right next to where the fragment of Isin Dule had been standing. The Skull of Avoren was inserted into the receiving depression on the Rune-carved column, where it shimmered and disintegrated. A section of the floor wavered and vanished, a gout of raw-smelling air coming out, laden with acidic tinges, the tang of ozone, and the acrid smell unique to grievvers, all mixed with a heady bunch of rotting stone, pulsing mental pressure, the feeling of eyes watching, and something unclean settling over the body. --- This was the true fun place. The ramp would stay open as long as anyone alive was down there, so at ¡®normal¡¯ times, a half-dozen Fellowships would clear the area, then pile down below and camp the spawns of grievvers for as long as they were allowed to, rotating in and out as new teams were ready. Paramounts watched and managed the whole process, pulling everyone out once there weren¡¯t enough people left, or piled in to buy time for an unlucky group caught by massed magic or surrounded to retreat with all speed. Deaths were rare, the teamwork and magic needed long worked out, but bad luck was still a thing, and the Bile Grievvers were extremely dangerous with their electrical attacks, the plunging stabs of their barbed spear-like legs, and the magic they could unleash to Debuff their foes, the main thing that made them predators of the olthoi, instead of victims of them. They also made great servants of the shadow-entity that powered Bael¡¯zharon, so there was that, too. -Banes to Vermin in place,- Kris /ordered, Quaver already changing out from its multiple Slaughter choices to the yellowish Banefires that chewed into insects and other arthropods. Eyes closed, magic moved, Infusions moved into Weapons, and our Banefires shifted once more. Ten minutes per level for the spells, so good for a couple hours nominally, longer if Extended, but we wouldn¡¯t be here that long. The Bucklers on the hips of Kris and the Mick were unslung, and Morphed into full long Shields. They weren¡¯t nearly as big and impressive as Scutum was, but neither of them were his size, either. -Brilliant for everyone,- Kris /ordered me, raising her Blade up, and everyone else did the same. I was the only one with the Caster Level to lay down an enchantment that strong, and to do it with a Valence, which would stack with the Infusions and existing magic. AF Chapter 157 – Spiders and Fire and Black Breath I pulled at Quaver and Bunita, and the Lost Light swirled out and around Axe, Claymore, Saber, two Bows and two Autobows, in addition to circling about the head of Crown. Brilliant, the dragon-slaying enchantment. It clad the weapon in solid radiance, and in doing so ignored the natural armor of creatures. A foot of hide, scales, or blubber in the way? Didn¡¯t matter, it would be carved through like it was air. Main drawback? It couldn¡¯t cut through inanimate matter much at all. So, objects and Constructs were largely immune to it. The protective value of metal armor was doubled against Brilliance as the Weapon would simply slide right over it, and you couldn¡¯t Sunder anything (or the Weapon be Sundered in return). Amusingly enough, Brilliance was thus almost useless against most humans, who didn¡¯t normally have any natural armor to speak of. On the other hand, Umbral, its dark twin, ignored all forms of armor, and was often called the mortal-slaying enchantment because of it. Brilliance also occupied four Slots of the ten on a Weapon possible when it was active, which could really hamper a Weapon¡¯s other effects. However, powerful creatures tended to have nasty strong hides, and relied on it a lot for their staying power. Those of the Bile Grievvers weren¡¯t going to work against us here, and so other Slots were best suffused with pure damage-causing effects, if possible. With no armor protecting them, things like Power Attacks suddenly became standard instead of situational, and would be employed to their fullest here. They could even lather Combat Expertise on top of it for a parrying bonus, and they¡¯d still be able to carve into the things! While everyone here had been forced to face these things in melee repeatedly, to the point where they had to be able to take one solo and survive to run away to ¡®graduate¡¯, as it were, the best four fighters were going to stop the grievvers from advancing, and the four archers on the Disks were cutting to drive broadheads deep into those vulnerable spots the damn bouncy things hadn¡¯t evolved to protect against ranged fire. For the bugs, it was throw some Debuffs on instinct and programming, weakening any enemy that didn¡¯t want to close, then advance to attack or wait for them to charge or flee. An enemy shooting pointy sticks at them was not something they were used to dealing with, or anything beyond the gouted acid of olthoi, which would do next to nothing to them. Sometimes coming to a new world and meeting new opponents was not good for you, and their Summoned status meant they couldn¡¯t run away. This was going to be a fight, because the grievvers were on guard right at the bottom of the ramp, their squeals alerted the other Summons, and they were all pulled towards a fight if one next to them was. The Bile Grievvers here were the same size as the Grievver Shredders were in Tou-Tou, but a paler green, with spots of rotting yellow and black on them and edging the crest along their abdomen. They weren¡¯t that big in mass, but they occupied a huge area with their four long legs, each segment as long as a man was tall, commanding decent reach and threatening great speed, while the flowery tendril that was their main sensory organ and source of Casting twisted and opened and closed, testing the air, looking for targets. The opening fight on a normal day was usually a storm of magic and arrows behind a desperate shield wall holding back the enraged, gigantic grievvers. Once they were all dead in a mad and explosive hackfest, the Fellowships would separate to work the independent spawn points, wolfpacking each new grievver down one by one with careful, grim teamwork. Without the powerful Weapons of the past, and lacking the most powerful magic in many circumstances, the creatures were much harder to bring down, and their attacks much harder to deal with. That wasn¡¯t going to be as much of a problem with us. Split Vulns went off on the grievvers at the bottom of the stairs, just as they pivoted and caught sight of Kopf. The big lugian grinned inside his armor as the Mick and Kris flanked him, sealing the corridor against their advance, and the first two sent out their spells to Debuff us. That was fine. One of the big things to invest in was Stat-buffing equipment, and we¡¯d been doing that JUST to offset Debuffs like this. Also, using Dispel Magic gems, here normally called Gems of Stillness, one of the few magic items the people of the Vesayans could still make reliably. The only one affected here was Kopf, who took the Debuffs with a grunt. My Dispel stole over him a second later, shattering them and wiping them away for only a couple of mana. Gems of Stillness were for emergencies! My base Mana Conversion was over 280 base, a number respectable among even the paramounts, before any Buffing. I could use Isparian magic for very low amounts of mana now, and a buffed Dispel was nothing to me, Silver magic around it making sure it could punch through higher Scarabs of magic in a straight Caster-Level check... and I had tons of weight on my Dispels. If they didn¡¯t want to prance ahead, that was fine. The archers let go, and broadheads punched deep into center mass, making the creatures writhe in pain as the glowing missiles ignored their carapaces entirely and plunged very deep, indeed. Lightning crackled and hissed up for us, crashed against ready Shields and went nowhere. Volley two, three, four¡­ and the first grievver went down, just as the first arrivals in the side chambers sprang into the corridor. The long, narrow, splayed-out body of the dead Grievver twitched and seemed to shrink and fold in on itself, becoming basically a narrow tube as muscle reflex brought the overlong limbs back in tight, suddenly occupying much less room. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. The grievvers began to swarm, heading up the center tunnel towards us. The Chain Vuln lit up over a dozen of them this time, yellow auras of Blade Vulnerability playing over them all as they didn¡¯t so much scuttle as bounce and jiggle their way up the hallway, aborted attempts to climb the walls making it plain they couldn¡¯t lift their weight very easily here. Their forelegs were as long as a man with a spear, and could chop down from above like scythes¡­ but they couldn¡¯t stab or thrust reliably. Thus, the tactic was to raise your shield to protect your head from the chopping forelegs, and hack the fuck out of the thorax and tentacular sensory organ and magic-casting limb in the middle there. It required a lot of strength to take those impacts, and a lot of courage to basically end up looking a giant alien spider-thing and its lightning-shooting tendril in what passed for its face, and then go to town on it while defying its attempt to bull you over and gather you in. Which is why Rogar and his Glaive were in the second ranks, Accent glowing with Brilliance as the stolid, grim Aluvian began to chop at those extended limbs flailing away inside his reach. Chok, chok, chok, the overlong forelimbs went spinning away, chitin glowing yellow for an instant, and the grievvers losing any kind of gathering/encapsulating leverage. Sword Beats Fist. Inside its reach, gain an extra Attack of Opportunity when natural weapons are used against you, once per round. Riposte. Once per round, if your melee opponent misses you, gain an AoO. Opportunist. When your ally strikes a mutual foe, you gain an Attack of Opportunity once per round on it. Touch of the Wasp. When your melee opponent is struck by a missile attack from your ally, gain an AoO once per round. The Fire Dragon combat style was fueling a massive barrage of attacks, doing in layers what had once been done with overpowering force. Rogar and Kopf were supplying Opportunity and the archers were supplying the Touches as the two grievvers in the front tried to get past or clamber over Kris and the Mick as the shorter obstacles and easier prey. Oops on their part... Bunita and Quaver were blurs of motion, two-tone Notes rising as the two deadly Melees moved their blades with fantastic speed and lethality. Chopped forelimbs rendered the grievvers unstable, and the two punished them, removing first one, then the other, the grievvers rearing back to try and keep their balance as they hissed and shrieked¡­ and then finishing salvos punched in, found something vital, and they dropped, limbs snapping up in close, and the grievvers behind advanced to the attack. Kopf was denying them the middle, and assisting the Mick by hewing at forelimbs with Land¡¯s glowing edge, also providing Opportunity for one another. As a result, the grievvers on the right side were dying faster¡­ but not that much faster, as Kris was laughing and everyone¡¯s spirits were surging as she began to Sing. The grievvers couldn¡¯t really understand it, but Intimidation is about guts and fear, and this wasn¡¯t a Buffing Song. No, we were getting our Morale bonuses from Hunter/Slayer Masteries here, the product of a lot of practice against these bugs. It was now a full +5/+5 To Hit and Damage, just a part of the Matrix investments that didn¡¯t show on any Assess, and left curious paramounts wondering how we were killing stuff so fast when we didn¡¯t really seem to be improving any faster than anyone else. I could see the grievvers shiver in instinctive comprehension. Being able to Sing in the middle of a fight was a display of strength, of nonchalance, of them Not Being A Threat. They were fighting something that was totally confident of beating them, and it didn¡¯t matter what they did, they were going to die. They were Summons, so it didn¡¯t affect what they had to do. If they were living, they would have quivered, considered the threat we were, and likely slowly retreated to lairs and hiding points, letting us pass. But the words jangled and danced upon their simple nervous systems, letting them know they were going to die, and despair was all they were going to harvest from this. ¡°Tremble, oh ohhh oh, Tremble, we come¡­ Things from afar, slaves to a lie, Dance and prance and when you die, Draw your last breath, you danced with Death, And Death didn¡¯t even try. Your doom, it comes. Your fate, it ends. Food for the Land, cold steel sends You off to sleep, and to remember, To Quaver there, and to Tremble! Tremble, we come!¡± You just have to love that Song. Edges of ki, dancing along the nerves, playing on their templated spirits, driving the memory of it into the grievver akasha. She¡¯d been driving it into their memory collective for months now, and I knew that when we finally went back to Tou-Tou, those grievvers there were going to remember this, too. Humans, with bright and shining Brilliant steel, carving through them with speed and fervor, Singing without a care in the world! Rogar was helping Kris now, Accent chopping down from behind and beside her to give her more openings, while Quaver wasn¡¯t even visible in the flowing streams of radiant motion that were tearing apart the grievver in front of her. She was advancing into it, its magic sputtering and fading in the silence of her Null, and each one seemed to be thrashing in desperate fear, trying to react, and finding only flowing, beautiful, and mesmerizing death coming for it in the darkness and corruption that had bound them to service. No need to Imperil anything here. Brilliant ignored their natural armor regardless, no need to reduce it. I would have liked to Gold Scarab the Vuln, but getting them all at one time seemed enough. I flicked out Heals here and there, Rogar actually the most vulnerable because he wasn¡¯t using a Shield. Occasionally plunging forelimbs would crash into his head or shoulders, looking to impale, and threatening to break his bones as he took the hits on his Armor and helmet. One Healing spell, get back that Soak, ignore the hits and keep going, trusting me to protect him. Rogar grit his teeth and kept up his chopping and hewing at those limbs, opening them up for deadly revenge from Kris, while she likewise opened up the grievvers for his further attention. Overhead, bowstrings hummed and actions racked, salvos snapping out regular as clockwork, grievvers twisting and writhing away from the shots on instinct, Brilliant steel hacking in to take advantage of the openings they made. AF Chapter 158 – Another Pit Lightning crashed and rang against the Shields, swirls of Debuffs came in from the grievvers in the back, and were then popped by Dispels washing out from me and removing the hostile, corrupted magic. The melee line ground through the grievvers implacably, their speed and ferocity greater than even before the Fall, if not the raw power of their blows. Multiple attacks did what powerful attacks had then, a savage reaping as they trod the dead grievvers underfoot, eventually making it all the way to the crossways. Kris split the last grievver on her side up the middle, and it died as Lost Light sliced through its innards and destroyed its insides. Before it could even reflexively fold up in death, she was off to the left, while Rogar, Kopf, and the Mick rapidly de-limbed the last Bile there with swift and sure strokes, and four shots from the archers spit its braincase cleanly. This was a Total Clear run, and that meant any grievvers off to the sides had to be slain. The easiest way to do that was to lure them in. The Mick promptly headed off to the right, while I readied a Vuln, and everyone lined up to take on what Kris would be pulling in. Not that she couldn¡¯t kill it, but this was about speed, and many Weapons make things faster. It wasn¡¯t hard to track her return, Quaver glowing and leaving a stream of Lost Light spirals behind her. The last grievver there bounced and leapt after her as if it didn¡¯t know how to walk, only spring along. The Vuln flashed up, the Bows thrummed, and the Bile Grievver was checked just a bit as they plunged into it like deep-punching bits of the sun. Regardless, it kept coming, unaware of the subtle positioning as it saw its prey holding position to meet it¡­ ¡°Tremble!¡± I saw the clutch of its limbs at the kiai as it charged in and Kris countered, slamming full into it and stopping it in place as Quaver plunged deep into its thorax. It quivered for just a moment¡­ and then Kopf slammed it from the side and drove it hard into the wall. Accent chopped down, forelimbs dropped free, Land hacked into the back end of the thing and its scrabbling legs there, and Quaver swirled through cross-cuts faster than the blink of an eye. Kopf spun away, and the stunned Bile only managed to twitch before the second volley impaled its braincase with practiced precision. The melees shifted sides as us ranged support turned around, a whooping cry letting us know the Mick was coming back, even if the tracking indicator in the Detect Good/Evil Status indicator wasn¡¯t marking everything with an Alignment in range for our attention, and we didn¡¯t have this short complex completely mapped out with all the spawn points marked and obvious. Another Bile Grievver was coming after him, and the same sequence of events followed, but this time starting with Rogar and Kris standing there to impale it as the Mick slipped between them. It drove itself onto Sword and Glaive, was shoved up off the ground and its belly exposed as the ruinous effect of the Archer¡¯s Stand Thrust drove triple damage hijinks into its insides. Bows thrummed, Kopf caught the Mick, spun completely in a circle that had the Mick actually walking the walls at one point, and together they turned completely around and drove into the grievver from the side, hacking off its legs chok-chok, leaving it impaled up there for attention, flailing wildly as it tried to move. The Bows and Autobows centered calmly on the braincase, and released. ¡°Next!¡± Kris called out, turning and sprinting ahead and to the left, where two grievvers, by the counts of those coming in to reinforce, would be sitting towards the back of the twisting halls. Everyone set up to receive them, and then the two that would be coming from the right in matching sequence. The monitors above would be watching the magic about the dungeon, having learned to read the pulse of the Summons and spawn points to indicate how many things had been killed and were currently active. Normally a monitor might be coming along to make sure there was no cheating, but after leaks of tactics and the like, a Fellowship doing a Total Clear could be left alone if they requested it. Everyone thought we were going to be clearing out the grievvers and going for a fast time in doing so¡­ a time, I knew, that we were well ahead on. An old team with Pyreal spells could probably rival what we¡¯d done, but they¡¯d be relying on War Magic and luck, and a perilous consumption of Valences as they chewed through the Shredders, leaving them little to nothing to use for the second half, if they dared¡­ and no resources to endure, meaning they¡¯d have to book it to get out of here before the respawns. A mental shout confirmed the two Biles were there, and Kris was leading them back at speed, easily outrunning their leaping attacks and charges of the two neo-spider things. I waited with Split Vulns as they came after her, softening them up for the crushing wave of follow-up attacks that would take them out in seconds. --- The force-membrane peeled back and away from us as Kris hit the lever behind us at the end of the first hall to the left, and we piled inside quickly. Ten seconds later her lightfoot had carried her all the way back to us through the twists and turns, also outracing any spawns reforming. I could have broken the effect with Argent Savancy, but there was no need to do so. This was important, as the few paramount teams that had gone all the way to the bottom actually had to have a second Fellowship come in behind them and throw the levers so they could leave, fighting the respawns to do so! In front of us was a gaping pit, a good two hundred feet deep. Off to the right, a narrow spiral ran down and around the yawning hole, offering a perilous way down that exposed those on it to spell bombardment from the creatures below, yet another reason not to attempt a Total Clear. This was where I did my Debuff thing ahead of time. -Bane to Shades,- Kris /ordered, and inky black flames wound around the glowing Brilliance of the Weapons there as the Infusion was changed. I washed my Detect Evil over what was down there, hissing at the Levels indicated. Even as Summons, they were strong¡­ but not as strong as the Tou-Tou shades, save for the towering malevolence that was looking up at me from the avatar of Bael¡¯Zharon. My special project. I painted out the positions of each and every one of the Penumbral Soldier shades and the Bile Grievvers down there. Nine separate targets, no surprises or changes. It was one of the killer implications for most Fellowships, as if everything closed to melee now, it was a good way to die. Debuffs started flying up at us from them, pulsing and flaring around everyone but Kris, but that was fine. Everyone was waiting on the Disks as I sent the Chained Vuln lashing downwards on the wings of True Casting at all of the shades. I then saturated the area with a Slow, then Cast Haste and Prayer around on us all. Silver lightning crackled and made ready to go! This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Then I sat back and broke all those Debuffs from the shades with a Dispel as Kris jumped off the edge, everyone with their targets centered and Weapons out. No archery now, that was just a fast way to die at close-quarters here. Nobody who fought here had ever used flight magic, and nobody was jumping down two hundred feet for the shiznits anymore. The shades below couldn¡¯t see us in the swirling miasma above them, and so the sudden shining arrival slamming down into the middle of them did catch them by surprise. Kris¡¯ Cloudstepping Sandals caught her a foot above the ground, and the Disks kept us perfectly safe. The shades being Slowed to half-speed didn¡¯t help matters on their end. Hasted blurs of speed flashed into motion, trailing little silver sparks, and I¡¯m sure the shades and grievvers appreciated the eye-catching effect. The Shade of Bael¡¯Zharon hadn¡¯t been affected by the Slow, but he was still Blade Vulned. It was actually not the optimal thing to use against him¡­ but we made do with what we had. The burning eyes of the BZ Shade were fixed on me as the primiary Caster and presumably the most dangerous. He looked like a classic Fiend: nigh on twelve feet tall, towering wings, a big-arse flaming sword longer than I was tall in hand, surrounded by a crawling black protective Aura, horned, skeleton stretched and warped, flesh black as ink, long black robe brimming with protective magic. The Mana-Tier Firebolt he sent at me was no joke, either, as everyone split off to take on their own opponents, and magic started to build all around. My Chain Dispel flashed out at his minions, and every spell taking shape there spluttered and failed utterly in sparkles of Silver Magic. As for the Fire Bolt, I totally ignored it as it slammed into me and did absolutely nothing, actually making the Shade blink in astonishment. With shouts of alarm, four of the shades were tackled right to the ground, wrapped right up and unable to get off any more magic. The last one, the Black Breath, was nearly invisible inside a swirling cloud of dark particles, and nominally the deadliest of them. It had so much natural armor effects laden on it that normal weapons could barely scratch it at all¡­ but Brilliant Weapons ignored that effective natural armor entirely, and Quaver also had Penetrate Damage Reduction, Shade-Slaying, and a +VIII bonus going for it as Kris closed on it instantly. She was grinning widely as she Laughed, and the ki-laden glee of a Hag checked even a powerful shade Summons for a vital second. It wailed in startled pain as she tore into it with a swathe of ebon-chased Lost Light, and a flower began to glow in the darkness here, dispelling the floating clouds of shadow in bursts of whiteness eating them away. Kopf, the Mick, and Rogar had each taken the forelimb of a grievver on their initial attacks, which vastly increased their ability to avoid other forelimb attacks, while the Mass Lightning Resist on everyone withstood the spitting normal electrical arcs from the Casting tendril atop the Biles. The archers were rolling on the floor with the shades, not even trying to do damage, just tying up hands and mouths and preventing any Casting as the things tried to batter at them or push them away. The Shade of BZ attempted to send out a Fire Volley, targeting five different people, and I Countered with another Dispel, collapsing the flaming spell in Silver sparkles. Then I pulled out the Fastcast Valences from my Bondmage link with Kris, stacked them on the Split Chained Shardrays I put out, poured a Silver Whirling Blade on top of it, and let it all fly as the archers on the ground rolled over and pushed the Shades they were wrestling up and away. The upper halves of the shades were torn apart by the Shadow-Slayer Infusion on Crown doubling the damage, and the Chains ripped through the grievvers for half the base damage before converging on the Shade of big bad BZ for half-doubled damage. The Shade of BZ ate the impacts like a champion, while the Archers sprang to their feet, darted for the Disks still floating there, grabbed their Bows, and turned to orient on their targets with practiced precision. The Black Breath dropped with a gasp of disbelief, divided in two by an arc of Lost Light. Bows thrummed, two shots helping Rogar, one each the Mick and Kopf. Kris streaked across the chamber and smashed into the side of Rogar¡¯s opponent, Quaver¡¯s two Notes thrumming and accentuating my use of the Sublime Chord, the use of the Heartsong clearly unnerving this Summons. Wasp Touches activated, Brilliant Weapons hewed in. The Shade could feel the power building and buttressing my magic, and more, it could feel something dancing at the edge of its nerves as the Heartsong ripped out on those notes. Thre was a vengeful kiai as Kris smashed the unbalanced Bile Grievver over and put four sword-strokes down the length of it in a swirl of motion. Rogar ripped Accent down the length of its underbelly, spilling open its very odd innards, and his opponent was down. With machine-like precision, the archers and fighters raced to relieve Kopf, the former actually hopping up on their Disks for height, and the latter splitting up to come in from both sides. Axe, Sword, and Glaive hacked at the same moment, and Brilliant steel hacked off all three remaining lower legs of the Bile. Unable to move effectively on the stumps of its limbs, the Bile spit lightning frantically as Kopf rolled out of the line of fire, and the thrumming arrows pitched in two volleys in two accelerated seconds, doing for it cleanly. The Shade of BZ was now striding towards me, swinging that flaming Sword sized for a true Jotun, clearly not considering the implications of his earlier attack as he came at me with a Firephasing Weapon. He should have cut me in two when He swung with force and power. The furnace-hot flames lit up a red streak on my vest and the skin beneath it... and did absolutely nothing else. AF Chapter 159 – A Blood Rose for a Summoned Shade The Silver Brittlemail and Fastcast Blade Bane I landed on the Shade of Bael¡¯Zharon at point-blank range were not something he would be able to ignore once everyone started lighting into him. The Mick danced sideways in a circle, spinning his awkward leg-missing grievver target around, and the archers ripped out five volleys together, filling its abdomen with bristling shafts of Brilliance before Bunita lashed out, took out its elusive Casting tendril, and then plunged into its braincase, stopping it cold. Kris, Rogar, and Kopf hit the Shade of BZ from behind. The Shade was utterly focused on me, trying to figure out what to do, temporarily ignoring the bite of the Weapons biting into him from behind. Fire exploded in my face, lashes of fire cut me up and down, and I just ignored them all. Obviously he didn¡¯t have much experience with Children of Fire, and then he realized he had an empty hand that wasn¡¯t doing fire damage. That one I had to duck, popping a Cursed Armor Infusion of -5 AC to his shadowy robe as I did so. I watched the robe shimmer as it went negative in Armor Value¡­ a negative doubled against Slashing by my generous previous gift of Blade Bane. Positive protective magic against slashing weapons reversed course, and suddenly the Shade of BZ was taking another +175% multiplier from the attacks coming in at him. Bane to Shades punched through whatever his Damage Reduction was, and the Mick charged in from the side, landing a brutal blow that sank deep into inky not-flesh. A pounding salvo of Brilliant broadheads was now coming from the four archers firing high over us into the Shade¡¯s chest and face. Lost Light swirled, and a ripping hell of slashing damage poured into the backside of the Shade, making him stiffen in sudden pain as Seven Ripping Dragons went off with Haste-boosted speed, each attack piling on the one before that had landed, and Kris wasn¡¯t going to miss. He finally began to spin around, so I reached up, poked Crown into his face, and let off a Touch Bladed Shards attack to the forehead, a single attack bigger than anything Kris was ladling out, although she was building for something I didn¡¯t want him to interrupt. The Shade snarled and turned back on me as black skin was stripped from his forehead in a spray of bloody darkness, whipping out a claw to take my head off my shoulders. He was a bit surprised when I stepped inside it instead of ducking low or retreating. I did kick back off of him directly when his blow passed, this time sliding out of reach, and the outraged Shade shifted to catch his balance, unmindful of the first cut slashing across his back, black ichor caught by ki and Lost Light now forming the first petal. Kris was making a Blood Rose. There was just the slightest pause in attacks on the Shade as everyone marshaled their reserves, centered themselves, and the Shade lurched after me as I stepped aside this time, Shards and Fastcast Shards coming up, releasing, and drawing howls of pain as they detonated across his chest with anathemic energies. All of our eyes locked on those petals forming with swirling speed, black blood on shining Lost Light rising behind BZ here in a swirling dance of bladework¡­ Culmination, as the Blood Rose formed from seven successive attacks, and the unbroken Seven Ripping Dragons powering through it even increased the size and depth of it by another fifty percent! For the next six seconds, every weapon attack on the Shade of Bael¡¯zhaon would be a crit¡­ a crit, to a crew of people with x4 Crushing Blow Runes on all their Weapons. I hopped back, and all the Shards I could muster circled back into being, drawing a grimace of both anticipated disdain and pain from the Shade¡­ And then the Echoes of my Shards came back, too, doubling all the pain on display and keeping his attention on me. There were only a few Kickers, the Holy Metas mostly on the main spell to increase the damage, magnified by his inverted Armor, while the Archers Rapid Fire¡¯d to beat the band and the fighters were chopping in with Flurries of Blows, ravaging him with the magnified damage from their own attacks. Sneak Attack damage from flanking was on the stack, everything doubling and redoubling, and the Shade screamed and twisted as gouts of dark ichor erupted out of him at the punishment he was taking. Ki swirled about him in Brilliant flames edged in black, Fire Dragon Forms feeding into one another. Expert Tactician made the Attacks of Opportunity hit even harder and more surely. Kris¡¯ Marshal¡¯s Command gave everyone attacking the same target as her an extra Attack of Opportunity in melee. Wasp Touches triggered everyone. He tried a powerful Ring spell to blast everyone away, and I Dispelled it as a matter of course, sending it sparking into motes of Silver magic as the Blood Rose faded. Stolen story; please report. He glowered at me in hate and pain, then lunged. He was probably a little surprised at my Sun Steps lightfoot and how fast I moved, and even flailed at me with his burning Sword as he tried to stop me from evading his reaching arm. I made sure to pull up another Dispel for his attention in a crystalline ball of Silver mana, letting him know that if he tried any spells I was going to stop him, and he paused a moment, before turning to address the warriors doing battle with him instead. Rogar immediately slipped behind the Mick, using his longer reach to hack over his boss¡¯s head with Accent, and the towering Shade had to deal with three ready Shields in the hands of those still hacking at him. ¡°Be Damned for what you¡¯ve done!¡± I promptly shouted, calling on the Judgment power of Silver magic against Evil, wrapping the Curse in an aspect of Justice that would punish the Shade for inherited sins¡­ while assailing him with the power of the Hope that ¡®the Hopeslayer¡¯ had long since abandoned, and now was forced to face the Truth that he could never kill it, for Hope sprang eternal! The Shade shuddered to his bones as the Curse wrapped hold of him, ensuring he would fail his next saving throw. All that effort, and the Shade wasn¡¯t even at half-Health, just too goddamn much Health Qi¡­ which, incidentally, also worked just fine against Death Attacks. When Health is too high, go for cheese! Three Emerald Shards flashed up around my hand, and I let the wedges of solid Force go. They drove into his chest, and paralytic emerald light washed across the Shade. One Strikes held back for the slightest pause now punched forwards, before he could overcome the paralysis. Kris was the only one with Graceful Coup, granting an AoO once a round when a melee target in reach was vulnerable to a coup de grace. It meant she was up in the air, a bar and arc of Lost Light swirling up and around as she reached her apex perfectly, and sent Quaver right through the neck of the Hopeslayer¡¯s Shade. Four Brilliant arrows and bolts promptly kicked that head right off his shoulders, even as the Mick thrust up into his heart and Kopf and Rogar hacked in from the sides between BZ¡¯s ribs. Kris somehow twisted in midair on misting Sandals and bisected him down into his ribcage, ghosting right past Bunita¡¯s impaling point. It was a lot of very, very high damage Fortitude saves to make, because coup de grace blows were automatic crits! A lot of Health Qi blew out as basically nine non-magical death attacks came down and did their job. The towering corpse twitched and jerked, as if unable to believe it had died so quickly. It tottered as the emerald light about it faded away, and slowly tilted sideways and fell over, more toppling than crashing down heavily. ¡°Claw!¡± the Mick blurted out, as everyone stared and started to process what we¡¯d done. Kris chopped off the hand of the corpse promptly, the only thing that would remain when it disintegrated, kicked it up to her hand, and the melees and I rushed over to the waiting Disks. Kris zipped by, took control of the Disks, and we began to ascend rapidly back the way we¡¯d come by dint of her turning sideways on misting feet, and running straight up the side of the pit. Up top, they would have noted the fluctuations and abrupt cessation of the lower life signs in the Dungeon. Their thoughts were probably that we¡¯d done a Clear and were hustling back up to the surface to strike the timer¡­ and instead we¡¯d gone down and somehow killed the horror at the bottom of the Dungeon faster than a normal Clear of the place! --- We reached the top of the pit, Kris stepped onto the edge, the Disks followed, and the Melees dismounted in front of me. It only took a few seconds for the first of the respawning Bile Grievvers to become aware of us and press up against the outside of the force screen there. -Bane to Vermin,- Kris /ordered coolly, the Claw of the Hopeslayer sitting in the Disk between Milee¡¯s feet. Three Shields came up to face the first Bile, knowing that fighting it was going to attract a horde of others¡­ but we didn¡¯t have to do a Clear going out, just get the Hell out of here. -Throw it, Ry.- The Unseen Servant of mine she¡¯d dragged over to the distant lever and left there, ignored by the Bile Grievvers, reached up and threw the lever. If the Bile standing right there reached out, poked it, and destroyed it a second later, all fine. The screen cycled open. My first simple Vuln went off, saving the Chain for reinforcements, and Kopf bulled his way forwards, his mass driving the first Bile Grievver back so that we could all exit the ledge room hastily, and the second clearing of Bile Grievvers began. ------ The waiting crowd was silent as we trotted up out of the ramp, and the Mick slammed the Claw of the Hopeslayer down on the timing button, locking in our time. 10:22. A Total Clear that rivaled the fastest of Clears¡­ and included a fight through the Grievvers on our way back out. The paramounts present gaped along with everyone else at the time displayed, and the Claw there. The trophy would disintegrate over the next hour, so there was no way such a thing could be hidden and trotted out at a later time, nor was there any way to duplicate the way it squirmed to the touch of the eye, nor the black blood dripping off the stump of it that didn¡¯t really seem to stop. Yeah, we¡¯d done a Total Clear that put every other Fellowship since the Fall to utter shame, and we¡¯d done it without a crew of all paramounts! ¡°The Total Clear of the Quiddity Seed dungeon is confirmed!¡± the judge, a portly fellow called Honest Earnest, announced after taking one more reading. ¡°Record the time on the Total Clear board!¡± The next closest time was 1:04:17, with an asterisk, representing the second Fellowship that had to go in, pull the lever to the force screen, and help extract the other team so they could make it back to the surface. ¡°How?¡± Vagrix, leader of the former Total Clear best time team, asked, his face rather ashen. Not only had his accomplishment been beaten, but the time for the Mick¡¯s team was only a minute off the absolute best Clear time, held by the team led by his longtime rival, Willard the Killer! ¡°Good tactics an¡¯ good teamwork,¡± the Mick said dismissively, looking at the time. ¡°Bah,¡± he muttered so everyone else could hear. ¡°At least two minutes shy of before the Fall. Roaches, we got a lot o¡¯ work ahead of us.¡± ¡°Yes, sir!¡± the five Royal Scouts shouted out, trying to keep the proud smiles off their faces, and only partially succeeding. -Hur hur hur!- Kopf /chortled freely, despite his face being glacially impassive. He moved on out, and whether they wanted to or not, everyone got out of the big lugian¡¯s path, and we headed on out of there. AF Chapter 160 – New Roads ¡°Not honest, comparing us to the Fall!¡± Mizaya piped up as we sprawled out around the Wagon later. ¡°They got to exit through Portals when they killed dungeon Bosses back then, didn¡¯t they?¡± she pointed out. ¡°Well, yeah. Making us hoof it all the way back up the Dungeon t¡¯ go through the respawns again? Why not let us walk out? We just would have Recalled away at the bottom, anyway.¡± The Mick rolled an eye at me. ¡°Not that such a trick was going to work in there, lass?¡± ¡°Aye, it¡¯s proof against dimensional movement in there, probably a side-effect of the residual Wards from when he was trapped inside. So, we would have had to walk out regardless, and no convenient Portals at the bottom for us!¡± ¡°Realistic, if not convenient. After all, a Portal out is also a convenient way in for those who know what they are doing,¡± Kris summed up dryly, not batting an eye. ¡°The next time we go in, you might want to drive some stairways down behind some cover. Hoofing it up twenty stories is also exhausting, but that ramp is just mean.¡± We were sprawled around the Wagon, Kris¡¯ mobile floating home, now known, admired, and desired by a lot of others who wanted similar things. She put a lot of continuous Gear-magic effects into it, as well as spatial expansions for the inside. I¡¯d helped her quintuple the carrying capacity, and it could turn from basically a mostly-empty box to an apartment a-hover with a few pulled levers, as well as possessing slide-outs and fold-downs and rise-ups and extend-downs that could make it into a decent house or forward operating base if she bothered to park it somewhere for a while. Mostly, she used it to haul stuff and people around, buying and selling stuff here and there, moving Scouts and well-paying travelers both around the Vesayans and across the channel to Dereth. It meant she was running around pretty much constantly here and there, and she had earned a fast and deadly reputation for the Wagon being able to suddenly disgorge an elite human Scout team out of nowhere. Her laugh and Quaver were very well known among the intelligent creatures of the southern lands now. If I was with her, even the more savage of the intelligent creatures knew to leave us alone, as we cut them down, Burned them en vivus, and moved on, no muss, no fuss. If they didn¡¯t bug us, we didn¡¯t bug them. She easily hoofed it over a hundred miles a day, not at all put off by the sheer amount of running as she crisscrossed the landscape in pursuit of goals major and minor, charting and tracking and putting everything into the Markspace Map. Scouts had to know the lay of the lands they were covering. That area was expanding every day Kris was out there, every day a Marked Scout walked into new terrain, and it was updated in real time. Today, she was back to help run the Dungeon that had consumed a lot of her time in vicious hacking combat. Nobody here had seen Matrix-style fighting styles, especially the Fire Dragon techniques, and her ability to shred through Bile Grievvers faster than even a paramount had been noticed a long time ago. When the Mick started to chase her with that speed, using his own Blade that wasn¡¯t trailing Lost Light, that was noticed, too, and that was when the recruits had begun to come in. Key among them had been enthusiastic younger Royal Guards, their mindsets and devotion to their King running smack dab into the Mick¡¯s curse-ye-roach style of teaching and an Imperial Princess¡¯ towering presence and utter lack of willingness to put up with any shit. The new generation was now growing in power with impressive speed. The Summons points of the Vesayans were seeing lots of daily traffic and more kills than ever, to the point where established circles of travel were in place as teams rotated between close points, getting in a lot of cardio while running from one Summons to the next. That wasn¡¯t the big reason why we¡¯d run the Quiddity Seed tonight. Tonight, I flipped the switch to Sage Sorcerer/9, and a bunch of things were going to change when I did. My chosen Sorcerer Valence V Rune Engram was Harden. It completed the Crafting Pentad of spells, a spell I basically used every single day, my key metric for a Sorcery. Everyone was waiting for the final spell, which would take the durability of their Gear to an unprecedented level. I also received a Feat, which would be Extra Spell Known, which was going to Arcane Fusion. Spend a Valence V, cast a Valence IV and I at the same time. It devoured Spell Slots, but it was a lot of firepower and multiple spells going out at once, the very essence of magic! My Ring Domain adding Astral Ward, my Bloodline adding Contingency, my Arcane Healing Domain adding Raise Dead... they were all secondary to the real power, and that was the fact I had access to Valence V Spells. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Which meant I could upcast Exemplar Surge to the V Valence and start fetching spells off my inner spell library there. The first of those was going to be Sending. The other huge kicker? Slotting my Divine Domain of Travel spell to its V, Teleport! The loss of the ability to Portal and Recall about Dereth had been the most crippling of losses to the Isparians who had dwelled here. They had eventually made an entire Portal Network, a building/Dungeon in dimensional space that had linked to over fifty different locations around the island. The Fiun Outpost in the far northwest took less time to get to from Ithaenc Cathedral in the far southeast than it took to run from Mayoi to Hebian-to overland, or to even walk from one side of Mayoi to the other. Those Portals, and the Recall spells tying Item Magic wielders to specific callpoints and Portals, had united the populations of Isparians, lugians, Aun tumeroks, Gear Knights, and eventually the freed Empyreans and emancipated shades in the way no conquest or kingship ever could. Trade had blossomed, knowledge could be rapidly exchanged, and there were no isolated communities unless they deliberately chose to be that way. Governing became easier, and there was no need for multiple armies to be dispatched about multiple holdings. Word could be sent in literally seconds if there were invaders, and reinforcements arrive from a central location to take up positions. As long as you held control of the incoming Portals and Callpoints, major garrisons didn¡¯t have to exist unless there was a Siege¡­ and a Siege was pointless unless you could close the relevant Portals or block incoming and outgoing Recalls. The Fall had both destroyed the existing Portals and sent almost all of the buildings in dimensional space crashing back into reality. Suddenly everyone had to hoof it between two points, not just when exploring in the wilderness, and they couldn¡¯t just Recall home for the day when they were done. It had been a hard and brutal adaptation, going back to the old way of doing things, where being fleet of foot and long-running were great advantages, and the untiring nature of the undead meant they had relentless dominance in such things. My getting Teleport would unlock a LOT of doors. Even the other Isparians practicing Wizardry and Sorcery were dependent on what I was unlocking, as they didn¡¯t have the Akashic connection to Matrix spellcasting that I did, and without my guidance would have Leveled with maddening slowness as they fumbled through the way forward. As far as we knew, the only being capable of outright Teleporting right now was Oswald the Green Hunter, a power he used to his great private advantage on whatever his goals were. Level V also meant access to Sending. I would finally be able to Send a message to Princess Kristie¡¯s folks and let them know how she was doing¡­ and I would be able to Send a Message to anyone from across the length and breadth of Dereth, if required, without needing a Scrying Pool, Rituals, and lots of mana to do the same, as was required now. With access to Valence V Slots, I could start gaining new Valence V spells every day for my Ringbook, ready to teach to the others. Dozens of Casters were hanging on the fact, waiting for new Infusions and Spells that would help them change the world and reclaim our place in it, fighting back against those who held the advantage against us now. It would happen at midnight. I had moved my Renewal time to Mystic Renewal, midnight, the time of the Silver Queen, a time much more in accord with someone who was Sustained. I sighed to myself, considering the massive numbers of Masteries I had taken the time and held off advancing to acquire as I stayed Deep and did not advance willy-nilly. I had stayed at Five for months just catching up to my Masteries, and then not advanced more than one Level every three days since then just to keep Masteries current and my Karma usage maxed. The Karmic Load from Cursing that soul-eating Entity back on Ispar was gone now, finally used up after three months of once-a-day updates. I hadn¡¯t focused my Karma on any particular skill or Stat, staying largely even with all of them, knowing that they were, in effect, purchasing the Exemplar Template slowly but surely. Karmic gain on that side was steady. My students and peers were earning me Karma, Leadership was taken as a Feat, right there with Duty and Faith as a factor getting people to believe in me, follow me, and help change the world. If there were a lot of people who wanted to be in at the middle of what was going on, and had to be content with staying on the outside as things dribbled out, well, it was a new day, a new generation, and the paramounts were not going to be dominating everything as they had for nearly two generations now. Some of them hadn¡¯t liked that, of course, and there had been excitement to that end, wherein lessons we were supposed to learn failed miserably to teach us anything, and lessons that should have already been known were administered in return, usually to quite lethal effect. There were five more dead paramounts at our hands, but nobody missed them. The new generation was rising, and Princess Kristie and I were leading the wave! AF Chapter 161 – A Crown at Midnight Highmoon was coming. The celebratory drinking was set aside, and everyone converged for the Salute to Sylune. It wasn¡¯t the most popular of Salutes. Everyone loved the Salute to Aru, as it was a wonderful way to start the day. The Salute to Mithar at Highsun was an affectation among the martial-minded and leaders working their way through the day. The Salute to Aethra at dusk was taken up by the Royal Scouts, as it called to their mission and purpose of standing the Long Watch, the service during the night against all that might threaten them during it. Sylune¡¯s Salute was most appealing to Good Spellcasters, and sailors at sea. A Light in the darkness, a way through the murk of dark knowledge and awareness of how deadly the world was out there, and a way home. Most people being asleep at the time was another big reason it wasn¡¯t as popular as the others were. Princess Kristie Saluted Sylune as a matter of course. Hagchildren were intimately tied to the Silver Queen, and the very existence of the Rantha Curseline was evidence of the power of the Silver Queen against the darkest of magicks. Hagchildren in general could be released from the Hag Curse by Sylune¡¯s power, and Ranthas, Ranthas WERE that light in the darkness of the Curse, and took the job very seriously, indeed. ¡°There is a light in the darkness. Our Lady in Silver walks the night, not the day, There to guide us on our way. The Moon cries silver tears along the Shining Road, The Court of Stars sings in the silence, Where the dark would be deepest and strongest. From the evening to the dawn afore. Walk through the darkness and follow the path Travel from light to light, And sing to the Day once more!¡± The gods did not answer here, save by the faintest connection to their Domains, which the words of the Salutes invoked. That didn¡¯t mean people didn¡¯t have Faith. I adamantly knew the gods existed. Inability to contact them or be heard was not because they were absent, but because they were either very far away¡­ or they were being blocked. My Ur-Priest Class Levels made me VERY sensitive to matters of Faith. Ur-Priests were the First Priests, the Shapers of Faith, the ancient shamans who could turn faith in ANY entity into power and magic, taking the belief of their tribes and peoples in ancient things and entities and shaping it into something more¡­ the first miracles! The arrival of the gods and their formal styles of worship and greater power had given Ur-Priests a very bad name as Faith-stealers and con men who opportunistically served whatever deity figure was around, whether it was real or not¡­ and their ability to steal Faith from even the gods was utterly reviled by the churches beneath them, allowing them to pass themselves off as priests of said gods, without even actually having any real belief in those gods! But a Good Ur-priest of Heaven, who could take Faith from any Good god with their implicit permission to do so? With the option of also stealing it from Neutral and Evil gods who had earned such attention, in the tradition of the finest of tricksters? That was just a generic priest of the Heavens themselves with an extra kicker¡­ and deniability of mortal deeds where it was needed. After all, the gods themselves couldn¡¯t tell when the Faith was stolen from them, they had to rely on mortal agents to suss such things out for them. Mystic Renewal turned as the moon and stars glittered above me, and swept across my Valences with the reinvigoration of a new magical day for me. Mental hands hit mental levers to release Karma, formulating what I intended to advance, the road already traveled, filling in what was already present with enlightenment and power. Sage Sorcerer of the Arcane Bloodline, Level Nine! Karma poured into my Matrix, peeled back the lines of resistance that might have taken prior Sorcerers years of introspection and self-study, and perhaps a lot of luck and magical accidents to unlock. Not knowing how to take the desired Spells when advancing, they would stumble into some other magical secret, making their advancement unpredictable and erratic, and forming the basis for the Wizardry that would follow in their footsteps, taking the way Sorcerers fumbled and wondered how their magic worked and decoding its secrets into the more predictable and disciplined art of Wizardry. Where Sorcery and Wizardry came together, you had the Arcane Theurge, or Magos. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. I didn¡¯t have to tolerate the random whims of magic depositing some sudden insight into a trick of the universe. I picked a spell off the Wall of them in my head and planted it, even as my Bloodline lit up with the conceptual heredity of countless Sorcerers Awakened to magic BY magic itself, and their desires and practices rippled from the akasha of the past into a form passed on to their successors. The Arcane Bloodline of Sorcerers marked each of the Schools of Magic as it advanced in Level. Ghost Sound was the automatic Cantrip every Arcane/Sage Sorcerer knew. It was the sound of Magic speaking to you, and thence to others. Identify, a Divination, was the manifestation of the urge to understand what magic was at its core. False Life, a Necromancy, was using magic to preserve your own life with magical strength and vitality. Dispel Magic was an Abjuration, domination over others who thought they knew magic, taking it apart on them with your superior feel for the magic. Improved Invisibility was an Illusion, allowing you to walk the world unseen and do battle when others could not perceive you, as if magic itself was striking at them! Contingency was an Evocation spell, asking magic to do something if thus-and-so happened, and lo, magic obeyed your will! Silver Magic sparkled around me as the Valence opened, the manafield reacting to the landmark novelty of a V Matrix Ring opening up, the greater power and control it represented, and the base magic that was now possible with it being there. I didn¡¯t have to be a Ten yet, and had no intentions of moving that way until all the Advanced Theurgies and Classes I could advance to /5 were taken¡­ along with a LOT of Masteries. It was not that important, as long as I had the relevant Theurgies. For instance, Teleport and Sending? They were both IV Valence spells to a Binder, drawing on dimensional magicks as they did. I already had access to IV Valence spells, and Writing up Teleport as a V in Sorcerer meant I could also put it down in my Binder Slots without any problem¡­ tomorrow, when I took Eldritch Theurgy and got a bonus Eldritch Spell Known out of it, leaving my Domain Slot at V open for something else. Like, oh, the Regenerate I was going to surprise the Mick with and give him back his ring finger. Another spell that could eat up a lot of Valences over the course of a day if I went off and used it for the public, hundreds of whom had scars and injuries they¡¯d had to live with for years gained during the events of the Fall or afterwards, up to and including King Borelean himself. There were¡­ a lot of things to fill in. Sorcerer Spell Known. Mastery for Extra Spell Known/5, the permanent version. Arcane Healing Domain. Ring Domain from a Witchbonded Ring. Divine Domain from Ur Levels. Extra Spell Slots were forming, gaping holes eager to be filled with mana. Favored Class, Extra Spell Known of a level below the top I could learn. Skill points, two plus Intelligence Modifier, said Modifier having gone up a LOT over the last few months as I rounded out my Deep levels and got them all to Four, along with maxing out my Mark for Intellect, and Sustained Effort did its thing. I was actually pretty damn buff now, which was no surprise, as so was everyone else with Matrix Levels. Most people started higher than I had, of course, and I had regretfully found myself unable to work a Shadow Matrix and Nog myself up to Human Perfection, nor was I going to cripple my magical ability to do so. I guess I would just have to be content with when I reached Ten and the Human Exemplar began to unlock, stacking with the Isparian Stat Raises began, and our Stats really began to shoot for the moon. The only one currently benefiting from this was Lord Mick, and one of the reasons why he felt so domineering compared to the other Paramounts. He was basically getting Stat buffs similar to when the Gear was plentiful and Creature Magic Buffing Magic gave you bonuses for hours on end, making him right now the fastest, toughest, strongest, and wiliest of all the paramounts¡­ BEFORE all the Feats and Masteries he had picked up kicked in. Very few paramounts had actually seen him fight, and would have been hugely intimidated if they had. The Mick was now at least as murderously competent as he¡¯d been before the Fall, Bunita was closing in on ten Slots and becoming an ultimate-tier mortal Weapon, and he was freaking enjoying the return to dominance of the physical melee combatant. A bunch of things on Dereth had quietly found that out, too, as he ground his way up to Melee/10 with the wide non-Caster Classes on Deep support, mainly because Princess Kristie chewed the shit out of him any time he thought about going Higher any faster. ¡°I¡¯ve got about a half hour of Meditation to do, and we can begin on our special projects,¡± I told everyone quietly. Three base V Spell Slots. Four more from Int 45 Valence bonuses, for seven Slots each needing fifty mana-equivalent to fill. I had to settle all the new Domain Slots, fine-tune my Matrix, and get all my ducks in order to finally start on what we¡¯d been planning all along. We had plans we¡¯d quietly put off until this moment, concentrating on basic grinding, recruiting, experimenting, and training. As the highest Level, Mick had the Allegiance lead as it was reformed, even if he deferred to Kris on most things, acknowledging just how ruinously adept she was, and she was only getting better. It was time to go out into Dereth and make it a much less exciting place, and see just how much the powers there liked it when it was their turn to Fall¡­ AF Chapter 162 – A Channel Road We were off before the sun rose, reaching the Ithaenc Jump before dawn. My reaching Seven in Sorcerer had opened up Dimension Door and Linejump as viable methods of bringing back at least some Portal functionality. I had celebrated by setting up a few ¡®bridges¡¯ across the waters between the Vesayan Islands at certain points. The first Jump was between Freehold and Fishtail, jumping to the Northern Tadpole across the fairly short gap there. I even erected the tall pier/bridge leading out to the Jump Point, just inside the Shore Ward. The remorans and occasional sleech or niffi could be seen in the waters there outside, wondering if we might mess up and jump through the Shoreward somehow and become food. But, no. Pump in 40 mana, and a Dimension Door would pop you across the gap of a few hundred paces to the receiving arch on the other side, crossing the water without having to put up any interference from the Aquatics. Quick, easy, get you and anything you were carrying across, and anybody could reach 40 mana fairly easily. It saved hours of travel time. The second Jump from Fishtail to Kryst Island followed, meaning the big loop around Fishtail didn¡¯t have to be traversed by individuals, although the Jumps couldn¡¯t take wagons or cargo that wasn¡¯t being carried. The third Jump was Ithaenc to the Big Tadpole in the south, and suddenly the beaches by the Lighthouse were prime ground¡­ ground thoughtfully claimed and owned by the Aun, who guided development as the place became a high traffic area soon enough between people doing end runs around and not having to traverse Avallele Island to the north of Ithaenc to get to the good stuff. The redirection had the effect of turning Avallele into basically a pure hunting/adventuring place as mercantile traffic there was quickly reduced. And finally, there was the Big Jump on Kryst Island itself, which used Linejump instead of Dimension Door. It flashed travelers ten miles across the Vesayan Channel to an Archway right in the former Vesayan Overlook cottage settlement for 80 mana, and you could take along an extra person, unlike Dimension Door. The receiving Vesayan Overlook had naturally been built up into a fortified position, a duty I had undertaken in one night and turned the whole area into basically a new fortress on Dereth, shocking the Hell out of the Gotrok scouts when it popped up out of nowhere. They had been even more unpleasantly surprised when it was fully staffed and the Mick and his students started operating out of there. Aggressively. There had only been one real attack on the place, the Scouts reported it coming, and paramounts from Ithaenc had poured in to the fight before the lugians even managed to arrive with an army of mostly Summons to fight for them. They hadn¡¯t expected the level of magic they found, and they certainly hadn¡¯t expected me to be able to pick out the living from the Summons. Thirty Gotrok had lost their lives before the rest picked up and retreated, and the Summons automatically headed back for their Spawn points once their commanders fled. Spawn points that were slowly and mysteriously vanishing across the south of Dereth, one by one. ------ This run across the Vesayan Channel was out in the open. The Wagon was floating there, fully visible. It had doubled in length since our first trip across the Channel, and was towing what was basically a cargo container, too. Scouts were sprawled while waiting across the top of it, and razor-sharp triple prows adorned the front of it, with blade-like extensions on the sides right about at the preferred heights the Aquatics used when they levitated out of the water. Which they had to do to Cast on us, not having Hydrous Spell like a certain someone who wasn¡¯t going to teach it to them, and thus unable to break the water/air divide smoothly. The paramounts coming along as guards were likewise waiting on top of the cargo container, mantlets inserted in the sides of it, the new high-strength Bows and Autobows joining the Wands and Staves the Casters had ready and waiting. I had taught a bunch of them Hydrous Spell, and they had been very surprised they could Cast at the equivalent of a Pyreal spell, but still using Gold, only more mana. They were even more delighted when they found out that with enough mana, they could get its additional fixed cost of 10 mana down to zero with enough Weirding practice. That took sixteen thousands reps of V¡¯s to make the Meta nothing, or a thousand reps of a particular ground-down Elemental Attack Spell V that took the place of all the Elemental War Magic spells to allow it a single free +I Meta. The remorans knew we were coming, as did their masters. We could see the colors flashing under the waters, and Kris just had this big grin on her face at what was going to be happening. After all, I was coming along. We had another guest for this trip, too. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°You look quite eager for this run, Princess,¡± Queen Mother Elysa Strathelar, standing at the forefront of the wagon and leaning on her new Windbow, spoke down to Kris quietly, knowing she would be heard. ¡°Aye, Your Majesty. This is your first time with the Magos along. You¡¯re in for a bit of a show!¡± Kris replied immediately to the former Queen and mother of the current King. ¡°I¡¯ve heard it is quite a sight. The creatures seem to relish the challenge, instead of learning a lesson?¡± Queen Elysa was a classic Aluvian blue-eyed blonde archer woman, pretty much the model and hero for two generations of women archers who came after her. After the Fall, the loss of vitality meant her age started to catch up with her, even if she was a full paramount. While she didn¡¯t adventure and grind like many of them did, her pass-up Karma from extremely loyal vassals and gifts of Luminance made sure that, like her son, she had reached full paramount status and could stand tall with any of them. She had remained in shape and graceful, but had started looking her seventy years of age, blonde hair going platinum, more lines, and not having the strength or endurance that she once had. Finding out that reaching Seven in a Matrix Class could restore her youth had sent her into a frenzied tear of activity, as Allegiance Karma wouldn¡¯t do the job. She had raged up and down Ithaenc and Avallele, even sniped around the edges of Tou-Tou, rapidly gaining the Karma to make Seven. She looked like her son¡¯s slightly older sister, now, as Borelean had been her constant companion through those hunts, for exactly the same reason, raising sword and shield with his mother and hunting for those Matrix Levels in Melee¡­ and getting them. The former Queen¡¯s hair was still white, but lustrous and silky full, not stringy with age. She was also in much better shape than she had ever been in her life, wisely stopping getting to Ten and going for a broader foundation in these new Classes and investment paradigms. Her presence was one of the things pulling the paramounts out of Ithaenc. If the former queen, who by all accounts had become a recluse with age, could come out of retirement and start fighting, what, then, were they? It was less courage than pure competitive instinct, and maybe a little (lot) of guilt and shame at the example she was providing. The famous Bow she had used for decades, probably the most powerful Bow in all of Dereth, was not at her side. She had plied it on her hunt, then heard more about our attempts to break the true mastery of the Runes for Weapons, and donated it to that cause in favor of one of the new Windbows and the power of Naming Karma. Thorsten never left her side now, and was advancing smartly. It was as white as snow, and the Windstring, when it appeared, looked like a crackling line of electricity. Kris had carved the most upgraded Runes we knew into it herself. The incredible triple Imbue of Critical Strike, Crippling Blow, and Armor Render her Bow had possessed on top of an unrivaled +200% base damage had definitely been an Eternal-grade achievement that every weapon-maker wanted to duplicate, and simply couldn¡¯t understand how to possibly get three effects at a time to stick on a Weapon. That included Kris and I. We judged that a double Imbue was Eternal-level, and a triple only possible with 30 full ranks in Spellcraft or Artificing. Right now, she was wielding a Biting Strike Crushing Blow Armor Cleaver Windbow, which she was also filling with Naming Karma along the Zen Eagle path of ¡°I won¡¯t miss, now die¡± path. It had cost a LOT of pyreal to get those Runes powered up, basically most of her accumulated savings, and she didn¡¯t give a damn. With a monstrous 40% crit rate adding in the Improved Critical Feat, x4 Crits, and armor protection chopped in half, there was no reason for her to regret her choice. Sure, it was 50% and x6 before, BUT¡­ her old Bow didn¡¯t have infinite ammo, cycle between damage types at a thought, and wasn¡¯t building towards +12 to hit and +9 damage, and couldn¡¯t kill something at two hundred paces with ease! The first Levels she¡¯d taken had been Artificer, both to get Infusions and to be able to finally make her own basic Arms, Armor, and random Gear. She¡¯d made up her own Quiver, both Archers and One More Arrow in design. A Quiver of Archers held a lot of arrows, could stash a bow and staff or spears, and always drew out what you wanted. OMA meant you always had one more arrow, so if you wanted to draw and shoot, you always had ammo. You couldn¡¯t do Manyshot tricks with OMA arrows, as you always had only ONE more arrow, but true arrows had full range and added Windfire shot damage on top of them. Normal Windfire had much more restricted range, but it never ran out and it allowed blurringly fast arrow fire if needed, perfect for close-range, high-intensity salvo fire that punished swarms of foes, and you didn¡¯t need to carry around thousands of arrows for siege situations, you just shot. Take the right Feats, and you could still shoot a LOT of shots at the same time, too, which she was now gleefully building towards once she knew it was possible. ¡°I have indeed heard of the¡­ excitement that results when she rides along with you. Are you certain you are not tempting fate, however, Magos?¡± she asked me, inclining her head at the activity in the waters. I looked out at the Channel¡¯s gentle waters, and finger-flicked up the result of my Detect Aquatics at V, Cast while still on the Shore and getting the Buff of Earth Spell. A lot of curious heads leaned in to look at the scene in front of me, and all the glowing dots moving under the waves out there. There were a lot of them, especially when I panned my head forth and back. The remorans were in yellow and green, the latter color indicating the stronger ones, and their shelled masters were normally blue and indigo, with potential violet if one of the big ones showed up. ¡°About standard,¡± I replied, unruffled, and flicked my hand lightly. Eighteen Shards rose up in flying wedges of faceted jetsilver, the stars within and nimbus around them following the standard ROYGBIV-Black-White-Grey-Cow-Reverse Cow-Opalescent-Iridiscent-Cloudy-Crystalline-Plasma-Static-Snow-Bubbling format. A lot of different types of energies Elemental and not hung around them, and many a Caster in the area stared at them hungrily, dying to be able to Cast something like it. The fact was it was REALLY showy, and me being able to hold out an active combat spell like this was hugely envied, even more blatant than a naked blade. There were some of them who had delved into the battle magic of the Matrix spells, but the base spells were almost universally worse than Isparian-style magic, and even the Metas tended to work better on Isparian magic than Matrix spells. However, Matrix spells tended to have much better range, area of effect, and kept right on scaling by Level, and Isparian Magic... did not. It only really improved in Spell Penetration. Get your Caster Level up, and all things became possible! They could all do the math, and they knew my Caster Level was incredibly, lethally high. I wasn¡¯t going to have any pains landing on any of these creatures, even the most powerful of them, and that was before Spell Penetration. That included the likes of The Mick, too, which he just shrugged and accepted with good grace. If he could break Eternal, he could start scaling it again. AF Chapter 163 – Feeding on the Fishes ¡°You sent your granddaughter on ahead?¡± I asked the former Queen politely. ¡°She is coming along nicely, but she¡¯s not yet good enough to risk this passage,¡± Elysa Strathelar nodded once. Fan Borelean was a noble beauty, taking the best of Aluvian and Sho heritages. She had straight, luxurious hair as golden as her grandmother¡¯s had once been, sky blue eyes, and stood taller than most Sho men. Her facial features were mostly Sho, perhaps a little paler, her complexion the envy of all her Sho attendants. She¡¯d also taken up the path of an archer, not a spellcaster, and as a result her grandmother had been deeply involved with her almost all of her life, especially with the death of her mother Hoshino during the Fall. Fan had expected to take up her grandmother¡¯s Bow, but instead was now building up a Windbow of her own, the white and blues a reflection of her own eyes, simply called Azure. Being sent on ahead meant she¡¯d used the Big Jump for the Linejump right to the Overlook Fortress, doubtless with eight guards and attendants filling out her personal Fellowship. Like her father and grandmother, she had jumped into the Matrix Levels with both feet, dragging along her attendants on the same kind of crazy Leveling as them, especially to Name her Windbow and build its power. However, she was already young and didn¡¯t need the rejuvenation of Matrix Levels, so going Deep was an extremely important and viable option for her personal power, especially once she committed to archery. At just twenty-two years of age, she was already well past 150 on the Isparian side, despite the sparse Leveling opportunities, and advancing nicely on the Matrix side to supplement things. We only knew one another in passing, although Kris impressed the heck out of her as a fellow princess, and she was always pestering the Royal Scouts and the Mick to come along on raids and missions. King Borelean just threw up his hands when told of such things, as he knew as well as any that without Levels, the Powered here simply weren¡¯t going to respect you that much. She had to get those Levels, take the risks, prove herself, and go above and beyond what others were in order to be Queen someday. If she couldn¡¯t, there were certainly enough people around quite willing to take the throne from her, so she would have to be good about it. ¡°Any activity from the shadows?¡± I asked Elysa softly. She inclined her head ever-so-slightly. ¡°There are watching eyes, but they keep a careful distance. My granddaughter, however, has become aware of them, which means that they either dare to move closer, or have been told to.¡± She glanced at me warily. ¡°Yourself, Magos?¡± ¡°There¡¯s at least three agents of foreign powers watching me right now,¡± I said cheerfully. She raised her eyebrows in interest. ¡°Whoops, two.¡± I turned my head as the Mick turned the corner from the fishing village that had renamed itself Jump Village proudly, my first landfall in the Vesayans starting to turn into a larger and busier place with the traffic moving through it from Dereth. From here traffic flowed across to Kryst, hopped to Fishtail, and thence to Freehold in a straight line of travelers and benefits. The Mick had someone slung over his shoulder, calling out to one of the royal guards there and depositing his load into their grim and ready hands after a quick word from him. ¡°Two. One. Oh, looks like the others are withdrawing. Maybe they knew one another, or something,¡± I said lightly. She caught just the slightest sign of motion in the tree line behind the village. ¡°And the Aun are following them,¡± she judged, sharp approval in her eyes. ¡°And the Aun are following them,¡± I beamed. ¡°With orders to clean them up or capture them, as they like.¡± The Mick ambled up, radiating a grim power and resolve that got people moving out of his way before they even saw who was coming up on them, falling respectfully silent as he strode past. He met my eyes, inclined his head just slightly with a faint sign, and met the eyes of the Queen, who he gave a more formal nod to without stopping. His Roaches were already up and on the lead Wagon, no place else they were going to be. If that meant they got to fight where Princess Fan wasn¡¯t allowed, well, they weren¡¯t royalty risking their necks, and they weren¡¯t leaving Lord Mick. He waved greetings to some of the paramounts he knew personally, all of whom he recognized, and now who definitely recognized him. Then he hopped down from the pier onto the surface of the water and strode up next to Kris, also standing out there and not falling in, ignoring the envious eyes looking out after him for being able to do that with his own power. ¡°I see the excitement today will be high, Yer Highness-ness,¡± he drawled, crossing his arms and eyeing the waters of the Channel, actually looking at the Detect in the Markspace. ¡°Ye think they know we got true self-made royalty along?¡± he asked with a grin. ¡°Oh, you¡¯d be surprised what they can deduce just from the way people defer to one another,¡± Kris responded affably, stretching out slowly and leisurely, something that always attracted attention. She didn¡¯t have a chest, but the rest was just impossible not to admire, and she knew it well. ¡°Worried the old woman can¡¯t take care of herself?¡± she asked archly. His grin only got cheekier. ¡°She don¡¯t look so old no more, Highness.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°Some people are just born to wear white hair.¡± He snuck a glance at the Queen Mother. ¡°Truth an¡¯ no lie, that.¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t talking about her, Lord Mick,¡± she winked at him, and in spite of all his seniority, he blushed fiercely, before valiantly recovering with a self-assured stroking of the white at his temples and beard. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°The Black Aluvians in white were always the most dangerous, ¡®tis true,¡± he agreed with a haughty sniff. ¡°Because you rarely lived long enough to go gray, let alone white?¡± was her immediate rejoinder. ¡°Aye, there¡¯s the right of it!¡± he agreed firmly, seeing her turn around and face the Shoreward a few dozen yards away. His hand twitched up towards Bunita, but he did not pull it or his Shield Clan out. ¡°How ye be planning this?¡± ¡°I¡¯m being lazy today.¡± Kris negligently waved her hand at the top of the Wagon. ¡°Thin the chaff out, would you, Magos?¡± she asked lazily. --- Hitting Nine had given me access to a Mastery, which I¡¯d spent on Argent Savant Mastery/5, Master of Force. It cost the same as a Feat, more even. It was an at-will, Spell-Like Ability with a range of twenty paces, which allowed an Argent Savant to shatter Force Structures at will, not even a Caster Check allowed unless it was being actively fed/enforced. Doing so also blew the thing apart for some nice shredding Force damage to those in the vicinity. I couldn¡¯t blow the entire Shoreward apart, of course, but I could easily shatter open an opening big enough for the Wagon¡­ or somewhat smaller. But that wasn¡¯t what I was doing. The Shards I¡¯d flicked up hadn¡¯t gone down, because the other thing becoming a Nine had given me was those V Valences, which were just enough to let me use Perpetual Spell. I had to use base Shards, because my Soul Magic wasn¡¯t up to snuff at only +4 on Metamagical Soul. I had very little wriggle room for Metas, so I couldn¡¯t stack the best and most powerful of them. But, you know, I could ladle in all the +I and +II Metas I¡¯d spent hundreds of hours making Efficient and Practical and whatnot that I cared to, and I had two floating Valences from my Traits I could still apply. That meant 2 +III Metas, or one +IV Meta. Oh, and Residual Metamagic rendering one Meta free if I repeated the same spell on successive rounds. Which could totally be Perpetual Spell itself, letting me ladle in +IV effects on the second Casting. As for the first Casting, Chain/Echo did the job. These weren¡¯t chaff, so I wasn¡¯t using individual Shards, I was Spellwarping them down to Shardrays for the amassed single-target punch. My targets had a minimum of 200 Health, and the bigger ones grew quickly to 1000 and more, with the colossal bastards into the tens of thousands and higher out here. Hydrous and Aqueous Spell were both +I¡¯s, included for free, and meant I wouldn¡¯t have any problems with underwater targets. Polychromatic Lights condensed down and shot out through the Shoreward. We could toss spells out, they couldn¡¯t toss them in¡­ and they hadn¡¯t seemed to have learned the lesson that I, in particular, had massive range with my spells, to the tune of 3200 feet and more, a good thousand long paces. The Shardrays of many Colors and patterns shot out into the waters, the targets on my Detect Aquatics all shining for attention, and they began to reap. Due to the costs, the Holy Metas were applied to the main spell, not the Kickers, so 18d8¡¯s, +50%, Consecrated to 18 x 12 and +6 per die against some very non-Good targets, along with some fixed add-ons from Intellect, Masteries, Crown, and what-not, including at least +50 +8d6 in Kicker damage, strobed out from me. The only reason it wasn¡¯t a lot brighter was that the Radiant portion of it was all aimed at the remoras and their nautiloid bosses out there, and I had painted them all. The nautilods knew I was looking at them, but they weren¡¯t powerful enough to punish me for doing so. If their boss, the house-sized bastard, showed up, I¡¯d have to pull it in, but they could feel me staring at them in cold hostility, and now I opened up on them. The water about the beams didn¡¯t even boil or bubble, despite all the strange energies passing by and through. Two Shardrays struck Aquatics, and they began to die. 400+ damage was a lot of damage to eat, and these things¡¯ main protection against spells was lots of Health and Health Qi, not fancy things like Resistance, Protection, Ablation, and Armor and stuff, which let mere humans survive such stuff. They didn¡¯t have any of that protection. The distance of the Chains was only sixty feet per jump, so it meant I could only take out clusters of them. The second volley went out, Residual Metamagic kicked in, and Fastcast came in as payment, but it was single-target only, playing clean-up or picking off single targets with its own Split Rays. The third volley of spells I could Pair and Chain respectively, however, plus the Echoes came back to haunt them. Eight Shardrays hurtled forth in volley three, and Aquatics winked out all over my Detect area. In Volley Four, it was ten, as Echoed Paired Shards came back to bedevil them. What it looked like to those looking on was a volley of two spells became six spells, became a volley of eight spells, which then became a volley of ten spells, all stabbing out into the waves out there where they could see nothing, chiming and shining and lights going off in the rapidly-deepening waters¡­ and things were leaping up out of the waves in a panic. AF Chapter 164 – Burning a Road Through A lot of those things dancing crazily above the waves were Burning with fire, cold, lightning, and acidic energies, accented with Banefire and Holy Kickers devouring them alive. The trailing damage was generally +50+Kickers on the second round, down to +1d6+Kickers for four more rounds¡­ but +8d6 of Kickers was a lot of finishing damage over five rounds as they Burned, and vivus reduced them to white ash if they died quickly to it. The Casters behind me were staring in disbelief, but this was what months of waiting had done for me. I had brought up a Matrixed spell that scaled with Caster Level enough to hit this damn hard¡­ and it could be repeated, and repeated, and repeated! I¡¯d not shown this kind of damage punch, because I normally worked support, letting everyone else do the killing work while I made sure the punches coming in never landed or were Healed from quickly. Knowing I was there to do that kept a lot of people alive, and morale high as they knew they could fight, and that I had their backs. The Roaches and those who¡¯d seen me in the field knew the other side of the equation: that if things started at range, I could reach out and touch single targets, and do a lot of softening up of them. The most I¡¯d done to Aquatics in the past was generally swat them out of the air and out of our way, and the fact I could do it to a whole bunch of them was one of the reasons they couldn¡¯t stop the Wagon from coming through, and actually didn¡¯t randomly bug us. This was obviously a guided effort and time, done since we¡¯d revealed the fact we were going to cross early. ¡°I will not be able to sustain this level of firepower while crossing with all of you,¡± I said firmly, while ten strobing Rays pulsed out for hundreds of feet, hunting, Seeking, for targets who had no idea death was coming, only that their kind were screaming and Burning around them with unnatural flames. Some were attempting to flee, and as they did so, they naturally bunched up together for protection. Unfortunately for them, when Chains are concerned bunching up makes you more vulnerable, not less. If they came up out of the water to zip away from the death hunting them, well, that also made them more vulnerable. The area of my Detect was empty of anything dangerous living within two minutes, while if anything came above the waters within a thousand feet, it was a viable target regardless of how fast or erratically it was moving. If it was clusters of them, they were all targets. Everyone looked out on a seascape full of nearly two hundred remorans and nautiloids, floating there and Burning away in multi-hued flames. ¡°Welllllll,¡± Kris drawled as she looked around. ¡°I guess their little welcome party didn¡¯t work out so well for them. Shall we be going?¡± she asked rhetorically, and headed for the Shoreward without waiting for everyone to pick up their jaws. Her Null spread up and out, and the Shoreward, actually shimmering a bit from the power and variety of energy sources that had just gone through it, peeled away smoothly from in front of her as she led the way. The Mick trotted right beside her, Bunita out in his hand as Quaver was out in Princess Kristie¡¯s, both of the Swords trailing whorls and streams of Lost Light from their blades, one to the right, one to the left. It was quite the eye-catching sight, and if you knew them as well as I did, you knew it was incredibly dangerous. The fact the Mick had possessed his own Blackfire Stones, still tucked away on Swords he¡¯d long given up, recovered from his own dwelling place out in the wilds some time ago, meant Bunita¡¯s display of them wasn¡¯t any worse than Quaver¡¯s, either. ---- ¡°That is quite the impressive display of magic,¡± the Queen Mother Elysa Strathelar murmured to me under her breath. There was chiming in the magic as volleys of Shards materialized, faded, and re-materialized around me, the spells and their Echoes and Pairs manifesting and fading away. I was looking directly ahead, the Holo of my Detect showing targets within two hundred and forty paces in the forward arc. Some of the materializing Shards were Spellwarping into Shardrays, Splitting, and hissing out over Princess Kristie the Wagon Mule, plunging into the water, and clusters of Aquatics ahead of us were erupting Burning out of the waters to die. The Casters behind me were staring in utter disbelief, as it was apparent I was not holding the spells. I was Casting and re-Casting them so I would not have to restart the progression and build-up again¡­ and I clearly was using no or next to no power to do so! ¡°Thank you, Your Majesty. It¡¯s also a lot of time and investment, and knowing what to invest in and being able to do it. The Matrix system of magic has a lot of depth to it. Integrating it all has been quite the challenge these last few months.¡± ¡°May I ask how you are not running out of mana?¡± Elysa asked after another moment of chiming, rolling Shards materializing around me before hissing out after targets ahead of us. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. There were remorans and nautiloids rising up out of the waters to our flanks, but far enough away that they couldn¡¯t even Cast at us and hope to hit us with the limited range of their spells, nor could they outrun the casual pace Kris was setting, with her Lightfoot advanced along with the rest of her. ¡°There is an extremely advanced Metamagic skill in the Power of Ten system called Perpetual Spell. It is ruinously complex, hard to understand, and extremely demanding to tack onto an existing spell. If you can manage it, however, and your Matrix can only sustain one such effect at a time, it turns the spell into a Cantrip, a word for a type of spell that can be Cast out of ambient magic without drawing from the Caster¡¯s own Reserves, usually quite minor utility effects. ¡°What you are seeing is basically the equivalent of a Lead spell in the Matrix system, tricked out to the utter maximum, being Cast without tapping my Reserves.¡± She looked somewhat overcome at my display and the range of my killing ability. ¡°Well. This certainly seems to put archery to shame, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°My reply would be¡­ do you truly know what archery is capable of?¡± Her mouth opened, closed, and then she pursed her lips as she glanced at me and my entourage of Singing Shards playing at the Sublime Chord. ¡°I thought I was one of the best archers in the world. I probably still am. But¡­ that does not seem to be the limit of what you think of as archery¡­¡± ¡°It most assuredly is not. The epitome of Archery is One Shot, One Kill. Its brother is If I Can Shoot It, I Can Kill It. The true Archer builds towards those extremes. ¡°I am simply reaching the edge of that level of magical ability a bit sooner than most. I will also note that Princess Kristie down there could probably bat all of these attacks out of the air without much effort, and it wouldn¡¯t even slow her down much¡­ so the target is important.¡± Pressure, at the edge of my Detect! I let it fall and the Holo go abruptly blank! ¡°Company!¡± I called out around the chiming of my Shards coming in and fading out of existence, just as the water boiled and erupted ahead of us. It was the big one, rising like a small building out of the water ahead of us. By the gaze of all those eyes turned our way, it looked to be a mite miffed that I had wiped out so many of its underlings, and they had done somewhere between jack and squat back to us in return. It was also directly ahead of us. ¡°Infuse the Wagon,¡± I ordered under my breath, and the grinning Roaches leapt to obey. Their hands slapped down on lengths of metal that connected to other metal, and things began to gleam nastily, while the Mantlets along the top of the Wagon glittered with some very obdurate reinforcements to them. Kris and the Mick didn¡¯t alter course one step, heading right for the big guy at full speed. I redirected my Shards, but took them off Ray mode first, going back to normal Shards, and weaponizing them. Why? Because its shell was going to bounce my Rays crazily, and I didn¡¯t want them coming back at us. Yeah, I lost the double damage. But the +10 or so Weapon damage per Shard was a decent replacement, if not a complete one. Also, it was a lot of Toppling attacks. This big fellow hadn¡¯t made more than an occasional appearance on Kris¡¯ past runs, mostly because she gave them no warning when she was coming across. By the time they knew she was coming, she was already over halfway across, and it couldn¡¯t move fast enough to get in the way. Now it was in the path. Poor it. ¡°All mages hold spells until in range. If you hit its shell with your spells, they will BOUNCE. Aim for the center of the tentacles!¡± I Said, Magevoice making damn sure they could hear me. ¡°Your Majesty, if you would care to land two spells for me? Arrow up!¡± Startled, she nevertheless had an arrow out in a second and was poised in perfect Stance, settling in on the rapidly closing target. I reached out and dropped an Arcane Fusion on her arrow. She released the shot with cool confidence at two hundred meters. It zipped out ahead on Cyclonic wings, and plunged directly into the creature¡¯s head as it did so. There was a swirl around it, and a shimmer of bladed yellow light settling into it. It no doubt realized what was about to happen, but it couldn¡¯t counter-Buff in time, and these things almost never Buffed ahead of time. ¡°Fire!¡± I said, and dumped over two hundred mana into Energized Silver Whirling Blades, ladling them across my Shards for extra fun. Wedges of Force became crescent blades and went shooting out in a murderous salvo. All the mages opened up, the archers had already been shooting. A massive Acid Volley burst out of the thing, aiming right for us. Kris sniffed in disdain, skated to one side, and like a dance partner, the Mick matched her. Bunita and Quaver rose as the Wagon followed them, most of the acidic magic was going to hurtle past us, and as two of the shots zeroed in, both of them cut without a care in the world. Lost Light in gold and rainbow-edged motes of Radiant Force slashed out, and sliced the incoming Tier 8 or 9 spell apart into dissipating shreds of acidic magic that harmed nothing without even slowing down. Point-blank spells blew past and around me, spinning blades and wheels of cutting Force, smashing into the thing as it was sent spinning wildly at the impact of my Shards detonating and tearing into it. Arrows and quarrels drove into its face and eyes as it warbled and squealed in an ear-piercing pitch, its tentacles spinning and flaring as it was knocked to the side, and everyone ducked. Whopchopcrashbangcrunch, and we were still in motion as the Wagon tilted and abruptly steadied itself, continuing on without losing speed. AF Chapter 165 – To the Overlook Fortress There was a thirty-foot tentacle draped over the front of the Wagon, severed and smashed down right between the Queen Mother and I. One had swept across the top of the supply Trailer behind, and a couple men who hadn¡¯t gotten down in time had been flattened promptly, but not sent overboard. Their friends were seeing to them. It had ten tentacles, had being key. Four of them were chopped right off by running into the Wagon, as Kris had made a running jump up just to get the blades of the Wagon and all its mass cutting across the flailing things. I hadn¡¯t lost my Fastcast Shards, and two oversized Remorans that exploded out of the water ahead of us ate them, sending them tumbling and spinning as Kris and the Mick came right up on them, the Blades of the two and the Wagon gleaming. The Lost Light removed wings, mounted blades punched into flapping, squealing bodies, and they fell Burning off to the side, too, quite done for. My normal Shard salvos restarted as the minions of the big Sleech back there got brave and came bursting up out of the water to close on us. Split Chained Shardrays sent them tumbling and spinning away, Burning, dying, as hostile spells blasted in from all directions and detonated against the walls of the Wagon and its Trailer¡­ and did a whole lot of nothing to them. A certain someone had been at it Hardening a lot of Ironwood, which the Artificers had thoughtfully made Impervious, and then layered on Acid Bane to double Hardness against acid, and Resist Acid at 30 points, as well as Force Bane and Force Ward, doing the same for the variants of Force Magic they could unleash. Incoming damage from those Elements was first reduced in half by attacking objects, then by another fifty percent with Protection from the appropriate Element type, then reduced by 30 points, and THEN it had to overcome the boosted Hardness of the Wagon¡¯s walls, currently somewhere between 35 and 40. Oh, and the whole thing was Acid-Washed and had a deep, dark Blueshine Slake to it, and so was impervious to acid. That incoming acid spell hadn¡¯t been going to do anything, but stopping it was a nice show of skill and power by the pair up front. The way in front of us cleared out by way of spinning, dying Aquatics falling in all directions, things that proliferated as everyone got back to their feet and returned fire. I did something a little bit worse. Noting that the big sucker was bleeding so much, I sent out an Emotion spell at the Remorans around it, borrowing power from Kris to Widen the spell over a larger area, and drove them promptly into a Blood Frenzy. They looked like sharks with manta ray bodies. The results were predictable. Also, Frenzy was a deeper form of Rage, and Rage often makes the subject immune to mental control and the like. So, not only did I drive the remorans crazy with blood fervor, I also removed them from the big sleech¡¯s control at the same time. Oh, and sharklike, that stuff is infectious, too. A squeal part sonic and part mental disbelief rose behind us in pain and shock as the remorans all about the big thing turned on their master and overlord in wild, pitched bloodlust, closing on it to feed. Fresh ichor dotted the ocean, the smell rising in the air and spreading through the water, and the combination of that and the sight of their own feeding madly brought the other remorans in to join the feeding frenzy. In only a couple of breaths, that massive sleech was covered in a cloud of blood-mad winged shark-rays, hanging on its tentacles and feeding on its flesh with wild abandon. ¡°Mind control is such a damn pisser when you lose it in the middle of a lot of hungry non-pawns suddenly,¡± I said to the world. I¡¯d given up shooting the things, because remorans were jetting out of the water and winging their way in the most predatory manner towards the excitement going on behind us. Their sleech, niffi, and nefane masters were kind of looking after them in disbelief as to what was going on, their remoran servants utterly ignoring them. Well, those things I was happy to pop with Slashing Shardrays, splattering their blood all over the place and drawing the attention of more distant remorans to the fact there were a whole lot of bloody things all over the place to eat and start their own feeding frenzy on. ¡°It¡¯s starting to boil,¡± Selena murmured, putting down her Bow with everyone else. Things were coming out of the sea in all directions, converging on the mad activity, drawn by acute psychic sensitivity no doubt bred or instilled into them, and their ancient instincts finally finding a primal outlet to unleash in. I watched a pack of remorans suddenly alter course towards some floating pale blue and white sleeches who were probably attempting to control them. The school of winged death plunged down upon them with open jaws, driving them down and across the water. Within seconds they were joined by three other schools of remorans in various colors, and more blue ichor was splashing in the ocean. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°So, how long have you been planning this, Magos?¡± Hundig asked in quiet awe at what I¡¯d set into motion. There were hundreds of remorans converging this way from all directions, starting knots of violence as they lit into nautiloids trying to control them, or who simply got in their way. ¡°Since the first time I saw that damn boss and the slavemaster links of psychic control in the thaumaspectrum,¡± I responded coolly. ¡°Those things are learning a lesson about the viability of mind control upon savage beasts bred for war. ¡°The best part of this is going to be their arrogance. They will immediately blame me and some scurrilous Isparian magic for what happened here, if they carry word of it away, and think it won¡¯t happen again. ¡°But the rage of these enslaved remorans is going to carry this event far and wide on their own psychic bonds, and blood, blood is going to be a very dangerous thing for the nautiloids in the future.¡± My smile was grim and knowing. ¡°Not much for slavery, even of the enemy, are you?¡± Queen Mother Elysa asked softly, watching remorans erupting out of the ocean still, winging their way like hunting hawks towards a rapidly growing area of conflict falling quickly away behind us. Or they were falling upon a bunch of nautiloids I¡¯d chopped into kibble to help spread the frenzy effect further and faster. --- Bunita cut across, a swath of Lost Light hacked through a steel-hard shell, and a red and green nautiloid went spinning away, ichor spurting blue-green as it did so. An incoming pack of gray-blue remorans shifted directly towards the new meal as Kris just ran on, ignoring the explosion of Force magic and acid sprays as the squealing remnants of the nautiloid pod opened up with spells together, and their outraged minions replied in kind before abruptly swarming in on them and driving them frothing under the waters. ¡°The lass is crazy-dangerous when she resorts to The Cheese,¡± the Black Aluvian paramount mentioned to Kris. ¡°Helps that the bastards have never faced that kind of magic before in combat. Their mind-control is more passive and pervasive than abrupt and domineering, and just needed something to overwhelm it,¡± Kris nodded, still skating powerfully for speed and distance, showing no weakness to anything watching them at all. Quaver was humming a sad killing dirge that was actively encouraging all the remorans to veer out of the way, instinctively avoiding the two notes that portended death among them. The nautiloids did it because they didn¡¯t want to be splattered across the front of the Wagon, even if the two streams of Lost Light didn¡¯t chop them apart. ¡°Ye think it will actually encourage the nauts to get the fuck out o¡¯ here an¡¯ stop harassing the Vesayans?¡± he asked. ¡°Well, at the very least, they¡¯re going to want to stay out of MY way, and the Wagons. We need only expand that to actual boats, and we¡¯ll be good to go.¡± The Mick nodded shortly. It was a good and cunning plan, and if it didn¡¯t work perfectly, that would be fine. Shore dwellers were not the natural prey of remorans, anything in the sea was. Without the nautiloids telling them to attack passing Isparians, the shark-rays would simply ignore them. But now, any that survived this fight were going to pass on that the taste of their masters was natural and filling, and the red rage would allow them to feast as they wanted to. Magos Ryin said the creatures were as smart as dogs or wolves, the better to obey their masters readily. They¡¯d learned a grim and bloody truth about their masters today, and who knew what it would grow into? ¡°Ye gotta admit it be quite a sight,¡± the Mick mentioned, looking about at so, so many remorans coming in from all directions, winging to the hunt across the surface of the sea. ¡°When the slaves rise in rebellion, it tends to be infectious!¡± grinned Princess Kristie with that savage smile of hers, the one promising all sorts of mayhem to anyone that tried to control her. ¡°If the Druidic magic she spoke of be trapped an¡¯ released, any chance we might become friends?¡± he asked, a stray thought popping free. ¡°They are Magical Beasts, not Animals,¡± she replied promptly. ¡°You might be able to speak with them, perhaps earn their trust¡­ but if you¡¯re thinking about Druidic Companion Beasts, no, that¡¯s not going to happen, and they are too powerful to become Familiars. ¡°You could try Charming one once she releases that knowledge, but that¡¯s basically following in the footsteps of the nautiloids, and you see where that led.¡± ¡°Aye. Practical an¡¯ easy, right up until it eats you alive,¡± he agreed with a slow nod. It was tempting thoughts, taking absolute control of something, making it into a weapon of your will¡­ and not so different from what all the kings and nobles had been trying to make of the hill clans for generations. A hill clanner came willingly, or they came not at all. That was the way of things, how it was meant to be. He could only encourage the death machines that were the remorans as they sped along on geomagnetism and beats of wings that couldn¡¯t possibly support their weight, skimming the waves faster than they could swim through them, closing in on bloody freedom and release from bondage with all speed. ¡°Ye think we should have warned Overlook that something entertaining might be happening on this run?¡± he remarked innocently. Kris chuckled with a hard and steely edge to the sound. ¡°They know who¡¯s responsible, especially as we roll right up to the shore and none of this stuff so much as glances at us any more.¡± Her pale violet eyes glittered with reflections from Quaver''s Lost Light trail, dancing and sparkling with freedom and fury intermixed. If her mother were aught like her, no wonder she united Aluvia and brought them together to stomp on the Viamontians once and for all, the Mick mused. That level of emotion and raw passion would have all the hill clans falling all over themselves to follow her into a fight against their generational enemies, and woe would be the Blues once Aluvians actually united and fought together! Kris and the lass spoke urgently of rights of the people, truths that were self-evident, and the ideas they had tossed out still reverberated in his bones. Just words, philosophical bantering about, worthless as spitting in the wind. Until, mayhap, you gathered enough people spitting, and drowned the wind in spit and spittle and vitriol that damn ye, listen to what we be saying! A King who rolled with the approval of the people, the land, and the gods themselves! That there would be a True King, aye, well enough... And it only took looking at some murderous eating machines tearing free of their psychic shackles to crystallize just how precious those freedoms and rights were to him, even as he admitted people needed to follow something. What that would be, as they became the Tip of the Spear returning Isparians to Dereth, still remained to be seen¡­ AF Chapter 166 – Overlook Fortress The rebuilt fortress was visible from miles away if you knew what to look for, being built on a leveled spot on the mountainside, right up to the edge so it would be visible. Flags flew from tower tops, there to draw attention, there to proclaim there were living folk inside, and this territory was now something they would once again be fighting for. The Gotrok and the Hea had come a couple of times since then, and they had been beaten back with bloody losses that had surprised the heck out of them. There was a long pier extending out from the shores below the fortress, Shaped from the living stone and solid as they come, tapping the ley line just enough to deny the wind and waves and the degradation they might bring. It extended right up to the edge of the Shoreward, high enough above the waters a fisherman could easily sail right under it, not impeding the tides or water currents much at all. It was there for the Wagon, and mayhap in the future, actual boats and ships that might cross the waters back and forth from the Vesayan Islands with cargoes of sufficient size to merit them. The Big Jump only did so much, after all, although it was a fast way to move higher-Level people who could afford the price of mana that it demanded to work. The cottages that had composed the settlement were gone, disassembled and integrated into the fortress itself. Their ley line links were now feeding into the stones that had flowed up out of the ground, building the walls, bailey, buildings, barracks, and the dungeons beneath, dungeons that opened up on sheer cliffsides if you knew what to look for, providing living quarters below-ground that were actually quite livable. There weren¡¯t any farms or anything yet in the surrounding area, although mines long laid empty had been scouted, cleared, and were ready to accept men willing to pull the wealth of the earth out of the ground once more. The new magic of Summoning Earth Elementals to help with that and making the mining tunnels stronger, safer, and stabler had the knowledgeable excited about that, too. Already iron and copper were coming out of the mines, smiths were coming in to work the metal and send it on to the islands, and the Mick knew an old pyreal mine was waiting its turn to be opened up now. Crafted pyreal was worth a LOT in goldweight for making more items of magic, and the new Artificers were hungry for anything and everything that could drive the making of more Artifice forward! Princess Kristie Rantha skated up to the edge of the pier fifteen feet above the water and leapt without slowing down, the Mick following her. Those atop the Wagon and the cargo Trailer held on as she easily cleared the height, she and the Mick touching down without breaking stride, the Disk-borne vessels rising and drawn along behind them as her Null punched through the Shoreward without any difficulty to let them through. The Mick turned his head just enough to watch Magos Ryin wave her Staff Crown back at the hole they¡¯d made. Argent sparkles closed about the gap, rapidly mending the empty space back closed before anything could follow them. A casual exercise of power, but one nobody else here could do, once again. A rising horn above saluted their coming, and his student Rogar pulled out his own horn to blow the return notes. Not that they needed to do so, as there were Marked up above who¡¯d been following their progress with great interest while keeping their mouths totally shut about what was going on. The communication ability of the Marks was one of their great leverage tools, and the people who knew about it were few, and those who were Marked even fewer. Those who qualified to be Marked were special folks, and unlike the old times, not just anyone was going to get the Marks and the advantages of them, like it or not, the Mick mused for the umpteenth time. There were multiple ways up to Overlook, all of them made by Magos Ryin with an eye for use. There was the long cutback that rose from the shore in easy, gradual slopes that could be used by normal wheeled wagons or the elderly, although they were a bit of walking to go up them. There were stairs that cut through the cutback, steep but getting you directly up five hundred feet to the fortress above, with landings and defensive posts for sentries and seats to rest and what not¡­ and all within clear view of archers on the walls above, and even on the balconies from the cliff-sides, which he knew had shield-mantlets that could be wheeled out to provide cover for archers there. There was also a simple ladder of rungs, carved right into the cliff-side for the adventurous, right next to a spinning chute that would slide you right down to the bottom in short order, or spin you off onto one of the landings there. Said landings could also have poles reaching down to the next level, just hop and grab and slide directly down to a linking tunnel¡­ or, if you were strong enough, haul yourself up them. Lastly were the Scaffold Steps, from which sometimes hung flags or banners or other things. Those were intended for the lightfooters. Naturally, Kris headed directly for them without hesitation. Up close, the Scaffold Steps didn¡¯t look like much, although how readily the flags could be changed might make a thinker frown. They were staggered at ten-foot intervals, ten feet up and twenty feet sideways each one, hard limbs of stone extending out from the cliff with their loads of cloth flapping in the wind. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Kris headed right for the face of the stone as the Mick slid off to the side and back, letting the Wagon and its Trailer pass him by with casual ease. He always enjoyed the sight, especially the reactions of the first-timers as it looked like they¡¯d go crashing into the wall, when suddenly Princess Rantha jumped up. It was clearly effortless, her forward momentum abruptly becoming vertical, and she landed on the first beam twenty feet off the ground with the grace of a dancer and lightness of a leaf. Without any apparent exertion, she kicked off sideways and up, what were called ¡®parkour-style¡¯, to the next beam. The Wagon and its Trailer kept pace with her waist as she kicked off, one Step after another, rising with great speed towards the Fortress above. The Mick followed afterwards, taking great pleasure in the fact that he could also finally jump like this once more, with unerring precision and power. It was now more about ki than pure brute strength, although casual power also played a part. Aye, true lightfoot was about ki control, and he¡¯d spent thousands of hours over the past months getting that control in place, reclaiming what he¡¯d once had, and, aye, building it as high or higher than before, and now the power was truly his, not something drawn with every step from the land. Truth be told, he could outrace Kris now, the fact he was a faux Twenty on the Isparian side of the magic giving him some advantages over her as his own Levels increased. It didn¡¯t bother the Princess at all, regardless, as she basically told him that he was a slow turtle until he could run up the side of the cliff in six seconds, and she was in the same boat. He was looking forward to being able to do that, too. A casual thought at and glance conveyed from Magos Ryin assured him that all the men had their eyes glued to Princess Kristie¡¯s ass as she bounced up the Steps like she was built of steel springs for artful long legs and rubber for muscles, a view that was really, really hard to get tired of. The Princess¡¯ attitude that if the men found it easy to ignore her ass they weren¡¯t red-blooded men certainly didn¡¯t hurt matters. There were some paramounts who¡¯d been pretty blunt and forward about their desires, and he knew that she¡¯d indulged in a couple of them¡­ mostly by the way she had a big shit-eating grin afterwards, and those fellows hadn¡¯t been seen for a couple days. They also got a little twitchy and pale whenever the subject of her was mentioned. The blunt propositions to the Imperial Princess had dried up among the knowledgeable, although she was deftly going through the ones with the biggest egos. At least, that looked like the criteria she was using, although she had a preference for big, strong, hairy men she was quite unrepentant and vocal about if asked. She could also be VERY instructive on sexual techniques if you were daring enough to ask her¡­ The Mick had indeed asked her, daring being one of his numerous middle names, and as a result found himself with a growing reputation as a fantastic and considerate lover among the fairer sex. Night Rose Ranks really were quite handy, and he appreciated the way the Princess was using them even now. Less than an inch of extra movement, and the men were all were watching her ass and legs, probably gritting their teeth and trying to keep their groins under control at the sight of that much vitality and joy in her own physicality. The easiest way to control it was to shift their eyes to Magos Ryin, who took the White path instead of the Orange for the same Night Rose Ranks, clean and serene and put all your cares into her hands and you would be just fine. She radiated big sister and little sister and mother and mentor and perfect wife, just standing there with perfect composure and calm, somehow making the Queen Mother herself, Elysa Strathelar, look at best like a peer, and at worst a student or aspirant. Her simple black and white attire was comfortable, her curves something more to imagine than on display like Kris in her tight leathers, but the way her silken white hair moved over skin like coffee, the harmony with the world that seemed to walk with her, aye, it could mesmerize and draw the eye every bit as much as Kris¡¯ celebration of life and her joy in living it. The Wagon and Trailer reached the top of the overhang in less than a minute of bouncing lightfooting Rantha princess. She flipped and spun lightly over the edge, trotted forward and sideways, and the Mick was up behind her a moment later, sliding around the Wagon to draw up next to her smoothly, waving at the men on the walls happy to see them and calling out greetings below to those they knew. Without further ado, they entered the main gates of the fortress, and passed into Overlook. --- Waiting to the sides inside were two groups of people. One was here to greet the Queen Mother, and the other was there to greet us. Almost all of them had arrived through the Big Jump Portal located inside the main keep of the Fortress. Elysa didn¡¯t hold to ceremony, swinging over the side and to the ground to greet her grand-daughter as if she wasn¡¯t supposed to be this conservative picture of queendom, but was instead an experienced adventurer who¡¯d been through all sorts of Hell at her grand-daughter¡¯s age herself. Elysa¡¯s own friends and attendants hastily spilled over after her, many of their own children or grand-children among Princess Fan¡¯s attendants. Multiple generations of royalty, nobility, and their vassals called out and embraced as if they hadn¡¯t seen one another in weeks, instead of merely a few days. A few days could be very exciting when on Dereth, after all, a fact everyone had learned by now. I was one of the last to hop down, Kris and Lord Mick rapidly receiving visible reports from the commander of the fortress and the operating head of the local Scouts. Lord Mick¡¯s known association with the King and open favor meant his effective rank was higher than everyone here except the Queen Mother, a quiet fact conveyed to everyone even as he never interfered with normal military matters if he could possibly help it¡­ but for anything dealing with the Royal Scouts, he responded with an immediate protective zealotry that had earned the Scouts¡¯ undying loyalty. Kris, however, had been named Royal Warlord of Dereth, her commands second only to the King himself, and that only in the Vesayans. On Dereth, she held ultimate authority, and was involved in every aspect of what was going on, showing boundless energy, enthusiasm, discipline, and a power to command that the wise found rather terrifying, and the less wise just followed fanatically. A Rantha Warlord, the Tip of the Spear! AF Chapter 167 – Readying the Spear Most of the detail work that had to be addressed had already been done in the Markspace, but being seen taking care of business and giving orders was often every bit as important as the orders themselves. The soldiers wanted to see their officers doing the right things, to hear the words themselves, and to see them carried out. Even if they didn¡¯t understand the reasons behind each and every one, they wanted to feel that the orders mattered. Already prepped by the Marked, a blizzard of orders were soon flowing out, men moving this way and that, including some converging on the Wagon and the Trailer to offload the supplies therein. Most daily supplies were hoofed over through the Big Jump, but the bigger stuff either had to be laboriously broken down into very small parts and shuffled through, or came in via the Wagon, saving a lot of time and hard work to get things up and moving. I had my own set of people waiting for me behind Kris¡¯ subordinates, two Marked among the six, waiting patiently as I vaulted over the sides of the Wagon and landed soundlessly on the ground¡­ or an inch above it, as Footsteps of the Mage did for me. ¡°Elder Cergon?¡± I asked without preamble, tilting my head towards an empty area where we would be out of the way of the soldiers moving in to offload the incoming supplies from the spatially-augmented Wagon and Trailer. The big lugian elder, tats of his status as a sage of his people proud upon his blocky face, bowed slightly to me. ¡°Magos, the Mana Draw Formation is almost complete, we¡¯re just waiting on the last of the diamond dust for the sealing elixirs.¡± Binding the diamond dust to the Formation with acid was one of those higher Skill check things that actually lowered overall costs, while making the Formation marginally more effective. Given it was made to be able to handle a hundred people in Meditation drawing mana back in with a Gold-grade Renewal effect, a ten percent improvement could be a LOT of mana. Even as an Iron-grade Formation, it had proven useful in the last siege, as it meant our spellcasters could unload in series, retire to the Formation, and get their magic back faster than the enemy could. ¡°Excellent. Elder Crom?¡± The graybearded Aluvian spoke up quickly, ¡°The mappings of the ley lines for two miles about are complete, and we¡¯ve marked all the appropriate node locations. We¡¯re ready for the Outer Wall to go up. The military is ready to shut down all the Summon points at need.¡± ¡°Tell them to get to it. I¡¯ll start my Stone Walk as soon as they¡¯ve verified everything is cleared in the desired area, then,¡± I told him. He bowed and immediately hurried away. ¡°Elder Vassan?¡± The tall, lean, and darkly-bearded Gharu¡¯n bowed slightly. ¡°Magos, the alchemy labs are already in partial operation with basic Healing Potions that have been very well-received among the soldiers. We are upgrading the means and processes for the other types of Potions, and are designing proper assembly lines for them. Recruitment of families and clans with ancestral experience in processing of the alchemical components continues slowly.¡± He turned slightly to his Sho counterpart, the soft brown of desert robes contrasted to the colorful and sharp precise multiple layers favored by the Sho alchemist. Elder Gu Man¡¯s severe appearance belied his enthusiasm for his subject, ¡°Magos, the teaching programs are in place, and the first class of apprentices should be ready to go in three weeks, with the adjutant programs graduating their first class in approximately ten days. The students are enthusiastic and ready to do their part in support, even if they are incapable of fighting themselves.¡± He paused significantly, and then bowed again as I came to a stop to listen. ¡°I have rarely had such motivated students, and for all that they came from poor backgrounds, your wisdom that they are the most driven to improve themselves is bearing fruit. This is a great thing you are doing, Lady Magos.¡± ¡°It has been heartwarming to see the two of you collaborating over how to teach your students and workers, and how to teach the next generation of teachers. Knowledge is our great weapon, and it raises the floor for all,¡± I repeated for them, and they all nodded. ¡°Teachers raise the floor, and Sages raise the ceiling!¡± they all recited promptly. I had driven the words into them repeatedly. It was THEY who educated their students to make a better world for everyone. The wealthy, the powerful, the noble and the elite raised the ceilings for themselves. Teachers drove the engine that raised the floor and lifestyle for everyone. ¡°Elder Tuka?¡± I turned to the petite green-skinned tonk, who had a fiery gaze belying her relative size. ¡°The ley line work of Elder Crom has guided us in the planning of the herb fields. We¡¯ve already planted the first ten acres in accord with natural harmony, but they are still unprotected, and we¡¯ve dared not expand further without the Outer Wall up. Elder Hukka and the fishing clans are making ready to send over some rafts and set up the first fishing posts about the piers below, and only wait our clear on security concerns.¡± ¡°I will have the evacuation chambers and tunnels up by noon tomorrow. Send word that the fisherfolk can start their moves, and make sure they adhere to the layouts of the villages. None of this ramshackle squatting wherever is convenient. Reiterate that only some will be remaining here, to help feed the garrison. Our eventual goal is Mayoi and Hebian-to.¡± All their heads bowed together. All of them had relatives among the undead there, and the overriding goal to free them from their cursed states was one of the criteria most looked for among the first wave of returnees. ¡°Elder Jorgio?¡± His skin was blue and his hair was gray, but the only thing he held in accord with his Viamontian ancestors was his fighting spirit. He had nine family members among the undead of Hebian-to, and the War Mage ached to see them free of their bondage. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°We¡¯ve every Summons point plotted from here to Mayoi and Kara, from Mayoi all down the road to Hebian-to, and ninety-five percent of the Tou-Tou peninsula!¡± he stated with pride and conviction. ¡°Give us the word, and we¡¯ll have them all closed down within a week!¡± he promised fervently. There were approving noises all around. That was a big step! ¡°Any interference from the local tribes?¡± I asked him directly. ¡°Her Highness¡¯ diplomatic relations with them appear to be holding.¡± Elder Jorgio said it with a straight face, but everyone else tried hard to hide their smirks. Kris¡¯ ability to speak their languages, be they snarling, yowling, meeping, or just plain pummeling the shit out of them to earn their respect, had become something of a quiet legend among those serving here. The Scouts¡¯ and soldiers¡¯ ability to move about the area without interference was a direct result of barbarian diplomacy delivered with casual goodwill and a love of fighting that even the banderlings had to respect... although the monugas were still mule-headed about it all, given that they were the real natives to the island and everything here had once been theirs. ¡°I understand there were some confirmed reversions in Tou-Tou.¡± Everyone looked at him in surprise, but he just nodded. ¡°The Summons points in the former housing settlement closer to Tou-Tou you had Sealed reactivated three days ago. Grievver Shredders started reforming on exactly one point per day as the Scouts watched, with no outside force visibly involved. Although a few random shades from the Vortex area did pass through, none of them displayed any involvement in said reactivations at all. We were unable to read the affected ley lines directly due to the presence of the grievvers, but we assume the same corruption spreading from the Vortex itself overcame the Sealing effect of the vivus after this period of time.¡± That was highly unwelcome news, but also hardly unexpected. Everyone accepted it with grim faces, long ago warned that the miracle of vivus was not the cure-all to the fundamental imbalances in place on Dereth. ¡°What actions did you take?¡± I asked him. ¡°We set up early vivic torches in the Zefir Nest settlement you had cleared. We are hoping this will forestall any corruption reaching that far suddenly. There was one group of marguls that came through and attacked them, knocking them all down, but we put them back up once the little demons moved on.¡± ¡°A good short-term solution. In the end, we need to Seal Tou-Tou to cement our control of southeastern Dereth. The only thing we need do before then is cripple the Gotrok¡¯s ability to amass a Summons army. ¡°Salvage efforts?¡± I continued asking Elder Jorgio. ¡°Every single settlement in the same coverage area has been fully gone through, Detected, and Sifted for anything and everything of value,¡± he stated confidently. ¡°The Scout teams are very thorough and did the job right, Lady Magos.¡± It had been his first assignment as an active mage assisting the Scouts. We wanted all those places stripped clean of value, so they could be razed and rebuilt without any hesitation. Since the hauls were used to make Gear to support the rebuilding efforts, it was a prized detail¡­ and the men had to be trusted not to keep treasures for themselves, so they were all vetted Good, and there were at least two Marked in every Salvage Team. ¡°Then we¡¯re clear to go. Report to the Warlord and get your orders. If I¡¯m correct, we¡¯re going to clear a ten-mile perimeter from the fortress first, and then head northeast.¡± I turned my head at a faint rattling, a troop of four skeletal undead in freshly-patched brightly painted Sho armor racing past us and out the main gates towards Mayoi. ¡°She¡¯s sending messages to Master Ben Ten. He should be rolling out to contain any shade outbreaks as we roll the Summon Seals out and to the northeast.¡± Although it was more likely he had the messages before the messengers were ever sent. More misdirection. ¡°We¡¯ll need to cut down Tou-Tou and finally Seal it before any other forces react to our movement and attack while our forces are occupied elsewhere.¡± I regarded the Viamontian War Mage Elder firmly. ¡°Your mapping of Gotrok Summon points is fairly extensive at this time, I imagine.¡± ¡°Yes, Lady Magos!¡± he confirmed. ¡°It would not surprise me at all if you are going to be with an elite team going out there and shutting a whole bunch of those down as a major distraction to them.¡± Elder Jorgio paused to consider that, doubtless wanting to be in on the Tou-Tou efforts, and then he smiled harshly. ¡°I¡¯ll have the lightning ready to go, Lady Magos!¡± I nodded to him. His efforts would make sure the work on the Tou-Tou Penninsula went off smoothly, and he¡¯d be earning his Karma for his part, there was no doubt. ¡°Remember the Gotrok souls are slaved to the Summoning system, and you will be setting them free, as well. Liberation comes in many forms.¡± ¡°Yes, Lady Magos.¡± He bowed, and I returned it. ¡°Off to the Warlord. She¡¯s going to be putting you and the War Mages to proper work, unlike me.¡± He stifled a disbelieving look, given the demands on time and power I was very prone to make of anyone who wanted to be called a Matrix-trained War Mage. I just raised an eyebrow, he saluted, and then hurried off before I found something mana-intensive and grindingly boring for him and his to do, instead. ¡°They work like dogs,¡± Elder Gu Man stated quietly, looking after Elder Jorgio with careful respect. ¡°You helped train them. If they weren¡¯t ready to work like dogs, they wouldn¡¯t have signed up,¡± I agreed with him. As the man most in charge of the various branches of foundational training, setting up the War Mage disciplines and programs had also been part of his remit, and he¡¯d worked closely with Elder Jorgio crafting a program to meet the needs of what we were doing. Advancing as a soldier required going Deeper than most mages did, but the increased activity and Karma made up for it. Engaging in meaningful missions and completing objectives meant Quest Karma and Glory Awards. Those things advanced people far more rapidly than just grinding away at Summons in Dungeons, of which repeating the latter endlessly couldn¡¯t even advance a Matrix Class at all, although it could advance related Masteries or Feats, like Favored Enemy tiers or the like. We were going to be moving fast and hard shortly, and I had a lot of spellcasting ahead of me, too. AF Chapter 168 – Launching the Spear I wasn¡¯t out there when the soldiers and forces involved began to move. The Freehold forces of all races were arriving steadily through the Big Jump. Nobody who couldn¡¯t make the Jump was ready to join the first wave of efforts, and had to wait to be Trailered across in the second wave¡­ maybe. There had been a lot of crazy Leveling by people across the Vesayans to be able to use the Big Jump, for exactly this reason! Even Ithaenc began to empty out. Not a word was spoken, but it was plain the paramounts who didn¡¯t get involved were going to be denied the new avenues of advancement indefinitely or permanently. The looks in the eyes of those who used to admire them turning to scorn was something their egos could not tolerate, even if fear still gripped them deep in the soul. Even if they were only support for those doing the real fighting, they had to get involved! ---- The first teams of soldiers departed Overlook in the late evening, towing Disks laden with hundreds of long stone stakes dyed bright yellow with black stripes. They were led by Scouts with both physical maps and the much more accurate Markspace Map. Their job was to clear all the spawn points close to Overlook, plant the stakes marking those points, and move on to the next. Once they had the nearest points cleared, I¡¯d do my Stone Walk, the plans already made and plotted out, the engineers planting the markers and stringing off the path I would be pacing. I¡¯d be putting up a thirty-foot wall, higher than anything could jump, if not fly, in a one-mile radius around the fortress, including down the mountainside and the beach, right out to the Shoreward. In the meantime, I had to make the shelters and evacuation tunnels for the civilians who would be living at the beach, as well as setting up the preliminary roads, fountains, foundation for homes, storage cellars, and the like. The Aun and lugians had been heavily involved in the planning, a meshing of above-ground and below-ground styles that was tolerable by both races, with the Isparians easily able to adapt and build upon either style. None of this ramshackle fishing village crap. This was going to be done right, even if a lot of people didn¡¯t think we should be going through so much effort for civilians. Given everything we were doing was basically for the civilians, not the wealthy, we didn¡¯t see eye-to-eye on much with those people. It had also been made plain to those people that if they ran ahead of us and imperiled everything we were doing by stirring up things they and we couldn¡¯t handle, they¡¯d all be executed, even if they survived starting a disaster. They either waited, or obeyed orders if they had volunteered to ¡®help¡¯. --- As I¡¯d expected, Elder Jorgio was sent out with four teams to hit the Gotrok, several paramounts with extensive experience fighting Gotroks coming along to help out. Lines of lugian spawnpoints would have to be cleared around multiple mountains and approaches to the lands around Linvak Tukal, with the living Gotrok disposed of so they couldn¡¯t organize their Summoned counterparts effectively. Without living commanders, the Summons could be taken down one by one, swiftly, effectively, and with little danger. Months had been spent by the Mick and his teams in Gotrok lands, finding those Summon points, the paths the living commanders and scouts of the enemy tended to roam, and when and how to dispose of them. Jorgio and the teams would be exploiting that knowledge, looking for signs of reaction from the lugians¡­ and looking for any response from the virindi, the unseen hand that was backing both them and the Hea. I busied myself moving hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of stone during the same period, pausing only at the Salutes and to take my Mastery, Feat, and final Arcane Theurge Class Level. I was also helping Kris and the Mick with coordination through the Markspace, watching as circles of unwhite mist came into being along an ever-widening front on the Markspace Map, and the Silence of the Summons spread further and wider and quickly. ------ -Warlord, we¡¯ve got company. Looks like some banderlings slipped past the outer teams.- Kris watched two men pounding a striped yellow-and-black stake into the middle of the white spot on the ground where a Summoned Cunning Monuga had died to a volley of arrow fire, the nine-foot corpse already dissipated. -Tribe?- she /replied shortly. -Looked like Stormfoot by the beadwork. Six hunters of various sizes,- the Scout, named Barlym, /reported quickly. Kris put the horn at her side to her lips, and blew a series of rising and falling notes in quad-step series, smooth and pure and carrying very, very well through these rolling hills. Every tribe in these hills knew that tune by now. It meant I am Here, and if You want to confront Me, come find Me. I will be happy to take You all on, don¡¯t worry about the other Isparians. About ten minutes later, she was watching another post being driven into the ground where a large reddish-brown shreth had once been, and one of the sentries called out that they had a banderling hunting team moving in. ¡°¡± she yowled out in such precise banderling that the men nearest her all jumped in shock, not expecting that. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. A minute later, the hunting team of yellow-and-green striped banderlings padded into their safety zone, utterly ignored by the sentries, their fraught nerves soothed by the banality of being considered not dangerous enough to worry about, even if it did hit their pride. ¡°¡± she growled at him, showing her eight canines in a way that meant if he caused any trouble, the pleasure would be her beating his and all their asses into the ground with great energy¡­ but she wasn¡¯t going to eat him. Then again, Isparians didn¡¯t eat banderlings, but they slaughtered every banderling who ever dined on Isparian flesh that they knew of. The simple respect for their dead had been a hard lesson that had killed many, many members of the barbaric tribes over the years. It had persisted until it finally struck them that they could kill an Isparian, strip them of their belongings, even chop them up and spread out the body parts if they dared¡­ but if they cut them up as game to eat, they would be hunted to the death without remorse, and their entire tribe with them. The politeness among the warriors had reached the point that the only way the dead were desecrated was if the undead found them. Even tribes that had happily eaten one another previously finding it convenient to abide by the convention. Keeping their dead from becoming slaves to the undead was also a key concern, to the point where grudging truces between rival tribes were often hastily called to drag their dead away and see to their secure cremation or dissolution. After all, you didn¡¯t want to see the dead of your rivals turned into the hated undead, either! ¡°,¡± the worried banderling said, arms flailing to convey his unease and show that he was a threat, looking rather petulant in the face of the unflappable Isparian killing machine in front of him. ¡°¡± he almost meowed at her. ¡°,¡± she confirmed without batting an eye. ¡°,¡± she informed him smoothly, pointing to a flight of Black Phyntos Wasps in the distance their archers had lined up on. The banderling was watching the strange bows with roller wheels on their arms intently, finding the way they rolled over and increased the draw range without being six feet long incredibly strange and clever. With oddly silent thrums, the volley of armor-piercing arrows shot out, the archers reloading smoothly. Two of the hovering phyntos were punched out of the air, while the last staggered, and with an arrow in its abdomen, turned and shot towards the archers. The two soldiers with glaives in hand swung with smooth speed together, stepping in and chopping the wasp into three pieces before it could reach the archers, two of whom had reloaded already and were staring it down at point-blank range. The Scout in the lead ran in, his long dagger trailing vivic flames, and calmly punched it into each dead wasp, misty unwhite flames spurting into being. The pieces of the last one were hurriedly brought back and dropped on the resulting pale flames, catching alight themselves instantly, while the mists spilling off them steadily expanded over the whole tramped-down area the Summons ventured around. Everyone waited, the banderlings included, for the respawn. Fwaz-woosh! The incoming Summons started to materialize, and then the whiteness leapt up, devoured the ectoplasm before it could form, and nothing happened, save a wave of cool mists washing out from the point of contact. The banderlings hissed in amazement. Kris pointed, and a striped stake was lifted off the accompanying Disk, the hammers taken up off the same Disk to do the job. ¡°,¡± Kris informed Sharkeater, who stared at the misty white flames staining the very ground white in fascination. ¡°¡± She tilted her head at the banderling meaningfully, then at the rest of his hunting party. They all mewed in acknowledgment of her point. ¡°¡± Sharkeater pressed. ¡°¡± ¡°¡± The tall and slender, if wide-shouldered, banderling hunter considered that as the team moved along in a specific direction, directly towards what he knew to be the next Summon point. ¡°¡± His feline head bobbed in affirmation. He turned around and growled with a swipe of his claw, and the two youngest members of his hunting pack turned around and loped off quickly. ¡°¡± he agreed. She eyed the bundles of shreth hide artfully rolled up on the backs of the departing younger banderlings. ¡°¡± Sharkeater, so named because he had killed a Veteran Reedshark on his very first hunt as a pup, turned and sniffed the air, looking very mortified when he realized the Isparian female, a species which had appallingly bad senses of smell, had indeed scented the living reedshark before he had. Summons all had an unnatural tang to them, easy to tell apart from the living. ¡°,¡± he reiterated, holding out his hand for his hunting spear, which his second immediately handed to him. While banderlings all had claws, approaching one with a ready weapon was considered grounds to begin a fight. He had watched Chief Gnarltusk get beaten senseless by this female¡¯s bare fists after waving a knife at her, so being very polite was a given. He had also seen her tear out the throat of a rampaging Hunter Shreth with her teeth, so those were perfectly functional, too, as were the black claws that had stripped said shreth of its hide and meat so quickly it had made even the banderling hunters queasy to watch. Twenty feet of gore and blood had surrounded her after she stripped it right to the bone and had all the good parts and organs laying in its hide in under thirty seconds, the ripping and tearing so gut-wrenching the cubs were mewing in near-panic watching her work. Yet when she had risen, she hadn¡¯t had a single drop of blood on anything other than her deadly, deadly black nails... AF Chapter 169 – The Gotroks get Got Service to the Crown is its own reward. The reward of honor is immortality in the hearts of the true. By service are you made, by Glory you endure forever. The honorable are recognized by their devotion and rewarded for it. Jorgio Bellenesse curled his lip as he did whenever he thought of the platitudes ground into all enthusiastic young Viamontian youth as they were raised to fight the battles of their lords and betters. Be it with steel or magic, the nobles of Viamont took you to service, made you into loyal servants, and then sent you to war to die for their desires. The most insistent of those families that this was the proper way of things was naturally the Corcosi, the Royal Family of Viamont. Their demands for honor, loyalty, and service from those below them, while not holding themselves to the same standards, were well-known to all those who had fought under the flag of Bellenesse. He was only an outlier in the family, so far from the main bloodline he was barely worthy of bearing the family name, and he had only his service to distinguish himself and raise his status of his lord, lady, and their people. The murder of the young Lady of the Bellenesse and the death of her ideals of a more egalitarian realm where birth did not determine position had been a knife in the craw of the many men who had fought for her, and the Corcosi name and their Red Bull sign was the equivalent of calling upon the devil now. He had indeed found a new king, and perhaps to spite the Corcosi, he was a man descended from the Aluvians the Viamontians despised so much. A man who adhered to the Code of Osric and Pwyll III, both of Viamontian descent, men still acclaimed as great and wise rulers for the justice and fairness of their laws and rules. Viamontians lived to serve. It was built into his bones. Joining the High Queen Elysa Strathelar, born a mere peasant woman, had been utter vindication of his murdered lady¡¯s ideals, and many of his kin had come into her service, and by extension, to her son when he succeeded the Slayer of the Olthoi Queen. And then had come the Fall. The chaos in magic, his own fortune in not having his owned Gear upon him when the massive amounts of Artifice looted from the dead Summons all exploded. The shades. The undead. The virindi. The Gotrok, the Hea, the burun, even the drudges daring to rise up against them as their best and brightest died in explosions of mana and the murderous extinction and sundering of the lifestones. No, the deathstones. So much more appropriate a name. Nightmares of the retreat up the Tou-Tou peninsula, fights against undead who kept returning after being slain, brave men and women perishing by sheer attrition as they grappled with slow mana returns, lack of proper equipment, and foes who didn¡¯t seem much hindered at all, who attacked with the same assurance his own people once had, the knowledge that they couldn¡¯t truly die¡­ Celcynd the Dour¡¯s sacrifice in closing the Portal behind them as the undead tried to catch the last of the refugees with a final assault. Mighty and bellicose Ulgrim serious for one time in his life as he had spent far too much power opening that Portal in the first place. Shadows of influence watching from behind and sneering at the Isparians who thought they¡¯d dominated and owned this island, watching them Fall. He reached out to Harald, a point of light gathering on the long armor-piercing point of the arrow the archer had drawn. The new compound bows were far easier to maintain a draw on. The archer¡¯s attention didn¡¯t alter in the slightest from his target, and Jorgio had barely withdrawn his hand before the arrow went whistling out. There was a momentary skipping, as sounds momentarily cut off from their surroundings, wind blowing through leaves, returned. Not Silenced, that was a different spell, but just cut off by a Bubble of Sound. Both variations had their benefits, but the Sound Bubble was actually easier to Cast if you didn¡¯t want to cover a huge area with it. With the release of the arrow, the Scouts and Blueblood Guards charged out of the scant cover, the former unleashing shots from their Bows, the Bluebloods discharging single shots from their Crossbows before racing with Spears and Glaives to engage the lugian in the bright red armor and horned helmet who towered over them. A Tiatus Gotrok Summons, a powerful enemy waving around an axe five times heavier than anything an Isparian dared to wield, and that with one hand. How a Summons manifested a chorozite weapon was a mystery for the ages, but after the first arrow buried itself into a mighty thigh, the bound spirit of some Gotrok warrior turned on them, bellowed out a challenge, and stomped on the charge towards them with unflinching zeal and readiness to fight. Not that they could hear the shout. The standing orders for Gotrok Summons were to shout loudly, and for all other Gotrok Summons in the area to respond to a warning shout. Such a thing could bring in reinforcements for some distance, turning a fight against a seemingly lone Gotrok into a massive brawl against more and more Gotrok Summons coming in¡­ and their movements would certainly attract the attention of the scattered Gotrok Border Watch who watched over the lines of Gotrok Summons that secured the borders of Linvak Tukal and the kingdom they¡¯d stolen. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. The Tiatus kept bellowing as per orders as the warriors closed in on it, swinging its axe as its armor dealt with anything coming at its center of mass. That forced the Isparian warriors to strike at exposed limbs, while armor-piercing arrows cracked and jutted from its breastplate and greaves as they hit with incredible power. Nobody was going to hear it. The Summons¡¯ primary job was to warn the others, fighting was secondary. It didn¡¯t realize that no one could hear it, which it would have if Silenced. Using battle magic would have both made noise and set up a lightshow that would have attracted attention. Default wild Summons would ignore anything outside their immediate threat range, but the Gotrok Summons were instructed by the Border Watch who led them to a wider level of responses. His role was Healer support here. They couldn¡¯t even use proper Lightningphase Weapons against the Gotrok, for the things were far too showy, and their intimidation value against Summoned lugians non-existent, regardless. Vassam finally caught the spinning, hacking brute¡¯s hamstrings, crippling its maneuverability and drawing the wolfpack of raiders in to slay it quickly. All eight of the warriors converged on the dead brute, with his nephew Pasqual still having a broken arm Jorgio hadn¡¯t Healed yet, grabbing its limbs and hauling over a half-ton of Summons hurriedly back to the trampled stone and brush of its spawn point, even as the Final Rest Dagger assigned to each squad if they didn¡¯t have their own Vivic Weapons was driven into the false flesh of the thing. They dropped the corpse into the Summon point, and waited, all of them backing off as Jorgio put his hand on Pasqual¡¯s shoulder and sent a Silver Healing spell into the younger man. Shattered bone twisted and refit as blood and bruised flesh reformed with a wet crunch of moving meat and bone. The follow-up Mending spell also restored the mangled armor that was pressing into the muscle of the young man¡¯s right arm, otherwise he would have had to remove his vambrace until a smith could get to it. Fwaz-woosh! The incoming replacement Summons was devoured by vivus jetting up off the corpse that was disintegrating to less than dust, as all Summons did, even its chorozite Axe dissipating into nothing. The warriors all looked to him silently. His Mana Pool was basically the mark limiting the speed by which they all could advance. He absolutely refused to advance without at least half his Reserves, which was enough to Heal all of them at least once. The greater their teamwork, the less he had to Heal them, the faster they could move! ¡°Eighty percent,¡± he informed them precisely. Trust is truth, and must be given as well as taken, earned, and respected. The Magos had her own versions of codes of honor, especially for spellcasters. For all the many, many complaints that rose from the battlemages used to thinking themselves the elite of the fighting forces, the demand that if they wanted the respect that went with their abilities they better gods-damned earn it, had struck the Viamontians in particular quite deeply. With Loyalty must come Duty. If Duty exists not, then Loyalty is an empty lie that Honor attempts to gloss over with a false Code and uneven standards that make a joke of it. Do your Duty to those who show Loyalty, earn every ounce of it, and more. This team was his. His spellcasting, be it loud and showy or subtle and supportive, guided and limited them all at once. The better they did their jobs, the less work he had to do, and the more of these thrice-damned Gotrok devils they could kill. His fingers froze in a finger-form they all knew as a grunt came from fifty yards away. The Imperil would assure that any Gotrok who came charging in would die quickly, but the sound and light of the spell going off would only attract more attention. His left hand gestured, and Ghost Sound grunted back the reply in a manner identical to that of a fellow lugian. No Isparian could adequately duplicate the deep bass of the greater girth of the bigger race, but simple Wizardry tricks like this, a mere Cantrip, dealt with the problem. The regular checking of the chain of Summons to see if their neighbors were still there satisfied, Jorgio nodded. The Royal Scouts, the stealthiest of the squad, trotted off in silence. If the Summons was in a particularly advantageous position where they could approach without being seen, the Scouts¡¯ opening attacks were sometimes able to kill their targets before any of the armored Guards needed to get involved. Iyazim, his second, counted off the thirty seconds with splayed fingers in silence, and the Gotrok-killing squad moved out after the Scouts, looking for signs of the red or maroon armor of the typical Tiatus or Juggernaut spawning here. They¡¯d cut a line through the much weaker Amploth, Laigus, Lithos, and Gigas Lugians, who were basically incarnations of the civilian and noble/overseer classes. The Tiatus and Juggernauts were formal warrior ranks of the lugians, while the Tukora were the most elite of those warriors¡­ and far too many of all of those had chosen to fall in with the Gotrok warrior society, rather than deal with the Isparians, Aun, and their allies. Preferring the Hea and the burun, and being pawns of the virindi. Jorgio felt his lip rise and held it down as he paced after the lead men, the archers backing him up with arrows already nocked and wary eyes looking for their target. Over two hundred lugian spawn points were already closed behind them. They were slowed down only by his need to stop and regain mana to keep their progress unheard, and his inability to use spells to speed up the fighting without raising the alarm which would defeat the very purpose of them being here. A mountain grossbeak called out a warning, complete with the faint beating of wings, and everyone froze. He didn¡¯t need to see them to see the eager smiles break out on all of their faces. A living Gotrok. Finally. AF Chapter 170 – Rock the Gotrok The Gotrok Border Watch were literally the only living targets of value on this expedition. He still remembered the Magos¡¯ words when the men had some question about the tactics used to kill them, many of them brought up on the great honor and nobility of being a warrior. She cut a piece of paper out, held it up before them all. ¡°Anyone feel that they need to strike down this piece of paper with great honor?¡± she asked them all calmly. Even Ancillio, stiff-necked literalist that he was, could not bring himself to speak up. She flicked it with her finger, and the paper colored in with the image of a Tiatus in their bright red armor. She waved it in Ancillio¡¯s direction. ¡°How about now, warrior? Going to challenge this piece of paper to a duel? Confront it under the sun in a noble play of virtues and honor?¡± He grimaced. ¡°But¡­¡± he began, and she just held up the stack of the papers and waggled them at him. ¡°Paper. Copies. Templates. Images stuffed on top of ectoplasm. Living puppets given the semblance of life of magic. They do not eat, do not shit, do not have children, nor can they ever do so. They are masses of ectoplasm wrought in the image of the enslaved spirits animating them. ¡°They are paper. You need be no more concerned about killing them with great honor and nobility than you would a mud golum. They are effectively the same things.¡± She held up the stack of fine rag paper for them to look at. ¡°The only target of value is the slaver who holds the stacks of paper in their grasp!¡± The Gotrok. Even Ancillio slowly nodded at that. And slavers, slavers were base creatures, not noble warriors of the ancient lugian martial traditions¡­ Quiet whispers were invoked on Weapons still held carefully in their sheaths. Killing the Watch was mandatory. As long as he was around, the scout would patrol and eventually find the empty Summon spots. It seemed one was on that route now, with at least two escorts, likely both Summons under direct command. He would also be seeking to escape and sound the alarm as quickly as possible, brave Tukora or no. If they killed him, they could fold up this entire Watchline with the same ease they¡¯d had so far. A glimpse of tamped-down crimson, muted with dust and dirt to make it harder to see at a distance, while easily restored to its proud hue with a bucket of water and a rag, a nod to practicality. The maroon armor of Summoned Juggernauts was visible pacing along the mountain trail as all the Isparians rolled into cover quickly. The mote of light fluttered on the ground, and a sphere of magic that cut off sound inside and outside flickered into ghostly existence, if you knew what to look for. Jorgio had made very sure they all knew what to look for. His other hand glittered with the waiting lash of the Imperil. Taking out two Juggernauts was likely going to force them to retreat and recover, and he would have to be on his game to make sure nobody died. The Imperil on the Watcher should seal his doom quickly. He was sure the Royal Scouts were already in position. The Watcher clearly wasn¡¯t expecting trouble so far inland, although he wasn¡¯t completely unwary. His Juggernauts pounded along in front of him, dull of mind but with senses enough to look for enemies and race to confront them, buying time for their commander to retreat. All eyes were fixed where Jorgio had centered the Sound Bubble, and he saw the bare rustling of grass where the men who¡¯d quaffed Potions of Invisibility had settled into position, only deliberately moved stones visible to those behind indicating where they were. The archers behind him drew quietly, the barest of creakings on arrows now just out of sight of the lugians, their bodkin heads burning with the scarlet Baneflames to lugians. Jorgio stepped out smoothly, completing the chant and rush of power, even as the first lugian ahead of him ground to a sudden halt with a warning grunt. Unable to see over him, the other Juggernaut and the Tukora Watchman stepped to the sides to see what was going on. Bringing the latter right into the firing lane of the three archers as they rose from cover and released in the same moment as the sharp note from the gray light washing across the Tukora rendered its natural armor as porous as wet paper. Even just pounding on its armor could now rupture its skin and break its bones, and the scout knew it! Streaks of baneflame buried themselves in the Watcher¡¯s weapon arm and legs as he stepped back, drawing grunts of startled pain at the force and punching fire of the arrows. The rest of the Guard rose and charged for the Juggernauts, all of their Weapons trailing Banefires that stabbed at the Watcher¡¯s eyes with anathema, and the scout knew this was a fight he¡¯d best run from! The Royal Scouts came from left, right, and kicked up off a rock to his left, short Blades and long Daggers raised and trailing Banefire. The two men cut across the front of his legs, driving in up towards the groin, cutting into the hamstring and back of the knee, while the leaping Shalya buried both of her lethal Jambiyas deep into the lugian¡¯s thick neck, the woman promptly bracing against his backside and heaving even as the lugian snatched for the slender Gharu¡¯s arms, his bellow of pain turning into a coughing wet gurgle as blood spurted out. He grabbed one of her arms, and she promptly let go of her Knife with it, getting her other hand out of reach as she spun sideways. There was a crack as his grip held, and her arm dislocated from the wrenching, but leverage did its thing, bringing his arm out and down, into the reach of her comrades. One promptly drove a Dagger into the thick wrist, severing the tendons there and allowing her to drop to the ground, roll, and then immediately dart back in. Her one arm hung there limply, but one Jambiya was still in play. Her fellow Scouts danced in a circle, she leapt between them, and cut sideways through the other faltering leg bearing too much weight, Imperiled flesh parting wetly and hawser-strong tendons snapping. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Muscles twitched and contracted, and the Watcher bellowed in fury as he went over on his back, his chorozite greathammer already fallen. The Juggernauts were still going at it hard, and Jorgio held off Healing the slender, quiet Gharu woman, whose wound was non-lethal. He winced as a lugian mace crashed into Gandalfo¡¯s breastplate, hurling the man back ten feet, regardless of how fine the construction of his armor was. Glaives spun and Spears thrust with ruthless precision and well-honed tactics as Jorgio sent a Silver Heal into the Guard, who shook his head, glanced at the mage for just a second in thanks, and spat out a single drop of blood before leaping back into the fight. The Watcher was already dying, the Scouts making sure of that, bleeding out from that devastating throat wound. The Juggernauts were fighting with power and fury, but no great tactics and a complete lack of teamwork. They isolated themselves, focusing on single foes and leaving themselves open for the flank attacks that were rapidly crippling them and bringing them down. He wanted to Imperil them both, turn their tough flesh into soft dough easy to cleave through, but held off with a snarl, eyes in the distance, where he could just barely see another set of maroon armor standing on the mountainside, looking out over the valley. A wavering illusion cut off line of sight of the conflict, especially the showiness of the Banefire, the sight of which the Gotrok had rapidly learned to fear. But he wasn¡¯t going to compound the risk with more showy magic, even if it meant more painful injuries dealt to his team. They knew it, too. This was their job, killing the Summons without his magic. With Banefire active on their Weapons, it was much easier than it might otherwise have been, but the brutal force and power of the Juggernauts¡¯ attacks still meant they were going to be beaten, armor mangled, and flesh bruised, even if nobody was slain, while the Summons attacked without care for life or limb, typical of their kind. But the Watcher was dead, one dead true lugian out of over two hundred slain Summons, and the armies of the Gotrok were being crippled slowly and surely. How much more they could get done before fatigue and the coming night had their way was up to them, but even as they danced and wore down the Juggernauts, the raiders were smiling. The Gotrok weren¡¯t going to be in any shape to be attacking while the main forces folded up the Spawn points and the paramounts finally moved to address the threat of Tou-Tou. They were certain that the other teams were doing equally well, and resolved to continue as long as possible. Although after this fight, Jorgio was certainly going to have to get back his mana, something they all should follow suit with¡­ ------- There actually hadn¡¯t been too many who had seen the Lady Magos do a Stone Walk. The roads she had put through all throughout the Vesayans, with new bridges, piers, and the like, had mostly been done at night, the local people waking up to find roads leading up to and through their cities and villages paved, fountains popped up and disgorging fresh water, and even public baths and toilets come out of nowhere. Everyone knew who was responsible, as there had been a crowd as the stone of the Jumps had flowed into being, magic no one else was capable of replicating. But she had come in silence and left in the same, avoiding the acclaim and tumult of celebration of thanks that would certainly have been the goal of most of the others who would have done such a thing. The soldiers and civilians alike who remained at Overlook had all turned out to watch her. The disbelief on the faces of many after she laid out an entire town, sewage system, evacuation tunnels, storage chambers, and roads like, literally overnight, was only adding to her fame. Putting up the walls was even more grand, as the Outer Wall went up before their eyes, not down unseen in rooms opened within the stone. The stone in the ground flowed like putty, the walls obviously made of the same thing as the sands and soil and mountains by the hue of the rock, the little dots of varied colors in them, and the way they just flowed into what she was doing. She started down on the shoreline, making a not-pier, a bridge-like series of arches out over the water it was possible to wade under or sail a raft or canoe beneath¡­ but further up were wall sections which could be lowered down to stop anything from passing through and beneath them, just waiting to be dropped down if needed. The area above was lined with battlements for archers to stand behind and shoot any attackers standing in the shallow waters. The bridge-like wall extension flowed up with every step she took, thousands of cubic feet of stone rising into place, pouring up and down and forming whole pillars and archways and pavings as if they¡¯d grown that way. It went all the way out to the Shoreward itself, stopping only a few feet away, with a large circular landing and building there, able to fit multiple ranks of archers or fighters as needed, before she turned around and walked back, another walkway rising parallel on the outer side as she did so. Nobody had ever seen stone moved so smoothly or easily, or in such massive quantities before. The lugians in particular had almost religious experiences as they watched the structure take shape, stone flowing into shape like water being poured into molds and frozen to ice. It was so surreal, as if the toughest and most reliable foundation of their society was so easy to reshape at a whim! She came over the land as the wall rose to greet her, now occasional steps forming as the main wall, thick and broad, came up out of the sands and earth below to greet her, leaving only one great gap in its coverage, and even that was buttressed with multiple great rolling wheels that could be turned into place to block any attackers, in place of doors. Forty feet high, over twenty feet wide, with a paved moat sunken into the outside area to further the discrepancy, step by step, she strode slowly onward, and the new wall rose with her. Towers drew themselves into place. Embrasures and internal walls with arrow slits joined them, along with external stairs or quick-drop poles, guardhouses and posts, windbreaks and arrow/rain shelters, sheltered wells, storage rooms, bell towers, high and slender observation posts reaching a hundred feet above¡­ and lots of external holders designed to hold soil and grow vegetables or herbs, or whatever was needed. They came up to the steep side of the cliff, and as everyone watched, the cliff-side almost seemed to bow to her, and then reform according to her will. Steps flowed out of nothing, levels of them and the same crenelated walls and shielded passageways forming out of the rock, zigzagging slowly and grandly back and forth as they made their way up the cliff-side. If there were steeper internal steps that did the same thing being built at the same time, they were not obvious as the stone moved out of internal rooms and passageways and flowed into the external ones, doubling the area being worked on as she steadily made her way up the side of the cliff. AF Chapter 171 – Touching the Land There were dozens of people following me now, looking about in wonder at the rising of the Outer Wall, scarcely able to believe this had been open ground just minutes ago. Months of labor had been accomplished in scarce any time at all, all the difficulties just passed by and swept aside as if irrelevant to what was being done here. Widened Sudden Widened Dawnstopped and Theurgically-boosted to the freaking moon Metacap-breaking Shape Stone was pretty damn useful, which was why it was tied off and Renewed every day, rain or shine. Not even Shards compared to how high I could Cast this spell. The +18 Caster Levels for added Divine, Primal, and Heartsong magic was a huge addition, on top of all the Elemental Reserve Kickers, Sublime Chord boosting, Good Domain, and other Buffs going on. I could move a LOT of stone around, doubled if I pulled it out of one area and didn¡¯t rely on the spell to acquire the stone from elsewhere, stacking the work I could do at one time. I¡¯d had it all planned out for months, of course, Architect and Stonemasonry Skill Ranks taken and allocated, fully capable of adding artistic flairs and statues and tiled appearances and multi-cultural mixing of styles and flourishes here, there, and everywhere as needed. There was a lot of work that still had to follow, of course. I¡¯d left off hanging doors and the like, although the holes for screws and hinges were all in place, and the smiths had been accruing them for months. Some of the people following me were already clutching crates of ironwork to start putting cabinets, doors, windowsills, shutters, and other things into place. It wasn¡¯t a Pyramid by the slightest stretch of the imagination, but I was also plunging stone down into the ley line at the marked points, and building the conduits that were already starting to pump magic through the stone and make the Wall VERY hard to destroy and easy to repair unless the connection was severed. The nature of the Rune structures were that they ached to be completed, and that closed circuit would actually happen at the end, where I¡¯d have to walk from one end of the Shoreward Wall along the water to the other, completing the circuit through the stone well under my feet. It was all a level of detail and work that the people watching all this couldn¡¯t see and didn¡¯t understand, and only a few of the Casters who were directly involved in plotting out where the ley line focus points were had any idea of what was going on. Still, Stone Walks to me were gratifying, casual uses of my time, quite relaxing. After all, I just had to walk, keep my feet on the stone and earth, follow patterns and forms long mapped out, get the sleepy stone to move into its new shape, and then lock it in. My inspiration for these were naturally the Roads that crisscrossed so much of Eastern Dereth, which had been made in much the same way. The subsurface connections to the ley line network, the Runemarks made on the underside of every single brick that had been laid, and the relentless precision and pattern adhered to were beyond the senses of most people who trod upon them. Kris had noticed it all with her tremblesense, and I noticed the flow of magic unmistakably, especially with Shaping Stone capable of tweaking them, or even tapping into them if needed. The fact I could mold them so easily would have shocked those spellcasters who had been involved in trying to build similar things, or even making a road that linked up to the existing Roads. In almost all cases, they looked similar, but they didn¡¯t have the same endurance, nor the same ability to defy the environment, unless they were actually built on top of settlements that had existed there since before Isparians came, obviously places meant to be inhabited by¡­ someone. But the old buildings had crumbled with age or were swept away long before Isparians came here, merely becoming confluences of Roads and good places to settle. Not, as they probably once were, armed camps and barracks housing armies of warriors. Outlook was going to be a true new city and fortress, tapping into the ley line network to endure the ages, just like those old constructions¡­ and further helped out by all the Summon points drawing on the ley line being Shut down and Sealed. Because we were sitting on a gods-damned time bomb. ---------------- The day after reaching Nine¡­ It was a random hillside mine in the Linvaks, pulling out lead and iron, not worth fighting over and somewhat played out, worth losing if things went wrong. I took some pretty elaborate precautions setting up what was normally a relatively freeform spell, something you Cast around a campfire as you sent out a respectful wake-up call to the local portion of the Land¡¯s genius loci, established something of a dialogue with it, and were allowed to share its awareness of itself and those upon it. Five layers of Pact Magic cutouts to shield the mind from outside pressures and the awareness of greater powers were NOT normal at all for a Commune with Nature. Hells, the spell normally wouldn¡¯t even work with such things present, as opening yourself to the Land was all part of the spell, entering into mutual harmony with it as you shared the expanded senses and magnificence of the Primal power that was the world we lived upon. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. My memories of such experiences with Aelryinth were profoundly moving and wonderfully inspiring. Levels and superhuman intellectual ability simply didn¡¯t matter when it came to touching the spirit of an island, a peninsula, a continent, a world. The vastness was simply something greater than an ant-like mortal could truly comprehend in its entirety, and yet still a step below the non-finite and divine Awareness that was the realm of the Divine and Titans themselves, and those Entities at similar cosmic levels of being. Those beings were here and aware of this island, and so Pact, Divine, and Arcane Magic was being very, very repeatedly used to keep them at bay. I¡¯d expanded a room that had once held a lodestone of ore, doubtless making some miner some good money, smoothing it out and working it repeatedly with some alchemically-accented carving to do this right. A Pentafold Summoning diagram, for a spell that literally only required I have my feet on the ground. It was more than something you¡¯d need to Summon a demon prince, or the avatar of a god! Kris eyed the whole manifold Diagram, parts of it dipping precisely into one another, filling with power that was overlaying and synchronized in ever-tightening, ever-harmonizing circles as the whole thing powered up, Sublime Chord notes having long chased down any disharmonious elements from what I had drawn up here. ¡°Damn, Ryin, I don¡¯t remember ever having seen something like this, ever.¡± ¡°Aelryinth built a Sevenfold Summoning Diagram in a location a safe distance from any inhabited areas, but he¡¯s never used it for anything in my memory. There¡¯s a Fourfold Diagram in Pyramid Central, and that could hold an Elemental Prince effortlessly, the one time they Summoned one up. This¡­ isn¡¯t that permanent, but in the short term should be stronger.¡± ¡°Avatar level,¡± Kris nodded. The True Avatar of an actual Divinity could kick an Elemental Prince around like a dog. ¡°You really aren¡¯t taking chances with this.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve already seen one Entity of Mythos much too close, and we know a minimum of four are involved with this place, if not more. Lord Mick!¡± I turned to look at him, leaning against the tunnel in. ¡°What was my order?¡± ¡°If ye say run, then run, ye feckless bastard of a dirt-eating hill-born blackheart!¡± he embellished with a perfectly straight face. Kris was standing there in the heart of the Diagram, her Null pulled in, effectively not there and not disrupting anything going on. I sank down, touching the floor with the tip of my Boots, actually having Flight active for this to zero my weight if things went south, just in case. There was no true Bardic and Minstrel ¡®magic¡¯, as it were. Both Traditions drew from older and more established systems of magic, accessing them through the harmony of the Heartsong instead of a true connection to the Land or Elements, or touching the manafield directly. Bardic magic was the older Tradition, and had once been intimately involved with the Druidic faiths, the power of religious leaders, and their connections and rivalries with the nobles, royalty, and clan politics of older and more simpler times. Bards had worked as lorekeepers, messengers, educators, tellers-of-tales, and courtiers, traveling throughout the lands, seeing what was to be seen, given free right-of-way to pass through all territories. They were lauded as both sources of news and entertainment, appreciated wherever they went, even if it must be into the courts of rivals and the enemies of those they favored. Thus, the magic of the Druids was open to their Heartsong, as Bards were deeply tied to the land and its people, a link between the knowledge and wonders of civilization, and the traditions and inviolable agency and awareness of the power of Nature. Accessing the Primal magic through Heartsong, I could then link to Arcane, Divine, Pact, Soul, and Artificing Magic, completing a Sevenfold Theurgy that should not have been at all necessary for something like this, but which I wove into being because I wasn¡¯t taking rash chances¡­ even if this was, even by my estimations, probably complete overkill. It took only time and magic, and so I didn¡¯t care. I sang out that call, and sent it down, down into the land and the stone, looking for the spirit of the land. The first thing I noticed was that the ley lines immediately thrummed, as if something had just drawn them taut. The second thing I felt was a wave of raw emotion coming for me. ¡°Run,¡± I whispered in horror and alarm, staring at it coming. Kris grabbed me by the back of my collar and booked, not the slightest hesitation in her movement. The Mick was barely ahead of her, disbelief slowing his reflexes at just how fast and sudden things had gone south. Just the tiniest bit of my Markdoor opened for them to feel, and any and all confusion and hesitation totally and completely fucking vanished as both of them raced for the way out of the tunnel with everything. The stone was already starting to hum and shake around us. The ley lines were pulsing and twitching with power draw, and I slammed my palms together, the narrow mining tunnel slamming closed mere inches behind us, and not going to stop even if they stopped running, so don¡¯t fucking stop running! The path was not complex after I¡¯d smoothed and straightened it out, and I¡¯d had them run up and down it a few times just to make sure they knew how to get out. Only this time they both put real, real effort into it, Kris hauling me behind and clawing at the Mick¡¯s heels. The magic began to rise behind us, stone slamming together as I closed everything, every hint of a mine tunnel being here, and we could see something Burning behind us, even Kris and the Mick with their eyes in the wrong direction, Burning at reality, reaching and grasping for something, anything there to lock onto and anchor itself¡­ or to just Change. Kris¡¯ Null rose up and back to my wrists, only my extended fingers past it letting me Shape the Stone and close the way in, and close it all I most certainly did. AF Chapter 172 – Seals and Servants We blew out the mining tunnel, right into a free fall that became an accelerated run down the air above the side of the hill, while something cracked up above us in agony and pain, peeling away from a pressure on reality itself. The cracks it made started to form a Seal that I thankfully closed my eyes in time not to see, screaming at both of them not to look back and to keep running. I didn¡¯t need to repeat it. They kept running on the air down the slope, or more accurately speedskating for all they were worth, and they didn¡¯t stop until they reached the next hill a half-mile away, drove up its slope and then down and around the other side, leaving that mine out of our line of sight. Oily black smoke spewed up out of the stone, lit from within by yellow-purple flames that had hues in the thaumaspectrum I didn¡¯t want to see, and I promptly vomited them out on the ground from my guts and eyes. Kris and the Mick decided not looking back at them was a good idea, just watching me as I heaved out my breakfast and memories of just what I¡¯d seen in a long and unnatural line of filth. Quaver reached out, humming dangerously, and vivic-laced Lost Light ignited everything in those ocher and lambent colors on the ground, going right up the trail of snot and tears into my eyes and swirling around inside them urgently. ¡°That,¡± the Mick noted, ¡°was what me mam always warned me about dealing with spellcasters,¡± he said with feeling, his back to that hillside. ¡°Meaning we both thought you were doing too goddamn much for such a simple thing, and fuuuuuck¡­¡± Kris translated, while I just sat there with stuff Burning en vivus coming out of all of my head¡¯s orifices. Kris made specifically sure the point of Quaver touched my ears and the glowing shit leaking out of them. ¡°You were fucking dead if I wasn¡¯t there, Ryin,¡± she said softly. I somehow managed to speak up along coughing up psycho-spiritual goo in foul dribbles whose very taste I was banishing into more goo, vivus swirling in my lungs and stomach and sinuses and ears as it ate at the shit. ¡°Worse. I¡¯d¡¯ve been a mindblasted slave to whatever that was.¡± The Mick closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling. ¡°Fuck,¡± he summed up nicely. ¡°This game, it just got bigger than we thought or dared t¡¯ think, aye?¡± ¡°Sum it up when you can talk, Ryin,¡± Kris said quietly, steely hand gentle on my shoulder. I just nodded and spewed out shreds of memory, and vivus Burned them. --- ¡°The Land is in horrific pain here,¡± I said, accepting a cup of very non-magical and finely-made tea from Kris and sipping from it slowly. I wasn¡¯t going to be able to eat anything for at least a day¡­ which was okay, it wouldn¡¯t hurt someone who was Sustained, but my insides were just in a complete jittery mess. ¡°I¡¯d liken it to someone punching a burning dagger into you, and it¡¯s still burning you, despite your nerves being fried, and its being done to something the size of a planet.¡± The two of them looked around slowly, picturing Dereth as that red-hot poker, and the massive ley line structure underneath it. ¡°Aye, fuck again,¡± the Mick summed up nicely. ¡°Whatever is down there felt my Call and sent out, I don¡¯t know, maybe hundreds of years of hoarded power along the ley lines to seize me, gain a servant who would work tirelessly to free it. The ley lines pushing back against it automatically, and the Fivefold Diagram, basically are the only things that let us get out in time.¡± ¡°It¡¯s got good fucking reflexes,¡± Kris murmured. ¡°Waiting all that time and pouncing the first time it heard just the beginnings of a Call¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s the timeless quality ye spoke about gods an¡¯ things having,¡± the Mick nodded slowly, finally understanding something of what that could mean. ¡°All those ages o¡¯ waiting, for a touch o¡¯ the magic nobody else can even use, intending to grab them body an¡¯ soul, an¡¯ so fast¡­¡± I breathed out through my nose to the side, gouts of stuff on vivic mistfire venting out it repeatedly, while more misting drool dribbled from my lips. ¡°Hate Aberrants,¡± I said to nobody in particular. ¡°Emergency Spectacles of some kind?¡± Kris hazarded politely, squinting artfully. ¡°The first pair fer me,¡± the Mick promptly interrupted, watching me. ¡°I dinnae ever want t¡¯ experience what ye¡¯re going through, an¡¯ I not be trustin¡¯ meself to see it coming like ye did an¡¯ only get the mild form o¡¯ fuck-headedness.¡± ¡°You¡¯re all heart, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, big an¡¯ black an¡¯ mighty, that be me!¡± he agreed without shame. ¡°Do you think anything out there felt that?¡± Kris asked me rhetorically. ¡°It¡¯s not a matter of if. It¡¯s a matter of understanding why,¡± I answered weakly around the world¡¯s weirdest vomit. ¡°How¡¯s the smoke?¡± I asked faintly. Kris craned her neck around carefully. ¡°Fading?¡± ¡°I put Vivic Diagrams in all the walls, the ceiling, and under the floor.¡± They both looked suitably impressed. ¡°Gor damned, ye be seriously overthinkin¡¯ all this shite,¡± the Mick praised me. ¡°Highness, remind me never t¡¯ bet against the lass. Methinks she won¡¯t be gamblin¡¯ unless she¡¯s already won, given half a moment!¡± ¡°I think, Lord Mick, that when it comes to risking body, soul, and maybe the lives and existence of everything on the planet, she just takes the appropriate precautions, and we just weren¡¯t appreciating the scale of what might be happening here.¡± He was silent for a moment as he contemplated that. ¡°An iron plug, red-hot, set to hissing in a wound, and the planet is the body,¡± he finally muttered. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Sounds all kinds of wrong, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Kris nodded along. Hey, I had less psychoactive goop dripping, it was an improvement. ¡°What be the ley lines, then?¡± he asked softly. Kris thought about that for a moment. ¡°The stitches holding the red-hot plug in place,¡± she finally theorized. He grimaced harshly at the example. ¡°That be so fucked up I dinnae even want t¡¯ remember hearing it, Highness.¡± ¡°That¡¯s so fucked up I don¡¯t want to believe somebody did it, and yet somebody did,¡± Kris answered with a grim nod of agreement. ¡°What¡¯s worse, we don¡¯t know who did it, although I¡¯m pretty sure whatever is under there is not a long-lost force for Good and Life buried away by jealous rivals,¡± she added, eyeing me and my mess. ¡°And I have my doubts anyone involved knows about it, because if they did, someone would be working on breaking the ley lines and setting the thing free, given the scales of time we are working at.¡± ¡°And the fact they¡¯d like be batshit crazy an¡¯ everything around them would off them on general principle?¡± he muttered. ¡°Well, given just how crazy this world was before the Fall, I¡¯d say something is bleeding into reality here. Nobody questioning just how goddamn weird everything is, and how bleeding off whatever that creature¡¯s power is might be a good chunk of the power supporting abrupt manifestation of magical items out of nowhere. I really can¡¯t see anything below a true Divine level of power doing that, even if most of the stuff ended up being fried by a surge of that power going nuts¡­¡± ¡°Well, then, the two pyreal question be¡­ how do we get rid o¡¯ the thing, so we can pull out the plug an¡¯ set things t¡¯ right?¡± he asked, shaking his head. ¡°I cannae even think clearly on things at that level. It¡¯s¡­ not a something fer men, mortals, t¡¯ deal with, aye?¡± ¡°Yeah, this is one of the reasons you keep gods around,¡± I finally spoke up again, leaning quickly off to the side as I sucked in a sharp breath and spontaneously hacked up something that actually plopped on the ground, as if revolted I might mention the gods and show some faith. ¡°oh, that feels much better¡­¡± I managed to get out, but I hadn¡¯t dropped my tea. Kris refilled it as I noted that my hair had, eh, religiously kept itself out of the goo. Sylune¡¯s Grace ftw, I guess? The Mick stolidly tapped Bunita on what I¡¯d vented and watched it Burn away with cold, dark eyes. ¡°So your vivus will slowly eat away the alien energies there and give those investigating nothing to go on but an epicenter,¡± Kris added heartlessly, watching the stuff I had expelled misting cheerfully away. ¡°What do you want us to do?¡± I could /reply through the Markdoor, spared them the experience and waited a couple minutes to do it vocally as the last of the goo was dripping mists and going away. ¡°I¡¯ll stay here and watch. I want to know not who was aware something happened, but who is good enough to find the center of the disturbance, and how they all react to it.¡± The Mick grunted. ¡°Black-hearted fiends working together against something even blacker, as it were?¡± ¡°Sounds like the size of it,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°It also shows what level of magical sensitivity they have, and if they have potential control or manipulation of the ley lines.¡± Which naturally meant they could be the power that started the whole machinations that ended up in the Fall, and thus the ones responsible for the deaths of so many Isparians. The Mick nodded at the unspoken addendum. ¡°I be ready t¡¯ send ¡®em all t¡¯ True Death, ye know,¡± he swore, and Bunita glimmered as Lost Lights swirled over her in his grip. Kris just clapped him on his leather-armored shoulder, his heavier plate stowed away at the moment. ¡°They¡¯ve all earned it, Lord Mick. But when the masterminds who think themselves immortal get fed to the Land and go screaming to the fate they¡¯ve dodged so long, well, I think that¡¯s going to be pretty damn satisfying.¡± The Mick nodded just slightly. He¡¯d killed avatars or stand-ins for Lady Aerefalle and Lord Rytheran before, but they¡¯d just returned, unharmed and only mildly irritated at the deaths, like breaking a nail or something. Doing it when her harpy voice would be silenced forever, and Rytheran¡¯s sneering saturnine speech ended, would be very sweet. Now, Prince Geraine, the supposed leader of all the undead (even if the Dericostans barely acknowledged it), he¡¯d never met that undead bastard, save for slaughtering some traitors to the mortal races who¡¯d agreed to act as agents and hands for the very secretive, paranoid, yet equally arrogant and dismissive son of a former Empyrean Emperor. The Mick was looking forward to feeding the bastard to the Land, watching his disbelief and horror as he finally died... --- The two of them stayed long enough to make certain I was okay, then took the Linejump I gave them and flashed off toward the horizon. Dropping in from half a mile in the air was a rather flashier method than the Portal-hopping Lord Mick had once been used to, but, he was quick to say, it had a LOT more style to it. Tomorrow, well, soon it would be today, we¡¯d be bringing the Wagon across to Overlook, and starting the return efforts, clearing out the southeast of Summon points and crippling the species who relied on them for their punch. It would especially cripple the undead and the shades. The mountainside was calm, now, the profound meaning of the cracks in it gone as vivus warred with¡­ whatever that shit had been and finally ate it away, restoring ¡®normality¡¯ to the area and leaving precious little damn sign anything important had occurred there. I was pretty sure that nothing remained of my Fivefold Diagram, but I wasn¡¯t going to go in there or stupidly Scry the area to find out. --- I was massively unsurprised when a powerful group of elite undead were the first to arrive at the area. I watched them from Invisibility and behind the next hill, three-quarters of a mile away, as they scoured the area and cast a lot of spells, trying to find out what had happened here. The Virindi were the next to arrive, with powerful individuals in severe black body-suits floating in with grimly serious masks in place. There was curt acknowledgment and tenseness for a minute, and then the undead just ignored the virindi, as they were ignored in turn, both turning to do their tasks. It was hard to say if the shades had felt something or they were just following the movements of the other two, but an armored troop of them in bright crimson armor showed up, and amusingly enough were able to speak to both of the other forces enough to arrange some manner of information sharing between all three, it looked like from afar. Allies of convenience, to be ignored and fought against the next time they met, nothing more. I did mark all the Named Shades and Revenant Lords who led their people, as well as the types of the virindi who responded. Before their search elements reached where I was watching, I also Linejumped away, below their lines of sight, the Sublime Chord dissipating the magic into the ley lines and making sure they detected nothing of my presence or passage, the whiteness from my expelled goo having vanished at Dawn Renewal. AF Chapter 173 – A Letter to Home The knowledge that the undead were best at ley line awareness came as no surprise. The Empyreans they came from had been messing with this island for at least twenty thousand years, and so knew more about it than anyone. The shades might also be descended from them, but they were largely forcibly converted from soldiers or civilians, while the undead came from the nobility and their elite servants of the ruling class. The true breadth of knowledge would have remained with the undead, and the shades¡¯ own magical lore they had inherited would have been massively affected by their sudden affinity to whatever force their master and maker Bael¡¯Zharon was indebted to. As for the Virindi, they were an Aberrant hivemind race, and their knowledge was going to be specialized, exotic, and alien in nature, so being able to feel and wield what was likely to be the equally alien and exotic living ley line network was hardly unexpected. No doubt they were far more sensitive to some aspects of magic than even the undead would be... --------- The present... Making the Outer Wall took up most of my day. It was mostly because I wasn¡¯t walking very fast in order to do the job right, and I did have miles of ground to cover. Even if I was able to pull up thousands of cubic feet of stone at a time and set them into place, I was dealing with millions of cubic feet of volume. Still, the memories of grinding so many Pyramids for so long was excellent conditioning for what I was doing, and my Stone Walks making the main trade roads through the Vesayans had been good starting practice. I was also running the constantly-updating Markspace Maps for the effort, tracking both the raids against the Gotroks and their conscripted Summons points, and watching the landscape on the way to Mayoi and Hebian-to going silent and dark as point after point of Summons went misty silent and was Sealed. The Marked people were quite emotional about it all, some of them fighting back tears as the monsters that had infested the landscape for so long were wiped away. We held out no hopes they wouldn¡¯t be back ever¡­ but for now, they were gone, clearing the way for real people and creatures to start taking back the countryside. Sending a message, too, but we¡¯d only see if it was heard by other forces¡­ and it was plain to us that at least those on top were probably sneering at our efforts to subvert the Summons points, and probably knew a way to pulse the ley lines and break the Seals on them, even if it might take them a while to arrange. It did leave me time to take care of one other order of business that had been waiting. ------ ¡°Mom, Dad, ended up fine on the new world, place called Dereth, been six months since I arrived. News: You are both Eternal Templates, and can take Eternal Feats. Take Legendary Crafting and you¡¯ll be able to Invest 10k a day into Rantha Stats! Oh, and a shard of Aelryinth from Power of Ten is here, helping Send this Message! Mithar works! ¡°I¡¯ll be in touch!¡± The Sending, Boosted beyond the default word count, swirled up and into the cold and lonely Markdoor that had sat useless in her Markspace for these many months, alongside the others to her friends and family. For a moment it winked to life, glowing as the magic streamed across the connection that was made with more direct power than a Mark could muster, piercing multiple dimensional walls that seemed designed just to thwart those kinds of connections (no, no, that wasn¡¯t ominous to discern) to reach the targets on the other side. It took less than a minute for the bounce-back reply to arrive. ¡°WAHOO, you made it! Thanks for the tip, so awesome! Hope you¡¯re doing great, and tell that Aelryinth-Shard to send someone this way, if he can! Took a load of worry off our minds! It¡¯s been eight months on this side! ¡°Remember your Past-Life Regression! Let us know how it goes!¡± The returned voice was a lot like Kris¡¯, but older, wiser, maternal, and full of relief and love that only a mother for her daughter-hagsister could have. My V Valences weren¡¯t unlimited and I¡¯d certainly be able to spend them all every day¡­ but the fun thing about being a Bondmage to a Forsaken is lots and lots of extra Valences, if they are willing to Invest in a Forsaken Matrix. As a result, I didn¡¯t have to spend my power on the Sendings, Kris could just spend hers for me to Cast and send on the way. As my Caster Level and higher Valences improved, I¡¯d be able to Send on much longer messages, like the ones that had come while I was free-drifting in Astral Space. Fine-tuning them to Kris¡¯ Marks would work even better. It¡¯d still be Sending Marked e-mail instead of talking, but it would be a whole lot better than nothing. --- Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Kris sighed as she opened her eyes, one of the Marks around her shapely waist that had lit up going dim once again. ¡°That was good to hear her voice,¡± she pronounced in relief. ¡°Looks like time is still not linear between these places.¡± ¡°Commit to a Sending a day, maybe two, and magical synchronicity will start applying, aligning the time streams,¡± I told her. ¡°We¡¯ll basically be forcing convergence on the two realms along the chronal streams, if nothing else. From everything we were told by people of Lord Mick¡¯s generation, time was pretty well harmonized, up until the Fall and the Portals basically failed.¡± Princess Kristie Rantha nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll do that. It¡¯s no imposition.¡± All the Forsaken had different ways of filling a Matrix. Sources just sacrificed their invisible ability to affect the world, redirecting the constant energy they generated into filling their internal Valences instead, like a generator filling a capacitor. Voids were much like Powered, taking mana from the world, purifying it, and building up a reservoir inside instead of just passing it out, like widening a river¡¯s flow into a lake inside, constantly expended and refilled, just more ¡®in the process¡¯, as it were. Nulls had to sacrifice Constitution, their own matchless physical vigor, turn it into mana, and refill a Matrix from within, healing the damage internally however they could. There was a Feat from the Moon Dragon and the Mind Dragon Disciplines, Furnace of Life, that allowed someone to recover ability damage at the rate of 1+ Con bonus per day, instead of 1 per day/2 with rest, either mode doubled with a Healer¡¯s attentions and a Heal skill check. For Nulls with their massive Con scores, the Feat was a natural to take, allowing them to recover from extreme shocks and bounce back with amazing speed compared to others, and all as a passive effect. Sure, it didn¡¯t rival a Restoration spell or anything, but it took no effort beyond the Feat on their part, either. Kristie, whose Constitution was north of 40 by now, had at least a +15 Con modifier, meaning she could heal 16 points of ability damage a day. Sacrificing a Con point for mana yielded mana = current Con bonus. So, 40 Con, sacrifice a point, generate 15 mana to fill those empty Valences she couldn¡¯t use. 39 Con, +14 bonus, sacrifice a point, +14 mana. 38, +14; 37 and 36, +13 each, etc. She had no problems filling up her Matrix in one day, even if she had to sacrifice 16 points of Con and heal it all back the next day. The damage wasn¡¯t something a Restoration spell could mend, either, having to be all natural healing. It wasn¡¯t as easy as the other Forsaken¡­ but it did mean that if I needed mana quickly, she could sacrifice ten points of Constitution RIGHT NOW, and suddenly I¡¯d have over a hundred Levels of Valences filling her up nigh-instantly. It would take her a day to recover from the loss, but Null ¡®instant-fill¡¯ was much faster than the other Forsaken types, even the Voids who could actively wrench mana out of something. ¡°What¡¯s this about a Past-Life Regression?¡± I asked her quietly, letting her relief spread through her and ease a tiny bit of the tension that had held onto her. The Sama I recalled had been utterly ferociously protective of friends and family, clutching to those bonds with clawed hands and grim resolve that could and had frightened off a lot of people who¡¯d thought they could poke at those close to her, and found a way-OP and protective Hagchild going off on them like a shotgun to the face. I could only imagine those actually empowered by the Hag Curse and formed from the same template would be even closer. ¡°All Rantha Hags are the same, and we¡¯re all different,¡± she explained quietly to me. ¡°There¡¯s no actual genetic ties between us, even if we sometimes look like twins, and take after our parents. I could go have sex with my brother Grant, have kids, and there¡¯s no inbreeding at all. Once we go through the Hag Curse,¡± she swiped at the Cursebrand on her face, which seemed to shrink at the gesture and the sharp flash in her pale violet eyes as she snarled, just a little, ¡°we¡¯re just changed so we¡¯re different. It¡¯s not the same on the male side of things. The boys are actually brothers, and dad is their father, but on the Sama-side of things, the Curse ends up being the actual mother, and we¡¯re all different because of it.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± That was indeed different, with some weird implications, par for the course for Hags. ¡°So if you don¡¯t get a Briggs of your own, your folks could have a son for you?¡± I asked, finding that¡­ pretty strange on the human side of things, but I wasn¡¯t an actual Hag. ¡°Yes. Only a Briggs can sire a Briggs, only a Rantha can bear a Rantha.¡± Her fingers drummed on the stone next to her, black nails chipping the rock absently. ¡°There¡¯s three of us hagsisters, and I¡¯ve got two brothers who are their twins.¡± I knew that of the Imperial Family, but hadn¡¯t digested the implications. ¡°Huh. Does that imply there¡¯s another Briggs out there back on Ispar, waiting for you?¡± I had to ask, wondering if the twins were basically meant for each other, or they¡¯d swap with their siblings, at least? Hag family mechanics weren¡¯t going to be standard human, that was certain. I could imagine they could find Isparian lovers, but they¡¯d have normal Isparian sons and probably Rantha daughters, by her words. The matching Briggs would either be freeborn and have to be found, or they¡¯d have to find one of their own. ¡°It should,¡± she nodded. ¡°Our souls are the obverse of what the Hag Curse is supposed to do. Originally it was meant as a punishment for evil souls, warping them and twisting them into foul forms as punishment for things they¡¯d done in a previous life. ¡°Ranthas are the reborn souls of those who died to Evil in a previous life, and their Briggs may or may not have been their life mate at the time.¡± I put my hands together quietly. ¡°Oh. Giving those tied together another chance at life and love¡­¡± I could see Sylune guiding the souls together using the Curse to do just that, and Nuava aiding with all her power, too! Love that conquered even death... ¡°The general rule is to wait for Ten to do the Regression, and then go back and look at who I was before I was reborn.¡± ¡°So you can do it at anytime.¡± She¡¯d reached Ten months ago, training up a new generation being good for Matrix Levels, even if Summons Karma wasn¡¯t appropriate. Warlord Karma, Allegiance pass-up, and Glory Awards, even if they came from Summons, did the job for her. ¡°Yes. One of the reasons I¡¯m reluctant to do so is that if my Briggs is back home, I¡¯m going to be compelled to go back and find him.¡± Well, sure. The love of two lives was waiting for you, with all the animal attraction between Rantha Hag and Rantha Ancient thrown on top of things. Of course she¡¯d go looking for him! AF Chapter 174 – The Source of All Your Goals ¡°Forgive me for being presumptuous and asking this, but how familiar are you with the ability of Sources to Make Fate?¡± I asked Princess Kristie firmly. It was her turn to raise an elegant dark eyebrow. ¡°Well, two brothers and a father who are Sources¡­¡± she hinted at me, and I just shook my head. ¡°I¡¯m not denigrating them or you, but you aren¡¯t a Powered, and your ability to sense Fate and events is limited to a local spiritual level. ¡°Let¡¯s just say that the reason Viamont died and Briggs and Sama, your folks, are now Emperor and Empress, is probably because your dad got just that pissed and figured it was time to take things in hand and get them done his way. ¡°Everything else extended from that one promise, a Source Oath, probably to make Viamont pay for its asshattery, and his own resolve not to let the world fall into shit afterwards, because the Briggs I know is a pretty responsible guy.¡± She looked at me and pursed her lips. ¡°Huh,¡± she said after a minute. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ wow, okay, the concept is there, but I never actually thought of dad as the cause of all of it, given how mad mom was at them¡­¡± ¡°Nulls don¡¯t Make Fate, they reinforce it. They can stand against a river and turn a Source¡¯s efforts to nothing, or they can make of them a mighty avalanche few can stand against. Your dad started the effort, your mother increased the flow, you kids chipped in, people swelled behind the new course of Fate, and together you changed the whole damn world.¡± From Shamira¡¯s memories, it was easy to see the ripple effects going out, the way efforts to help establish what Briggs was doing flourished, and those that opposed him faltered and failed, sometimes by accident, sometimes for lack of motivation, and sometimes by someone with sharp knives cutting an unwanted cross-current short. Making Fate was a massively subtle and powerful engine of change, or lack of change, depending on the Source involved. ¡°Why bring that up?¡± Kris asked me, frowning. ¡°Someone is out there waiting for me, and I¡¯m going to find her.¡± Her pale violet eyes opened really wide, and she broke out in a dazzling smile that really lit up her entire face. ¡°Oh!¡± she managed to say around all that whiteness. ¡°He¡¯s going to find me, even if it looks like I¡¯m going to find him!¡± ¡°Unless he¡¯s specifically got another focus in his life, it¡¯s kind of the default.¡± I favored her with a shake of my head. ¡°Let¡¯s be frank here, Kris. Sending you on in alone was a very stupid thing to do. Your younger brother and sister would have been a better match and team, but nobody objected when you said you were going to go in, probably all gung-ho about it, and you didn¡¯t even know why or think to question it.¡± Those big violet eyes got really, really intense, and she leaned forwards sharply. ¡°He¡¯s HERE?¡± she almost shrieked, but held it back to a deadly whisper. ¡°There was an erratic Portal network out there dumping random people here willy-nilly all over the place,¡± I pointed out. ¡°That kind of shit is basically tailor-made for Source Fatebending doing its thing. Portals can bring people who are VERY far apart together very quickly. He might even have beat you here, as a future home with his woman would be part of the dream for any proper man, right?¡± ¡°And mom and dad already are going to have to work with Ispar!¡± she agreed quickly. ¡°A new world would be perfect for us, and it¡¯s right here waiting!¡± Now the four sets of canines were becoming prominent, looking ready to bite and tear. ¡°Oh, oh, oh!¡± She was starting to get excited. ¡°Where is he? Where could he be? Wouldn¡¯t he have found his way here somehow, where the only Isparians are remaining?¡± ¡°Well, obviously it¡¯s not where the only Isparians are remaining,¡± I reminded her. She froze, unnaturally still, like a statue, not breathing or blinking, or moving in the wind, just caught and held like someone had put her in stasis for a moment. ¡°Oswald¡¯s little sanctuary in the north,¡± she murmured, and her fingers twitched just so, black nails cutting at the air, and the air seemed to protest just a little bit. I nodded slowly. ¡°My guess.¡± ¡°We¡¯re dropping that notice for the Green Hunter tomorrow.¡± ¡°Yes, that sounds like a good plan.¡± ---------- It was just a spur of a hill on the edge of the Linvaks. It was technically visible for miles, and there was absolutely nothing special about it. It sort of came to a peak, it had no distinguishing features, it was an offshoot of the much larger and steeper mount to the west of it, and it didn¡¯t even have part of the unnatural snow level on it. Stolen novel; please report. There were also only two convenient ways up it, both were very exposed, and he knew each and every place someone might hide. He came in Invisibly, appearing out of literally nowhere, rather bored at what should be just another trip. He had given Borelean the contract and details of it a long time ago, and honestly didn¡¯t know if the boy had torn it up and thrown it out, forgotten it, lost it, or simply was still holding onto it, wondering if there would ever be a proper time to use it. Oswald the Green Hunter didn¡¯t really care. It had been almost twenty years now, and he still came to check on the drop point, once a month. It took him no effort to do so, just a few minutes of his time, and carefully checking the nearer ways into and around the peak to make sure it wasn¡¯t an ambush. There wasn¡¯t anybody around, and whatever effort the Isparian forces of the Vesayans were putting into effect hadn¡¯t reached here yet, not that there was anything here of interest to anyone. He stepped over to the crack in the rock, and froze. There was a stone wedged into the narrow fissure in the stone, barely visible in the faint moonlight. For a minute or two he just stared at it, marveling over his own reaction, wondering if this moment meant vindication or a final, much-deserved rejection. After all, he had waited closing in on two decades for this moment, and now that it was here, he was surprised at his own emotions. ¡°It seems I have invested more than I thought into this,¡± he murmured to himself, shaking his head at all the odd feelings running through his head, forcibly recovering his calm. He couldn¡¯t see or feel any magic about the place yet, carefully probing for it. He reached up and pulled out the stone, which gave way easily. He let it drop, seeing the glitter within, and reached in to draw out the black tube he¡¯d left behind on a young king¡¯s nightstand so many years ago. Years, before the Fall. Steeling himself for the words, he unscrewed the ends of it, still wary, still assessing his surroundings, and took out the rolled paper within it. He opened it up, the lines short and direct. Master Oswald, we¡¯ll be there in a few minutes. Don¡¯t go away. And then the words Burned away in magic. Instantly he grabbed at space and attempted to flee the area¡­ and found the lines in space, the path of his life, suddenly closed, the strings staying in place as if they were bars of steel, not threads he¡¯d been able to bend and play and travel along lo these many years, giving him an ability to travel this island that no other force here could rival. Reeling back from the mental equivalent of slamming his head into a stone wall, he could only watch as a line of stone, merely ankle-high, rose from underneath the rock all around him in a fairly complex pattern, and glowed ever-so-slightly. Trapping him, the infamous elusive assassin and hunter-of-men, Oswald the Green Hunter, in a circle a mere ten feet across. ¡°Well,¡± he murmured with both steely detachment and amused cynicism, ¡°It appears I¡¯m not the only one who learned a few new tricks.¡± He looked around, finding no motion in the area. ¡°A few minutes, eh?¡± He wondered where they would be coming from. He¡¯d heard that the mages of the Vesayans had discovered how to fly, and his trips there had become much more cautious after the word of the new magicks had leaked out. Especially Divination magicks that were capable of seeing the invisible and otherwise unseen, which had folded up a lot of previously-undetectable assassins operating in the island who¡¯d thought themselves untouchable, and done so with a speed they had been completely unprepared for. Master Oswald clasped his hands behind his back, and waited for his captors to arrive, honestly wondering what was to become of him after so long. ------ The Mick, Kris, and I shimmered into place not thirty feet away from the master assassin. He turned to look at us, probably feeling the spatial ripples given off as the greater Interdiction faded, but the local one about his containment Seal stayed in force. No lights came on, everyone capable of seeing easily in the night. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s the old fart, sure enough,¡± the Mick drawled easily, staring at a man who seemed not much older than himself inside the Circle there, gone prematurely white, with a lean build and poised air of holding himself that bespoke a master of self-control, and a confidence in his own capabilities that was unfeigned. A dangerous man, and he knew it. ¡°A nice trap, McMikal,¡± the assassin replied to the assessment, and naturally recognizing the newly famous Black Aluvian paramount. ¡°What happens now?¡± The Mick snorted once. ¡°We see if yer sincere, is what.¡± He kicked a rock there, and it bounced off the ground, and up over the Sealing Circle, popping the containment instantly as it crossed the threshold, clattering to a halt behind the startled assassin. Master Oswald paused in surprise, clearly not expecting the move. ¡°Interesting,¡± he finally judged, letting his hands fall to his side, especially as we maintained our distance and kept our hands away from any weapons. Well, I was still holding Crown, but I wasn¡¯t being threatening or anything. ¡°Did the king send you?¡± he finally asked, looking at each of us in turn. No need for introductions, he plainly knew who we were. ¡°Not so much. He gave me leave t¡¯ employ yer services if I cared to, an¡¯ in doing so washed his hands of what were t¡¯ happen. Mind, he did give me leave t¡¯ kill ye if I thought to, but that were likely not his desire. I didnae ask, after all,¡± the Mick responded affably, clearly not worried about anything here, a confidence which gave even the experienced assassin pause. The complete lack of fear and paranoia from us was something to be wary of, too. ¡°Well, then. What is your reason for invoking that contract, then?¡± ¡°As ye can see, the Vanguard has launched. We be shutting down all the Summons in the southeast here, save a scant few t¡¯ be reserved for future training purposes. We¡¯re going t¡¯ be rooting out the Hea an¡¯ Gotrok positions, securing everything south o¡¯ the Blackmire, an¡¯ we¡¯re going to finally shut down the shite happening at Tou-Tou.¡± Oswald lifted an incredulous eye at the claims, but the completely blas¨¦ expressions on all three of our faces did more to convince him than any excited fervor. ¡°I trust this isn¡¯t a recruitment pitch, Lord Mick,¡± he said dryly. AF Chapter 175 – A Contract for the Green Hunter ¡°Aye, it be one, but not fer that. The Assassin¡¯s Guild has re-established itself and be taking contracts from the undead, an¡¯ be responsible for killing loyal humans both fer the coin o¡¯ other humans, an¡¯ the coins o¡¯ things not human at all,¡± the Mick informed Master Oswald coolly, his own dark eyes flashing and betraying what he thought of such people. ¡°By word an¡¯ authority o¡¯ King Borelean - an¡¯ Queen Mother Elysa, even!- if ye wipe the traitorous bastards from Dereth once an¡¯ fer all, yer debt be paid, the price on yer life be lifted, an¡¯ ye kin walk even in the royal court a free man¡­ but mind, don¡¯t be taking coin for lives any more, although I be thinking the King might be looking for a spymaster,¡± he added on the side. Oswald barked out a short, incredulous laugh. ¡°Borelean certainly has more imagination than I gave him credit for, I¡¯ll grant that!¡± he half-smiled, his fingers working. ¡°You want me to wipe out the Assassin¡¯s Guild entirely¡­¡± ¡°Ye can kill them all, or ye can recruit as many as ye like, but those who took coin t¡¯ kill our own die. Those who remain, if ye can teach ¡®em better, aye, we¡¯ll take them back in, given how they were raised. If they want to go rogue¡­ that just means the Guild will rise again, elsewhere, an¡¯d we be not putting up with it this time.¡± Oswald considered that, his piercing green eyes alternating between Kris and I. ¡°I¡¯ve heard the two young ladies are recently come from Ispar,¡± he said, dodging an immediate answer. Kris stepped forward slightly. ¡°You seek news of home, elder?¡± she asked archly. ¡°I¡¯d heard there were many changes back home, and wondered how true it was.¡± ¡°My mother slaughtered Grandfather Orgrigel and the twelve Hands of Night in their mountain hold. No less than six hundred and twelve members of his guild were put to the knife all across Ispar. None of the senior members have survived, and that includes any who might think there¡¯s still a deathmark on you.¡± He blinked at her, clearly not expecting that answer. ¡°And who is your mother?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Master Oswald of the Crimson Trade,¡± I interrupted, stepping forward. I saw just the tiniest wincing at my choice of appellations. ¡°May I introduce Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, Daughter of Briggs, Emperor of Ispar, and Sama Rantha, Empress of Ispar!¡± I paused significantly for him to digest that. ¡°You are probably more familiar with the names of Commander Briggs of Celdon and that damn Hag, Sama, his wife.¡± It was the assassin¡¯s turn to look at me, then her in shock. ¡°Those two actually became Emperor and Empress?¡± he asked in half-disbelief. ¡°They rode to the throne on a tide of Viamontian bodies and crushed Blueblood dreams. The Viamontian Royal House of Corcosi is annihilated, half the population of Viamont was slaughtered, and Roulea, Sho, Aluvia, Viamont, and Gharu¡¯n bow to the will of my parents,¡± Kristie replied with the icy calm of certainty, and a certain overwhelming power to her stare of rulership ladled on to a deadly amount of competency. Even the Green Hunter had to be wary of a noble with a reputation as a Warlord as dangerous as hers. ¡°That matches what I had heard in passing, although it was somewhat incomplete,¡± Oswald nodded slightly. ¡°Although I had no idea the Guild was targeted so thoroughly...¡± ¡°At least nine of their agents escaped to Dereth over the years, judging by their records, and they sent one of their own after them, to see if it was deliberate or fleeing their hand. Also, potentially coming after you.¡± Kris¡¯ smile was mirthless. ¡°Yes, Selaina did allude to the fact that more than the Viamontians had a price on me. Her selling out to the undead is, unsurprisingly, right in line with guild ideals. They do not care where the coin comes from, in the end,¡± he nodded thoughtfully. ¡°Are you the one who taught them the Magic Rogue tricks?¡± Kris asked directly, her eyes narrowed. That gave him pause. ¡°Magic Rogue tricks?¡± Oswald repeated narrowly, meeting her pale violet with his own brilliant green eyes with sudden interest. ¡°You actually have a name for my little tricks, Princess?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Kris inclined her head, and I waved my hand, Holos popping up in repeated pages of information and data about the Magic Rogue Class, dredged up from replicated memories from the Guidebook, Wiki, and more laborious testing and options discovered by the rare person who followed the Class. ¡°We¡¯ve got you pegged at about a Twelve in the Matrix system you inadvertently stumbled into, based on what the assassins we¡¯ve uncovered know of you and their reports of your own skills. Impressive on its own merits, Master Oswald.¡± He was now obviously in new territory, where his clever tricks and skills that no one else had managed to fully duplicate or knew as much about were clearly not anywhere as mysterious as he thought. Or not. ¡°Interesting. I¡¯d received some recent guidance on the path I¡¯d taken, and he used those exact words, Magic Rogue,¡± was his testing response. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The reaction from Kris was as to be expected, as her gaze sharpened noticeably. ¡°Is that so. Big guy, swings a big hammer around, probably took over as Warlord in your little safe haven up north?¡± He eyed her speculatively, plainly wondering just how much she knew. The Aun had refused to speak anything about him and his aid in evacuating their people, and we hadn¡¯t pressed them on the point¡­ although they had confirmed he had helped them. ¡°Indeed. Do you know him? He¡¯s been here considerably longer than you seem to have been, and he came in by boat during a storm, right through the Shoreward. He even shares your father¡¯s name, if you are who you say you are,¡± Master Oswald finally responded. ¡°Only by reputation and intentions.¡± Her smile was wide and Oswald actually minutely twitched at the sight of her set of eight canines. ¡°I¡¯ll presume he¡¯s still up in Stonehold, which is another question we would like an answer to.¡± She didn¡¯t take a step forward, but the pressure she exuded seemed to swell up, and it was the master assassin who retreated ever so slightly. ¡°Why have you kept the people up in Stonehold isolated from the rest of the survivors here, to the point that only we three actually know that the town survived the Fall? Even the Aun weren¡¯t sure where you were using as a base.¡± Oswald¡¯s own eyes were narrowed now, clearly knowing that he was now dealing with something beyond his expectations. He visibly debated what his answer was going to be, and finally replied, ¡°If you know the history of Stonehold, it isn¡¯t all that far off from the history of MacDugal¡¯s own castle of bandits and skulldiggers in its history. They settled up there because they wanted to get away from the rest of society and particularly anything or anyone that called themselves royalists. The Fall was an opportunity for them to be free and return to the way of life they¡¯d had before, and they didn¡¯t really want to know or care what happened to everyone else. ¡°As for the rest who did, well, it¡¯s a long trip overland, and they probably didn¡¯t make it back.¡± The Mick held out his palm. I slapped five pyreal coins into it, just shaking my head. ¡°Eager to profit, eager to cut ties. Can¡¯t fault them for self-reliance,¡± I murmured, as the Mick pocketed his winnings in satisfaction. ¡°Did you get Plateau and the Beach Fort evacuated safely, Master Oswald?¡± ¡°Aye, that I did, Lady Magos, despite all their protests. They¡¯d seen what happened to the strongest adventurers and guards, and didn¡¯t have the will to resist my orders, despite my, ah, reputation. They managed to make it to Stonehold before the undead started sweeping the north, and then my reputation proved to be something of an asset.¡± His own smile was small, but cunning and proud at that statement. ¡°You perma-killed the undead commanders of the force meant to lay siege to the town, and indicated you¡¯d take it as a personal favor if they backed the fuck off?¡± Princess Kristie asked with an arched eyebrow. His thunder stolen, the Green Hunter seemed to deflate slightly. ¡°That is¡­ grossly oversimplifying matters and just how many undead I politely removed from their status before the siege of Stonehold was lifted and they found other matters to occupy themselves. However, they have made very sure no overland messengers were going to get in or out without excessively lethal roundabout travel.¡± ¡°The virindi? The gurogs? Even the tuskers, and the monugas?¡± the Mick took the opportunity to speak up, more of a morbid interest than anything else. ¡°The Fall completely shattered the Bloodstone Rituals the undead were using up in the Frozen Valley, and incidentally shattered their hold on the gurogs they¡¯d bred up there, too. The mattekar-men and the tuskers there formed an ersatz alliance and pushed out all other forces rapidly and brutally, and have held the valley ever since. While their hatred of humans, lugians, and tumeroks remains completely undimmed, the gurog don¡¯t come over and make trouble with us, given that the olthoi are so active across the North. Someone who might have been able to get their attention may have warned them that if they didn¡¯t stop them, the bugs were going to grind them under their pincers, and turn everything in the North into food or slaves. If they want a fight, they go east, and run into all the olthoi trouble and havoc they could possibly want. ¡°The monugas recognize the gurog as tied to the mattekars, and basically leave them alone, not that they are the equals of the mattekar-men or the Snow Tusker tribe.¡± ¡°Given our investigations, we believe the people around Neydissa managed to evacuate into the Crater and the Elementals ringing it have basically kept out the olthoi and let them live in relative peace,¡± Kris spoke up next. Master Oswald definitely was wondering at our information sources, but he nodded in confirmation. ¡°She was a smart woman and moved quickly once she realized how perilous the magical situation was. There are a lot of random Elementals around, but if they are careful, it isn¡¯t too dangerous. The ones ringing the Crater are not bothered by the olthoi, and destroy any sign of their ecology in the area, too. The humans are basically trapped inside, but it¡¯s not a bad life, and they are learning to control and bend some of the fire Elementals to their wills, mostly just so they can wander the area more freely.¡± ¡°The undead never tried to get in?¡± the Mick asked, mostly in disbelief. ¡°I were of the feelin¡¯ that the forges there might be important.¡± ¡°They tried exactly once, McMikal. The Elementals gathered from all over the Crater to fight them, spawning faster and faster as they died, with more powerful versions coming out as they did so, including some I¡¯d never personally seen before. They beat the undead back with enough exploding flame that a good section of the slopes were blasted black and clean even now, hissing with heat even where should be snow. ¡°Not even the virindi dared investigate after that.¡± ¡°Huh. And me greedy sot of a great uncle?¡± the Mick pressed on. ¡°Me other uncle be interested t¡¯ hear what become of him.¡± ¡°MacDugal is still alive, but is under great pressure, both from within and without. The freebooters who established Northwatch Keep had to abandon it under pressure from the olthoi, and they all fled to his hold. They do a lot of fighting against the olthoi, and the menu there isn¡¯t very robust at all. I bring in supplies on a regular basis to them, and they pay careful attention to what I say as a result.¡± ¡°Master Oswald, I know ye¡¯re on the Freebooter Council, an¡¯ ye thought the two Keeps were a great grandiose waste o¡¯ time. Me uncle thought so, too, as ye might recall.¡± The Mick wagged a finger at him casually, and the master assassin actually managed to laugh at that. AF Chapter 176 – The Vanguard rolls On ¡°I do remember him cursing up a fine streak at all the idiots who built those things, McMikal,¡± Oswald the Green Hunter admitted dryly. ¡°All that effort for something they couldn¡¯t hold onto, only make a Portal to their little trading outlets, as if it were some grand and good thing to waste all the time and effort on fortifications with no purpose, just so random fools could trade for their wares.¡± He shook his head at such foolishness. ¡°The olthoi can bore right through dimensions, and not giving them permission to use the Portals didn¡¯t stop them at all¡­ and naturally their little hidey-holes all got crammed back into reality with all the other dungeons forced to reappear.¡± ¡°Och, so sorry I feel for ¡®em.¡± The Mick spat eloquently off to the side. Aye, spitting in disdain was an art, too, and he had it down pretty good. ¡°I gather they¡¯re a mite uppity, and an old-schooler like grand-uncle has had t¡¯ put a few in their place, likely with a yard of steel in their guts?¡± ¡°You know the type well, McMikal,¡± Oswald replied mildly. ¡°I, of course, don¡¯t need to take control of his little pile of stones. If I bring a keg of beer, MacDugal will do anything I tell him to.¡± The Mick just guffawed. ¡°Aye, that¡¯d be about right, Master Oswald!¡± Given his dead uncle was the same way, that came as no surprise. ¡°Now, have ye an answer for us, me elder throat-cutting teacher, or do ye actually need time t¡¯ think on it?¡± His green eyes flashed. ¡°I would like to say I do, just for the sake of appearances, but I doubt that would fool any of us. Aye, McMikal, I¡¯lll take Borelean at his word, and the grace of his mother. I¡¯ve no true love for Seliana and what she¡¯s done, while she¡¯s been trying to pressure me into joining her or bending to her, threatening the wrath of her paymasters in subtle ways.¡± He sighed in regret. ¡°Aye, it¡¯s finally time. She never wised up at all, only threw herself deeper into the Guild mindset with the years.¡± ¡°Will you need help in this matter?¡± Kris stated plainly. ¡°Lord Mick indicated you had been teaching your own apprentices and proteges, but we want them gone, and if they go to ground and rebuild, this entire effort is a joke.¡± ¡°Selaina has been keeping track of me and mine and what we¡¯ve been doing in the North, but she has no idea of how much I¡¯ve been moving around and keeping track of her and hers in return,¡± Master Oswald responded calmly. ¡°Although I won¡¯t turn down help in getting free of the price on my head if I deem it suitable for the occasion. I can contact you with any requests for proper muscle.¡± ¡°Just use the Aun,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°Them being relieved of their vow of silence will take some pressure off them, and keep their gratitude towards you intact. I¡¯ve no doubt they¡¯d help in your hunt, and naturally using them to get word to us should be simplicity.¡± He eyed her again, once again having to re-evaluate who was actually in control here. ¡°He¡¯s trying to Assess ye, lass,¡± the Mick said offhandedly. ¡°Why don¡¯t ye let ¡®im see what he¡¯s dealing with.¡± Princess Kristie tossed her hair slightly, raven locks moving away from her Cursemark, which seemed to throb to hungry life as it was fully revealed. She reached back, pulled out Quaver, and with a very distinct ding! ting! set of notes drove her Sword directly into the stone of the mountain like it was wet cheese. Lost Light flowed up and down the Blade in spirals of Holy Force Radiant energy, blue tints played at the guard and hilt, and a deep electrum-red glow lit within the runnel of the blue-black metal, highlighting the crackling white about the Blackfire Diamonds mounted there, while the whole of the meter-length of steel was limned by a dense Golden light that was probably harder than the metal it emanated from. ¡°This is Quaver,¡± she stated in no uncertain terms, ¡°and I forged her myself. Show me the Knife Briggs made for you, Master Oswald.¡± He eyed the hue of her Blade, and then the Mick casually slipped out Bunita, grew her to full length, and also buried the Claymore¡¯s point readily in the stone, Orange-Yellow light throbbing with force and power upon it as Lost Light also ran up and down it, somehow woven with resolute anger and sadness all in one. ¡°This be Bunita,¡± the Mick said, only the slightest catch in his voice as he said the name, but the narrowing of Oswald¡¯s eyes showed he recognized it. A blade of Electrum force emerged from Crown, and his eyes shifted over to study it in only mild surprise. ¡°My Staff is Named Crown,¡± I informed him mildly, and he inclined his head just so. He didn¡¯t draw the Knife. It was suddenly in his hand, that was all. It had about eight inches of blade, a hunter and killer¡¯s one-sided straight weapon. The metal was also blue-black, heavy and sure despite its size, and limning it, making it almost the size of a shortsword, was a crystalline-hard Emerald field of Soulfire. ¡°This is Regrets,¡± he introduced the Knife gently, staring at it with both fondness and resignation. ¡°Lucky is the man who can live without such things.¡± There was almost a challenge in his gaze as he looked back at Kristie, and then color flowed down Quaver. Deep, rich Ruby, the assassination-boosting Enhancement covered the blue-black steel and slowly beating flames inside, dark and pure as fresh blood. He stared at it, clearly knowing what it meant, and with a flick of his wrist, Regrets spun once in nimble fingers. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Bloody Ruby crimson also covered his Knife, where only metal had shown before. A Rune gleamed on Quaver, and the Ruby washed away as if it had never been there. A flick of his fingers, and Soulfire and Ruby washed away on Regrets as well, leaving only a length of blue-black metal gleaming sharply there with a deadly promise, seemingly more an extension of the man who held it than a Weapon in its own right. It was his own regrets given form, after all... ¡°Clearly your mother raised you right, Your Highness,¡± he half-smiled, managing a smooth approximation of a courtier¡¯s bow without much effort. Regrets vanished as he did so, and we all flicked off or returned our Weapons to their scabbards respectively. ¡°She did indeed. You can inform Briggs that we¡¯ll be there to greet him shortly, which won¡¯t surprise him at all when you tell him there¡¯s a full Magos with me,¡± Kris replied. He glanced at me sharply before asking, ¡°You are going to attempt a run to Stonehold?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°The way is still very dangerous¡­¡± Kris just smiled again, eight canines and Cursemark combining with the way her pale violet eyes lit up softly to make a truly intimidating sight. ¡°While that is very tempting, no. Our way will be much faster,¡± she purred in a voice laden with battle-hunger. ¡°Teleporting about as readily as you do will come later, Master Oswald.¡± He glanced at me, I just raised an eyebrow, and he chuckled softly. ¡°I see,¡± he said, only somewhat ruefully. ¡°So, the defenses Briggs has installed about Stonehold do indeed have deeper meanings¡­¡± ¡°The undead certainly have methods of tracking those who use Portal magic, and your Teleporting about is simply an unconfined version of the same thing, Master Oswald. You¡¯ve been quite circumspect about it, but there is little doubt the elite among the undead know what you can do. It simply hasn¡¯t impressed them enough to do anything about it,¡± I informed him quietly. ¡°I see. And their ability to see from afar, as well as curtailing any ability of the virindi to fly, seems to have had some effect in recent days, as well,¡± he remarked thoughtfully. ¡°That Amulet you are wearing is not going to block the scrying efforts of the most powerful undead, but it is capable of stopping minor attempts at the same thing. I would guess that you have kept a low enough profile to not attract their more pressing attention from whatever schemes and faction politics they are embroiled in.¡± He gave me another careful look, his statement probing what I knew clearly indicating I didn¡¯t think much of his question, and he really didn¡¯t know what was going on at the magical level¡­ which was only appropriate. He had other areas of expertise. ¡°I will make plans to¡­ improve my privacy situation, then, Magos,¡± he nodded slowly. ¡°If our matters are done here, then?¡± ¡°For your information, it is incredibly easy to trace the destination of a Teleportation from the spot is is initiated from, and then replicate the Teleport itself with minimal effort and absolute success,¡± I deigned to inform him, and he flinched slightly. ¡°Yes. If you¡¯ve done this in a combat situation, it is entirely likely that the undead can now follow right along to wherever you Teleported to, and simply have been waiting for an appropriate time to surprise you with that fact.¡± He actually clenched his teeth, and a muscle ticced in his jaw. ¡°It appears I am going to have to have Master Briggs expand the Wards he put up to some other locations, and quickly!¡± he said grimly, favoring me with another look. ¡°Thank you for that information, Lady Magos. I had no idea of such a clear vulnerability.¡± ¡°Perhaps you might like to sit down and talk about the limits and capabilities of the tricks you¡¯ve discovered. I imagine knowing their limits and how to leverage their strengths would be extremely useful for you.¡± ¡°Ah.¡± He wasn¡¯t used to generosity directed at him, that was plain. ¡°I¡­ will consider that, and perhaps set a lunch date at some time in the future.¡± ¡°As the Master wishes.¡± I waved it off absently, and could almost feel his internal sigh. He was indeed supremely skilled at his chosen trade, but that trade only touched on magic for the gifts to enhance it, it did not truly include more than the mildest understanding of it. I knew far, far more about his capabilities than he did about mine, and my versatility grew every day I could Cast Exemplar Surge and add a new spell to my library. With a flourish both contrived and natural, his green cloak billowed, swept around him, and appeared to settle in and draw tight about itself, darkening and dissipating into the night and shadows all around. Master Osawald, the Green Hunter, the most feared hunter of men and assassin in Dereth, was gone. I lifted my head to survey his path, noting it led northwest along very close to the proper angle to take it back to Stonehold. ¡°He likely has a compound nearby and outside the city,¡± I judged, studying it. ¡°About a mile to the northeast of it, judging by the angle, or he¡¯s simply recalled himself to a spot nearby to shake the casual divination of his destination,¡± I informed Lord Mick and Princess Kristie. ¡°He¡¯s never been a slow learner, that one,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Clever enough to actually mentor Borelean after trying to kill the King¡¯s own mother, aye, Master Oswald¡¯s not lacking in the cunning department, lass.¡± ¡°As long as he directs that cunning to getting rid of those who think cleverness excuses all moral failings, I will applaud his ingenuity. That¡¯s probably the hardest Emerald I¡¯ve ever seen,¡± Kris observed. ¡°Rare, that,¡± I agreed. ¡°He¡¯s gone beyond money for killing, realizing where it was taking him, and pushed himself beyond it. An Emerald Aura is not something anyone stumbles into.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not just an evolution of Brown?¡± The Mick arched his eyebrow in some surprise. Brown was everywhere, especially among the tribal races and civilians who didn¡¯t want to go out and fight. ¡°No, Emerald takes the formation of a personal philosophy that eschews the major forces and attempts to stand apart from them. Some say it represents the idealization of a sapient¡¯s attempt to grow beyond the Alignments and act in accord with Nature and existence itself.¡± I just shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s taking a stand to not take a stand, in the end. Free Will leads to weird areas. Nature is not the Alignments, it¡¯s the result of them pushing and pulling at one another, and goes out of balance fairly easily, all things told. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here, Tou-Tou is waiting.¡± My Teleporting wasn¡¯t as neat and artful as his, but I could do it more times per day, if needed¡­ AF Chapter 177 – It’s not going to be Tou-Tou Much Work ¡°Master Ben Ten. I understand you¡¯ve a bunch of very unwelcome news for us.¡± Mayoi had been almost empty of the undead who normally staffed it, only the most junior members who couldn¡¯t survive a fight against the shades and Shaded creatures coming out from Tou-Tou left behind to watch over it. It wasn¡¯t as much of an issue, since the lands for miles about were absolutely clear of any Summons at all, and the Vanguard teams were still pushing north toward Hebian-To. Even the monuga tribes were letting the teams pass now, the countryside clearing up of the Summons in their wake, making it easier and simpler to just walk around. They poked at the black and yellow stakes pounded into the ground to indicate where Summons had been popping up for ages, places and things they had avoided or hurled themselves at to prove themselves for uncounted years¡­ but they didn¡¯t pull them out or knock them down. Even the Summoned monugas were gone and didn¡¯t return. To the simple and crude three-eyed native Jotuns, it was probably surreal. Master Ben Ten¡¯s people looked pretty beat-up and battered, with fresh battle damage on their armor, bones, and decaying flesh. The paramounts deployed nearby didn¡¯t look pristine, either, although Healing magic had kept them in better physical repair, their equipment was looking nearly as smashed-up. ¡°More shades are coming out of the Vortex than there were a month ago,¡± the skeletal sword master informed me. ¡°They also surged in the last twenty-four hours. There have been waves spilling out of the center in all directions, but they inevitably turn south and have to be stopped here.¡± ¡°Mixed-arms, or knots of the same things?¡± Kris asked crisply, her eyes turned north-east with cold purpose. ¡°Knots of similar creatures, which is something of a blessing. The Stillflight Fields crippling the movements of the Shadow Zefirs are particularly useful,¡± he reported. ¡°Heal Deadly Wounds have been very much appreciated by everyone targeted by mass magic.¡± Technically it was both Heal and Inflict Deadly Wounds, as the negative energy variant was required to Heal the undead. Get to someone who was targeted by multiple spells fast enough, and they wouldn¡¯t die. As there was no lack of users of Life Magic among the living and the undead, getting that Gold-equivalent spell out there for them to learn and make use of had been almost the equivalent of being tied to a deathstone¡­ or reanimating at midnight at your chosen grave, as the undead were locked into. It had done a lot for morale for the paramounts, and there had been an almost fanatical rush to master it as quickly as possible among our Casters, to the point that they weren¡¯t really allowed to use War Magic for more than opening volleys or Vulns, saving their mana to save others who might go down. Another big switch from them being the primary muscle that they used to be. The rather derided Melee weapon users and overshadowed Archers had been enjoying a strong comeback as a result, and the increasing power shown by the Matrix Melee students, and even Ben Ten¡¯s swordmasters, had naturally been noticed. Originally the main force had been gathered along the main Road into Tou-Tou, the ancient pavings still as unmarked and uncaring as ever. However, the surge from Tou-Tou spread in all directions ran into the Shorewards, and spilled southwest along the beaches to either side, out of and down from the hills. As a result, the undead lines had shifted mostly east and west, MacNaill¡¯s less elite, but more numerous forces in Hebian-to crawling all over the shades to take them down, knowing they¡¯d just be back at night. ¡°You all look like you need more Healing,¡± I told him, waving my hand slowly in a gesture I didn¡¯t use often. The Note that sounded as the Shards manifested was low and somber. They weren¡¯t bright in the slightest, looking like slivers of black ice, the only flames upon them thick and oily, hard to look at with living eyes. ¡°Undead fools, soak this in!¡± I reminded them as I called out. There was no hesitation as the undead of Mayoi turned towards me, waiting expectantly, some even spreading their arms out wide inside rattling armor to wait for what was coming. Uttercold Shardrays, with the cold component minimized and the negative energy aspect maximized, converged from the independent Shards, the Paired results plunging first into the most heavily-damaged elites, and then Chaining out to two dozen more targets each. Waiting for the surge, they sucked the power in, and bones firmed up and reformed out of dark energies, spikes of black ice spontaneously manifesting out of their armor and bones at the same time. Holy energies somehow swirled serenely among them as the energies of death were digested by them, helping instead of harming what would normally be dire enemies as they boosted the negative-Healing aspect of the spells in this case. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Heaven looked after its own, especially its fools. I moved down the lines of undead, the Perpetual Spell endlessly cheap and free, saving the mana of the Casters among the undead, who did not regain their power as readily as the living did, especially during daylight. By the time I was done, they looked like a glittering black-iced array of spiked and nasty undead of their own¡­ which by their viewpoint probably looked like glowing spikes of energy and power buffing them all up and fixing all their armor and injuries at the same time, turning their rusting and fractured weapons into slickly clean and deadly implements of killing power. Which I didn¡¯t mind at all, and I was sure the shades coming in would enjoy the whole process. --- ¡°Pushing up the middle is still the absolute best ploy, while we just try to contain the flanks,¡± Kris murmured as she studied the tactical map and the information coming in from hidden Scouts tracking the movements of the shade-creatures spilling out of the corrupted city. ¡°There is absolutely huge risk of a recall, however.¡± She drew on the Holo we were all looking at, and I adjusted it accordingly. You could feel even the bone-faces of the skeletal undead turning ugly when all those shades suddenly collapsed onto our forces from all directions. ¡°Yer saying this is a huge trap, then?¡± the Mick guessed, staring at the whole thing. ¡°That is my guess,¡± Kris nodded, sighing slightly. ¡°Whatever is behind it either knows vivus is being deployed and what it portends, or has figured out through time-sighting that this is the event that could push it off the planet. It¡¯s expending a lot of power to make sure that doesn¡¯t happen, and us advancing right up into a complete envelopment does not feel in any way like a clever tactic to me. ¡°Using vivus is difficult with us undead around and contributing,¡± Master Ben Ten said softly in his hollow voice, realizing the main problem with all of this. ¡°Instead of taking the flanks while you race up the middle into a trap, we need to keep this blocked while you eradicate one of the flanking powers, grind your way up to one of the side passes, and come in from the flank yourselves. ¡°We need to keep the shades occupied so that if a recall order comes through, they either cannot answer it, or so many of them die trying to reach Tou-Tou that it is ineffectual.¡± Killing a foe running away was always easier, and the undead did massively outnumber the shades, who in turn greatly out-leveled the average undead soldier. Tar-pitting them in bodies was a completely viable tactic at this point. ¡°That be a lot of shades movin¡¯ about,¡± Lord Mick murmured, eyeing the throngs and small hordes of demented shades of various types, shadow zefirs, corrupted grievvers, and marguls scattered around and continually coming out of Tou-Tou. ¡°Most of them are likely modified Summons being continually recycled,¡± I supplied to him, earning everyone¡¯s attention. ¡°If we Burn them dead with vivus, we cut into the pool they can draw from. In actuality, we can win the majority of the battle simply by staying on the flanks and Burning away everything that comes at us. At some point, the entity behind all this will simply run out of things it can recycle and send back in at us. ¡°That¡¯s the time we need to advance.¡± ¡°Ah, the logistics of Summoning,¡± Princess Kristie mused. ¡°How certain are you of that?¡± ¡°Around ninety percent. I don¡¯t guarantee that something like the zefirs might be conditionally infinite. If they are spirits of shadow forced into Fey form and sent out here, their numbers might be nigh-infinite. But obviously there¡¯s a limit to how many of anything it can send through, or we would be buried in clouds of shadowy kill-sprites buzzing from here to the horizon.¡± ¡°Ho, that.¡± The Mick leaned forward with sudden interest. ¡°Ye mean t¡¯ say that there¡¯s a maximum amount that they can release inta the world at any one time?¡± ¡°And they are pushing it now, and that will become harder and harder as the Veil gets stronger and stronger from the deaths of those self-same forces. As vivus burns at it, its influence gets harder and harder to maintain. Infinite Summoning is by far the most powerful overall standard magic that there is, but it has its own limits on it for that very reason,¡± I informed them confidently. ¡°So we have to chew up their pool of forces, and the undead can¡¯t do it for us. They can only occupy a certain number of them at any one time. It all comes down to what the living can do in the end.¡± Princess Kristie just shook her head in grim resolve. ¡°We brought you time, and we will bring you time,¡± Master Ben Ten interjected calmly. ¡°We have never been the solution to the problem, that much is very obvious.¡± ¡°The entity is force-cycling its pool of forces, that is the only explanation here. They die, they immediately get sent back out, but they have no real direction or commands in their madness, and so are dispersing randomly. The proper way to address this is simply to soften them up before they get to the living, but not to kill them, simply allowing the living to do so.¡± Kristie thumbed the map. ¡°Is there a point we can stage an archer company to rain arrows upon them as they go by, but not be much subjected to attack if they do?¡± I raised my hand before those who knew the terrain could reply. ¡°If not, then an area of cliffs close to the water. Something they cannot go up. I can make a wall there, we can form a chokepoint, and we can fight them beyond. ¡°We do NOT have to make this an open field fight,¡± I reminded them. ¡°I can and will put up some fortifications very quickly!¡± There were some excited murmurs at that. Walls on demand was a new thought they had to take into account, after all! Master Ben Ten pointed a section on the map. ¡°The overlying hills run almost all the way to the water here, and are steep. The only thing which may be able to come up them are the marguls and the zefir, and with the right Wards in place, they may be thwarted as well.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll need a Wall design that lets them come up and engage us, but at a constant disadvantage¡­ and the undead will need to not get tired of raining down death from above on them.¡± Master Ben Ten¡¯s naked jawbone clattered, as did the dozens of his elite followers around him. ¡°Lady Magos, you need not fear anything on that score¡­¡± AF Chapter 178 – Not Tou-Tou Much Trouble Unsurprisingly, it was once again the out-of-combat work which was the most important. Master Ben Ten¡¯s elites stayed behind, although he himself rode with us on a small flotilla of Mass Disks, Princess Kristie and Lord Mick providing the towing at the tip of a large wedge of over a thousand living troops, paramounts and juniors of the new generation alike, as we hurried overland to the southern shores and flanks. The undead elites would handle the rather minor forces coming down the Road to Tou-Tou. The majority of the shade forces were being channeled into the flanks, so obviously we were going to be abusing one of the sides. The non-archer Mayoi undead were, in turn, going to be hustling up to Hebian-to and the Road, reinforcing those defenses as they could. I eyed the cliffside coming down close to the water, flexed my mental muscles and got to work. ------- ¡°Mark! Fire!¡± Targets were limned with dancing Faeries Fires. Bows thrummed out, a few specialized Life Casters dispensed Imperils or Elemental Vulns. The targeted incoming Void Lord and Panumbris shades, howling in their crimson armor and burning eyes, shadowy weapons trailing tainted Elemental damage in swirls of darkly burning fires, dim purple electricity, weeping green acid, or shadowed, dripping ice, charged in at us in a mob of about forty of the things, every single one of them with over 1500 Health. Arrows from the undead stationed on the walkway on the cliff bit into them as they streamed past. The shades could see them, but the undead were thirty to forty feet off the sands and stones, out of reach, while directly ahead of them, living Isparians were totally visible and available to fight. We couldn¡¯t build a wall, as that would break these creatures Summoning mindset and encourage them to go away, to find a way up those cliffs to overhead a couple miles back, and then come back and bombard us from above. No, they had to be able to reach us, to come into melee and die, then be lit on vivus so they couldn¡¯t come back. Despite coming in from outside whatever the Summoning system was, they still seemed bound by the programming instilled in Summoned creatures, so they wanted to charge up and they wanted to fight, instead of sitting back and first bombarding us with spells in a coordinated effort. They were just really powerful and hard to kill, but that was fine. It just meant work. I¡¯d had to level out sections of the beach to make sure they weren¡¯t higher than our fighting point. I¡¯d put up wedges and breaks on the beach to break up the hordes and channel them into one and two-man fights against our own, where long spears could reach over and multiple people could concentrate on single opponents, while the shades could at best try to Cast spells around those in front of them. The biggest risks were the various Drains and Harm spells, which ignored things like cover and concealment. As long as they could center a target, they could kill someone or something right through a wall, the same way they could drop Platinum and Incantor-tier debuffs and the like on them. Negative energy coursed out, attacking life energy directly, and there was no normal resistance¡­ except for the Mass Death Wards I sent across the main fighters, encouraging them to become targets for the murderous efforts of the shades. As pure negative energy attacks, the Harms and Drains were completely no-sold by the Wards, which the paramounts forming the tip of the fighting efforts definitely appreciated. With no appreciation for proper tactics and no-risk slaughter, the shades were drawn into the narrow cuts, surrounded, and chopped down from all sides one by one. Debuffs came in with crippling power, were Counter-buffed or Dispelled as the recipients grit their teeth. The most key thing was the gentle sloping arch to the ramps up. It didn¡¯t seem like much, but what it did is remove direct line of sight from those behind, so they couldn¡¯t unleash their powerful War Magic upon the defenders at all. The only ones we had to risk that happening on was the first and second ranks, and it took very little time at all for Kris to drive the Teamwork Feats into the skulls of everyone concerned, wolfpacking attacks whenever the things paused to spellcast cutting in and slicing deep as their defenses were lowered. I was keeping a dozen people alive at a time, up and down the whole of the line. There were Marked in every fighting Fellowship team, giving me access to the Status effect inherent within the teamwork magic through their eyes. I could instantly see if someone ate a spell and was chopped down to half Health or less, and positive energy Shards brimming with ablative Good temporary Health on top of it all went Seeking out for the injured, promptly washing them with lots of Healing magic and some healthy Kickers on top of it all. With Fastcast spells, I could reply to such injuries nigh-instantly when I sensed them, monitoring a dozen combats at the same time from my position behind, juxtaposing Fellowship awareness within the broad range of my Detects pinpointing the position of every soul living and Shaded within range. Most of the War Magic of the clusters of incoming shades were spent against the archers up above, shooting behind narrow slits they could dodge behind when incoming magic tore and devastated them, plowing chunks and ripping furrows into the walls with alarming speed and regularity. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. My Shaping Stone was in constant use, as I simply re-Shaped and reformed all the fortifications being constantly blasted away, letting Mira run that constant effort. The single spell being most-used on our side was Aural Fire, the arcane equivalent of the druidic spell Faerie Fire. It was low-tier and so very cheap to Cast, and it spotted the targets for the archers. Each person who knew the spell had a specific hue, they had squads looking for that hue, and when it popped up on a target, that target was focus-fired until it died and fell burning en vivus onto stones long turned white with the ash of the fallen. Sharp notes rang out overhead from down the shoreline, four of them on a brazen bell, hammered with speed and energy. There were followed up with beats on bells of lead and copper. At least two-score marguls were incoming, leading up a horde of the bounding Grievver Shredders and Shadow Zefirs, a nasty combination. Waves of things released from Tou-Tou¡¯s nexus point were gathering together and coming down the shore, madly looking for something to fight. ¡°Hey, we got more godsdamn incoming, what a total fucking surprise,¡± Kris¡¯ nails-on-chalkboard Warlord voice rasped across everyone, no mistaking it for anything else, a combination of grim resignation and gleeful anticipation of the slaughter that could affect anyone who loved to fight. Hearing her voice was like seeing her black nails poised like obsidian razors, ready to rip out a throat. ¡°Points, you rotate out within fifteen seconds on this mark. MARK.¡± There was some cursing and breaths of relief as the lead melee fighters, of which we didn¡¯t have enough so the same people ended up on the same teams, rotated out of combat with shades, even if their enemies hadn¡¯t been chopped down. There was an art to that, as Summons tended to fix on single opponents, and watching their enemies spin away from them vastly irritated the shades. A great tactic for the incoming points was simply to brace against the Shaded attempting to push past them and let the wolfpack tactics cut it down from the sides as it attempted to drive past them singlemindedly, and wasn¡¯t allowed to. I watched a bunch of shades wink out as dots of Fellowship members moved. ¡°Into Dawn Stance, rotate that ki, get your stamina back. Reserve Healers, get on them.¡± An experienced Life Mage could Cast a Lead Heal Others for one mana, every time. They could also Aurora Stance for a point of mana a round. Thus, recuperating fighters could be Healed steadily to full without drawing down reserves, leaving them ready to rotate in as the active Healers and Dispellers blew through their mana far more quickly. ¡°Undead, focus on the marguls.¡± The nasty little drakes were tough as nails, hard to hit, and dangerous for their size, capable of piling up on top of one another and able to see over one another to unleash point-blank magic. ¡°Magos, Chain Shard-ray through them when they come into range, I want them severely softened up. Healers, be ready for thirty seconds of primary duty.¡± She was one of the best Melee combatants on the whole line, with only the Mick, who had been steadfastly acting as point for nearly four hours now, able to outperform her. Instead of fighting in the melee, she had been pumping Drop, her Autobow, relentlessly, silvery bolts of Force streaking down from her central position, no archer slit for her. Incoming War Magic melted into her Null and went away, completely ignored by her and her group of Scouts following her every shot as the bolts painted her targets in light golden flames for a few breaths at a time. It was more than enough for skilled Archers with Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot to draw beads on them themselves, threading One More Arrows through the press of Shaded bodies to bite deep into their targets. Like a machine, she just kept shooting, racking up more damage than she would have if she had been down there hacking away, wise enough not to run into the middle of the hordes below and get swarmed by things powerful and fast enough to chop her down. It was fine. Quaver was hovering right above her head, point-forward, and idly batting away any arrows or hurled javelins coming from the shades with casual contempt, deflecting them away with swirls of Lost Light. Her Sword could fly around now, the total envy of every single adventurer who saw it at work, but it couldn¡¯t fight by itself, the telekinetic force and power needed to do so not present as yet. Dancing was not a cheap Enhancement to buy. One day of Naming Karma at a time, getting built up. It was competing for time with Indestructible, and Quaver¡¯s Special Purpose and her associated abilities as an Item Familiar. Princess Kristie¡¯s ability to infuse massive amounts of Karma only applied to her Rantha Template, she still was limited to the normal 1k a day or Crafting checks limits for normal magic items. Everything with time. I watched Kris¡¯ current target, a panumbris shade, wink out in my Detect as a dozen shots followed hers in tight salvos. She usually got off two shots for every one of those about her, Quaver zipping around and rippling swathes of Lost Light protecting everyone from missile fire. The Stillflight Field started just forward of the melee fight below and the walls I¡¯d put up. They extended out fifty yards, which the incoming zefirs were going to hit and then drop out of the sky and down to the ground on their ridiculous little wings, flapping frantically and jumping around as they failed to get back into the air, yet were compelled forward to fight. They made hard targets to hit, that was certain, and could squeeze between all the bigger fighters to try and get into position. They were also fairly weak, and modified fishing nets could cover them up, snatch them away, toss them into the reserve fighters behind, and they could be bashed to death without being able to do squat. The experienced paramounts considered that the funniest and most suitable way to kill them ever, and never got tired of slapping a hooked net down over them, dragging them forward, and then watching a bunch of juniors with hammers and maces just beat the deadly little fuckers into smears of Burning ectoplasm. AF Chapter 179 – Chokepoints En Vivus The trick wouldn¡¯t work on the dog-sized marguls so easily, because they were stronger, clawed, and both breathed and emanated fire. It required nets of wire or steel chains to do the job, but, hey, there were a LOT of juniors with net-fishing experience, and not putting it to use was a crying shame, or so Princess Kristie had proclaimed. So, the marguls would slither and squeeze between the legs or floatie-clouds of the shades in front of them, scamper up the sides of the blockading choke-points, run to the top and then pause at the edge, considering whether to leap into the ranks of those below or just start throwing War Magic at them. Chain-link nets would settle over them, yank them off the ledge into the middle of a circle of waiting hammers, and the lugians in particular would proceed to beat the fuck out of them as they were expertly wrapped up and pinned for attention. If they made it into the chokepoints, it sucked because they could also worm their way through and between the melee combatants because they were so short, unless the fighters actually went down on one knee to fight them, a rather ridiculous position to fight from. Nobody wanted to grapple with a burning, clawed, scaled, fire-breathing little shit of a malevolent shadow-powered drake. --- ¡°Ensemble! Get off the damn point and take your relief!¡± Princess Kristie¡¯s voice had that edge of Don¡¯t-Give-Me-Lip that made your toes want to curl up. I eyed the guy whose stamina was dropping, a paramount who preferred using axes and with an attitude known to be a little battle-crazy. ¡°I can still fight!¡± he started to shout back, hewing at his panumbral opponent with zeal, trying to hide his growing exhaustion as lust for battle and karma ignited headstrong idiocy. Yeah, that wasn¡¯t going to fly with a Warlord there. ¡°Suspend all Healing to the ass who won¡¯t follow orders immediately. In fifteen seconds, if he¡¯s not out of there, drop him from Fellowship, keep him there until he gets blasted to bloodspray, chop off his head, and throw him out into the shades for the marguls to goatfuck.¡± There was a perceptible crink in the alignment of the shields around and behind him. Blocking the bashing fists of the panumbris, the paramount looked at the hard eyes staring back at him, and realized he was committing suicide. With a curse and an oath, he spun back out of position, a younger Sho warrior coming in with a gleaming katana to cut and slice at the legless female shade who tried to follow the older man. Huffing, the axe-using fighter nevertheless hurried to the area designated for recovering Melees, glaring at everyone around him¡­ who glared right back at him and made him flush at the looks in their eyes. He also had a very distinct feeling that he¡¯d made a bad impression in the eyes of the Warlord, and Warlord Kristie was now going to remember him, and not in a good way. A chill ran down his spine at the thought of her ire, and he suddenly swallowed as he realized that he¡¯d just made himself into a perfect punching bag for her to demonstrate new weapon techniques on¡­ or a lesson on discipline. She had a standing order that if you wanted to gain the authority to override her orders on the battlefield, all you had to do was beat her in a fight. A dozen paramounts had taken her up on that, and she had beaten them down so brutally and thoroughly that none of them had any desire to repeat the process anymore. Two of them had been very cocky mages, and their wounds hadn¡¯t healed magically, meaning they were tottering in the back, Healing others in the Reserve and not daring to Fellow up and support the main fighting, where the big Karma was. The archers were up there drawing back once-dislocated shoulders from behind arrow slits slowly and painfully, and the melees were with the net teams, cracked ribs and bodywide bruises not allowing them to work at the tip of the bottlenecks where they should have been fighting. ¡°Shit,¡± he muttered to himself, looking at Brower and Seen-Some-Suns, the two men still having black eyes, swollen faces, and split lips from their pummeling. Obedience was the price paramounts paid for being allowed to join this fight. Princess Kristie was totally willing to do this without them, and would cut them loose to get slaughtered on their own time in a heartbeat. Without a supporting Fellowship around them, the paramounts would be slain quickly, and they knew it! Ensemble looked at the Mick, who hadn¡¯t moved from his position in the bottleneck for hours, and nobody had called him out for it. The Royal Scout Commander¡¯s team slaughtered anything coming through the gap in front of him faster than even a squad of all paramounts could manage, but it was the members helping him, personally trained by him and the Warlord, who rotated in and out as they got tired. His Claymore of Lost Light was only blurs of motion, cutting into and through the Shaded creatures with murderous skill and breathtaking speed, more arcs of radiance than anything solid. The axeman¡¯s eyes turned to Warlord Kristie, up there on an open parapet. Whirling blades of force, spearing wedges of piercing energy, slamming shockwaves, bolts of fire, blasts of crawling lightning, spheres of devouring acid, swirling blasts of glittering liquefied air and frozen water vapor all converged onto her and the exposed archers about her¡­ and every single blast of War Magic vanished into the air directly in front of her, doing absolutely nothing. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Not a Drain, Harm, or ringing swirl of a Debuff flashed, flared, or played about any of them. The archers rotated in and out as their drawing arms got tired from the terrifically deadly salvo of fire that was smashing into shades and taking them down in only one or two volleys of burning missiles, a better showing than any other squad of archers up top. Like she could feel his attention on her, the Warlord¡¯s eyes flicked over and met his. He stiffened as they bored right into him like pale violet daggers, making no secret of the fact that she was not only gravely disappointed in him, she was incredibly angry at his arrogant ass defying a direct order, and he was going to pay for it! Ensemble shriveled up and yanked his eyes away, feeling a sense of shame bite into him that he hadn¡¯t felt in years. Not since he had stood at the top of the world and nobody out there was strong enough to tell him what to do again, ever. Not the High Queen, not her bloody son, not Master Ben Ten or any other ¡®noble¡¯ sorts, not even the mages so haughty and proud about the magic that had failed them when so much blew up during the fall. The Axe he had been forced to use then might not have been the best of them, but it hadn¡¯t failed him like their magic had! Now, now there was someone there he couldn¡¯t beat with an Axe in hand, and he was absolutely sure she was going to prove it to him! ¡°Shit,¡± he muttered again, and concentrated on breathing deeply and getting his stamina back. The stuff was harder to measure now, harder to use, and he had been getting tired and knew it¡­ but he was used to it not affecting him until the very last moment, when exhaustion would collapse on him in a crushing surge, which would itself dissipate as soon as any stamina returned. Obviously, that was not how things worked now, and he¡¯d forgotten it, or didn¡¯t know how it might work. There was a pulse and a flash of fractured lights, and he just saw out of the corner of his eye over a dozen wedges of magical force pulsing with a dozen different interwoven energies converge into a point in the air. They turned into a solid bar of pulsing force, and then flashed out into yet another point in the air, whereupon a prism of some kind split the one Ray into two equal versions of it, which speared out over the mass of eager Shaded creatures behind them, seeking out the incoming marguls and softening them up for what was to come, incidentally lighting them up so the archers could focus on them more easily. The Magos, floating there at the back of the center of the line, watching over everyone, her Healing magic reaching out to everyone to save them from the terrific power of the level eight Incantor War Magicks being tossed here, the Harms and Drains still going off as the shades tried to kill those they couldn¡¯t even see. She¡¯d already Healed him a half-dozen times, the power of her simple Silver Healing spells infused with colossal amounts of extra Healing energy, as powerful as the most powerful Healing magic he¡¯d ever experienced. Now she was wielding some of the most powerful combat magic, and certainly the most unique War Magic he¡¯d ever beheld, in between continuously Healing every single primary tank blocking a chokepoint! She seemed to feel his eyes on her, turning a lovely profile his way, that drifting white silken hair that seemed to have a life of its own contrasting her ebony skin so wonderfully, and her silvered eyes also found his own. It was very slight, but the shaking of her head cut him to the core as much or more than the curses of Warlord Kristie had. Disappointing a woman like that, one who obviously possessed so much shocking power that she should have utterly dominated this fighting, and who in truth had literally MADE the battlefield they were all standing on! It made him swallow and look away in guilty shame, driving in how deeply he had messed up, desperate to regain his pride and standing and sense of worth all these years after the Fall. ¡°Keep me out of the rotation until the grievvers start coming in,¡± he /said into the Fellowship link, concentrating on breathing deep. ¡°I can really, really fight grievvers.¡± He¡¯d lost count of how many Bile Grievvers he¡¯d killed in the Quiddity Dungeon, keeping his skills sharp against a powerful and dangerous foe. The Shredders were more dangerous, but not by much, and he could handle them, and handle them fast. He wanted to learn the tricks the Mick and the Warlord were teaching the new generation, to move a Weapon with that kind of speed and skill and killing power. It, it could have been him, showing them all how it was done, if the woman had first met him instead of some Black Aluvian bastard who slummed for that sad excuse of a king... --------- Twelve hours of fighting. Waves upon waves of Shaded things coming in, sometimes single types, sometimes mixed companies, drawn by the noise and conflict and lusts for battle they could not fight down, they fought and they died. The skeptical paramount mages swallowed down their curses and concentrated on their newly-learned Aurora Stances desperately, seeking to get back their mana at every opportunity as the berserk Shaded creatures kept coming. The archers, like the melees, had to retire regularly for magic to ease the strain on their arms and shoulders from shooting so much and so often. As for the Shaded, they Burned on the slopes of the Choke, as the place came to be called, so much vivus saturating the ground it began to eat at them the instant they set foot on it. It broke down their bodies with incredible speed as they died, adding a constant damage factor to the fighting which, if the living could slow them down enough at the chokes, did much of their work for them if the maddened creatures didn¡¯t retain enough sense to withdraw out of the stuff Burning at their feet. It wasn¡¯t much damage, less than perhaps standing in a bonfire, a trifle to creatures like them¡­ but it added up over several minutes, even on such obnoxiously tough creatures. Any and all such help in such matters was appreciated, and Summons programming was no exception! AF Chapter 180 – Eyes of a Mole -Warlord Kris! The newest spawn of creatures coming out of the Shadow Vortexes is only half the size of the previous ones!- -Excellent news, Hilga! Stay under cover and keep watching!- the distant Warlord /replied to the advanced Scout of the Mole teams, a young Wizardess who had dove into the illusion and stealth-related magic taught by the Magos with great zeal. Hilga Zehnshine was hiding in a shallow stone pit, enough Wards around her to neutralize scent, body heat, magical presence, and the like. She was watching the town from an overlooking hill with Eagle Eyes from a mile away. It had taken her almost two days to get into position, she and the other Moles dispatched well ahead of time, and she¡¯d been feeding updates on the maddened Shades storming out of the city constantly this whole time. She¡¯d had whole troops of shades, marguls, and grievvers crawl right over top of her, simply waiting and reporting after the berserk creatures moved on. The zefirs were the big annoyance, as they flitted about everywhere. She had to slide down the Shaped stone visor slit to cover the normal opening every time she saw a cloud of them flying nearby. They investigated everywhere and everything, and three times she¡¯d heard an unnaturally sharp claw rasp against the stone of her slit from the passing touch of one of the murderous little fey things. The Disk she was on floated above the ground, meaning she was making no contact with the stone of the small cave around herself. The observation point was only enterable by Blinking or in Gaseous Form, both of which she knew how to use, and staying out of contact with the stone meant things like the grievvers, who could sense vibrations through the ground and thus contact with the stone, were also unable to sense her. They could feel the hole down here, but that¡¯s all it was, a hole. The grievvers didn¡¯t know it wasn¡¯t supposed to be there, and they were driven to fight, not to dig. It was still very dangerous, and now, now it was very important. Watching a random bunch of Shaded things come out of one of the living rifts in reality that were the Shadow Vortexes and go ambling off in a random direction meant advance warnings very useful to the patrols, who would know what to expect to fight and could adjust tactics, even knowing what direction the things might be coming from. But now, now, THIS was important! The Vortexes had been churning out endless numbers of Shaded and sending them out of the town constantly. Hilga had guessed that they were coming out literally as fast as they had been getting killed in the fighting, whatever restrictions on creatures the things could bring in being pressed to the limit continually. And now, now she had seen the first evidence that the numbers it could churn out might have hit a limit. There was no recycling of souls, if that was what had been happening. The word from the Warlord to the undead forces staving off the Shades was to delay. Fight them to exhaustion, use up their mana, tie them up, dump them in pits, get chased around, force them into clusters they could barely fight from¡­ just slow down the killing as much as they could, tie the Shaded things up. If the things didn¡¯t die, they couldn¡¯t be reborn! Hilga glanced at the Detect Time clock in her Visual File, once again giving private thanks for the Magos and the Warlord Princess coming to this world. The incredible magic, with so much versatility and utility, was such a godsend to a girl who was five-feet-nothing tall, her career likely to forever be one of pure support Healing or maybe working in an archive, unable to get the vengeance for her dead mother and grandmother that her father had craved. She had been directed not to use the Markdoor if any Shaded were around, because some of them MIGHT be sensitive to the telepathy as a Divination effect, and if that happened, she was likely going to die very quickly, indeed. But she could still peek past it at the Markscape, The Map, and the people beyond, even if talking to them was something she had to be careful about. The Warlord was the center of the whole thing, without a doubt. Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha was the image of a warrior and killer in body, mind, and soul, her Mark image like liquid Golden flames surrounded by harsh cutting blades, wound about with serpentine dragons of terrible and subtle power. The Princess was a woman who knew how to kill, who was extremely willing to kill, and had immaculate discipline about how and what she went about killing. She was also polite, tolerant, didn¡¯t demand anything she wasn¡¯t willing to do herself, and was tireless about giving away and empowering others with the knowledge to defend themselves and their loved ones. The first time Hilga had cut the throat of an assassin stalking her friends, those Golden blades had been looking over her shoulder, assuring her that death was not something that Good people could not use, that she was doing the right thing, and that this killer in the night was getting his due for what he did. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. The Princess had taught a petite young woman how to breathe, how to move with the world, how to lay unmoving for hours, to endure timelessly and control her own mind, body, and soul to an incredible degree. It had been something she had done with energy and enthusiasm and zeal, and a thoroughness that only telepathy could truly make possible. Hilga had learned all the proper places to put a knife, the many, many ways different things could die, and how a mere hundred pounds of cute little brown-haired Aluvian young woman could work with others to kill things with deft and incredible speed. She was a Royal Scout, out in the very front of the front lines, in the most dangerous places to be. She was not a War Mage, or a Healer sitting behind armored brutes and waiting for them to be injured so she could be useful! A Mole, a Scout meant to get into the places where they weren¡¯t supposed to go or be discovered, and there report on what they found, operating on their own for days or weeks as they carried out their duties. The Magos was over there in the Markspace as well, the sight of her making Hilga shiver. The Warlord was an extraordinary woman, with a mind sharp as a blade, burning like a fire, resilient as the sea. But her very power and identity was rooted in the physical world, a martial artist and warrior pursuing a path of physical and spiritual mastery. The Magos rose above the Warlord mentally like the Warlord did the Magos physically. Her Electrum image was quiet and it was subdued, until you looked right at her. Then, then it was obvious she was a titan here. You were staring at the equal of a dozen archmages, all of their thoughts moving too fast to follow, spirals of magic dancing around her, soft music to the eyes that thrummed in the soul, so much awareness, so much power, so much impossible depth¡­ Hilga had never imagined she would be able to learn the things she had, especially as fast as she had, but when the Magos taught something, it became so obvious, so easy, as if all her instinctive attempts to deny and question and resist just didn¡¯t matter, and yep, this was how it was, there you go, now just get better at doing and using what you know. So much magic there, waiting to learn, waiting to be tapped, able to satisfy her dreams. A future of magic more wonderful than anything she had imagined, but alas, for now she had to wield that wonder in defense of everything she loved, and do what her aging father could not. And last there was Lord Mick. He was Orange, glittering with some Rainbow edges to him, dashes of Yellow here and there. He wasn¡¯t¡­ bright and lively, or even overly emotional, but it was clear to anyone who looked upon him that his emotions were more valuable to him than any fancy thinking, and he wore them proudly and deeply and wasn¡¯t going to change that about himself. His love for his lost bride hung about him like an ethereal cloak of the most delicate pink hue, as deep as the evening sky. He probably wasn¡¯t even aware of it, and those who saw it certainly weren¡¯t going to say anything to him about it. There were plenty of people she could see in the Markscape who were lovers, and had the emotional bonds it represented, but the simple depth of the Mick¡¯s love for the woman he¡¯d lost shamed all of them. That delicate veil powered her paramount lord¡¯s sword arm like an engine of burning vengeance even now, fires determined to take their revenge and make sure nothing like that happened to those he cared for again. She wanted a man to love her like that, to build a life on the strength of their fire and their love. Maybe she would be able to, someday. At least in the Markspace, you couldn¡¯t lie about your feelings to someone like that, you could touch your very thoughts and understand one another as words and fears might not allow you to do among normal people. I will just have to find one of my own, and hope they are Good, Hilga thought, looking at the White-Silvers, Yellow-Golds, and Orange-Rainbows of the Markspace, with only a few Greens and Blues here and there. Notably, King Borelean was not in here, nor his mother or daughter. This Markspace was not a place where he reigned at all, and Hilga had the distinct impression that if he did, he would wind up kneeling to the Warlord himself soon enough. Her Visual Clock chimed, and she leaned forward slightly, looking out the narrow slit in the rock from her Mole Hole, and waited for the next spawn to materialize out of the Shadow Vortexes. There was a delay, and she mentally forced her body to relax as she wanted to tense up, waiting, waiting, clearing away any hopes, just measuring the moment and waiting for what would happen, reading nothing, nothing¡­ There was a hiss and spitting as less than a dozen shades walked and floated out of the Shadow Vortex. -Warlord,- she /reported, keeping her /voice steady, -the Summons was one hundred and forty-nine seconds late, and there were only nine mixed shades. They are running off to the south, perpendicular to me.- -Excellent,- was the immediate /reply, Warlord Kristie¡¯s grim appreciation coming through very clearly, indeed. -Moving onto Stage Two. Moles Four, Five, and Six, light up the Lures. Relays, pass on that it''s working, and once the Dusk Animations come in, the undead are to slaughter everything and press forward. If the Lures work, reinforcements should be minimal.- The Lures were a clever use of illusion and enchantment magic, basically forming a glowing orb of The Light of Heaven up in the air, guaranteed to get the attention of anything Evil around and stoke their fury. However, it only shone towards Tou-Tou, and when an Evil creature got close, it winked out¡­ and then the next one lit up, pulling those chasing The Light along, the illusion making it look like it was fleeing. The Lures would pull them down to the coast, and then start them on the trail to the south, looking like it retreated faster than they could run and follow. The Undead would roll up the peninsula, take up defensive positions, and block the Shaded from escaping in any other direction, while the fresh Shaded were lured to their annihilation. The living just had to hold on long enough for it to work. AF Chapter 181 – Renewal at Dawn The undead who¡¯d been slain were reborn at their graves, and had to run back overland to where the fighting was taking place. Since they didn¡¯t tire, that actually didn¡¯t take them too overly long, and they threw themselves back into the fighting against the Shaded, this time starting to wrap the Shaded up. The few following spawns from the Shadow Vortexes were more numerous because of that, direct cause and effect. But instead of dispersing in random directions, an annoying light in the sky to the south attracted the attention of the incoming Summoned creatures, and they all headed in that direction to extinguish it, cut it down, and get rid of it. As a result, there was almost no further resistance, except for some corrupted landscape Summons Points, for the undead to worry about as they moved up the north and central portions of the Tou-Tou Peninsula. The handful of living soldiers with them bearing vivic flames did their best to set the Shaded en vivus and Seal off those Summon points, every Summons point, in passing as they moved. What it really meant was that every Shaded they had been fighting was now being sent in waves down the south side of the peninsula, down toward the Choke. They didn¡¯t join the fight there instantly, of course. There were many, many miles between Tou-Tou and where we were fighting, and the Shaded had to travel all that distance at paces alternating between trots and walking, taking hours to do so and staying staggered out as they did so. The undead helped by also staggering out the killing they did, so the waves weren¡¯t overly massive, either. But they did come all night. Heal Deadly Wounds/Breath of Life had a Gold-grade Counterpart every single Life Magic user had now been taught. Get to someone within a minute of death, bring them back without further cost. It had a base Cost of 50 mana, 100 if revivifying someone, modified by Mana Conversion. That meant it wasn¡¯t cheap, but it had now been used sixty-four times, with the record of five times on paramount Ensemble, who had at least expended Kris¡¯s ire at him with his willingness to get himself killed, and then immediately was raring to fight again once they brought him back. Getting killed was nowhere near as casual as it had been with the deathstones. The yawning emptiness and the sense of something hostile waiting for them in the void as their spirit started to slip away meant none of those revivified were taking the process casually. If their allies didn¡¯t get to them, they didn¡¯t want to picture what was waiting for them. The paramount Life Mage Stillwell led the pack with twenty-one revivals, including four of them inside one minute, and basically was staying in Aurora Stance constantly to keep his mana topped off when he wasn¡¯t bringing someone back, just to be on the safe side. There was no doubt whatsoever that his reputation had soared among the younger generation considerably with his devotion to bringing them all back alive. Bringing back someone past that one minute threshold was considerably more expensive, requiring the sacrifice of bars of Life E-gold or gems to power a Raise Dead, neither items which we had in great numbers¡­ and I was the only one who could Cast the spell, which would take me a full minute of time being off the line, which none of the soldiers I was constantly dispensing Healing magic to wanted to see. No, this fight was about health, stamina, and mana management. The field of vivic Burn in front of the Choke was helping immensely with the DPS situation, doing constant damage to the Shaded who were pressing and eager to get to the living waiting for them. If we held them there, they would die, that was all there was to it. Somewhere along the way the soldiers had noticed I never had to Heal the Mick at all, and they had figured out that it was because he was Healing in combat with every blow he landed. Yes, the Mick had Healing Edge upon Bunita for that very reason, and would Infuse in Revitalizing whenever his exhaustion crept up on him, keeping him hale and vigorous through the entire fight. Yes, it was only 1-8 Healing per blow. When you were dishing out 5-6 attacks a round, in addition to his paramount Fast Healing being boosted by Blood and Soul, he got back his Health and Soak with incredible speed. The creatures would have had to land chains of War Magic to bring him down, which would have required coordination and intelligent planning by creatures who were basically berserkers. Interest in what kind of magic on a Weapon allowed that kind of endurance was crazy high among those I hadn¡¯t trained, to be sure. It was a +III effect, working off Greater Magic Weapon and requiring a Caster Level of 12 to get off, and so still beyond almost all of my students yet, nor had they advanced the Names of their Weapons enough to pay for such a pricey addition to their Melee Weapons. The big Karmic investiture by just about everyone was in the Favored Enemy Masteries. Even the paramounts had been told to take them, all of them having long since satisfied the basic requirements of killing fifty shades to start the process and gain the Shade Slayer Achievement Feat. They invested Karma in the Feat, and bing! Instant +2 to Hit and damage. Then, one Mastery rank yesterday before dawn, another one during the killing today, and they¡¯d be taking another one after dawn again, with two more waiting. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. +5 to hit and damage all of the Shaded creatures was a very hefty bonus, and all of them noticed the effects. They were hitting where they might have missed, cutting in deep and true for more damage, which earned them more Karma as they cycled through the Shaded faster and kept the whole process moving. If they couldn¡¯t take the Class Levels, that was fine. The process of converting Weapon Skills to Attack Bonus was also underway, changing focused skill in one weapon to generic skill in all Weapons, with particular focus above and beyond that. Most importantly, as Attack Bonus increased it also increased the number of attacks for every five points of the bonus unlocked past the first. It was a simple, basic change, and it was already having effects as the paramounts hit the first stage. Suddenly their speed of attack and damage spiked by 75% as they suddenly started flowing through patterns and their shooting grew ever faster, instead of continually smashing in basic One Strikes that didn¡¯t do all that much more extra damage. Enhancing their One Strike damage to greater multipliers that stacked on Feat-derived bonuses was also something the melee and archer paramounts were taking eagerly, building on the new Attack Bonus mechanics and giving themselves options. The subtle yet game-changing play for the Casters was releasing knowledge of the Arcane Mastery Feat to them. That was a Feat that allowed people to ¡®take 10¡¯ on Caster Level checks, nominally for Dispel Magic and similar contested rolls. Transmuted to the Isparian standard, it had an additional effect: it had made Mana Conversion predictable! My discovery of that fact had been unexpected, but oh, the results! No more wild successes and failures of making your spells more efficient. You could use Arcane Mastery, put in an average effort, and as long as you passed the guideline needed, you got the same results, every single time! Applied to Isparian magic, it completely eliminated fizzling a spell if you passed the 55% success baseline check, as opposed to needing to reach a 100% chance of success to do the same. Controlled averages meant predictability, meant ease of management, goals needed to hit, and where you wanted your bonuses to go for such things. Arcane Focus, where you could expend your Focus to take 15 on a Concentration or Caster Level check, had followed that up. Being able to see the instant savings in mana when it was expended gave it great value for the more powerful spells, and when every single point of mana was something you were clawing for, made all the difference in staying power. I¡¯d been watching mages Focusing and then Expending that Focus all day, and then all night. Today¡¯s Feat I would release would be Augment Healing. As Feats went, it wasn¡¯t very powerful, but the benefits were stable, useful, and would be appreciated. Unfortunately, many of the Healing Metas were tied up in Divine Magic and Channeling, and there was absolutely no access to that for the people here, with no true gods represented and the Entities available more opening up people to specific lines of arcane magic or spells than the spheres of true Divine Magic. I would have loved to get people into the Healing Domain. Automatic Energizing or Topping of Healing spells would be wonderful, but there was no helping it here. --- There was a lull in the fighting before dawn as the incoming lesser waves finally reached us. They could be dealt with fairly speedily and thoroughly, giving people time to rest and regain some strength, especially the Casters who were urgently getting back as much mana as they could. Kris was still up there on the archer¡¯s battlements, despite the archers around her having been relieved several dozen times over the past day. There was little doubt she¡¯d inflicted more punishment personally on the incoming Shaded than anyone else in the force. Smaller incoming numbers also allowed me to unleash Shardrays on those approaching if the forces fighting could be killed off in between. While it took a minimum of two salvos for me to kill anything, I could severely weaken them even with only one volley, and the better archers could pick the wounded off before they ever got into melee combat. The waves in the middle of the night were thus wiped with great speed compared to those from earlier, and the ground for two hundred yards in front of the Choke was stained a bright white with vivus from all the Burned and Burning Shaded going up on them. The twenty-two Grievver Shredders had been chewed to bits before they made it into the Choke, and the dozen who straggled into the Choke had died with great speed. Everyone who could was kneeling or sitting in mental and physical exhaustion, the kind of grind only the most fanatical about them had ever engaged in before. ¡°Reports are coming in. Master Ben Ten and MacNaill¡¯s forces have rolled up the length of the peninsula and eliminated all passing Summons points in doing so, including the two corrupted settlements. New spawns from the Vortexes have matched the numbers they¡¯ve been eliminating as they moved. ¡°We are past the apex of the effort, and in effect are simply mopping up the rest of the invading forces until they can be regenerated from other sources. However, that still involves at least two thousand more Shaded creatures who are mostly coming this way in their waves. ¡°We will not be advancing into their teeth and proving our might. We will stay here, let them Burn themselves on those that have died before them, and cut them down while minimizing the threat they pose to us. ¡°I cannot give you true sleep or rest until no more of the enemy is being dispatched, or is so reduced our undead defenders can deal with them without much in the way of losses. ¡°Catch what you can, while you can. But as you do, first join me in the Salute to Aru.¡± There was some skeptical grumbling, but nobody gainsaid the Warlord who had been riding herd over every aspect of this fight. She allocated targets, she approved the primary Melees who led the effort, she dispersed the teams, and so on and so forth. Also, there was a nice reward for participating. That feeling of energy stealing across them, that tinge of maybe just a little bit of hope and expectation for the day, and a sense that somewhere, something was watching, and maybe even approving of you? Yeah, that was a reason to do it. Faith, starting in all the little ways. AF Chapter 182 – Advancing up the Beach ¡°All your Mass Death Wards are down, correct?¡± Kristie Rantha, Imperial Princess, Warlord, and general ass-kicker inquired of me. ¡°They left with the Mass Disks at dawn, yes.¡± Recasting them would consume a lot of mana and take me out of most of the healing fights for a good chunk of time. With Mana Boosts at max, I could quickly restore my Mana Pool exactly once quickly, and otherwise was sucking in the stuff via Aurora Stance and Reserve Dumping at about one a second now. That was almost nine minutes to get mana back to full, and that didn¡¯t account for any Valenced Spell Slots I emptied. Those Mass Death Wards were godsends for avoiding the guaranteed damage from Harms and Drains, and the primary tanks in particular loved them. ¡°Your emergency Boosts are back, right?¡± ¡°My personal Renewal is midnight, and they needed eight hours to purge clean on top of that. I haven¡¯t had to use them once the waves started tailing down.¡± As in, there had actually been some downtime between waves for me to regain my mana. She nodded once. ¡°Set up the Mass Death Wards for the primary tanks again, draw on my Matrix for the Mass Meta. I¡¯m going to be vanguarding the primary force and drawing as much fire as I can to open up the combats for each wave. The more magic I can get concentrated on me the better off for everyone, I think.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got six waves before it starts tapering off severely again,¡± the Mick said thoughtfully, eyeing the reports in the Markspace from the Moles, and pointed. ¡°Why don¡¯t ye move from that ideal sniping position of yours and sit atop the choke right there, waving yer Sword around an¡¯ being a nice big ideal target, aye?¡± ¡°That¡¯s actually not a bad idea, as they¡¯ll be clambering up to get at me and make decent targets for the Wolfpack.¡± It had actually come as a surprise to those people working the flanks that they were getting more actual kills than the tanks were, although not more Karma. The flankers Kris had trained herself in the whole Flanking Mastery line were particularly lethal if they got around something¡­ and killing stuff faster meant their tank had to fight less, which meant they could fight longer and give the reserves longer to recover. I rolled my eyes for her. ¡°Sword babe wants to sword things,¡± I refuted her explanation immediately. A Rantha eight-canines smile beamed at me. ¡°Well, of course! Quaver is being very patient playing defense, but a sword is only a shield when it has to be¡­¡± ¡°Pull off everyone but one team, an¡¯ get the rest t¡¯ resting an¡¯ eating. Pull an¡¯ focus the attention of the waves, an¡¯ last until they taper, then start rolling up the shoreline at speed an¡¯ folding up each wave as it comes,¡± the Mick judged. ¡°Reports say there¡¯s still waves coming, even though we¡¯re the only ones doing any practical killing, so there¡¯s obviously a well, an¡¯ not just a reserve the Vortexes are drawin¡¯ on. It ain¡¯t gonna run out, so we have to advance regardless at some point.¡± ¡°Six waves should be just long enough for the Protections to wear through,¡± I agreed. ¡°Have the mages Buff up the tanks for the main teams and retire to regain the mana back for pure Healing. If we¡¯re going to be softening up the waves in between, then you¡¯ll be needing to charge out there and harass them. Drag me with you and recover after I pummel them down. If they are stupid enough to actually mob you I can really punish them if you think you can stay alive¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s more about kiting them, getting them to expend mana, and soaking as much as I can before they reach me. Delaying them just means they run into another wave.¡± Kris shook her head. ¡°Unless you can wipe a few hundred of the things quick, a loser¡¯s tactic.¡± ¡°A world where you can¡¯t pop a Cleave Train through an armed enemy is a sad world,¡± I nodded at her, and she pulled a properly aggrieved long face. ¡°I know, right? Mom and Dad would terrify whole armies by pulling one off!¡± she complained aggressively. ¡°A Cleave Train?¡± the Mick asked thoughtfully. ¡°Take Cleave, kill something, continue the blow.¡± He nodded slowly, having done just that. ¡°Take the Mastery Chain up to Supreme Cleave, take a five-foot step between Cleaves, up to your base movement per round. Take Acrobatic Movement, make a ten-foot step when you normally take a five-foot step. Take all the Opportunity Attack Feats so that you generate attacks when people swing at you and miss, move through your threat zone, whatever is needed to generate extra Attacks you can then Cleave from. ¡°Then take Sidestep so you can turn those attacks into five-foot steps if you desire. ¡°Now, consider your opponents are all basic drudges.¡± He opened his mouth, closed it, then started to picture that. Then he blinked, and his fingers started to move as he calculated, visualized, and slowly exhaled in shock. ¡°Valus take the slow t¡¯ charge,¡± he muttered. ¡°My move is up over a hundred now¡­¡± ¡°With, what? Fifteen, twenty potential attacks of opportunity?¡± I hazarded. His dark eyes turned over to Kris, whose pale violet eyes were dancing at the thought. ¡°Four hundred feet per round, killing everything within reach, every six seconds¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s absolute carnage if you can do it, and it doesn¡¯t stop. The Train just keeps on going¡­¡± I shook my head. ¡°But it only works against weaker foes. In this circumstance, creatures with less than a hundred Health, or thereabouts.¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. He took a bit of a breath. ¡°That¡¯s indeed the weaker sorts,¡± he agreed slowly, shaking his head. ¡°And if you can¡¯t Cleave, you just get a Hotfoot Dance, where things are generating Attacks of Opportunity, and you¡¯re moving from spot to spot trying to maximize the amount of AoO¡¯s you use up with Riposte and Opportunist and Thorned Stance and Sword beats Fist and the like,¡± Kris grinned toothily. ¡°Avalanche Run, Hurricane¡¯s Wrath, Maelstrom Surge, Inferno Crawl, Devouring Night, A Thousand Lances¡­ there¡¯s several variations on the technique using other starting points, but the principle is the same. Drop an enemy, move, drop an enemy, move again, always staying in range of something you can drop, and the drop allowing you to flow through to your next target without stopping, riding a wave of slaughter to greater and greater heights.¡± I eyed some of Aelryinth¡¯s memories of Dragon Warriors using the techniques, particularly his wife¡­ and Sama Rantha. ¡°If you can get Sharding to dovetail with Penetrating Shot¡­ well, suddenly your reach is potentially up to fifty paces in all directions, too¡­¡± Both of them looked at me, then at one another. ¡°Someone actually did something like that?¡± the Mick asked softly. ¡°What were she, a god?¡± I inclined my head at Kris. ¡°Sama Rantha of Terra-Luna. I told you of the Dead Marches there that one time, right?¡± They both nodded, staring at me. ¡°Well, the first time she pulled off a Butterfly Run she flat freaked-out everyone. She was full-out running through a March of hundreds of millions of undead, and everything for thirty paces around her was just dying. They only got to swing at her because she was letting them do so, just to generate more attacks and allow her to keep going. It was pretty radical. ¡°There were plenty of people who could try to chain together Maelstroms and Avalanche Runs and Storms of Steel, but nobody had ever seen anything like that. She just mowed down an entire wall of the enemy and blazed a path right through the heart of them that they couldn¡¯t stop, which she could maneuver in any direction she needed to. The more of them there were, the more effective it was.¡± ¡°Huh. That must feel like being a god o¡¯ war, or something,¡± the Mick hazarded, trying to picture that more clearly, and only having Kris¡¯ inferior example to draw on¡­ which was terrifying enough to most of the Melees here, who really, really wanted to be able to do that, too. ¡°Yes, just like slaughtering waves of enemies with magic is. Similar mindset, different tools is all¡­ and it¡¯s much harder for us to do, given what we are. Magic is best at army destruction. High-end melee tends to be better at killing prepared individuals who can shut down magic,¡± Kris said. I ceded the point. ¡°Truth.¡± ¡°I need to get there!¡± the Mick declared, his dark eyes flashing. ¡°Time and Karma, Lord Mick. Time and Karma¡­¡± ------------------------- Shortly afterwards... As the Shaded creatures went wild trying to catch or cast at the elusive woman in front of them, I picked out my own targets and let fly, while the line of warriors waiting flat on their faces behind us watched the wild salvos of spells going off at their Warlord. ¡°Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble¡­ I came to prance, you came to dance, both to pay a butcher¡¯s toll, Burning for slaughter, white on the water, as the tide continues to roll. This shore your score, your death its breath, the waves of misty foam, Come to your due, faded Shaded, the sands your final home. TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Princess Kristie was having none of the shit of the Shaded, drawing out their formation as their Casters paused to let spells fly, while others ran after her as rapidly as they could. Perhaps they were surprised when they could not catch her, perhaps they didn¡¯t have enough experience, and it didn¡¯t matter either way. The spells were ignored, and Quaver¡¯s swirls of Lost Light were dealing with the archers trying to take potshots at her with dismissive ease, especially with the fact her lightfoot was so erratic that ninety percent of the shots didn¡¯t get within ten feet of her as she raced about. Marguls roared, whined, scrabbled, and died. They were my primary targets, as we didn¡¯t want to deal with them in an open field. ¡°Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble¡­ The Eye of Heaven is upon you! Judged you are, and found wanting! The Lost Light has returned, come to end your vaunting Lives all false, given and taken by an uncaring Elder thing, Send you off, a demon¡¯s fate ending where¡¯er the Rantha sing! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± The zefirs had the same problem here that they had at the Choke proper, but this time it was from Kris, not from me. Her Null Interdiction included a Stillflight effect, and the hostile little murder sprites with the bodies of shadow and eyes of blood hit it and dropped to the ground with startled meeps of shock that they couldn¡¯t actually fly. They were rambunctious and constant Casters if they had targets, however, and the incensed little bloodletters launched spell after spell at Kris as she dodged around, while my Shardrays strobed and the burning slaughter drakes of shadow screamed as they ate my Chained Split Shardrays again, and again, and again! The first margul popped under the assault of the Chains, rapidly followed by others as the Seeking Meta on the spell sought them out. When I ran out of extra targets, the extra Chains bled over into the Shadow Zefirs, as the tiny bastards were a pain to snipe and I didn¡¯t want them getting closer to our melees. I was coasting backwards as I chain-Cast, watched dozens of enemy spells per cycle vanish into Kris¡¯ Null, maybe one in forty managing to actually punch her defenses¡­ and that spell was promptly Spellcut into random glitters of magic or sent bouncing back at their Casters, leaving only those Shaded trying to melee with her any chance at really harming her. Those unlucky sorts were soon in range of the archers, both living and undead, who rose up off the ground they¡¯d been laying flat on now that the Summons were utterly fixated on their Warlord, and started to unload into the throngs of creatures chasing after her as she zigged back and forth, making sure to chop into half a dozen targets with every change of direction as they swiped at her. Gorgeous waves and swirls of Lost Light ripped through the Shaded with howls of pain and annoyance at the force of the hits. AF Chapter 183 – Waves Crashing against an Ocean Driving arrows and bolts punching in to whittle the Shaded down further were mostly ignored, as they were Summons, their target was right in front of them, and they didn¡¯t have time for a bunch of pointy sticks embedded in their quasi-material bodies. Then the first wave of Vulns and Imperils went off, as Aural Fires marked those afflicted as targets. Ten seconds later, almost all of those Shaded were dead and Burning en vivus, and another wave was popping off among the Grievver Shredders, Void Lords, and Panumbris who were split between shooting, Casting, and chasing, the horde following Kris giving many targets of opportunity for the Casters to basically point at and say, ¡°Die!¡± ¡°Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble¡­ We pointed, you died, your lives swept aside, And this time you¡¯ll not return. The Land now feasts, on Shaded and beasts, Where vivus grows, you¡¯ll Burn! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Of the threescore marguls and more with this attacking force, none made it alive to the melee lines as I pulled back into them, well ahead of Kris. The spearmen and paramount tanks rose from the ground, a sudden line of steel blocking all those creatures from chasing after Kris as she zipped in front of them. Then they charged, and it all dissolved into some pretty nasty fighting. Mono-focused on their fleeing target, the Shaded almost drove themselves into the Spears, Axes, and Swords cutting across their paths and into them. Nets were hurled, and grievvers went tumbling as their long and spindly limbs caught in the mesh and sent them thrashing wildly, an ignominious fate for creatures that could spin webs themselves. The Vulns were still going off, and marked Shaded were dying with incredible speed as they did. The Shaded still hadn¡¯t shifted Casting targets from Kris¡­ who had actually looped around behind the throng following her, cutting her way past stragglers who inherited undead arrows on all sides of her, Fire Dragon opportunity attacks from a multitude of triggers basically surrounding her in a killing spiral of Lost Light as she kept moving. The hyper-focused Shaded turned to follow her, ignoring the way they were being run over, bound, and wolfpacked to death as they really, really tried to kill her. She swooped in a circle in the middle of them, continuing to move, and the killing black rain of arrows from the undead was like a dark waterfall coming across the Shaded chasing after her, while she wove between those who dared to stop to Cast or snipe, leaving blazing scars on them as she did. There was no War Magic on our side, it was a waste of time. The Vulns and the Imperils were far more efficient uses of mana as the melee and archer companies chewed their way through the Shaded. I was finding nobody needing any Heals, except Kris herself, who was being chopped and grazed by blows delivered with enough strength and power to exceed her copious Damage Reduction and actually do some injury to her. Silver Heal Others flashed into her faster than her Fast Healing and Regeneration could deal with her injuries, which only made her more willing to draw the enemy in and start really, really unleashing some hostility on them. Opportunist, Sword beats Fist, Thorned Stance, and Riposte were filling the air around her with multiple attacks delivered with a murderous speed only a few of those there had ever witnessed before. Targets were Vulned or Imperiled, with our mages now concentrating on those delivering ranged attacks as inheritors of many archer volleys, while the melees closed in savagely on the scrum now surrounding Kristie and dragged down the Shaded from behind with ruthless speed and efficiency. I kept her alive as she chopped into everything, now surrounded, lashing out in all directions with Whirlwinds, her Lost Light looked like burning, glowing water as it tore through the Shaded within reach of her. Limbs of shades and pincers of grievvers were going flying, the occasional meep! could be heard as a zefir that probably thought it could sneak in was bisected, and everything turned into a massive, mad pile-on on top of Princess and Warlord Kristie. The Bursting Shardrays swallowed the whole horde of them in overlapping Areas of Effect which covered basically a hundred Shaded in a whole blast of intersecting damage and healthy spell Kickers that blazed and ate at them. The display looked very impressive, yet it didn¡¯t actually kill anything¡­ but the Slow that came with it rippled out through the packed numbers of creatures and made damn sure they weren¡¯t going to be much of a threat to someone moving as fast and as sure as Kris was. Then it was just dumping ranged Heal Others on her and making sure she didn¡¯t die as the melees waded through the pack, impaling all the Shaded now blazing en vivus and with half a dozen other energies. The Vulned shade archers were mowed down by pointed volleys of arrows following bursts of magic enshrouding them, rendering their armor porous or magnifying the slashing damage that came arcing in to chew at their quasi-real bodies made from shadowstuff. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. At least one arrow in every cluster of them was trailing vivic fire. When those shades dropped, they all started Burning urgently and cheerfully. ------ Kris came wading out of the pile of bodies chopped, impaled, and Burning in a vivic bonfire. Her clothes were quite ragged, and she should have been covered head to toe in gore, except all of that was Burning vivic too. So she had the mists streaming off her, eating away any sign of Shaded being butchered atop her. Quaver was still humming the Trembling Song, and notes of it were playing off the radiant force of the Lost Light like it was a water harmonica, sweeping over the field with a grandly murderous air that nobody could ignore, least of all the dead Shaded driven nearly berserk by it. It almost distracted people from Kris¡¯ eighty percent nudity. It was rather a lot of skin to be showing on our Warlord, so I Mended it up for her with a sigh and a shake of my head. ¡°Two more of this size, three more of decreasing size thereafter, and then we¡¯re down to trickles,¡± I reminded her as her leathers came back together. ¡°Make a floating choke point, get the Archers up on Disks with Casters behind them picking targets,¡± she said instantly, turning around to head out. The next wave would be about a mile away right now. I just sighed and nodded, the first stone stela already rising to block off running attackers and funnel them into narrow channels where they could be killed. The lines were quickly reforming, while the mages dropped into group Aurora Stances and formations, pulling in the mana as fast as they dared while trying to recover what they had spent so urgently and freely. Three big fights, three more fights rapidly decreasing in size, and then everything would sort itself out, judging by the Mole reports. We just had to pace ourselves and use every moment wisely, while fighting against the fatigue and lack of sleep that came with having fought for more than a day straight against the relentless waves of the Shaded. There was nothing for it but to keep going, now. We were doing it, and had done it. Rest could come when they weren¡¯t all needed to fight. -------- ¡°Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble¡­ Life be such a bore, Without massacre and gore, So a Hag¡¯s come to keep you happy all. Delivering the blood and doom Filling Fate¡¯s wondrous Loom The lesson: we aren¡¯t the only ones who¡¯ll Fall! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± ¡°Well done, Warlord, well done. Now everyone knows you have nothing to see there.¡± Kris just chuckled wetly as she waited, cleansing flames burning away Shaded corruption trying to eat at her, while aghast warriors looked on at just how chopped apart, bloody, and impaled she was, and yet she was still walking, despite looking less alive than most of the undead. The ripe, rich blood helped the macabre image, and the fact most of her clothing had been shredded off of her only made it obvious just how punishment she¡¯d taken from this third batch. ¡°Yeah, but they¡¯re broken now,¡± she replied to me, a combination of Healing magic and her own regenerative capabilities rapidly reattaching muscles, pulling organs back into place, absorbing blood, closing her skin, reforming an ear lost somewhere and an eye impaled by a foreleg-spear from a Shredder, and otherwise removing her from -34 or so negative Health to a rapid positive number and Soak restoring with speed on my end. We weren¡¯t advancing, as the mages were dangerously low on mana at this point, and there was a lot of exhaustion among everyone fighting. But that was fine, as the next group was going to be less than half the size of this one. Using this Choke Hold location, with even a sparse amount of the preliminary killing and support before the main fight, this wasn¡¯t going to be a contest at all. Vivic mists were swirling thickly as the Shaded Burned away faster than if they were soaked in oil, and the beach was covered almost knee-high in cool and revitalizing white mists. ¡°They¡¯ll be a quarter-dead before they hit arrow range,¡± Kris promised, gesturing to me. I hopped onto a Disk, Quaver took control of it with a ding-ting! Note rising from her, and Kris just laughed as she ran away, totally ignoring the fact that a minute before she looked like someone waking up on an autopsy table. The Mick watched us go as he attended to his own people, and not incidentally was gathering up hundreds of arrows to re-issue to the many archers who¡¯d fired off quiverloads full of them by now. As nobody could so easily haul around a thousand arrows or more, tracking arrow usage was another of those tedious things people had been forced back into after the Fall, and someone who could pick up all those arrows with magic was appreciated. He still hadn¡¯t given up his primary tank position, and the other paramounts were all dead envious of him. In terms of hacking things dead, he definitely led everyone else on the field, and that was without even trying to show off. Also, taking on so much of the load meant his team was fresher than any of the others, and with the Power of Ten training, killed twice as fast as any other squad, too. The Royal Scouts were getting a reputation all of their own now. --------- Master Ben Ten gestured, and the Moon Legion swept around to the south and east, while the Freeholder Legion with its greater numbers likewise spread both north and west. Companies separated, gaps big enough to help the encirclement evident, but there was no chance the enemy was going to use them, after all. As soon as they saw the hostile undead, there would instead be fighting. The shades slain would be rapidly reborn, but the living forces who could wield vivus freely were exhausted and needed a breather. Both he and MacNaill had squads of living among them who could administer the vivus to the shades they brought down, and make sure such didn¡¯t return if the numbers were small enough. Those areas of the battlefield would be dangerous for the undead to tread upon, so they had to be careful to center all the corpses and contain the unwhite fire¡­ but that wouldn¡¯t be too hard, either. The crazed Shaded creatures were still very powerful and supernaturally tough, but they were now vastly outnumbered, and the undead were perfectly happy to gang-tackle them, pin them, and plunge in a lot of knives at close range to kill the things. Whether they were cursed souls being recycled by whatever power was backing them, or newly agglomerated spirits enslaved to the will of their creator by their own programming and false memories, it really didn¡¯t matter. With their numbers so reduced, the undead could contain them easily, and indeed, Master Ben¡¯s followers of the sword were looking forward to putting their new skills to use. It was just a shame he¡¯d had to die to learn of these Seven Dragons and their wondrous applications, finally wielding ki once he was no longer alive to truly appreciate it. AF Chapter 184– Requiems for more than the Dead Banishing the depressing thought, Master Ben Ten gave his orders. The nets so painstakingly prepared were readied for use. If all went well, there would be no losses whatsoever in the coming fights, although the magic of the enemy was powerful enough that it was likely not going to be the case. That would be fine. Every undead slain rose again at midnight and would run back to the fight from their grave. It was not just the shades who did not die easily here, in the end. The pit that would accept the bodies of the slain to burn in vivic fire was shallow, but it did not need to be deep. The bodies would Burn down to less than ash, after all. It was there to contain the mists more than anything else. Their duty was not yet done. He and all the other undead had looked upon the misty unwhite flames, more real than anything else in the shrouded world altered by their undead states, and knew that to throw themselves into them was to find final rest. But, no. Those who had arranged for this were not yet punished for their arrogance and mockery, and the living were not yet re-established on Dereth proper. When the princess led a force to relieve them permanently of their duty, it would be time to die. The great swordmaster placed a skeletal hand into the purse at his side, clasped what it held, and withdrew it to gaze upon it. A Diamond Heart, the intact surviving core of one of the powerful and fearsome Diamond Golums that could be found in all the more dangerous areas of Dereth. It was a rough and uneven thing, although residual lights of magic glimmered within it to his empty eye sockets, hinting at remaining power. The Magos had said that, given time and a Diamond Heart, she would be able to return the dead to life. She simply had to make it to Thirteen to do so. When that happened, she could potentially reach back as far as thirty years to return the dead to life. Securing a heart hadn¡¯t been hard, as Diamond Golums formed out of the Linvak mountains¡¯ flows of magic all the time. They were avoided by the living locals for the crushing power of their bludgeoning magic and the strength of their crystalline limbs, so hunting down a few of them and finally securing an intact Heart had not been all that difficult. Restoring the dead to life! Truly the power of Matrix magic was beyond anything he had imagined, although the Magos had specifically said that Divine approval was needed for such a thing to work¡­ and that meant the gods she worshiped would be involved. If they were the ones to gift mortal humans with such beneficial magic, good for improving the quality of life and not just for war, then he was perfectly willing to pay heed to more of their teachings. He had particularly enjoyed it when Princess Kristie had spoken of Mithar and Valus, two very different gods with very different approaches to combat, both of them masters of their crafts, both of them used by Heaven in the fight against Evil. Both of them Masters of the Thunder in a warrior¡¯s soul! The chance to play a game of go against the Grandmaster of the Gods was a big enough lure to almost guarantee he would walk into the vivic flames of his own accord, but the Warlord had just given him a look as she fought him to another draw over the chessboard, and said, ¡°You aren¡¯t tired enough, and you don¡¯t need to rest. If you want to game with Mithar, then get stronger, walk on up to Heaven, and play a game with Him.¡± And if I can be restored to living, breathing life, that was exactly what I will seek to do, the old swordmaster promised himself. A quarter-mile away, the twisted, living black energy spirals of the Shadow Vortexes twisted, ripped open in an unpleasantly organic shrrrrwpppp of dimensions tearing, affording a momentary glimpse into a place of blood and shadows that might have affected a living person with nightmares, but which the undead only saw as the place of torment and hatred that it was. Six shades, three each of the armored males and smoke-riding females, were disgorged into the world, stumbling and uncertain as they looked about at the other Shaded stationed patiently there, unmoving Summons waiting for something to ¡®proc¡¯ them ¨C hah, such specific terms for alarming a Summoned! - and saw nothing to immediately enter battle with. The Lures had been taken down. Ben Ten watched from afar as the new Shaded made out the unmoving lines of undead now completely encircling the ruins of Tou-Tou, the town¡¯s soil and stone long since corrupted black as pitch and ash by the energies of the Shaded home dimension leaking through here. Then one of the Void Lords seemed to utter a scream, a wicked morningstar trailing acid materialized in his hand, and he went charging out to the northwest and toward MacNaill¡¯s lines. Companies of undead rippled, bows rising as the other shades followed the first one in a death rush towards them. The flanking elements that would close in on them from behind, if any survived the arrows soon to be unleashed, were kneeling and waiting for the order to envelop them and drag them down. There was another terrific ripping and shredding sound as the second Shadow Vortex split open, and half a dozen marguls tumbled and rolled forth from the madness within the place beyond. They reclaimed their clawed feet quickly with flaps of their wings, looking about to the hills, and the Moon Legion undead patiently waiting for them. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Their wicked, hate-filled eyes found him, and he obligingly drew Giri to fix their attention on him. With spiteful curses in whatever passed for a tongue between them, the drakes flapped and hopped in his direction, moving with deceptive speed and marshaling energy for their first volley of spells as they did so. His students stepped up beside him, their own Weapons, agleam with power and strength that came from within, earned in battle and discipline and not the whims of whatever uncaring system of magic had been drawing on the treacherous ley lines, sliding silently to hand. They were pulsing with the power and will of the Soul of those who held them, Weapons wielded by Profound Axe, Glaive, and Swordsmen, the equal of anything they had ever held in their lives, even before the Fall. The darkly burning forms of the marguls hit eighty yards, and the War Magic came slamming in¡­ Pyreal in tier, he judged, even as he moved, flowing into motion, and his students did the same, each of them picking a spell. Ki and Soul cut in rippling motions, and the incoming flurry of Force and Fire magic was sliced apart harmlessly, dissipating about their teacher in ineffective sparkles of fading magic. The Vulns to Slashing and the Imperils from the Casters flared out in return, the little drakes lighting up in the same moment they Cast with the deadly Debuffing magic. The archers, bows drawn and in Stance, released as one, and a hundred arrows streaked out from some of the finest bowmen, living or dead, in Dereth. Archery could be Profound, too, after all. Some missed, erratic motion and the like doing the job, but four of the marguls were smashed right over, impaled by a dozen arrows that did not care for how dangerous they were, either. The remaining two stumbled forwards, arrows buried in them, leaping and winging forward as the archers calmly drew again. The two reached forty yards, and Ben Ten and his students cut. The Sharding slices rippled out as their own living arcs of force, flashing across the intervening distance unerringly, and chopped the marguls into several pieces. Ben Ten just nodded as everyone lowered their Weapons. ¡°Officers, stand in front of your companies with your Weapons drawn, it will draw their eyes. Give them something to focus on.¡± He waved forward the squad of the nimblest undead, who dashed out to grab the bodies of the things before they could dissipate and hurry them to the vivic pit, there to be ignited and join the Shaded things that had come before them. The Moles who had joined them once their own surveying duties were superfluous watched from the side, Vivic Weapons drawn, there to make sure the corpses were set alight the instant they were brought in. Around the town, the elite of the Moon Legion stepped forth. Company commanders and their lieutenants drew Weapons that gleamed with a purity and strength that was not natural to anything normally associated with the undead, and which certainly caught the eyes of the scores of Shaded positions scattered around inside the town in their knots and clusters. But they were slaves to the Summons system, and would not proc unless the undead advanced. They could be lured forth and killed, but something would respawn to replace them within a mere handful of minutes, and he had personally come with the teams that had tested how long the Spawn Points could be Sealed. It was less than an hour before the vivic barrier to the respawns was forced away by the shadowy energies staining the Veil in this place, so a fool¡¯s game. The six Shadow Pillars scattered around the ruins, either molded into place by willing shades or simply extruded from the earth in revulsion of what they were, all had to be brought down. The four vortices of unnatural fire, spewing hateflames and filling the air with mindless pain and fury, had to be sundered and quenched. Once they were gone, the Shadow Vortexes had to be cut through and disrupted and ever-burning vivic flames laid atop the long-standing ruptures in reality until they were properly Sealed. It all had to be done with vivus and Vivic Weapons, and so the undead could not do the job. They¡¯d probably Burn themselves to death just venturing into the area once the mistfires started spreading everywhere, fueled by Shaded deaths and the sheer amount of corruption in the land. Ben Ten did not begrudge the living the honor or the glory of their task. The next generation succeeding where their elders had failed was the proper way of things. They had destroyed the Shaded One¡¯s attempt to fortify its defenses here, in wave after wave of disciplined and valiant efforts, and were now chewing through the last of those waves before resting, recovering using the time the undead were now buying for them. As they had for a generation, the Moon Legion and the Freeholders stood guard between the enemy and the living, and allowed the living to rest easily for yet one more night. ---------- It was pretty quiet. The army of the living had stopped about five miles short of Tou-Tou. The last of the Shaded waves, a mere handful of dancing grievvers, had died to Vulns and arrow fire before it could reach their lines, Warlord Kris not even bothering to go out and lure them, the archers eager to affirm that yes, they could indeed kill them all before they came in range. All the Disks that I¡¯d spun up over the course of the day were occupied and the women unapologetically ceded them, covered up in their cloaks. The men unpacked bedrolls onto the sands or grass, some of the Aun just going out into the water, laying down, and dozing off in relief. The supply wagons had come barreling in at the end, dispensing alchemically-boosted food and drinks. While mostly restoring health and vigor, the fatigue was as much mental and magical as physical. Everyone had indulged some of the best food they¡¯d had in some time, or ever for some of the younger generation, and then everyone basically collapsed into heaps as soon as they got their armor off. the entire camp was quiet, save for the blowing of the sea-laden breeze and the low crackling of the fires. AF Chapter 185 – Rest, Recovery, and Renewal on the Beach ¡°I remember grinding away in combat, against the like of olthoi, eaters, undead, an¡¯ lugians,¡± mused The Mick over the fire of Kris¡¯ Floating Forge between us. ¡°I¡¯d be killing sclavi an¡¯ moarsmen all day on their temple island, an¡¯ I¡¯d bring down burning everything spawning in the Frozen Valley t¡¯ the north. ¡°Weren¡¯t nothing like this kind of fighting. I ain¡¯t had this kind of ache in me body an¡¯ soul ever.¡± ¡°Here in youngster-ville, we call that going soft, old man,¡± Princess Kristie instantly piped up, completely unapologetic, and even sounding much too chipper for the situation. ¡°Aye, but yer a Hag, Ye¡¯d call diamonds soft when ye chip an¡¯ shatter ¡®em!¡± he immediately bantered back. ¡°That¡¯s true!¡± she agreed cheerfully. ¡°How about you, faithful bondmage mine?¡± ¡°You¡¯re lying through your teeth.¡± Thumbs and forefingers in circles, I was in a Disk-chair and slowly drawing in power, pure Aurora stuff, no Reserve cycling. ¡°You basically threw yourself into a torture pit six times in a row and you¡¯re covering it with that Rantha grin. Then I saw you rip twenty points of Constitution down so you could refill your Matrix for me once the fighting stopped. You¡¯re in no shape for another fight right now, and the Mick could tank better than you can.¡± The Mick looked at his Warlord, who just shrugged. ¡°She¡¯s got a link to me you don¡¯t have, Lord Mick. You didn¡¯t miss anything.¡± ¡°I¡¯d say you being a cheerful iron-hard Hag were all an act¡­ except ye had the stones to get chopped up all those times, grin right through it, and then go do it again.¡± He paused thoughtfully. ¡°So, ye could still feel all that shite done to you¡­¡± ¡°Oh, yes, I could feel everything. When your Kirlian Aura gets that fucked up, it does not feel good. And getting force-healed and regenerating repeatedly that much in such a short period of time feels like ants eating you on the inside.¡± ¡°You DID notice she put down twenty pounds of reedshark steaks, right?¡± I asked him. ¡°That were only twenty pounds? Ye had all the lugians envious o¡¯ yer hollow leg!¡± the Mick rejoined, hefting a big tankard of lugian ale, a big hunk of their hearty bread in his other hand. ¡°She ate another twenty pounds of stuff touring the troops and taking something every time it was offered to her. She also drank over a gallon of stuff, and hasn¡¯t even had to take a piss yet,¡± I informed him. ¡°That much healing and regenerating is not polite to a body, especially when you¡¯ve gone negative that much...¡± ¡°Perhaps I¡¯ll be finding that out one day meself,¡± the Mick just nodded, taking a mouthful of the bread and washing it down. I reached out, flicked a couple of the remaining loaves off a neighboring wagon, and held them out for Kris. She eyed me reprovingly for daring to question her stoic demeanor, then snatched them both out of my hands flicker-quick and proceeded to chow them down with a fury and vigor which would have shamed a starving moarsman. The Mick just watched her with an upraised eyebrow. ¡°You need to put on more weight,¡± I chided her. ¡°Can¡¯t,¡± she replied happily, swallowing the last of the second loaf in less than a minute with a flourish of her black nails. ¡°Rantha genes. We get to absolutely gorgeous and don¡¯t advance an inch past it. Eating more just makes us horny, or we go looking for a fight, or go run thirty miles for the hell of it.¡± ¡°Oh, right. The power of nymphs and sirines in the family tree.¡± I just rolled my eyes. Kris looked like she¡¯d been caught at something. ¡°Hey, how¡¯d you know about that?¡± she demanded, as the Mick looked intrigued. ¡°Seriously? Your Charisma to AC and Saves are called Nature¡¯s Blessing and Blessing of the Waters respectively, which are exactly what they are called for both of those races?¡± She scowled at me, and then her eyes wandered over to the wagon. She glanced right, left, then bounded over, scooped up half a ham and a full hand-keg of booze, then zipped on back as if she was happy about being sneaky, and not the Warlord of the place who could requisition anything she wanted from stores. ¡°Nymphs are actually a thing?¡± the Mick asked alertly. ¡°And sirens aren¡¯t just a sailor¡¯s tale?¡± he followed up equally quickly. ¡°They exist in worlds with stronger Fey presences. Ispar probably doesn¡¯t have enough natural magic in most places to sustain them, and so we don¡¯t get things much stronger than Wisps. Nymphs are Nature¡¯s Beauties, so beautiful that to see them unclothed will either kill a mortal or blind them. Sirines are beauties of the sea, and rivals of the nereids, who are Water¡¯s Beauties. That latter cannot be harmed by any being with a sexual interest in them, and will kill you with the pleasure of their kiss. Sirines, not quite so deadly,¡± I told him calmly, rather dousing some of his wilder imaginings of them. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! He looked Kris over once in appraisal, and she just gave him A Smile. His eyebrows went right for his hairline, and he looked away, coughing to cover himself. ¡°Something in me eye. An¡¯ me throat. An¡¯ don¡¯t ye say a word while ye¡¯re smiling like that. I can feel the Rose about ye.¡± Kris almost did say something, then let the Night Rose drop and went from being utterly bewitching to just damn pleasant to look at. ¡°How do Fey beauties get into a Hag Bloodline, of all things?¡± he had to ask, glancing carefully at her out of the corner of his eye before sighing and turning back to face us with a shameless smile on his face. ¡°Primogenitor probably ate them for one reason or another?¡± I hazarded, and Kris just shrugged. ¡°Passed on through the Silver Queen, probably during rejection of her Hag Curse. Just one more way to tweak the Curse, I imagine. You didn¡¯t look quite so fetching before your time, Kris, right?¡± ¡°No,¡± Princess Kristie admitted easily. ¡°I looked quite square-faced, with a particularly flat jaw, muddy brown eyes, and protruding ears, actually.¡± She bent her just-barely pointed ears out a good inch for emphasis, and rode her expressive lips down to artificially widen her heart-point jawline. ¡°Generally speaking, Ranthas don¡¯t look like anything they did before their Curse tries to take them, just like true Hags don¡¯t look like the girls they were born as when it¡¯s time for their Curse to rise up and take them. Mom said I wasn¡¯t all that far off from how she once looked, actually, and neither of my sisters were beauties growing up. Rather ferociously plain, really.¡± ¡°Hags look like horrible harridans based on the sins they committed in their previous life, and Ranthas look like sexy murder witches,¡± I supplied to the Mick helpfully. Kris beamed, and pointed at me. ¡°She knows!¡± she stage-whispered to the Mick. He nodded sagely. ¡°Aye, so she does. I shall have t¡¯ be satisfied with being at the peak o¡¯ human physical ability an¡¯ whatnot, I guess.¡± He gave us his own beaming white smile, assuring us that he kept his partners in bed totally satisfied, too. ¡°Should¡¯ve asked Oswald if those things still existed, and worked,¡± I voiced upon reflection about the things responsible for that. The Mick considered that point about the Temples, then shrugged. ¡°If I make it t¡¯ Valence V¡¯s, I¡¯ll be able to pop over there and see. Sure¡¯n the younger generation could use the ability t¡¯ remake themselves. What do you think the odds are? Kris answered that one. ¡°You described the place as a Temple Dungeon, which using this big stony head gained you entrance to after offering the right herb, right?¡± News to me. ¡°Oh, it was a Dungeon. Huh.¡± ¡°Why that look...oh.¡± He harrumphed. ¡°Why do I suddenly have the feeling all them layers came out inside or next t¡¯ that damn Guardian¡­¡± ¡°And it exploded, or the Dungeon collapsed,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°After all, they just got done watching people go to extreme perfection to specialize. Having to make do with what you were born with gives them so much more variety to look at.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t Ranthas pretty skewed on that scale?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Even given how much you can raise your Stat line.¡± ¡°Yeah, if we were point buy design, we¡¯d be pretty up there,¡± she agreed shamelessly. ¡°But that¡¯s the joy of Hagdom. All our physicals get set to Rantha defaults regardless of what we were, so we only have to worry about the mental side when we¡¯re younger.¡± ¡°Cheats!¡± I pointed at her, looking to the Mick. ¡°She gets to cheat!¡± ¡°Where be I just takin¡¯ advantage o¡¯ two crazy systems o¡¯ magic t¡¯ get Stats and fun stuff from both. A poor normal fool am I,¡± he bemoaned in flagrant self-pity. ¡°It still takes a ridiculous amount of Karma to raise this damn Racial Class!¡± Kris sniffed petulantly. ¡°As opposed to normal folks who can¡¯t get those kind of Stats and innate powers at all without jumping through a LOT more unhealthy hoops?¡± I promptly shot her down archly. ¡°Aye, no matter how much Karma ye gain, ye¡¯ve still got something t¡¯ do with it,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Being able t¡¯ just BUY all my magical power-ups instead of scrambling after gear an¡¯ loot drops an¡¯ beggin¡¯ an¡¯ tradin¡¯ and questin¡¯¡­¡± He rolled his dark eyes theatrically. ¡°Technically, you always had a place to put the extra Karma, too. The Isparian system just wouldn¡¯t allow it,¡± Kris pointed out. ¡°I think once you break Twenty, you¡¯re going to get some pleasant surprises on both sides of the equation.¡± ¡°Aye, hopin¡¯ t¡¯ see that, pop me a few dozen Levels an¡¯ go look some undead shites who think they are all that in the eye...¡± ¡°Just don¡¯t do it alone,¡± Kris warned him. ¡°Melees do it best in a right mob,¡± he agreed lazily, nodding at that. ¡°Speaking o¡¯ mobs, anything special on the agenda fer the morrow?¡± ¡°Nothing we didn¡¯t already plan for,¡± Kris answered after a pause to truly consider the question. ¡°It helped that it was a prime grinding location in the past, and you paramounts knew the area so well. It will be a right pain to kill everything in the correct order, but we should be able to get it done, even if there¡¯s another thousand Shaded spread throughout the area to stop us. If they aren¡¯t in a mob, they don¡¯t have a chance against a proper army doing things the right way.¡± ¡°There be something t¡¯ say about the soldier way versus the proper adventurer way,¡± the Mick acknowledged with a pained expression. ¡°Oh, but me ancestors would turn in their graves t¡¯ hear their favored son spoutin¡¯ such heresies!¡± ¡°To be fair, your ancestors¡¯ idea of big picture thinking is the frame is too large and the painting needs to be cut out of it when they are raiding so they can carry it home as loot more easily,¡± I reminded him. He guffawed at me, and Kris shook her head. ¡°Aye, an¡¯ ye¡¯ve so the right o¡¯ it. We¡¯ll make an honorary scofflaw o¡¯ ye yet, fair Lady Magos!¡± ¡°I can¡¯t wait for the moment, Lord Mick,¡± I answered dryly, which only made him laugh the more at the completely apparent lie. AF Chapter 186 – Something’s Last Day Dawns ¡°...Behold the new day!¡± Light streamed over the peaks and mountains that remained to the east of us as the Salute to Aru finished. Lightly breathing soldiers knelt to receive the touch of revitalization and benevolent encouragement, now appreciating the little gesture far more than they had only a couple of days ago. Tou-Tou was due north of us, up over one mount on a well-trod path clearly scored by the thousands of Shaded that had taken it over the years, coming down to the shores and roving about madly until they were killed, doubtless only to do it again. Armor was retrieved from the floating silvery-translucent Disks they¡¯d been heaped on for the morning run, quivers were slung, Weapons readied and examined, mana topped. There was a line of humanoid forms up top on the ridge waiting for us. As the drums began to pound and the army of the living turned, the undead waiting there waved flags to let the Moon Legion of Master Ben Ten know we were coming. The undead archers who had fought with us had already rejoined him, so it was for us to get up there and lead the way in, while the Freeholders and Moon Legion prevented any breakouts. ¡°Feel the land TREMBLE! Long Stride, Sound Off!¡± ¡°Tremble, Tremble!¡± everyone called back to Warlord Kristie Rantha¡¯s voice of command rippling over them with Heartsong¡¯s power. ¡°We passed the beach, we passed the stones!¡± ¡°We passed the broken, shattered bones!¡± ¡°We stood the test, we made the Stand! Long stride!¡± ¡°One, two!¡± ¡°Sound off!¡± ¡°Three, four!¡± ¡°Boots coming down!¡± ¡°Tremble, Tremble!¡±came ringing back to her, and the pace picked up, echoes of the old power that had once enabled the residents of Dereth to run as fast as a racing horse pulsing through them now. ¡°Up the mountain, and up the hill!¡± ¡°On up to where the booze flows still!¡± ¡°Across the hill, across the sand! Long stride!¡± ¡°One, two!¡± ¡°Sound off!¡± ¡°Three, four!¡± ¡°Boots coming down!¡± ¡°Tremble, Tremble!¡± This was an aspect of the Trembling Song not seen quite so often, employed as a marching tune and not a battle hymn. Warlords could do all sorts of stuff if they were Heartsingers, and a boost to movement rate while effectively neutralizing the fatigue involved was actually fairly minor. The lugians off to the sides pounding the drums were actually the most important part of the cadence. ¡°My lover waits, for my return!¡± ¡°Their need so great, they¡¯re like to burn!¡± ¡°On satin sheets with trembling hands! Long stride!¡± ¡°One, two!¡± ¡°Sound off!¡± ¡°Three, four!¡± ¡°Boots coming down!¡± ¡°Tremble, Tremble!¡± Hooting enthusiastically, the living surged up for a great standing place of horror, spirits aflame and ready to put down something even the best of the elders at the height of their power had never been able to. -------- ¡°Eyes in the sky are up!¡± I announced, as the Eagle¡¯s Vantage materialized a thousand feet overhead and gave me a bird¡¯s-eye tactical view of the situation, which I promptly fed over to Kris, who shared it with all the Marked who needed to appreciate the tactical display and make instant decisions on the ground when needed. Tellingly, it was very, very similar to a certain area of empty beach on Ithaenc which had been Shaped and formed into a pattern of ruins and streets for some arcane purpose, and these soldiers run through it in drills that were now reality. Shielded by the lines of undead, the first splitting into twelve teams, six on breaker duty, six to defend them, took place. The squads and companies ran to their places around the city, looking down on the dark and corrupted stone and soil, making out the very, very familiar layout of where they had to go and what they had to do. Adjunct officers working with the undead had their archers form up in lines, ready to advance as the living did, preceding their attacks with magic and arrow fire to soften up the Shaded there. These were true Summons we had to face, and the undead had been looking hard for any free-willed shades or anything that might be able to command the forces below, at which point our tactics would have to shift quickly if the guardians arranged themselves intelligently around the locations below we had to hit. The undead hadn¡¯t seen any signs of such intelligence, and we were all pretty damn sure that any that had stayed there long enough to evade our eyes would be as mad and deranged as the rest of the things, unable to effectively command. We¡¯d only have to worry about the Shaded proccing one another off nearby combats, but that was what the Dark Poles and the Sound Bubbles were for. The former were spells of Continual Darkness 15¡¯ radius, put on the end of twenty-foot poles and so basically a form of complete visual interdiction. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The Sound Bubbles naturally enough encapsulated all the sound in a given area, completely swallowing the calls, commands, clashings, and crunching sounds of combat in a confined bubble. No sight, no sound, no procs. At most the Summons would be wary of the silent bubble of darkness moving around, nothing more, and would not move unless they had actual targets to face. The bubbles looked odd, floating behind and off to the sides of the assembled troops, but the tactic had been tested on Summons across the Vesayans to make sure that it worked, and it had performed fine. Flags dipped in unison at Kris¡¯ command. The undead trotted forward to within arrow range of the outer archers, the marguls, grievvers, and zefirs just holding position. The first spells went off, lighting the Shaded up in damage-magnifying Vulns and armor-softening Imperils, and the fight was on as the living charged down the hills towards the Shadow Pillars. The Shaded were in clusters, usually in numbers of one to four. Sometimes it was mixed species, sometimes it was all the same, but the points and the places were all known, and the living forces rolled down the hill and into the fight knowing what to do, where to go, and how it would all play out. Well, everyone but the paramounts who hadn¡¯t bothered to engage in that kind of practice, as there hadn¡¯t been any actual Karma for them to harvest while running about like fools. They got quite a surprise, as they were ALL in reserve positions for this fight, only to engage after the soldiers did, even in direct combat against the Summons themselves. The Casters were there only to Heal and Dispel at this point, because the point-blank War Magic and Vulns coming in were going to be brutal, and everyone knew it. But everyone deployed, the head melees crashing into the Summons, and the nets swirled out to trap and bind, discrete and separate combats allowing the tactic to be used multiple times easily now. Sound Bubbles led the vanguard, restricting all the noise and clamor to the immediate area, while the men with the long Dark Poles streamed past with the poles held horizontally, severing line of sight to the next Summons. Even if they¡¯d seen the living advance, without that visual or audible trigger from being in range, the Summons wouldn¡¯t advance without external orders! Marked were relaying Kris¡¯ and my observations from above, watching the tactical display for their area to see what was coming and how the Shaded were responding. The biggest dangers were the Fire Pillars and the Shadow Vortexes; every Shadow Pillar was in spell range to at least one team, and the maddened elemental forces inside each of them were eager to unleash some devastating spells upon the attackers. The Shield Wallers were there precisely to draw that fire, tower Shields up and locking together, making sure they were the first and closest from each company to the spell-hurling, writhing fonts of energy. Their Shields locked tight as the magic came in, with those assigned to Shadow Vortexes additionally Mass Death Warded. Incantor-level magic of flame and nether energies pounded at them and their Enhanced, Hardened, and Impervious Shields, additionally Fire Baned to take half the damage straight off from at least the Fire Pillars. Some really obdurate steel shook as it took the hits¡­ but take it the Shields did, as the Shades were cut down around and behind them. The primary teams ripped through the Shaded with coordinated ease and speed, while the secondary teams closed on the Shadow Pillars and proceeded to hack them down. Touch of Adamant, Sundering, and Breaking were the Artificer contributions to the Weapons wielded against the things. We¡¯d been informed that they weren¡¯t pseudo-alive like the Fire Pillars and the Shadow Vortexes were, and they were true pains to hack down and destroy. It turned out they were as vulnerable to adamantine¡¯s ability to chew through softer materials as almost everything else, and the men and lugians with the big Axes, who¡¯d spent a lot of time practicing on speed-lumberjacking trees, went to it with rhythm, purpose, and a great deal of speed and energy. Vivus was blazing up with every cadenced hit, Axes biting into the unnatural stone with great vigor while the primary company rolled forward, officers calling the advance section by section to get to new spawns without drawing in too many fireballs from above. The Vantage sight from above was priceless for telling them exactly where to go and how far to pivot their lines down the streets, even when the Dark Poles cut off line-of-sight on the ground. I was laying in Fastcast Shard volleys, ripping through the Summoned with repeated twisted Shardrays that zipped through empty windows, down crumbled alleyways, and around the edges of ruined buildings and foundations, Seeking the targets I painted from above. I brought them down with repeated volleys as they tried to run and find whoever was blasting them, and found no targets in ready sight¡­ at least not before they were basically dead. The combination of a vertical line of sight and Seeking meant I didn¡¯t need to be anywhere near them as long as I knew the path to get there, and it didn¡¯t have too many twists and turns. The rest of the time I was on ranged Heal reserve, specifically Breath of Life if it was needed, and it definitely was. Within the first minute of fighting I had to bring back four men who would have died to near-simultaneous War Magic going off on them, and could only shake my head at it all. The Shaded didn¡¯t coordinate, but they only had a limited set of pre-melee and ranged attack options, so coincidences were inevitable, if undesired. --- The Mick hewed the head from the Void Lord, which was wrapped up tight by three Aun who¡¯d been handling nets since they were children. He jumped back to give them room to unwind the wrapped corpse as it started to Burn, no time to waste, glancing at the Vantage view and pointing with Bunita to their next target before the Aun were done. Fire was exploding against his Shield Wall team, with Harms and Drains coming in to accent it, keeping the mages busy with counter-Healing. A margul was all wrapped up and being pounded to paste by some heavy Hammers, while a bunch of sharp Blades hacked apart some sprawled and twitching black and green Grievver Shredders, also tied up and unable to move effectively. The shades were actually the hardest to corral, with the zefirs not enjoying the Stillflight Zone in place and being easily netted with wire-woven catch-nets, pinned, and beat to a pulp as they meeped and jumped about frantically, trying to get free. The soldiers had a lot of coordinated practice beating down a lot of gourds and coconuts, getting that cadence down to maximum speed so they didn¡¯t interfere with one another. Groups of five counted off at great speed, not slowing down and yet not getting in each others way as they hacked, hammered, or stabbed at their bound targets, giving their stunned targets precious little time to struggle, try to evaluate their options, and most especially not get off another spell while tied up like they were. AF Chapter 187 – The Assault Continues Most of the paramounts were feeling like fifth wheels on the wagon as they watched their juniors rip through the Shaded with clear tactics, probably uncomfortably thinking about just how effective such simple measures would be against them, as well! The nets were all woven with steel wire, couldn¡¯t just be chopped apart without some extreme measures, and escaping from them would be nigh-impossible, what with the other soldiers binding up any weapons and shields. It was to the point the Aun, whose smallest members had a real knack for doing this stuff, ran right up the backsides of the bigger soldiers to get the first corners hooked in place, and then spun around their targets in practiced fashion as the primary combatants ducked away just long enough for them to do so. In seconds, their targets would be bound up, and the wolfpack would collapse from all sides with a roar, thrusting and pounding at the helpless target with enthusiasm, energy, and hard-practiced skill. The Mick¡¯s eyes met Selena¡¯s gaze, who just glanced and nodded him off in the direction, standing on a Disk for altitude as she and her brace of fellow archers retargeted. ¡°Singol, Chappy! Roll left!¡± she ordered, and the two men with Dark Poles shifted ten steps left immediately, opening up the street to the next Summons point¡­ who immediately saw living people only sixty feet away, and reacted instantly. ¡°Ahead, twenty paces!¡± she called out, and the two men broke into a run, ignoring the Summons who they ran right on by with their globes of darkness, ignored in turn as one margul, a floating Panumbris, and a Void Lord archer moved to engage the soldiers streaming at them. The soldiers parted, the incoming margul veered sideways, and the weighted net crashed down upon it, driving it to the ground before it could vent more than one breath. The Panumbris crashed into three Shields, pounding with supernaturally powerful fists, but the men held, shoving her back as powerful arrows laden with corrupted Elemental energies cracked and lashed against their barrier. Counter-shot arrows trailing misty fire sank into her in lethal series as the yellow flash of a Slashing Vuln flared over her and magnified the power of the broadheads driving into her. The Mick went right up over their backs with his lightfoot, kicking off their heads and coming down on the Void Lord archer behind the female. Bunita¡¯s swath of Lost Light chopped through the thick reddened bone of the Summons¡¯ bow, continuing on to bite deep into the exposed muscle of its arm as the Mick landed¡­ and kept falling, down to his stomach, then his back as the Void Lord pulled a massive spiked axe out of nowhere. It then found its legs bound up with the Mick¡¯s, and it was swept forcibly off of its feet with enough force to send it crashing to the ground on its neck with a bellow of surprise. Chiholee was on it with a roll of green fur, hooking his net in, and the Mick twisted over counter to the Aun¡¯s roll, taking the shade with him into the circle of the net once, twice. The off-balance and confused Void Lord abruptly found itself wrapped up tight as Chiholee and his mate Sunnana grabbed the net¡¯s edge and braced themselves against the creature¡¯s backside to hold it tight. Kopf was over there with other Vanguards enduring multiple blasts of Incantor Fire Magic to Bulwark, but Gross, his partner, lifted up a two-handed Hammer dripping vivus, appropriately named Sledge, and led a group of three other lugians in bringing the doom. ¡°One!¡± he grunted, and ¡°Two!¡± was already sounding from his teammate Joks as the first Hammer came down, leaving a massive dent in the unnatural steel of the Summons¡¯ breastplate. The Mick kept its legs pinned and unable to twist effectively as the two small Aun braced side by side to keep the Void Lord¡¯s arms pinned, and the lugians smashed with all the speed and power they could. He heard Selena call the next move, nodding as more space was cleared. A roar rose behind them as the Shadow Pillar finally came down, spurting vivus as it did so. He took the moment to look at the progress of the other attacks, judging they¡¯d all be down within the next sixty seconds. --- ¡°Vuln and Imperil the Fire Pillars!¡± came the order from Warlord Kristie Rantha, who was de-limbing a grievver on the other side of the town, somehow around the verses to the Trembling Song that was reverberating inside the Sound Bubbles via Singing Swords spread out among the Marked soldiers. ¡°Undead mages and archers in position, prepare to fire!¡± Guarded by their own shield walls, the undead forces outside the town rolled forward between the misting remains of the Shaded. The Pillars were huge, and they and the Vortexes had to be destroyed before the Shadow Pillars regenerated, disrupting the confluence of energies among them and allowing the vivus to do its work. If it didn¡¯t work, the Shadow Pillars would thrust up out of the ground once more, and the cycle would start over as they magnified the incoming corrupted energy past the threshold the vivus could Seal against so easily. Magic from the most experienced undead mages flared and flickered over the Pillars, drawing instant reprisals from the things, multiple streaks of fire lashing out through the sky against the incoming magic. Still, the things had never been known to counter-Buff, only attack with endless amounts of Fire Magic, and the gathered Shields of the undead were there to take the hits, even if their inferior equipment mostly sent the undead tumbling while being set aflame. On the tactical view, he saw the Shadow Pillars fall rapidly one by one, the last of them down in thirty seconds. It had taken a lot of practice to get all the teams to bring them down so concurrently, and random chance was the only divider. ¡°Kill the Fire Pillars! Roll towards the Vortexes!¡± From four quarters, massive rains of bone-like arrows edged with the Nether magic of the undead and over two hundred spinning blades of Force Magic converged on the towering Pillars of Elemental Fire, ripping and tearing apart the sheaths of magic that kept them contained and allowed their energies to gather and intensify. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The rupture turned the flames into an explosion of vivus from the living archers who had joined the bombardment, black and crimson fires blowing out into a rain of heavy white mist that fell sparkling to the ground for the moment. The Lumberjack Teams spiraled in on the massive writhing black tendrils that were the Shadow Vortexes, ignoring the way they lashed down like living gargantuan whips and sent half a dozen Vanguards ahead of them flying at the impacts. ¡°Vuln and Imp them! Hack them apart!¡± Kris was the first to reach a Vortex, and as Quaver bit into it, the air seemed to suddenly tighten with a sense of massive weight. ¡°Full convergence! Hold that line! Undead, smack ¡®em in the back!¡± she snarled, and swore. ¡°Here comes your Doom, the blade of Life! ¡°Here comes your Fate, an end to Strife! ¡°Your madness falls where duty calls, ¡°And now¡¯s your turn to feel the knife! ¡°Tremble, you unclean thing! ¡°Tremble, where stout hearts sing! ¡°Tremble, vivus bites deep! ¡°Tremble, as now you weep! ¡°Tremble, WE COME!¡± roared over a thousand living souls, and magic and vivus ripped through the Vortexes, lighting it up inside in what could only be called writhing agony, tearing apart its own breaches in the Veil and using that energy to flood inside, back to the forces empowering them! The overwhelming blast of the White-out was expected and called ahead of time. The undead had prudently retreated beyond the edges of the town and back up to the hillside as rapidly as their feet could take them. Any who didn¡¯t make it in time were swallowed by the whiteness, and wouldn¡¯t be coming back. A significant number didn¡¯t bother to flee at all, content to watch the damned things that had bedeviled Dereth for over a generation die. They actually raised fleshless hands to embrace the explosion of unwhite that came for them, not resisting as it tore apart the magicks that bound their souls to this place and gave them final rest. --------- ¡°No resting! If you¡¯ve got a Vivic Weapon, start cutting everything still black! I want vivus Burning anywhere and everywhere!¡± Kris¡¯ voice was uncompromising, spurring the tottering soldiers who thought they were going to be able to exult in the moment into sudden, urgent motion again. Every dark spot meant enough corruption to defy the explosions which had just blasted multiple sixty-foot craters into the ground, blown swaths of whiteness throughout the town, and leveled a good portion of the remaining ruins. But tellingly, not all of them. The lugians were the first to respond, misting Hammers raised and energetically pounding away at all the black stones which hadn¡¯t crumpled to powder around them. Smashing into them inevitably revealed a core of oozing darkness, which was set alight as they and everyone else who could began to cut, hack, and pound everywhere. --- It was another hour of frantic chopping and hammering before Kris¡¯ Voice rippled out one more time. ¡°Enough, we have done it.¡± I¡¯d been setting off Bursting Shards over larger areas of corruption, driving vivus into broader areas, while the soldiers focused on no stone remaining on stone and just pounding the whole Tainted town down to ankle height. The unwhite heavy mists of vivus covered the whole area under the sun now, sparkling faintly and feasting as vivic fires Burned everywhere, only growing as they overcame the resistance of the corruption and any vestigial flows coming through the Veil, building and penetrating deeper into the Land. At her call, I stopped with everyone else, closed my eyes, and turned my head to the sun. ¡°Receive the thanks of the Land. This¡­ is Glory.¡± And it came down. Thunder in the Soul. It was nothing material, nothing physical, and if you wanted to be serious about it, it was the same damn thing you earned chopping down Summons and other unnatural stuff, proving your skill and imprinting your name and truth onto Creation. This, however, was Creation acknowledging what you had done, and saying ¡®Thank You!¡¯ It swirled over the soul in a quiet flood of Karmic reward. The old-timers had known Quest Rewards, but those were things from the System on this island, magical actions that could be replicated, parceled out like candy and sweetmeats to make people jump through hoops. This was the gratitude of existence itself for doing something that was right and proper. The Land and Creation and who knew what else had noticed and were paying attention to us, and this, this was a true reward! Something that had to be done, was finally done. It would not be replicated on the morrow with a new army and new team. It was not even a one-time show for those watching, because such a play could always be rescripted, if that was the truth. No, this was Glory, this was Thunder in the Soul, and no mere Quest Reward given by an NPC in the system was going to compare to this sensation. It also instantly popped an Isparian Level on anyone and everyone below paramount, psychedelic lights going off literally everywhere on everyone. They were likely plopping a whole lot more down into Reserves, because people had been popping off all through the fight as they fought these extremely high-Level opponents and took them out. Furthermore, this was a Glory Award, and Creation saw everything. If all you did was scout things out so your team could come in and crush them more safely and thoroughly, you were rewarded. I could feel the massive amount coming through to me because of my Eagle¡¯s Vantage, and just what the spell had done for coordinating efforts among the entire force. AF Chapter 188 – Digesting Glory Kris¡¯ Warlord reward naturally dwarfed everyone else. She had been responsible for so much of the training, unit compositions, tactics, strategy, and had been giving deployment orders the entire time the Trembling Song was also giving everyone +4 to hit and damage, every hit that would have missed and every bit of extra bite of damage a credit to her. Her blizzard of orders when the Shadow Vortexes had bleated for all the surviving Shaded to come save them had completely validated her strategy to clear out the Summons, as well as the research on how long it would take those Summon points to respawn in the face of vivus. From the moment we killed the first Summons and Sealed their Spawn Points, we had an hour, and then we were going to be hit with a returning avalanche of fresh Summons coming in to tear us apart from behind. That urgency had driven all the killing, everywhere, and we¡¯d had to pick and choose what Summon points we could kill the fastest as we rotated among the mandatory kill points to clear them. We¡¯d made it with about ten minutes to spare, and coordination and training had been such a vital part of it. She needed it, too. Them Rantha Levels were pricey! I cleared over a billion Karma on the Isparian side, which sounded impressive, but really wasn¡¯t as you gained Levels. The real reward for me was on the Matrix side, stuffing me full of more Karma I could use to gain Levels sideways, or to Infuse Magic. Definitely enough to break Twelve, even with all that. My goal was to hit at least Thirteen and get access to Resurrection, but that was in the future. ---------- Master Ben Ten, his students and officers, Chief MacNaill, and his captains joined us as we made our way up out of the Burning town. Vivus was catching hold, digging deeper and deeper as it saw things to feast on which didn¡¯t have enough incoming power any longer to resist its hunger. ¡°How long will it Burn?,¡± MacNaill asked directly, like so many undead finding it hard to look away from what was practically a pool of absolution in front of him. ¡°There¡¯s no telling,¡± I answered the empty eye sockets swinging my way. ¡°It will Burn as long as there is Taint to feed upon, and the Taint spread wide and deep for many, many years, riding the ley lines away from here for miles, judging by the Summons points it corrupted. ¡°Days, months, years. It is all possible.¡± ¡°Be wantin¡¯ t¡¯ go down an¡¯ take a final bath in it,¡± MacNaill murmured, and many of the undead around nodded silently in agreement with him. ¡°Nobody is stopping you if you think it¡¯s your time, Uncle,¡± the Mick said softly. More empty eye sockets glanced at me, then away. I¡¯d told them that I could get to them, in time¡­ but I had to Level. Return to life, or finally embrace death. It would take a lot of magic, and a crap ton of Diamond Golum Hearts. I¡¯d specifically told them that they had to fight and kill the diamond golum that gave up its Heart solo. I was using Divine magic to do this, and given the scale of what I was attempting, the gods were going to place conditions on returning to life. A basic test of worth was easy to make. If not, the gods would at the very least welcome them to the afterlife¡­ if they were here and could hear them, which I wasn¡¯t at all sure they could yet, and my Ur-Priest instincts were telling me that they were still obfuscated by other interested parties. One of those parties had just gotten a needle in the eye, however. ¡°What manner of response do you expect from the shades?¡± Master Ben Ten inquired. ¡°I had wondered if I would ever see this land cleared, but clearly that would not be the will of those that follow Bael¡¯Zharon, sane or no.¡± ¡°Hostile, but unless they amass an army of their own and some great Ritual to re-profane this place, they will probably do nothing,¡± I sniffed. ¡°The fact this place will Burn them away as readily as it will you will also give them pause,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°I¡¯m rather thinking that any one of you would consider it a wonderful way to go if you could grab one of the bastards and hold both of you down in the vivus, laughing as they screamed and died.¡± There was a clatter and clacking of bones gently knocking, the equivalent of an agreeing mutter and sigh. It would indeed be a fine way to go! ¡°Your forces will retire to Mayoi, yes?¡± Master Ben Ten asked Kristie. ¡°Yes. We need to secure our ground, and there will be challenges coming. Chief Fool MacNaill, we can¡¯t relieve you from Hebian-To as yet, we¡¯ve not the numbers. I apologize.¡± The leader of the Freeholders waved it off. ¡°Aye, ¡®tis expected. There be more dead here than living still,¡± he pointed out, and everyone nodded. We were outnumbered almost three to one, actually. ¡°A watch on this place, for the shades who¡¯ll be coming, then?¡± ¡°Yes, a fine thing.¡± Master Ben Ten looked to me. ¡°Some basic shelter against the elements is all that we will need for our vigil. I will prevail upon the Lady Magos for some of her stonework.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Of course, elder,¡± I inclined my head. ¡°Decide where you want your barracks and storage facilities, and if you like, I can even erect a simple wall around this place.¡± ¡°MacNaill and I will confer on our preferences, and let you know quickly,¡± he promised, with a gesture at the freebooter that was returned in kind. --------------- It was a long hike back to Mayoi, made easier with Mass Disks and just how fast Princess Kristie and the Mick could run. The supply wagons had already headed that way, moving at a smart clip, and actually arrived not long after we did, along with new wagons coming in from Fort Overlook. The celebration started soon afterwards. There were all kinds of tropical fruits, the rum made from them, and the cakes, cream, and other desserts that they garnished. Steaks from reedsharks, shreth, aurochs, armoredillos, and even mattekars were there for the eating, as well as a dozen kinds of fish and sea life, not incidentally including several types of remorans and nautiloids, an acquired taste which pretty much everyone had acquired by now. Something like forty dipping sauces to choose from, too. The undead left behind were standing guard, but they got their own reward, as Putrefied food and drink was delivered to them for their service, and they too got to enjoy at least the pleasure of eating, even if it did little for them. The atmosphere was jubilant, hopeful, and at the same time cautious. Yes, we¡¯d done something the paramounts before the Fall had been unable to, courtesy of vivus and a lot of teamwork. Whether or not it could hold forever was a different story. More importantly, the ground along the Sho Road to Hebian-To, all the way back to Overlook, and up the length of the Tou-Tou Peninsula, was now clear of all Summons. The landscape was clear of that danger for the first time in the history or knowledge of anyone gathered here, and there were people who climbed the new walls around the City of Hills just to look out there and see nothing more than a few undead guards steadily surveying the area, marveling at the sight of the random monstrous threats removed from consideration. Naturally we hadn¡¯t removed ALL the Summon Points. Specific areas had been marked, bounded, and set aside for combat practice for up and coming warriors, exactly like allocated farmlands for harvesting Karma. Those were also the areas marked out for training camps and posts along the road as we expanded into Dereth and consolidated our territory. --------- ¡°Milk?¡± the Mick sniffed, seeing what I was sipping at as he tossed himself onto an available Disk. He had the smell of much booze imbibed upon him, courtesy of making the rounds and ensuring everyone was having a good time. I held my flagon out to him wordlessly. He gave me a look, weighing just how risky this was, and then swept it out and downed it in a daring quaff. His eyes popped open and glowed blue for about five seconds. ¡°No!¡± he protested feebly. ¡°Ye know how hard I had t¡¯ work t¡¯ get this buzz going?!¡± But it was too late as he sadly handed me my flagon back, while I waved off to the side. He took in the array of containers with a lot of nibbled fruit garnishes on them, counted them, and just sighed. ¡°Ye¡¯d be flat on your face drolling inta the grass without that, wouldn¡¯t ye.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Her Highness definitely wanted to see that, too.¡± Kris was no more susceptible to alcohol than she was to fugu, so she was just enjoying everyone enjoying themselves. If more than a few couples were stealing away to tents or buildings or the like, nobody was going to say anything tonight. There hadn¡¯t been much to celebrate for the last fifteen years, so this day was likely going to go down as an annual holiday. ¡°Well, damn,¡± he muttered, looking forlornly at the mug which didn¡¯t hold enough ale to get him drunk at all. ¡°Mayhap I should try harder all over again?¡± he asked brightly. ¡°Or you might just want to mosey over and chat up the Queen Mother, who has been keeping an eye on you.¡± I timed it well, and he spluttered all over the place in mid-draw, his denial lost in the spray. ¡°Hey, now, them¡¯s dangerous words yer spoutin¡¯, lass!¡± he muttered under his breath, looking around to make sure no one had overheard what had caused his incident. ¡°I noted Oswald, Princess Fan, and King Borelean attempted to infiltrate and contribute without being noticed, too.¡± ¡°Aye, proper sneaky gits, the lot o¡¯ them,¡± the Mick confirmed he¡¯d seen the same, and not batted an eye at it. ¡°Kinda hard to hide the artificial arm and all, but he tried,¡± he noted of the King¡¯s mechanical shield-arm. ¡°He did, and didn¡¯t make any bones about following orders, either. Were you satisfied with the Glory Award?¡± ¡°Ach, ye should have heard the quiet bitching from the paramounts that there weren¡¯t no loot drops from the Shaded. Used to be one o¡¯ the very best areas t¡¯ scrounge up good loot, back in the day. Five¡¯ll get you ten they were waiting for some new NPC t¡¯ pop up an¡¯ give them some custom magic item fer all their trouble, so they could wave it around to prove they were there at the freeing of Tou-Tou!¡± he answered in a mocking tone. ¡°Kris has all the names and is commissioning all the medals for the participants. We don¡¯t have the money or time to make them magical ahead of time, but with the harmony from the Glory award, those who get them should be able to grow them slowly into something worthwhile using Naming Karma, if they¡¯re of a mind to keep fighting.¡± ¡°Aye? What Buff?¡± he asked, interested. ¡°We¡¯re looking at Constitution on the Matrix side, Enhancement maxing at +6.¡± He worked that numbers over in his head and in his Assay, then grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll be taking an¡¯ levering that up, ye kin be sure o¡¯ it!¡± he informed me. I gave him a salute with a hoist of my Cleansing Coconut Milk, and he returned it with a raise of his tankard. He was working up his Artificer Levels, so layering other Enchantments onto such a thing on his own time was a given. He just needed to get his hands on enough goldweight to do so. ¡°What next?¡± he asked after a moment of companionable silence, listening to Kris lead three separate groups in competitive drinking songs. The humans, lugians, and tumeroks were bellowing loudly enough to wake the dead, but not the many soldiers passed out happily drunk all over the place. ¡°Kris was actually very annoyed that Briggs wasn¡¯t here for the fight, now that she knows he is here. We¡¯re going to Stonehold very soon, and make no mistake on that.¡± AF Chapter 189 – Lived-Lines or Lightning Rides? The Mick just nodded to me. ¡°I be havin¡¯ a request, then.¡± I just looked at him. ¡°Zaikhal. I want t¡¯ stop in Zaikhal.¡± ¡°For?¡± I asked archly. ¡°I cannae stop thinkin¡¯ about the Stone Collector there, an¡¯ what became o¡¯ him once ye told me about NPC¡¯s and the like. I¡¯d like t¡¯ put me concerns t¡¯ rest regarding his fate, not gnaw at ¡®em like a bone ye can¡¯t clean.¡± ¡°This has been going on for nearly six months?¡± I asked him carefully. He nodded, and was about to say more when he saw my expression, pausing to consider my words and his own. ¡°Ho. Ye don¡¯t think this be natural¡­¡± ¡°Thinking hard on it¡­ do you?¡± I lobbed it right back at him. He frowned, considering this thing that had been nagging him for months. ¡°Now that ye point it out, nae. I barely knew the man, just gave him stuff an¡¯ got stuff back in return. He were less important an¡¯ more predictable than the Town Criers shilling the news o¡¯ the moment. Why his face would keep popping up in me head is¡­ damn weird, now I think on it.¡± ¡°So something wants you to go to Zaikhal, and it¡¯s subtle enough to get past your Amulet.¡± He tapped the thing he¡¯d made with his own hands, giving the Protection from Evil effect of securing the mind from charms, and making it harder for rote Summons and extraplanars to hit him, a subtle effect proven useful in freeing Tou-Tou. ¡°So, we¡¯ll stop there first?¡± he asked lightly, still frowning as he puzzled over the significance of what was going on. ¡°I¡¯m sure Kris won¡¯t mind. We don¡¯t know what¡¯s there, however, although I¡¯m guessing the undead, given the subtlety of the Wards looking for scryers around the town.¡± ¡°Aye, the Gharu¡¯n had more than their share o¡¯ problems with the undead, so that would make sense. They¡¯d have come down out o¡¯ the north an¡¯ taken the city without too much trouble, what with magic misfiring like it was back then. What if the undead have seized it?¡± he had to ask. ¡°We judge how dangerous it is, and then we clean it out if we can,¡± I replied easily. His dark eyes lit up with approval. ¡°Now that¡¯s what I be wantin¡¯ t¡¯ hear, as casually bloodthirsty as her Hag Highness Herself!¡± he proclaimed cheerfully. ¡°We bring a team, then?¡± ¡°We aren¡¯t idiots, and I can vacate a lot of people pretty quickly, especially if they contribute to the spell. Although I would like to say, if we can get a lived-line stretching out there, that would be much better than what we have now.¡± ¡°There be no way anything or its brother on Dereth be catching Her Highness once she gets moving. If she wanted t¡¯ make an overland dash for anywhere, she could reach it!¡± he stated firmly. ¡°That is completely true, but we don¡¯t want it known we can pinpoint Teleport any more than we want it known we can fly and walk on air as needed,¡± I pointed out. He nodded. ¡°Aye, because then they¡¯ll go looking for the trick, knowing it is possible, an¡¯ be willing to pay dragon¡¯s hoards for the magic o¡¯ it, no doubt.¡± ¡°And somebody weak will let it slip for the rewards, and then some great tools are now in the hands of our enemies.¡± It was why Kris hadn¡¯t run willy-nilly through the Linvak Mountains to all the Gotrok strongpoints, although she had penetrated many areas and extended her reach as needed. That didn¡¯t help me, of course. My Lived-Line had also grown, as running Invisibly for miles had been part of my nightly personal time. I just was really leery of doing it around things with copious magical ability and alternate senses. That said, I¡¯d managed to make it along much of the southern shore, including points far to the west, and to most of the southern settlements. There had been a lot of undead influences further north, however, and I¡¯d carefully steered clear of the hundreds of their guards occupying Summon points across the desert areas the Gharu¡¯n had lived in. But the Freeholder army had come out of the Vesayans and scored a great victory, albeit against a static foe that was not fighting back truly effectively. The existing powers on Dereth would note the advance and start making moves. ¡°Where be she wanting the Scouts to go next?¡± he inquired. He could ask her directly, but I was generally privy to her plans, and she was having too much fun singing risque drinking songs right now. ¡°North up the Sho road. Let the Hea know we¡¯re back, and that we¡¯re coming. Start wiping and Sealing the land spawns, especially any Hea tumerok spawns. There¡¯s a lot of bad blood that will need to be settled, and it¡¯s time for the mice to play hounds to the cat.¡± ¡°Me uncle an¡¯ the lads will be happy to hear any tales we have o¡¯ killing them. The Gotrok?¡± he inquired affably. ¡°Pride and custom have kept them isolated. The Hea have been under the thumb of the virindi for a long time, so they are more dangerous to us. The lugians who fled and those who¡¯ve been oppressed by the Gotrok are spoiling to throw them off, and Kresovus is plenty willing to help reclaim his throne in Linvak Tukal.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°He¡¯ll like as not get not as many o¡¯ the young generation moving to the old city as he thinks,¡± the Mick observed. ¡°They grew up in Ithaenc Tukal, and it¡¯s their home now. Hard to pry lugians out o¡¯ their homes like that.¡± ¡°There are kids in Linvak Tukal, too, mind you,¡± I pointed out. ¡°Some of them are bursting to become warriors, without a doubt, but their elders won¡¯t let them join the Gotrok, much to the frustration of the renegades. Any that do are basically slave labor under the older lugians, which certainly doesn¡¯t help matters much.¡± ¡°Aye, so I¡¯ve heard. So, the main forces sweep the Summons points an¡¯ grind down the outer defenses that way. Ye expecting them t¡¯ come with an army?¡± ¡°Of course. We¡¯ve shown too much strength. They daren¡¯t back down and turtle up, it¡¯ll hurt their warrior pride. They are coming, and spotters are already reporting Summons being herded along in battlegroups to form the attacking force.¡± ¡°Ho, leaving the Summons points conveniently empty t¡¯ be Sealed behind them,¡± the Mick grinned nastily. ¡°All those maps o¡¯ the points be puttin¡¯ t¡¯ good use now.¡± ¡°The elite teams are already wiping those points, yes,¡± I confirmed. ¡°Cackling softly as they do, too. The Gotrok are going to lose their Summons, and then they aren¡¯t going to have any more fake soldiers to throw at us in expendable waves.¡± ¡°Overlook or here?¡± he asked in a very satisfied tone. ¡°They got their nose bloodied at Overlook once, and the expansion isn¡¯t going to look much weaker. I¡¯ll have the walls here up after their scouts report, so they are going to come here and find the defenses ready for them, too.¡± ¡°Time?¡± he asked cheerfully. ¡°Day after tomorrow, or the next, depending on how well they march. It is quite a distance over hilly terrain, after all.¡± ¡°Truth.¡± And without the land providing endless running energy, armies ran out of steam on the march, and were too tired to do battle at full strength, reality crashing back in on them with physical limits once more. ¡°That gives Kris plenty o¡¯ time to run a sweeping path up along the Inner Sea an¡¯ the cities there, dragging ye along for the Lived-Line lock, an¡¯ I gots no doubts she be makin¡¯ it t¡¯ Zaikhal if she¡¯s of a mind to.¡± It was only about a hundred miles of overland running. Kris would likely treat it as a light hike and sightseeing tour. ¡°I¡¯ll just keep us Invisible, put down Teleportation Seals every few miles, and hope for the best. I do recall there¡¯s no direct path to Stonehold from the south side?¡± ¡°Nay, the only ways up the peaks without using climbing gear or flyin¡¯ be going around the ends, be it from the Dires in the west or from the Olthoi North in the east,¡± he confirmed. ¡°Ye can get up to the top o¡¯ some of the mounts from the north, but the only way down t¡¯ the south be t¡¯ jump¡­ which, mind ye, was a lot o¡¯ fun in the old days.¡± It was a common boast that the paramounts could drop a thousand paces from the sky, hit the ground, and walk away with little more than an ache in their heels in the old days, damage they¡¯d naturally heal away in only a few minutes. It was a bit more dangerous now, but a paramount could still take a ten-story drop without much problem, although they might be hobbling away instead of striding. ¡°Somehow I don¡¯t think Kris is going to have any problems getting up them.¡± The Mick didn¡¯t say anything, as he¡¯d seen Kris drive her black nails into stone facings and swarm up a cliffside as fast as a normal man could run in a powerful scramble of feet and hands that would intimidate any spider who watched it, sure enough. ¡°Ho? I was thinking ye¡¯d just drive a tunnel right through the mount, and skip the whole up and down business,¡± he said slyly. I lifted an eyebrow at him. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ actually not that bad an idea on the face of it, although it would be slower than just climbing and going around. I could drive a narrow tunnel at the pace of a good walk, although something a wagon would be able to pass through would take more time.¡± ¡°Ain¡¯t going t¡¯ be Roads moving up into the north fer some time, it all comes by peddlers¡­ although the Disks are makin¡¯ that much kinder than before, aye,¡± he nodded at the allusion to traders moving goods. A low-Valence spell that was long-lasting, could carry a LOT of weight, was easily repeatable, and scaled up in Valence nicely was a godsend for the trade situation. Making actual Disks that were magical was a bit pricey and harder to do, but platforms floating/balanced on Disks were rapidly becoming a popular way of hauling supplies around, replacing rolling wagons, and were much appreciated by peddlers and their no-longer expanded backpacks, as well as the aurochs once hitched to said wagons. Utility magic was the best kind of magic, and transferring the heavy work to others was a time-honored pastime to humanity. Magic or beasts, it made no difference, and the Disks didn¡¯t complain or have to be fed, just renewed before they expired. ¡°If we do Zaikhal, we¡¯ll plow a Lived-Line overland. If we¡¯re going straight to Stonehold, it¡¯ll likely be a Linejump airdrop.¡± Featherweight was another of those basic spells that could be used to great effect when plummeting from great heights. Instead of risking your life, you pulled up safely a few feet from the ground, and drifted down nicely. Definitely not the same as flying, but extremely useful. It also had its uses against massive thrown objects, although chorozite stones were immune to the effect. ¡°Good enough fer me. I¡¯ll leave it to her to decide what t¡¯ do. Would she bring the Wagon?¡± he asked. ¡°Not likely. It¡¯ll be used to shuttle supplies between Overlook and Mayoi here, I¡¯m thinking, while she¡¯s running and we¡¯re setting up a proper Gridmap across Dereth.¡± His dark eyes gleamed. ¡°I¡¯d like as not not need such a thing, given how much traipsing I¡¯ve done over the land, but aye, the kids are going to need those nexuses, especially since we don¡¯t have the Portal network.¡± I nodded. Running to the points on a Gridmap was a time-honored tradition for any area a mage worked or wanted to be able to move between. If you could Teleport and had the time and Caster Level, there was no reason not to be expanding your Lived-Line every day or night, moving and making new Teleport Foci to home in on to expand your range further. AF Chapter 190 – Where to Go and What to Do Teleporting from a Valence V had a range of ten miles per Caster Level, twenty if you were moving along a Lived-Line. It was blocked by any expanse of water wider than a stream¡­ unless you forded the river, of course, keeping your Lived-Line going via a bridge or walking across the bottom of the place, or even across the top of the waves. That was enough to go from the north of Dereth to the middle of it, as the island was about two hundred miles in a rough square in size. A Teleport Foci, charged up, at the sender end, could double that distance. Another Foci at the other end, charged up, could double it again, and would also remove any errors in shifting the distance to it. Learning Reach Spell and being able to overcharge the spell a Valence would also double the range again, so total possible range ended up being 160 miles per Caster Level if using a Reach Teleport between charged Foci and along a Lived-Line, with pinpoint, no-fail accuracy. That was enough range to span most of a continent if you had a decent Caster Level. Charging and dropping a Foci was fairly easy. If my Lived-Line extended to enough places, I could conceivably travel all over this island almost instantly, with little more work than that. Others might have to jump through some more hoops, but the whole island was easily within the range of anyone who just bothered to traipse over it a bit and make it to all the points involved there. Our expansions through the Linvak range and the Tou-Tou Peninsula meant I could travel to within a mile of basically any location required there, which meant a minute or less from any point of conflict, if needed. The Scouts all knew the Gridmap locations where everyone made sure to travel, meaning we all shared common points we could reach once they gained the ability to Teleport. There was no way we¡¯d waste the opportunity to expand a line of the Gridmap along that same kind of path, and move between at the very least the abandoned Gharu¡¯n towns as we did so. Dropping isolated Foci along the way would be ideal, too. It was something we would do eventually. It was more about how impatient Kris was to see her Briggs. ------------ The next day... Fwoom! A clap of thunder heralded our arrival as we Rode the Lightning out past the horizon. Getting the right compass point wasn¡¯t hard, and if we arrived a few thousand feet overhead of our target, well, that was by design, right? Everyone had linked hands, and nobody was in danger as we began to fall. There was only a little cloud cover below us, and the Mick pointed as the cold air whipped past us. Aye, that was definitely a plateau, encircled by walls, especially the one valley off to the side leading down. Anything trying another way up was going to get to the top and find the smooth walls there denying them further access, and I could also see the Wardfield up around the place, doubtless chiseled with painstaking care into those very walls, keeping out scrying, things which couldn¡¯t actually fly, and any kind of dimensional movement. The only way in was up that valley, now heavily fortified, by climbing, or by digging. We were about two miles off target, not bad with not knowing the exact location, and gliding down sideways would cut our walking distance. Someone with really sharp eyes might see us falling, but it wasn¡¯t too likely, as a human is pretty small at that distance. The rest of the Fellowship team was clearly excited. Doing an airdrop was always fun, but this was the first time we¡¯d done such a thing blind, and into potentially hostile territory. There could very well be some excitement in store below, and they¡¯d heard tell about many of the dangerous creatures in the north for some time. They were eager to test their strength against them, and blindly faithful that Lord Mick could handle pretty much anything out there, let alone with Warlord Kris and me along on top of things. Since that was mostly true, there was no reason to dissuade them. The five humans and a lugian kept the circle tight as the Mick, Kris, and I pushed us sideways, closer to the Stonehold plateau, while we fell, saving us some walking. I naturally had Detects up, looking for signs of anything hostile, and was pleasantly surprised to sense not a single damn Summons point anywhere within my range below. ¡°No Summons,¡± I /informed everyone, everyone Marked and the words carrying despite the wind whipping past us. ¡°Either Briggs was told what we were doing and replicated it, or he worked it out himself,¡± Kris /nodded as the trees rose up to meet us. A minor clearing was our target, just avoiding the branches of a towering pine as we fell in. Ten feet off the ground, the Featherweight kicked in. The Scouts couldn¡¯t help hooting at the thrill of the fall and imminent collision with the ground coming up short, releasing and pushing off one another as an abject plummet became a one foot per second drifting down. They were looking in all directions during these few seconds of vulnerability, ready for any attackers who might recover from our sudden appearance in time to actually launch something at us. I had scanned nothing close by, so I wasn¡¯t worried about that, but it was good discipline to do every single time we airdropped, as the tactic was not used for casual enjoyment. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. We settled down to a forest floor of moss, grass, and layers of needles, looking around carefully. ¡°Most of the ground clutter has been cleared off. Firewood gathering, I imagine?¡± Kris noticed quickly. ¡°Reduces fire hazards, too,¡± I agreed. ¡°That looked like a logging line around the base of the plateau, I think.¡± ¡°Aye, pushing it back so anyone below can be sniped if they are foolish enough to assault the base. Given how fast the green grows, they can re-log the same areas fairly steadily if they just replant,¡± Selena piped up, pointing in the direction of the main gates. ¡°I assume we¡¯re making a formal approach to the main climb?¡± ¡°Aye, let¡¯s see how they react to actually being visited by humans, instead of told about us in passing by Oswald,¡± Lord Mick nodded. ¡°Wilderness pattern, unfamiliar territory. Let¡¯s go!¡± Nobody argued as we all settled into the proper formation, with Kris¡¯ superior senses leading the way well ahead as the trailblazer, the Mick on point for the main group, Kopf and his big Shield warding everyone else. Rogar was in front of me with his Glaive ready to back up Kopf or protect me, the archers and crossbowmen behind me, all of them able to drop their missile Weapons and pick up melee Weapons if ambushed. There were some pretty dangerous creatures up here, and although we weren¡¯t afraid of anything, caution was indeed warranted. --------- The whistle was in the Markspace, otherwise silent as Kris¡¯ hand also shot up, immediately chopped off to the right, then slowly waved us in with fingers wide, signaling quiet. Even Kopf had learned to spread out his great weight, and no branches cracked underfoot as we all came stepping up quietly, basically waiting there as whatever was coming moved through the trees in shadows of movement suddenly strode arrogantly into the clear. The five creatures would have resembled satyrs, save for being far more muscular and with pronounced tusks and horns. They were clutching heavy Weapons worthy of a lugian, giving a clear indication of their brute power, and I could see the edge of Cold magic on two of the Axes they used. That wasn¡¯t a surprise, as the Mick had given us an in-depth session on as many details of the Gurogs as he could remember, which, given how many he¡¯d fought in the Frozen Valley, was pretty extensive. What was a surprise was that two of the Weapons were burning with Firephasing instead, and that great flanged Polemace was exactly what it looked like. A Gurog Captain, two Warriors, two Minions. The younger and smaller Minions had the palest coats, almost a light tan, with the Warriors being brown and the Captain a darker gray. They all had curling horns very reminiscent of the mattekars I¡¯d seen and met, with clear similarities in the shape of their skulls and faces, and the addition of large and powerful fists instead of hooves, although they did indeed have broad and stable hooves with digitigrade legs instead of feet. They all came to a halt when they saw us, nostrils flaring in surprise. I noticed their eyes went instantly to Kopf, yellow orbs narrowing in instinctive hostility. Ding! Ting! The two notes rang out, and the gurogs all took a step back instinctively, narrowed eyes going wide as Quaver came out, burning and trailing Lost Light and Fire. Ho, they knew how the Trembling Song began... Whiskers of the Wild painted themselves across Princess Kristie¡¯s face. ¡°Do we fight, or do we speak?¡± she asked them plainly. Huh. They were all carrying heavy sacks. The Captain seemed to gather his resolve and stepped forward. Like mattekars, he had an omnivore¡¯s teeth, with pronounced tusks. ¡°We came to trade with the people of Stonehold, not to make war,¡± he growled in passable Isparian. ¡°You¡­ are not of the Hold of Stone?¡± he noticed shrewdly. It was the Mick¡¯s turn to step forwards, grinning confidently as he did so. ¡°Aye, we¡¯re from the south, just like back then. Ye look familiar to me eyes. I think I may have notched yer horn for ye back then.¡± The gurog¡¯s yellow eyes narrowed again in recognition. ¡°You! One of the fire-wielding Isparians we fought so much back then!¡± he growled, an odd note of recognition, pride, willingness to do battle¡­ and a curious lack of hostility in his words. ¡°Aye, though me Sword has changed. If ye come t¡¯ trade words, ye come t¡¯ trade names.¡± He offered a formal salute to the gurogs. ¡°I be the Mick, Lord Mick if ye¡¯re been persnickety. This lass is Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha, who be one of the deadliest females of any species ye care to look upon, and a general and Warlord of the Isparians of the south.¡± The gurogs all looked a little startled at the politeness, and then, to our own surprise, grudgingly offered their own Weapons in a return salute. ¡°I am Notchhorn, Isparian Mick,¡± he stated proudly, and the Mick grinned even more widely. ¡°I gave ye yer name? Ha ha, well met, Captain Notchhorn!¡± he called back easily. ¡°We go to Stonehold as well. Ye kin walk ahead of us or behind, as ye wish, an¡¯ there¡¯ll be no threat nor attack from us either way.¡± ¡°You agree to this by the Code of Briggs?¡± the gurog instantly responded, and all eyes immediately turned to Kris. Her answering grin was absolutely ferocious. ¡°Oh, of course we do!¡± She released Quaver to hang in the air, shocking the gurogs, and smacked her fist into her palm. It cracked like rocks were breaking. I could see the gurogs wince ever-so-slightly at the sound. Like beings who knew what ki-enhanced blows felt like. ¡°If you have some problems that need to be worked out, come all together or one by one, and we¡¯ll get them settled proper-like,¡± she informed them grandly, and I watched all their tufted ears fall at her very explicit meaning and the confidence she radiated. ¡°Trade, not trouble!¡± grunted the Captain carefully, watching her sharply. He shook the bag over his shoulder. ¡°Ore, from mines!¡± ¡°Your business is your own,¡± the Mick said loftily, sweeping Bunita out in the direction of the main gates. ¡°After you, Captain Notchhorn.¡± The gurog grunted to his lighter-furred companions, and they immediately resumed a strong pace clockwise around the side of Stonehold, heading for the way up with tireless energy. ¡°Three, four hundred pounds of stone in those sacks,¡± Kopf grunted in a low voice, watching them leave. When they reached fifty yards ahead, Kris waved us all after them. ¡°Yeah, they¡¯re strong as heck, that¡¯s for certain,¡± the Mick said easily. ¡°Bred that way by the Dericost undead, usin¡¯ the same magic as what made the Moarsmen an¡¯ the Sclavi, only these came from warping an¡¯ endowing the native mattekars.¡± AF Chapter 191 – To Stonehold We Go! ¡°They sure gave Kopf the stink-eye there,¡± Rogar muttered, his eyes off to the woods on the side, doing his job. ¡°What was with that? Don¡¯t like shields?¡± ¡°It were said that the first gurog were made from mattekars horribly abused an¡¯ mistreated by shadow lugians, traitors who gave themselves to dark powers, although whether it were the virindi, the shadows, or the undead who were truly behind it all became really muddled in time. The hostility t¡¯ lugians be bred inta their bones. I were half-expecting ¡®em to charge Kopf in a frenzy t¡¯ avenge their forebears. Pleasant surprise!¡± the Mick explained smoothly. ¡°They are wearing Protection from Evil Amulets.¡± Everyone glanced sharply at me. ¡°Yes, every single one of them.¡± ¡°That¡­ would protect them from the mind control that was programmed into them,¡± Kristie said softly. ¡°They¡¯ve been released from bondage to the undead!¡± ¡°And they¡¯ve weapons o¡¯ Fire,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°I never saw aught but Frost and normal Weapons among ¡®em. The only way they¡¯d have Firephasing is ta use on the other creatures of the Frozen Valley¡­¡± ¡°And especially the Gellidite undead who dwelled there,¡± Kris finished for him. ¡°Simple things to make, churn one out every day or two, if you¡¯ve the goldweight.¡± ¡°And that¡¯s a lugian-design Bugswatter Staff-mace. I imagine he¡¯s just carrying it for the Captain to use if they run into bugs,¡± Kopf told us pointedly in his deep voice. ¡°So they aren¡¯t above using what works.¡± ¡°If¡¯n yer Master Briggs is behind this, he¡¯s a bloody miracle worker!¡± the Mick exclaimed strongly. I laughed at the same time Kris did. ¡°Oh, he¡¯s better than that!¡± she replied happily. ¡°He¡¯s a damn Source, and changing the game is what they do best!¡± ¡°There a story behind that claim?¡± the Mick asked, as everyone listened in eagerly. ¡°Welllll,¡± she started, glancing at me, and I just shrugged. ¡°You all know I¡¯m a Null, right? Can¡¯t Cast magic, can¡¯t wield any kind of magic that¡¯s not tied to items which can also be used by Forsaken, right?¡± They all responded in the affirmative. Her ability to lock down no-flight zones to magical fliers had been Hell on any zefirs we ran across, and the Interdiction side of her power had been experienced by those of my students who had learned the simplest variants of dimensional magic. Of course everyone had seen her Null field turning all the incoming War Magic from the very powerful Shaded into raindrops falling into a lake, splash and gone. ¡°Well, there¡¯s two other kinds of Forsaken. Nulls are by far the most common, mind, at least twenty to one more common than Sources, and Sources are at least that many times more common than Voids, and probably much, much more. ¡°Sources can do the same thing that a Null Field can do, but a Source Field operates differently. Instead of holding the magic steady and not allowing it to be molded or moved, a Source Field is more like a slow burn of the truest, most fundamental and primordial magic just blowing past you. Higher forms of magic hitting it don¡¯t vanish into stillness, they are burned away and destabilize as they are undone at their most basic level, like throwing matches into a bonfire. ¡°Sources aren¡¯t dead to magic, they emanate the most simple and basic form of magic, instead, and as a result normal magic doesn¡¯t work for them any more than it does for us. They can¡¯t grab it or wield it, because their Sourceness just burns away any lesser power for them.¡± ¡°They generate magic all the time?¡± Hundig asked in disbelief. ¡°Like¡­ a magical furnace, or something?¡± ¡°Yes, exactly. And that magic goes out into the world and¡­ Makes Fate.¡± They all looked at one another as we traipsed along. ¡°That¡­ be sounding ominous an¡¯ powerful?¡± the Mick asked, fate being one of those things warriors in general and the powerful in particular obsessed over. Some held that those who held to combat were immune to fate, and made their own. Others claimed that destiny was woven from the moment of birth and none could escape it, only choose how to confront it. I knew that Fate and Luck were tools of Law and Chaos, and the only way to be free of either was to cut yourself free, an action neither force particularly liked. Hunting for the Fateless was a fine and upstanding job among Axiomatics, and going after the Luckless considered an easy way to gain some good luck of your own among Anarchs. Heaven didn¡¯t care one way or the other about being Beyond Law and Chaos, just one more personal choice that didn¡¯t affect your moral destiny. ¡°It is very subtle, and very powerful, operating off the Oaths that a Source swears. When a Source makes a sincere Oath with iron will and fiery determination, the magic that they emanate starts acting on the world to change things to move to that promise. It starts as a stream, or a small rockfall, moving pebble by pebble. And then pebbles bump into stones, which bump into rocks, which crash into boulders, and suddenly Fate is being hit blindsided by this rampaging force coming in from the side that it hasn¡¯t made any compensation for, and the destiny it tries to bring into being is being fought and overpowered by this random element that even Chance didn¡¯t put into action. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Which is how Dad conquered all of Ispar, of course. He made two Oaths! The first was that the Viamontians would get what they had coming to them. The second was that he wasn¡¯t going to let the world devolve to shit just because the Viamontians were out of the picture. So, the one Oath being fulfilled cost the Viamontians everything, and the second set him on the throne.¡± A few whistles broke out all around us. ¡°One footstep, one sound to trigger an avalanche, aye?¡± the Mick offered up. ¡°How does that relate to the likes o¡¯ us non-Sources?¡± ¡°We¡¯re the pebbles and stones that get put into motion. The Oath making Fate means that we are ever-so-slightly more likely to succeed at things that further the cause of a Source¡¯s Oath. It¡¯s small, but it means the odds that were in an opponent¡¯s favor, now might just be even, and odds that were even are now in our favor. ¡°Take that across dozens, scores, then hundreds, thousands, and then tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and the cumulative effect is seriously strong, taking on a life of its own and barreling towards fulfillment,¡± Kris finished. ¡°A poetic term for Sources are Kings Among Men and Queens Among Women. Their nature means they tend to get into leadership positions without even trying to, as those who follow them prosper, and those who oppose them fall to the side,¡± I added. ¡°Are, uh, they good-looking?¡± Milee asked cheekily. At that I had to laugh, while Princess Kristie looked slightly wounded. ¡°Most Sources? Yes. Even if they aren¡¯t paragons of physical beauty, they have strength and charisma. ¡°But if he¡¯s like his fellows, Briggs is an Ancient, what would be called a cave-man back on Ispar. He¡¯ll likely be about seven feet tall, built as big as an ape, and look like something from the old days¡­ an Ancient. ¡°He should also radiate command like a born King and Warlord, and even if you find him ugly, he¡¯s going to be a little overwhelming to talk to. ¡°Oh, and don¡¯t ever ask him to sing. Ever. Absolutely.¡± Before they could ask me why, Kristie cut them off. ¡°Because then he might just do it, and you¡¯ll regret it for the rest of your life.¡± She blanched, and on her face, that was a truly gruesome expression. ¡°Gods, don¡¯t let him sing. Especially a song I know. I only heard Dad do it one time, some mocking thing a bard whipped up talking about our family and especially his looks. ¡°He belted the whole thing out to the Imperial Court, and every noble and half the capital heard him sing it SO enthusiastically. ¡°That minstrel who made that song barely got out of the capital with his life, no bard will ever touch it for fear of being lynched by those who heard Dad sing it, and there were people having twitchy nightmares about it for months. There were a lot of people who signed up for hypnosis sessions just to try and erase the memory of him singing.¡± They all looked a bit incredulous. ¡°That bad?¡± the Mick had to ask for everyone, appalled. ¡°Dad has a very, very powerful Talent called Natural Smith. It applies to any and all kinds of smithwork, making him one of the most talented workers of metals there is. It comes with a downside, a Flaw called Can¡¯t Sing,¡± Kristie went on calmly. ¡°He and my brothers are all master musicians, especially with drums. They can and do love listening to opera and all the performing arts. Their skills at Oratory will get your heart pumping. ¡°When they Sing, picture the most masterful singer and musician of your life singing your favorite song, a performance the gods might admire.¡± She looked around at all of them, and they nodded slowly, hesitantly. ¡°Now, flip that performance completely on its head. ¡°They think they are singing a grand and moving, powerful performance. What comes out is the exact and complete opposite.¡± ¡°A performance that you will remember forever for stirring your heart and soul, making your blood pump and thoughts swell and soar¡­ is instead an absolute horror you will also remember forever, making your heart and soul rebel, your blood curdle and your thoughts just want to gutter and stop trying to digest it.¡± I had only inherited memories of the effect, and that was enough. ¡°Do not have Briggs sing.¡± The Mick suddenly looked thoughtful. ¡°Ye know, Oswald didn¡¯t mention anything about that¡­¡± he remarked. ¡°He¡¯s just the sort that would like us to find out for ourselves,¡± Kris smirked. ¡°I am warning you now, and if you think I¡¯m lying or exaggerating, well, you¡¯ll regret it the rest of your life.¡± ¡°Meaning everyone should be exposed to it just once, just to realize how absolutely awful some singing can be.¡± I shuddered despite myself. ¡°You heard him Singing?¡± Kris asked, a bit surprised. ¡°If you¡¯ll recall the time of year, it was just before the end of formal classes at the university, that was the Knight¡¯s Gala, and I,¡± meaning Shamira/Mira, ¡°was at the end of my first year, about to take exams.¡± ¡°Oh, right. They had to postpone them all for a week. The examiners were all at the gala and couldn¡¯t get any sleep, while I understand half the students had urgent cases of the stomach flu via auditory transmission.¡± Her expression was grim and heartless. ¡°I puked my guts out for two goddamn hours. Dad really didn¡¯t like that song, catchy little thing that it was.¡± ¡°Only two hours? Bloody Ranthas.¡± ¡°Yeah, well, even Mom was out of it for an hour, and the gala rather ended on the spot, if you remember. She laughed her goddamn ass off about it afterwards, and that minstrel won¡¯t put a finger to a string for the rest of his life if he has any brains, either. ¡°Kinda stopped the ¡®mock the imperial family¡¯ movement right in its tracks, too.¡± ¡°Is it true that your father rounded up a bunch of fanatic Roulean loyalists and sang their Anthem to them?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Heard about that, did you?¡± She smiled ever so slightly. ¡°Yep, he did just that. Mom identified who they were, they were getting together in one of their hunting parties at the estate of Grand Arborean Duke Heiztizoni, and he popped in on their grandly patriotic ancient group of grandly racist morons. He sang that old grand Roulean Anthem to them, and basically shattered their entire grand organization. They can¡¯t speak to or see one another, or adhere to the grand Calligrizon Call, without the Anthem coming to mind, and it tortures all of them. Looking at the old grand Roulean flag gives most of them instant grand migraines, I¡¯ve heard.¡± Even Kopf, a lugian, looked impressed at that bit of news. ¡°Can he use that power in war?¡± he had to ask gravely. AF Chapter 192 – On Briggs and Such Kristie flipped up a finger at Kopf¡¯s question. ¡°First rule of Dad singing?¡± ¡°Do not make him sing!¡± I snapped out instantly. ¡°He shattered their organization, and basically forced them out into the open and not coordinating with one another, so he could deal with them directly instead of having the Empress just slit their throats in the night. They were so incensed they challenged him to duels, directly fomented rebellion, and tried to stir up all kinds of havoc and chaos in their fury at him!¡± ¡°And he got rid of the heart and soul of the biggest network of Roulean fanatics by doing it, but all it did was move the venue from the night and unexplained deaths to the open and death by ruptured craniums. Don¡¯t make him sing!¡± Kristie reaffirmed. As if to confirm her statement, a horn blew overhead, right where the edge of the forest had been thinned out by cutting down some of the ancient pines and hardwoods here. The gurogs had broken cover and were advancing around the plateau Stonehold was built upon toward the main gates along a clear and obvious trail, although for some reason there was nobody down below here working the area. Selena noticed it, too. ¡°The lack of work teams gathering more wood seems¡­ strange?¡± she asked, moving her head to look through the trees, and finding nobody in the cleared area ahead at all. Everyone else picked up on it, too. ¡°Oh, ho!¡± Kris murmured, half-expectantly. ¡°Might there be some trouble brewing, and we¡¯ve arrived in the nick of time?¡± ¡°You know, you did decide to come here instead of passing through Zaikhal first, although it was the better strategic option,¡± I pointed out to her, as the edge of the forest approached. She glanced back at me slyly. ¡°I was just thinking the same thing, right?¡± She was out of the forest cover first, everyone else unhelmed and following behind her. It had been a triple note coming from the watchtower a few hundred feet above us. There was a clear delay before the three notes rang out again from the watchman¡­ and fourth, lower note was added. The gurog noticed the difference, too, turning back to look at us momentarily, before continuing on. ¡°Protocol for incoming humans who were outsiders, despite not having any warning¡­ probably,¡± Kris pointed out crisply. ¡°You don¡¯t need to be wary of him, everyone, but be aware. He¡¯s probably going to seem overwhelming.¡± ¡°So, like Her Highness, but a man?¡± Milee spoke up hopefully. Kris¡¯ cackling laugh had all kinds of razor edges on it. ¡°Nope. I¡¯m the Quiet and the Free. He¡¯s the Sun and the Will. You¡¯re going to feel him all over your skin, you magical Powered person, you.¡± Milee didn¡¯t know what to say to that to that, looking to me for an explanation. ¡°That¡¯s pretty accurate,¡± I agreed, and she still didn¡¯t know what to think. Well, she would soon enough. ------ There was a steep set of broad stairs worked into the side of the hill now, with slings and hoists nearby for hauling up heavier loads. The gurog took the stairs without much effort, and we followed them at a respectful distance towards the main gates and the high walls that ran from one side of the plateau to the other now. It was an impressive amount of stonework, definitely some lugian work there, but a lot of wood backing it, and some form of stone-Shaping magic and Ritual-type power, possibly from the Aun, helping out with a more organic feel, like much of it had just grown up out of the ground. It stood to reason that the Aun traditions, not so tied into the System dominating here, would have been less affected by the disruptions to the magic back then, and likely had saved the lives of everyone in this place, and everyone who¡¯d been brought here. There was a rather inordinate number of people on the wall, hurrying back and forth, definitely too many for the gurog, and likely even for us. ¡°Something¡¯s going on, an¡¯ not good,¡± the Mick immediately piped up, looking over the activity. ¡°They¡¯re setting up for a wall defense. Something¡¯s coming?¡± ¡°My guess as well,¡± Kris agreed, none of us stopping. ¡°Why, that would really make the timing of how we are here coincidental, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± she half-laughed under her breath. ¡°Does, does being manipulated by Fate like that get sort of tiresome?¡± Selena had to ask, a little wide-eyed as she digested that we might be here at this time just because it was the best time to do so for Briggs, someone she had never met. ¡°Hehe, no, it¡¯s awesome¡­ as long as you¡¯re going with the Flow. If you¡¯re trying to work against the Flow, then yeah, it¡¯s utterly annoying, implacable and formless, thwarting stuff you¡¯re trying to do in subtle ways you can¡¯t stop and can¡¯t even see, guiding you to places you don¡¯t want to go to fight things you aren¡¯t interested in dealing with, and handling problems for others despite not wanting to help them at all. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°It¡¯s why Sources make such damn good Emperors. All that Fate working on their behalf to keeping the Empire humming along, and if you¡¯re on board, you hum right along with it. If you¡¯re not¡­ then disaster keeps striking, one time after another. ¡°It was pretty easy to tell who was on Dad¡¯s side without even having to look at their Auras, just by their financials and the sheer amount of scandals that kept erupting around our detractors. So many business deals ruined, shady deeds exposed, schemes foiled, crimes caught in the act, and other things. They all thought we had the most gawdawful damnedest spy network in the land ¨C and we did, but not the way they thought ¨C and their paranoia only made their situations worse. ¡°It was pretty fun watching them spiral down into disaster and take their friends and families with them, while everyone else went marching on as if they were irrelevant, because they were.¡± ¡°Sounds about right,¡± I nodded at her story, watching their preparations as we closed in on the rising towers and thick doors of the main gates, all braced with Runewards that were going to make using magic to get through them an utter impossibility. There wasn¡¯t any War Magic that I knew of that was going to so much as nick one of those stones up there, with a level of skill behind them that was fairly familiar to me. I also could see a lot of Aun tumeroks, lugians, and multiple Isparians among the defenders, including a lot of younger mixed-bloods, as was often the case of the children of adventurers, soldiers, and explorers. Purebloods like me were rarer, often of the older generation, or the more conservative civilian families. Thrust into such close contact, there was a lot more mingling of Isparian bloodlines than was typical back on Ispar. Just another change between one world and the next, and unsurprising. The gates were rolled aside for the gurogs as they approached, flaming Axes raised to acknowledge them, and raised up in return. ¡°Those are weapons fer fightin¡¯ undead,¡± the Mick observed. ¡°Acknowledging a common foe an¡¯ common cause, aye?¡± ¡°Logical. It¡¯s how Briggs would go about it. The Isparians didn¡¯t create them in torturous experiments out of hapless mattekars, then mindfuck them and make them fight and die over and over again at their commands, right?¡± Kris observed laconically. ¡°Common cause is one of the best of bonds to start a relationship with,¡± Kopf stated in his deep, grim voice. ¡°Even ancient rivals and enemies can come together in common cause, it is known to us.¡± ¡°Yes. I am eager to say how common our cause is going to be here,¡± Kris agreed. ----- The gurog had offloaded their sacks of glittering stones onto waiting steel Disks there, and were escorted inside, while a new group of representatives had gathered up to meet us as we came up to the gates. Mostly Isparian, mostly Aluvian, the main population here before the Fall, but about sixty percent others or mixed now, with a couple curious Aun hunters and looming lugian juggernauts in full armor there to inspect us. The lugians didn¡¯t have Gotrok colors on their armor, however, which was unsurprising. The Gotrok warriors would never fit in with a multiracial force like this. We let the Mick take the lead, not the least because we could see some people recognized him, and he them. ¡°Verdentine! Suzahara! As I do live and breathe, ye aren¡¯t pushing up the ice lilies yet!¡± the Mick blathered jovially as we walked forwards. ¡°I see yer choice o¡¯ chitin caught on a surprising amount, ye daft bug-watcher! And how¡¯s yer brother, Suzahara? I hope he made it out o¡¯ the Beach Fort alive¡­¡± The former was a dark-haired Aluvian fellow clad in a mix of what looked like olthoi and grievver chitin armor, rather amazingly well-matched, and clutching a spear gleaming with acidic resin clearly made from a powerful grievver¡¯s forelimbs. The latter man was a graying Sho in plainer leathers, whose face turned down at the Mick¡¯s words in old regrets. ¡°Mikal McMikal, still alive and breathing, too!¡± the Sho said loudly, so all could hear and acknowledge that he had been recognized. ¡°My brother has long passed, Mick,¡± he sighed as he stood forth to greet us, Verdentine coming up behind him. He glanced over all of us once, summing us up, and not finding us wanting compared to those about him, lingering a moment on Kris and I. ¡°Elder Oswald indicated that a band from down south might be finally making its way up here after all these years.¡± His voice had an odd note of judgment, sympathy, and confidence, as doubtless the people here were far more informed of us than we had been of them. ¡°Ah, so he told ye of the Lady Magos, an¡¯ her Imperial Highness, Kristie Rantha o¡¯ the House of Briggs, Warlord of the Freeholders o¡¯ the Vesayans?¡± They didn¡¯t notice it, but his voice was pitched in a Warlord¡¯s Voice, and everyone within a few hundred yards could hear him just fine. ¡°DAMN! He was right?!¡± a very deep and powerful voice swept in from the distance. Everyone¡¯s heads turned that way immediately. Kris¡¯ eyes opened predatory-wide, and her smile was enough to make you scream in fear or swoon, depending on your inclinations. It didn¡¯t take more than three breaths for something heavy to impact the stones above us, and a second later come vaulting smoothly over the edge forty feet up, as smooth and clean as an ape. He slammed to the ground mostly right next to us, straightening up without effort, and presented himself to us as the billowing force of his Sun Source swept out and over us like a gentle, implacable, and unstoppable warm wind and fire. It pricked and popped and worried at the lesser Buff spells on the scouts, and basically stripped them away in seconds as they swallowed, the sensation and his presence just overwhelming to confront the first time. He was over seven feet tall, so looking like a short lugian. Like most Ancients, he was built with heavier bones and broad, slightly longer arms than normal humans, with a prominent brow, a brick of a chin, and a flat, broad nose. His eyes were pale green, almost the exact hue as new grass, with skin the color of fresh tree bark and rough, rigid auburn hair allowed only a single braid in back, parallel rows shaved in alongside his thick head in some nod to fashion¡­ a style imitated and taken up by a good number of the locals, I noted with a hidden smile. He had muscles on his muscles, moving like the tremendously powerful physical man he was, with no lack of energy, grace, or awkwardness for his size about him. If his eyes seemed small for his wide face, they almost glowed in the relative dark of his brow, and the impression his hooded forehead and general hairiness seemed to want to make. You met his eyes, you knew you were looking at a very dangerous and very powerful man, someone you could feel on your skin! AF Chapter 193 – Introducing Briggs! Briggs¡¯ eyes raked over us all, paused on me for just a second, lingered on the Mick in slight acknowledgment of his paramount status, and then zeroed in on Princess Kristie Rantha like a missile finding its target. Her smile only grew wider. One stride spanned twenty feet, and he was in front of her, crouching down, his speed shocking, an enormous physical threat just suddenly right in front of us, his face right in front of her. ¡°Swore I¡¯d find you,¡± he said to her roughly, and his pale green eyes gleamed every bit as brightly as hers. ¡°Took you goddamn long enough. Going to another world and everything!¡± she laughed back at him, leaning forward to clunk foreheads with him, her lips parting to show off her eight canines magnificently. I distinctly saw him swallow at the sight, and then his own large square teeth were on display, and Kris¡¯ hands visibly twitched. ¡°Well, that storm at sea delivered me here, instead of to those lands of Ispar I¡¯d heard the traders talking about, and I found some people who needed help. I figured if my Oath brought me here, my Hag would be here, too!¡± he growled, and shifted his weight. Kris¡¯ forehead didn¡¯t budge an inch. ¡°You feel like you¡¯re made of stone!¡± he cried out in total glee, clearly ready to grab her up, find the nearest bedroom, and do things for hours and hours to her. She reached up with black-nailed fingers that looked ever more like razored claws to everyone watching this interaction in absolute fascination¡­ and, to some of the younger Stonehold women back in the crowd, with clear heartbreak and envy at what they were seeing. Black nails across rough skin, those with ki could feel the skirling going on as a half-day¡¯s beard fell away behind her touch. His eyes started to roll up at the sensation. ¡°What,¡± she asked softly, ¡°brought me here to you at THIS time?¡± she asked him regretfully, her fingers gathered on his broad chin, above and below his lips, and then drawn away. He was entirely clean-shaven, leathery skin absent any sign of a beard. The Stoneholders swallowed to see it. ¡°Ah, dammit. Always the responsible ones.¡± His head bowed just slightly, and then he sighed and stood up to his full height, towering over her. ¡°We¡¯ve got an army of undead coming this way, over five thousand of them, according to Elder Oswald,¡± he declared regretfully. All personal desires had left him in an instant, leaving the Warlord behind, aware and on task. ¡°Five thousand of them.¡± Princess Kristie¡¯s voice was cool and unimpressed. ¡°Does that sound to you like someone is reacting to the obliteration of Tou-Tou and the wide reveal of vivus, Magos Ryin?¡± she asked me, also stepping back from Briggs, her smile fading to something of merely wicked anticipation in the not-too-distant future. The burning glance he gave her before turning to look at me assured her that her desire was reciprocated. ¡°Magos?¡± he asked bluntly. ¡°Sevenfold Arcane Theurge, actually. But Magos sums it up for the uninitiated,¡± I answered formally. "A pleasure to meet you, Commander. Good work you¡¯ve done about the place.¡± ¡°Ho, a full Power of Ten Magos. That will be useful¡­¡± he glanced at Kris¡¯ expression. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Bondmage,¡± Kris pointed. ¡°And she¡¯s an Undead Slaying Magos. Of the very, very Deep kind.¡± He blinked at her, looked at me, glanced at Crown in assessment, and then at the rest of our group. ¡°I¡¯d only heard of fighting against shades and shadow-infused creatures,¡± he rumbled out. ¡°While it¡¯s not hard to gain experience against the undead, this is not the same thing.¡± ¡°Bring twenty of your best to fight the top fifty to a hundred of their best, and I will kill the rest,¡± I said simply. He wasn¡¯t the only one looking at me strangely. Even the Mick whistled at that claim, but he didn¡¯t refute it. ¡°Shades are not the enemy I fight best,¡± I said simply, flicking a hand at my Masspack. A speck rose out of it, grew into a distorted Empyrean skull wound about with black flames and golden Runework, which I mounted atop Crown smoothly. ¡°If you are lazy, I will kill them all myself, but it may take me a few minutes longer.¡± He stared at me, I stared back, and he let out a long breath. ¡°Wow. A full Power of Ten Magos, indeed,¡± he murmured in disbelief. He looked back at Kristie, pointing at me. ¡°Where¡¯d you find her?¡± ¡°Came through from Ispar ahead of me, literally stumbled into her on arrival. Best Healer you¡¯re ever going to find, and a full Shardcaster with all the bells and whistles.¡± ¡°You know how tough the undead are here, and you still claim that?¡± Briggs asked me, just to be sure. ¡°Do you want me to list out the Metas, Masteries, and Feats involved in me being able to do this?¡± I asked archly. ¡°I would like some numbers to back up the claim, yeah,¡± he admitted warily. ¡°Truth is my numbers,¡± I said, and people shouted as hands clamped to ears and they shook at the inviolability of a Word of Creation. Pointedly, the Mick just closed his eyes and wagged a finger my way on hearing that, while quite a few of the locals were bleeding out the eyes and nose. Briggs flinched again, but that was all he did, staring at me. ¡°Oh, shit,¡± he managed to say. ¡°You¡¯re just as mean and nasty as some of the senior Tens, aren¡¯t you?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Yes,¡± I nodded slightly. ¡°Then let¡¯s form up and go! They¡¯re advancing past the inlet on the western shore, and there¡¯s only limited ways they can get here without using magic, so they¡¯ll be looping around the western end of the Espers to get here. Set up an ambush in the saddleback there, and they¡¯ll be screwed solid!¡± He turned around to start issuing orders. ¡°Can you get us done in time to get back to deal with the Gotrok attacking Mayoi?¡± Kris leaned in to ask me. ¡°You know how fast I¡¯m going to murder their chaff. How fast can you kill their officers?¡± ¡°With Briggs here?! HAHAHAHAH!¡± That was a pretty funny summation of the matter. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. --------- Getting to the location to ambush them wasn¡¯t hard, although it did involve moving through a tight cluster of undead troops that blocked the valley, intending to keep all humans from coming around the Espers to the aid of Stonehold. A group of undead trying to block our way was target practice for me. I¡¯d inherited a murderous set of undead-slaying skills from Aelryinth, and the Undead Slaying Imbue that was possible here was the one I¡¯d chosen for Crown, without any hesitation. A Weapon could only have one, and it was the one I picked¡­ but it also interacted with a Baneskull, and the fact that Isparian definitions of undead expanded nicely when they met PoT definitions of the same. It was also the very first Slayer effect that we¡¯d deciphered and reworked, since the Undead Slaying effect was already an innate power of the Disruption Enhancement! Drakes, amusingly enough, had followed, then Jotuns for the Monugas, because both had prior examples we could infer from. With three examples to work with, the other Slayer effects had continued apace. Which was important, as the chaff of the incoming force was equal parts undead and skeletons, with a chunk of elite mu-miyahs along to support them, commanded by skeletal warlords and Dark Magus officers, with at least four uniques among them. In the standard Isparian system, those were all different kinds of unliving things, but to Bane, they were Undead, and it pulled the Slayer effect along. Seventy percent of the invading force was conscripted Summons taken from spawn points, spirits caught by the system here and enslaved to it forever, yet still vulnerable to the control of the independent undead. Unsurprisingly, they comprised most of the chaff. In human terms, all of them would still have been elite troops, dangerous combatants fully able to hack through a level 100 human with a bit of effort and/or point-blank magical attacks. However, being undead here, they came with some direct weaknesses it was easy to exploit. For starters, undead and mu-miyah were vulnerable to fire, the latter tremendously so. That did mean that the smart ones Prot¡¯ed up against it as soon as combat started, but the Summons wouldn¡¯t unless instructed to. The skeletons had brittle bones and were vulnerable to bludgeoning attacks, which I could totally use Shards for, also, simply by adjusting it as I did Isparian Force Magic from the War school of spells. They were all negative-energy life-forms, they were all Evil based on why they¡¯d fought and how they¡¯d gained their conditions, and Heaven just had absolutely no use for them. They were heading for a valley at the end of the Espers, a saddleback that would shave a few miles off marching around it, and undead didn¡¯t get tired marching uphill. This blocking force was meant to make sure nothing got out, or at the very least warned them that a fight in the field was going to occur. The undead would have been happy to take that fight, killing us with their Summons and mocking us for dying and not being immortal like them. This blocking force ran into my Chained Greater Shards and was obliterated in crisscrossing streams of bludgeoning, flaming Shards, hitting all the nice notes, accented with things like Positive Edge, Undead Slayer, Warcaster¡¯s Edge, Silver Fire, Holy Reserve, Holy damage, three sets of bleeding Elemental damage Kickers, and a base Caster Level of 21 for Arcane Fist¡¯s impact set, meaning each Greater Shard was generating 5-30 +30 base impact damage, Topped to 60, Energized to 90, and then Boosted to over 160 base damage¡­ before Undead Slayer doubled it all. Then the Kickers added in. +5d6 of Holy Damage from the Sanctified Spell Holy Meta and Crown, maxed out with Consecrated Spell to 30, and then +2d6 from Banefire, +1d6 each from a Token, the Flaming Infusion, a ruby Orb granting fire damage, Vivic, and a noquar Cap giving a force damage boost to a flat +72 Kicker would normally be pretty nice. Purified Spell and Blessed Spell were only effective against Fiends and Undead, not all Evil things. They increased damage by a die size and +50%, respectively. That meant all those Kickers went from d6¡¯s to d8¡¯s, and then effectively to d12¡¯s, maxed as they were. That was +144 Kicker damage. Kicker damage was not reduced by half when Chained, unlike the main spell and its Boosts. Moreover, Kicker damage also applied to Bleed effects, like Scorching, Sizzling, Chilling, and the like inflicted, as well as Silver Fire. Amusingly enough, those were effects with durations, and Extend Spell doubled them from one Round to two Rounds. Each of those Bleed Effects were 2x Spell Level, Casting from a V Valence, with Silver Fire¡¯s +2d6 ladled on top of it. So, another 40 points of energy-bleed damage¡­ with all the Kicker damage on top of it, and Imbued Healing¡¯s bump to all Healing spells, too. Upshot? Main attack, 160 minimum damage, multiplied by elemental Vulnerability, multiplied by Undead Slayer. Let¡¯s say a minimum of 500 damage, cut in half for the Chains at 250. Kicker damage of +144, doubled to +288. Rounds two and three, 40 points of Bleeding by roasting, chilling, and being electrocuted, as well as vivic fire eating away at them, with the Kickers continuing to feast with all the Holy Metas raging over them, all of it doubled by Undead Slayer. These undead were all looking at over a thousand damage minimum a hit, and it didn¡¯t matter if they were the primary target of the first volley, or the secondary ones. If the initial impact didn¡¯t kill them, the Bleed + massive Kickers would. I only hit them with ten+three primary Greater Shards, but there were only a hundred of them. I picked out the non-Summon commanders, making sure each got hit by a primary Shard and at least four Chains. Kris didn¡¯t even slow down as she charged at their lines, and they were just starting to gesture and call up their magic when the Shards hit them from a hundred yards away. None of them kept their feet, smashed off it by Toppling at +44, and the Shards continued on, looping through multiples of them on their hunts for targets, animated flailing corpses scattering in all directions as the smashing impacts hit them in midair and sent them flying randomly. At first they were flailing, and then they were coming apart as the energies feasting on them ripped them apart and Fed them to the Land. Only one of the undead survived the onslaught, the only living commander, who was still Burning alive with eight different hostile energies eating away at it, staggering and trying to beat out the flames devouring all that it was. AF Chapter 194 – A History of Briggs The Mick leisurely stood up on his Disk, drew Bunita in both hands, and as we swept by, he casually took the blue-skinned, horn-helmed, yellow-armored Dark Magus¡¯ head off with an easy swing, his Claymore sweeping through two burning arms without the slightest resistance as he did so. Even funnier, Kopf, sitting two Disks behind him, snapped out his big hand and grabbed the head in midair, smooth as any outfielder ever. He brought it down and snuffed the vivic fires against his leg plates while prying off the skull¡¯s helmet, before very impersonally tossing said skull into his Masspack. The onlooking Stoneholders revised their opinions of us accordingly, looking at the Burning and flailing undead dropping away into white dust and powder, along with most of their gear, with rather awestruck expressions. ---------- Briggs was up in front running next to Kris, taking it all in with cool green eyes. ¡°Those are some nice numbers,¡± he muttered to her. ¡°She¡¯s maybe a third as effective against Shades, and a sixth against most creatures, overall, and that¡¯s if they don¡¯t bother to buff against Elemental damage types. But, yes, against undead, those are some very nice numbers,¡± Kris agreed with him, grinning. ¡°You know how we¡¯re templates of the original Sama and Briggs, somewhere?¡± ¡°Yeah, damn weird to realize that just after you¡¯ve been born. Makes for an interesting childhood and all.¡± ¡°Tell me about it! Especially when I had an older sister, too!¡± Kris agreed, skipping off a boulder, drawing all the Disks behind her after her in a flying stream of motion that cleared almost two hundred feet down a long slope before her Waveskating Step hit the ground again. Briggs just stayed anchored to the ground with his Crushfoot, and she ended up right next to him as he continued loping on. ¡°Well, she¡¯s a Shard of the soul of the guy that Sauron wanted to sue for name infringement.¡± ¡°Sauron? The Lord of the Rings Sauron? Sue for¡­ the Ringlord?¡± He frowned for a moment. ¡°Aelryinth?¡± he recalled after a moment. ¡°I only recall meeting him a couple times in the game¡­¡± ¡°Same! Specifically, he took a ride with me to Coralost that was fairly exciting as such things went.¡± She hooked a black nail over her shoulder. ¡°Apparently he got himself Death Cursed by a Death Giant Titan Demilich, was sent hurtling through the planes, and cut off parts of his soul to take parts of the Curse with it, getting it down to manageable levels. ¡°Ryin is one of the Shards of his soul.¡± ¡°Well, shit.¡± He considered that thoughtfully. ¡°Okay, wait. She¡¯s part of the original Aelryinth? The actual player?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Yes, from actual Terra, Earth. Well, it¡¯s called Terra-Luna now. Some catastrophic shit happened to it, and it¡¯s not in the ole home dimension anymore. It¡¯s in orbit around a big Jupiter-sized red world they call Jotun, basically a moon to it¡­ and that¡¯s with having moons of its own, and planetary rings, according to her. ¡°Also, she knows the original Sama and Briggs, who aren¡¯t Hags and Hagspawn like we are, and don¡¯t have a clue what is going on out here with the Hag Curse.¡± ¡°Well, damn.¡± He flexed his massive hands. ¡°So, he¡¯s just a basic Ancient? No massive array of Racial freebies?¡± ¡°Correct. Apparently the first Rantha heads up the biggest Forsaken Legion on the planet, and the first Briggs is considered the Warlord of Humanity.¡± He beamed. ¡°Damn right!¡± he said, proud of his forebear. ¡°And thanks for all the gaming knowledge and advancement schema and all that stuff, too!¡± he added thoughtfully. ¡°Do your Regression yet?¡± she asked him in a low voice. ¡°No. Was waiting for my Hag, figured we¡¯d do it together. Quick way to make sure we were meant for one another, right?¡± he answered gruffly. ¡°Yeah, I was thinking the same.¡± ¡°Still, pretty shocking that Aelryinth, of all people, ran into us out here? Mithar is a plotter and all, sure, but him?¡± Kris snickered just enough to make him wary. ¡°Yeah, well, we were idiots. We were all in macro club, but who hit macro club first?¡± ¡°Well, uh¡­ he did¡­¡± he trailed off. ¡°Fuck, I made Rank D as a goddamn Forsaken on account of being Sustained. He never even got to the Ten Leaderboards-!¡± ¡°They didn¡¯t give us in-game time rankings or I¡¯m pretty sure he would have beat everybody, because he did,¡± Kris nodded sagely. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°He beat everybody? Even Argos?!¡± Briggs asked warily. ¡°They don¡¯t report Rankings until you hit Ten, and he never reported to an Admin with his Ten rank before he quit the game, according to Ryin there.¡± Her voice dropped even lower. ¡°Rank M, Fuzzy.¡± ¡°Rank¡­ M?¡± he repeated faintly, and had to grit his jaw not to turn around and look at the young Gharu¡¯n woman being towed along by Kris and now given very respectful looks by the Stoneholders he was hauling around. ¡°Oh, she¡¯s not. She got sliced off his soul, and has had to rebuild her Levels from basically nil since she landed here. But that¡¯s half a year, she had nine Levels at Nine to work with, and has been earning Karma every day. ¡°So, yeah. Someone used to being Deep. Knows all the magic. Restricted by the magic of the island, but yeah, very dangerous.¡± ¡°Huh. So, all the original players of the Power of Ten got, what? Turned into their game characters?¡± ¡°If they lived long enough, yeah. Didn¡¯t stop them from having to kill off ninety-five percent of the planet what died and came back as undead.¡± He shot her another glance, and she just looked grim. ¡°Well, fuck. The undead here got just no goddamn chance, do they?¡± he murmured wryly. ¡°We¡¯re just here as a distraction...¡± ¡°She expects the leaders to Buff up before she gets to them and so not be so easy to kill. She could still do it, but it¡¯s easier to Heal us up while we butcher them and she can stop them from getting away.¡± ¡°Oswald didn¡¯t say much about her having an ego, so that¡¯s good to hear. Bondmage too, huh?¡± he asked thoughtfully. ¡°She knows three Words of Creation, fuzzball. No, she¡¯s not an arrogant, elitist jerk. Gold as they come. She¡¯d be Heavenbound if she dared call for a Pact here, and that hair of hers is a sign of Sylune¡¯s Favor. ¡°She¡¯s not interested in being a Warlord or a Monarch. That said, she gets very irked with people doing poor jobs of leadership. She¡¯s got the memories of a Rank M Monarch who might be the most powerful Monarch and leader of old Terra, and while she might not want to be like him, she¡¯s not going to put up with fools.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think either of us qualify as fools,¡± he growled knowingly, having much the some appreciation for slackers and those who wanted to profit off of others. ¡°Bondmage for a reason!¡± Kris chuckled as they crossed a small stream. Her Waveskating Step skimmed across the surface like it was a fluid ice rink, while his Crushfoot hammered down a twenty-foot circle underneath each of his steps, bouncing him back up like water bouncing a boat back to the surface as he kept moving. ¡°Yeah, that was good thinking, although I don¡¯t remember your template being much for Allegiance stuff. Pretty much always an Independent, weren¡¯t you?¡± he asked her. ¡°Yeah, but then my dad is a Briggs, and mom is a Rantha, who have absolutely no tolerance for fools. Medieval societies with warrior cultures are replete with them. Mom can play stateswoman just fine when it¡¯s in her interests to do so, but she mostly leaves that to dad. I¡¯m an Imperial Princess, and I can and do play the part pretty damn well.¡± ¡°Hah! That Emperor Briggs I heard of was a brother! Good to know my instincts were on point! Sorry, I¡¯m going to be marrying up, Princess. My dad was a farmer and bit of a goat rancher, my mom¡¯s primary job besides running the house was weaving. Cut a lot of bananas down in my time, too.¡± She burst out laughing under her breath. ¡°Like I give a shit. Mom was born to an Aluvian hill clan, Dad to some lowland farmers. We¡¯re Imperials because we put to the sword anyone who thought they had the right to give us orders, and the rest elected us to the throne because we were just so awesomely good at doing the job right¡­ and didn¡¯t have any family obligations and agendas carried along with us.¡± ¡°Ah, yes. Bad blood dredged up again and again over the generations, until it¡¯s just hate with no foundation that it¡¯s already been there. Had some of that at home, too.¡± Kris glanced at him, her eyes softening. ¡°After all the shit that Dad didn¡¯t allow in Celdon, the Viamontians couldn¡¯t leave well enough alone and some nobles decided that picking on our family was the way to get their revenge. Things got rapidly worse from there. Sources tend to generate conflict regardless of what they want¡­¡± she trailed off, having an idea what was coming. ¡°Cattle ranchers, rival clans for generations. Came while I was away making a delivery, swept through the entire community, killed almost all of the men, raped and enslaved any of the women they didn¡¯t kill themselves. ¡°Lost three brothers and two sisters, and most of my extended family. I saved two of my sisters when I finally caught up with the bastards a week later, and my aunt. Sold off like four hundred cattle from the clans who didn¡¯t need them anymore to set us up, and headed for the capital city. Found them some good husbands with some distant cousins there to help them out, and made my name as a local champion for the king for settling disputes. ¡°Eventually the king grew afraid of me and the support I was gathering without even really trying to, and given that he wasn¡¯t that bad a man, I agreed to leave rather than be forced to usurp him regardless of what either of us wanted. I¡¯d heard news of an Empire over the sea newly conquered by a great warrior named Briggs, wondered if there was another of me, and decided to go see. ¡°I never made it there. A storm with one whole lot of dimensional energy in it came up and capsized the vessel I was on. I basically floated for three days before seeing this island come up in the distance, swam ashore, and found myself on Dereth. Boy, did these people have a lot of problems they could use some help with, after I wandered around for a good month, having to butcher just about everything I ran into. Bit of a fun time, really.¡± ¡°Finding Stonehold was all that easy?¡± Kris was surprised. ¡°Oh, not at all. I actually never found it, Elder Oswald tracked me down by the trail of carnage I was leaving, wondering who in the heck could be so stupid and so successful at the same time. I¡¯d been having such a good time here with how nice the fighting was and how little I had to think I didn¡¯t have any long-term plans. He told me how to get to Stonehold, I just had to climb a mountain to get there¡­ that one right there, actually.¡± He pointed off to the left, and she glanced off at one of the unnaturally steep mounts that jutted up out of the stone and formed a nigh-impassable shield wall from the south. That is, unless you could drive your fingers into the stone and make your own holds without too much effort¡­ AF Chapter 195 – The History of Briggs, Continued... ¡°Strolled into Stonehold and been there mostly ever since, with some trips to the Frozen Valley for, eh, diplomatic purposes,¡± Briggs shrugged. Kristie Rantha just chuckled under her breath again, turning a knowing eye back on the three Gurogs who, upon hearing that they were going out to fight the undead, had asked to join him in the battle. One was even toting a borrowed Fire Axe so he¡¯d have an appropriate Weapon. They were giving Ryin wary side-glances after she had wiped out a hundred undead with basically one spell. Then again, everyone was trying not give the Lady Magos wary looks at that simple display of power, while the Scouts riding with her just had the most blas¨¦ looks on their faces, as if they¡¯d seen it all before and weren¡¯t surprised. Attitude is always good for impressing the rubes, Princess Kristie thought, trying to hide her own grin. ¡°Diplomacy. With gurogs.¡± She cleared her throat noisily. ¡°I did receive a fairly extensive briefing from Lord Mick on them. How exactly did you establish diplomatic relations with them?¡± ¡°Well, I killed all their Summons whenever I met them, but I just pummeled the crap out of the living ones and let them go. Helped that whenever they were in my Source Field the charm effects on them were eroded away. Once I stumbled onto that fact, making the Amulets for their best warriors to keep them free of the undead followed, and then I followed up with the Snow Tuskers, too.¡± He grinned toothily. ¡°That was a fun time, walking into their strongholds and beating them down with just my fists¡­ if they were willing to do the same. It got a little more painful for them if I had to use my Hammer.¡± ¡°Were they bound around the edges of the System, like the undead and shades employ?¡± she asked with professional interest. ¡°Yes. There¡¯s only a couple hundred of them, and it took them time to realize the Summons were actually completely different from the living ones. The main problem before the Fall was that being killed automatically terminated any pregnancies, so there were no young gurogs. It wasn¡¯t until after the adventurers stopped coming and methodically killing them off that they realized pregnancies were even possible, and they had to shelter the females from conflicts, somehow managing to do it despite the undead being totally uncaring of the fact. ¡°So there¡¯s gurog younglings around somewhere. Another artificial race, brought magically into existence.¡± He gave her a glance at the comment. ¡°Moarsmen and sclavi are the same thing, although you may not have encountered them?¡± ¡°Huh. The Creatures from the Black Lagoon?¡± She nodded at his comparison. ¡°Yeah, there¡¯s a temple on the beach near where I washed ashore I stumbled across, had a bunch of them around it. ¡°Sclavi I¡¯ve heard of, but not encountered directly, they aren¡¯t common here in the North, even in some of the manifested Dungeon complexes.¡± The two of them started up yet another of the steep hills in their travel path, ignoring the climb effortlessly. ¡°Powered playing at making their own pet races.¡± ¡°Ah,¡± Briggs nodded slowly. ¡°Well, the virindi tried, but it seems they aren¡¯t very adept at much modification and evolution of form, only at enhancing aspects of power familiar to themselves, like intellect and magic. Turning the native mattekar into bipedal killers was beyond them¡­ but not beyond the undead, who took over the virindi¡¯s project and made it come to life as part of their Bloodstone initiative. They made themselves a cheap warrior race they programmed with a hate of the lugians who¡¯ve been defying them, and used them in an attempt to make Bloodstones as locuses of power for themselves.¡± ¡°The Mick mentioned those. We were hoping such an obviously magical thing overloaded with the Fall.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s still working, but the Bloodstones become unstable if they drift beyond the confines of the Frozen Valley, which makes them next to useless as a power source for the undead. The Gelidites were seeking to expand them across the island. Then, I helped lead the revolt which threw the undead out of the Frozen Valley entirely, and the gurog take it upon themselves to destroy each new Bloodstone as it drifts up out of the Dungeon where they form. I¡¯d¡¯ve collapsed the whole thing, except I¡¯m pretty sure if that happens the whole Dungeon gets taken out and, well, it¡¯s at the bottom.¡± ¡°Ah, yes. So you destroy it for a day or two of peace of mind, and then it reforms, while you have to struggle all the way back to the top.¡± She nodded understanding. ¡°I assume the gurog are using it for training.¡± ¡°Very good. The main gurog camp is above the testing Dungeon, and they¡¯ve taken over the upper level entirely. Since they control their own akasha, they¡¯ve removed their kind from the Summons array inside, so all they have to fight are Bloodstone bits and the Frozen Wights who keep manifesting. They are getting VERY good at fighting the undead.¡± ¡°Yeah, they were pretty eager to hop on board. Kind of taking them under your wing, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Based on what I¡¯m seeing, they might live to be fifty. They weren¡¯t designed to live long, but to grow up quick and be able to be thrown into a fight. The kids are basically adults at four years old, their brains way behind their bodies. They are a bunch of kids with violent streaks meant to beat on things, and they have to be tempered out of it.¡± He shook his big head gravely. ¡°They were designed to die like dogs for their masters, and they finally know it and resent it. ¡°But this is just the first, second, and some third generations, that¡¯s all. They have nothing. No culture of their own, no information to rely on that wasn¡¯t programmed into them. So, yeah, a young race to mold and guide, but for all that, programmed as a warrior people genetically, so they have to be led by something stronger, or they¡¯ll just pummel them down.¡± ¡°Enter Commander Briggs, who is very good at all that stuff.¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ve basically recruited them as miners, and they¡¯re pretty good at it, as well as sniffing out the veins themselves. It¡¯s hard for them to learn more than basic crafts and skills, their brains just aren¡¯t wired for adaptability the way a monkey¡¯s is. They can do some basic ironwork and repair, but the masterwork they¡¯ve come through with is more accident than design. They just don¡¯t have any feel for it.¡± ¡°Then if they can only be heavy brutes, they should be the best heavy brutes that they can be,¡± she nodded. ¡°The tuskers?¡± ¡°They are Magical Beasts and such they remain. They don¡¯t make things, and everything is built on strength and experience. Peace basically came because Bobo the Tusker King established that we can get along without killing one another, although Isparians not being servants to the tuskers is rather new to them. There was a lot of beating them in the face with their own broken tusks, repeatedly, to get the point across, and some particularly aggressive ones got flaming Hammers to the soul and aren¡¯t coming back. Nobody misses them much.¡± ¡°You obviously figured out vivus Seals the spawn points. How much have you been pursuing it?¡± she asked professionally. ¡°No random ones remain around Stonehold within two miles. Too prone to popping up undead. Frozen Valley only has two areas left that pop up undead, used as battle practice for the gurog, and two sections with devoted gurog Summons for guarding their camp and going with them to a bigger fight if needed. ¡°Virtually all other Summons points in the Valley are gone. It makes the snow tuskers feel a lot more vulnerable without all the extra tuskers scattered around the place, too. ¡°We use the Dungeon of the Pit for most of our early training. It¡¯s got multiple layers that graduate in difficulty, mostly monugas, some undead at the very bottom. There¡¯s a spread of local Dungeons of varying difficulty, and we¡¯ve been thinning out the Summons across a broad area constantly, opening the area up for more wildlife, and allowing us to harvest timber and farm in a wider area than before. Slow but sure pacing. ¡°The Frozen Valley¡¯s forts are still available for high-level guys who want to test themselves. There¡¯s a few paramounts at Stonehold, and they try to keep in shape.¡± ¡°Teaching them Melee Levels and such, I hope?¡± she asked. ¡°Yeah, they were surprised to see them on your people, and the Mick there is especially far along. Well done, there.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve been doing some pretty crazy stuff down south,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°And he¡¯s really devoted to it all. He¡¯s basically the field commander for the Royal Scouts. Good man.¡± ¡°Elder Oswald was neutral on him, which is pretty good, as he¡¯s not much impressed by anyone, bit of an arrogant arse that he is. But he always delivers, which is more than most people can say. I, uh, understand he has a really bad rap for trying to kill the High Queen a generation ago¡­¡± ¡°Yeah, not something most people forget. Manipulated into it by Nuhmudira, know about her?¡± ¡°Yeah. Oswald is, unsurprisingly, a murderously condemning expert on her, while public opinion is very mixed depending on how informed people are and who they believe. She managed to found a whole faction here under the banner of ¡®Isparians First¡¯, and if that meant killing the High Queen, so be it. Some folk think she¡¯s a bloody hero, the others a fanatic who sacrifices her own people for power?¡± he queried her. ¡°She suborned the Zharalim and Summoned in something back in Ispar that killed fifty people and put a big crater in the ground. She ran to Dereth here to get away from the scimitars coming for her head. ¡°Then her daughter tried to do the same thing a generation later, and that¡¯s how I ended up here, following Ryin, who exposed her machinations and her, once one of the Zharalim she hoodwinked got away after Ryin revealed who she truly was, through a Portal to here.¡± ¡°Huh. I take it you¡¯ve not met or found her?¡± he asked thoughtfully. ¡°Ryin¡¯s tried Scrying to track her down, and gotten nowhere¡­ including notification of death.¡± ¡°So, alive and still around somewhere, shielded from Scrying magic? That means the shades, undead, or virindi have her here. Given the tales, I¡¯d guess she¡¯d go with the undead if she could, as her mother messed with the virindi and shades something fierce, and she at least worked against Grael, which was to the benefit of the undead. Given the shit her mother was involved in, her daughter might well pique their interest, especially if she¡¯s got the same kind of Blood Magic experience.¡± ¡°She¡¯s got at least some,¡± Ryin confirmed, and they crested the hill and separated for the moment as their different lightfoot styles put them on divergent courses. When she and the Scouts behind her came swooping and skating down next to him again, their conversation resumed. ¡°Any complications you foresee in this fight?¡± Briggs asked reasonably. ¡°No. Get up Interdictions, pin them in place. Ryin may not kill the commanders, but they¡¯ll be on fire and not ready to deal with us coming in fast and hard. How many true elder undead do you expect? One or two?¡± ¡°Three tops. We perma-offed two of Aerefalle¡¯s best lieutenants and commanders when we broke the hold of the wights on the Frozen Valley. Part of this response is probably revenge for that.¡± ¡°Awwwww, I feel so sorry for them. A reunion between comrades should definitely be in the works!¡± Kris grinned fiercely. ¡°I had the same kind of noble thoughts in mind!¡± Briggs agreed cheerfully. ¡°You ever fought alongside a Rantha using Butterfly Sting?¡± she asked sinisterly. ¡°Butterfly, Butterfly¡­¡± he mumbled, and then his green eyes glittered. ¡°Oh. Oh, shit!¡± His lips drew back in a big flesh-tearing grin. ¡°What¡¯s your crit mod?¡± he rumbled expectantly. ¡°With Biting Strike¡­ forty percent!¡± ¡°And you noticed I¡¯ve a Tauran Greathammer with Crushing Blow and Biting Strike, too¡­¡± ¡°I had, amazingly enough!¡± she chuckled throatily. ¡°Feed me crits, woman, and I don¡¯t care if it¡¯s Rytheran himself, he¡¯s going to go down VERY quickly!¡± ¡°Just watch me!¡± AF Chapter 196 – Dying in the Saddle Prepping the ground wasn¡¯t hard, and why not do so? We were hours ahead of them. Shaping the stone for a few surprises was just casual walking around for me. Describing what I was doing meant everyone just enjoyed the sinister surprise, and I didn¡¯t even have to be the one to activate it. The easiest things to put in place were delayed Area of Effect spells, preparing the ground with Fire Variants of Acidic Miasma and Calamitous Cacophony. The spells were Elemental-based, and gave +1 damage per die to all acid and sonic magic, respectively. A simple Elemental shift to Fire for both with Elemental Mastery meant Burning Miasma and Charring Cacophany were going to be coming into play here. Amusingly enough, the boost was going to be helping all the Firephasing Weapons going to be waving around, and naturally affected relevant Kicker damage, too. Plenty of time to get Buff spells into place on our people before the undead came marching up, too. --------- They were visible as a dark line marching quickly over the ground, in disciplined lockstep only barely broken by the landscape, a stride and gait practiced over thousands of years. No living army could possibly have replicated such discipline, but in my eyes it was more a weakness than a strength, a focus on marching that dominated thinking so much that such things as conformity and perfect obedience now controlled their thinking, as opposed to organic flexibility and lively energy. But it was fine, fine. They weren¡¯t going to be a problem for too much longer. Ten soldiers wide, tramping down the path, five hundred soldiers long, close to half a mile long all told. Empyreans all, a head taller than most Isparian humans, black lights in their eyes from the negative energy powering them, bristling with magical power, well-forged arms and armor¡­ and naturally the Conjuration magic of the Summons system covering them all. They came marching up the saddle between the last of the mounts of the Esper range and the first of the foothills rolling off its western side. Doing so would save them about five miles of marching and no real effort, so of course they would take the shortcut. There was no scouting out ahead, anything ahead of them either obliterated before it could form a threat or fleeing rapidly from so many undead coming through. No wasted spellcasting, unlike the shades, all tight control and obedience. It wasn¡¯t hard to make them stop right where I wanted them too. A nice bright explosion of pyrotechnics right in front and above them, seen by all the undead, sent them slamming to a halt right atop all of those Area of Effect spells, waiting under the stone underneath them. At which point I just unshaped the coverings on the stone, exposing said Runes beneath them, brought out my Shards, and let them fly in pretty much the same instant. Well, the Miasma billowed up and cut off sight, except for a smoky crimson fog. Then the Cacophany started, and the slightest temperature gradient started becoming the sounds of infernos burning in all directions. Then the Shards entered the whole mess, and everything seemed to explode. I had to layer the volleys and space them out so the Chains would have room to jump to new targets, as opposed to going through previous ones. The first volley was only three sets of a dozen Shards each, but the next volley was nine of them, as the Residual Metamagic and Echoed Spells came through, and twenty-five Chains from each brought devastation. 936 targets the first salvo. 2800 the second, as the screams to get up Fire Protection rang out urgently, wondering what was going on up front over the howling sound and through the red fog that was just itching to burn and react to fire magic all around them. Stone covers were heaved off of the caves to the sides, and the Scouts and Stoneholders and three angry gurogs stormed out behind their Forsaken leaders, just as the screaming, leapfrogging Chains of my third salvo came exploding through from the front and swallowed the last of the army in fire. Delayed lashes of Silver lightning swarmed over the melee attackers, and they moved with a speed that was quite not-human under Delayed Haste spells. My Detects were fully up, watching as the undead winked out in massive swathes, and others Burned away slowly, stumbling and beating at the flames devouring them, not even motivated to stop, drop, and roll like a living creature would. The two groups of fighters came in from the rear, where the majority of bright points that were NOT going away existed, even when crisscrossed by several Shards each. It was exactly what the undead didn¡¯t need to see, even as the sharper of them finally realized they should try to get out of the fog and the noise that was making it impossible to do anything. They stumbled out into light and silence, and the fighters fell upon them without any mercy. I was scooting forward now from the front, switching to Shardrays and concentrating them on individual targets for anywhere from six to twelve 100-point shots of individual damage, depending upon if they took one Ray or two. Coruscant lines of Primal Divine Arcane fire hunted down the officers and nobles with this force as their servants fell Burning, picking them off in pulses of flaring brilliance, and they still couldn¡¯t see who the source of all of this was. At the back, Kris and Briggs fell upon the strongest of the undead there in a whirlwind dance of killing that looked like they¡¯d been working together for years, while the rest of the teams hacked through dozens of undead in series following them through the press their Auras cleared of magic, and twenty flaming Weapons in a row did what one could not. They fell upon the commanders in the heart of the army, surrounded them, and efficiently began to hack them down. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Tremble, WE COME!¡± she roared out in Human, and Heartsong pumped and worked its magic as two notes rang and hearts soared for the fighting already taking place at enhanced speed. I pulled power from Kris and flashed an Arcane Fusion down their way the instant I was in range. Mass Dispels burst over the undead, taking down the Fire Protection they¡¯d gotten up¡­ and then the Mass Silver Fire Vulnerability followed on its heels, shifting them from taking one-quarter fire damage to full double damage. ¡°You came to kill, you came to still, the hearts that ever mock your choice! You came to rend, you came to send to doom that defiant voice! The young and the new, a threat to the blue, meant to drown in war, Are up and alive, we¡¯re going to thrive, and our future will soar Over your Burning Bones! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Their Source and Forsaken Auras rapidly dismantled the standing Area of Effect spells, meaning they and their men weren¡¯t fighting in mist or distracted by noise, and the moderate fire damage Buff wouldn¡¯t benefit the enemy if it got fire spells off, which it most definitely tried to do. Happily, the Casters had Buffed up everyone with the Protection spells, and so there were no instant kills, the Casters hastily on top of everyone wounded as Rings and Blasts and Volleys went off and ripped through the fighters, who just grit their teeth and continued hacking away with terrific speed and effectiveness as the magic exploded around them, and the Heal spells worked quickly to bring them out of danger. Kris was flitting in sparking motion around the undead commander, a towering spellcaster as tall as Briggs, and Quaver was ringing on its robe and skin, slicing, swirling, a rain of attacks coming in on it...and instead of piercing or slicing deep and for the vitals, was tracing paths and patterns, pushing and forcing movement subtly this way and that. Then Briggs came in with a massive blazing Hammer. Endure, moving nigh as fast as Kris¡¯s Sword, followed her. So big and fast, he looked like a controlled thunderstorm letting loose his own Wrath of Heaven! Defensive magic and Health Qi exploded away from his blows in eruptions of deadly flame, staggering the commander and driving him back as he tried to avoid them, fear rising blazing in his unbeating heart as the vivus in the attacks caught fire on him, fed by the flames pushing in at him, and he began to Burn. He grabbed for his magic, and there was nothing there, as there was for none of his closest guards and lieutenants, who were being urgently hacked apart as the very toughest of the undead found they had no magic¡­ and only scorn on the disdainful faces of the warriors hacking them down. I came into Healing range and joined the effort, the outlying undead commanders the only ones who could get spells off. I used Arcane Fusions, however, pairing Mass Cure Light Wounds with Imperil, and the vengeance that hewed into the undead made sure they died quite quickly indeed. Just about all these men had Weapons with critical-improving Enhancements, be it Isparian or otherwise, and everything stacked as the undead were hewn down with quite impressive speed, despite being as dangerous as they were, clocking in over 200 in relative Level. That one Kris and Briggs were hacking down was level 475, with 20k in Health. However, his protective magic had evaporated in their Auras, he wasn¡¯t getting anywhere with the Sword he was trying to ply on them, and his Health was dropping like a goddamn rock as Kris fed Briggs her criticals, meaning 80% of his attacks were crits. Only the Dark Noble¡¯s magical robe was holding off nigh-instant death, and not enough. I could see the panic in the faces of the undead as some tried to Portal out, feeling the vivus eating at them and realizing what it could mean, but there wasn¡¯t any saving them. Briggs pounded the fucker in the abdomen, doubled him over, and then a swath of fire liberated the commander¡¯s head from its shoulders in less than an eyeblink. Kris didn¡¯t even look as she pivoted for the next one, the skull hit her foot, she kicked it lightly, and it arced up, expression of hate and horror frozen on it, and dropped into her Masspack as she and Briggs split apart to help different teams take down their targets in crackles of accelerated motion. -------- Magic spiraled, and Notchhorn gasped as the shattered ribs and massive cuts in his torso spontaneously closed. Blood flowed backwards and the powerful heart that had stopped beating forever resumed its pounding course. The elder gurog, who was more than familiar enough with death to realize he had truly died there, gasped as a grinning Briggs held out a hand. Reflexively grasping it, the horned mattekar-man was pulled to his hooved feet, white scars now crisscrossing his chest in more badges of honor. ¡°The courage of the gurog continues its legend,¡± Briggs smiled, slapping his solid shoulder, while the dazed gurog watched as another dead and unmoving Stoneholder warrior was surrounded in a nimbus of powerful magic, flesh and bone dissolved by multiple Acidic Blasts to the front reforming in unnerving pulses of whiteness, organs restoring themselves, skin closing, and abruptly life returning where magic had torn it free before. ¡°Commander Briggs. The magic they used¡­ it tore me from the respawn system!¡± the gurog said haltingly, still a bit dazed over being returned to life by the Isparian female from the south, watching as the very dead human¡¯s body reformed, and he drew a strong, shuddering breath, blinking in amazement that he could even do so. Briggs looked at him, and just nodded after a moment. ¡°They came to exterminate you and the tuskers, then, because they didn¡¯t need that kind of magic for us Isparians. We need to get you back to your people and warn them quickly about it.¡± The gurog leader growled, but did not dispute that. ¡°You knew this would come.¡± The mighty Ancient had warned them about this before, and reminded them repeatedly. ¡°Yes. What did I tell you?¡± ¡°If they gave us the power, they could take away the power,¡± the gurog repeated. ¡°And now they seek to kill us off.¡± ¡°Existing only ever more as slaves in the System, Summoned to do their whims when needed and wanted, as disposable as dung,¡± Briggs grunted. ¡°I am sorry. This is a terrible thing for you and your people. The undead outnumber you greatly.¡± The gurog shrugged stoically. ¡°It is but one more death. We shall fight to the end regardless if it is our first death, or our last!¡± he declared, fatalistic yet determined. ¡°Glad to hear it. You¡¯ll get your share of the spoils, too. They had plenty of Weapons doing Elemental damage. You know what to do with them, right?¡± ¡°Burn them, and sacrifice them to our own!¡± the gurog recited proudly. AF Chapter 197 – Return to Stonehold Everyone was talking about the power and efficacy of the Haste spell, having never experienced anything like it. Briggs¡¯ Oratory and Endure¡¯s drumbeat hammering could convey Heartsong effects, although Kris was notably better at it with Quaver singing along¡­ and a Rantha singing the Trembling Song was like totally natural. Being able to return from death, even if the losses had been light, had totally revised anyone¡¯s opinion of us, however. That was the magic most-looked for, and the Life Mages Briggs had working for him couldn¡¯t do the trick, Cure Deadly Wounds wasn¡¯t in their arsenal yet, and I hadn¡¯t rewritten it as an Isparian spell, simply because of the core Divine element to it. Simply put, I wasn¡¯t good enough at Isparian magic to write out the Divine component without some potentially nasty exposures to other things, so there was work to do on it. As the only one with Valence V¡¯s in Dereth, that made me something of an important person. I was also the only one who could Raise the Dead, a quiet fact known to the elites, but the limit of one day per Caster Level was still in effect, and the need for some pricey diamonds to fuel the spell. Regardless, the independent Stoneholders now had a really good reason to get on and stay on better terms with us. The reticent nature of them against the ¡®inept monarchists of the south¡¯ thawed appreciably, especially when they saw how well the Scouts worked together to mow down undead. None of them were going to dare to disrespect me in the slightest, of course. Watching me absolutely butcher an army of undead like that was enough to drive any thoughts that I wasn¡¯t a paramount and therefore not worthy of much respect as a mage far from anyone¡¯s thoughts, because no damn paramount could do anything like what I had, and they all knew it. Which was good, getting everyone back to decent relations without lording it over one another was a big reason for our trip here. The celebration, and Kris and Briggs ducking out quite early from it, all things considered, was the other. ------- ¡°Magos,¡± Elder Oswald greeted me as he joined me at my table. I was basically off by myself, nobody who didn¡¯t know me dared to bug me, and those who did know me were on assignment kibutzing and making friends. The paramount spellcasters who¡¯d survived were all eager to talk to me, but instead found themselves gathering around the Mick, who knew of most of them in passing as old acquaintances, and soon had all the senior Casters reminiscing with him. ¡°Elder,¡± I greeted him neutrally. ¡°We missed you at the fight. I presume you were out scouting?¡± ¡°There was some movement of reinforcements for the undead blockading the passes south of the Espers, seeking to catch any of us who chose to flee the coming attack. It seems they were anticipating us being overwhelmed and choosing to escape, rather than fight and slaughtering them all,¡± the man who was older than he looked replied, taking a poised and careful seat. I noted a half-dozen people, two of whom had been with the Stonehold forces, keeping a wary eye on us. ¡°Your words were proven true, in the very best way, Magos. My respects for your achievement. My students are rather overly impressed by what you did.¡± I waved it off with my fingers. ¡°I count it as less valuable than the marvelous hanging gardens you designed for the people here, helping keep them fed and protected. Well done, Elder Oswald.¡± He looked at me oddly, as if looking for the mockery in the words, and just shook his head when he could not find any. ¡°That is not something I am often complimented on, Magos,¡± he admitted with wry care. ¡°Warriors like to compliment one another on their abilities to kill. It is natural and gives them the reassurance that their skills are valued and necessary, and the courage to throw themselves into the dance with death again. ¡°Skills that unwind themselves slowly, that benefit over the longer term, yet save as many lives or more, are harder to see the value of, and given the shorter planning times of people living in violent times, are often missed entirely. ¡°I¡¯m guessing you and your students are the ones that make sure none of the tuskers come by and disturb the small vegetable and herb gardens I saw scattered about the area? I¡¯ve been told they love to root up such things when they come across them, and can easily clear out acres at a time, as destructive as any herd of pigs back home.¡± He blinked in continued surprise at my observation. ¡°Aye, we did have to keep a strict control of our territories from the wandering younger tuskers, who kept testing them, looking for food¡­ including wandering humans,¡± he related, green eyes flickering in a certain direction. ¡°It became much easier when Briggs proved capable of talking with even the stupidest of them, and throwing them around like tenpins instead of just having to kill them off. The survivors told others, and he¡¯d occasionally pop up to chat with squads of them and beat them silly, spreading the legends. Once he proved capable of beating down even the great white tuskers of the Frozen Valley, they stopped coming into our territory entirely.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°I saw a couple of the markers he set up on the way out to the battlesite.¡± Tuskers on one side, a familiar hammer on the other. Easy enough to understand, even for the dense ape-like creatures. ¡°Does he trade with them at all?¡± It was the elder¡¯s turn to grin ruefully. ¡°Well, sometimes I come back with an extra load of nanners, and the tuskers will fall over themselves trading for them with herbs or flowers or hides of certain things.¡± ¡°Like intact olthoi carapaces.¡± He inclined his head slightly. ¡°We¡¯ve not enough metal to issue armor willy-nilly, but we don¡¯t seem to run out of olthoi chitin,¡± he agreed. ¡°The tuskers don¡¯t mind killing the bugs, and are very effective against them, all things considered, although also quite vulnerable to their stabbing attacks.¡± He shook his head slightly. ¡°Briggs even showed some of the older and wiser tuskers how to slap on some olthoi armor and protect themselves. If there was a way to make them palatable, the tuskers would probably eat the olthoi right off of Dereth!¡± I held up a finger. ¡°Olthoi eggs are a proven delicacy, even to humans. Are the larvae still consumable, or do they already have the acidic blood?¡± The head-sized things could only be found in lairs with active queens, but given the production capacity of them, there had been quite a few in the older days, and they were lauded for their alchemical properties in cooking. The Green Hunter seemed surprised at the tack the conversation was blowing in, but went along easily enough. ¡°It is much weaker, but already developing, yes. The flesh of the grubs is more bulbous and weaker, so rupturing their blood tends to destroy it just as quickly as the more muscled and vigorous older bugs¡­¡± he trailed off thoughtfully, considering the point. ¡°If there was something that could neutralize the blood of the grubs, I assume the tuskers would glut themselves on the things if they could.¡± He sat back and pondered the problem. ¡°Are there herbs that could neutralize the acid in the flesh? Especially if they were drained first¡­¡± ¡°Baking soda is the alchemist go-to, and a cooking ingredient. Something natural¡­ I¡¯d have to go with honey or bananas first. Lots of potassium in bananas, and honey alkalizes with most acids easily.¡± He gave me an odd look. ¡°So, not only would they be edible, they¡¯d be like sweetmeats?¡± he asked me archly. ¡°Well, there would have to be some testing done. And they would have to be taught how to prep the grubs. Crush the head, chop them off before the ruptured vessels contaminate all the meat, probably hang them so they can drain. Then have vivus on hand to remove the alien magic in the blood and ichor before it contaminates the ground, helping fertilize instead of altering the ecology.¡± His green eyes opened marginally. ¡°The white flame acts against the mushrooms and spores from the olthoi?¡± he asked specifically. I nodded. ¡°It does. The olthoi come from a world where the rules of magic and mana are slightly different. Vivus defaults to the rules of the mortal plane it is on, and will consume the altered magic and return it to the default, destroying the imports from the other reality as it does so. It will even burn on them slowly, like fire does wood, withering them up and killing them over a period of time.¡± ¡°The olthoi will sense this, and regard it as an immediate threat,¡± he said after a moment of contemplation. ¡°Since the Fall, the changes in the manafield have stifled their growth, which seem to have taken many generations to adapt to our world, by the changes I¡¯ve seen and the tales I heard from some of the Empyreans and the undead. They are, however, adapting, if slowly, and have never stopped attempting to expand, claiming mana-rich areas if they can, and always looking for more.¡± ¡°Well, that makes looking for their tunnels somewhat easier,¡± I mused. ¡°I presume that Master Oswald has done scouting in the Olthoi North. What was their situation with the Fall?¡± He steepled his fingers in front of him, considering his reply for a long minute. ¡°There are two main areas the olthoi inhabited. One of them in the Olthoi North, famous as it is, and the other upon Marae Lassel, where the tumeroks held them back and contained them with their shamanistic magic.¡± I nodded along with him. ¡°Lord Mick indicated there were powerful queens in both locations.¡± ¡°The strongest queen, however, currently resides in a small island chain south and east of the Vissidals, just off the coast of the Olthoi North.¡± I flicked up a Holo of the island. The island he spoke of was not on the map. He just smiled thinly at the reproduction, leaning forward to point at an area east of the infamous Black Death Catacombs, one of the great olthoi hives, out in the waters. ¡°There. It was never visited by humans before I went there, and I had to flee immediately the first time I did, as I didn¡¯t have the resources to disguise my scent on me at the time, once I realized what was living there.¡± I speckled the area with stars. ¡°I will be taking a high-altitude look at the island on an appropriate day, and getting a more current and accurate map of the place,¡± I told him, earning another look from him. ¡°How high an altitude?¡± he asked curiously. ¡°A thousand miles or so?¡± I replied calmly. He just stared at me in great interest. ¡°A look down upon the island from that great a height¡­¡± he murmured. ¡°Is it not too cold up there? Is the air even breathable?¡± ¡°Correct on both counts,¡± I confirmed for him. ¡°At such a height, the curve of the world is clearly visible, and one would circle the entire planet in something like four hours.¡± AF Chapter 198 – Plans and Places to Go The Green Hunter¡¯s eyes widened appreciably. ¡°That¡­ must be an incredible view,¡± he said. ¡°It is. There is no sky or atmosphere to interfere with looking at the stars. One can see the patterns of winds and clouds like dust swirling atop water for the whole world. The lands and oceans are laid out before you like living paintings, and suddenly, you feel very, very small and alone, sitting up there in the void with nothing about you, realizing how vast the planet is¡­ and conversely, how very small it is compared to the emptiness about you.¡± He grimaced slightly, but his eyes were hungry. ¡°If you were to make a map of such a vista, I would be grateful to receive a copy of it,¡± he told me. ¡°I will make it so, Elder Oswald.¡± ¡°I have been¡­ dealing with the assassins, as you offered before. Some of my Aun associates have been helping with disposal of some of their agents, or at least their exposure.¡± ¡°There were four such persons either gone missing or arrested for treason within the last seven days. Not a good look when heroes were finally purging Tou-Tou.¡± ¡°I see you were paying attention. The three training camps that I know of, which should be all of them, may be a tougher nut to crack¡­ and it is likely the senior leadership, at least, has been offered the undead revival paradigm, although I don¡¯t know if it involves becoming undead themselves.¡± ¡°Not in the Empyrean Tradition, no. A specific magic ritual is required for that kind of ¡®immortality¡¯ to occur. Sacrificing another, willingly or not, is part of that, Blood Magic of the darkest sort, even if they agree to it,¡± I informed him. ¡°I will note that Nuhmudira also indulged in one of those rituals for her own benefit, convincing her Zharalim to sacrifice themselves for her.¡± Just a spark in his green eyes at her name, but the loathing was still there, after all this time. ¡°Yes. That was why they imprisoned her, instead of killing her and allowing her to be merely reborn again. There was none of this vivus to keep the dead, dead, and I don¡¯t know if even I would have been able to do so.¡± ¡°Likely not. She was not afraid of you, by all the tales told of her, and your main threat is killing people so they could not revivify at the Deathstones. That means she had alternate methods you couldn¡¯t counter.¡± He took a deep breath, nodding slowly. ¡°As I expected of the witch. I do have to ask, however: Briggs was interested when you said you knew of the Magical Rogue, and admitted he did not remember a lot about it. You inferred that you did, and were willing to share that knowledge in exchange for my help.¡± ¡°Master Oswald, I am fully aware of exactly how crucial this knowledge is for you,¡± I replied calmly, watching his lips thin. ¡°Briggs has doubtless explained the concepts of Primary and Secondary Class to you, and you are locked into the Magical Rogue in the Matrix system. You cannot spec out, you cannot retrain, there are no temples which can remake your decisions. Your choices, such as they are, are cut in stone for all purposes, so you need to be careful and wise with your future choices, eking the maximum benefit from every choice you forge ahead, even as you attempt to cover the gaps with more Secondary Classes. ¡°I have what you seek. In return for it, I will ask for something of similar value to you. As you value your future and what it may hold for you, a man who by all accounts will walk the road of the Eternal one day on his own merits, so you value your past and the knowledge and skills you have attained there. ¡°Share your knowledge and skills as I share the road to your future, unstinting and open, lifting up others to follow behind the road you will be blazing for them, and we will have an agreement.¡± He lifted an eyebrow at me. ¡°Unlimited sharing of information, Magos? Do you know the value of some of the secrets I hold?¡± he asked wryly. ¡°Master Oswald, you do not have the slightest knowledge of some of the secrets Princess Kristie, Briggs, and I hold. In the face of your secular knowledge of unpleasant truths and sordid personal affairs, ours only grow in value. The value of yours diminish by the day, while ours become ever more valuable. Your secrets will fade into the dustbins of history, uncared and unmourned, while ours are paving the road to the future, for good or ill. ¡°You can stumble along in the dark and get lucky, or you can trust, share, and draw from teachers as they draw from you. ¡°It is true that in time, our secrets will get out, and you need only bide your time and hold onto your own. Perhaps you will go wide and Deep enough to maintain your advantage and edge over others if you do. ¡°Or perhaps you will lose that edge to others who are sharing, and you will simply be among them, with a Primary Class considered below average in the greater world, watching them surpass you with their greater capabilities. ¡°Tell me, Master Oswald, how important are your secrets, which could likely vanish right now and the whole world would not care or miss them, versus ours, which are going to change everything?¡± He looked at me with intense green eyes, and I looked back with eyes flecked silver, unnatural and likewise intent. I might not have had a Pact with Heaven, but I was still wielding its energies, and some residual Sign had passed through. I wasn¡¯t Heavenbound, but my eyes were still a hue not found in mortals. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. At last he smiled ruefully and shook his head. ¡°You have incredible focus, young Magos. Briggs said that if you are truly a Magos, you are one of the most dangerous beings alive on this island, and to treat you accordingly.¡± ¡°He is correct. I am not a paramount, it is very true, but that is not where my focus lies, and as far as we can tell, the steps with augmentation and Luminance that you and your generation took are not something we can use¡­ but then, we know something you do not, and Briggs did not have the ability to Assay and look at.¡± ¡°And that is?¡± ¡°Everything that augmentations and Luminance gave you, you could earn on your own, and did not need outside help to gain.¡± He stared at me as I inclined my head. ¡°Within the Matrix system, it¡¯s all there¡­ except your side is incomplete, and the full benefits are in the Matrix system.¡± He looked at me, and slowly shook his head. ¡°I do not want to believe you, but I do. From the moment I saw that there were undead and Empyreans with Levels beyond what we were allowed to obtain, I knew there was more, and I found something. You call it the Magical Rogue Class, but it was the ability to use skills and powers that we never had back on Ispar. I always wondered if there were more. ¡°I stumbled across Briggs, saw the way he fought, and I knew he wasn¡¯t using the Isparian system. He was barely level one hundred, and he fought more devastatingly than any paramount I was aware of, and was far, far stronger than any of them were even at our height. ¡°Very well, lass. You say your knowledge of the system is more complete than that of Briggs?¡± I held up a finger. ¡°His and Kris¡¯ knowledge of the Forsaken side of the system is more complete than mine, because I am not Forsaken, I am Powered.¡± My finger lowered to point at him. ¡°You¡­ are Powered.¡± My finger slowly executed most of a circle to include the room. ¡°Every Isparian, Tumerok, and Lugian here¡­ is Powered. As are even the gurog.¡± ¡°And so what you know is more valuable to me than what he knows.¡± He sighed again, knowing he was being outmaneuvered. ¡°Very well. My services as a teacher and mentor will be available to all who seek what I have to teach them, and I will pass on all that I know to a younger generation. What secrets I have¡­ I will make them available for you to draw on as needed, all in exchange for unfettered access to this new system of magic you know so much better than do I.¡± ¡°I will accept your words in good faith, Elder Oswald,¡± I nodded firmly. I reached back with Minor TK and pulled a spiral-bound notebook nearly an inch thick out of my Masspack and presented it to him, pushing it across the table. ¡°Treat the Rune on the cover with your blood.¡± He eyed me, then reached into his sleeve, and came out with a finger dripping scarlet. He swathed it across the Rune carved into the leather cover, and there was the faintest swirl of scarlet sinking into the book. ¡°Only you can read that now. Go ahead,¡± I waved at him. He picked it up, marveling at the construction of the wire binding and holes through every page holding it together, instead of thread and glue. Slowly he opened it up, blinked once at the script therein, and leaned forward in open interest. Slowly, then with greater speed, he began to thumb through the pages, and page after page of script and words and writing going past, divided by wooden chapter dividers into sections for him. He wasn¡¯t reading it, of course, but when he finished thumbing the pages past, the expression on his face showed that he knew there was a LOT of information there. ¡°There is¡­ an inordinate amount of information on spells and spell effects,¡± he said after a long moment. Deft hands found one of the dividers, opened it up, and the Spells section was sprawled before him, obvious to me as I¡¯d made the book. I could Visual File exactly what he was seeing, although the words were now gibberish, even to me. ¡°Yes. The great power of a Magical Rogue is their ability to trick the universe into granting them spells. Some might call it finding rules and laws and truths others just can¡¯t see, but it doesn¡¯t matter how you understand them, only that you do. ¡°But if you don¡¯t know what tricks to ask for, well, it¡¯s hard to do the job right. There are rules you must follow in what you can pick, how many you can pick, and how often you can use them. ¡°So, a Magical Rogue, if he wants to plan his advance, should know what tricks he wants to learn. ¡°Life may shit upon you, and demand that you learn other things because life is like that, but even then, knowing what tricks can potentially be yours is very important. ¡°Over half your choices have probably been taken from you already, if you¡¯ve been diligent about things. If you¡¯ve not been diligent, that is actually fortunate, as now you can go learn more things properly, and set yourself up more properly. ¡°So, a Magical Rogue might find their niche out of necessity and luck, but they expound upon it with skill and foresight, like anyone else. ¡°Many of the other pages are about the abilities of the other Classes, and you will likely want to kick yourself when you realize how many of the abilities that you¡¯ve chosen are available through alternate and more useful methodologies, like using Casting¡­ but they were not available to you then, and you are on the road you are on, so take it to the end and make it as mighty and dangerous as you can. ¡°In the end, Karma is fair. Magical Rogues advance faster than pure Casters, even Sorcerers, because they are far more limited in the power they can attain, so they gain in height what they lack in breadth. You will improve faster than someone like myself because of your choices, and should be able to maintain that lead if you try.¡± ¡°I¡­ see.¡± And he likely did, closing the book and weighing it in his hands. ¡°This will take me some time to ponder, I would think.¡± ¡°Have some paper and ink available. If you need advice, I know builds and paths that can be taken, some of which I noted towards the end, depending on how you want your own power to advance.¡± I flicked a Flashlight out of my Masspack and handed it to him. ¡°A cheap trade good.¡± AF Chapter 199 – A Light in the Darkness Elder Oswald took the Flashlight with bemusement, looking the knurled black metal tube over. It was the medium version, barely six inches long. He tested the sliding button on the top, saw it did nothing, then sensitive fingers noted both ends could be rotated, one end larger, the other with a recessed metal ring. He thumbed the dial on the slightly larger end slowly, and it lotused open, revealing the bright light within it, first a dot, then becoming a bright beam that drew attention for its intensity in the smoky darkness of the tavern. When he pushed the button forward, the beam steadily widened, until the Eternal Light attached to the crystal emerged fully from the concave crystal, lighting up the entire tavern with bright, steady, unwavering electrum Light, drawing murmurs of surprise and astonishment from all those around. With one hand, he withdrew the Light, then spun the iris closed, shutting off the illumination completely. He slowly unspun the other side, smiling slightly as it fell open and revealed another small crystal, also glowing brightly, attached to the cap. ¡°Magnetic. There¡¯s a small space inside for placing interesting things, like a hook and line, tinder, a small vial, some coins, and so forth. As it stands, it is also air-tight when closed completely, and will float in water. The grip is hydrophobic and repels water, so it will remain dry in almost any situation. You¡¯ll find it is quite sturdy and durable, and though I¡¯d not use it as a club, it will give a fist some rigidity. ¡°Also, a continuous light source on demand. There are several lenses that can be purchased for it, but they are extras. That is the middling size, intended for general use and ease of carry. There is a smaller version that is very slender, for concealed carry, and a larger one that is much brighter and might be usable as a club in an emergency.¡± He deftly screwed the cap back on, and the light faded away, but the quiet delight on his face was probably a better advertisement than a dozen salesmen. ¡°I think I will want one of each of the other sizes, and the lenses, too!¡± he smiled in appreciation for its utility. ¡°Well, then, let¡¯s talk about trade and compensation, subjects I am sure you are an expert on¡­¡± His smile was unfeigned as he bent forward, his eyes glittering sharply. ¡°I am indeed, and I drive a hard bargain, Magos.¡± ¡°I ask only a fair one, Elder. I am not greedy, although it may not surprise you that there is considerable demand for these.¡± ¡°I may even be able to improve upon the design and suggest some improvements,¡± he countered. ¡°You will be compensated fairly for any more advanced designs you care to make that we put into production. The overriding rule now is getting them into the majority of hands, not making special custom Lights for those with wealth. A startling viewpoint to many, many people, I know.¡± He actually laughed softly at that. ¡°I have seen what happens to those who hoard too much wealth, so you¡¯ll not see me dithering over pyreal, Magos. A fair price, well enough for me, especially since I can see where you might charge a fair purse for something so well-made and clever.¡± ¡°Everyone needs to earn a living, and getting things which help us into the hands of those who need them is a fine way to do so. Now, I imagine you¡¯ve hoarded your own reserves of things for this very moment, knowing it would come and wanting to be able to establish yourselves in the face of the relatively greater wealth of the south. Knowing our lack of mining, I imagine you¡¯ve been stockpiling ores¡­ and Briggs has a Floating Furnace available to you, so likely it¡¯s been smelting things around the clock ever since he came here.¡± ¡°Lass, that boy has stacks and stacks of ingots of all types in Stonehold¡¯s vaults, waiting to be brought out for use. There¡¯s nothing in the south he can¡¯t afford, and you can believe he wants to go on a buying and selling spree!¡± Master Oswald confirmed after only a moment¡¯s hesitation. ¡°Did he go with great locks or simply a multi-ton door?¡± I asked with interest. Master Oswald slapped the table between us lightly. ¡°Hah! He did both, of course!¡± ¡°Of course he did.¡± I just rolled my eyes and leaned forwards. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s get our economic heads together and try to work out something where everyone is happy and nobody shafts one another, because that¡¯s not a good way to start off any relationship.¡± ¡°That is entirely what someone seeking to take advantage of someone else would say, Magos,¡± he countered lightly, leaning forward nonetheless. ¡°If I am going to take advantage of you, I will say nothing, do it, and you will thank me profusely for doing so, in all likelihood. I am not a merchant, and greed is not a defining characteristic of mine. On the other hand, I am extremely aware of the power of money, the necessity and power of wealth, and I loathe being taken advantage of by others who do nothing of benefit but claim that profit is its own reward. Do not mistake my willingness to deal fairly with lack of knowledge of potential wealth foregone. If you attempt to play on my goodwill to shift money earned from those who need it to yourself, I can and will be a brutally difficult person to deal with.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He only held my gaze for a moment before inclining his head slightly. ¡°Well, an altruistic financier. I have truly seen everything in life now,¡± he mused at me. ¡°Suckering the greedy into only getting fair profits is a fine intellectual pastime. You should practice it sometime.¡± ¡°An interesting sort of game. How does one go about playing it?¡± ¡°Information, usually. Artificial or natural shortages in one place driving up windfall profits in another, supplies controlled to raise prices and line one¡¯s pockets, taxes evaded, wages skipped or withheld, payments delayed. Front-running the shortages to even out the flow of trade, starting up or diversifying buying so one force doesn¡¯t materially affect markets and you have alternates, unleashing the tax collectors, unionizing the workers, and just plain robbing fools who keep your money for themselves are all on the table. ¡°If you aren¡¯t an arse, none of it is necessary. When it is, I¡¯m not one who is afraid to be underhanded if you are, too. My job is to raise the floor, not raise your ceiling. I¡¯m not doing this to make you rich, I¡¯m doing this to improve lives.¡± ¡°Ah, noting there¡¯s a famine, hoarding the wheat and preparing to sell it for multiple times its value, only for a caravan to come through unloading tons of cheap wheat and suddenly your hoard is worth a fraction of what you paid for it?¡± Master Oswald rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ¡°I admit, that would be a very amusing way to pass one¡¯s days.¡± ¡°Stealing from those profiting unlawfully is often quite rewarding, too, although it can make you some great enemies. Of course, if they escalate matters, well, society is usually better off without them regardless.¡± ¡°Great wealth is one of the loftiest goals that can be achieved by mortal men in life,¡± Oswald pointed out. ¡°There will always be motivation for greed.¡± ¡°I agree to the latter, but will correct the former. Great wealth is one of the basest goals that can be achieved by mortal men. It ranks right up there with harems of sexual partners, obesity from overeating of delicacies, constant drunken revelry, and drug-fueled dreams of profound meaning. Great wealth of its own does nothing for nobody. Money at work, moving constantly through the system, is what betters everyone. Accumulating it in one spot? It should immediately be removed and used.¡± ¡°You must come from a strange place, to look so oddly upon the accumulation of wealth. Is not the very gear you wear wealth accumulated?¡± he pointed out reasonably. ¡°Is Regret?¡± I replied, equally reasonably. He paused at that thought. ¡°I am not accumulating wealth and letting it sit. It is all being put to work generating things which increase the floor for people. The fact killing undead and growing wheat are different aspects of that resolve is hard for some people to digest, but you don¡¯t grow wheat if undead are rampaging through your fields, burning them and slaughtering your farmers. ¡°Gold sitting in a chest or on brazen display for the benefit of your ego is doing nothing. If I want a grand palace of my own, I will build it for myself, and I have better things to do with my coin than heap it up as a testament to my own ability.¡± ¡°What of natural accumulations, then?¡± he asked quietly. ¡°Tracts of land, buildings, ships, goods, facilities?¡± ¡°That is what a proper tax law code does. Those who earn and own more and more are taxed at a higher and higher rate, until it becomes self-defeating or potentially catastrophic to be the center of so much wealth. You reward the smaller player, and you tax the larger ones to give the smaller ones room to grow. Wealth transfer is one of the primary jobs of a proper government. The trick is getting honest government workers in the face of the amount of money the wealthy are willing to pay in order to evade paying their proper taxes back to the society which enabled them to rise above their fellows. ¡°Unlimited wealth income and accrual is a surefire way to ruin any society in the long run, and the discourses and proofs are it are soundly embedded in any economic course of study, and have been for thousands of years.¡± ¡°I am something of a professional at not paying taxes,¡± the Green Hunter admitted lightly. ¡°Or perhaps my removal of certain impediments to society could be seen as repaying my debts thereto?¡± he offered easily. ¡°Justifying your actions with fallacies is still a fallacy, Master Oswald,¡± I reminded him quietly. ¡°You profit from society by not following the rules everyone else does, yet paying your fair share to support that society would hardly impoverish you at all. The only excuse you might make is if you were to charitably give the money to public causes to ensure that it is spent wisely and efficiently¡­ or, you know, to off the parasites of society without compensation for doing so, perhaps even repaying their victims in some atrociously noble and heroic manner. ¡°That¡¯s how Good works, Master Oswald. And you know what? Those societies tend to be the most productive, efficient, and beloved places to work and live in the world, and everyone around them tends to get hellaciously envious of it, not understanding how just by having reasonable laws, reasonable people, and not letting greed and self-interest in the short-term dominate your thinking is amazingly productive over the long run.¡± ¡°And those who cannot do that organize armies and try to take by brute force what they cannot manage with culture and lifestyle?¡± he conjectured. ¡°Or they steal in the night, blame others by day, and basically attempt to tear down those who have more than they do. I¡¯m sure the mindset is well-known to you. The Viamontians carried it about them like a shield against common sense.¡± He grunted at that, a flicker of old experiences crossing his face. ¡°I¡¯ll not dispute that. Their comeuppance was long due, if what you and your Princess have said about back home is true.¡± ¡°Oh, it definitely is. In fact, I could probably go back and check up on them now,¡± I added as an aside. That earned his instant interest. ¡°You¡­ could return to Ispar?¡± he asked in fascination, leaning forward. ¡°Possibly and probably, but not definite, yes.¡± Plane Shift was a Valence V I hadn¡¯t grabbed for yet. ¡°As you might elect to do, if your path leads you in that direction.¡± He looked down at the spiral notebook in front of him, his expression turning even more thoughtful as he realized the implications. ¡°I think that I shall be reading this very carefully, indeed.¡± ¡°Indeed. Now, on to some planning, and while we¡¯re doing it, what¡¯s the situation in Zaikhal? Her Highness will be running home tomorrow, and we''re thinking of literally blowing through the place¡­¡± AF Chapter 200 – The Morning After Hey there! It''s been three months since my last call-out, and a hundred chapters. I''ve got at least 1500 readers checking in every day for new chapters, so this is for them! I advertise my Patreon every day for support, so I''m not dwelling on that, but really, one of the absolute best ways to support an author on Royal Road is just to give a good Rating to them, showing you appreciate them and their efforts. Perhaps because this is the 6th story here, I''m really getting a lot less Ratings and Reviews than I have in prior books. So, I''m just putting this out there, hoping for you to take a few minutes of your time and hit those Ratings or Reviews, even if it means you finally have to make an account here. Also note: I have a 4.84 Rating, so anything less than that is a DOWNVOTE for the story, just so you know! The story has only passed rank 50 once, and then was promptly hammered back by some .5''s. The only way to overcome those things is lots and lots of upvotes making them irrelevant. So, asking for your support at Chapter 200. Just so you know, Chapter 300 is already written, so the story will be continuing on for your enjoyment! On to today''s chapter! ================================ The Dread Princess and Warlord Kristie Rantha had the biggest shit-eating grin on her face in the morning. The Mighty Warlord Commander Briggs looked like he hadn¡¯t quite woken up yet, his expression somewhere between great satisfaction and disbelief at what he had just gone through. There were at least a half-dozen young women whose hearts were utterly dashed on seeing the two of them together like that, and just how damn right the two of them looked together. Well, it was what it was. Given their broken Racial Classes, they really were made for one another. Kristie hopped into a seat, and I just arched an eyebrow at her. ¡°How are you even able to walk, or sit straight?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Superior Rantha Resilience, trademark pending!¡± she said, elbowing the massive fellow settling in next to her. It was almost like ringing a bell, the way their ki interacted to those of us who could feel it. ¡°You should be asking this fellow the same thing!¡± ¡°You outlasted me. I surrender,¡± he replied without batting an eye, hands thrown up, an admission that raised quite a few eyebrows from knowing Stoneholders around them, and quite a few women looking at Kris in total disbelief. ¡°That Null of yours is like an iron wall, so hard and cool. Do you terrify the Casters who try to get intimate with you?¡± ¡°Flaring the Null was always an easy way to get the flamboyant young dashing Casters to go pursue softer targets who wouldn¡¯t break their bones in bed,¡± Kristie purred, leaning into him. ¡°Sooo nice not to have to hold back, Fuzzy Mine!¡± He poked her in the cheek, and his finger bounced off her flawless skin like it had just hit a steel plate. ¡°Right. Didn¡¯t have to worry about hurting someone, either. That was¡­ pretty satisfying,¡± he agreed. ¡°So, heard you were running back to Mayoi today?¡± he asked us all, face steadying as he got back to business, and not more dreaming about holding his Hag. ¡°With a stop in Zaikhal. Want to come? Get the lived-lines of your people started on something other than the North here?¡± ¡°How much set-up have you done with them?¡± he asked calmly, waving his big hand without looking around. There were a lot of eager armed men ready to go, and he¡¯d doubtless seen all the packs outside set up for his inspection¡­ which he¡¯d inspected just walking by. ¡°Commander, your people don¡¯t have the personal dislike of the Gotrok an¡¯ Tukora that we do down in the south, but they do love t¡¯ fight, an¡¯ they owe us, know it, an¡¯ want t¡¯ show us softies in the south that they don¡¯t need us t¡¯ come rescue them,¡± Lord Mick said firmly. ¡°By ¡®dislike¡¯, he means rabid fucking hatred, because every human family in the Vesayans has lost someone to the Hea or the Gotrok,¡± Kris whispered sotto voce to him. The Mick¡¯s lips drew back in a feral smile. He¡¯d been killing Hea and Gotroks for nigh on thirty years, and with great fervor during the last fifteen. ¡°It be no offense t¡¯ yer people, Commander, but ye didn¡¯t get hit with the slaughter and massacre like we did. Ye¡¯ve had yer share of threats, aye, but they were high-level and few, not massed. That undead army yesterday were the first of its kind ye had to face, whereas we had six times that number of undead, Hea, and Gotrok hounding our survivors up the Tou-Tou Peninsula until we could get away. ¡°Why they didnae wipe Stonehold I be chalking up to Elder Oswald¡¯s discreet efforts on yer behalf, an¡¯ undead nobles not wanting t¡¯ bypass their resurrections an¡¯ go directly t¡¯ oblivion. If they¡¯d come at Stonehold as they did us, there¡¯d be no Stonehold here.¡± Briggs just nodded slowly. ¡°They have a long history of using lesser races as mercenaries and catspaws in their doings, and doubtless think they were preserving such a force for future machinations, especially with you so bottled up on the islands down there. I think we can both thank their timelessness for actually being shocked that you recovered the way you did, and launched your assault to re-establish yourself on the main island. It was a daring move.¡± ¡°And it had vivus,¡± Kris nodded, leaning into him smugly. ¡°Vivus is a threat to ¡®em.¡± ¡°Which they have now found out in spades, if they investigated or have spotters or scouts who discovered the fate of their two forces. Even Master Oswald doesn¡¯t know the true numbers of undead buried in these mountains and their hidden holes, even if the holes aren¡¯t so hidden anymore. But of the five thousand we killed yesterday, less than twenty percent were ¡®real¡¯, and all of those were effectively officers to the Summoned undead.¡± Briggs¡¯ voice was grim. ¡°When their real numbers and powers start to assemble against the threat we represent, it is going to get ugly.¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That is true, Commander, but they won¡¯t respond quickly,¡± I pointed out. ¡°This force had to be something already assembled and ready to go, just waiting around with timeless patience for the order to finally wipe you and clear the Frozen Valley of filthy living dustmotes, get the soul harvest, and start the bloodstones up again as a direct counter to the olthoi these ineffectual living things can¡¯t seem to do anything about.¡± ¡°We just shitcanned them violently, and while they may not know exactly how, they know vivus was involved,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°They are old and magically dependent. They are going to want to find a magical solution to the vivus and implement it to secure their own lives. They are going to research old things, Summon up Mythos shit and ask questions, and basically take their time because they know they have time and we can¡¯t do shit about that.¡± Briggs¡¯ pale green eyes glowered visibly at Kris¡¯ words, but he nodded slowly. ¡°Okay. I know you can get us back here quickly if needed, and Oswald has eyes everywhere looking for mass movements in the area. For all their sneaky underhandedness and slyness, the undead are pretty traditional in their military matters and don¡¯t innovate well, relying on their magic to take care of any problems.¡± ¡°Which is normally an extremely effective thing to rely on,¡± I piped up, and the fighters grimaced and nodded in spite of their own pride. ¡°If and when I get Spell Engines up and working, well, they are going to learn a lot about relying on spells.¡± Every warrior at the table turned to look at me intently. ¡°Another surprise in the future, lass?¡± the Mick asked in resignation. ¡°Just a massive Runic Wheel that absorbs any spellcasting in the area of effect. You can bring Cast spells into the area, but you can¡¯t actively Cast anything while inside it,¡± I informed him. ¡°Utterly neuters spellcasters if they are in the area.¡± ¡°Whereupon they have t¡¯ rely on combat skills a thousand years out o¡¯ date an¡¯ get themselves butchered!¡± the Mick hissed in delight, pounding the table. ¡°What¡¯s the requirements?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got to reach Fifteen on the Matrix side?¡± I answered with a shrug. The Mick looked around wildly. ¡°Someone feed this lass heaps an¡¯ heaps o¡¯ Karma on the cheap, right now, I say!¡± he called out, and those listening in laughed in understanding. ¡°Future planning,¡± Briggs ground out, but he had a special gleam in his eyes. It was a spell made for fortifications. ¡°Alright. I definitely have the best combat force man-for-man in the islands, no insult to you and your scouts, Lord Mick. I¡¯ve been working at them longer than you have.¡± The Mick shrugged in resignation. He¡¯d seen them fighting yesterday, and he agreed with that assessment. The Stoneholders had already leaned towards the physical builds, and so they made much better warriors than the more diversified and balanced people of the south. That said, the South had inherited most of the magical traditions and surviving academics of the Isparians, and had a clear magical edge that could easily make up for a level gap. ¡°They are eager to see if the Gotrok who are still alive are all that much different from their Summons, I reckon. I¡¯ll head up any volunteers who want to go,¡± he didn¡¯t bat an eye as cheers rose all around him at the news, ¡°and rely on Oswald and his people to get a message to me if there¡¯s need here, and you to bring me and our best back here in case of emergency.¡± He pointed directly at me. ¡°I promise. I even set up a couple Teleport Foci last night with Master Oswald¡­ oh, and that room full of Diamond Golum Hearts you have stored up.¡± He tilted his head at that. ¡°Yes?¡± he asked leadingly, feeling something was up. ¡°You can carve a master Diamond Scarab out of one, Energize it with Life energy, and make a Life Scarab from it,¡± I informed him. He sat up slightly. ¡°Well,¡± he murmured thoughtfully. ¡°That is going to come in very handy, I believe?¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°But¡­ they need to be carved up.¡± He grimaced slightly, eyes shifting down to Kris, then over to the Mick. ¡°Lord Mick, do you know the path to Zaikhal? I was told you want to, eh, stop over there.¡± ¡°Aye. I tramped over even these misbegotten hills in me youth. I can get us there, an¡¯ make no bones about it.¡± ¡°Then I¡¯ll bring my tools and start carving on the way, get us started on a reserve.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll help,¡± Kris nodded, to the Mick¡¯s surprise. ¡°You¡¯re hauling us on your own, Lord Mick!¡± He took it in stride, but leaned over to me. ¡°What do Life Scarabs do again?¡± he asked quietly. ¡°Material component for the spell to return someone from death within one day per Caster Level, as opposed to a few minutes ago,¡± I whispered back to him. He paused, thought that over, and cheerfully shouted out, ¡°They¡¯re going to be putting up with a lot o¡¯ me high society observations on the march!¡± There were more laughs from all around at that, and the two Warlord Smiths just smiled together. ¡°We¡¯ll be ready for any attacks. Let me grab my go-bag and Furnace, and we¡¯ll be ready to pull out.¡± He reached out, grabbed a full loaf of the nutty travel-bread, stuffed it in his mouth, and munched on it as he rose from his seat. ¡°We¡¯re leaving in fifteen minutes for the south! Everyone who¡¯s going needs to be assembled by the main gate at that time!¡± Roars and cheers greeted the announcement, and the Stoneholders all scrambled to get their stuff and get ready to head south. I noted that not all of them were fighters, the merchants and traders taking the opportunity to start opening up trade again through one means or another. It wasn¡¯t like they didn¡¯t have the things to trade, as Disks with metal ingots on them were being hauled out of storage to take advantage of this opportunity. Miners finally able to get their products to market. They¡¯d be coming back with refined goods, alchemicals, creature comforts, and the like, probably including a LOT of booze, if I knew my merchants well, and these were some thirsty people here. The Mick was probably going to have a fun time, too. There were at least a couple hundred Diamond Golum Hearts in the sack that Briggs threw on his personal Floating Furnace/Disk. I imagined they just hadn¡¯t had the need for the scarabs, so years of collecting them had just piled up in a room somewhere, waiting for someone to carve them up when they were needed. Elder Oswald said they had thousands of them, just heaped up and gathering dust. Suddenly, they were incredibly valuable, if they could be carved right. Briggs was in the Markspace now, brought in sometime during the night by Kris¡­ after most of the rambunctious stuff was done. He was a big bright Golden soul, with many great depths and an air of incredible resolve about him, his Source Presence almost lighting up the space and refracting off the absoluteness of Kris¡¯ Null. I flitted off to the side as the two of them collaborated on what to do and how to go about making the one scarab where normally a Diamond Heart would yield three. They¡¯d be at it for hours working out the best method, although ready to pick up their Weapons at any moment. The Mick raised his hand, got a cheer from all the males and females who¡¯d piled on Disks of their own or Disks I¡¯d conjured, and we were off. AF Chapter 201 – Zooming toward Zaikhal The trip was entertaining, in more ways than one. Disks satisfied the requirement for a sufficiently magical or living conveyance to leave a Lived-Line, so our trip was not going to be wasted in that regard. Since it was not, all I had to do was sit there and watch over everyone, while Kris and Briggs kibitzed in the middle of the formation, chunks of Diamond Golum Hearts falling under soulfire claws inside Vajras as they worked on getting us a Raise Dead material component reserve. I was quite painfully aware that reserve could never be too big. Losing a lot of people in combat was normal, and dying repeatedly was de riguer for any long-term combatant in a magical world. Everyone wanted their loved ones to come back, too, meaning Diamond Golums were soon going to be the #1 kill target of just about everyone out there, if only to gain a Heart and then a Life Scarab to pay for your own return to life. It was a good thing Cure Deadly Wounds could remove the need for it if applied soon enough after death, but the window was pretty tight¡­ and it was a V Valence, too, so limited in number and expensive in mana at the present. The Mick was singing some outrageous drinking songs, especially some that had become popular in the last fifteen years. They were set to old and established meters, and soon had just about everyone in the hundred-man force singing along with him on the verses, some clamoring to add their own to what he was calling out¡­ which was allowed, as long as they did it with enthusiasm. For all they¡¯d had a good two years to advance and a prime venue for it in the Frozen Valley, the paramounts under Briggs hadn¡¯t actually seemed to progress all that much, which I found somewhat surprising. There weren¡¯t many of them and most of them were spellcasters, which I realized was a good chunk of the problem. Briggs was a teacher of melees, not Casters, and couldn¡¯t help them all that much. They also didn¡¯t want to establish a non-Caster Class as Primary, so they hadn¡¯t been able to advance anything beyond Three, and they hadn¡¯t had access to the teachers and innovations down in the south, either. Plus, they were basically the master Healers for the whole population, keeping them alive and in good health. They couldn¡¯t really be risked, and since there were only minor ways for them to advance, they hadn¡¯t improved much. His rote people were at least a step above the Royal Scouts, but they weren¡¯t cross-trained to the same degree, either. Many of the men were still indifferent archers, for instance, whereas being good with a missile weapon was a primary requirement of a Scout, and even the Mick and Kris were damn good with them. This was on display as we zipped through mountain valleys and along forest trails. The lead rider on his own Disk was one of Oswald¡¯s students, a grim-looking fellow named Adso, giving quiet confirmations to the Mick on which way to go, effectively acting as a guide. It had been years since the Mick had come this way, and he had no problem deferring to the younger man as far as what trails to take and what passes to cut through or over. It turned out the Stoneholders had been slowly Sealing Summons points in a wide area over time after Briggs had arrived, thinning out the number of Summons and opening up more areas to natural life. It had naturally helped the hunting situation of the Stoneholders out, more natural animals able to move in, breed, and repopulate the area with fewer Summons around to disturb things or chase them down. Certain areas had been left untouched, particularly those that frequently popped up Fragments and Golums. Those places were regularly harvested for their resources and practice for the people of the Hold. Briggs had impressed upon everyone what Naming Karma was and what it did. Improving their Weapons was on everyone¡¯s mind, and the Mick wasn¡¯t going to stop them from doing that. He was happy to swerve in close to Spawns, and the ranged riders competed to take them down before the melee guys could sweep past and hack them down. ¡°Undead force at the next pass!¡± Adso called out, eyes turning my way. I obligingly stood up as most of the force around me crouched down to give me a clear line of sight, kneeling or squatting as they were of a mind to. ------ They were finally going south in the open. Adso had served his master for many years, and was by far the best of Master Oswald¡¯s students. He was the only other person to attain Nine in what they now knew to be the Magical Rogue Class, and gain the ability to Teleport as one of the Tricks the Class bestowed on them. It had felt good to operate in the open and be respected for his skills after the horrors of the Fall, and a small weight eased off of him when he thought of returning openly to the south after all these years, and not having to conceal his status as a student of Oswald the Green Hunter. The Green Hunter was an Elder and the most admired man in Stonehold, even after the arrival of the outsider, Commander Briggs, and the huge, strange man¡¯s new and very effective teachings. The Commander¡¯s lore had lit a fire in the hearts of many of the residents, finding new ways to improve themselves in the face of the changes to magic and the absence of great new Gear, especially the way to grow Weapons and Armor if you had the touch of the steel. But this new Magos¡­ the young Gharu¡¯n with the hair like spun silk, silver eyes visibly glowing as she stood there easily without a mask or helm as the Lord Mick raced along faster than a deer, was by far the most frightening thing he¡¯d seen in years. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Her eyes were burning with that Silver light now after his call-out, looking ahead, and he could tell the instant the undead came into range of her senses through the trees by the way her eyes hardened, became almost crystalline¡­ and the magic began to hum around them as wordless notes came from her throat, and all the world seemed to respond to them. He could feel the Enchantments on his light Armor rippling in time to her Song, and the Runes on his Dagger I Serve were pulsing in his hand. All the Weapons that were unsheathed were visibly pulsing in direct time to the Song she was Singing, a medley of colors in absolute harmony with her, and¡­ music was rising from them to accompany her! He could see the look of awe and wonder on the faces of everyone around as he silently pulled his Dirk out, and a faint and subtle note from I Serve joined what was basically a quiet orchestra of magical Weapons, the magic that empowered them swelling at the sound of her voice, ready to be unleashed. The nominally wedge-shaped formation behind the racing figure of the Black Aluvian, a fellow he knew to once have been absolutely loathed by the Viamontian Hands for the number of elites of that order he had slain, all burst from the treeline behind the man as his long Claymore, swirling with a torus of Lights Adso hadn¡¯t seen in well over a decade, cleared the dagger¡¯s sheath at the Mick¡¯s hip and was held off to the side, ready and waiting. The undead were there, standing in the middle of the narrow pass ahead that led towards the top of a neaby cliff, one of the shortest ways to get to the south of the Espers if you could stomach the fall. There were maybe five hundred of them. Most were likely Summons, he found it hard to tell, but as the Silver in the woman¡¯s eyes flashed and turned to blackness and stars, like looking into a vast night sky, he had no doubt she could tell that. She lifted a slender dark hand, like something an orchestra leader might do, and circled it once. The Lost Lights coming off Bunita swirled back, seeming to pass over and beyond every single warrior there. Runefire left Weapons, drawn to that passing mote of the Lost Light, bringing that Runefire around to her call, and Adso¡¯s dark eyes widened. He could feel the magic! He could see it coalescing! He could feel the magic of his Dirk in the coalescing javelins that were arrayed around her, snapping into position, more and more of them, and he could even tell exactly which one the Runefire of his Blade was upon! The undead were still three hundred yards away and up the pass, a superior position, still out of range of their War Magic, but they could not have failed to see the light show. It didn¡¯t matter. Adso felt like he had a third eye as the woman swept her arm out almost negligently, and the Shards launched. They flashed out across the distance, faster than any arrow, cutting through the wind, Singing a chorus in pyrotechnics and polythaumic glory, girt in so much strength and power! His eye was right with it as the Shard closed in on its target, seemingly one random undead among the many, and Adso jerked, instinctively pushing the Shard into its target, blasting energies anathemic to the undead life of the thing throughout its body. Then there was another target, and another, and another! Leaping, punching, swirling, swooping, juking, impaling, exploding, the Shard he was one with tore a crazy path through the undead ranks, the hostile energies raging through them without restraint. From three hundred yards away, he watched as they seemed to scythe right on through the undead like a wave of fire going through the darkly armored bodies. As they blasted through the undead, he distinctly saw his Shard loop around with dozens of others and go plunging back into the mass, into undead already aflame with Fires that were going to devour them whole¡­ but those were the tougher undead, the more resilient commanders and officers, the ones that were ¡®real¡¯, such as it was. Their fate was to Burn and die with everything around them. He knew that vivisizing a Summons away from its Spawn Point did nothing but free that Spawn Point up for another creature to manifest itself upon. He also knew that not a single soul that was present here was going to manifest on those Spawn Points again, whether they had lost themselves and become enslaved to the System or not. There would be respawns in whatever secret places and chambers the undead had arranged for these things, showing that this force had died¡­ but there would be no words or intelligence conveyed by others, informing them of what had happened and how it had done so. ¡°Slow it down, Mick,¡± the young woman said in a soft voice that carried with startling clarity to every ear. She snapped up another Disk as the Black Aluvian did slow down, and the Scouts at her side rose, missile weapons rising and taking aim as they did. The Stoneholder archers hurriedly matched them, while the melee grinders stayed crouched and down. Only a dozen undead were still on their feet, and they were all Burning and plainly going to die as they staggered around. ¡°Heads,¡± Briggs ordered, without looking up. Two dozen men leapt to the attack as the Mick passed first, Bunita flicking with serene skill as he passed the first undead by. Its head leapt into the air, Kopf reached up and grabbed it in mid-flight with a flick of his long arm, and magical Weapons hewed and hacked, trying to duplicate the smoothness of the feat and harvest their own Baneskulls. Magical Weapons, some jewelry, and even some enhanced Armor tumbled through the air and stacked themselves on the new Disk the Magos had snapped up. Goldweight, there to be harvested. AF Chapter 202 – Roller Coaster Running The Mick halted for just a second, ostensibly for those who had jumped free of the Disks to return with their own skulls and spoils. Then Kopf grabbed a stone tile off the ground, carved into a familiar pattern to most of them, and laid it across yet another Disk. ¡°You and you. Start Burning this crap down,¡± the Lady Magos pointed at two Stoneholders, who not coincidentally had Artificer Levels. The two Stoneholders next to the tile looked at the Infusing Pattern as the magical spoils of war shifted over on top of it, then they hurriedly sat down and lit it up with the Artificing magic that would reduce the undead Gear to goldweight Essence that could be rapidly applied to other magical items to enhance them. The Magos snapped her fingers again, and still not breathing hard at all, the Mick took off again, heading up the pass towards the cliff side. Adso watched the corpses of the undead Burning away into the healthy purity of the vivic mists as they moved rapidly away on the smooth passage of the Disks, rising and falling over the landscape without the jarring and the juking that would accompany riding wagons or beasts. Five hundred undead. Dead in basically one spell volley. They hadn¡¯t had a prayer of surviving, even if they¡¯d known what was coming. Yes, he understood, had been able to FEEL, the glorious righteousness and anathema of her magic to the undead. It had felt like the Wrath of Heaven punching into the unclean, there to wipe them from the world as the unholy, dead things that they were, no longer belonging to or meant for the lands of the living. He could also feel how judgmental some of those energies could be, and how he could never hope to wield them himself¡­ and indeed, how they might burn him and his very soul for some of the things he had done. The undead had no chance. He understood very well that a twitch of her finger would have finished the job, and she hadn¡¯t needed the fighters to wipe them. Harvest the heads, perhaps... Adso also knew that the Stoneholders were all thinking the same thing as he did. If that army had been them, and she had been standing opposite them, would any of them still be alive? ¡°Two miles up the pass and then the big jump, Lord Mick,¡± he said, pushing I Serve back home in its scabbard and returning his gaze forward. ¡°Aye, that much I remember,¡± the old scoundrel replied to him, legs pumping tirelessly as he skated uphill. The Black Aluvian said nothing more, moving with a greater speed and energy than Adso had ever seen, even from before the Fall. He found himself envying his fellow paramount and, if he remembered correctly, occasional student and hireling employed by Master Oswald, back then. Clearly, this Imperial Princess also knew things of great import and power, and had shared them with the Mick¡­ and there were things that either Briggs didn¡¯t know, or had not likewise shared. Given all that he had shared, that was not all that surprising, as the Commander¡¯s lore had been a revolution among the Stoneholders, a firm path for them to start on for self-improvement, particularly for those who had only been children at the time of the Fall. It also mean there might be a bias in who they taught. He found the thought disquieting, and shrugged it off. Just the knowledge of how to Name his Weapon and help it grow had been priceless. He now wielded a Dagger that was finer than anything he had ever owned, even before the Fall, its only limits being his own and understanding of what it might become. Still, he could not help but asking, ¡°Has she ever done anything like that¡­ to things other than the undead?¡± he asked the older paramount carefully. ¡°Dreadfully wonderful an¡¯ horrifying beautiful shite, aren¡¯t it?¡± the Mick replied over his shoulder without hesitation. ¡°She knows exactly how it looks, Adso. An¡¯ if the sight of it gives some wild-balled nutjob of a conqueror second thoughts about thinking war is the right way t¡¯ solve all yer problems, she¡¯s done things exactly right, no?¡± Adso considered that perspective, and if her character was noble, it wasn¡¯t a bad one, from any standpoint. ¡°And if she is the conqueror?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Adso, if ye knew her at all, ye¡¯d slap yerself fer even askin¡¯ the question. Y¡¯know what she loves t¡¯ do?¡± The Mick glanced over at him wryly. ¡°She likes to stroll around an¡¯ make roads, an¡¯ trails, an¡¯ paths, an¡¯ bridges, an¡¯ cute little seating nooks where folks can sit an¡¯ watch the sun. She pops up Lights so ye can see the way t¡¯ go at day or night in safety, and fountains so ye¡¯ve safe water t¡¯ drink¡­ ¡°An¡¯ when she sees undead she becomes a machine o¡¯ massacre, an¡¯ make no bones about it. She¡¯ll not rest until there¡¯s naught an undead left on the island, be it the noble fools o¡¯ me uncle in Hebian-To, caught up in a curse she WILL break for them, or the blood-magic born immortality o¡¯ these damned Empyreans sacrificin¡¯ one another for their chance to avoid death.¡± Adso took a long, deep breath. There were emotional undercurrents in the Mick¡¯s voice that couldn¡¯t really be feigned, as much fear as respect. ¡°Where does she get such an attitude?¡± He was expecting a short tale about slain family an¡¯ friends. Instead, the Mick said, ¡°She says she¡¯s seen what happens to entire worlds when the undead take over, an¡¯ there¡¯s no life, no living, an¡¯ it¡¯s all death, everywhere. They are driven to kill an¡¯ dominate the living, doomed to try an¡¯ wipe life from the world, an¡¯ she¡¯ll make damn sure she¡¯ll kill them all t¡¯ see that never happens.¡± Entire worlds? Adso glanced back at her, sitting there so serenely, eyes back to mere silver again, not shining¡­ but there was still a nameless Song rising and falling in the background, and the Weapons of everyone were still gently ringing in time with it, each in its own Note, somehow blending into a greater whole as they did so. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°The great and the Good can be as terrible an¡¯ fearsome in their own way as the great and the horrible, Adso. If not, the horrible would always be winnin¡¯. ¡®Tis something we dinnae want t¡¯ see out of the nice ones, but ye know, when the nice ones finally give up bein¡¯ nice¡­¡± He trailed off knowingly, and this time it was Adso¡¯s turn to nod. It was true. There were people who were rat bastards right from the go, and there were people who were just nice down to their bones. But when you pushed those nice people past their limits, when all their attempts to make you see reason, get along, and just plain shape up had fallen flat, well... Nice people who stepped over that line were the deadliest damn things to deal with. As you¡¯d pushed aside all reason before, they¡¯d push aside all your reasons after, all your excuses, all your words and lies, and they¡¯d make you dead. They¡¯d do it with terrifying focus, and were nearly impossible to bribe, misdirect, fool, parley with, or turn aside. The time to do things had been when they were nice, and it was clear that the Lady Magos was absolutely done with being nice about undead. ¡°The shades? The olthoi?¡± he had to ask. ¡°The shades she has sympathy for, hearing how the first were made, but that dinnae give them the right t¡¯ act as arsehats, so she¡¯s all about wiping them an¡¯ setting their souls free o¡¯ the dark. The olthoi¡­ she be having a truly frightening understandin¡¯ o¡¯ the olthoi horde an¡¯ drive an¡¯ queens, but she also be havin¡¯ a lot t¡¯ juggle on her plate. ¡°When Her Highness says it¡¯s time to pare the olthoi, that be what is goin¡¯ t¡¯ happen, an¡¯ make no bones about it.¡± ¡°She really is an Imperial Princess? Her father really is the Emperor of Ispar?¡± Adso still found it hard to believe. ¡°Aye, ¡®tis hard t¡¯ believe. But me uncle knew both her folks, an¡¯ he believes her to his rotting bones. As fer me, she made that claim in, ugh, Truth, an¡¯ ye cannot believe it be a lie.¡± Adso felt the hairs on his arm stand on end, and a shiver go up his spine at the merest edges around that Word that the Mick had stumbled over. ¡°That¡­¡± ¡°The Lady Magos can say it. I can but say that she can say it. And when ye hear it, ye¡¯ll know, an¡¯ that will be that. The old man heard it, he knows, he don¡¯t just believe.¡± And that was going to be good enough for Adso, who just nodded as the edge of the pass drew closer. ------------------ The Mick jumped, without any fear whatsoever. Once, in the days before the Fall, he would have been reluctant to do this. It was true that they¡¯d been able to fall most any distance, land, get some shooting pains up the ankles and knees, and then a minute later it were all healed up and fine and like it never were. But landin¡¯ and bouncin¡¯ down a slope were two different things. If you didn¡¯t clear the base of the mountain, then you started bouncing down it, and were killed by rapid inches, your broken and battered body coming to a rest at the foot of the mount, before discorporating as you were sent off to the Lifestone. Deathstone. Still habit, even now... That were before the Cloudstepping Sandals he could bring up his feet now, or Levitating, or Featherweighting himself, or just plain Flying, if he were of a mind to. Mists gathered around the Micks¡¯ feet, and he began sliding down through the air. Behind him, the whooping formation of Disks, some of them screaming in disbelief as he took the running leap without slowing down in the slightest to enjoy the view, followed after him. His scouts were naturally whooping it up, knowing what was coming. He could feel the air beneath himself, knew that with some concentration he could walk or run upon it like he could the ground. Aye, and jump and roll and dance even, with some concentration and skill. It swirled and dovetailed with the Waveskating Step, the lightfoot he¡¯d been taught and loved so much, streaming vapors extending out from his soles as instead of skating, he began to ski. Now, skiing was an affectation for the hill clans up in their mountains, where the snow grew deep and you had to get around in it. Splayed shoes, aye, that were possible but awkward, skis were easier, if you didn¡¯t have to go uphill¡­ and MUCH more fun going downhill. Skiing in three dimensions, that were a whole magnitude more fun! He visualized a crazy landscape ahead of him, politely asking Her Highness for a route, and she superimposed one over his vision with a flicker of effort, barely paying attention. The Mick grandly started his invisible open-air 3D slalom course. He swayed back and forth, up invisible slopes and down sharper ones, trailing the Disks behind him like a great serpent, the riders shouting and calling out and holding on for dear life. Then he tilted sideways and up, introducing the first grand curves, looping quickly, tilting everyone on their sides, and the Stoneholders screamed in astonishment at their speed and what was going on, while the Scouts just whooped it up. They all knew that if they held on, they couldn¡¯t fall off the Disks, and so white-fingered hands held onto the Disks with everything as the Mick began what Princess Kristie had called a ¡®roller-coaster ride¡¯ the first time she sprang it on her unsuspecting passengers. A ramp became a loop-de-loop. A sharp turn to the side became tight spirals descending in a corkscrew, the Disk riders looking up as they streaked past one another in shreddingly fast circles. A tunnel through the air became a drilling corkscrew, up and down the likes to lose your lunch, turning into a straight plunging fall that abruptly looped and rose back up into the air until all the momentum was satisfied¡­ and then they flowed over an unseen hill in the sky and plunged screaming down again. The Mick had a great time. His scouts, sharing in the Markview of his illusionary path, were enjoying the heck out of it, too, while the Stoneholders could only scream and literally come along for the ride. About halfway through, the Lady Magos took pity on them and gestured up an illusion ahead of them of the course the Mick was taking, which he thought was kind of defeating the purpose and spoiling his fun. But, finally able to see what was coming up, the fear of the Stoneholders rapidly evaporated and became whooping thrilled screams as he cut through the air on his course. Rising, falling, spiraling, looping, swerving, inverting, corkscrewing, twisting, and turning at breathtaking speed, the Mick turned a mere short plunging fall into a midair show and entertainment that stretched out more than four miles down the slope of the valley beyond. If anyone on the ground was wondering what the crazy gyrations of the thing in the sky glinting silver from Force Magic and steel Disks were from, well, nobody cared. They were having far too much fun. AF Chapter 203 – The Esper Inlet The Mick finally hit ground level on his roller coaster run, coasting down to a trail along a stream below, his blood pumping at the sheer fun of doing what he¡¯d done. He hopped slightly, and came down running and Skating for speed. Behind him, the train of Disks smoothly snaked into place and began to move back into proper formation, the Stoneholders all flushed and gasping for breath as the last of the illusion they¡¯d been enjoying faded away. Some of them looked nauseated and ready to be sick¡­ and then the Lady Magos waved her hands, golden sparklies fanned out and washed back over everyone, and the upset stomachs and spinning vertigo vanished like they had never been. He heard Adso swallow in great relief. ¡°I¡¯d say a little more warning next time, Lord Mick, but I think that was entirely the point, wasn¡¯t it?¡± the Hunter asked softly. ¡°Well, aye. Ye should see it when Her Highness does it, especially without that illusion prepping ye. Ye¡¯re stomach ends up between yer ears, an¡¯ ye swear yer brains are in yer toes!¡± The Green Hunter¡¯s right hand took a carefully deep breath, but the gold sparklies had done their work well, and his guts were pretending that nothing whatsoever had gone on at all, and he¡¯d better not mention it to them, either! ¡°I¡¯d like to learn how to do that,¡± Adso finally admitted quietly. ¡°Aye? Stick with the Princess, an¡¯ ye¡¯ll learn all sorts o¡¯ crazy shite. Ye kin bet yer short hairs that she¡¯s already Opened up Commander Briggs, an¡¯ he¡¯s going to be making his own runs, belike.¡± ¡°Is there a word for what that was? Does it have a combat use?¡± Adso asked, wondering. ¡°Well, aye. Sliding through the air in maddeningly evasive patterns, ¡®til down an¡¯ up make no difference, an¡¯ even the birds are wondering how t¡¯ catch up with ye? Gotta practice. Secondary purpose be it¡¯s bloody fun an¡¯ a total thrill once ye can pop it off. The Lady Magos calls it Roller Coaster Running, says it be actual sport on some worlds.¡± Adso thought about that, and slowly shook his head. ¡°That¡­ sounds like a lot more fun than endlessly grinding the same Dungeon, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ the crowds might be able t¡¯ watch ye from below. Ye just need a high enough starting point t¡¯ make it fun!¡± Adso shook his head, then pointed ahead. ¡°Left fork. The course is mostly south until we get to the Esper Inlet, then we veer southeast towards Zaikhal.¡± The Mick grunted, picturing the course from old memories overlaid on the Markspace into what the Princess called a ¡®rough map¡¯, and he called the finest cartography he¡¯d ever witnessed in some disbelief. Of course, when he then compared it to the incredibly intimate Map of the Vesayan islands and the course of the Princess¡¯ travels around the south, he had to agree it was pretty crude in relation. Filling in with tremendous speed and clarity now as he cut between the hills and peaks right now, he also observed, rough memories and painted details sharpening into real-time observations of the land, the trees, spawn points being tracked and plotted in real-time as the sniping of Summons re-commenced. Half-remembered hills and trails became iron recollections seen through a dozen eyes, even the date and time of passing something that could be looked for and noted, meaning this was a map that updated in real time. They could even compare it to what it looked like a day, or a year before, if someone else passed by. That could be very crucial for tracking and noting the amount of traffic and development in the area. Even now he could watch a timestamped delay of Fort Overlook developing, by the minute, hour, or day, as he liked, a fascinating scene of the fort and town below it coming into being almost magically, like ants a-working, or a set of blocks being stacked up by children, only this time making a town. The Map was something that could eat up a lot of time, if the Princess allowed you to just stare and people-watch, which she wasn¡¯t likely to do. It was seventy-some miles to Zaikhal. Adso had definitely traveled the course not too long ago, and there should be no surprises to speak of until they arrived at the Esper Inlet, the long body of water providing a conveniently straight travel path from the western edge of the island and inland for many miles. There might be some undead forces arrayed as reinforcements on the inlet, but they rotated in and out, so it was impossible to tell if they were there without Scrying¡­ and Ryin had blithely said the undead Scried one another all the time, so them doing so was going to be noticed, and be as good as alerting them that not only could she Scry, but that something was coming. The Mick stretched out, running more with his soul and spirit than any physical effort, a pace faster than a man sprinting taking no more energy than a casual stroll right now. Twenty miles, an hour to the inlet the Empyreans called ¡®The Knife¡¯ for the way it stabbed into the side of the island. Then a turn south and east, and heading for the old Gharu¡¯n capital on Dereth. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ------- It had been a very long time since many of the Stoneholders had seen a body of water that wasn¡¯t easily seen across, and extended west out of sight. The rest of them had simply never seen so much water, never even seeing the ocean as it was too far from the defenses of the Hold. The Mick came down out of the hills and coasted down the beach, hands clasped behind his back as his feet ghosted above the ground beneath, riding the stone, grass, and sands down towards the water. Seawater, as he remembered it, connected directly to the sea. Brackish, pushed back by the streams and rainwater that fed into it. The tidal rolls had been entertaining to watch every day, massive waves rolling up the estuary against the flow of the water as the moon passed by. Disks and Disks shifted back and forth as the riders spread out to look at the waters, the Holders almost mesmerized by the sight. Bows thrummed, and heads turned to see the Royal Scouts lowering their Bows, a floating niffi down the beach shriveling up and starting to Burn vivic. ¡°The Shit in the Sea,¡± murmured Princess Kristie, rising to her full height on her Floating Forge, her every word biting and clear to everyone. ¡°Magos?¡± ¡°The channel is unnaturally shallow and the currents stirred by something. There is no Shoreward, and given the terrain, this should be a stagnant pool, a great marshland gradually filling in as the mountains wear down into the seas. ¡°There is subtle magic keeping this intact and unchanged. This should have long filled in and been naught but a swamp and marshlands at best by now,¡± she reported to them, looking out over the defiant waters with her silver eyes. ¡°There is an island in the middle of the lake at the end,¡± Adso spoke up, standing up on his Disk and looking over the water with everyone else, his hand pointing unerringly east and south. ¡°That shadow on the water and hills rising there is not the far shore.¡± All the eyes turned that way, contemplating. ¡°Something that came out of the dimensions during the Fall?¡± Briggs rumbled thoughtfully, not having seen it before, his pale green eyes intent. ¡°Master Oswald said the place is crawling with undead and multiple Dungeons forced into reality, the place is often honeycombed with them. He scouted the surroundings, but declined to enter more deeply without good reason.¡± ¡°Faction?¡± Briggs asked fatalistically. ¡°Believed to be the Wind. It might even be Geraine¡¯s formerly secret base of operations, but that is mere supposition,¡± Adso replied evenly. ¡°There are undead going to and from it regularly, but mostly messengers, no large forces entering or leaving,¡± he informed them. ¡°Meaning they aren¡¯t concerned about their defenses, being able to see anything coming from so far away,¡± Kris mused, biting off the words. ¡°Another time. It is not our goal. Lord Mick?¡± They¡¯d forgotten about the Black Aluvian, who straightened from his crouch, dusting the sand from his gauntlets. ¡°The last sign of numbers passing this point is at least three days old, Highness,¡± he reported coolly. ¡°Any places they like to station themselves, Adso?¡± he asked evenly. Adso pointed in the other direction from the island. ¡°Trident Point is where they station relief forces looking to contain Stonehold, if they bother to rotate them. They¡¯ve left the same companies in passes and valleys for months and years at a time, but sometimes nobles arrive and depart with entourages.¡± ¡°So we might meet some real undead on the way. We wipe them and keep going,¡± Briggs stated crisply. ¡°Lord Mick, you may resume. Eyes forward and sharp, everyone.¡± The Mick tossed the huge young man a salute, turning on his heel as the many Disks and Disks once more moved into formation behind him, a bit wider a wedge than before. He pushed off, and once more, began his run. ---------- Zaikhal was a city in foothills, protected from the north, east, and west by rising ridgelines which were not insurmountable, but certainly would have been easily defended were the need to arise, and a good place to set up watchers over the surrounding landscape. The southern approach, with the road that led to Al-Jalima, was the most open and would be the most well-defended. The path they chose there was to come in from the north, as the Mick¡¯s lightfoot and the Disks made the climb up the hills a quick and sure thing, and word would be difficult to send before the force was upon the sentries upon those hilltops. Those sentries were likely not the most alert after years of literally nothing happening, unless the virindi or the shades had attempted attacks at some point, something nobody was sure of. The path skirted the edges of what hills were in the way, being mostly forest for mile after mile. Yet this was terrain Adso had traveled many times, and it was plain where the undead had done so, as they¡¯d hacked clear trails and stamped them flat, searing them with fire and acid to make sure they stayed that way as they moved their forces around. All of which didn¡¯t help the undead who almost ran into the Mick as he was flowing along a forest trail, rounded a corner, and found a force of fifty undead accompanying a central undead in blue and yellow robes. Said undead were almost instantly the target of six Chained Shardrays converging on it, even before the Scouts could draw back their Bows. The Mick barely checked his progress forward as the undead before him exploded, Bunita sweeping out as six Rays converged on the centermost undead, and just before they blew it to vivic dust, his Claymore arced past it. While Disks crashed through disintegrating corpses, telekinetic hands yanking anything valuable off of empty armor and clothes falling to the ground, Kopf reached out, snatched the tumbling head out of the air, and added it to their stack of soon-to-be Baneskulls. AF Chapter 204 – An Undead City The undead were really, really not expecting an attack. After all, by their estimation Stonehold should right then be under siege, a sallying force shouldn¡¯t be coming out from it¡­ and especially on its way to somewhere else. There was a watchtower on top of the ridge. Princess Kristie stopped carving with Briggs and dashed on ahead after I tossed Invisibility on her. By the time the Mick loped up the steep southern side of the ridge, all the undead at said watchtower were Burning white dust, and she¡¯d already flitted off west to take care of the spotters along the line of the hill. The Dungeons once held by Viamontian invaders were now revealed as sprawling fortified complexes extending into the hills and stone behind them, the Mick commenting on them as he jogged on by. The Summons on top of the small walls barring the way turned their blue-skinned, armored heads after us as he shot on by, but did not otherwise react. There were a lot of undead ahead. I rapidly sifted through them, marking them in levels of power¡­ and very specifically, marking those who were not Empyrean undead. There were a bunch of them, but I had a moving Illusionary Wall in front of us, painting us out of the picture, and we drove into the side of the city completely unexpected, no blaring horns or booming spells to alarm anyone. Those things happened as the undead began to die violently. I spent my time limning stuff in silvery Faerie Fires, picking out who was to be killed, and who was to be ignored. Anything in white was simply left alone, and those undead just basically stood there and watched us surge past them, hacking and hewing through all the other undead bastards in the way. Responses were pretty mixed, especially with how fast we were moving. The undead could be very tough, it was true, and they could also die REALLY fast to people with the right kind of Weapons. Firephasing Weapons anointed with a hastily-taught Undead Slayer Infusion were just those kind of Weapons, in the hands of Melees using them with excellent charge bonuses, opportunity attacks for using magic, and multiple attacks to bring them down all the faster. I had Cures all ready, and was monitoring basically the whole battlefield, Detect Evil at V painting every damn thing within range and showing everyone where to go. Briggs was heading right for the toughest targets without the slightest hesitation, the Mick was taking secondary objectives, and the Stoneholders, along with the three gurogs who¡¯d again chosen to tag along, were administering master classes in close-up violence. Mostly, the undead didn¡¯t know what was going on, and didn¡¯t quite know what to do other than blindly attack once they realized what was happening. We took full advantage of it to sweep through the outskirts of the city and drive for the center with speed and energy, ferreting them out wherever they were. My head turned as Detect Evil pointed out two entities coming into range with different sparks and flavors on them. ¡°Lord Mick! Fifty yards SSE, there¡¯s a shade, probably an envoy! Take him out! Briggs! I¡¯ve got a powerful Virindi showcasing at ten o-clock, one hundred meters!¡± Their figures on my Heavens-Up Display rapidly shifted course with speed and verve, chopping through anything in the way as they zipped past random undead in their paths, their personal squads cleaning up after them. I think the Mick went through a doorway at speed, chopping through its hinges, and was on top of the shade inside the house before it could really get ready for him. The Royal Scouts promptly spread out around the house to defend it, the archers keeping up ceaseless target-picking as the melees braced against undead charging in to attack them. I was staying near the middle of the advancing pack, warning everyone not to get out of range of my Cures as we advanced through the town, hauling them back even if they had viable targets there. The undead were already converging, but in ragged, disjointed fashion, no real leadership among them. Pulling back, the Stoneholders could easily isolate and surround them as the undead rattled after us, and were leaving piles of corpse-flesh Burning vivic all through the streets as we headed for the center of the city. A plume of purple-red energy erupted skyward after what sounded like a bulldozer going through a stone wall went off, and something Aberrant died remarkably fast, probably to its great surprise. Didn¡¯t need no hivemind creature reporting on us being here. The plume faded as fast as it came up, and if there looked to be a white flash climbing it with speed as it faltered, surely it was just a trick of the light. The clearing of Zaikhal continued with great speed as I spun, painting all the targets, Briggs directed the teams and squads through the Fellowship links, and wolf-packing Stoneholders tore the undead new ones for the first and last time, ensuring that they¡¯d not be coming back, nor warning anyone of our coming. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ------ ¡°Damn me, he¡¯s still there.¡± The Mick had turned around, looking back to the opposite edge of the plaza. A corpse clad in the robes of a Town Crier was still standing there under the stubs of what had once been the town sign, proudly proclaiming the name of the Gharu¡¯n¡¯s most scholarly city, and hence capital. There was no reason for him to be there, but he¡¯d stayed at his post when most of the living population had fled, unable to leave, even if he had wanted to. The undead had simply turned him into a zombie and had him continue with his job, in open mockery of what he was. NPC¡¯s. Unable to decide their own fate, just instruments of whoever was pulling the strings here. The Mick turned to look at the second floor, an open patio, of one of the stone buildings that surrounded the small plaza. Another walking corpse, with a shock of blond hair that hadn¡¯t fallen out, was still there, standing in the same place as always, waiting for someone to visit him, give him stones or crystals or golum hearts or something, and do what he was programmed to do. The Mick could almost feel the calling as he moved ahead. It was DEFINITELY not his imagination: he was being called to this place, and this person. There was a flash of fire on the hilltop behind him, the center of the scholar¡¯s home where once a Translator, Kuyiza bint Zayi, had famously made her abode and overseen the efforts to translate the history of the peoples of the island, as well as manage the lore and research of many Gharu¡¯n scholars. He hoped it wasn¡¯t a bunch of scrolls going up, just a bunch of undead biting the dust. Yes, snuffing a bunch of undead Dericostan scholars could be seen as savage. Translator Kuyiza and her entourage had lost nine in ten of their number while fleeing to Hebian-to after the Fall, so he didn¡¯t feel bad at all. He didn¡¯t take the stairs inside. Just as he had in the old days, he tensed his legs and bounced up to the edge of the patio with even less effort than he had back then. The Stone Collector turned to look at him, but there was no recognition in his dead eyes at all. Slowly and deliberately, the Mick drew out a Diamond Golum Heart from his Masspack. That received instant recognition, a light going on in the undead Collector¡¯s eye. ¡°Hey, there, sir. Long time no see. I be the Mick, sorry for not visiting after all this time.¡± The Stone Collector told him in a clear recital that brought back a rush of memories, "I will take a number of trophy stones and jewels, such as virindi jewels, swamp stones, iron, copper, and granite golem hearts, in trade! What do you have for me?¡± ¡°Well, first I be wanting to know your name,¡± the Mick replied promptly, prodded by his instincts. The zombie actually trembled, head to toe, as if he¡¯d just broken some sort of pattern. ¡°My¡­ name, Master Mick?¡± he repeated blankly. ¡°Aye, sir. Your name. Forgive me rudeness for not asking fer a proper introduction after all this time. I be Mikal McMikal o¡¯ Aluvia, Lord Warden o¡¯ the Royal Scouts of Freehold, it be my honor t¡¯ inform ye, goodman.¡± The zombie stared blankly at him for a moment, lipless mouth opening and closing silently on exposed teeth. ¡°My name¡­¡± He turned slightly, and the Mick looked over as the Lady Magos rose up from below on her Disk, and his empty eyes fell upon her hand. His whole mannerism seemed to change in a moment, and the Mick actually watched a soft pink glow light up inside his empty eyes. ¡°My name¡­ my name is Gordi Tanhoffson. Of the Tanhoffs of the lower Jurenso Valley, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Tell me yer mother¡¯s clan, and yer father¡¯s name,¡± the Mick said softly. ¡°Yer kin will want to know of ye.¡± ¡°My kin¡­¡± the dead man spoke roughly. ¡°My mother, she was named Bria, of the Kullding Clan. My father was Orland Tanhoffson, a cooper, as was his father before him.¡± The Mick nodded slowly and somberly, presenting the Diamond Golum Heart to the man. ¡°Ye know of this still?¡± ¡°You¡¯re lucky to find one of these!¡± The words came out as if scripted, heard a hundred times before. The undead Stone Collector reached out to take the Heart from the Mick¡¯s hands, partially turned away, and turned back with no Heart in his hands, but three glistening diamond Scarabs now sat there in his palm. The Mick took them without comment. ¡°That¡¯s a fine ring your lady is wearing there. May I see it? One doesn¡¯t see that hue of a stone every day¡­¡± the Collector asked. The Mick met her eyes, and the Magos calmly slipped the Rose of Celdon copy off her finger and passed it over. The Stone Collector held it up. ¡°Amarinthine Rose Quartz! I haven¡¯t seen this color of stone in ages! The only man I knew who had any was that curmudgeon Harlune, but who knew where he went after the undead all moved in here¡­¡± The Magos said nothing as the Ring was passed back, nor did the Mick, simply bowing to the Stone Collector and receiving a belated bow in return. ¡°Gordi Tanhoffson, do you want to be free?¡± he asked shortly, drawing out Bunita and holding it up in a non-threatening manner. Swirls of Lost Light rose, soft and gentle, dancing inside the vivic flames that fell misting and spinning from the chromatic light glinting softly on the razored edge of the Blade. The Stone Collector¡¯s eyes fixed on that misting unwhite flame, another ripple passing through him. ¡°Lord Mick, I think I¡¯d like to rest a great deal. As would, as would a number of my fellow citizens¡­¡± The Mick turned Bunita around quietly and offered him the hilt. He had no eyelids to close, but the light in the dark and lifeless orbs only seemed to blaze up for a moment. ¡°Master Harlune always hated the olthoi, Lord Mick!¡± dribbled out past his lipless teeth, and then he urgently clasped both of his undead hands on the hilt of the dagger-sized Claymore¡¯s hilt. AF Chapter 205 – To Rest, and To Sleep Lost Light, trailing wisps and streams of vivus, poured down the shabby, decaying cloth of the Stone Collector¡¯s arms, and actually wove right through cloth and rotting flesh and bone as it did so. Little points of Light trailed misting flame behind them, moving down into his body, through and around his chest, and only grew in speed and brightness as they punched through his torso, spread down his legs, and rapidly encircled his head. Gordi Tanhoffson tilted his rotting skull back as vivus ignited over him, and for a clear and wonderful moment, the faint image of the man he used to be burned over meat and bone that was falling to white dust and less. And he was smiling, smiling in sublime joy. There was the faintest of puffs, and vivus ate the magic binding him to the mortal world, his long-dead body fell away, and his spirit was gone and set free. Bunita dropped into the Mick¡¯s hand, subdued, but the chromatic edge of it seemed brighter than ever. ¡°His fellow citizens, he said,¡± the Mick said roughly, staring at the moldering clothes being consumed after long necroic saturation had kept them raggedly intact all this time. ¡°The undead I limned in white,¡± the Lady Magos told him quietly. ¡°Fucking doomed in life, and then twice doomed in death. The fucking bastards, all of them,¡± the Mick fought down his choking. ¡°Amorality is the best kind of morality in the view of the undead. Especially if it¡¯s grimly entertaining.¡± ¡°Shall we go see if there¡¯s anything these fine citizens might not want to tell us before they go?¡± he asked her. ¡°That seems like a wonderfully honorable thing to do, Lord Mick.¡± -------- ¡°I heard the old pyreal mines in the golum foundry on Aerlinthe are still open!¡± ¡°The Gelidites are still pining to get their Bloodstone operation moving again! Brave adventurers might want to do something about that!¡± ¡°It¡¯s said that the Virindi might be trying to harness the Ampherelion Vault¡¯s power! Surely that can¡¯t be good for the people of Dereth!¡± It didn¡¯t really look like a smile, but the manic grin was visible in his eyes as the Town Crier cheerfully related lots and lots of gossip, and didn¡¯t repeat a single thing while we gave him one pyreal coin after another patiently. The Mick was standing there with Bunita laying across his arm, hilt offered to the Crier. The dead man had watched as twenty-three separate human undead had taken up the Sword, and the Lost Light sent them on to their proper fates. From that point on, each single pyreal coin offered to him unleashed a brief yet surprisingly informed piece of information which I was listing out. Both Briggs and Kristie were listening to with some fascination and grave curiosity as the Crier cheerfully related the movements and politics of what the undead had been doing around it for the last fifteen years, while I calmly kept feeding him coins. ¡°A long-lost daughter of the missing Isparian witch Nuhmudira has appeared on the scene. Is she planning on finding her mother? She has spoken with several undead lords about certain matters¡­¡± I stiffened, as did Kristie, and the Mick scowled deeply, while the watching Adso frowned and his eyes narrowed. The Crier didn¡¯t miss it, and if anything, the grim glee of satisfaction in his eyes only grew brighter. ¡°The undead are whispering about a white fire that kills them forever, and making plans to destroy this threat to them. Brave adventurers should head off their efforts before Lord Rytheran can properly organize them!¡± Oh, that wasn¡¯t good news, either. ¡°The deranged shades of the Tou-Tou Peninsula have been destroyed and are finally gone! Nobody knows how the Isparians did it, but they are flooding back into the southeastern lands of Dereth once again! Who knows how the undead will react to such intrusions from the pesky vermin they chased away not so long ago?¡± Talking about that rather quickly. So, the news had spread. ¡°The undead have mobilized a force to take out the isolated Isparian settlement of Stonehold! Obviously, their patience and tolerance for annoyances has reached its limit, and they are heading out to destroy the pests! Whatever can mere Isparians do against such great forces of evil?¡± the Town Crier went on dramatically. The Mick looked at the Crier before I offered another coin. ¡°May I present to you Commander Briggs of Stonehold, Master Patrich?¡± he bowed to the looming Ancient grandly. The Crier looked up at Briggs, who nodded down at him, and his grin threatened to tear open his face. ¡°Isparians have attacked the undead-held town of Zaikhal, and liberated those long caught in undeath therein! Remember their valor and kindness forever, brave adventurers!¡± he sang out as he pocketed one more pyreal coin, turned, and grabbed Bunita. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. We all watched him Burn down in a show of light, an ecstatic grin on the shadows of his face we saw for the moment it shone bright and clear. Then his clothing fell, and for all that he¡¯d pocketed over a hundred coins, there was nary a one in the misting dust that was left of him after vivus riding Lost Light was through with him. ¡°It¡¯s like a lot of bastards have been busy for fifteen years, and they just ignored the hapless trapped in their jobs,¡± the Mick sighed, watching the robes of the Town Crier Burn away. ¡°He was waiting a long time to unload all that stuff. Best use of coins I¡¯ve ever seen,¡± Kris agreed with a nod. ¡°Knowing the Graveyard threw them out is huge. That must have been jarring.¡± ¡°And the virindi are pissing off everyone, being inscrutable and all,¡± Briggs rumbled. ¡°How many different Entities did he mention pulling shit?¡± ¡°I counted six we¡¯ve never heard of. Empyreans seem to have known of a lot of arseholes of the Mythos,¡± I said, noting the ¡®news¡¯ that I had flagged as key. ¡°The Direlands are going to have more places of interest if and when we ever get back there.¡± ¡°I have to wonder just how many Dungeons are out there, packed full of undead of all kinds just waiting around for a fight,¡± Kris grunted with feeling. ¡°Like, they have no purpose left BUT to fight.¡± ¡°Aye, but more important to us, there are no more Empyreans around of their people. They¡¯ve just discovered the worst thing about an undead society that draws from the living. When there¡¯s no more living but the undead, there¡¯s no way to replace those who fall.¡± Briggs looked around at the surrounding town, wiped clean of all undead with remarkably little damage to it. ¡°Except to create more slaved undead, which dinnae replace their own undead people,¡± the Mick followed up quickly. ¡°I was interested to hear that Harlune is alive, and presumably somewhere in the Olthoi North,¡± Adso spoke up from the side. ¡°Master Oswald knows that area well, and never ran into him.¡± ¡°Strange that a famously reclusive Empyrean Archmage is hard to find when he doesn¡¯t want to be found?¡± Kris asked him archly. Adso just shrugged. ¡°Master Oswald has always been exceptionally good at finding people who don¡¯t want to be found.¡± ¡°And Harlune has been exceptionally good at avoiding those who want to bother him,¡± Kris rejoined with a wave of her hand. ¡°Age and experience versus youth and enthusiasm.¡± Adso opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it. There was absolutely no doubt that Harlune was at least ten times Master Oswald¡¯s age, if not a hundred! ¡°Indeed,¡± he finally conceded, somewhat ruefully. ¡°The looting is mostly done.¡± Nearly twoscore additional Disks had been heaped up with all manner of loot, focusing first on goldweight-equivalents in coin, gemwork, or magic, and then with practical things, like sets of chairs¡­ or lots and lots of scrolls from the Scholarium that Translator Kuyiza had once worked in. It would all be allocated swiftly or Burned away with speed, given the number of combatants here today. ¡°Let¡¯s finish that up, and get out of here.¡± Kris¡¯ pale violet eyes gleamed slightly. ¡°I understand Al-Jalima isn¡¯t that far down the road.¡± Wolvish smiles broke out all around at that. Indeed, while the road would wrap around, as the crow flew it was scarcely five miles to the next Gharu¡¯n town, and the hills weren¡¯t going to slow them down at all... ------ Hours later¡­ The sun was starting to dip down as they left the ruins of Samsur behind them, cleansed of undead and of enslaved NPC¡¯s who¡¯d been unable to leave their places and stations. They had loot and they had no fatalities. The undead hadn¡¯t managed to warn one another of what was coming, and any they¡¯d encountered on the overland trips between Zaikhal, the trade city of Al-Jalima, and the residential town of Samsur had also been wiped clean with vivus. The one thing they had not stopped to do which they might have was investigate the smaller settlements they passed by. Some may or may not have had an undead presence, but there were too many and they¡¯d waste too much time. The Mick regretted the necessity, but their positions were noted in the Markspace to investigate in the future. There were a lot of them to come back to, which at least gave them some motivation to do so. His heart was more at ease than it had been in years. The reanimated NPC¡¯s had not been able to tell them much, save for the Criers, who had been willing and able to share all sorts of gossip with them gleefully, one pyreal coin at a time. But they¡¯d all chosen to take Bunita in hand, and smile in joy as the Lost Light sent them gently and carefully to their rest. It didn¡¯t matter that he¡¯d run over a hundred miles in one day already. He was going to make it across the desert now, and they were going to slam into Yanshi, confirmed as the western-most outpost of the undead in Dereth, and they were going to wipe it clean at speed. Then, as night fell, Princess Kristie was going to take up the running, down along the Blackmire, into lugian territory, cutting through any of the Gotrok Summons and scouts they ran across, and they were going to make it over the hills to Baishi in its river valley where the Hea and Gotrok often met for trade, over the Tukals to the marshaling town of Lin, and then down the trails to Mayoi at speed. They might even hit the marching Gotrok army from behind, if the words of the scouts tracking the force coming east out of Tukal were right. It was a lot of ground to cover, but the Mick¡¯s heart felt light, his ki was flowing nicely, and he didn¡¯t feel tired at all as he poured it on in the direction of Yanshi. Vivisized undead carried no battle reports to their seniors. None of them had any idea how many undead had fallen into slavery to the System and were little more than automatons. The number could be in the millions. But every one they killed as a Summons was one that wouldn¡¯t come back, and eventually, eventually, they¡¯d all be gone, and no undead would be Summoned into the world again. The same fate was going to befall the undead not slaved to the System, and their superiors literally had no way to replace them once they were gone. After all, there were no living Empyreans left that they knew of, except possibly on other worlds. And were the undead going to leave here, go and try and find them on other worlds? His gut said no. Not even that they might not want to, but that the powers that had brought them here in the first place simply wouldn¡¯t let them go, whether they knew it or not. They were prisoners, but the chains holding them here were woven of time, tradition, pride, and arrogance. They thought they were the masters, and instead they were just pawns who didn¡¯t know it, hapless pieces in the game they thought they were playing. Pieces whose time could now be measured. His pace picked up, and the hot stone and sands of the desert flew by beneath him. Just as impossible as the rest of the island, true desert springing up and then fading away within miles, as if painted onto the island just for a little variety. Just one more sign of the things that had made this place and turned it into their pet stage for interesting things to watch. They¡¯d be in Yanshi in an hour, and more ¡®living¡¯ undead and Summons were going to bite it violently, brought down in fire and vivus, and then there¡¯d be a long run to Mayoi in the evening and the dark. The Gotrok weren¡¯t going to like it when they arrived. AF Chapter 206 – A Storm is Coming Things were going astonishingly well. It was hard for Princess Kristie Rantha to keep the grin off her face. She was a Warlord, and she was heading for yet another big fight. She was a warrior, and she had been getting some nice savage and well-deserved combat in. She was a power-leveler and the sweet, sweet Karma was coming in nicely. She was a Gear fanatic and the upgrades and Investing were continuing every day¡­ She made a mental note that they were running low on goldweight and she¡¯d have to have Ryin go looking for some Energized Metal. It was no surprise that they could run through the stuff far faster than they could mine it through normal means. Even the impressive amount of looted goldweight they¡¯d earned today was going to be absolutely gone in a week if everyone got a fair share¡­ although she had already floated past her Fuzzy that they should be making Healing items everyone could share and use, rather than a bunch of minor baubles that would result from everyone getting their ten goldweight each, or something. And she¡¯d found her Fuzzy! She grinned and tried not to grind her hips for him, or let out a whoop of happiness at the fact. She¡¯d never really understood the attraction between her mom and her dad, who never seemed to get tired of one another, and the inherited memories she shared with her mother and sisters didn¡¯t really seem to explain it. She didn¡¯t have the same attraction to her father or brothers, of course, rebelling at the very thought. But now she had a Briggs of her own, and the world was just So Perfect right now! All that nice burning Source Presence washing over her, all for her! She had to focus not to chew on her lip, feeling the flow of it moving past her, pushing her along, even as she sort of led it where she wanted to go. Whether anyone liked it or not, her Briggs was going to stand on top of this island. He was a King Among Men, not just a King OF Men, like Borelean was. People were going to flock to him, come to him, and follow his dreams and ambitions. If people tried to stand in his way, they were going to get inexorably ground down, worn down, and trampled flat, even if Briggs took no direct action. Moving against a powerful Source was the very definition of fighting against the river and trying to run. You could do it if you were VERY powerful, but it was going to be exhausting, frustrating, and unless you could dam and stop the river, you were probably going to lose in the end. And she¡¯d fucking see that anyone who tried to dam this river earned a yard of steel in their guts, too. That was HER job, as it was her mother¡¯s! She could absolutely feel it. She had incredible influence over her Fuzzy, she¡¯d felt it the instant their eyes met. Hagspawn and Hagchild, she had gender dominance over him. He was literally born to find and obey his Hag. He was also a Source, a King Among Men, who could crush Destiny and Doom, Fate and Luck, under his heel and forge a totally new path. The leaders and warlords of the Forsaken, who ruled them better than Null or Void possibly could. She was at once the strongest determiner of the course he could take, and the biggest boulder he could drive along that course, crashing through everything before him, the target-caller and the weapon all in one. Maybe a Void Brother would have been better as the target-caller. Well, no maybes about that. Even Mom had remonstrated the lack of Void Brothers being able to seek out the real hidden threats and make a truly better world. Nulls were rocks, and Voids were knives. They could do their best, and do it with enthusiasm, but there¡¯d been no sign of Voids among the Isparians, whatever branch race of humanity they were. They¡¯d ALL had at least some minor magical ability, which ruled out Voids and other Forsaken. Indeed, the Hag Curse, and the Rantha Curse that derived from it literally creating the Ranthas by stripping the magic from them was likely the only reason they were Forsaken at all. Knowing she could manipulate her Briggs without real effort was paradoxical, because he knew he was being manipulated and likely wouldn¡¯t really care, trusting his Hag to be his best advisor and greatest weapon, as he was her rock and best tool and fuzzy Fuzzy! She¡¯d kill any idiot who was a threat to her Fuzzy! She knew it, and he knew it, too! That necessarily included all the undead fucks who thought the living were just raw materials and dupes to be manipulated, and soooo many of the other creatures who thought killing women and children were perfectly acceptable battle tactics. Ranthas LIVED to give those things what was coming to them! Mess with a Hag, you get the shank! Yanshi was now clear of the undead. They¡¯d been totally surprised when a bunch of living Isparians, Aun, lugians, and even a trio of gurogs had come crashing into their little strongpoint and put them down to ash, clearly not expecting the level of competence and power of the Weapons that had been used on them. Or the Mass Imperils and Mass Vulns. Those had really done a number on the bastards! The undead tendency not to Buff ahead of time and keep them going with the slow mana renewal had definitely hurt them when they couldn¡¯t Dispel the magic, or get the counter-Buffs up in time¡­ A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. The NPC¡¯s had once again been asked their names, and then offered Bunita¡¯s hilt. Every single one of them had taken the hilt of the Claymore of the Lost Light and been freed from their slavery, both from the undead and from whatever had forced them into that status in the first place. She had been watching the Stoneholders who had watched each and every one of those poor bastards take the chance to be free, and knew she was going to find some new Knights of the Lost Light among them. Valus would be happy with them, if only He could see them now. Speaking of which¡­ -Ryin, how¡¯s your weather control?- she /asked the Lady Magos, who looked to be in quiet meditation, but in reality was ranging out ahead of them with her Detects, fingering and charting every single Spawn point and hidden creature of non-Good or magical nature, which basically meant all of them. Kris had set the information in her Visual File as an imprint over her own night vision, as had the Mick and Briggs, who were quietly directing efforts to either clear the path ahead or Seal the spawn points behind them, as appropriate. -It¡¯s not midnight, I can Surge for Control Weather if required,- Ryin /replied calmly, conversation having no effect on her magical scouting duties. -What do you have in mind?- -You gave these Gotrok chuckleheads a taste of Silver lightning from Heaven. What do you think they will think of an entire storm of the stuff, complemented by multiple Call Lightnings?- -You want me to bring a Storm of Wrath upon them?- Her /voice was only a little dry, more amused than anything. -You know I don¡¯t like winning battles with magic unless it¡¯s a magical foe.- Kris agreed with that mentality. If fighters were irrelevant to the fight, martial knowledge would collapse and flounder, as it had among the paramounts before the Fall, and such had cost the people greatly. If you wanted great fighters, people had to fight, and they had to know the fighting was necessary! In the end, everything came down to the damn infantry, and that¡¯s where it should be. Spellcasters slaughtering armies from a distance was a nasty, nasty thought, and Kris knew the Stoneholders were very, very unnerved by just how fast Ryin had slaughtered all those extremely tough undead enemies. Even knowing it was the one enemy she was absolutely the best at taking out, watching five hundred, then thousands, of undead get absolutely mowed down by magic was a huge wake-up call for them. Warriors kill individuals, Casters kill armies. That had never really been the case with Isparian War Magic, which STILL had more killing power than almost any warrior with a Weapon¡­ at least, until those warriors got their mitts on Power of Ten Combat Feats and Techniques! Now, the fact had been shoved in their faces, and the warriors here were pondering just how relevant they were with her around. Briggs was listening in, because she wanted him to. -Enough Lightning to break their Formations and shake their morale will be fine. Slaughter the Summons as you like. The rest, I¡¯ll call them out in ritual challenges. Won¡¯t be hard, they are cowering behind their Summons, pretending they are warlords and generals. -It¡¯s time to feed them their teeth and show them the lies of their own martial ability, especially since we bring True Death with us.- Kris nodded grimly at her Fuzzy¡¯s steely tone. -Fuck up their morale, and then stab them where they think they are strongest. They haven¡¯t been pursuing power or Levels, they¡¯ve been playing overlords with their pathetic armies of Summons.- -Paint the ones that be Evil,- the Mick /joined in acidly. -They be having blood on their hands and glorying in it. It be time for the rabid dogs t¡¯ be put down.- -Amen to that,- Ryin /murmured, a flicker of thought tracking the Scout teams who were using this opportunity to Seal all the Spawn Points the Summoned Lugians had sprung from, all across the Linvaks. The Gotrok would not be able to raise this kind of army again, not without something breaking the vivus Sealing each point they came from. Hundreds had quietly been Sealed already, done in stealth and quiet, with most of the sentries and Summons not in the area. The main lugian force had already come over the hills from Baishi and was camped en route to Mayoi, with some Hea shamans and hunters along to provide magical support and Healing for them. Estimation were ninety percent Summons, ten percent living Gotroks. They¡¯d be up before dawn and at the walls of Mayoi within two hours after that. Kris was definitely going to reach them before then. -Are we hitting the camp, blowing through and making for Mayoi, or avoiding it and letting them come to Mayoi under clouds burning with Silver lightning?- Kris /asked reasonably. -Master Ben Ten will be a wee bit upset if he and his students be not allowed t¡¯ join the fun,- the Mick /pointed out. -Blow through it, kill some Summons, outrun them when they try to catch up,- Briggs /stated, and this time his Voice rose. ¡°Gentlemen, the lugians have already come out of the Linvaks and are camped several miles from Mayoi, intending to reach and attack it in the morning. We are going to Summon up a storm, blow through their camp, and move to Mayoi to reinforce its walls. ¡°The goal of our eventual fight is going to be challenging the living Gotrok there to individual duels. If they refuse, we are going to punish them with the Wrath of Heaven.¡± There were murmurs and heads nodding at that, glancing Ryin¡¯s way. ¡°Every Summons we Burn down is one more soul freed from this system shackling them to slavery. You are doing a great and Good thing by freeing them from that slavery, both from their living kin and the system itself that is locking them to a hollow mockery of life. ¡°We are going with the Blessing of Heaven itself, and you are going to feel what it means to have Thunder in the soul and Lightning in your heart when it comes time to do battle!¡± There were rumbles and shouts of excitement. They¡¯d felt the power of the Haste spell crackling over them all, they¡¯d felt their hearts pound when Endure beat a rhythm and their Warlord uttered commands¡­ and then they¡¯d felt the Trembling Song make them feel like they could do anything, overcome any foe, or die with a smile on their lips. Lightning was crackling and Thunder was rumbling, they were on their way! AF Chapter 207 – A Crashing of Thunder Well, it wasn¡¯t exactly subtle. The Mick grinned as he looked overhead, unable to hold it back. It was a smile reflected on many faces around them. The clouds above them should have been dark, a roiling, seething mass of gray, threatening to break into rain and winds and just plain misery for the fighters racing along beneath it on their Disks. Instead, it was flashing and pulsing with light, bursts of crackling Silver Lightning seething inside it and over its edges as wrathful winds pushed it along, lit from within by a high and profound Light that was not natural in the slightest. Nor was the Thunder that rang out with each bolt that danced inside those clouds. Each was less a rumble than the long tenor of a ringing celestial bell, heralding a coming of something that was something much, much more than a storm. It was the Wrath of Heaven, and it was Good! -Hey, lass, what if this were to rain?- he /asked the Lady Magos about this, head craned back as he rode on his Disk, ignoring the breeze as Princess Kristie hurtled along as fast as a racing horse. -Holy water, shining in gold and silver, washing away at anything evil or dark below it. Shades and undead would melt away like acid eating away at them. This kind of magic is one reason why most undead hordes keep an iron fist on the weather around them, and are accompanied by dark clouds. They don¡¯t want to be washed away by Holy rain.- Casters kill armies, the Mick reflected to himself. An¡¯ for this one, especially undead armies. The lugians couldn¡¯t miss seeing them coming. The brooding, flaring clouds were clearly visible on the horizon, sweeping their way down along the mountains. They couldn¡¯t see the people on the ground, of course, the weather pacing them at a breakneck pace. The warriors beneath the clouds were either laid back, looking up at the show like he was, or had their eyes closed, listening to a melody that was rumbling in their soul with a greatness and Goodness they had never felt in all their lives. He glanced over at Adso, Oswald¡¯s favored student, noting the slack jaw as the hunter and killer stared up at the sky. Good rumbled down back at him, saying things the man had never heard or imagined could be heard. Thunder in the Soul. Berserkers could grab for their rage. Disciples sought out their fanaticism. Evil men indulged in bloodlust. Heaven, Heaven went for Thunder in the Soul. That moment when you fought not for a Cause, but for the true and pure foundation that Cause was built upon. For doing the Right Thing, not something you were told was right, but something you KNEW was Right, and you were part of something infinitely greater and grander thereby. The Lady Magos said that Oswald was Emerald, that he¡¯d chosen a philosophy that didn¡¯t ascribe to any path but the one he determined. Naturally it had rubbed off on his students, who were basically Greens themselves, and even the Stoneholders had elements rubbing off on them, though many tilted to independent Orange, not much unlike himself. But now, they looked at the sky, at a storm filled with Holy power, and had to ask themselves some really serious questions about what they believed in. That was Holiness up there, the essence of what it meant to be Good, woven throughout the spell. It was not just some other energy a spellcaster could add onto their spell, like the Divine power that backed it up. It was Aligned, it was true Goodness, and it was talking to them in their hearts! ------------------ Months ago¡­ ¡°There are many Ways in the Seven Dragons, not just one for each House,¡± Princess Kristie told the Mick and a circle of eager paramounts, most of them undead. ¡°Some are very specialized, and rare to take, so the main ones for each House are the most well-known. ¡°There are three for the House of the Storm Dragon.¡± Abu bint Nadir, a dead Gharu¡¯n tulwar wielder, raised a skeletal hand. ¡°You called the Storm Dragon the greatest House of the Sword, although the Ocean Dragon is the most widespread, Highness?¡± the bony master swordsman asked in his cultured, hollow voice. ¡°Yes. The Ocean Dragon is the most practical, forgiving, and versatile. But the Storm Dragon has the greatest lethality and power of the styles, and much of that stems from its Ways. ¡°The Storm Dragon has three lesser Houses. They are Wind, Thunder, and Lightning.¡± Quaver cut deftly, and the Lost Light became cloud-like swirls, twitches of golden-electricity, and a quiet, telling tone of power that prickled the Mick¡¯s skin. ¡°The Way of Wind is to avoid combat. Of all the Ways, it is the most elusive and hardest to pin down, although Fire is excellent at doing so. In numeric terms, each advance in the Way of the Wind makes you more and more elusive and harder to hit, as long as you wear no armor and move quickly. The faster you move, the greater the benefit. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°The Way of Thunder is to defeat the immaterial. You cleave through intuitive dodges, you encompass all chances to the time-sighter, you are omnipresent to deflective forces, you ignore luck, and you rip through magical blessings. To those with unseen and invisible defenses, you offer unseen and invisible force to shear right through them, riding the Thunder in your soul to do so.¡± ¡°How,¡± Master Ben Ten slowly broke into her pause, ¡°do you feel Thunder in the Soul?¡± he asked calmly. Her pale violet eyes had turned on the undead swordmaster, shining with admiration. ¡°You stood up from your own grave and walked back to join the fight to save the living! Do you remember that moment, all of you? When you embraced a desire so pure and transcendent that not even death was going to stop you? And if death could not stop you, do you think some vague mystical defenses or ability to feel the flow of combat is going to stop that Thunder?¡± Quaver toned louder. Diiiiiiing¡­ Tiiiiiiing... It was the tone of a great bell, drawing them to battle, breaking across the skin, hitting everything, all at once. It rang inside them all with purpose above and beyond. What tiny forces seeking to turn them aside was it going to bow and scrape to? Death itself had been pushed away by the Thunder in their souls, by the knowledge that they were needed for something greater than themselves. Thunder, this was something they already had, or they would not even be here! Master Ben Ten was the first to rise, his Katana Giri whispering forth. The steel of the Blade whispered and echoed as the swordmaster stood there, and the sound upon the metal grew. Like distant, rolling thunder, calling a great and honorable man back to battle. His students heard that, bowed their heads, and rose as well, the Mick included. Blades and Axes and Glaives came forth at the call, the call to battle, to something more than themselves, to a will and purpose beyond themselves, and what was going to stop them from answering that Call? Nothing. Not even death! ¡°Thunder rolls in the soul,¡± Princess Kristie whispered, whatever lesson she had been going to teach adjusting on the fly as whispers of sound grew on all those Named Weapons, each different, each the same, somehow blending into a whole that was not a cacophony, but a greater harmony, an orchestra, growing as each note and tone was added to it. ¡°And we call it forth, and drive before us the frail powers that would stop us, be they arcane or other. Thunder weighs heavy upon them, and they cannot stand afore it!¡± The rolling peals ringing from Quaver rose, and the Thunder upon those unleashed Weapons rose with it, ringing upon the field with a sound beyond sounds, and it rolled in their souls¡­ --------------- The Present... The clouds were bright, the Silver Lightning was brighter¡­ but it was Holy Light, not light, and what it illuminated below was Darkness, not darkness. Wholly unnatural, yes, the forest and plains beneath as dark as any night, even the Force Magic of the Disks not catching or reflecting The Light from above. Also, it were a right awesome bloody distraction, as the lugians below, unable to sleep and leery of lightning as a race, could only watch it coming as some dire portent, gripping their weapons and staring up at the sky that was looking down at them. Not looking BACK at them. No, DOWN on them! With a Light and voice that was making their hearts tremble at what they were seeing and hearing, like all the Land was judging them and finding them wanting! The first Called Thunderbolts came crashing down just as the wedge of fighters smashed into the side of the Gotrok camp. Lugians screamed at the harsh judgment in the blinding brilliance of the Silver lashes descending from on high, whispered stories given form as each crashing blow sounded like a great bell going off, not some mere deadly rumble and crackle of true lightning striking. This¡­ was the Wrath of Heaven! Blinded, half-deafened, watching Summoned lugians go flying in twisting, arc-lit bundles of painful voltage tearing them apart, the Gotrok were completely unready for an attack to come racing through their camp, and their calls of alarm were mixed up and lost in the screams from the descending lightning, the tolling of dire bells, and the pounding Light and Thunder of Heaven beating on their hearts and souls. Half of the camp didn¡¯t even realize they¡¯d been attacked, too busy trying to find cover or blinded by the score or so of Thunderbolts that had descended to even notice the attackers streaming past in the night, ignored in the confusion and tumult as the Heavenly storm swept over and past them, and they could only watch it go. Behind the rain of Thunderbolts were left scores of dead Summoned lugians, already breaking apart and, to the fear and dismay of their commanders, Burning en vivus, the unnatural misting white fires that consumed the ectoplasm of their bodies completely, before they could even dissolve back into the spiritual realm they came from. The wise said those souls were freed from the system, never to be Summoned again. Others claimed they were consumed utterly, or damned to a terrible fate, or simply claimed by another power, but they all could see the white patches splashed across the ground that was left behind where the white mists sank into the soil, and whispers said that where they were, flowers would bloom at the dawn. That many of the fallen also bore marks of combat, of arrows sticking into them, or slashes across throat and eyes and arms, was also soon worked out, and then the confused tales of Isparians moving through and among them emerged and began to form some sort of coherent story of just what had gone on. The commanders naturally tried to explain everything away as merely another foul magic and trickery of the runty little alien pests, more treachery heaped upon the valiant lugians and followers of the martial traditions of their people. It was a good tale and set of lies, save for one small problem. They could all see the clouds on the horizon there, they could all feel the judgment looking back at them from those clouds¡­ and they could all see the way those clouds stopped right above Mayoi, echoing and ringing across the distance, daring, challenging, scorning them to come! Heaven was there, ready to do more than just pass them over quickly¡­ AF Chapter 208 – The Old Ways are Best Their lines were probably not as clean as they wanted as they rumbled into position just after the dawn, drawing themselves up in a long line before the walls of Mayoi. Briggs pulled down his Mask of Clarity, pumping it with the surfeit of Soul he had and magnified his forward view. Picking out the living from the Summoned wasn¡¯t hard. Summoned had next to no facial expressions until they got into a fight, when programmed instincts stirred things up and the normal grimacing and baring of teeth and such posturing naturally came to the fore. The living, now, they couldn¡¯t help looking up at the clouds rumbling melodically overhead, flashes of too-Silver lightning toning and chiming from within them, no natural Thunder at all, and, his lugian subordinates, associates, and paramounts had assured him, raising the equivalent of hackles on the skin as they anticipated the awful lightning coming down to punish them. Lugians didn¡¯t like lightning very much. Their bodies were dense and seemed to attract the voltage internally instead of over the skin, like it did most creatures. It overloaded their nervous systems and could fry out their brains, cause instant heart attacks, and generally bypassed all their perceived strengths to strike at the core of what they were. As a result, they feared lightning and electricity in general, peals of thunder instinctively sent them scrambling for cover, and they had next to no science or alchemy that did anything with it, save for resisting its damnable power and the pain it brought them. That was just fine by him. Every edge in a fight was good, and this was basically an area-effect Intimidation check against the whole damn Gotrok army out there. They would have been absolutely mortified to know that Kris was playing the clouds, using Ryin¡¯s Control Weather spell like an orchestral guide. The vastly amused Lady Magos was going right along with it, Call Lightning spells inside the clouds going off in chimes and peals and rumbles that broke like the most stirring battlefield magic over the army, and they were plainly unnerving the piss out of the Gotrok and the Summons out there. Zealous Holy magic could affect all of the non-Good. Even the Neutrals on their side were finding the clouds above awesome and intimidating, but not hostile, which was the difference between them and their enemies. Neutral allies were looking up and realizing there was something great and Good up there they had missed, something they had touched on at the best moments in their lives, and it was waiting for them to embrace it. Mitharn recruitment drive tactics, he mused, studying the lines out there, just as Kris and the other officers were. ¡°They are lining up for a traditional exchange of boulders,¡± Kopf rumbled next to him, the taller and broader lugian somehow looking smaller next to the Ancient standing next to him. The deep voice of the lugian was scornful and dismissive as he glared at the Gotrok¡¯s forces out there. He was very much a traditionalist lugian, the human equivalent of a knight sworn to his beloved King Kresovus. In better times he would have been awarded the rank of Tukora, and lauded as a great and knowledgeable warrior among the lugians. The Gotrok¡¯s fervent acclamation of Tukoras among their number, particularly the leaders who had attacked the allied races during the Fall, had turned what had once been an honorable and acclaimed status into a reviled and hated word that was more likely to draw spit than admiration from any who heard it, even among the younger lugians. For the traditionalist lugians, that insult to their heritage, the mockery of their great and noble traditions, was a hammer to the skull that they just could not tolerate. Kopf was fully ready to go out there in his modern, Rantha-made armor, bearing his moving wall of a shield, wielding a Heavy Large Moonaxe that was also not of lugian design, and give all of those Gotrok bastards a lesson on who to ally with, and who to not! ¡°Can¡¯t they tell this is a mana-supported wall?¡± the Lord Mick asked from the other side of his Fellowship¡¯s Vanguard. ¡°It is how things were done, and so they shall be again,¡± Kopf intoned ritually, and you had to know lugians to sense the mocking sarcasm beneath his words. The lugian had been introduced to soooo many things that were above and beyond what lugians knew, seen the effect of them, and was becoming something greater than any of the paramounts who had survived as a result. Kris was breaking him down from a student of lugian history to a student of war, and war didn¡¯t care what your ancestry or race was. You adapted, you evolved, or you died. Died, as so many had during the Fall. It was a mighty spike in the hearts of the lugians, and even the diehards had agreed that something like it could not be allowed to happen again. It was just¡­ there had been nothing in their histories to fall back on, and those histories the rebels and traitors could use as well. Ki, though, and Soul Essence! Simple, powerful, easy to understand, and capable of doing far more than anything in the lugian traditions of war! ¡°Mind your heads, and trust the battlements,¡± Briggs¡¯ Warlord Voice rang out over the whole line. There had been a lot of questions among the troops here about him coming in and giving orders, which Kris had bit off, browbeat, and sometimes pummeled into silence. There had been one lugian paramount who had taken it upon himself to stand up for everyone in the face of this outsider, and had made himself a fine example of what not to do and be for the rest of them when Briggs pounded him repeatedly and almost effortlessly into the dirt, then tossed him a hundred feet through the air into the local stream to cool off. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. There hadn¡¯t been any challenges to him after that. The gurogs staying close by his side had all chortled knowingly when they saw it, and couldn¡¯t keep the delight out of their crimson eyes when the lugians muttered behind his back. Their flaming Axes had been Infused and altered to Lightningphasing now, crackling arcs of death that had lugians keeping a careful distance from them. The gurog had a programmed hatred of lugians that had been hard for them to recognize and ultimately take control of, turning it instead against the undead who sought to enslave them, but they still delighted in letting their instincts go and being able to go after lugian Summons up in the north. There were rumbles of shouts and speeches of the lugian lines out there, artfully disrupted and probably sounding ridiculous as Kris countered with plays of Thunder from up above. Briggs tried to hide his amusement and failed at the frustration on the faces of the living Gotrok out there, trying to steel themselves against the warnings from Heaven they were ignoring. The Summons drew up in lines a bit too perfect to really be living troops, complete obedience, no deviation, models of perfect soldier-dom and readiness to fight. Across the walls, the Archers smirked and readied their own missiles. Lugians had arms like Jotuns, their communion with the earth allowing them to hurl stones and metal with gravity-defying range and power, tossing rocks up to the size of a human¡¯s head as easily as tossing baseballs. Once in motion, those rocks could travel for a good long way, and had a lot of kinetic power behind them. Naturally that would normally result in an ammunition problem. Ideal ammunition wasn¡¯t just laying around, and the stuff was damn heavy and hard to transport. Gathering up all the stones in an area to deny them to attackers was a standard tactic in lugian sieges, forcing any attackers to bring their own, or try to create them from the surrounding mountains, a tedious and lengthy process. The upside on Dereth was that it was possible to make rocks that magically returned to the hand after striking their targets. All of the living lugians out there had them, as did the ones on his side. Getting them to use slings or atlatls or javelins was a difficult endeavor, as all lugians just wanted to grab a rock and hurl it out like a cannonball, and with great enthusiasm. The translucent Null Aluminum, or chorozite, rocks appeared in the hands of the Summons at the order of their officers. Booming voices formed a cadence against the disruption of the Thunder, and let fly. Ryin¡¯s wall around Mayoi was thirty bloody feet tall, and the battlements and crenelations were made with this kind of bombardment in mind. Archers and spotters smoothly rotated into the cover of the battlements as the great volley of rocks arced into the air and came down at them, glinting with hostile intent in the reflected Silver Light coming from above, gray and gritty and lethally magic-inert. Well, no, not entirely¡­ The boulders crashed and slammed into the walls, only the most perfectly thrown managing to reach the top at that range. They crashed and rang off the stones, which bounced them without mark or scar, astute defenders stepping aside from most of those, while Shields braced with magic actually withstood the crushing impacts and batted them aside as if they were multi-ton walls themselves. Two such rocks bounced off Kopf¡¯s upraised Scutum with a sound louder than most of the rocks made bouncing off the parapets. The lugian Vanguard¡¯s lips sneered just a little bit, his massive arm barely moving at the impacts. The two rocks that were aimed at Briggs and on target hit his Source field and evaporated before they could touch them, visibly eaten away within a couple of feet, like they had been tossed into a fire and abraded into ashes almost instantly. One came down on Kris, and just vanished as it hit her Null, a raindrop vanishing into a lake. Those weren¡¯t true chorozite, merely an ectoplasmic reflection that still bore some of the characteristics of the ore and metal. You couldn¡¯t make a true Rock out of chorozite, because it was non-magical and couldn¡¯t be readily Enchanted. Throwing away your true null-magic ammunition was extremely annoying, and Briggs didn¡¯t see the wagonloads of the stuff trailing the lugian army they¡¯d need for even the living lugians to use the stuff for repeated volleys. ¡°Spotters, mark.¡± Mages spun around the edges of battlements as the lugians reset, the archers arranging themselves behind them. The lugians were taking some steps forward, setting up a new line just in range of their throwing arms. The next volley would be much more devastating and accurate. Dozens of Summoned lugians lit up with phantasmal flames in bright colors, each hue attached to a particular mage, each unit of archers behind the Casters looking for it. ¡°Fire.¡± Hissing arrows sped out in reply to the volley of the lugians, who were forcibly reminded that there was a goddamn reason people used weapons that magnified leverage and strength. Also, height gave distance. Flat arcs of arrows from master archers hissed out, each set having a target out there in the field¡­ and Lightningphasing alchemical ammunition meant every single bloody arrow was like a miniature lightning bolt coming in at them. There were grunts across the field as the dozens of targeted lugians died, pretty much to a one. One Archer in each company had Vivic on their Bow or Crossbow, and so the dead were also Burning and would not be returning to the enslavement of the System. ¡°Shields up! Mark!¡± he ordered, stopping the archers and mages from spinning back to cover as the infantry with them raised Infused Shields against the incoming volley. Steeled by his voice, they reloaded calmly as more rocks appeared in the hands of the lugians out there¡­ while a stiff wind began to blow from behind the wall, into the faces of the Gotrok. ¡°Fire!¡± he ordered, as the Gotrok out there hurled their conjured chorozite rocks up again. The stiff wind did its job quite well. Heavy or not, null magic or not, moving air did its job, and the incoming volley basically fell short again. Dozens more lugians grunted and fell the length of the attacking force, Burning away with great speed as they dropped heavily to the grass and stone. AF Chapter 209 – The Old Ways are Best, Part II The irked Gotrok ordered the line forward once again. Mark and Volley shot out once more before the lugians could hurl their loads, and more Summons dropped, thinning their lines further as they strove to get into range. Amusingly, the wind picked up again, and the arcing rocks again fell short as it surged over and past the archers, whose shots were only aided by it, and on a much flatter trajectory anyway. A quarter of the Summons were dead as the lugians again drew within range and hurled out their rocks. The wind let up abruptly, and the volley sailed completely over the walls and past them, smashing impotently into the ground behind them. The fake chorozite seemed to gleam nastily in the Silver Light from above, and then fell apart and was gone a couple breaths later. There was the sound of a great bell, and a flash of Silver. The center line of lugian Summons howled and were blown completely off their feet, writhing tendrils of Silver lightning digging through them with all the condemnation of the angry sky as the Thunderbolt detonated among them. They hit the ground, rolled, and did not move as they began to Burn. The Tukora behind them all flinched at the display of magic. The commanders were still out of the range of Isparian War Magic and they knew it, so the reach and range of the Lightning had caught them completely off-guard. Which was about when the dozen Lightning Bolts, thoughtfully mixed with Isparian Silver Scarab-level magic for that additional kick, crackled out and tore across the lines of the Gotrok in dancing supernatural colors from Ryin¡¯s students. Without Vulns, the Bolts weren¡¯t quite strong enough to kill¡­ but the electricity dancing over them was a fine Mark for the waiting Archers. The volley was spread over hundreds of targets this time, and it had the desired effect. This time the dead were piled in massive swaths of Burning corpses, and the panicking Tukora¡­ ordered a charge. Briggs¡¯ hairy eyebrows rose in some disbelief as the Summons bellowed, pulling massive chorozite weapons wrought in the lugian style out of nowhere, and came thundering towards the main gates. ¡°Mark the Tukora who get in range and kill them,¡± he ordered idly, seeing dozens of extremely stout ladders being hauled forwards by younger, living lugians with some enthusiasm. His words were not received well by the Tukora officers racing forward with their soldiers, as suddenly Faerie Fires popped up around them from ready Casters, and a whole lot of electricity was aimed their way. They dove for cover behind their Summons, who moved to shield their officers unflinchingly. It was hard to direct their troops well when they were scattering for cover from deadly shots, however¡­ And they forgot about the Thunderbolts from above, simply not having any familiarity with the concept and killing power of Area of Effect magic. The scores of Summoned lugians concentrated on the gates and starting to pound on them with tremendous force would get through them, there was no doubt. The chorozite weapons in active hands could overcome the ley line reinforcement soon enough, and the enhanced stone would shatter and give way¡­ Um, unless the person responsible for making said gates in the first place was on station on the wall right above them, and Shaping them back into perfect form far faster than they could be hammered and chipped apart. The Summons didn¡¯t have any analytical ability to realize that hacking on the doors was fruitless. Chips and gouges in them were fixed even as they pulled back their picks and hammers. The living lugians could have realized it, but they were busy finding cover, and, well... Heaven came directly down upon that gathering of hapless Summons, a great bell tolling their Doom and the judgment of Thunder. Scores of massive bodies went flying, including a few officers who¡¯d joined the press for protection. They were pretty much the only ones left alive as the bodies of the Summons went sprawling, and the Archers watching from overhead made sure they didn¡¯t get back to their two-toed feet. Ignoring the deaths, more Summons swarmed in to take up the task of beating down the gates, while bellowed orders from the incoming ladder-bearers assured them of paths to the walls. Lightning crackled in Bolts, and arcs of electricity gathered to join them. The living Gotrok were brave and grit their teeth in the face of the onslaught, more Summons moving to ward them as they rumbled for the walls. In clearly rehearsed tandem, the ladders were planted, rotated up, and came crashing down across nearly a thousand feet of frontage. With enthusiastic bellows, the Summons surged up the ladders, their weight alone making it almost impossible to throw the ladders aside. Mages stepped up in front of the ladders, just out of sight of the rock throwers from below who were attempting to counter-snipe the archers driving electricity into their numbers. Circles of force came up around their hands, Silver and Gold Scarab spells waiting calmly as the first of the lugians came surging up to the edges of the battlements. They weren¡¯t too bright, but seeing a single Caster there waiting for them, instead of a cluster of spears, startled the climbers, and their dull eyes fixed on the one opponent as they made to get onto the stone top of the wall and make way for the eager Summons right behind them. The Bludgeoning damage version of Isparian Magic was called Shock Wave, and it manifested as a ring of white force energy that dumped crushing impacts into the target, internalizing the damage much like a perfectly efficient impact from a hammer. If it didn¡¯t have the full kinetic impact of a Weapon, it instead applied what energy it did have much more smoothly. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. And then Toppling was added to the mix. The Summons had a firm, strong grip on the ladder as the spell hit him, and he was smashed backwards as if hit by a Jotun¡¯s hammer square in the chest. It was a scene repeated across the length of the wall. Clutching their ladders, the bellowing lugian climbers were hurled over backwards, leverage working against the lugians bracing the ladder below, and all of the siege ladders were knocked over backwards, sending their climbers sprawling. Those who¡¯d been holding the ladders were generally knocked sprawling, too, and looked up as the Archers above sighted down on them and released at effectively point-blank range. The Summons weren¡¯t smart enough to use the ladders of their own accord, and certainly not with the rehearsed smoothness of the living. The young and eager Gotrok ready to scale the walls died quickly, and the siege of the walls of Mayoi faltered almost instantly. Another Thunderbolt crashed down at the great gates, and more Summons screamed and were hurled away, Burning and dying. The great gates stood there unmarred, white ground gleaming before them, only the scattered corpses of a few living lugians indicating there had been any attack there at all. ¡°Over and at them,¡± Briggs growled, and led the elite strikers over the wall in an illusion-veiled rush and surge at the far end of their line. You fight a long line with a sweep. The lugians outnumbered them, sure, with thousands of the Summons drawn from across the mountains and Dungeons to here. But they were scattered and spread out over a long, narrow line right now, with the Gotrok wondering if it was worth it to grab up the ladders and try again after being thrown off them so easily. The Stoneholders, paramounts, and elite infantry, wearing armor far finer than anything the Gotrok or their Summoned troops bore, vaulted and leapt cleanly over the edge of the wall, a shimmery haze forming a wall of Nothing Happening Here masking the maneuvering as they hit the ground one after the other, rapidly forming up into a wedge and wall of over two hundred combatants with crackling Lightningphasing Weapons, ready to do their thing! ¡°TREMBLE.¡± The word echoed like thunder in the air, and the lugians all jerked at the bloodsoaked grimness beneath that word. ¡°You cannot run, do not flee, your death beckons for you. The lies you wrought and oaths you broke have come to take their due. Lightning shakes the skies, Thunder takes your lies, And Heaven, Heaven knows what is true. TREMBLE, oh OH ohhhhhh TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Their attack roared out of the illusion, and the elite infantry of north and south fell upon the flank of the lugian line. ¡°SLAUGHTER! Here is the quarter that you earned! DEATH! No second life, and no return! BLOOD! It is time to feed the Land! SOULS! BURN NOW WHERE YOU STAND! TREMBLE! Oh OH ohhhhh TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± And they died. Thin and extended, the Gotrok were out of position and out of command, and could not respond properly as the melee combatants drove in upon them. Two, three, four, or more crackling Weapons scythed through them, and the Summoned fell with appalling speed. Scarce were they aware of the attack coming before it had already reached them, and gray-skinned corpses were falling violently to a crackling swarm of Weaponry that was offering no quarter at all. Horns started blowing frantically, met by the tonals of Thunder from overhead. Here and there, some officers who¡¯d hung back far enough to see what was going on over across the northern flank tried to call their Summons into positions, get them into a working line which might be able to take the charge and hacking death rolling over the side of the formation. Those groups made great targets for Thunderbolts, and those Tukora commanders great targets for waiting Archers ready as the rocks being thrown at them faltered under conflicting priorities. The Summons were dominated by the lower orders of lugians, easily half of them copies of lugians who had never reached the skill of true Gotrok warriors. Such novices died with great speed to the focused power, speed, and magic ripping through them, barely able to defend themselves. More adept Summons in better armor, sturdier and stronger, might last a few more seconds, but the wolfpack tactics of those coming gave them no openings and no relief, hitting them and continuing on. Their chorozite weapons might have been made of a fairly light metal, but they were oversized and almost purely metal, and so they were heavy and slow and left many openings in their defenses, while the attackers knew every place their armor was weak and struck there without remorse. This wasn¡¯t a duel, and it wasn¡¯t even a swarming skirmish. The melees were streaming past the lugian invaders, striking and going on to the next, uncaring if they brought one down immediately, for those coming after were going to finish up for them. In addition, as they rolled down the wall, the archers were even hopping up on the battlements to get proper perches to rain their own arrows down and join the fun. In particular, arrows carrying vivus were plunging into each dying real lugian, making sure that they weren¡¯t going to be coming back from whatever version of a resurrection method was still accessible to them¡­ nor by enslavement to the System, if that was a factor. In the front of this effort were Princess Kristie Rantha and Briggs. The warriors who¡¯d been reluctant about following the towering Ancient shut up completely when they saw his Hammer at work. Lugians were incredibly tough, strong, and thick-boned, and liked to wear heavy breastplates, able to take heavy impacts without flinching and give them right back. Pounding on one another was almost a racial pastime. None of those stood up to the incredible power of the solid blue Lightning that was his Hammer. It crashed into lugians, smashing them off their feet as if they were bowling pins. They went tumbling in the grassy field, or slammed hard into the unyielding stone of the wall, or just plain went airborne and those below had to look out for falling lugian. The Gotrok didn¡¯t know what was tossing around their people either, and they could only stare as the massive bodies of their own were hurled about like children¡­ AF Chapter 210 – The Old Ways Prove to be Best! The horns to recall the survivors were reluctant but loud, and the Gotrok flowed away from the wall as rapidly as they could. Only one more Thunderbolt came down onto a cluster surrounding a particularly stubborn Tukora, who never got back to his feet before being pincushioned by a dozen arrows made of solid lightning. The surviving thousands of Summons formed up beyond arrow or throwing range once more, looking down at the appalling sight of nearly half of the Mayoi wall¡¯s frontage stained white by the vanished corpses of Summons and Burning bodies of the formerly-living. Grass and ground stained a soft white, occasional misty flames still Burning and generating ground-covering fogs, contrasted with the green of the grass like tributes to the fallen and warnings to the living. The infantry attack had folded up and nearly obliterated the entire northern side of the attack. There were less than four thousand Gotrok left of an army that had mustered over ten thousand! The lugian commanders weren¡¯t totally dumb, knowing that such horrific losses played merry havoc with the morale of any army¡­ any NORMAL army. Summons, however, didn¡¯t have those issues. They just did what they were ordered to do, and if they died, it was just to be sent back to a spawn point and recycled. However, there were whispers about the stanza of that Song that had been beating at their resolve, alluding to the fact that those of their own who fell¡­ were not coming back! This power wasn¡¯t unknown to exist. Oswald the Green Hunter had been infamous for his ability to kill people and sever them from the Lifestones, before the Fall. The way the white fire Burned away the bodies of the slain was fascinating and unsettling, reducing them to white dust and leaving their gear behind. Gear that should have been transported away with the soul of the living Gotrok who fell! A laugh echoed through the sky, and if they had hackles, all such rose on the Gotrok as they heard it, cutting through their conversations with bloodthirst, scorn, and a murderous thirst for more, more, more-! At the end of that nerve-twisting laugh, a horn blew. It rose high and proud and defiant, dipping and extending in a specific manner. Even the Summons seemed to stir as the stones seemed to reverberate around them at the call of that horn, definitely wrought by lugian hands, and all eyes turned to the Tukora leading the attack. From the ranks of the elite infantry who had massacred so many Summons, a lugian stepped forth. He wasn¡¯t clad in traditional lugian armor. The plates he wore covered him from head to toe in metal, making him look as much like a machine or golum as a lugian. The square shield he wielded was massive, and the design of the Axe he wielded was not one of lugian make or style¡­ which did nothing to forestall the ominous threat it obviously posed, crackling there with silvery Lightning crawling all over its surface. It was not a Weapon most lugians could even bear to handle, and yet he held it with perfect confidence and iron skill. ¡°I am an Axe of King Kresovus, the rightful ruler of the lugian peoples!¡± his deep voice rang out, somehow covering hundreds of yards without fading in the slightest. ¡°I call for a combat of champions, in accord with the ancient rules of war!¡± His Axe rose at full extension, light as a willow wand, pointing at the Tukora officers in clear disdain. ¡°Come forth, traitors! Show me the warrior arts you corrupted so! Show me the frailty of the armor you wear! Show me the weakness of the Virindi Weapons you wield and dare to call our own! Come forth and show your ineptness, or cower behind the spirits of the dead you have enslaved and quit the field!¡± The living Gotrok scowled at the words, but it was a Tukora Commander in his deep maroon armor who pounded forward, waving his great chorozite axe in response. ¡°Worm of a heretic-¡± he began. ¡°Advance, you blasphemous cur! I cannot hear someone with such weak lungs!¡± came ringing back the contemptuous call of the challenger. The commander scowled, but what could he do? He looked up at the brooding, silvery Light inside the clouds there, and was suddenly struck by a realization. Those clouds extended well over the Gotrok lines. They, they weren¡¯t actually outside the range of the magic of the weak-willed defenders¡­ Swallowing, but attempting to hide his sudden unease, the Gotrok officer straightened his back and bulled his way forward through the lines, which parted to let him pass, eager to see this fight. A challenge of champions was truly the best way to resolve a battle, the legends all said so! He stumped his way up to a mere forty yards away from the fully-armored defender, glaring in contempt at the archers up there on the walls¡­ whose bows were all resting, not even bothering to aim in his general direction. His eyes were keen enough to see the smirks on their faces as they looked back at him. There was no way they could overcome the defenders on those walls. In an open-field fight, things might have been very different, WOULD have been very different, yes, the spirits of the valiant returned warriors giving them all the edge they would have needed¡­ ¡°I am a Commander of the Tukora, a defender and holder of the great and ancient warrior traditions of the lugian clans!¡± he began proudly, and everyone in front of him, save the armored lugian Axe who had challenged him, promptly broke out laughing. Laughing! Not scorn or insult, straight out laughing at him! ¡°You use a style of armor one hundred years out of date, kept only for ceremonial purposes, and call it traditional,¡± Kopf ground out, his voice not raised, yet clearly audible to all the Gotrok. ¡°You wield a weapon made of metal using a method devised by the despicable Virindi, and call it our heritage. You do not wield the earthpower to infuse your armor and weapons that has been the right of our people for three thousand years, because that idiot Muldaveus and his cohort of traitors were unable to wield it for themselves, and so forbid you from learning it. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°You raise our children to be weak, ignorant, inept, and poorly equipped, and call it tradition.¡± The seething scorn in that word was almost palpable. ¡°Lugians wield the earthpower and the power of the forge. We grow. We improve, we stand on the shoulders of our forebears and build higher and greater! ¡°You think we don¡¯t know of Muldaveus visiting the Walls of Failure, trying in vain to wrestle the secrets of the Earth from them? His fits of rage and frustration that he can¡¯t wield the most basic magicks of the forge?¡± Kopf spit at the Commander, who could only bristle at the knowledge that outsiders knew of such rumors. ¡°He is weak! YOU¡­ are weak! And you pass only weakness on to our children, spitting on our traditions with your blasphemous lies! ¡°RAISE YOUR AXE, false Tukora!¡± Kopf roared, clearly working himself into a frenzy, his Axe shaking in his rage. ¡°You insult all our ancestors with that rank you profane, with the traditions you warp and twist and bend to your heresy! Come forward and die! Not back to a twisted Stone or spitting circle! This day is the day of your death!¡± The Commander couldn¡¯t take the shame of the insults hurled his way, striking at the core of his warrior¡¯s pride. Even if he was gravely uncertain of his ability to overcome the superior gear of his opponent, he still raised his axe and charged. Kopf surged into motion, a living missile of metal weighing over a half-ton. Most pointedly, he moved FAST, far faster than he had a right to bearing that much weight, and his feet seemed to crush into the ground, yet barely left the faintest track as he did so. The two lugians slammed fully together. The semi-transparent great axe chopped down on Kopf¡¯s Shield Bulwark, and rang as it bounced off, the arm beneath it taking the impact, while, to the Gotrok officer¡¯s shock and dismay, the metal of the Shield was not even scuffed by the magic-cutting hollow alloy of his axe! Then he was hurtling backwards, his weight and momentum clearly beaten, barely keeping a grip on his Axe as he tried to get his feet, half-stunned by the crushing impact into that Shield. The crackling Axe came around, and smashed into his breastplate. The metal was hard and strong, in the ancient style, meant to take massive physical punishment¡­ but it didn¡¯t provide the protection against electricity that it could have, with the proper alchemical treatments and undergarments. Such was not the ancient way¡­ A guttural scream forced its way out of the Gotrok¡¯s lips as a massive surge of voltage discharged through him, ravaging his nervous system and causing his great heart to palpitate in shock. His armor was smoking and sparks were dancing as he tried to fend off the Axe that was moving. The Shield smashed into his axe, pressing him back as it was forced to the side, and the Axe came across with impossible speed for something so massive, clearly aided by magic. The simple Swift Hunter magic, making a powerful weapon faster and easier to wield. Chorozite did nothing against such basic superiority¡­ The blow took him in his side, right on the seam of his breastplate, which crumpled and caved in under the terrific force of the blow. The Gotrok officer didn¡¯t even have the ability to scream as lightning ravaged his system, his Axe falling from nerveless hands as he fell over, his dark eyes and lobeless ears smoking from within. He hit the ground stiffly, nerves locking up and muscles with them in the typical lugian manner of death by lightning, hard and tense as a carved statue. Vivus ignited over him as Kopf glared down at him, then looked up at the silently watching lines of Gotrok opposite him, shocked and stunned at how quickly a great Tukora Commander had died. ¡°You told your young you were strong, and you LIED. You told them their armor was mighty, and they DIED. You told them to dare the wrath of Heaven, and they fried. They speak now with their forebears, who have cried At the lies and the hate and the blood-mad fools Who have betrayed all that lugians are. Come, you Gotrok liars! Come, false Tukora tools! The doom you have sought out so far is Waiting! TREMBLE! TREMBLE, and COME! COME TO DIE!¡± Great hands trembled on chorozite weapons, warring against the shrieking voice riding on waves of Thunder, twisting and turning in their hearts and souls of the Gotrok elite as the Truth riding those words beat and lashed at them. They could see the doubts and fears rising in the younger lugians with every spiteful syllable, and the words seemed to draw up all their own fears and insecurities and lay them out for everyone to see. The first Gotrok officer screamed in fury, unable to take the insult and shame, and pounded forward in a zealous fury, determined to prove his courage and the rightness of their cause in pitched combat, unafraid to die. Like a bursting damn (it all), the other senior Gotrok voiced their own challenges, and rumbled after him, only the army¡¯s general Kodaetus managing to retain his wits in the face of such contempt for them and what they were. Over two hundred incensed living Gotrok pounded forwards towards that line of elite infantry waiting outside the walls, determined to run them right over, pound them into the ground, and reclaim their honor. Silver Lightning hissed and crackled over those defenders, and if the incoming Gotrok did not dare to falter in their charge now, their hearts skipped a beat at seeing the voltage seething over all of their foes¡­ including the lugians, and doing no harm! There was only the quietest of countercharges, the show of dancing Silver sparks making all the crackling noise that was necessary. With unseemly speed, the defenders of Mayoi counter-charged the incoming Gotrok, who could only widen their eyes at the speed of their foes as the two forces closed. AF Chapter 211 – The New Ways are indeed Better Briggs strode through the lines of Summons with perfect confidence and fearlessness, flanked by the score or so of lugians in the elite infantry squad. There was no attempt made to forestall them, if only because they were moving so fast while obviously just walking, and the Silver sparks made the lugians living and Summoned wince in anticipation and give way. Warlord Kodaetus flinched to see them coming, but did not run away, controlling his breathing with an effort, and fighting down his fear. That hadn¡¯t been a fight. That had been a massacre. The Isparians had been moving too fast, too viciously, as if pushed along by the lightning itself. The experienced Warlord had never seen magic like that, the speed and fury with which the combatants had engaged and cut his Gotrok allies and underlings down simply impossible to equal or understand. Only a handful of the enemy had even been injured at all, mostly by lucky wild blows or errant swings, and such were being seen to right now. He¡¯d seen Commander Vulgaed smashed twenty feet into the air and backwards from the thunderous impact of the Hammer in the hands of this brutally hairy Isparian, who somehow managed to overshadow every lugian about him, despite being a foot shorter. Perhaps it was the masterful Armor the befurred Isparian was wearing, wrought of blue-black metal that somehow conveyed having endured countless fights, and still reeked of quality and craftsmanship that the lugian could not help but admire and desire for his own. It had taken a chorozite morningstar to the chestplate and if he had not seen wrong, two of the spikes on Vulgaed¡¯s Hollow weapon had broken right off on impact. They were moving too fast, a discreet withdrawal was simply not possible. No, out-and-out fleeing for his life was not possible. The Isparians had moved with impossible agility and speed, as if their armor was nothing, and even with longer lugian paces, there would be no outrunning them at all. He half-raised his fist, gathering his will to bring the Summoned in and surround these warriors who dared to advance right into his lines¡­ And then he saw the eyes of the younger Gotrok fixed on him, watching, waiting for him to prove the words of these weak-willed royalists true, in ALL the ways. He lowered his fist with a quiet sigh. When he died, the Summons would lose the order anyway, and without immediate commands, the call to their spawn points would be overwhelming. They would immediately turn and head for the places they had been brought into the world, and if they could not reach it because of obstructions in their simple-minded return paths, that very Summoning magic would reach out and drag them back. He couldn¡¯t command the army. The youngest Gotrok didn¡¯t have the skill to manage more than one or two Summons, and even he couldn¡¯t exert influence over all of them. Indeed, the great mass of the Summons were only breaths away from turning and heading home as their controllers lay Burning with misting white flames on the field. Burning and, he was sure, they would not be there to greet him from the Stone Circles of Rebirth back in Linvak Tukal when he returned. He made a gesture, severing all control and commands of the Summons, and the impetus to remain. There was a swirl of release, of Summoning power gathering at the concentration of remaining warrior spirits here. The gathered army only grunted a bit as the magic descended upon them, and they didn¡¯t even have to turn and begin their return before the Summoning power that brought them into the world came down and swept them back to where they belonged. Technically, the Gotrok who remained still outnumbered the defenders on the field, although not those also on the walls. But Kodaetus knew that the younger Gotrok had already suffered enormously with the failure of the siege ladders, and if they fought now, they would simply be slaughtered. If the Tukora were swept aside like they had been, the mightiest warriors of the clans, what would be the fate of their juniors in the face of such strength? He looked at the Burning corpses again, and knew that, despite his willingness to fight and die, he¡¯d made the right decision. His comrades in arms would not be there to greet their return from this disastrous fight¡­ and he could not let the young warriors suffer that fate for no reason. The young were all tense and gripping their Hollow weapons, ready to fight if he so ordered, even after he¡¯d sent away the Summons meant to wear down their attackers and so save them such casualties. They were also trembling with fear as they looked on foes powered by the Silver lightning, and the constant peals of the Thunder from up there that was beating on all his insecurities and raising horribly cutting doubts in his path and his actions. The overly-tall Isparian in his incredible armor stopped before him, flanked by the also fully-armored lugians around him, although their armor seemed to be of merely fine steel, instead of the incredible alloy the warrior''s was made of. Despite the height difference, the presence of the enemy warlord loomed over all of them! This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°I am Commander Briggs.¡± The words hammered into Kodaetus¡¯ mind, the oddly pale green eyes seemed to glitter with inner fire, spitting the taller lugian warlord in place. ¡°Go. Take your children and go home. Unlike the Tukora, we won¡¯t make war on women or children, and that¡¯s all you have left to you here. ¡°Tell Muldaveus we are coming. Tell your fellow false Tukora¡­ we are coming. ¡°The walls and halls of Linvak Tukal aren¡¯t going to keep us out. Your enslaved Summons aren¡¯t going to forestall us. The Hea aren¡¯t going to be enough to aid you.¡± Their red-skinned allies had discreetly withdrawn after healing as many living Gotrok as they could, reading the unfolding battle and realizing disaster was striking. They were already long gone, having an excellent idea of what was going to happen to them if they remained. The warlord took a step forward, and Kodaetus took a step back before he could catch himself. He hated the show of weakness, but all his instincts were saying that if he held his ground, he was dead. ¡°I can see the deaths of women and children and the elderly upon your hands.¡± The deep voice was very soft, which only made Kodaetus¡¯ gut flip and churn harder as memories of old deeds, old atrocities, rose up in him. ¡°The next time I see you, Heaven will be with me, and you are going to pay for your words and your deeds, Ulugus Koedaetus, Butcher of Innocents. I will return to you all the honor you showed our people back then. ¡°Now take yourself and your children out of my sight.¡± Koldaetus didn¡¯t bow, didn¡¯t respond, didn¡¯t make a noise or gesture. He was aware that his life hung by a razor¡¯s edge, and only the true rules of a challenge of champions was keeping him alive. Rules he had been prepared to waive aside and commence another slaughter on these non-lugians, while the same non-lugians were actually following the codes of the challenge... The loser had to quit the field. That was a given, with all his officers Burning away over there, but sending the Summons away had likely saved him from a personal duel with one or all of the royalist lugians accompanying this Isparian warlord. He turned and silently pointed his axe. Silver light gleamed harshly off the edges of the chorozite as the watching young Gotrok swallowed, turned, and began to march away, also saying nothing. ---- ¡°How many innocents on his hands, Commander?¡± Kopf ground out, the entire party watching unblinkingly as the surviving Gotrok fell naturally into lines as they marched urgently away from Mayoi. ¡°Dozens on his hands. Hundreds he is ultimately responsible for, although the true responsibility rests on the one above him. Likely an order such as ¡®They are only vermin, not lugians, and so unworthy of honor. Treat them like such.¡¯¡± The lugians around them rumbled deep in their chests. Their armor was scuffed and battered in places, nothing a few Artificer Infusions couldn¡¯t mend readily, a clear contrast to the almost untouched smoothness of Briggs¡¯ adamantine plate. Still, the style on some of them was unmistakable, lugians who¡¯d been isolated up at Stonehold, contributed to its defense, and had armor made by him in new and wonderful patterns they¡¯d never seen before. Those from the south had similar but not identical suits, forged by the skill of Princess Kristie Rantha, instead. ¡°I request the honor of crushing his skull, when it is time,¡± Kopf ground out, his Hammer raising slightly and sparking emphatically. ¡°If it comes to a duel, granted,¡± Briggs replied with equal cool, the lugian Royal Guard the most senior in status of all the lugians there, despite taking a battlename while serving outside his King¡¯s command. ¡°Is your king prepared to come down and take the head of Muldaveus when it is time, or is he leaving that honor to his sworn axes?¡± ¡°He will come!¡± Kopf stated simply, the other lugians grunting to show that such was the proper way, and Briggs just nodded. ¡°They will not have this number of Summons if and when it is time to retake the city. Already they¡¯ve lost another fifty spawn points, and the number increases by the minute,¡± Briggs informed the lugians grimly. ¡°The Royal Scouts and their teams are doing good, solid work, clearing out the area. Without a whole lot of help, the Gotrok are not going to be long for power in this place.¡± Rumblings echoed all around him. ¡°We should be about helping them, and freeing our ancestors from their slavery!¡± Kopf declared, raising his Hammer up and not even glancing around. The other lugians bellowed deeply in eager support of that idea. ¡°A fine and noble idea, but it will take you days to get into position,¡± a soft voice overrode all of their bellows. The lugians all fell silent as words which seemed to echo the power of the Thunder overhead cut through their cries as the Lady Magos glided up next to them. A flick of her fingers brought up a Holo map of the Linvaks, from one end to another, and the lugians craned over to examine it eagerly. There were white and red spots scattered the length and breadth of the mountains. Even as they watched, more red spots blinked over to white, while other red spots popped up on the rendition of The Map of Markspace. ¡°There are still thousands of spawn points in those hills, but as you can see, the vast majority the scouts haven¡¯t gotten to are spread across the western mounts and valleys. That is a lot of traveling to get there, and it is closer to the true strength of the Gotrok forces, particularly those ensconced in the mines of the area. ¡°Most of you are simply not rated for stealth operations at that scale. Just dispersing his gathered army here, and losing so many in combat, revealed over a thousand Summons points that we weren¡¯t aware of to those observing the lands for respawns.¡± A whole lot of red points in the eastern and central areas winked on for attention, and the lugians grumbled to see them appear. ¡°Yes, that means they took those Summons away so long ago that our Scouts have literally never seen anything spawn at those locations. It is entirely possible that there are many, many more such Summons waiting patiently in mines, out of sight and mind, all ready to rush out and fall upon any sizable force moving through those areas.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have stealth penetration into many of the mines held by the clans who support the Gotrok,¡± Briggs noted, eyeing the map with irritation. Yellow lights popped up in over a score of scattered locations in response to his words. ¡°From all we can ascertain, the invading force here was taken from surface Spawns that doubled as sentries and dissuasion. Two-thirds of them were barely of quality that could be considered initiates to the Gotrok philosophy, but that is not what the Spawn points are known to generate. Correct, Lady Magos?¡± AF Chapter 212 – A Counter-Offensive of Summons ¡°Tests on isolated Summons points seem to indicate sixty percent or more of the Summons are senior Gotrok, ranging up to Tukora, Commander. Mere gigas and lesser recruits represent a quarter or less of what are brought in,¡± I confirmed to the intently listening lugians and Briggs. ¡°And that¡­ can be manipulated, simply by battling the lessers and sending them off, to be replaced by something more powerful.¡± The lugians here understood the implications quickly. The hidden forces would not have the weaker lesser lugians among them. It was entirely possible thousands of Tukora-equivalents were waiting for an invading army! While that promised a lot of glorious battle for the paramounts and senior fighters, the majority of the army was not ready to deal with that level of brutal power in tight melee combat, where the mass and reach of the lugians would be murderous. ¡°So, we rely on the tactics of adventurers,¡± Kopf rumbled, not unpleased by the discovery. Such things promised more individual glory, in the end, and Karma came to those who pursued it. ¡°We have to get into those mines and see what is waiting for us. I doubt it will be pretty. Stealth would be best, but fighting will no doubt be necessary. Once we know what we will be facing, we can go in with a devoted force and clear it,¡± Briggs confirmed. ¡°You might say we¡¯re not the ones best suited for quiet infiltration,¡± he remarked, looking around at the even-larger lugians, who promptly rumbled in amused understanding. ¡°Orders then, sir?¡± Kopf asked smartly. He was totally loyal to Kris and his King, but he¡¯d seen what Briggs could do both leading and being in a fight, and why the preternaturally lethal Hag was deferring to him. A lot of loyal soldiers had protested when she handed over Warlord authority to Briggs. She¡¯d just said, ¡°You know how good I am. I acknowledge that Briggs is better than me at being a Warlord, while I¡¯m better at throat-slitting, dueling, eavesdropping, killing you with compliments, and recruiting. Are you that stupid that you don¡¯t want in charge who I want in charge, while I focus on doing the other stuff I do better?¡± The Marked, Allegiances, and Fellowships had heard his orders, his strategies, the subtle timing and coordination of forces that had rocked the Gotrok with their effectiveness. That was especially true when he led the assault over the walls, and they saw lugians weighing nigh half a ton being beat around like tenpins, instinctively wincing every time his Hammer came crashing in. Kris just cut them down in gurgling disbelief at speed. Briggs pounded through them like an avalanche! Yeah, nobody was questioning him being in charge. Even King Borelean¡¯s misgivings fell silent when he saw how naturally and easily Briggs took over the combined forces. ¡°I want every lugian on our side who calls themselves infantry upgraded to Vanguard and given a shield,¡± Briggs said in a low voice, his eyes hooded and grim. ¡°We¡¯re doing an exchange of favors, as allies should for one another. While the sneaky bastards do what needs to be done to pave the way for your return home, you brutal bastards are going to be stomping flat those sneaking skulkers threatening their homes, a job that requires much pounding flat, and not so much sneaking around.¡± Kopf turned about to look north, as lugian heads don¡¯t turn far. The other lugians quickly followed suit. ¡°We¡¯re going after the Hea,¡± he said with some grim satisfaction. ¡°The Aun will be¡­ ambivalent about this?¡± Despite all their hostilities, the two tumerok tribes were still basically from the same origins, and could even interbreed yet. Very pointedly, the few red tumeroks born from such matches were all of the old, true bloodline, not the more humanoid form the Virindi had forced the Hea into, a fact that had profound meaning for both tribes. ¡°They will serve as scouts and as healers, similar to what the Hea did for the Gotrok. Our job is going to be marching across the lands they¡¯ve taken, shutting down the spawn points, and dealing with all the Summons they will no doubt marshal in an attempt to drive us off. ¡°However, the tumeroks have absolutely no history or tradition of massed battles, troop formations, or a proper true military tradition. They have hunters playing at being soldiers.¡± Briggs looked around at the lugians there, who all rumbled in proud understanding. Hunting was a very different mindset from a proper soldier! ¡°The plains, or the swamp?¡± another lugian, Krogos by name, spoke up. ¡°The swamp has its own problems we¡¯re not going to get into the middle of, and it turns out our cutting through the undead pressure on them actually helped the Gotrok and the Hea. We¡¯ll have to rectify that problem,¡± Briggs informed them. He looked around at the lugians, somehow bigger than all of them despite being a head shorter. ¡°Alright, you know what you have to do. We¡¯ll start getting shields into the hands of your recruits. You¡¯re the trained vanguards, you know the drills, you¡¯ll be setting up the squads. I¡¯ll handle bringing in the Aun to start Marking up Summon points and getting the layout of the plains in more depth. ¡°I want your forces ready to roll out together within a week. We should have the Shields up and ready soon enough.¡± Which means I better be ready to Harden all of them, I thought with a sigh as I listened in at the side. But it wasn¡¯t that huge an imposition, especially if I could Mass Harden and do a bunch of them all at once. It occurred to me the Aun probably wouldn¡¯t mind proper Ironwood treatments to their own light shields, either. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I definitely had to locate more tungsten/worldbone to be mined out, Energized, and worked into adamant for the forges, but Energizing materials was something that could literally occupy all my time every day if I let it. Even with Widen, the amount of material that could be Energized was pretty small relative to the need. An ounce a level, Widened to eight ounces a level, was still only a mere two dozen pounds, or ten-some kilos, per spell. One Energize wouldn¡¯t even make a full suit of plate armor, or a true scutum/tower shield. Well, aggressive Aurora Stancing and Mana Renewal spells and Formations! Win the peace by preparing for war! The mindset of raging economic dominance was quite alien to both the lugians and the tumeroks, one culture being based on military strength, the other basically a traditional hunter-gatherer society. Being able to win by producing more gear and better gear, so even your weak are equal to the elites of the other side, was not something they actually considered much. Indeed, concentrating wealth and magic into the hands of their powerful so they could fight above their Levels had ended up disastrously, even as it had worked incredibly well during Asheron¡¯s Ward. Taking that path again had earned us some hard looks and terse words from elders who feared the consequences of accumulating that kind of power in a few people again. Even explaining to them the glaring weakness of the old artificing, with the mana charges necessary to operate them forming a huge hole the magical surge of The Fall had driven into and exploited, hadn¡¯t allayed all their fears. Explaining that it was probably a deliberate act by the parties who gave us that magic in the first place, however, had brought them around. Fear of ¡®accidents¡¯ became rage at a deliberate attack as the shamans and elders, always the wisest of their people, came to understand the differences between the old and new styles, the weaknesses and limitations, and how they had been exploited against us. The Surge had been too precisely calibrated and attuned. Just the slightest difference in resonances up or down, and it would have had little effect besides possibly burning out some of the Gear, and making the ¡®loot dropped¡¯ Gear unstable enough to probably corrode away. Instead, they had DETONATED. There was no way it was an accident, especially since it had worked simultaneously on lugian, tumerok, and Isparian Artifice at the same time. Putting the best stuff into the hands of our best meant our best beat their best. Putting it into the hands of the second-best meant our second-best could equal the best of the other side, and if it was really good, could beat them. It had been proven repeatedly, and they couldn¡¯t deny it. -------- The Aun Longbeach settlement on Ithaenc¡­ The Aun elders hissed as they reached out and just barely touched the magic, drawing away urgently. I Dispelled it quickly, and a whelming threat evaporated before it could truly take place. ¡°I do not wish to do that again, Elders,¡± I warned them. ¡°I hope that was enough proof for you.¡± Elder Hemenua, most senior and accorded the wisest of those gathered here, nodded. I¡¯d brought back a dozen Aun elders from Stonehold, the Aun delighted that they could now interact openly with their distant kin, instead of shamefully hiding their connection below the eyes of allies. ¡°This¡­ is enough, Lady Magos.¡± He sounded as pained and disturbed as the others looked. ¡°The natural magic is indeed rife with danger, and not to be touched.¡± The big Aun heaved a deep sigh. ¡°That you are able to touch it where we were not is perhaps a sign from our ancestors, saving us from something fell and terrible, more dire than even what was done to our fallen. It pains us that we cannot wield the true magic of the land as did our forebears, but knowing why is a blessing. ¡°Thank you for trusting us with this.¡± ¡°If it stops some random enthusiastic fool from getting in far, far over their head, it was worth it,¡± I replied, inclining my head. ¡°What has been your consensus on the Hea?¡± There were murmurs from among the elders, many shaking their heads sadly. ¡°As they have served their virindi masters with the Gotrok against us and our allies, so will we return their lack of kinship. We know of no way to return those twisted by the virindi¡¯s magic to their natural forms, and they even breed true to such defilement. For the Hea to return to themselves, it is clear they must return to us and intermarry once more. If they refuse to do so¡­ they are no longer tonk, and may be warred with as such.¡± So, we¡¯d have our scouts and extra healers. A whole generation of the Hea existed who had never known their original forms, save for the very rare interbreeding. Those children had likely been put to death, or at the least chased out of the Hea tribes if it was a Hea female giving birth. Such children were cherished deeply and held as kin and the potential saviors of the red-skinned tribes among the Aun, however. It was just they were still very young and there were less than a dozen of them among the Aun, with only three Hea defectors having come to live among their green-furred kin¡­ and such had no desire to fight their own, although they had a violent dislike of the virindi who had twisted their tribes so. ¡°Has it been proven to your satisfaction that the magic I brought to you is not dangerous, and provides a workable alternative to the ancestral magic you cannot employ?¡± There were more grunts and murmurs from the attending elders, hands knocking on stones and knees, but nothing too opposed to it. I listened with half an ear, and Aun Hemenua finally nodded to me. ¡°The ways and means you have used to weave the power of the land into the arcane magic are subtle and wise. Wielding the powers does not feel as alien as it once did. Granted, you gave us only the simplest and most basic spells to try out, but we would like to learn more of them.¡± Elemental Theurge leading into dual arcane/primal magic. It raised the reqs to learn it by +1 Intellect or Charisma, but allowed the wielding of primal magic with arcane energies. I still had to be careful about stirring up something below the Land, but wielding Druidic powers was much easier, even if I had to do it through a Heartsong Class! The Aun had been delighted to learn that playing the drum actually was a great way to focus the magic, the Bardic flavor of the Primal magic coming through. ¡°Excellent. I will make the stelae so that your Casters might familiarize themselves with the spells, and walk you through how they are used¡­¡± AF Chapter 213 – A Wall of Shields Probably nobody was more surprised when the thrust of our own attack turned north instead of west than the Gotrok themselves. After such a horrific defeat, it only made sense that we should follow up and pursue them all gung-ho, capitalizing on the momentum of our great victory. That totally did not happen. Instead of an army tromping towards Linvak Tukal to valiantly take back the city of the lugians, the Gotrok instead were forced to contend with scores of teams of Royal Scout-led adventurers wiping their Summons off the landscape, and also Sealing the spawn points so that no more came in. The agile teams were all over the place, raiding in, taking their tolls, Sealing the points, and withdrawing with speed and stealth. Summons perished, Burned in unwhite flame, and were not replaced. It was very much not a lugian kind of fight. Our intelligence sources in Linvak Tukal, a couple of whom had been Marked in secret by a certain overly-stealthy Imperial Princess, relayed that Muldaveus, leader of the Gotrok, was throwing bellowing fits at our complete lack of follow-through, with cautious word that his ¡®great surprise for the weak-minded fools¡¯ was not getting used and was still waiting for us when we tried anything. Evil chortles all around, mind you. It was probably a complete coincidence that security around a great number of old mines that didn¡¯t seem to be generating all that much output increased, and no, no, we didn¡¯t notice and weren¡¯t curious about whatever was inside. Nor were we curious as to where all the output from their active mines was going. Nope, hadn¡¯t occurred to any of us at all. ------- Our forces rolled north, now that Mayoi was secure and nothing was going to be getting through the high walls without great numbers and attracting a lot of attention. The undead left behind would have no problem holding the city, and if needed, Master Ben Ten and his Moon Legion could run down the peninsula from Tou-Tou and be there in only a couple hours. Or faster if I ¡®ported there, made up a Disk Train, and he and his senior students towed the rest of them with increasingly adept lightfoot. They were doing a lot of meditation and testing of ki techniques while they patiently watched and waited for the vivus here to finish Burning and complete its task, fully expecting it might take months to do so. If I had promised to come fetch a bunch of them, including Master Ben Ten, via Teleporting if we saw some serious action, well, the Sho in general and Master Ben Ten in particular had some very bad blood with the Hea. They¡¯d killed him the first time, after all, finally avenging the great stand he¡¯d made at Yanshi almost two generations ago that had driven them from the Sho town (now occupied by mosswarts) and its environs. He was quite eager to return the favor to them with some true deaths of his own making, even it meant risking his own final dissolution. He had seen the living return, Tou-Tou fall, the lugians driven back. Only the Hea remained behind for him to reach contentment, and all regrets leave him. Which was not to say the potential of me returning them from the dead via Resurrections was not also being waited for patiently. The undead paramounts who¡¯d never bothered to have children were consumed with the thoughts of starting families if they could return to life, and finally leave behind a true legacy of their own, I¡¯d been told. The extra years of the Matrix method would give them all the chance to do so. The army rolled up the road through the oft-contested settlement of Nanto, which had gone through the hands of so many tribes and been attacked by shades so often it had basically devolved down into a trading center for the tribes to meet at, since none of them could hold it on their own. The many tribes of monugas, banderlings, drudges, mosswarts, and even mites were not happy to see an assembled army of Isparians, lugians, and tumeroks coming through the area, but they couldn¡¯t muster the numbers to equal us quickly, and definitely didn¡¯t have the mass and discipline to be a threat to us. Those who thought sniping around us, and maybe trying to steal something from the camp, got dead quick, and that nonsense stopped fairly soon, points taken and proof given on all sides of relative weakness. The tribes were also aware we¡¯d snuffed out every Summons point all the way to Hebian-to and well past the lugian-controlled hillside town of Lin. They really were too busy enjoying areas not occupied by hostile Summons of all sorts to really care about us moving an army through, as long as said army wasn¡¯t turned on them. If the wisest of them realized the implications of us managing to marshal such a force, sending the Gotrok running and the Hea slinking away, well, the tribes weren¡¯t known for their long-range planning, and we¡¯d see what would happen when it happened. Our scouts said the Hea were already gathering at Soushi, preparing to defend the town they¡¯d taken from the Sho energetically¡­ and the scouts also reported hovering shadows moving about, and strange hums of energy and inhumanoid voices in the air. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The Hea still had the reputation of being the favored servant race of the virindi who had made them into what they were, whereas the lugians had basically been bribed into serving them, instead. The hooks of the virindi were deep into the altered race of the Hea tumeroks, and it looked like they hadn¡¯t shaken free of them. How we were going to deal with that was going to be interesting. After all, there was no place for the Hea to run away to, unless the Virindi or their Shamans knew a way to send them back to Marae Lassel, where the tumeroks had first come to this world, and which the Aun had basically left to them. Them, the virindi, and the olthoi. There was a lot of seething resentment among the Isparians to treat them as horribly as they had treated us, and neither the Aun nor the lugians would have said anything if we did the same back to them. Princess Kristie had just snarled at that, and let them know that anyone who wanted to make war on non-combat females and children was welcome to go ahead and do so without her and her people providing any support, and they could parade around the corpses and skulls, maybe drink their blood and cook the dead over fires for supper, too. The whispers kind of faded away in shame after that. We were going to kill anyone who dared to fight, we were going to send them down to true death, and we were going to make them run away. They were still a hunting society, still didn¡¯t have a military tradition, and now we had two warlords who were both very good at mass movement of troops, not just skirmishing and raiding bands. And they just so happened to have an excellent Diviner with a bunch of eager students ready to put their Theurgic outdoor/Natural Detects on display sniffing out all the many, many ambushes and hidden Hea the red-skinned tumeroks were sending out, over and over again. -------- The attacks commence... Hea scouts died in startling numbers, and whatever rebirth mechanics their virindi masters had kept going for them? They didn¡¯t work. Like the Gotrok, the Hea had to confront the very same unwelcome truth that humanity had all those years ago: true death had returned, and now it was coming for them with pointed steel! The sources in Linvak Tukal made it very clear that the Gotrok were very unsettled over the deaths of the younger generation of recruits in the attack on Mayoi, and the fact that the deaths of every single lugian there had been permanent! Our wiping their external reinforcements and line of Summoned creatures had also unsettled them immensely. Even knowing that we were now pressing the attack on the Hea and didn¡¯t have the forces that we¡¯d had at Mayoi, the Gotrok made no attempt to move out in force, instead trying to hunt down the scouting forces raiding and sniping at their Summons points, Sealing them off, and ripping away their protectors and sacrificial army in slow, relentless layers. The Hea made one attempt at an open battle, rounding up Summons from across the eastern plains of Osteth and sweeping down from Fort Dryreach with a veritable horde of over ten thousand of their Summons forming a sacrificial wall for the shamans and officers commanding them. It did not go well for them. The lugian vanguards basically smashed through the horde, while tight and disciplined lines of Isparian spears behind a shield wall guarded their flanks, splitting that horde open and dousing the whole area in vivus. The tumeroks used a lot of magic, which smashed into those interlocked shields and proved basically useless on the line of Isparians and lugians coming for them, while their archery likewise just bounced from full armor. In return, their light armor of leathers, hides, and occasional mail was ripped through with far more deadly intent, especially if the Summons tried spellcasting in close combat. More to the point, I was there to point out the living among the Summoned, light them up with Faerie Fire, and there were a whole lot of paramount archers and mages totally willing to snipe those tumeroks down very, very quickly. As the living died, the Summons reacted ever more mechanically, instinctively, and ineffectively in the mass-combat situation. As before, I was basically doing a lot of Healing instead of attacking, restricting most of my ¡®attacks¡¯ to pointing out targets for others. I didn¡¯t want to have to add a tumerok Baneskull to my arsenal of the things, after all, even though I was capable of killing a lot of them all at once. The numbers were five to one in their favor, with no walls equalizing things, and we still crushed the attack completely. The horde of Summons broke on a lot of shields and spears, our own magic ripped into them nicely, and disciplined squads of archers and mages proved far more effective than their rough and loose bands of kin and clansmen. The living slunk away first. Despite all their martial zeal, they were not soldiers, had never been trained as such, and didn¡¯t have the discipline or morale to face the tight forces, the slaughter, or our inexorable advance. They were in it for glory, single duels, skirmishes, raids, and ambushes. Running away to fight another day, instead of being ground up under our boots, was just how they did things. This open slugfest was completely alien to their nature and way of living, and watching the tight mass of people and metal just crush everything in its way shocked the hell out of them with just how murderously effective it was. If we¡¯d come in loose formation and fought a lot of small skirmishes, they likely would have stuck around, and we might have killed a lot more of them. That was fine. Letting them run, letting them be chased, forcing them to evacuate their homes and families from places they¡¯d lived in freely for a generation or more¡­ they were now learning what it felt like to fall from on top of things, and see the peace they¡¯d fought for savaged and torn apart by the same enemies they¡¯d done the same thing to. It was a lot of recycling of hate and anger, sure, and I knew it, and I also knew that they had it coming. They had two choices as the campaign continued, our losses very light, our healing superior, as were our arms and armor and discipline. They didn¡¯t really have any answers to them. They could pull back further north, and start making troubles with the olthoi, or they could flee to Marae Lassell¡­ if their virindi masters let them, as they didn¡¯t have the skill or power to do so themselves. Indeed, being largely cut off from their home island had been very liberating, overall, judging by the words of the Aun and their social structure loosening up over time. AF Chapter 214 – A Shadow in Shoushi She was only a flitting shadow in the night, the attention of the Hea tumeroks on the distance, where the fires of an army burned, demanding their attention, focusing their fears, dragging their eyes. Closer fires ringed them in all directions, and they knew eyes were staring back at them, making sure they didn¡¯t send out ambushers or raiders, waiting and ready for them to try something. The last two scout patrols to be sent out hadn¡¯t come back. The nearby villages and homes had already been abandoned. Most of them had already been torched by the invaders, who had no desire to see Hea-designed homes left behind. Those flames were another distraction. And yet, the Hea had held onto Soushi. The walls had grown higher, tougher, more thorned, magic imbued in them to defy attackers violently if they were scaled, certainly far more dangerous than the mere stone walls of Mayoi. Princess Kristie Rantha just smiled as she slid into the shadow of those walls. They were probably pretty proud of these walls... She could feel the force magic that wanted to ripple about and punch through her from the many thorns on the wall, certainly capable of killing any normal climber, a better defense than a whole line of pikes, inexhaustible and lethal. It died against her Null like any other magic. The Hea were confident of their walls being able to hold, were obviously confident of being able to secure their gates, and had no fear of not being able to resupply. She could hear the subsonic hum at the lower range of her hearing. Having heard it at very close range on multiple occasions, there was no mistaking it for anything else. Virindi holding pattern, basically meaning ¡®I am floating here obeying orders.¡¯ Polyglot could even decipher hivemind pseudo-electric modulation coding, after all. A great Feat, even if her Whiskers of the Wild gave her Tongues if needed. There were fourteen virindi in the town, she judged after about a half hour of listening to the hums. They were keeping out of sight, no doubt meant to be a rude surprise to any human attackers. Fourteen of them weren¡¯t a threat. It was if they could bring in others that was, and Kris had very, very little doubt that was exactly what they were present to do. They were here to anchor the far side of a Portal if there was an attack. It would open, and a whole mess of reinforcing virindi would flood out of the thing and tear apart any attacking force with immense amounts of directed magical volleys. It would be a really big fireworks show, and complete hell to experience. So, it was her job to make sure said Portal never took place. The Hea were confident in their magical walls. It was somewhat similar to what had been the Aun settlement at Marae Lassel, abandoned at the Fall when its magic failed then, very hard to bypass, designed to deal with however many attacking olthoi dared its defenses. They were confident of the magic of the virindi and the reinforcements that had to be waiting in case of attack. Perhaps they were even confident in the magic of their maimed elders, learning so long and painfully over the intervening years, and the certainty that our methods of true death wouldn¡¯t stop them with their masters here. Well, they were about to learn hard lessons about relying too much on the magic of themselves and their masters, thinking it was greater and more than the Isparians they¡¯d hunted and chased away with could come up with. The virindi certainly knew many things of ancient origins and fell power, but that didn¡¯t mean they could come up with new things readily, nor adapt quickly to changes in a situation without referring to a past where such things had come up with before. Nor did it mean that they themselves were immune to the true death of vivus. She was definitely going to be inflicting all those unwelcome situations on them. Her strength to weight ratio was better than a spider monkey, and so hauling herself up the sides of the walls was basically effortless, being able to do curls with her whole bodyweight and more with ease. There were tumeroks on the walls, but the cool of the night and the light kept them near the fires, occasionally walking between them to be sure nothing was going on. She simply hung there by her nails until a Hea sentry passed by, and then silently levered herself up, over, and past his backside less than a pace away without much stress. When instinct made the tumerok turn around warily to look at the thorned wall and the shadows outside, she was already down inside the town and past him, landing with disturbing quiet and sliding away into the darkness. The first of the waiting hums wasn¡¯t that far away, but she didn¡¯t want that one. She wanted the one with more notes to it, which moved around a bit, evaluating the situation, checking on its underlings, and making sure the orders it had were ready to be implemented. That one was located in that direction, towards the center of the town. Looked like one of the abandoned shops, the inside probably gutted and the basement area repurposed to whatever the virindi needed. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The lesser virindi might notice the hum of their commander vanishing, but unless they had standing orders on how to react, the least of them would do nothing, simply waiting there for more orders. The more independent ones might be moved to react and ascertain if the situation had changed, but that was a smaller number of them, and smaller numbers she could certainly deal with. Flitting from scraps of cover and shadow that were not big enough to conceal her, yet did so without effort, she closed in on her target, noting the Hea guards outside the building who were both stiffly tense and quite bored, yet not daring to slough off with their masters here. Amused at the situation and the guards at both front and back, belying the importance of the nondescript building, she instead went up the side, ghosting up the walls, then onto the tiles of the roof, to the second floor windows. Pushing them open and sliding into the room beyond was effortless¡­ and the Virindi Puppet floating up there was facing the wrong direction, completely unaware as her Sound Bubble kept any noises from outside from entering as she flowed bonelessly through the window. A moment later the creature''s hum died away as the Sound Bubble expanded to include it. The Puppet noted the magical field come up, paused to analyze it and wonder what it was meant to do, a design and configuration beyond the limited knowledge that had been ceded to it¡­ and then an adamantine Blade wound in Lost Light plunged into its core, vivus burst forth as its matrix was disrupted, and it didn¡¯t even get to hum or screech forth an alarm before it collapsed into armored robes and disintegrating sickles and mask, Burning quietly and evaporating there on the floor. She dropped the Sound Bubble and listened silently for signs of a reaction. She had no idea of the hearing range or sensitivity of the virindi, and thus if they would readily notice one of their own passing away at this distance. The subsonic hums she could still faintly make out didn¡¯t seem to have much reaction. Either a Puppet was quiet, it was inconsequential if it went silent, or the others were out of range. Good enough for her. She slid open the door, the nominal paper of the Sho replaced by sturdier wood, probably having been holed or broken in the past. Her tremblesense extended to thirty feet, and nothing was reacting. Even the psychomagnetic repulsion of the virindi against the floor was easily perceptible, and she felt nothing connecting through the solids she could feel. Her own Waveskating Step kept her above the creaking boards and the aging supports underneath them, while she tracked the footsteps of many years and where they led with unerring precision. The stairs down were close, and she was swiftly down on the main floor, senses reaching out in all directions from the empty rooms below. She could see where furniture and fixtures had once sat, now removed. Patterns of traffic in from the doors at the front and one at the back, spiraling around obstructions that were no longer here, leading from room to room¡­ and the stairs going down. Below her feet, she could feel a pressure up against the ceiling below her, of something unnatural and its power pressing against the wood. The humming nature of it, and her ears focusing on it, easily identified it as a powerful virindi. The tone and note of it was unfamiliar, but that was no surprise at all. She had only seen about a dozen types of virindi, all of them numbering among the most common types, save for the three leader-types she had seen in the river town of Rithwic back then, with their longer tapered armored shells and variant colors, as opposed to the robe-like shells of the lesser virindi. There were three of them down below. That did not surprise her, as this would be an important place, and surely would be well defended. She was fairly sure she could deal with the two guards, who didn¡¯t seem all that different from virindi she had listened to in the past, but the big one had to go. Well, no time like the present. She was aware that because of her Null she simply ¡®wasn¡¯t there¡¯ to the virindi ability to sense magic, so withdrawing Quaver¡¯s Sound Bubble effectively made her next to invisible. How they interpreted light and sound was clearly not superior to that of humans, possibly because they were energy beings trying to interpret mass and structure. In a wildly unregimented and organic world, the pure randomness and irregularities of life were doubtless monumentally distracting, and it was difficult for them to tell if something was out of place. Doubtless why every non-vital thing had been removed from their purview. It was a hallmark of Axiomatic minds: no variation, no irregularities! Still, they had wooden stairs instead of stone ramps, and stacked stone basement walls, instead of Shaped or carved slabs of rock. Kris went down on her face at the head of the stairs, holding onto the sides and turning her head, her long braid snaking back and staying fixed to her back as she dipped down slowly to see what was below. She saw the underside of one hanging shell of an armored robe in a blue-black hue that was new to her, but the accompanying hum didn¡¯t seem that much different from an Inquisitor she¡¯d run across. The one in the long, layered tapered robe, itself a hallmark of status, was in a rusting green hue that she had no reference for, but the hum of its power, and the force it had against the ground, was clearly higher than that of the two guards¡­ and guards they clearly were, their hums rich in depth, but not in sophistication. Here to provide power. That was just goddamn fine, more Karma for her. She just had to kill the big bastard quick and clean, and then she could see about dancing with its guards to a Waltz of the Lost Light. Virindi were both very complex, as they were semi-elementals of transpsionic energy, and very simple, as they were just energy patterns of common origin and increasing sophistication. Most notably, there was almost no deviation in their core resonances, only increasing sophistication thereof. Deviation would mean separation from their hivemind identity, which would affect coherence, and was very, very stamped down on by the virindi, according to the tales she¡¯d been told. All that meant was that their cores were all in about the same places, just harder to reach through stronger shells and force effects warding them, thousands of Health and Health Qi protecting them. Which was why cheese was so useful against them. Behind her back, Quaver went crystalline Ruby in his sheath, ready and waiting to be used¡­ AF Chapter 215 – Soushi Uprooted Judging by the agitation of the Hea on the walls and lookout posts, they found the mess about an hour before dawn. The virindi were probably expected to be doing some routine thing that looked absolutely purposeless from outside, and when it didn¡¯t happen, the tumeroks cautiously went looking for them. They found signs of magical spells blasting away, and circles of unwhiteness left behind with crumpled piles of flaky white ash, where probably the robes, scythes, and masks of the lesser Puppets, Servants, and Guards had died. Then the probable locations of the two Masters anchoring the ends of the Formation were discovered, the crystalline matrix they¡¯d been guarding and empowering shattered and still burning with vivus, crumbling apart as it did so. It was hard to tell exactly where the Masters might have died, and the way the interior of the building was fused and scorched indicated a few spells had gone off, but nobody had heard anything. Racing urgently to the basement where the centrals Seals had been carved out of the stone, the Hea first stepped inside and saw that the floor was completely blown out and eaten away, allowing an uninhibited view down into the basement below. The guards on duty just gaped blankly, as they¡¯d not heard a thing of whatever had done that. The Formation itself was Burning mistily, vivus dancing and coughing up swirls of fog that had painted all the stone a soft and gleaming white to waist height down there. Whole sections had been blown out of the walls and floors by powerful spells, and hacking lines chewed through the rock where scything blades had torn through the rock in spinning circles. Stone was fused, scorched, shattered in brittle fragments, and slagged, and yet nobody had heard anything of such violent magic being released, things easily audible from hundreds of feet away. The collapse of the floor alone should have been heard by a dozen guards in the area, but nobody had noticed anything¡­ It went without saying that the Portal Formation that was supposed to be their surprise and the doom of the invading human army was utterly destroyed, beyond hope of repair. They would have had to start completely over if they wanted to make a new one, but that was plainly not going to happen in time. ¡°My chieftain!¡± Hea Kurugus had built up this captured human town into what he liked to think was a shining little jewel of tumerok culture and beauty. All the tribes who visited remarked on the comfortable air and design of the buildings, the liveliness of the atmosphere, and how nice it was to visit here. The lands were prosperous, rich in game and crops easy to gather, the defenses were solid, and the elders strong in magic and wise in their restraints. The Overlords and Masters out in the Direlands could claim greater fortifications and the like, but nobody wanted to live in such desolate areas, where even the delicious rabbits did not want to dwell, and the only meat worth the eating was dillo or shreth. Here there was fish and fowl and rodent and rabbits and frogs, rice and barley and wheat, occasional gromnie and auroch¡­ it was a good place to live. And now¡­ He turned his yellow eyes on the older warrior who had spoken up. Hea Guhon had lost a hand, a fang, and nearly his life during the Fall, only quickly healing magic saving the rest of his arm and leaving his face gravely scarred. No longer able to use a bow, the hunter had focused hard on mastering magic for the same task, and still wielded a spear in one hand, and could strap a shield about the stump of the other. He was loyal and alert and hard-working, and also loved what they had built here, far from their masters. But the Isparians had come back, and with them, the masters. ¡°My Chieftain, something is wrong with the Root,¡± whispered Hea Guhon, dread in his rough voice. The chieftain did not need to be told which Root. He rapidly turned and strode for the central pagoda of the town, his own abode where he¡¯d been sleeping on the second floor, the windows and doors open so that he could hear and rapidly step aside if there had been any calls from the sentries. The Root of the magic that empowered the town walls was located in the basement of the very conical tower he¡¯d been resting in! --- Hea Agutok was there, the elderly shaman inspecting the large and gnarled formation of intertwined Roots carefully. He was one of the few Hea who actually remembered some of the living arts of their ancestors, and had been enthusiastic about teaching them to the young Hea, instead of the harder and more brutal arts of war their virindi masters demand they learn. As the magic had made the walls of the place strong enough to even earn the respect of the virindi, nothing had been said about them. But now¡­ Something was wrong. The Root, the interwoven ends of every tree that grew upon and over the walls, protecting them with bark and thorn, was obviously wilting and dying. While all eyes turned on him as he walked in and stood aside respectfully, old Agutok just mumbled softly, his hands glowing with pale yellow healing lights that obviously did nothing. Kurugus turned to one of the apprentices. ¡°Have the walls been checked?¡± he asked directly, foreboding in his voice. ¡°We sent four to do so, my chieftain. They should be back shortly,¡± Hea Rolgukgok replied immediately. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Kurugus stepped up to the tangled roots, which once had exuded gentle yet palpable power from them, the ley line magic coursing through them, absorbed and then exuded by the trunks and the thorns. He felt nothing of that now as he looked over the tangle. Agutok waved his hands, shaking his head while saying nothing. His spells were not working, although there was no visible source of damage¡­ Hea Kurugus cocked his head slightly, picking out¡­ something. It was not apparent in the shadows and twisting of the roots, perhaps a trick of the light¡­ He reached out, Agutok flinching in surprise at the motion, laid his strong hands on the roots, grabbed, and twisted just a bit. Like a freshly quartered apple plucked from a tree, two quarters of the Root broke free of one another, held in place only by the pressure of their own congealed sap. They fell to the ground, snapping the brittle stems which should have supported their weight easily. As the Hea watched in shock and disbelief, the other side of the Root also fell in two quarters, plopping limply to the ground. Inside of them, the whole core of the Root had been reduced to a pulpy charred mess, as if both acid and lightning had run through the thing, and then out each and every root that extended up from the floor, all now revealed to be hollowed, cored, and charred. Kurugus snapped off a root three inches thick with a flick of his wrist, requiring almost no effort at all. He brought it up to his nose, inhaled once, and then silently handed it over to the elder shaman. Agutok took it and sniffed it as well. The old Hea¡¯s face twisted, and he tossed the broken root back into the middle of the slimy mess at the center of the Root. Acid, lightning, and some manner of acrid, artfully-directed poison. Either some inventive Isparian or one of their own Aun cousins had inflicted on the Root exactly what was needed to destroy it. The killer had also gotten in and out of the town without being discovered by any of the Hea inside it, and obviously the wall had not stopped them or hindered them overmuch. The implications of that were horrifying. He had been sleeping two floors above. Could not whoever had done this, cutting the Root cleanly apart, so precisely and finely the eye could not truly see it, have simply gone upstairs and removed his head with the same ease? Why had they not done so? Hastily-descending feet turned all their attention to the stairs. Two of the younger apprentices to the shaman were there, the dismay on their faces and in their eyes telling the chieftain everything he did not wish to see before they uttered a word. Their fine defensive wall was down, likely dying as the Root had. They had only the low walls built by the Sho tribe of the Isparians, things made more to keep out wandering beasts and vermin, not attacking armies. Up above on the top of the pagoda, the first horns blew, rapidly taken up and verified by the spotters at lower locations. The Isparians were coming. ------- Princess Kristie watched the Hea chieftain come out the doors warily, plainly considering a sneak attack possible, equally determined to face his fate head on. It would only be death, and the Hea here were encircled and facing extermination. There were only two gates they could come out from in numbers, both of which were now blocked by Isparian forces in heavy armor that was shrugging off their bow fire, with lugians in likewise gleaming armor that looked more armored than anything the Hea had likely ever seen. If he hadn¡¯t come out, then the attack¡¯s commencement would have been simple: alchemist fire in the hands of staff-slingers, starting conflagrations the Hea would have no chance of putting out. They would rapidly turn the area inside the walls into a superheated vortex, where breathing the air would roast them from the inside out. Some Protection from Fire Life Magic would only draw the period out to a long and agonizing death of watching everything around you burn and die, instead of a fairly shorter agonizing death of being charred and cooked alive. Death by a sniper¡¯s arrow was likely preferable to that, she mused. And really, she could have killed him last night, and a good portion of the town, if she had so desired. Quaver¡¯s Sound Bubble was made for covering up the sounds of death, and vivus for eating the smell of the suddenly deceased. The Hea glanced at the tall form of the great shaman Aun Hemuna behind her, but that was the point. The Aun was behind her, clearly in a secondary role, and to address the elder shaman would be to utterly insult the scarred Isparian female standing before him. He might as well draw his axe first and just swing at her, if that were his desire. However, he was clearly surprised when she spoke first, and in his own tongue! ¡°Hea Kurugus. Words of your wisdom precedes you.¡± She bowed slightly, just enough to show courtesy, plainly having the upper hand. ¡°I am Warlord Kristie Rantha of the Isparian forces.¡± The Hea chieftain was a head taller than she was, easily able to look right over her at the forces arrayed behind her. It did not take much skill to notice the anger and sometimes outright hatred in some of those eyes¡­ but that hate was not present in this female¡¯s eyes. However, there was instead something that made the hairs on his neck rise: a wild thrill for battle, a hunger and desire to see him fight¡­ and to cut him down in blood and fire. He had seen that light in the eyes of some very skilled and enthusiastic warriors, but never in the eyes of a cold and controlled leader of warriors like this. She wanted him to fight, so she could kill all of his people! He could feel the truth of it in his bones, and had to repress a shiver. ¡°The female Warlord. The wild tribes have spoken of you, and your strength.¡± And the fact she spoke their tongues, as well. Her tendency to beat the ever-wailing life out of banderling chieftains and then talk with them after she pounded some courtesy into them had also followed her around. It was said they tiptoed around the eight-fanged female now. ¡°What do you wish to speak to me about? Do you expect us to surrender?¡± His scoffing tone was unfeigned. What the Hea did to those who surrendered to them was well-known: brutal slavery, or death if they had no use for a slave. They had no use for prisoners, even if they were not as cruel as the drudges or banderlings, who might well devour such helpless fools! AF Chapter 216 – So long to Soushi Kristie just smiled slightly up at the Hea chieftain, only a simple circlet on his head indicating his status. His reputation did indeed precede him, as one of the least violent of the Hea tribal leaders, more concerned with making his own slice of tumerok paradise than spreading his name as a glorious fighter. Which was not to say he¡¯d not done that, as well. More than a few tribes of both Hea and the wilder races had taken runs at his little kingdom here, and he had been quick and decisive in punishing them for their effrontery. Such raids had settled down to occasional probes of the strength of others, tit for tat things done as displays of strength more than intent, each side holding to a territory and just letting the other know they could defend it. Clearly that strength wasn¡¯t going to be enough here and now, and all the older warriors and the magic they¡¯d painfully learned wasn¡¯t going to make a difference this time! ¡°In deference to your wise leadership of the past generation, Hea Kurugus, your people will be allowed to disarm and leave to the east. ¡°Remove all armor, weapons, and talismans, leave it all behind, and go.¡± She just looked up at him, and he stared back at her in disbelief. ¡°You expect us to disarm so we will be slaughtered the more easily?¡± he scoffed down at her. She just moved her shoulder, and the great Aun shaman behind her scoffed back at him, ¡°Do not judge her by what you would do, Kurugus!¡± Aun Hemenua hurled his words back at him in equal disdain. ¡°She will do as she says! Why, I do not understand, as slaves to the virindi should not be treated as anything more than the drudges they are,¡± Hea Kurugus¡¯ jaw clearly clenched at the insult, ¡°but if she says you will be allowed to leave, you will be allowed to leave!¡± Aun Hemenua¡¯s name was old and honored, his word absolute. That he spoke for an Isparian was a powerful statement of validity. ¡°And if we do not?¡± the Hea chieftain growled, simply because he had to. Her smile was death. Eight canines gleamed at him, and he had a vision of crazed carenzi leaping for his throat in blood-mad frenzy. ¡°Please, do not withdraw. It makes things so much simpler.¡± Hea Kurugus could not help but swallow. ¡°I¡­ will need some time,¡± he hedged carefully. ¡°You have ten minutes. You are the chieftain. Make the decision, and tell them. They will obey, or matters will become... simpler.¡± Her dismissive motion was curt and sharp, and he was stepping back from the simple power in her gesture before he realized it. Eight sharp teeth, gaping wide, coming for his throat¡­ --- The Hea kept his head up, but Kristie could see the defeat in the set of his shoulders as he walked away. It was kind of disappointing. Setting the place on fire, then wading into it to kill them all in the inferno was something she would absolutely enjoy doing, a tactic her mother had used more than once against the Viamontians. Rantha immunity to fire included immunity to carbon dioxide, monoxide, and smoke inhalation generated by flames. Burning castles and garrisons were no impediment to a Rantha. ¡°Explain to me why you would let them leave. The shame of having to surrender and being let go will prompt many of them to take up spears against you merely to prove their bravery and their honor,¡± Aun Hemenua asked her. ¡°One, it shows we have honor, where they had none. ¡°Two, it shows we have strength, and they have weakness. ¡°Three, it shows who we have respect for. I believe that Hea Kurugus may well be mocked and shamed by the other chieftains for choosing to save his people instead of fighting us¡­ and when we cut those other fools down without giving them any respect or honor, they will know who WE hold in regard. ¡°This will up his standing among his people without him doing anything, because we will not give them a choice. ¡°Four, is not Kurugus the one who sent trueborn Hea to be fostered to the Aun?¡± I asked archly. Aun Hemenua¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°He was, indeed¡­¡± ¡°Then we want the leadership of the Hea to be a warrior who cares more for his people than for the commands of his masters.¡± Aun Hemenua rumbled deep in his throat, his fingers tweaking the drum at his side with a soft ba-dump to accent, a complimentary gesture for her cunning. ¡°And if he should choose to fight?¡± he asked carefully. ¡°If they choose to fight, then I will slaughter them all, and their cries to their masters will not save them.¡± And she would kill them, it wasn¡¯t even a question. That the Hea on the walls could hear her last statement very clearly, it must have been their ancestors carrying it to them on the wind¡­ The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ------ They did stare at the lines of soldiers forming a path for them, the first ones tense as they strode out, breaking into a cautious loping after a perfunctory once-over from the white-haired, dark-skinned female waiting for them placidly outside the gates. She waved each of them off in turn, and the army of Isparians, Royalist lugians, and Aun watched them go. Sure, there were some tensing of spears, scowls, and angry eyes looking after them, but no action was taken. One by one, the Hea of Soushi, carrying little but the clothes on their backs, exited the town they had built up and re-purposed to the needs of their people, and they ran off to the east, towards yet another town and fortification built by Isparians that they had taken from them. Briggs and Kris were at the end of the line, watching them go. Hea Kurugus was the last to go, his circlet left to him by the female who¡¯d calmly flicked her hand and removed jewelry and fetishes from those who¡¯d hoped to sneak them past her without comment. He gave each of them a glance as he loped past them, a hunter¡¯s pace that would eat up the miles and carry him to his destination. Still, he had to cross the river and cover over fifty miles to make it to the main Hea camp and fortress in Osteth, although there were other camps and settlements on the way. They just looked after him with even expressions, and if Kris smiled just a little bit to hurry him on his way, that was to be expected. ¡°Send in the scouts and the Aun,¡± Briggs rumbled, pointing Endure at the gates, and the teams of both hurried into the city. If they wanted to destroy everything out of spite, that was their prerogative, and would not affect our actions one way or the other. We were expecting a few surprises, so the scouts and Aun were going to vet through the whole town. In particular, Aun Hemenua was going to go in with his helpers and see if the Hea had further destroyed the Root and essence of the living thorns that had helped guard the walls here. If they hadn¡¯t taken further actions, why, then, without about a week of work he could reverse what Kris had done to the thing, and even improve it substantially¡­ such as not having the core of the organic formation sitting above ground exposed to a sabotuer! Hea Agutok was a student of the old ways, that was true, but the Hea had lost a great deal of their ancient knowledge and magic under the influence of the virindi and the young tumeroks they¡¯d raised into power over their kin. The old ways had fallen into disfavor, and with them the lore and knowledge of their ancestors. Naturally his skill with such thorned defenses was not going to equal the knowledge of the Aun, who had kept their ancient knowledge alive with determination and zeal, even if much of it was¡­ difficult to draw on. If not outright lethally dangerous! I wandered up to the two of them, both of them looking away¡­ but not to the east. To the west! ¡°Hey, I know that face. It¡¯s the ¡®we beat the glove, but not the fist it surrounds. Prepare my chin for the pummeling, please!¡¯¡± They both lowered their eyes to me, and Kris promptly pounced on me and give me a firm noogie for being a smartass while I ineffectually beat her off, cursing about Hags and hard nails and other things. ¡°You know this wasn¡¯t about the Hea. The Hea, regardless of their boasting about their warrior traditions, don¡¯t have the stomach or heart for a true armed conflict,¡± Briggs rumbled. ¡°So, you¡¯re expecting the virindi to come sailing in here to see what happened and set it right?¡± I asked, rubbing my head and giving Kris a sour face. She just shit-grinned me and wagged a finger at me. ¡°Nobody I¡¯ve talked to can ever remember a scene of virindi moving out like a true army, only in small squads, maybe the size of a platoon. There should be a reason for something like that¡­¡± Briggs continued, ignoring our antics. ¡°Standard hiveminds EXCEL at swarm tactics. Intelligent hiveminds that can use magic in a coordinated fashion are the most terrifying of Axiomatic entities, using an entire army as if were one mind and body. ¡°They¡¯ve never shown that kind of mass power and coordination, despite exhibiting so many other signs of hiveminds with their emphasis on the Singularity and Quiddity and whatever.¡± ¡°The most obvious answer is this is the mortal plane, and they are some form of psychic elemental. Their very existence here requires that they cloak themselves in psychoactive metals to contain and shelter themselves. It would not surprise me that grouping together raises their psychic imprint to a level where their robes can¡¯t contain their power, and they destabilize. A self-correcting mechanism that can likely only be controlled by specific runeworks and psychic circuitry worked into their domiciles¡­ or by keeping careful distances between one another. ¡°Remember they are Aberrant. They are alien to the rules of this place, and the world doesn¡¯t like them. They start concentrating numbers, and the world really won¡¯t like them!¡± I finished sourly, actually hitting my head with a Vivic Dart to ease the pain. Bloody hag. ¡°And yet they still remain here. Whatever powers are chained here must be addictively attractive to them,¡± Kris mused. ¡°Or the risk of being able to harvest what they want is worth remaining, and Aberrants normally aren¡¯t too caring of the passage of time,¡± I agreed. ¡°Fifteen years, fifteen minutes, doesn¡¯t matter. Timeless is usually a part of their psychology, so it¡¯s merely find and adapt and find out and relate to prior experiences and experiment¡­ all the while probably being led along by the nose by whoever and whatever has power and control over the ley lines and System on this place.¡± ¡°Mmm,¡± Briggs offered noncommittally, but I knew he¡¯d filed it away to use against them at some point. ¡°For now, we have to expect a response. From what you¡¯ve told me, that is absolutely the first time you¡¯ve used vivus against non-Summoned virindi?¡± he asked archly. Kris glanced at me, nodding for herself. ¡°Only landscape Summons from me,¡± I confirmed. ¡°Given the lack of reaction to you offing landscape Summons, we can assume that such are distant or unconnected to the main overmind of the virindi, and might even just be copies of them used by the System as random filler. We can¡¯t expect that to happen this time.¡± ¡°A sudden and permanent loss to their overmind. Yeah, that should get a reaction.¡± ¡°Even the Rynthids they abhor so much didn¡¯t cause permanent losses to the Singularity. The infected virindi had to be destroyed and purified, but they were recycled into it all the same, according to the researchers involved with that incursion,¡± I added to his supposition. ¡°Annihilation will get a response, just on the basis of self-preservation.¡± AF Chapter 217 – Masks and Sickles ¡°So, what have you learned of virindi travel routes over the past six months?¡± Briggs asked us directly, crossing his thick arms and staring at us, waiting. ¡°Wow, it¡¯s like you expected us to be afraid of an alien, intensely magical, and frighteningly powerful species we know next to nothing about,¡± I murmured, leaning on Crown and rolling my eyes at him. ¡°How many times did you mess with them in Rithwic, Kris?¡± The princess grinned at us both. ¡°Thirteen times. Testing response times, travel paths, forces dispatched, variety of virindi, and changes each time. Each time I¡¯d head along their backtrail, seeing where it and they came from each time. Lots of sprinting across open fields and deserts for lots of miles.¡± Briggs just nodded. ¡°And?¡± he asked. ¡°I was wondering if they would come across the Inner Sea, since they geohover and doubtless have enough magical knowledge to punch the Shoreward. However, they do not. They come across the southern landbridge or from Dungeons located in that area.¡± Briggs nodded slowly. ¡°You¡¯ve the vector they¡¯ll use to approach Soushi, then.¡± ¡°Dispatched three teams to initial, transition, and midpoints of their expected paths,¡± she grinned heartily. ¡°Based on previous delays, we should have word of a moving force within an hour. I expect they will be skirting the northern edge of the Linvaks and loop around the end. However, given they don¡¯t have anything to worry about from them lugians, they may loop over the Tattered Ridge, or take a detour through Mage''s Pass. I don¡¯t expect that to happen, but that¡¯s where I¡¯ve got the teams working.¡± It went without saying that there were tons of Summons points to get rid of in that area, and delightful amounts of skirmishing with frustrated Gotrok in those areas, too. It was like she planned ahead for this crap, or something. ¡°Optimal ambush point?¡± ¡°Shifts depending on their course.¡± She inclined her head at me, and I sighed and popped up the Holo, orienting in on the area around Soushi. She promptly flicked two points on the map. ¡°Eighty percent the northern point.¡± ¡°What do you need to take them out?¡± Briggs¡¯ pale violet eyes turned thoughtfully west, where the virindi would have to approach from. ¡°Amusingly enough, not nearly as much as you might think, owing to some of the restrictions virindi operate under.¡± Kris¡¯ smile became quite predatory. ¡°Like, for instance, they can¡¯t climb for shit, which isn¡¯t a problem when you can pseudo-fly. Which isn¡¯t flying, which they might be able to do¡­ if someone doesn¡¯t stop them from doing that.¡± Briggs just snorted, and I rolled my eyes. ¡°And you need someone who can make a big pit right in front of the way they are going to go.¡± ¡°The virindi will follow an optimized route, which I discovered when I traced their original path. Literally line-straight, with deviations only for objects on the terrain obstructing the free flow of motion. We can literally draw lines and predict exactly the route they will take. As long as there is nothing big, they can go right over the roughest ground without a care or change in speed, nor does going up or downhill matter to them much,¡± Kris went on. ¡°Pretty curious creatures. I have a feeling they consider gravity just this huge annoyance.¡± ¡°King Gravity can be MUCH more than an annoyance,¡± I sniffed. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll go. Who else?¡± ¡°Well, a few stout lads who can throw some of those chorozite rocks we brought along from Mayoi!¡± Kris smiled cheerfully. Huh. Magically-reinforced exoshells¡­ weren¡¯t, to chorozite. Oh, that was going to really suck for them. ------ ¡°Sir, we¡¯ve got motion to the southwest, closing quickly!¡± Lt. Vilidiani shook his head, marveling again at the kind of stuff Warlord Kris could calculate and anticipate. Always having the right assets in the right area to take care of stuff, or find out more information, or just piss off lugians who didn¡¯t think scout teams should be this far out and enjoying themselves. Having the Lady Magos one Teleport away helped their peace of mind for that. Item Magic could no longer be used to Recall so easily to distant locations, enabling people to flee a losing fight rapidly if they so desired. The magic to do so still existed, but supposedly was much harder to use. They all wanted to learn to use it, of course, but the new Wizards were laboring slowly through the process of learning true Arcane magic, and not the much more limited stuff that had been passed down to them long ago by Empyreans visiting their homeworld¡­ ¡°Sollie! Get the circle up there! Depower all Soulbound gear, pull the Essence out of them! Rings and Necklaces in the null pack, quick!¡± He pulled off his own jewelry and quickly stuffed them into the lead-lined pouch, while everyone else did the same. Few had more than minor functioning magic on them¡­ but something was better than nothing, as they all knew, and at the very least the Necklaces could be used as nice focuses for the Artificing magic that had spread rapidly to everyone who knew Item Magic once, even the weaker version still the most popular of the schools to get involved with. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Their maga, one of the Lady Magos¡¯ students, hurriedly made a Circle about ten feet in radius, sprinkled powdered cold iron into it, and everyone hunkered down in the tall grass inside it, watching as dots in the distance came rapidly towards them, moving at the speed of a sprinting man, or faster. -Warlord Kris, I have eyes on the coming virindi,- the Viamontian scout /informed her respectfully, and felt the return knock on his eyeballs. -Going quiet until they choose a course.- He¡¯d been informed that the virindi could sense use of magic, and that included the telepathic connections that were involved with employing a Mark. The implications that, all those years ago, the virindi had been able to sense Fellowship and Allegiance communications, and perhaps even listen to them, was disturbing to think about. Sure, they were alien things that would probably have a hard time understanding so much of the casual and social conversations that had gone on, but the fact they might have been able to just listen in-! Well, they were the things that had prodded the Gotrok into rebelling, taught them how to refine chorozite, and supplied them with new weapons and armor upgrades in return for ore. The Gotrok weren¡¯t as captive as the Hea were, but they were deeply interwound with the virindi, which meant the virindi were not friends to the rest of the allied races. The virindi likely didn¡¯t consider themselves more than allies of convenience with the Gotrok, and given that Isparians and the other races had worked both for and against the virindi in the past, they probably held most races to be hugely unreliable, unlike their own inscrutable and alien selves. Head barely above the grass, looking like little more than stony bumps on the side of the hill and surrounded by tough bushes to further break up the line of sight, the whole team watched the virindi assault team speed up and go on by them. It was led by two scale-robed versions, one in red and one in brown. Three other scale-robes in gray hues followed, and then a number in the more classic robe style. A dozen Servants and Puppets brought up the rear, the dullest in hue and least precise in appearance, with Masters and Directors seemingly pulling them along as they likewise almost seemed to be towed by their masters. They¡¯d all been told virindi saw active magic as bright lights, and the rest of the world as gray. Thus, hiding in shadows didn¡¯t work against them if you had any kind of magic on you. It would be like trying to hide while waving a torch around. Likewise, the simple ability to WIELD magic meant you had magic around you, and your Aura made you stand out against the non-magical world. That was what the Circle was for, Non-Detection there to absorb magical ¡®radiation¡¯ and make them just part of the rest of the plain, featureless no-magic world. Pulling the Soul Essence out of their Weapons and Armor instantly made them non-magical, taking care of that exposure, and everyone was sitting inside the Circle, keeping movement to an absolute minimum as the virindi platoon sped by, never touching the ground, plants whipping away from the trailing bottom of their robes and the faint purple-violet lights that emanated from inside them. The virindi zipped on past, not seeing the humans ensconced up the hillside only a hundred yards away, watching in silence as they sped past. The Virindi ignored the existence of most Summons, who in turn barely reacted to them¡­ and if there was going to be a problem, then there was a blur of magic, several spells detonated, the targets Summons went flying in death, and the virindi kept on moving without slowing down in the slightest. Lt. Vilidiani waited and watched as the virindi approached Mage''s Pass, one of the few easy routes through the northern arm of the Linvaks. They would have to turn right about THERE for optimum travel speed¡­ The whole squad watched with him as the virindi continued north and east along the foothills, not deviating from their course. ¡°Eighty percent looks like it was right,¡± Sollie murmured, the seasoned young woman nodding to no one in particular. She might have been talking to the Lady Magos, Vilidiani wasn¡¯t sure she had a direct Mark the same way, or was simply in Allegiance to the powerful wizardess who had turned magic for Isparians and the other races upside down with the new innovations. He couldn¡¯t see her in the Markspace, so he wasn¡¯t sure she¡¯d been offered a Mark yet. Why not was another question, although the fact it DID have to be Tattoed was a consideration. The virindi were a mile away before he dared to address his Mark again. -Warlord, the virindi continued northeast, ignoring Mage''s Pass.- -Get out that scope and track them past the Ring of Crystals settlement.- Vilidiani cursed and clawed for the tube of artfully cut lenses in the plumbum-lined null pouch that gave such excellent view at a distance, breaking out of the Circle as he freed it from his pack and brought it up to his eye. The minor magic focused instantly, and the motion of the virindi and the bright red of four of them made them fairly easy to track. He watched as they streamed past the ruined settlement, a single spell sniping what looked to be a zefir out of the way ¨C hah, aliens hated the Hell pixies, too! - and watched and waited as¡­ They suddenly veered south, right up along the line of the hills extending down from the Linvaks! Vilidiani was perfectly aware that there was a long and notable trail along the tops of these hill-mounts, as unnatural as the hills themselves were in design. Indeed, moving along the hilltops was a nice clear route that would only be interrupted by living guards, and so had been watched over by actual Gotrok for some time¡­ at least, until the Gotrok started taking falls down the mountains and not coming back from them within the last few weeks. Obviously the virindi knew of the hilltop road and were using it to cut off time¡­ -They are taking the hilltop trail, Warlord!- he /said respectfully once more. -Heading right up towards the Fenmalain Vestibule Dungeon that is there!- -That won¡¯t do anything for us unless there¡¯s shades present to bring the residents out and give them a tussle, so don¡¯t dwell on it. Alright, back to work with your Summons points, and well done. Slit a Gotrok throat for me.- Lt. Vilidiani smiled at that. Warlord Kris had a very direct way of speaking about things, and the grim note to her voice meant she wasn¡¯t joking. The next time he talked to her, he¡¯d best have at least one more Gotrok notch for his belt. Happily, that probably wasn¡¯t going to be too hard. The Gotrok were trying to hold the hilltop trail south of Mage¡¯s Pass where it broke, and if they liked to surround themselves with a few Summons for protection, that wasn¡¯t going to save them here. And not coincidentally, his team was on the southern side of Mage¡¯s Pass¡­ ¡°We¡¯re heading up to make sure the Gotrok don¡¯t control the hilltop trail,¡± he told the rest of the team, who nodded and grinned, reading in that there was going to be fighting. Most of them weren¡¯t out here to just shut down Summon points, after all¡­ AF Chapter 218 – Vertical Virindi Victory Inverted Careful spotter teams were indeed moved into position as the virindi sped unopposed along the hilltop trail for over twenty miles, the change in course cuttting at least ten miles off their trip if they¡¯d stayed down low. Such savings of time and effort were naturally not to be ignored! They came up to the branching point where the Fychek Ruins were located, and true to maximal efficiency, turned to take the branch going down to the southeast. One more turn to the northeast had them pointed basically right at Soushi, and they zipped down and along the trail in their tight little line, undeterred and not having slowed down for the entire duration of the journey, an impressive achievement. Of course, they were moving fast, tied together by some sort of TK chains so they could move at the speed of the fastest virindi. As a result, when they hit the pit there was no stopping anything. Alternate senses they certainly had, and while it was possible to use illusions to exploit such things, I really needed more experimentation to test out some higher-Valence stuff that didn¡¯t give off the telltale glow of magic to them¡­ which was perfectly possible even against things that could see magic. Illusions were designed to fool ALL the senses, such as they are, including magical ones. Even True Sight, which was supposed to see through all illusions, could be fooled by illusions of higher Valence designed to slip past it. But, nah. The team was hiding behind rocks moved into position on either side of the slope as the virindi came down off the mountain trail at zippedy-doo-dah speed. Ahead of them was the broad pit about thirty feet deep I¡¯d Shaped out of the stone, which was calculated to be enough that even using geomagnetic bouncing, they wouldn¡¯t be able to get out. At least, not without doing something cute like stacking on top of one another, and they weren¡¯t going to have time to do that. As for what was covering it, it was simply a paper-thin sheaf of rock, complete with weeds and scrub to blend in perfectly with the rest of the terrain, all held up by a couple nets stretched across the pit to support the ¡®lid¡¯, as it were. Kris pressed the stopper on the rod, the det cord flashed at fifty thousand mph and cut the net¡¯s lines down its entire length at once. The whole thing dropped away underneath them instantly. Geomagnetic levitation doesn¡¯t actually put any pressure on the surface below it, being a transmagical form of hovering that simply uses repulsion between matter to stay aloft. However, even if they weren¡¯t putting any weight on the pit¡¯s cover, that cover had suddenly dropped away. Unable to push off anything, the startled virindi sped right down into the pit at full speed, stunned at the sudden change in their material environment and unable to respond fully in time. If it had been a magical ambush, I had little doubt they would have been able to respond as an entire unit with absolutely breathtaking speed. However, this was the very environment turning against them, and whenever had they ever run into something as simple as a disguised pit trap? They plummeted to the bottom of the pit, the brown Virindi Profatrix up in the lead actually slamming into the far end at speed with a crunch before bouncing off, was crashing into by the Consul right behind it, and then both of them were bowled over by their Paradox bodyguards still retaining their momentum. Really, the whole bunch and batch of them just crashed together in a chaotic mess, not arresting their forward momentum in time as they instead fought to stay ¡®aloft¡¯ and aboveground, distracted by what was happening, and were also bringing their combat algorithms online to do battle, just in case. Princess Kristie stepped up coolly to the edge of the pit, her Autobow Drop bearing a new and deadly load: quarrels tipped with chorozite. A half-dozen of them were held in her hair, right at the limits of her Vajra¡¯s ability to handle weight, but she had a full quiver of them riding her shoulder, just in case. A dozen lugians with good strong throwing arms appeared with her, looking down at the mass of virindi, who were the empowering force that supported the Gotrok and had caused a lethal schism in the unity of the lugian clans. Dutifully knurled and cast chorozite rocks as big as their heads were raised up. Hovering next to them were Disks with carefully fitted stone covers fit over them, and thus able to support the translucent rocks heaped up on them for the throwing. The virindi were humming and making noises part machine, part insectile chittering as they looked up and beheld the shadows overhead with the magic-ignoring rocks in hand¡­ and one with magic-ignoring bolts. Then the bombardment began, and point-blank inundation of the virindi started. The lugians even departing from pitching the rocks, just snatching them up with two hands and bringing them down at point-blank range onto the floating figures below all clustered up in their armored robes. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Metal and ceramics crashed and cracked, and over the edge of the pit zipped some gifts for them. Shards, girt in vivus. Those they saw coming, and the alarmed whines and squeals of something so bright and deadly contrasted directly with the dry observation that the ¡®utter reality¡¯ they had gifted the lugians with was being turned against them, while simply being at the lip of the pit allowed the lugians to easily step back from any directed War Magic with impunity. The Servants and Puppets swiftly exploded into purple-violet flames that were instantly devoured by vivus as they popped and collapsed down on themselves. The other virindi just found themselves lit en vivus, but the smashing rocks coming down on them did the real work, completely bypassing the ablative power of their armored robes. Masks shattered, armored shells were crushed and distorted, energies leapt free. The virindi did try some automatic spellcasting, and chorozite rocks smashed into them and rather disrupted all that. The Profatrix was the last to go down, its brown armored shell the strongest and most infused with magic, but all that gave it was six more seconds as all the lugians concentrated their fusillade on it. Pounding semi-transparent stones crushed and smashed down into it, and a loud buzzing ¡®NO!¡¯ in their language accompanied the rupturing and explosion of unwhite flames that reached up to devour its energy, just as they had the whitened and empty robes that had formed its underlings. If the three toughest virindi also had holes punched right through them by Autobow quarrels, well, that was on them. ¡°Anything down there of interest?¡± Kris asked, looking down over Drop to see if anything was going to start moving in the mound of rocks and Burning vivus down there. I stepped up to the edge to survey the place, watching the thaumactive armor flaking off like accelerated white rust as it gave up the energies it had been infused with. There shouldn¡¯t be much of anything in there¡­ ¡°Huh.¡± Minor TK reached down, grabbed a glimmer of magic, and pulled it free of the unoccupied neck of the leading Profatrix¡¯s suit. It was a Necklace designed to be draped over a virindi bodysuit, spun of pyreal and some form of crystal I wasn¡¯t Assaying deeply, with what looked like some form of energized diamond at the front of it. It flew up to my hand, intact and shedding the vivus that was ravaging the damaged bodysuits below. I opportunistically pried off a couple of the plates from the Paradox, Consul, and Profatrix to do some research and testing on before the vivus disposed of them, wanting to know if there was an alternate way through them that did not involve ¡®hollow¡¯ weaponry. ¡°Anyone recognize this?¡± I blew the image up so that all of the curious lugians watching could study it intently. With their interest in all things rock and stone, if they¡¯d seen it before, they¡¯d certainly know what it was. The lugians all rumbled at one another, shaking their thick heads slightly as they did. Elder Grumbass said, ¡°The energies inside the jewel are of a hue new to me, Lady Magos. Perhaps they represent something new made by the virindi?¡± he hazarded quietly. ¡°Was not green the color used in their Quiddity Weapons?¡± Corporal Remgok spoke up, actually the senior hurler of the group, his cheek tat proclaiming him a victor in a bunch of throwing challenges. ¡°Ohhhh, that¡¯s interesting. We haven¡¯t been able to locate an intact Quiddity Weapon.¡± Which was a shame, as they were an alternative approach to Armor Cleaving, as I recalled. I eyed the glittering jewel and the very¡­ weird arrangement of the magic woven through it. ¡°This does not appear to be a Cleaving effect, however. It is strong, but not in that direction.¡± ¡°Guesstimation?¡± Kris asked professionally, also studying it. ¡°It¡¯s a magic amplifier. I will go out on a limb and say it stabilizes the wearer¡¯s magic and allows them to Cast a Scarab higher.¡± The concentric patterns that were far, far more complex than required for the amount of energy involved in them led to that deduction. Kris glanced sharply at me. ¡°That¡­ is potentially huge. The virindi are re-stabilizing their spellcasting already?¡± ¡°Horrible, right? It¡¯s like no other species should be able to innovate anything over the last fifteen years, even if they are intimately interwoven with the weft and weave of the field of magic itself. It¡¯s just not right!¡± ¡°Damn straight! Why, we could all go on just with historical knowledge and never embracing anything new, so everything repeats, top stays on top, low born stay poor and broken down, and nobody can reach for the skies except those on the very top!¡± she retorted brightly, every word just dripping honeyed sarcasm so viciously that any of the listening lugians who might have believed in ¡®the old ways are best¡¯ emphatically clamped their mouths shut. They¡¯d just watched her Autobow punch holes completely through the three toughest virindi down there. They didn¡¯t need to be pissing off someone who could fight any three of them at the same time without any effort whatsoever. They were rock tossers, and they¡¯d never hit her if she didn¡¯t want them to. ¡°Alright, lower them down there, recover our ammo, and then bury them,¡± Kris directed us all coolly. ¡°Their Singularity is not going to repeat the mistake of sending more virindi to vanish again, so they¡¯ll be attempting to use alternate resources to find out what happened here. I expect they¡¯ll be questioning the Hea and the Gotrok closely to find out what happened. ¡°Stonebrothers, this is a zip-it, no-talk event,¡± she ordered them calmly. ¡°I don¡¯t want the Hea, Gotrok, or virindi to learn what happened here at all. Let them goddamn stew. ¡°That means you absolutely shut up about what happened, as all the scout teams who played spotter are energetically forgetting this all happened at all. ¡°As a matter of fact, just to make sure that we have a cover story, we¡¯re going to go up the hilltop road and hunt us down some Gotrok, just so you can all lie with a straight face. As of right now, you didn¡¯t see any virindi, there weren¡¯t any here, and those chorozite stones are for the random Summons the Gotrok like to leave in scattered areas as surprises for everyone.¡± The lugians all rumbled their consent. Playing mindgames wasn¡¯t a strong point of their species, but they could appreciate a good trick. When I cleaned this whole place up and made it look like nothing had happened, that was going to be a pretty good trick, indeed! The lugians sat down on the chorozite-holding Disks and went over the edge to clean up the mess down below. Chorozite throwing stones had value, so they were worth retrieving. Then I¡¯d Shape the entire pit back closed, and there¡¯d be no sign the virindi were ever here at all. Their bodysuits, sickles, and masks would Burn down to dust, and that would be that¡­ AF Chapter 219 – Research and Ruminations Testing the Necklace and confirming what it did wasn¡¯t very hard. I put it on, and just Cast low Scarab spells, looking at the effects. They did indeed immediately jump an entire Scarab level, although you actually had to have the higher Scarab available to channel the energy through. However, it didn¡¯t work beyond Gold for me, as the Diamond-centered path I used simply didn¡¯t ascribe to standard progression, and the Necklace couldn¡¯t compensate for it. That was absolutely fine. Everyone else who tried the Necklace on and managed to resonate with it did indeed improve, some of the elders casting Pyreal spells in delight for the first time in over a decade. We didn¡¯t have a lot of comparative evidence, but the existence of this Necklace made it plain that the virindi had been limited in the spellcasting, too. Possibly only the most powerful of the species, with Caster skills in excess of 520 or higher, had managed to retain ALL of their spellcasting ability. While the Puppets and Servants of the race hadn¡¯t been affected, their Casting ability initially a whole realm above what they usually wielded, there was a lot of supposition that the Masters, Directors, and higher virindi had lost access to Pyreal and Platinum spells, while the most powerful had lost access to Incantor spells. The Necklace was plainly intended as a method to return the power they had once wielded to them, smoothing out the chaos and irregularities in the manafield that were hampering the magic, and making simpler spells stronger and more complex automatically¡­ in the prescribed patterns. The Necklace was limited by School, it seemed. This one the Profatrix had borne was aligned to the evocation energies of the school of War Magic. I could only assume that if they used Creature and Life Magic, the virindi with those would be dedicated Buffers and Debuffers for their respective schools. They hadn¡¯t seem to used self-Buffing in the past too much, but that could be changing in the future¡­ Regardless, unraveling the secrets of the Necklace did end up costing us it, but that was fine. Artificing genius was on the job, and Mira went after the secrets of it with a will and burning desire to figure it all out. Since we weren¡¯t actually alien to the mortal realm and using a weird Quiddity mental energy for the effect, it actually went much easier than the virindi doubtless had progressed. Helped to have a working example of what to do, of course. Just needed to tweak and rotate it to work with a decent native energy, instead of their quasi-psionic/elemental one. The Necklace had no effect on the Matrix side of the equation, so I left the problem to her. Raising a spell a Valence wasn¡¯t hard, and a blanket effect could be done by hitting Eleven and Burning a Ring, a decision I hadn¡¯t had to face yet. Actually making the things would be a different story. Magic items could no longer be churned out by Wish-level magicks popping up 25k in goldweight progress a day, enabling basically assembly-line speed of making things. Indeed, talking with the old artificers who¡¯d made so many popular items and powerful magic items back then, they couldn¡¯t even recall precisely how they¡¯d made just so much stuff. Suits of armor that should have taken days to craft and then even more time to enchant were just churned out¡­ somehow. One of the important things was Set Magic. I wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with the concept. While Aelryinth had played The Power of Ten lovingly, he¡¯d dipped into other games, like Diablo2, where Sets of armor and weapons synergizing together had benefits above and beyond the routine enchantments attached to them. The Power of Ten had such things, too, but they generally weren¡¯t major endowments¡­ and certainly weren¡¯t something you put on first, then attached some worthless minor spells to which got the whole thing trashed as unviable and a complete waste of time to do. The System here didn¡¯t seem to have adjusted to Weapon Sets, and definitely not integrated, cross-type Jewelry/Armor/Weapon sets like Diablo2 had done. It did have Armor Sets¡­ which were also pretty randomized and not complete. Instead of having specific designs for Sets, the Armor here instead had possessed ¡®designations¡¯, as in ¡®this armor is designed for defense¡¯ or ¡®this armor is designed to be proof against lightning¡¯ and various other effects. The Armor then upgraded the more pieces with the same designation you were wearing, maxing out its benefits with five of the nine possible pieces you could wear bearing the same designation. The looser format¡­ was actually something new and different. Most Sets I knew of were specific objects of specific designs that had to be worn together. Here, ¡®Set¡¯ was just a designation attached to any piece of Armor, the other abilities of such Armor could be literally anything, and it would still work fine. There were surviving pieces of Set Armor, although not many, cherished things that had run out of mana and been stored away and forgotten, or lost in Villas and Mansions and Cottages when the Fall came through and tore them apart. Finding just one such object in an entire settlement made our scouring of such settlements more than worth it. We had so much to rediscover and rebuild, and this time we were not going to let the information and process devolve into fuzzy recollections nobody could quite understand. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ------ ¡°First time we found one,¡± Kris admitted, looking over the incredibly overgrown area of the wilds with me. ¡°Wherever they were located dimensionally, they popped up in places out of the way. We¡¯re hoping to find the others, but doubtless they will be in some small location completely overgrown by now.¡± One of the scouts had reported stumbling over the remains of a palatial bed out in the middle of a thick forest. Careful investigation had turned up the moldering remains of heaps and piles of random junk scattered all over the place under the thick brush and cover. Veterans who¡¯d helped clear Cottages settlements realized what was happening, contacted us, and Kris and I had rapidly come out with a Scour team to find what we could. The brush was slowly being cleared away and deposited to the sides as we looked for anything left intact in the mounds and heaps here. Also, there had been a LOT of the overpowered magical rats here, who¡¯d obviously been eating some crazy magical stuff with them blowing fire, lightning, and acid and so forth. So it had turned into some nasty scrapping with the little buggers, too¡­ although there was a very curious banderling tribe nearby who had been enthusiastic to help out if they could take all the meat away, which was perfectly fine by us. This roughly nine-acre junkyard of rat warrens and random crap was the remnant of an Apartment Complex from before the fall, a large dimensional space with literally hundreds of small rooms which could be rented out by adventurous sorts as homes and storage areas. Small and cheap, they¡¯d often been crammed full of extra stuff and just used as storage rooms by those renting them, and otherwise forgotten. During the Fall, these large dimensional areas didn¡¯t even get the grace of being treated as Dungeons. Just like the long-vanished Town Networks, the Apartment Complexes had simply vanished without a trace. Now we had stumbled across the remains of one, the belongings of hundreds of adventurers dumped randomly out in the wilds out of nowhere, and left for the wilds to overgrow. The banderlings nearby had vague stories about the rat-attracting junk falling out of the sky, and had even taken away random coins and the like, those which had survived. Mostly, they wanted nothing to do with the obviously cursed stuff, given the events going on at the time, and I couldn¡¯t say I blamed them. That the concentration of broken magic and odd housing items seemed to attract a lot of rats, which made for good hunting, was serendipity and they took advantage of it. We were happy to tell them we¡¯d be leaving most of the junk here, and the rats would return after we were done churning the place. There was a LOT of stuff here. Briggs and the Mick were still prosecuting the advance on the Hea. The wine-skinned tumeroks kept trying to use hunting and raid tactics against an army, and it wasn¡¯t working so well. They kept trying to flank and get behind the army, and kept running into sentries and scouts making them dead, while being crowded out of larger and larger areas. Summons were being Sealed across large areas with great speed, destroying their reinforcements even as their warriors failed to come back from the dead. The waves it was sending through their fighters, so used to being immortal, was playing havoc with their morale. It didn¡¯t help that the most powerful among them were easily butchered in challenges against Briggs and The Mick, and the scornful way the two treated the best of the Hea archers and snipers wasn¡¯t to be dismissed, either. The Royal Scouts and Aun were totally capable of playing cat-and-mouse with the Hea, and did so enthusiastically. Equipped with Named Weapons and upgraded Armor, they had no problem dealing with their opposite numbers, either. The Mick was still looking out our eyes as a steady flow of coins, gemwork, flakes and nuggets of salvage, and some barely-intact magical items, flowed on to deployed Disks, to be Itemized or Tapestried as we accumulated enough of them and sent off for usage. It was all Energized stuff, in the end, and it all had uses. -Grab that one,- the Mick /spoke up, halfway to Dryreach and crouched in the shadow of a boulder, unmoving and watching an easy water crossing ahead of him. The birds were chirping and frogs croaking around him, no sign that he and his Roaches were around anywhere. Ki flexed through his system, circulating and alleviating any pain, stiffness, or boredom, working and improving while sitting there like an absolute motionless block in true Shadow Stalking style. I flicked a hand, and the bloody red jewel on the greenish-copper wire necklace on a passing Disk being walked past us was drawn up to my hand. ¡°Definitely magical at some point,¡± I agreed with him, holding it up before my eyes and going over the magical arrangement, both him and Kris eyeing the greater magical detail I could see it in. Kris reached over, and black nails danced delicately over it. Internal burned pathways and imperfections added themselves to the analysis. -That be a Bloodstone Necklace, a nasty little piece o¡¯ work involved with the murder o¡¯ the first mayor of Ayan Baquar. It gave ye a nice boost to yer Health while ye wore it. The magic were eventually duplicated in other items, an¡¯ it fell out o¡¯ style, mainly cause it had such a small reservoir of mana t¡¯ feed it. That, and it were pumping with the blood an¡¯ pain of a man sacrificed t¡¯ dark powers an¡¯ all, but who is going t¡¯ care about such minor frivolities on something so useful?- The Mick knew his fellow adventurers well, it seemed. ¡°So, a repulsive piece of work, with magic in it that didn¡¯t need to come from such corrupt origins, but easier to do it that way, so why not?¡± Kris interpreted, shaking her head as she eyed it. ¡°That pattern¡­ it remind you of something else?¡± she asked me directly. I tilted my head, leafing through a lot of Spellcraft patterns. ¡°Nothing in the Arcane end of things, even incomplete and temporary Constitution boosters. Boosters, Health¡­ huh.¡± I turned an eye on her midriff, where the curious currently couldn¡¯t see the five Tatted bars arranged in a triangular format right over her diaphragm, pointing up between her Nothing to See Here. AF Chapter 220 – Discoveries and Deities ¡°Huh. The layering is indeed similar to Soul Magic. You said this was run off Blood Magic, Lord Mick?¡± I asked him again, looking at the patterns closer, mentally moving them around and sideways. Ugh, nasty, cruel work, designed to siphon the power out directly, slowly, and painfully, all completely unnecessary, done by something that was feeding on such sensations as it made the jewel. -Aye. Can¡¯t be sure to who or what he were sacrificed, but definitely were no friend t¡¯ the rest o¡¯ us. Brigands an¡¯ assassins using it fer cheap power. The magic were duplicated in other things later, without all the blood an¡¯ agony involved.- ¡°A potential external focus for Soul Essence, if we can clean up the patterns. Won¡¯t need the Tat or to know the Shaping. It¡¯s¡­ appropriate, wearing it over the heart. Normally you might find it on an Undershirt, or Breastplate, if at all. A useful alternative, if you¡¯ve got Soul and not the means to employ it. Much more powerful than Soul Feats for direct use of Essence,¡± I murmured. Most Isparians had real problems Shaping up Soul Essence, and had to rely on Tats. The Mick, for instance, had to get Tatted up by Kris to use Cloudstepping Sandals. It put a big limit on what exactly they could use, so they had to be careful about their choices. The various Soul Feats were nice, but they didn¡¯t compare to the Shapings, or the Soul Tats which emulated them. And given the number of people who could Soul Tat others on the island was exactly two, items were a much more viable means of employing such things, completely independent of punching chakra points! ¡°I seem to recall mention of some other spells and effects which increased Health and the like, but only as¡­ drink or minor Tinker Buffs on objects?¡± I recalled carefully. ¡°It means this could easily be a graduated effect¡­¡± ¡°The Dragon¡¯s Heart is a huge Soak Buff,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°Basically the equal of two Con points per Essence into it, as far as Soak goes.¡± Or basically +1 Soak per Level, in layman¡¯s terms. It was totally possible to get a huge amount of Soak out of the thing, if you just committed the Essence to it. Another Buff. You only needed one Chakra point open to have an Essence Reserve and start building it, after all¡­ More toughness was a good thing for humanity here. ¡°What was the bonus off this magic, if you recall, Lord Mick?¡± -+30, as me fadin¡¯ brains do remember. Weren¡¯t nothing better than it, save for some temporary consumables, as it were.- ¡°Huh,¡± Kris noted, glancing at me. One point per Level, times up to five, was potentially up to +100 Soak, a considerable improvement¡­ but for a single effect with no further investment, +30 was still pretty good, equal to the buff for +6 Con for a Ten. Breaking Ten wasn¡¯t really a problem for these people here. ¡°It¡¯s going on the stack. I think we¡¯re going to be able to use it for people who want a nice Soak buff,¡± I informed them both, dropping the Necklace in a pocket for closer study, disassembly, and realignment of usage. We both felt the Mick flex as a silent wine-colored figure in browns and blacks came out of the brush by the river. He made no other motion, the scout clearly sent ahead to see if there was anyone else waiting for them, fronting for another raiding team on their endless flanking attempts. It wasn¡¯t going to end well for them, but they¡¯d find that out soon enough. -------- Kris was mostly alone when she sat down in the clearing, pulling out her Disk and perching on the edge. She didn¡¯t bother to draw Quaver or anything, the picture of unruffled confidence as she waited for those watching and waiting to show themselves. The Royal Scouts knew where the buried watchers were, having plenty of experience at that sort of thing themselves, and were all poised to spring into action if needed. Imperial Princess and Warlord Kristie Rantha could take on a paramount straight up, and even if she couldn¡¯t kill them, which she most likely could, she could run away laughing shamelessly. And then come back in ten minutes, Health all restored, to resume the fight, if she truly wanted to kill them. Thus, they weren¡¯t particularly worried about her, knowing that her smooth skin was harder to get through than fine steel, and her hands were more dangerous than almost any weapons forged. If those calling for a meeting were stupid, they wouldn¡¯t be alive to stay stupid very long. At last there were some warning croaks in the distance, careful alerts to make sure she wasn¡¯t surprised or anything when they finally approached, their gaits a mixture of hopping and striding that wasn¡¯t all that good at covering long distances, but made for a wicked amount of agility in personal combat. The burun chieftain and shaman paused at the edge of the clearing, studying her reaction like the hunters they were¡­ and found her to be completely calm, collected, and unruffled, radiating a level of confidence and restrained lethality that impressed the pair of them. The calm remained even when she glanced at the towering forms of the hulking guruk behind them and just smirked knowingly, teeth showing it what was unmistakably a polite warning to keep their distance, or there was going to be some big trouble in little swamp town. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. A grunt from the ruuk with the dark purple-blue skin was enough, the green-hued shaman saying nothing as he fiddled with the fetishes on his Staff and stared at the Isparian female more than a little nervously. He was unable to discern anything about her magically, like she was invisible or a magical pit, swallowing up his spells, and that made him nervous. Undeterred, the ruuk chieftain hopped forward, bouncing from foot to foot with ease and speed, showing off his strength and readiness to fight, if the other knew how to measure such things. A flicker of the unnerving, pale violet eyes assured both of them she did, and they could both almost feel her amusement radiating off her, assuring them it wasn¡¯t intimidating in the slightest. Still, she did rise to meet them, towering over both of what looked like frog or toad-men to other races with her simple, straight-legged build. The smaller ruuk were the faster, nimbler, and more intelligent of the bimodal burun race, with the towering, bulky guruk being dumber, stronger, and tougher, looking more like frog-headed apes or ogres in contrast to the ruuk, who looked like frogs with humanoid upper limbs walking upright. The ruuk generally guided the race now, able to use magic and call on the power of their unknown deities and gods, where the guruk were simpler, magic-resistant brutes with more combat power, useful in fights and as laborers to help out their smaller kin, who guided them and took care of their basic needs. Once, the guruk had dominated their smaller kin, but that was no longer the case, especially with the deaths of the burun kings. There was a third evolution of the race, the Kuruuk: the massive slug-like toad-kings of the race, their rulers and mightiest Casters. However, those were either dead, exiled back to Bur, or trapped in temple complexes after the Fall, as none were present in the Blackmire, and without them the guruk were soon dominated by the more numerous, organized, and smarter ruuk. The burun were not natives of this world, hardly a surprise or very different from most of the species who lived here. The difference was that they¡¯d come here of their own volition, as opposed to being brought or kidnapped here, as was the case with most other species. No, they¡¯d come to Dereth following the Falatacot, one of the factions of the Empyrean undead. Those they¡¯d followed had colonized their homeworld long ago, chasing the burun out of their own hunting grounds, allying with their enemies, massacring them, and even force-evolving the moarsmen from a small predator native to their own world in order to hunt them down and keep their numbers contained. The power of the Falatacot colonizers had waned when the stars shifted, their connection to their unknown Mythos benefactors fading, even as the burun seemed to be revitalized and had gone on a mad war to chase the undead off-worlders away after almost twenty thousand years of domination. They had succeeded. The Falatacot had fled here, to Dereth, and, prompted by their god The Sleeping One, the burun had followed them to exact vengeance upon their hated enemies. For a long time, the connection to their home world had endured, and the Falatacot had worked continuously to undermine them, kill them, and otherwise continue a shadow war with them, using the resources of that distant world as weapons to be employed in Dereth. There had been a lot of Isparian mercenaries who had helped the burun out during that time, and even Asheron had called them an ally, while the burun had alternately raided humanity or traded with them in irregular fashion. The burun had also been an ally with the Hea and Gotrok at some point, but that had fallen through in rather dramatic, violent fashion. The burun had never been formal allies with humanity, but had not hesitated to use the adventurers of the Isparians or their allies to accomplish things that needed to be done, cold-bloodedly pragmatic about the whole matter. It was also why they¡¯d not raised a claw to help when the Fall came and the Isparians were set upon from all sides. The burun hadn¡¯t joined in the resulting carnage against the Isparians, but they had opportunistically moved to capture more ground for themselves, and, when the Portal to their homeworld had lost its connection, they had turned to fortifying and defending it with a fanatic zeal and real skill. There had been a lot of forces that had called the Blackmire Swamp their own, dominated by the mosswarts and the undead. Neither was a true power there now, although the mosswarts held on in the north, and the undead had small bases scattered here and there. Likewise, the Hea and the Gotrok were no longer their allies, but neither species had any intention of living in a swamp, so they basically contained the frog-folk inside there, and let the undead and mosswarts fight them whenever it was required. Burun who ventured outside the swamp almost inevitably ran into Hea arrows or Gotrok boulders now, and so they kept to their swamp and an impassioned defense of it, having nowhere else to go and flee to. And now the Isparians were back, with the magic they¡¯d once used so freely again in evidence, strong and sure as they had not been during the Fall. The burun had come to a strong parley, wondering what manner of arrangements could be made with them. Wild banderlings, monugas, and drudges weren¡¯t as limited, nor even the Aun, who¡¯d kept a respectful, distant contact with the burun even after the Fall. Thus, the burun had heard of our return through the wild tribes, made contact with the Aun through drum-speak, and now here they were. Princess Kristie was perfectly aware of the image she exuded. The Isparians the burun had once met had been domineering presences with a love for violence and practically immortal, unkillable with the Deathstones working. That protection had eventually extended to the burun themselves, and the guruk in particular had always been eager to get into fights with Isparians. The fact they seldom won those fights without ganging up on the Isparians had made them wary and respectful of the soft-hided aliens who resembled shorter, non-dead versions of their hated undead Falatacot enemies. Kris was giving off those vibes from a generation ago, not the cool and careful edginess of the few Isparian scouts who¡¯d rarely come up this far north. Arrogance, confidence, pride, competence, and a thirst for combat. The complete lack of fear as she looked upon the burun was impossible to ignore, and was certainly disquieting them, as subtle undulations in their hide and belly colors were so informing her. She was dangerous, she was letting them know they weren¡¯t that dangerous to her in turn, and not to waste her time. ¡°Greetings to Cheiftain Tmauruk, and congratulations on your new station. It was well-deserved for your service to your people.¡± AF Chapter 221 – Leaps of Faith If they were wary before, all their skin seemed to curdle at the sound of their language coming out of an Isparian¡¯s throat somehow. It was at least two chords higher, humans not having the great vocal sacs of the burun, which made it sound incredibly musical to the creatures¡­ and somehow, very sharp-edged, like a vocal knife across their ear-membranes. The black-skinned, yellow-bellied Tmauruk noted the canines on the woman, exactly as the furry banderling scouts had spoken of, and the strange runic marks down the side of her face, which seemed to signify some ancient and terrible power. ¡°You speak our language well,¡± the former scout leader of the burun returned, bobbing his head to acknowledge her. ¡°You are the Isparian Princess, spoken of by the wild tribes?¡± ¡°Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, Warlord of the Isparians of Freehold,¡± was the polite reply, none of the inflections missing. She was the daughter of the equivalent of a Kuruuk king! ¡°You called for a meeting with us Isparians and our people. I note that Torgluuk did not come himself, although I understand your people have been under pressure as of lately. I doubt you have authority to decide for your people, so you are here seeking information, as opposed to coming to an agreement about something.¡± Her spot-on assessment was unnerving, as was the intensity of the weird color-in-white eyes of her species. ¡°Speak then, honorable chieftain, and do not waste my time further.¡± Tmauruk bobbed his head carefully again. ¡°Torgluuk did treat with Isparians before, and especially the great and wise elder Asheron. He wishes to know if they could come to council again.¡± ¡°The wise and mighty Elder Asheron has not been seen since the Fall, and we do not know his fate,¡± was the immediate reply. ¡°I am afraid you have only us Isparians to deal with.¡± That was unsettling news. While the Falatacot were clearly related to the species of Asheron, the old Empyrean great shaman had clearly not been of their people, and indeed quite opposed to much of what they¡¯d done. He had also been much friendlier to the ruuk than to the kuruuk, a fact not lost on Torgluuk or Tmauruk. The kuruuk had been powerful and treated the ruuk like slaves and servants, favoring only the guruk whose small minds they could easily dominate. The ruuk had thus been notably uncaring when their self-appointed god-kings had been defeated by the Isparians, long seeing the self-centered and arrogant creatures for what they were. ¡°Do you speak for your people, or should we treat with the king Bor-e-lean?¡± Tmauruk asked bluntly, fiddling with his Spear to calm himself as he mulled over his options. ¡°If it concerns matters of military nature and alliances, you may deal with me. If you seek matters of trade, travel, laws, diplomacy, or matters not so involved, Borelean or his representatives may field your ambassadors more readily. ¡°What is it you are seeking, Chieftain Tmauruk?¡± ¡°It is said by the shamans that the returned Isparians no longer number any of the unliving, Light-blessed or no, among their numbers. Furthermore, that you are great foes of the undead, seeking vengeance for what was done to you in the prior Eye-cycles.¡± ¡°I understand that the burun place revenge upon the undead as one of the greatest goals of their people. It is a familiar mindset, then.¡± Tmauruk clicked and grunted, momentarily forgetting that this Isparian was clearly capable of reading his mood and excitement. ¡°Is an alliance against the undead, especially those who call themselves Falatacot, acceptable to the Isparians?¡± he asked bluntly. The female inclined her head at him strangely. ¡°This may well sound arrogant and overconfident, Chieftain, but we do not need the burun to deal with the undead. It is the undead who need allies to deal with us. ¡°The undead committing forces to contain you in your swamp works in our favor, as those are not undead being turned upon us. Furthermore, the way we are dealing with them may well be hostile to you and your way of life.¡± Both of the ruuk there hissed at her words, surprised at the bluntness in them, when they might have been expecting subtle Isparian lies. ¡°What do you mean?¡± Tmauruk demanded quickly. The closing of the Portals to Bur, stranding them here, had made them vulnerable in uncomfortable ways. ¡°I have been informed by the elders among us that the substance called mucor is of great value among you, yet it is the product of the fungi and ecosystem of your homeworld, and is not native to this world of Auberean.¡± ¡°This¡­ is true,¡± Tmauruk admitted. ¡°Exposure to mucor kindles the mystic fire in our shamans, and grants insight and knowledge to the burun who consume it.¡± ¡°It is even said the kuruuk kings attempted to deny access to mucor to the ruuk, in order to control you better, the classic tactics of tyrants born.¡± Tmauruk snapped his jaws once. ¡°Those words are true,¡± he agreed sharply, remembering those days and tales older than them. Torgluuk had done away with many of those strictures, and careful use of mucor was a reward for the wise and careful among them, without the rampant abuse and gluttony that were hallmarks of the older tales. ¡°What has that to do with Isparians?¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The female flicked out a simple Knife at her belt, only a hand long, not a good weapon of war, perhaps useful for a spear tip. However, a cool white fire flowed up the tip of it, and whorls of mist fell gently from it towards the ground. ¡°The white fire!¡± the shaman Krigguut almost squealed eagerly, great black eyes fixed on the Dagger in the Isparian¡¯s hand, his pale underbelly roiling with yellows in contrast to his green hide. Tmauruk had to put out a hand to restrain the shaman, just in case. There was no need to offend the dangerous Isparian female. ¡°We have heard of that white fire from the wild tribes. It is said to have power over Summons, and to Burn away them and the dead to ash and less¡­¡± ¡°That is absolutely correct.¡± She undid the scabbard at her waist, pulled it free, and resheathed the Dagger before starting forward. ¡°This is for you.¡± Both burun were so surprised they forgot to tense up at her approach, especially since she covered the ground twice as fast as her strides should have allowed her. She was literally right in their faces holding it out to them before they could think of retreating. Tmauruk eyed the sheathed Weapon warily, glancing back and forth between it and the one holding it, before carefully reaching up with a clawed hand and clasping it. She let go promptly, and this time he watched as she somehow skated backwards over the ground, retreating just as smoothly and twice as quickly as she should have, making him think his eyes were playing tricks on him. ¡°It is called Vivic Fire. It is the great central and hungry energy of the Mortal World, devouring that which is unnatural and reinforcing the existence of the world around us,¡± she gestured idly. ¡°Thus, it consumes the ectoplasmic bodies of Summons, and breaks down the freshly dead and the negative energy that flows to them rapidly, reducing them to vivic dust and feeding them all to the Land.¡± Her pale eyes transfixed them like spears. ¡°The Land, here. ¡°Not the Land of Bur, whose seeds you have brought here.¡± The two ruuk looked at one another, rumbling in their throat-sacs worriedly at those words. ¡°Were you on Bur, this would be immaterial, but here, the mushrooms and fungi and other life-forms of Bur you have brought here are unnatural. Vivic fire will not be gentle to them. ¡°In particular, we believe the very nature of the mucor you are attempting to raise here will change when exposed to vivus. It will either die straightaway, its alien nature opposed by the Land here¡­ or it will change to serve the Land here, as it once did that of Bur. ¡°If it does so, the burun will naturally change as well. You will become the Aurun, Children of Auberean, instead of Burun, children of Bur. That which was born of Bur will change to become that of Auberean, or it will die. ¡°Such is the nature of the Land. It embraces its own, and it fights those who are not its own.¡± The two ruuk looked at the Dagger in her hand, fear and excitement intermingling on their hides. ¡°Take that Dagger and return to your people. Test the effects of vivus upon that which you have brought here, and especially your mucor, which being as magical as it is will certainly react the strongest to the vivus. ¡°If it turns against you, then the Land here does not accept you, and you must attempt to return to Bur, or you will eventually wither as a people and die here, for this will not be your home. ¡°If it changes¡­ then your way forward is not that of Bur, but of this Land and World called Auberean, and what that might portend will be new for all of us.¡± ¡°You give us gift or doom, and none knows which,¡± Tmauruk murmured, fascinated at the future he held in his claws. ¡°Indeed. Also, the vivic fire will Seal Summons points, where the creatures spawn from the local magic, unless great energy is used to break them. So, do not be using it close to your own Summoned guardians. ¡°When you have word of what the Land thinks of you, seek us out again. We bear you no hostility at this time, nor any goodwill, but we may yet be of help to one another, knowing the roads we have to take.¡± Tmauruk considered that, and then took the initiative to bow low to the female in front of him. After all, she had not had to give the ruuk even this little bit of warning! ¡°Also, if you kill the undead and cut their corpses with the vivus, they too will die the true death, as will their Summons. It may not affect the numbers of the latter much¡­ but there are no more Falatacot being born. ¡°One by one, if they perish, no more are growing to replace them. Remember that.¡± The burun hissed in grim excitement at that simple fact. Yes, the corpses were dead. They did not have children. Only the fact they were so hard to kill, always coming back again and again, made them able to stay in a fight. If they died forever, then eventually they would be extinct, and would not be able to return! Their war with the cursed Falatacot had a potential ending to it!¡­ even if their thrice-cursed spawnlings, the Moarsmen and the Sclavi, could reproduce themselves and continue to bedevil the burun¡­ ¡°We will seek you out when we know the truth of this, Warlord Rantha,¡± he bowed to her, and was somewhat surprised when she bowed in return. ¡°Return and continue to fight well for your people, Honorable Chieftain,¡± she informed him in that musical, fluted, and deadly accent to his people¡¯s language. The burun croaked their farewells and retreated from the clearing where the meeting had taken place. Their guruk escorts grumbled about the fact there was no fighting, too dense to realize that their deaths had awaited them in that clearing if they tried anything. Princess Kristie watched them go, wondering where such contact might lead. More importantly, she wondered how the scout leader had ended up on Dereth, because he reportedly had been stationed on the Bur homeworld in the sunken city of the burun there. Why had he been on Dereth at all? Following Torgluuk, seemingly considered a prophet of the ruuk, in opposition to the arrogant kuruuk kings? Well, it was something to find out at a later time¡­ AF Chapter 222 – Undead Considerations Qalaba''r was the southernmost of the old towns mostly associated with the Gharu¡¯ndim settlers who¡¯d come through the original Portals from Ispar. They didn¡¯t have the problems with tumeroks that the Sho and the Aluvians who settled further east had, but the lugian renegades coming down from the Linvak Mountains had been a constant source of pressure on them¡­ until diplomacy with King Kresovus had managed to stop some of the hostilities. The Gotrok warrior society hadn¡¯t much liked that, happy to undertake continuous battle with the runty little Isparian people for practice and for glory, and if they died repeatedly, that only made them fear death less. Until that death became real once more, and the crashing return of that fear haunted the elders among them now. Like all the Isparian towns in Osteth, the eastern side of the island of Dereth, Qalaba''r had been abandoned and overrun. The force doing so had originally been the shades, but they had been quickly pushed out by the undead, who seemed to take delight in taking over the homes and libraries of the studious and bookish Gharu¡¯n people, who had long been the Isparians most fascinated with magic and lore. The lugians had been unwilling to press the undead too much about said occupation, as the undead had managed to reclaim most of their spellcasting ability through some unknown means. As few of the renegade lugians had any Casting ability whatsoever, even though they despised the undead, they also feared them as beings who could enslave them, kill them, and return them as obedient walking corpses, a deed they had actually done in the past. As a result, the undead were kept at arm¡¯s length, but the Gotrok never made moves on them, and so the undead got to hold Qalaba''r. The city was semi-important to the undead, as it was the last true settlement on the road that led south around the Inner Sea into the dangerous territories of the Direlands, where the most powerful of Summons and creatures lived and the most magic was leashed. Shades were all over the Direlands contesting it with them, while the virindi stirred the pot and went wherever their inscrutable designs led them. So, holding or clearing Qalaba''r sent a clear message to the lugians that their western flanks were anything but secure, and provided us a reasonable check on anything moving out of the Direlands from the south. The Virindi reinforcements to Rithwic and Soushi all came up from near Qalaba''r, presumably from a base or Dungeon along the southern Landbridge. This was also the furthest holding of the undead from their bases of power in the north of both Dereth and the Direlands, equally as far as Yanshi had been, a place they could monitor the comings and goings of the virindi on this side of the Inner Sea from¡­ although I didn¡¯t doubt they didn¡¯t actually see anything the virindi wanted concealed. Those trips to Rithwic to root out anything settling there were meant to be showy and intimidating. It was a static position of undead, one that the undead hadn¡¯t seen fit to vacate, even after we¡¯d blitzkrieged through their positions in the south and they¡¯d not managed to reclaim a single one of the dead there. Perhaps they thought we¡¯d forgotten about them. Kris took over the assault on the Hea, while Briggs and his Stonehold boys came along for the slaughter here. I wasn¡¯t nearly as massive and showy as I could have been, but everyone knew that I could be, and I was restraining myself so that they could get the experience and the karma for the direct fighting¡­ and so I could keep them alive if anything happened. The undead were marginally more alert than they¡¯d been in the south, but it was obvious we were busy making life very difficult for the Hea, so why would a force of Isparians with Flaming Weapons suddenly show up out of nowhere on their doorstep, unseen by any of their sentry Summons out in the hills and deserts, and just butcher them? Well, we were rude that way, and Briggs and the Stonehold boys had been harried and pinned in the north a long time by the undead. They had grievances to settle. Me, I just wanted to get rid of them all, but I satisfied myself with Detect Undead at VI, showing the locations of every single damn one within four hundred meters of myself. I fed that into the Heavens-Up Display for everyone in the Fellowship Alliance Briggs was leading, then sat back and kept them all alive as they went all zerg-worthy on all the red dots¡­ and utterly ignored the ones that were cool blue, as they had in all the other towns we¡¯d blitzed through. I was monitoring a lot of Status effects, but the lesser Healers along were taking care of most of the work as a point of pride. They didn¡¯t want to have me step in and do their jobs, and I didn¡¯t want to have to step in and do their jobs. It was the job of the officers in charge of each Fellowship squad to make sure I didn¡¯t have to get involved, so only really bad luck was going to force my intervention. Briggs was active in both the combat and managing everything, a fact which still surprised the Isparians from Freehold who weren¡¯t used to Kris doing the exact same thing. The Stoneholders had long gotten used to his measured bellows and Warlord authority getting them to move thus and so at certain times, and the resulting carnage of strike and fade, sudden flankings, abrupt ambushes, drawing out the enemy and severing them from their forces, luring undead this way and that, and wolfpack surrounds that just tore the undead apart with the abruptness of multiple teams hitting from multiple directions. It was a massive display of tactical battlefield control, and as always shocked the people fighting with how murderously effective it was. I walked through the town, men and women with flaming Weapons and Bows moving around me with speed, leapfrogging one another with speed and confidence, dashing around corners, letting off volleys at startled undead, running away, and then the chasing undead crashed right into heavily-armed Melees totally willing to Burn them away forever. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The undead tended to be naturally much stronger than many of those fighting¡­ but they didn¡¯t mass what the lugians did, nor could they out-muscle the stony giants. The Vanguard fighting style was becoming explosively popular among them, and the lugians loved the idea of being in full armor, shield up, and just pounding right through the most dire spells and magical effects to crash into an enemy position, shield-slamming them, flattening them, or pancaking them into an available wall or rock. Got to use it a lot here, to the dismay of many a wall or door that gave way under bodyslamming impacts and happy bellows from purple-gray brutes clocking in at half a ton. The undead in charge were arrogant and chose to remain until the fighting was close, at which time they sought to flee via Item Magic Teleportations of some kind. Interdiction was long since up, and they went absolutely nowhere. I felt the ping of their spells hitting the Veil, where they were from, and Briggs altered course to both get his own Source Field over top of them and to cut off anyone from running away, with two teams of his people circling it from the flanks to cut off anything trying to get away. While it is hard to interrupt Isparian Magic, it¡¯s still impossible to spellcast when you are sticking out of a wall, or when a lugian is kneeling on your hands while he¡¯s whaling away at your face, too. The trio of senior undead, not knowing I could track them, did indeed attempt to leave hastily. The instant they came outside, my Shards slammed into them and quite literally smashed them back inside the building, looping up over the roof and down and around to Seek them out. Briggs was in and on top of them before they could pull themselves to their feet, and blazing undead bodies went flying through walls and ceilings rapidly right after that, winking out of my Detect as they died. ------- I thumbed through the missives in the ancient script of the undead, written in three different languages, so long was the history of the Empyrean peoples. They weren¡¯t languages I¡¯d had any problem learning in spoken or written form, and I scanned through them quickly. A translator would have been pretty annoyed with how fast I worked, able to go through the various paperwork that the fighters were bringing to me from all over the town as if I was a native speed-reader. A lot of it I was filing to the Markspace, sending off to analysts to start adding to our matrix of who was who in the command structure of the undead, something also added to by a lot of former Eldrytch Web members who¡¯d dealt with undead of one sort or another in their duties, and even the rare older diplomats in royal service who¡¯d survived. Our insight into the various undead factions and placeholders was increasing, and it was quickly plain there were still hundreds of various nobles of some power scattered around¡­ and who knew how many thousands of undead whose will had left them and were now slaves to the System here, fit only to die. ¡°Hey, there,¡± Briggs said, coming into the room. ¡°Staying intellectually busy, I see.¡± ¡°You should take the Polyglot Feat,¡± I noted for him, continuing my quick riffling of paperwork. Saved a lot of arduous time for normal translators back in the Vesayans. ¡°Planning on it, next Expert Level,¡± he agreed patiently. He reached out into the Markspace, a couple chatrooms with data, connections, and timelines there, adding a few things. ¡°The Town Crier was a font of useful information the undead probably didn¡¯t want us to have, as normal.¡± Mira shifted over to look at what he was putting in place with great curiosity, a few Isparians who were working intelligence murmuring as they confirmed events of the past, or new things that were happening in the North and the Direlands. The undead were plainly upset by what we¡¯d done in Zaikhal and points north, but still hadn¡¯t motivated themselves up into an alarmed state after that. The Royal Scouts working the area to shut down Summon points had noticed the lazy state of affairs here, and we¡¯d decided to take advantage of it. ¡°How long before you start on the walls?¡± he asked patiently, knowing I was still working. ¡°I can start on them now, if you like, but I believe the lads are going out in all directions and might like not having to put up with them for a few hours. You aren¡¯t intending to garrison the place suddenly, are you?¡± ¡°Not unless you¡¯ve managed to whip up a Town Portal like they like to talk of, which I could use to reinforce the place at the drop of a hat, no,¡± he confirmed, his Disk snapping up from his Masspack of shreth-hide and forming something to sit down on that could take his weight. He didn¡¯t mass what a lugian did, with their dense bones and flesh, but with armor on he was still clearing five hundred pounds. ¡°We¡¯ll have to wait until there¡¯s more Nines, and they blaze a path across the desert and hills to here. Teleportation is far more restrictive than what they used to have in the past.¡± I shook my head. ¡°Even back in Ispar, Item Magic wasn¡¯t so permissible as it was here. The disruption in the ley lines also snapped all the ties they had to the dimensional anchors used to anchor the spells. You know that just being able to pop open a Portal to ANYWHERE is like the equivalent of a Valence VIII or IX, right?¡± I shook my head, eyes not leaving the paperwork that Mira was going through like a champ. ¡°Even with a super-Focus on this end to anchor it, it¡¯s still a VII. You can move armies through the things, even if they are only around for a minute at a time!¡± AF Chapter 223 – Reinforcing Points ¡°Aye, so hurry up and make Thirteen so I can do that!¡± he groused at me, leaning on Endure, his Hammer beating in a slow, steady rhythm under his chin. I could see he was still giving orders to the forces fanning out around the town, and the Scouts working the hills were on alert in case the lugians tried to do something. I¡¯d popped up the Disks outside to stack stuff on, so they were looting the town clean, and we¡¯d be pulling out nigh as quickly as we¡¯d moved in, leaving a ghost town behind us¡­ one surrounded by twenty-foot walls with no easy way in or out. Not that the lugians and undead couldn¡¯t easily knocks holes in said walls, but it was the principle of the thing. Make ¡®em work to take it back! I, of course, could take them down as easily as I¡¯d put them up. Trying to use them as a defense against us was not a wise idea, but I was going to leave that to them to work out. ¡°Got the Seal Rooms already made?¡± he asked, a dark glitter in his pale green eyes. ¡°Directly underneath you, easily large enough for fifty people, exits off the rear wall on a casual expansion of the building that is very, very much not obvious from the inside or outside.¡± He got up promptly and walked out of the room with a startlingly light tread, and was back a minute later, sitting down again without preamble. ¡°Damn, you¡¯ve got good stonework. Nobody¡¯s going to notice that without tremblesense. Even the wear on the stonework is the same, and the aging pattern on the bricks!¡± ¡°It¡¯s like I have experience with constructing buildings and working with stone and clay and all the fun stuff,¡± I tossed back at him. ¡°You work metal, I work stone. It¡¯s all the same.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t work that much metal that fast,¡± he grunted, but his wounded air was all for show. ¡°I do love having a capable mage I can boss around, however!¡± His smile was huge and white and eating all the shit. ¡°Yes, my Warlord,¡± I replied kindly. ¡°I have also been hearing from your lads that they want to get home and check up on everyone.¡± Nobody was actually worried about the state of the people up at Stonehold, given the Allegiance ties and leaving some mages there who could inform us of anything going on¡­ and Oswald¡¯s students were spread across the mountains and hills, keeping watch for any sign of undead or virindi movements, happily not finding any. I¡¯d already sent the gurogs off back home, clad in new armor and with some nice loot for themselves and their efforts¡­ and stuffed with food they¡¯d never tasted before. They were eager to get in more undead-killing themselves, perhaps moving to mountains that weren¡¯t quite so dangerous for their few children. The North was still a place for them to test their strength and improve, however, and given their natural power, far more ideal for their warriors. ¡°Yes, I am going to set up a rotation for those who want to go home and return, or just go home. There are some quite eager to help with the fighting, as they had kin in Cragstone or Hebian-To.¡± He closed his eyes slightly, taking a deep breath. ¡°One thing I was spared coming here. Some of the lads lost whole chunks of family when the cities fell, and have kin among MacNaill¡¯s undead there.¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t know if Plane Shift can take us back to Ispar without proper coordinates, and I¡¯m leery about trying. It¡¯s obvious to me that this is where I¡¯m supposed to be.¡± He nodded with a grunt. ¡°The same. My Hag is here, obviously I¡¯m supposed to be here. She definitely didn¡¯t need to be staying back home.¡± ¡°Heard the scuttlebutt about the rest of the world yet?¡± I asked him. His eyes narrowed alertly. ¡°Sounds ominous. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°Apparently the Deathstones were designed to siphon off life energy to fuel a massive stasis spell for the surviving Empyrean people, who Asheron sent into safe-keeping. It seems the olthoi horde in its millions blitzed their way across the rest of the world, killing them all as they searched for their queen, and it was his way of saving them until they could be released safely.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He hadn¡¯t heard that, obviously. ¡°And the Queen was here.¡± ¡°Might still be. There¡¯s been no confirmation of her dying, and there¡¯s a very good chance she¡¯s on that island below Vissidal off the eastern coasts, according to Oswald.¡± I flicked up the Holo of the map of the island for him, and he glared at it. ¡°Well, the old man never mentioned that, because he didn¡¯t need to, I guess,¡± he finally grunted. ¡°But the implications of a group of magical insects with that much power invading the whole rest of the planet¡­¡± ¡°I personally have my doubts as to whether or not their invading ecology would survive in any but the most magically-intense areas, which would mean most of their horde has likely died off of starvation. That said, this island is a long ways from anywhere else, and they simply couldn¡¯t reach here. Any olthoi on the island were likely born here.¡± ¡°Huh. So reduced to pockets on the rest of the planet, but likely swarming out to take down any center of power for a rival species, including any incidental Empyrean survivors,¡± he said slowly. ¡°Can they plane-shift? I¡¯d heard that the Empyreans captured the queen and brought her here intending to put her in a zoo or something.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°The mages I spoke with alluded to the fact the olthoi could actually dig through dimensions and spatial fractures. They likely followed the Portal here from their homeworld the long and hard way, although they also said a traitor among the Empyreans kept it open far too long and allowed the olthoi to gain early access and a foothold here as they tried to rescue their queen.¡± ¡°Farthing idiots. So convinced of their own superiority and mastery of magic they couldn¡¯t see the threat of a magical insectile hivemind for what it was. I¡¯d like to say they deserved it, but I doubt the majority of the populace had a clue¡­¡± ¡°Oh, they had the arrogance down. It gets worse. The living Empyreans had basically lost their knowledge of the plane-traveling magic that allowed their ancestors to explore other worlds and planes with such impunity. Asheron was the only living one in memory who managed to understand the magic involved. There might be a few among the undead who understand how to make such Portals and set them up, but most of them don¡¯t know any more than Isparian-style magic, just like the Empyreans who were rescued from stasis. They used what was already there.¡± ¡°So, they not only were going out to alien worlds to capture things for study, they had no clue how to open such Portals, or close them, save for the one person?¡± Briggs exclaimed in some disbelief. ¡°Who ARE these idiots?¡± ¡°High intelligence, long history, mastery of magic, average to low Wisdom,¡± I intoned. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t surprise you at all, right?¡± ¡°I¡­ no.¡± He closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°Isparian Magic operates off Intellect, right?¡± ¡°Technically, it¡¯s Focus and Self, but in the Power of Ten System, yes, it works off Intellect¡­ and Charisma. Arcane centered.¡± ¡°I am soooper Intelligent and like a god and better than you, so naturally I know goddamn best. Shut up and go away and hold my beer while you¡¯re at it!¡± ¡°That is a wonderfully informative way of conveying the mindset,¡± I agreed sagely. ¡°Who needs Wisdom once you can use your Intellect bonus for Will saves? It¡¯s obviously the dump Stat for a Caster.¡± ¡°Not Charisma?¡± he lifted his bushy eyebrows. ¡°Charisma gets you laid, Briggs.¡± ¡°Oh. Right. Definitely a power Stat,¡± he was forced to agree. Given Sources had monstrous amounts of it, despite his brutish appearance, Briggs had absolutely no shortage of women interested in testing out his, eh, size and solidity, and had likely been putting up with the attention his whole life. Having his Hag around to lean on and take care of some of that attention for him was likely a great relief. Being able to play around and having the personality to do so were different things, and the Briggs I recalled wasn¡¯t a player. The Amazons really hadn¡¯t given him a lot of choice, however, and Sama back on Terra-Luna was always willing to indulge them. Briggs rarely got to spend a night alone as a result, but it was one of those problems that not too many people were all that sympathetic about. ¡°You have a look on your face.¡± ¡°I¡¯m remembering the amount of attention Briggs gets back on Terra-Luna from all the Amazons. You are so lucky here.¡± His mouth worked for a moment. ¡°Do I even want to know?¡± he finally asked. ¡°When it all went to shit, the original Briggs player was visiting his sister at a women¡¯s college in Minnesota. He recruited the students there to swear Amazon Oaths to the five Goddesses, and as a result he ended up with over two thousand Amazons, with whom he then proceeded to kick arse all over the city, the state, the north, the country, and the whole damn world.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± He thought about that, then grinned widely. ¡°Sounds like a pretty cool dude, huh?¡± ¡°Commander Briggs, the Warlord of Terra-Luna. Yeah, he¡¯s a pretty cool dude. Nominally under Aelryinth, but only because he doesn¡¯t want to mess with the political shit. People don¡¯t realize just how much of the agenda he sets for the planet, and his commitment to broad, low power, especially the Powered Tens of other Allegiances. ¡°Ael is perfectly aware of Source-backed Rivers of Fate and all that, and is leveraging him and his Sources and Nulls for all they are worth.¡± ¡°Yeah, well, according to you, they¡¯ve got a whole planet to take back and recolonize.¡± ¡°Yes. Especially from the creatures that are attempting to colonize it over their dead bodies.¡± Briggs just grunted. ¡°How long has it been for them? Have they been able to stop it, slow it down, anything? The Powered have to be pretty strong after all this time, right?¡± ¡°My memories are of only ten years passing. There isn¡¯t even a second generation raised in the new world yet. I know Kris¡¯ folks were born on Ispar and are at least fifty. So there¡¯s temporal shenanigans going on between worlds. You¡¯ve had longer to do what you do than they have back on Terra-Luna.¡± ¡°Really.¡± He frowned at that. ¡°Could it be that we¡¯re supposed to be bringing reinforcements or something to that fight, and given the extra time to raise the forces to do so?¡± I actually stopped swapping papers to turn and look at him. ¡°Huh. That¡­ is an interesting thought. And I can¡¯t say that it is wrong, given how Mithar works. But¡­ how are you supposed to get there from here, if that is true? ¡°And, not to be blunt about it, but these people here need rescuing and rebuilding themselves, they aren¡¯t going to be about jumping off-world to help others.¡± ¡°Well, sure, but if we do the job here, in a century, this is going to be a pretty small island, all things considered,¡± Briggs pointed out. ¡°At which point you¡¯ve a whole planet to rescue from an alien ecology,¡± I fobbed back at him. ¡°Oh. Right. Long long loooong term stuff then. But if we¡¯re playing temporal games, still possible, right? Especially if we add Ispar and what Kris¡¯ folks can do into the mix?¡± I turned back to what I was doing. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare try to get a cross-planetary alliance going until we know who and what has been turning the people and this island into what amounts to a video game for gods-know how many years, and we probably will have to fuck them up. ¡°Things that can mess with magic on the level this place was messed up with magic are probably not something we can take on, Briggs.¡± He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, considering that. ¡°I hear that. And they probably aren¡¯t going to let us find our own way, either, unless something really weird happens and forces them to.¡± ¡°Find the Weird Way, Master Source. We¡¯ll help you get there,¡± I told him quietly. He took another deep breath, doubtless figuring on what and how to do¡­ something. But as I¡¯d said, we¡¯d help him get there. AF Chapter 224 – A Short Search in Rithwic I didn¡¯t politely take down the virindi Wards and alarms on the entryway of Martine¡¯s Retreat. I kind of blew them violently apart and set them on spellfire, so that whoever they were linked to was going to get a headful of pain and squealing feedback. Yes, we were here. No, we didn¡¯t care if you didn¡¯t like it. Yes, you¡¯re welcome to send somebody after your last investigatory team vanished before reaching their destination. The Mick had given Kris and I a quick briefing on what had used to be down there. Candeth Martine, the Prodigal Isparian, had been an Aluvian who had been experimented on by the virindi, increasing his intelligence and ability to use magical energies to levels equal to the mightiest of the Empyreans or the virindi themselves. He had gotten free of them, had some adventures, misadventures, and eventually been overcome by the things that had been done to him. Add in the corrupting and mindbending by Gaerlan, a traitorous Empyrean who, it turned out, was the one responsible for sabotaging the Portal to the olthoi homeworld and keeping it open long enough for the olthoi to both flood through with a force, and later on dig a path through the dimensions to follow their Mother Queen here, and he¡¯d had a tough go of it. Martine was supposedly long dead, killed when confronting Gaerlan in his Elemental Citadel, but without True Death and vivus to seal such a deal, it was entirely possible he could return. As a mortal-origin creature at the level of the more powerful Empyreans, he was a clear threat to the virindi, and his questionable sanity at the best of times made him a true wild card among the power players of Dereth. The virindi had likely all been happy to see him and Gaerlan taken out. Which didn¡¯t mean both were gone forever, given the circumstances, and nobody knew if Gaerlan¡¯s prison was at all secure after the Fall. He hadn¡¯t been seen, but then again, he was an Empyrean, and pretty much all of those were dead¡­ The odds Nuhmudira¡¯s daughter Xunidira had not found her mother by now were probably pretty small. Their reunion was no doubt interesting, as both were manipulative bitches looking to get something out of the other, and with doubtless little love lost between them for the doing. That they¡¯d both be hungry and eager for the magical knowledge I bore was a given, and with Nuhmudira¡¯s reputation, she would stop at very little to get it for herself. It was a big reason why I had restricted most of the non-Artificing knowledge to Good people exclusively, and they came with Geases and Oaths designed to prevent people from giving the knowledge away in the event of coercion, blackmail, or temptations¡­ all of which had happened, my somewhat shaken students had informed me, although likely multiple forces were behind it all. Kris and the Mick¡¯s utter removal of the spotters and trackers of the Assassin¡¯s Guild had likely removed some useful pawns from her service, and the fact he knew so many of the surviving members of the Radiant Blood, the Society she had founded for Isparians First! (ba-dum tish), didn¡¯t help her get any closer to us. One of the things the Town Crier in Qalaba''r had remarked was that Xunidira had also come through that place, looking for her mother¡­ and the undead had let her pass. Didn¡¯t that bode poorly. All of which somehow led us to here, the personal Dungeon that Candeth Martine had erected in Rithwic, where in his derangement he had proclaimed himself King of all the Isparians, arrogant in his power and superiority. Why the virindi had blocked the place off was a mystery, as the Mick had related that there was little of value inside the place. Mostly there were people who had lived in there under Martine¡¯s protection during his deranged phase when he was attacking the smaller towns that had ignored his rulership, and stayed there as convenient even afterwards. The only thing of note in the whole place that the Mick was aware of was the Prismatic Stone, a variant of the Elemental Stones we already had samples of that gave the Weapons they were mounted in Elemental Slayer. That was not a reason for the virindi to be so worried about the place. Clearly they thought there was something more important in the chambers of the Dungeon that had materialized, and didn¡¯t want anyone going in to investigate. Naturally, we were intent on doing just that. I wasn¡¯t worried about traps at all. Kris¡¯ Null would handle most of the magical ones, even if I didn¡¯t see them well ahead of time, and the non-magical ones she¡¯d pick out with her tremblesense and be able to jam or tell us how to avoid them. Sama Rantha had made her name in the Game as The Tip of the Spear for being utterly fearless about the advanced scouting position for Fellowships, turning what could be arduous dungeon crawls and slogs into fairly rapid progress and straight-up fights as she led her party members around all the tricks and traps that were in the way. That didn¡¯t mean I didn¡¯t keep a flight of Shards up the whole time, of course. If the virindi had occupied it with others of their kind, we¡¯d be fighting, there was no doubt about that. Eventually the sloping ramp leveled out into a stone-walled room Shaped by magic out of the rock of interdimensional space, lit with magical torches and actually fairly cozy in terms of temperature. Directly ahead of us, the passage became a series of arched-dome rooms, vaguely Arabic in feel, with tables and chairs waiting for courtiers to sit and relax while waiting for their chance to meet their ruler. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The chamber ahead led off in all three cardinal directions. The Mick had remembered most of the people who lived here being off to the right, so that¡¯s the way we went, skipping the entry hall for now. There were two more hall extensions as we moved west, all with passages to the south and the larger room there, then a short hallway that turned into major hall going south, and another domed chamber beyond where someone was standing attentively. ¡°Hello, Fellow Humans!¡± the fellow¡¯s voice rang out enthusiastically the instant he spotted us, which promptly set my hair on end. There was no way a normal Isparian would respond so easily and promptly upon seeing the first people in fifteen years. That, and his voice had a reverb to it. Kris reached up to rub her ear pointedly, put on a toothy smile, and just strolled over to the fellow. He looked like a Black Aluvian, with bright blue eyes and curly dark hair, with a perfect healthy complexion and balanced build. ¡°Hello, there. Who might you be?¡± she asked with perfect chirpy charm and subvocals that no human should respond to at all. I actually watched him shiver as his eyes fixed on her. ¡°I am Josef, once assistant to Candeth Martine! No, there¡¯s no surname. Just Josef. Don¡¯t ask cause I ain¡¯t tellin¡¯. I knew if I floated enough rumors around some of you adventurers would finally come running.¡± Kris¡¯s face was free enough of guile to keep his attention, while I tried to keep my disbelief off my face. ¡°What¡¯s a nice guy like you doing in a forgotten Dungeon like this then, Josef?¡± she asked politely. Josef began, "Now listen up, and listen up well cause I don''t like taking too much time in repeating myself. It makes me waste precious air and that''s not fun.¡± Josef cleared his throat and then his voice dropped into a deep whisper¡­ with a stereo reverb. Josef continued, "A while back the boss, Martine, was planning on opening the way to Marae Lassel. A new home for people. Thing is there were people there already, like us but they grew up different. No big deal right? Well the thing is when he did his spell or whatever something else happened. "He finished his little trick and suddenly a portal storm hit the center of the living area here. Portal energy was whipping off the walls and down the corridors. Next thing we know there''s a guy sitting in the middle of the room, naked as the day he was born and about eight, maybe nine feet tall. "He was real confused. Had no clue where he had come from or where he was, just his name. Gaerlan. And he said over and over again¡­ ¡®Is Asheron among you?¡¯ "Now here''s the rub. I know a lot more than that, but I need some help. So you help me¡­ I help you. Take this.¡± Josef gave us a sheet of paper he conjured out of nowhere. He continued firmly, ¡°Get me the things on that list and we¡¯ll talk. Simple, really!¡± ¡°I see,¡± Kris nodded slowly, taking the sheet of paper and looking down it. The Mick¡¯s memory was pretty good, and he¡¯d gotten most of the contents right. Kris updated them, putting the conjured list away, but didn¡¯t bother going anywhere. ¡°I see this is one of the things you are looking for.¡± She flicked her finger, and lifted up a gleaming violet key made of some mana-infused metal. They were largely unstable things, fancy creations of mana intended as keys to the information and item storage devices of the virindi. They didn¡¯t work for Isparians correctly, having to be carved up and then consumed in the magical locks, instead of being reusable multiple times, as the virindi could do. Killing a bunch of virindi had generated one of these keys when they collapsed, hastily rescued before the vivus ate it away. Hoarded stores of the keys, many on exotic keyrings carved from various golum hearts that could keep them stable for extended periods of time, had all burned away during the Fall, and nobody had any old versions of them. Thus, another reason for ambushing the virindi patrol was to get a current Singularity Key for this fellow here! It was the final item on his list, and the only one that was actually important. Josef¡¯s too-bright eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "This is the best possible thing you could give me, fellow human friend!¡± He continued, "Martine likes these the most because it means that not only have you killed one of their most powerful members, but you have also found a way to steal some of their treasures.¡± He managed a weak smile. "Take this.¡± He handed us another heavy, material key after taking the Singularity Key from Kris¡¯ palm. "See, I''ve made a life of finding information. I listened to everything and learned as much as I could. Gaerlan kept a chest in his room. In that chest must be something special. It was bright, like the rainbow and vibrant. Get what you can, he left it. ¡°Oh, and getting there just takes a little leap of faith. "Good luck, fellow human friend!" ¡°Thank you, Josef. It is a pleasure to speak with a fellow Isparian such as yourself. Do you mind telling me how long it has been since you spoke with a fellow Isparian?¡± Kris asked, all chirping buttercups and sunbeams. His eyes dimmed and brightened, as if thinking. ¡°I do not know, Fellow Human. Some time,¡± he admitted hesitantly. ¡°Are you the original Josef, or a Martinate Simulacrum made in his image?¡± she continued pleasantly. He actually blinked once, but the answer blurted out before his programming could stop him. ¡°I am Josef! I have always been Josef!¡± he declared. ¡°Then give me your family name, Josef. You look and sound like a Torreng or a Maustwitz, but I could be mistaken. You¡¯ve kin who are worried about you.¡± If the thing pretending to be human could have sweat, no doubt beads would be breaking out. ¡°I, I¡­¡± it stammered, warring with its programming against the living mortal spirit that was the basis of its creation. ¡°My father was Earnel Maustwitz¡­¡± it admitted after a moment. ¡°We will let him know that you served well and with honor, Josef Maustwitz.¡± A wide and true smile came over the sculpted face, and then slowly parted as a flick of her wrist divided the tough shell of the simulacrum in twain, the virindi energies within consumed in a flash of vivus¡­ and momentarily highlighting the spirit of the unfortunate man interwoven with them, which closed its eyes in relief and dissipated harmlessly. AF Chapter 225 – Another Stone for the Collection ¡°Well, now we know why the virindi are worried,¡± Kris mused, looking at the pile of unwhite, misty ash leaving a white spot on the floor. ¡°At least one NPC here was used to forge a Simulacrum not tied to the Singularity. Kind of an immortality, if you will,¡± I nodded. ¡°They want to know how it was done, and the idea that Martine is still alive is probably not too reassuring, either.¡± ¡°You note the blue in the energies, right?¡± We¡¯d killed a lot of simulacrums on Summons points, so the way they talked and their ¡®perfect¡¯ appearance were all too familiar. They also leaked a slightly paler version of the true virindi energies when slain, probably an imperfect set more adaptive to their humanoid shells. ¡°Yes. This fellow was definitely not tied to their Singularity. Anchored to the human soul inside instead, and suffused with their energies. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if several virindi weren¡¯t sacrificed in the making of them, too,¡± I noted, glancing around as I heard something move in the next chamber we had not entered. ¡°I believe they have links to one another, and just felt Josef die.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s see what kind of reaction that earns from them, then?¡± Kris asked, unconcerned, and headed over into the next domed chamber, which seemed to be set up as a dining area. There was a square formation of tables all set up and ready for guests to sit down on, with a humming blue crystal formation in the middle of them that bore an uncomfortable likeness to the shards of the deathstones. A fellow in the apron of food service workers all over Aluvia was there, eyes fixed on us the moment we came into view. To the right, a man bearing a bow was standing next to a stand loaded down with archery equipment. To the left, a woman in the blue robes of a Caster was in her own alcove, trays and racks of magical components behind her. Both of them had slightly glowing eyes locked on us as we stepped into the dining area. ¡°Greetings, fellow humans!¡± the waiter, such as he was, called out to us, a plainly artificial smile firmly in place on a tanned face that hadn¡¯t seen the sun in fifteen years. ¡°Would you be seeking some refreshments today?¡± I noted that, like the rest of the place, there was not a speck of dust on anything, nor any mildew or cobwebs anywhere. Either they were fanatical about cleaning, or the place cleaned itself. More to the point, I looked at the formation of crystals in the middle of the table, and didn¡¯t like them at all. There was a resonance between them and the simulacra in here, and if they weren¡¯t the center of whatever force was animating them, they at least tied them all together. Kris put her sunbeam smile firmly in place and walked directly over to him. ¡°No, we¡¯re not looking for refreshments today, fellow human. We¡¯re wondering if our fellow Isparians want to be free of this place. Do you want to be free of here, fellow Isparian?¡± His programming interrupted by her Null field messing with his connection to the crystal, the waiter seemed frozen in place for a moment, staring at her, jaw working but nothing coming out. Kris waited patiently, her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly, and I could feel her Null hardening as it did. ¡°Yes, fellow human, I would like to be free of this place,¡± the waiter murmured, and for a second harsh spasms, edged and rigid and very unlike what would happen with an organic body, twitched and convulsed across his face and neck, like glitches in a program going off-track. ¡°Give me your name, fellow Isparian, that I may inform your kin,¡± Kris said serenely. ¡°Fellow human, this one¡¯s name is Julian Bartok!¡± he exclaimed, somehow a fevered excitement escaping him as his eyes lit up around the edges with leaking internal illumination. ¡°Julian Bartok, you are free,¡± Kris nodded, and between blinks of the eye, a swath of vivus was cutting through his neck. Bluish-purple virindi energies gouted forth, were devoured by vivus, and the shell of the simulacrum split apart and fell away, its integrity destroyed as the vivus devoured it all. The spirit of the server smiled at us, closed its eyes, and faded away into the arms of the vivus that was sending him onward. Kris eyed the cluster of clothes remaining as the shell was devoured, then looked back up, left and right, and made her decision. She turned, put on the same honey butter smile, and marched on up to the archer watching us with unblinking eyes. Notably, the fellow didn¡¯t even raise the bow in his hands. ¡°Fellow Isparian!¡± she called out cheerfully. ¡°I was wondering if I might not get your name, and if you wanted to be free of this place!?¡± ------ The supplies the archer and mage had were actually perfectly viable, although some of the arrowheads had been destroyed, whatever intrinsic magic was on them destablized by the Fall. The Mick /said they were probably prismatic arrowheads, which changed their elemental damage depending on the bias of the magical Bow they were shot from, if such applied. The discovery of the prismatic alchemical treatment had been a big step up for archers, no longer needing to carry around multiple types of arrows for use against appropriate foes. They could just get one set of arrows and swap their Bows around with impunity. Said treatment had burned out and corroded away all such arrows when the Fall changed the nature of magic, and the archers had been forced to scramble to re-equip themselves, especially since most of them had lost their powerful magical Bows, too. ¡°What do you think?¡± Kris asked me, standing there as I surveyed the internal energy fields of the crystal formation. It didn¡¯t have any visible emanations, all of those being below floor level, if visible at all, but the internal stuff was quite intense. ¡°I can see, huh, let¡¯s call it the Empyrean style, similar to the residues in the Deathstone crystals, mixed up with the virindi style of magic, and some crazy Elementalish stuff that nobody sane came up with. ¡°It¡¯s also post-Fall. There¡¯s nothing here that is disrupted or failing with the change in magic. It was set up after the Fall.¡± ¡°Elemental influence? Is that important?¡± Kris asked archly. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Gaerlan was a typical Empyrean mage who bargained with more powerful entities for power. He preferred dealing with Elemental creatures, and was responsible for bringing the Harbinger here to Dereth,¡± I informed her. ¡°Ah, yes, the Mick mentioned that thing. Yet another Mythos creature to add to your collection of Aberrant entities messing around here.¡± I sat back against the table, looking at the crystal with a frown. ¡°The creature was never truly dispelled or abjured. Remnants of it still lingered around the town of old Yanshi, and its presence was responsible for the evolution of those unnatural mixed-element Elementals we¡¯ve run into of the spawn points. It may be an Elemental entity, but it¡¯s also clearly Aberrant and not above twisting natural laws.¡± ¡°Always the best kind of stuff to bargain with in mad plans for personal power,¡± Kris nodded knowingly, and I had to smirk. ¡°Well, either the mosswarts managed to get rid of them, we didn¡¯t investigate some holes we should have, or the Fall sent it away¡­ but how likely is that?¡± I remarked to no one, shaking my head. ¡°The twisted Elementals are still here. Its influence is still present.¡± ¡°Just what we all want to know,¡± Kris shrugged fatalistically. ¡°Shall we go see if the Prismatic Stones are still there?¡± She held up the deep blue key we¡¯d received from Josef. ¡°Sure.¡± ------ South, to the right of the throne room, and down ramps¡­ and off to the left side, a brightly lit room with full potion bottles lined up and gleaming on the tables, with another simulacrum in the form of a young woman there, clad in the working robes of an alchemist. I glanced at Kris, she looked back, and she shrugged. The first door to Gaerlan¡¯s apartment was right across the way, so this wouldn¡¯t be much of a distraction. Her name was Leandra. Once, she had been an alchemist, an enthusiastic researcher of magical phenomena and processes. She was even famous for inventing a certain chorozite formula that was used in making new Aegis shields, yet another reason we¡¯d come to Rithwic. She smiled upon seeing us, so automatic it was unnerving. "Ah, a visitor! It is so nice to see a new face around here, especially now that my spirits have been lifted. I must tell you of my newest findings." She continued, "I have been working on a distillation process that transforms chorizite ore into a viscous formula capable of absorbing magical damage! "If you have the inclination, bring me a small amount of the highest quality refined chorizite available, and I will reward you with one application of the formula, and my notes." We looked at one another, noting this was pretty much exactly as the Mick remembered it. Kris shrugged and pulled out a purse hanging at her side. ¡°You mean this kind of high-grade chorozite, miss?¡± she asked chirpily. Getting hold of some hadn¡¯t really been that hard, given we knew a lot of lugians. Getting to the mines might have been a little harder, because they were some of the most heavily-guarded and worked holdings of the Gotrok clans, but it hadn¡¯t been hard to gain some of the refined powder for this stopover. ¡°Oh, thank you! One moment please. The success of chorozite distillation relies on steady hands and a clear mind.¡± I was watching very intently as she turned back to her workbench and started working. The Mick had described the process as ¡®quick¡¯, which was not really something you associated with refined materials¡­ unless there was magic involved. Furthermore, the formula for the compound she was making up should have been duplicated a long time ago¡­ and yet, she was always the only one who had it available, and nobody else could even remember using the formula that she did. There was definitely Crafting magic going on in the process, and I had to Assay several of the reagents there which were not standard, applied with magical speed and surety to the process she had no doubt done thousands of times in the past¡­ and was doomed to repeat in the future. I noted the times, places, temperatures, ratios, and magic used to blend them all together, leaching out the chorozite even further, and then distilling it into a thick and viscous liquid she poured into a glass container for us with open satisfaction. She turned and presented it to Kris. ¡°All done! Here is one copy of my compound, as promised, and my notes. Be sure to read the notes, and remember, the formula is new and largely untested. More research will be needed to fully understand its properties.¡± Kris accepted it with a glance at me as the compound which had been proven effective for something close to twenty-five years was passed to her. I calmly stepped forward and flickered up a Holo before her. ¡°This is the formula for making your compound as we understand it, Leandra. Your fellow alchemists would like to know if there have been any improvements made to it after all this time?¡± Her expression glitched, as had the others. This was her only purpose in being. If her formula was known elsewhere, did she actually have a purpose? Moreover, the woman imprisoned inside this thing had once been an enthusiastic researcher, if very reclusive, and only Martine¡¯s dictates had stopped her from sharing the process with others. Now that it was out, was not her purpose fulfilled, and her name immortalized? Leandra¡¯s Chorozite Compound for treatment of Aegis Shields, read the header at the top of the Holo. ¡°Yes!¡± Her voice was glitching, too, part reverb and part with real emotion. ¡°There are some modifications if you attempt the process without using magic as an accelerant!¡± ¡°Please delineate them, Master Alchemist,¡± I acknowledged her formally, my hand raised as if writing something. With levels of energy that bordered on the manic, the simulacrum burst into a litany of alchemical jargon and instructions, all completely from memory. As fast as she spoke, I wrote them out in words of light, which only seemed to make her more and more agitated and excited, the glitches distorting her entire face as the energy inside her destabilized. ¡°Yes! That is the entire formula in its most complete original form!¡± she confirmed to me. ¡°Please see to it that my fellow alchemists receive it in its entirety!¡± ¡°I will. You will become immortal for this, Leandra Comenshire.¡± Her grin was far too wide to be human, splitting and glitching across her face, and it remained there as Quaver quietly cut across and sent her on to her reward. The gratitude in her eyes as her spirit¡¯s gaze met mine was unfeigned, and I inclined my head to her, one student of the Lore to another, and she half-bowed herself as she faded away, sent away by the vivus to the reward she deserved. ¡°Comenshire, eh? Lowland clan back home. Had a reputation as glassworkers, as I recall,¡± Kris mused sympathetically. ¡°Her name was on the ledger of the Alchemist¡¯s Guild as an associate member in good standing. Someone¡¯s been paying her dues for years, but nobody can remember who.¡± And she¡¯d never been ranked as a Master, despite this chorozite compound¡¯s profound ability. I decided I was going to change that. It was integral to the development of new Aegis effects, after all, and a dazzling piece of work showing true alchemical insight. ¡°Huh. Shades of mysterious.¡± Kris turned her attention to the main passageway down and out of this room. ¡°Well, pack up her stuff and let¡¯s go get our Prismatic Stones, if they are there...¡± AF Chapter 226 – A Chamberlain to the Damned Through the impressive double doors which opened readily with little pressure. Down more ramps, another set of doors, and we reached the room with the ¡®invisible¡¯ floor we¡¯d been warned of. Kris raised an eyebrow. ¡°There¡¯s nothing there,¡± she said with a smirk, while I eyed the faltering illusion covering the passage on the other side. ¡°Must¡¯ve been a force grid,¡± I shrugged, flicking up a Levitation spell. I kicked off to float across the pit. ¡°Notice something about how deep we are?¡± ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re definitely below the water table of the lake,¡± she nodded, as I passed through the illusion and stepped into the room beyond. I got out of the way as she hopped across the thirty-foot pit with an effortless bounce of her lightfoot. ¡°Yet not a hint of water coming through anything, despite there being microfractures in the stone just about everywhere we¡¯ve gone. ¡°This place should basically be underwater right now.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a shield of force outside the area of the Shaped stone keeping the water back, or that would be exactly the case,¡± I confirmed for her. She tossed open the doors to Gaerlan¡¯s private chamber, where a sputtering and hissing drew our eyes left. It was one of the floating virindi ¡®vaults¡¯, used to store random items and information. They looked like crystalline flowers of a sort, floating there in the air and waiting to be pushed around or accessed. Why the virindi left them occasionally floating around the landscape was a mystery nobody understood, but obviously Gaerlan had managed to gain one, take control of its magic, and use it for his own purposes. ¡°If it¡¯s like the magic chests I¡¯ve seen before, it has one last access, and then it burns out,¡± I informed her. ¡°Get ready to grab everything, then.¡± She inserted the lock into the slot for it, turned it, and the crystalline flower spun once, the petals on top unfolding to reveal what was stored within, even as more violent sparks jumped and danced around it. Multiple egg-sized Crystals glowing in shattered hues of color were displayed to us. I reached out with Minor Telekinesis II and grabbed every one of the things, yanking them out and away from the thing before it sputtered, crackled, and then spontaneously shattered and fell, breaking apart into brittle shards of worthless crystal as it hit the ground. ¡°Well, wasn¡¯t that productive!¡± Kris half-smiled, reaching out to nab one of the crystals. ¡°I believe Lord Mick said that these things needed to be carved and cleaned up in order to work properly¡­¡± ¡°Gemcutting up to it?¡± I asked, her black nails oddly sharp and defined against the magical light generated within the Stone. ¡°I think so. The extrusions are obvious and fragile compared to the primary stone, likely accumulating over time as a result of not being set into something.¡± She tapped experimentally, and a dusting of crystal fell off with a dying sparkle. ¡°Oh, yes, this is simple,¡± she assured me, and her nails began to dance over the Crystal like razored chisels, soft tinkles accompanying a fall of crystals that lost all their light before they rustled down to the floor. It took her less than a minute, and she held up a sharp briolette-cut Crystal, with interplaying ruby, emerald, amethyst, and sapphire hues constantly dancing and shifting within. ¡°Nice,¡± I complimented her, studying the Stone. ¡°It definitely is showing a harmonic resonance to the native Elementals¡­ huh.¡± I shifted my gaze to the remaining mass of floating crystals there. ¡°These are probably the control factors in the Summoning Ritual to bring in and attempt to control the Harbinger in their natural states. Chipped down like that removes a level of natural resonance, making it useless for wider rituals.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± Kris murmured, staring at the Jewel in her palm and clearly wondering if she should insert it into a slot on Quaver. ¡°I gather that means I shouldn¡¯t be carving them all up and passing them out as happy rewards as we get the whole socketing system decoded.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t imagine where having power components available to get rid of or control or suppress an Elemental entity proven to have no good intentions for the mortal plane might be important. Perhaps you could fill in the right circumstances for me.¡± I brought a coffer out of my Masspack and carefully put the rough stones inside it. ¡°Ass!¡± she laughed at me, tucking her Stone into her breast pocket. ------------ ¡°You! You are the ones who have been killing the servants of Martine!¡± The one who had spoken had fiery red hair, in contrast to the female across from him who had gone almost clean-shaven with her brown hair. They had on clothing that was of finer quality than that of the other inhabitants here, with gold trim and silk cloth, clearly meant to convey a position of some importance. ¡°What, no ¡®fellow Isparian¡¯ to greet your visitors and supplicants to the throne?¡± Kris immediately shot back with her effortless false cheer, looking around at the Hollow Minions standing alert yet totally motionless guard about the outer chamber of the throne room. ¡°I am insulted by your lack of manners, sir! And you didn¡¯t even have a herald standing entry to announce us with! Do you know nothing of royal protocol?¡± Her response seemed to take him aback as she strolled in, all the body language saying she owned this place and he¡¯d better shape up, or she was going to ream him a new one. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The chamber was awash with muted blue-purplish energies, similar to virindi death displays, yet different. The Hollow Minions, Constructs that looked like scarecrows with deadly hammering pummeling fists of chorozite, waited in alcoves around the outer throne room. The throne itself was built into a second chamber inside the large ones, with great braziers to either side of the empty seat venting the energies here in what was likely supposed to be an impressive display. The doors to the chamber were open, and the two highest-ranked of Martine¡¯s followers were waiting there, as they had been since before the Fall. They both were still staring at us as we came into the throne room. Hibdin Velos and Ambrosia Roe, the simulacra up top had named them. Martine¡¯s most trusted servants in the past, loyal to a fault, and just as much tied up with this place as all of the others. These, however, seemed to have retained more of their personal identities than the people upstairs. According to the Mick, Ambrosia was a bit of a vicious and vengeful shit, and Hibdin was a former drunk and alcoholic who¡¯d never gotten over losing his wife and family after coming here. Both had been unfailingly loyal to Martine, who had basically pulled them out of the gutter and given them a purpose for their lives, finding a place for other misfits like himself to work and do their things without the pain and interference of dealing with people. And now they were simulacra. Outcasts from the human race in every manner possible. I stepped forward politely. ¡°May I introduce to the two custodians of Martine¡¯s Seat Her Imperial Highness, Kristie Briggs-Rantha, of the Imperial House of Briggs, the Emperor of Ispar,¡± I intoned with great courtly flair, having had quite a bit of practice at flowery introductions of Kris by now. ¡°I am Devra al-Ryinth, called the Lady Magos among the surviving Isparians of the Freehold.¡± It was the female who spoke, a bit unwillingly if her tone was to be believed. ¡°This is Hibdin Velos, Seneschal and Chamberlain to Candeth Martine. I am Ambrosia Roe, his adjutant.¡± Which basically meant second-in-command, of a place with nobody to command anymore, as we¡¯d cleaned them all out and sent them to vivic freedom. ¡°If you are here to speak with the Master, he is not in residence at the moment, and we do not know when he will return!¡± she hastened to add. Kris eyed them both carefully. ¡°Can you verify that it was Martine who turned you into simulacra, or was it a third party?¡± She was leaning on me heavily with that question, as Truth would be able to tell if their response was a lie, even if they believed otherwise. ¡°The Master returned and elevated us beyond the annoyances and weaknesses of the flesh, that we might be able to serve him longer and truer!¡± Hibdin Velos cut in quickly, pride in his voice at the change wrought upon him. ¡°Perhaps too long,¡± Kris responded in clipped tones. ¡°All of those above were pleased to be freed of service, and liberated to find their destinies. It appears that your Master did not take the same care of attending to them as he did to you, if such be the case. ¡°In any event, if he has survived and endured, there are a great many parties who will be interested in him and what he chooses to do, for good or for ill. If you know where he was headed, would it be rude to inquire as to where that was? I doubt you are permitted to leave your stations and attempt to find him, but even with scant knowledge of time, you are probably aware that your master has been gone overlong.¡± The two looked at one another, a hum of communication on different levels going up and fading rapidly into the background. ¡°It is true that the Master has been absent again longer than we have expected, but we do not know the nature of the burdens he has to bear!¡± the female sang out immediately. ¡°Moreover, you have proven that you are not friends of his!¡± ¡°On the contrary, I gave those below us exactly what they desired, and as you might not have noticed, I have endeavored to do the same for you, acknowledging that you have no such desire to be released from his service,¡± Kris replied without an ounce of shame at the accusation, crossing her arms and staring both of them down, handily winning despite them being tireless constructs of energy and shell-matter. ¡°Given our ability to show restraint and extend mercy on both sides, I don¡¯t think you will find anyone better to find your master and bring him home than us, although you are certainly welcome to comb through your vast pool of supplicants and attempt to do so.¡± Kristie slowly surveyed the area about us, craning her neck artistically, and then just looked back at them, slowly arching an eyebrow in elegant reproof. Their lack of ability to properly display such emotions anymore didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t read them, and I could feel the hum of the stress about them as the two transformed servants could not help but realize that she was right. We had even used proper protocol to come in here, despite having seen what we had. They couldn¡¯t even deny that the others were willing to be released, and didn¡¯t attempt to refute our words. ¡°He went to check on Gaerlan,¡± Hibdin finally spoke up, stereo voice solemn and heavy. Kris and I looked at one another and groaned. ¡°I know a certain Magos who is not getting near the scene of magical activity and Elemental energies of an Empyrean Archmage in the immediate future, I do!¡± I announced immediately. ¡°But you¡¯ll wait outside. I need a ride home, after all.¡± ¡°Well, sure. Advanced meditation technique Beta-Twelve, Rarefied Understanding of Navel Contemplation, waits for no spellcaster!¡± ¡°Yes, yes. And I¡¯d best bring Fuzzy along, too.¡± She scowled ferociously. ¡°Are you two certain that Martine is still alive?¡± she asked the simulacra directly. The pause in the reply was quite telling. ¡°It may be that the Master cannot truly die, and has been dispersed into the Aether again. The traitor Gaerlan was able to kill him the first time, after all,¡± the seneschal Hibdin answered uneasily. ¡°But knowing he returned, Gaerlan might well do a much more thorough job than before, if he is truly free. Even if he is more familiar with the state and could reconstitute himself faster than before, he might be too dispersed for it to happen.¡± And that was without even knowing vivus was there, which would raise the cost to a substantial part of the soul for Candeth Martine to restore himself. ¡°But we will investigate this, you have our word, and we will return here to inform you of what we find,¡± Kris agreed, bowing to the two of them, and actually received bows in return. Gotta respect that lineage, after all. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Ryin.¡± AF Chapter 227 – Bugs in Baishi We walked back out into the open sky of Rithwic. I took immediate comfort in being out of the constrained energy field and mana flows of the Retreat, back among living mana and the smells and sounds of life, even if it was of a ruined town emptied repeatedly of the living by the Fall and virindi purges happening regularly ever since. ¡°If Martine was around and the virindi knew it, they likely will interpret your breaking of their Wards as his action, especially with the feedback from your Spellflare,¡± Kris pointed out thoughtfully. ¡°I handily doubt we have to worry about them rousing themselves to investigate.¡± The Mick had been nice enough to fill us full of stories of Martine¡¯s power when he was running about like a mad lab experiment, trying to cope with his forced evolution into a Prodigal, virindi-modified Human. The virindi had done the same kind of mutating with multiple creatures and races, both as a race and by random individuals of the race, notably the renegade named Aerbax. Examples included Bonecrusher, the drudge who had wiped out Cragstone; Bobo, the Tusker King, and the false Bobo meant to replace him after he escaped; the banderling Harraag; the Shadow Kresovus who had kidnapped and replaced King Kresovus; an attempt to make more Tremendous Monugas out in the direlands; warping and mutating an Olthoi Queen; a Shadow Child made from the spirit of Kirenne Palacost, the nephew of Bael¡¯Zharon; a mosswart named Bragara attempting to pawn itself off as a new god; and multiple Hea, ranging from Hea Rheaga to Hea Arantah and the warped Hea ¡®gifted¡¯ by the virindi with powers and authority over the Hea, and who had led their transformation as a race. Martine had been by far the greatest accomplishment of them, turned into a being who could rival an ancient Empyrean basically overnight. The idea that we could handle such a powerful being, or more importantly, the one who had killed him, was a fanciful pipe dream at this point. But that didn¡¯t mean we couldn¡¯t stealth the shit out of him, especially since he would likely have no knowledge of the existence of Forsaken like Briggs and Kris. Likewise, the virindi weren¡¯t going to test him, as Martine had been as powerful as the mightiest of them, killing scores whenever confronted with them. Rithwic was effectively free of virindi interference for the foreseeable future. Now that we knew it, we could of course use this for a base. More importantly, we could use the Retreat as a base, and the fact it had subterranean farms that the simulacra no longer needed, was not a consideration, no, no. They¡¯d been down in caves extending away and down from the Retreat proper, an area we hadn¡¯t gone to without any good reason to do so, but certainly we could send scouts down to ascertain if they had been salvaged by Martine and were usable once again. Protected food and water sources were always appreciated. ¡°How long do you reckon before you think you can survive a trip up into the Olthoi North?¡± I asked her directly. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure we could survive the overland portion of the journey without too much problem right now. Escaping notice by a post-Twenty Black-souled arse of an Empyrean Archmage¡­ ugh. It¡¯s taking a risk any way you look at it.¡± ¡°And he was a Summoner who spammed Elementals.¡± She patted her new Stone, while I fished out the coffer, opened it, and handed her another two of the fourteen raw Crystals we had. ¡°One for Briggs, and one for me, please.¡± Silently, she took them and much-too-sharp black nails that were Profound Weapons, guided by tremblesense for a huge circumstance modifier to the gemcutting check, went to work cleaning off the bristling fringes and extrusions to the proper Crystals. In a few minutes, she handed me a Stone of my own to work into Crown as needed, and pocketed the one for Briggs. We didn¡¯t have Elemental or Blackfire Stones for Briggs, which was unfortunate, but we were working on them. The former Stones involved trips to the Elemental Vaults, and hey, we had Stones that would grant Elemental Slayer to the Weapons they were set in. Double damage to a specific foe was a nice effect we weren¡¯t going to pass up, although we weren¡¯t sure how it was going to work with spells, as yet. I was guessing +damage per die, not a straight doubling, but who knew? The latter Stones meant a trip to Aerlinthe Island, and possibly confronting one of the greatest Empyrean Undead, Lady Aerefalle herself. Also something we were not too keen on pursuing at this point. ¡°Simulacra are timeless, so when we get back is when we get back to them. There¡¯s no immediate need to hurry on the quest, so we add it to the list as something we can do. ¡°Optionally, we could farm it off to Oswald, and see how much he can find out.¡± I considered that calmly. ¡°He¡¯d get, uh, first clear Karma, as it stands. Do you really want to give that up?¡± Kris grimaced. ¡°Dammit, no. But after six months of butchering grievvers, I only hit Ten. I need a LOT more Karma.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just because you¡¯re that awesome,¡± I sniffed, and she promptly hip-checked me, nearly knocking me over if I hadn¡¯t slid away with the bump. ¡°You have something in mind for the grinding, even if we succeed in pushing the Hea off Osteth.¡± ¡°Supposedly there¡¯s an easily accessible, but very high-level olthoi Dungeon in Baishi.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I opened my mouth, then closed it on my comment about what the fuck olthoi Dungeons were doing that far south. ¡°Right¡­ the four Matron Hives. Dungeons dropped conveniently right into towns so you could just wander over from the tavern and plunge yourself into intelligent belligerent insect hive-mind hell, and then stumble out to have a pint when you were all done slaughtering hordes of merciless loot-dropping superbugs.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Kris stretched out and cracked her neck. ¡°I want to find out if I have what it takes to take on the tougher olthoi, if not the truly highest tier you only find in the North.¡± ¡°Or on the Olthoi Island,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Baby steps,¡± she nodded agreement. ¡°We can work up to that when we start wiping their ecology out of the North, right?¡± ¡°With the Healing magic and ability to return people from the dead, even if it is expensive, we should have no problem working up a warhost that is capable of doing exactly that, without the karmic cost of whatever System the likes of the Hea and Gotrok are linked to that keeps them from improving themselves readily.¡± ¡°Minions that keep getting more powerful have ideas about not being minions anymore,¡± Kris commented knowingly. ¡°Horrible, I know. The servant becoming the master just is not permissible.¡± Low-born Aluvians from common clans rising up to butcher blue-Bloods and become Emperor and Empress? No, no, not happening, people. ¡°All noble bloodlines tend to go back to warlords and bandit kings, as it were. We just took the traditional road to power, and the entrenched power structure forgets that so much,¡± she smiled cheerfully. ¡°You¡¯re going to make Borelean nervous saying stuff like that.¡± ¡°He¡¯s only a High King as long as the people say he is, and not a moment longer,¡± she sniffed. ¡°Ready for a run to Baishi?¡± ¡°We have lived-lines less than twenty miles from it, stemming from the Soushi advance. Given that, I can drop us there and we can probably be there inside an hour.¡± I glanced east tellingly. ¡°Update Briggs and ask if we¡¯re needed, and moreso, if we should be there if we aren¡¯t. Us going off investigating is important, but to a lot of the soldiers, it¡¯s gaffing the important stuff for fun adventuring.¡± ¡°True. Let me clear it, and promise I won¡¯t stay long regardless.¡± --------- Brilliant was known as The Dragonslaying Enchantment among high-end Weapon wielders. It was a four-Slot Weapon Enhancement that turned a Weapon into a thing of solid light, and largely ignored most Natural Armor. When a creature has +20 of Natural Armor, better than wearing a coat of adamantine steel, getting that cut right down to nothing made them hugely vulnerable, as a lot of dragons found out when facing warriors with Weapons that looked to be made out of solid light. These olthoi were somewhat similar. They had carapaces as hard as steel, and were hugely resistant to elemental damage. Their carapaces pointedly were a bit brittle, and there were lots of gaps and seams to poke through, but the shells themselves defied slashing and hacking attacks, too. However, if you could ignore the armor, then hacking was Sooper Effective. Which was good, because the bastard things had obscene truckloads of Health. I really, really loathed the atmosphere of the place, especially the way their alien ecology warped the mana in the air and the way their secretions covered up the stone so I couldn¡¯t access it. I really, REALLY wanted to douse everything here in vivus, shut everything down, fill the hole in the ground in, and be done with the place. Kris, on the other hand, was laughing manically non-stop, the notes of it pinging on the auditory membranes of the olthoi, and whatever these Summons were using for a hivemind was registering it and associating it with slaughter. She had two Shields out, because she had no choice. There were too many of the walking beetles with their plunging pedipalps, cutting pincers, and acid-spitting, and she had to block too many attacks. Those attacks could chip into stone easily, the edges of them charged with magic or psi or something, and crashing and bashing them aside was about the only way to survive fighting these things. She also had to rip out all the damage combos she could in endless fashion to advance into them with Quaver, her Arakne Arms managing the Shields as Lost Light swirled in flicker-quick cuts of unrelenting speed and terrifying slashing force. Cut apart from inside, the acid blood of the olthoi exploded out internally and they collapsed into steaming corpses leaking sizzling fluids upon the resin-streaked floor. Acids that could sear stone and steel did nothing to the hardened goo before the corpses discorporated, happily not building up. They had sick amounts of magic resistance, sitting at least at 36, something a Twenty who didn¡¯t invest heavily in Spell Penetration would almost never have been able to get through. The only thing I could land reliably that was of use was Shards, and so I was pummeling them. As Shards ignored the protective effects of their carapaces, it turned out I could use the Bludgeon, Piercing, or Slashing variants with basically equal results, slamming internal damage into them to start the internal bleeding process which killed them with their own acidic blood liquefying their organs. 2300 bloody Health on the things! One of them could take a full Shard volley to the face and live through it! AF Chapter 228 – The Unreasonableness of the Olthoi There was a tall and domineering white-shelled version called an Olthoi Slasher, and a smaller, faster purple one, only human-sized, called an Olthoi Slayer. Both were equally tough, both equally armored, equally deadly, and equally happy to swarm us and take us down¡­ and both were immune to Life Magic, namely the Imperils and Vulns that would really have softened them up for our attackers. There was no Summoning magic anywhere in Power of Ten that came up with creatures this bloody tough and dangerous, and yet here they were, endlessly respawning from alcoves in the walls, prancing to the attack on insectile legs too powerful for their spindly nature, spitting acid, slashing and stabbing at us to force us out of this nest. I softened up things for Kris to take advantage of, Quaver just cutting blurs of motion as she gutted the things right through their armor, the maxed-out Biting Strike and Crushing Blow Runes on Quaver exploding crits through the bugs which magnified the damage she was doing to unreasonable levels, and she still needed an average of six hits to kill one. I also had to Heal her a bunch as those plunging pointy bits or cutting pincers got past her Shields and found meat instead of air, quickly outpacing her ability to Fast Heal even with full Soul Empowerment and a whole lot of Damage Reduction. The acid wasn¡¯t anything much she had to worry about, and indeed she ended up pretty coated in the stuff more than once, ignoring it as her Tremblesense tracked and charted everything around her better and faster than her eyes, and she hewed into the bugs with energy and vigor. Actually, six hits to kill one was damn impressive, according to the Mick, which we attributed to the crit multipliers on Kris¡¯ massive basic damage from her Grandmastery. The ability to just bypass their armored shells with Brilliant was obviously huge, and her rapid understanding and utterly clear comprehension of all the vulnerable points of their bodies drove every swing. The olthoi were quick, but they simply weren¡¯t used to a Weapon that ignored their armor, their reflexes couldn¡¯t keep up with Ways of Fire neutralizing Dex and Dodge bonuses, nor all the magical bonuses to hit heaped on the stack to thwart them, starting with Bane to Vermin, including Enmity to the Supernatural (they were effectively Magical Beasts, too), all the Blackfire and Soulfire bonuses, the fact Kris really was Just That Damn Good with a sword, and yeah, for all practical purposes, she was able to reap them. ¡°Back it up to the beginning! The respawns are due in thirty seconds!¡± I shouted at her, gliding backwards. She growled and followed, skating backwards as fast as the olthoi could advance, the bugs jostling one another and stringing themselves out as they single-mindedly chased after us back towards the top of the nest. One by one, swirling combination attacks cut them down in deadly flurries of activity, and if these were helped along by crackling silver lightning powering a mono-target Haste spell, well, that was what it was. ¡°Drop that Brilliant and use something else on Quaver,¡± I told her coolly, and she glanced over at me just as she inserted the Blade up into the face of the last Slasher, its pedipalps ringing futilely on the Shields held up to take them. ¡°Reason?¡± she asked neutrally. ¡°You¡¯re testing out these olthoi for people who don¡¯t have nine or ten Slot Weapons. You¡¯re comprehensively two tiers above them in terms of combat ability, at least. Fight them without being able to ignore the shells so you know what the average man fighting them is going to be faced with.¡± She considered that, looked down at Quaver, the spirals of Lost Light weaving around it carrying the white-green hues of Vermin Banefire, but their own intrinsic power was useless against this ¡®mundane¡¯ foe. It was a shining bar of Golden Light right now, more energy than mass. ¡°Alrighty then,¡± she said after a moment, and Quaver hummed obediently as blue-black adamantine edged in Gold Soulfire reformed in her grip. ¡°This is not going to be anywhere near as easy,¡± she informed me sourly. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what the Mick is telling us, but Artificer Infusions don¡¯t last forever, and nobody in their right mind makes Brilliant a permanent Enchantment,¡± I pointed out grimly, as that would involve using up four Slots for something that was not effective against anything in normal Armor. You could do a lot of stuff with four Slots. She snarled and her Arsenal effect swirled and replaced the Brilliant with Healing Edge, a good choice to replace it. It was a +III effect, meaning still rarefied, but broadly useful, and would minimize the amount of extra Healing I¡¯d have to do while she worked things out. The first fwazaps! rang out in the alcoves, resin-lotus doors unfolded, and new purple or white olthoi further down the ramp stepped forth to do battle. Kris grit her teeth and readied Stand and Tall in her second pair of arms. ¡°And go down to one Shield. Not everybody has four arms.¡± Kris paused, grumbled again, and then Tall lotused closed and was put back inside her Masspack as she went down to one hand on Quaver. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Now let¡¯s see how absolutely horrible this is,¡± I murmured to her as she took position in front. ¡°The average paramount mage has about a fifty percent chance of landing spells on these things, doesn¡¯t have a second spell they can shoot, and can¡¯t add Isparian magic on top of their primary spell. They also don¡¯t have a Get Out of Hell Free Dimension Door to whisk them away to safety at the drop of a hat, and no Olthoi Slayer or even a Bane yet. So, one tank of mana and then run for the hills, with Mana Boost on reserve for emergencies is SOP.¡± ¡°Ugh,¡± Kris grimaced, raising up Quaver atop Stand in classic Mitharn sword-and-board posture. ¡°This is gonna suck. That¡¯s 2300 Health, and you¡¯re gimping me!¡± ¡°I¡¯d say take the multipliers of your Critting Runes down at least two multipliers, too, but we¡¯ll make do for now.¡± --- ¡°Waagh!¡¯ We both went sprawling as the Dimdoor dropped us up outside the entry tunnel to the Hive Dungeon, located in the middle of a bunch of standing stones outside the town of Baishi. Kris had a dozen bleeding wounds even the constant stabbing with Quaver hadn¡¯t quite been able to keep up with. Whatever the changes in armor were out there, they plainly were vastly inferior to the protective stuff that warriors and mages had enjoyed here before the Fall. The Mick was laughing at us in Markspace, but it was a bit hollow. He¡¯d happily recounted tales of being absolutely swarmed and surrounded by these olthoi, even jumping into the middle of them willingly, and their best attacks had basically bounced off his buffed-up Armor, the tiny impact damages just healed away with little problem as long as his endurance held out. Without that max-buffed Armor and the combination of bounce and damage reduction it gave, fighting was a very different thing. Even with her Damage Reduction of base 16/Holy Silver, the olthoi had been chewing into Kris and letting her know that she wasn¡¯t all that impressive. There was also the fact that a normal fighter wasn¡¯t immune to the acid, and once she had to figure dodging or minimizing those little vomited globules into account, the complexity of the fighting had reached a whole other tier. Which all meant she was now slashed, stabbed, pierced, and cut rather badly, very annoyed, and just sitting there on her backside as her Fast Healing pulled her back together at basically a point of Health per second. She was down into her 30¡¯s when I yanked us out of there, and that was with Quaver¡¯s Healing Edge dropping an additional 1-8 into her with every successful attack. Sure, she had another hundred of Soak there as cushion in case of emergency, but the fact remained that she hadn¡¯t been able to keep up, and that was with me helping with both Buffs and some slamming magic to accelerate the kills. No Rending/Cleaving magic and no active Slayer effects meant I was restricted to Crit Runes for extra damage, just like she was, and without layered overloaded spells, simply didn¡¯t have a rapid impact on anything. Plus, you know, failing half the time against their Spell Resistance/Magic Defense sucked really bad. I got pretty good at finishing things she started pounding down, timing my blasts as I analyzed her attack routines and my Assays followed the dropping Health of whatever she was trying to concentrate on. Things had gotten much nastier when she had to use Stand to block one olthoi, and then parry attacks with Quaver even while plunging her Sword into the creatures. ¡°Briggs would probably do okay in his full armor,¡± she finally admitted, looking up at the sky. ¡°At the least, they¡¯d be trying to get through DR 30-some instead of a mere 16. But that hive could boil out and probably take out most of our army,¡± she admitted uneasily. DR 16/- was a big man taking up a sledgehammer, hauling it back, and slamming it into something with full power... only to see it bounce. The olthoi had been chewing through it without too much problem. Pincer attacks in the 4-24+10 range, at least... ¡°Yeah.¡± I was down to dregs of Mana, although I had plenty of Valences in reserve, not about to risk all of them in this fight, especially if there was a surprise waiting for us outside. ¡°Kinda lets you know just how nasty the paramounts were back before the Fall¡­ or at least how powerful the magic then was, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Her eyes were sparking with real desire now. ¡°Now they went and done it, though. They¡¯re forcing me to slap on some armor for myself!¡± She¡¯d lose her Wisdom bonus to her dodging AC, but would have more Armor and Damage Reduction to replace it¡­ if not all that much more. ¡°And you can¡¯t tell me you didn¡¯t start on your Olthoi Slayer Masteries with all the kills in there.¡± Because I sure had. ¡°You actually killed fifty of them?¡± Kris was a little surprised. ¡°I Cast spells on over fifty of them, who also happened to die.¡± Getting the kill wasn¡¯t completely necessary, even for Achievement Feats, if you were in Fellowship, which we totally were. ¡°That eventual +5 bonus to punching Spell Res will be extremely useful.¡± ¡°And no doubt all the paramounts are kicking themselves for not taking it back when they were grinding olthoi all night and all day.¡± She¡¯d certainly done it for grievvers back on Ithaenc. ¡°This is really, REALLY a good place to work up to for your killing,¡± she finally admitted, lips turning up in a broad smile. ¡°We never even made it off the second level and down to the third!¡± ¡°Yeah, well, another point. Given the nature of the olthoi as a whole, do you really believe that after the fall the Matron of the Hive is weaker than the olthoi we just killed?¡± She contemplated that for about a half-second. ¡°Oh, Mithar, I hope not. It would be much more fun if she¡¯s not.¡± Four sets of canines gleamed in anticipation. Which was just about right for a Rantha Hag, I had to admit. ¡°So, I¡¯m guessing that the other three Matron Hives, which also follow ascending levels of difficulty, once again are going to be devoted to that cause as training Dungeons?¡± ¡°If this is what we¡¯re looking at in the Olthoi North¡­ yeah, they¡¯ll definitely be needed. There¡¯s a whole generation which has had no exposure to the bugs, and those bugs are no joke.¡± ¡°As no doubts hundreds of random Portal victims found out over the years¡­¡± Her face hardened. ¡°Yeah,¡± she admitted. ¡°The bugs deserve everything we are going to do to them¡­¡± Although it wasn¡¯t even a matter of deserve. They were being true to their nature, and to survive, we¡¯d also have to be true to their nature, and annihilate them. ¡°The other Matron Hive Dungeons are in Nanto, Uziz, and Khayyaban, of all places.¡± All scattered settlements, kind of backwoods related to the main cities, almost as if someone had placed the Dungeons there so as to drive some traffic to them. Nah, not possible, right? Nanto was already in our control, the Hive Dungeon a hole in the ground long walled off and ignored by the wild tribes who¡¯d taken over the lands between Mayoi and Hebian-To. It was also supposedly the mildest of the four Olthoi Matron Dungeons. ¡°We¡¯re going to have to put a training garrison in Nanto immediately,¡± Kris stated, and I concurred. Get them Slayer Masteries started quick and early, before we had to fight the real things. AF Chapter 229 – Hea We Are, Therea You Go It hadn¡¯t been a grind, as it had been much too active for that to be a factor. While chasing the Hea all over the place and digging them out of the shadows and rocks as they tried to be clever about ambushing was on the tedious side, the fact was, we didn¡¯t really have a lot of trouble finding them (much to their dismay) and we certainly didn¡¯t have a problem killing them. So, over the past few weeks we had indeed driven the Hea tribes back across the plains of eastern Osteth. We¡¯d been both merciful and merciless about it. There were no prisoners, as none had been taken during the Fall, and we returned that in full measure. If they wanted to run, we let them run. If they wanted to fight, we killed them all. Summons and Spawn points across the entire plains were Sealed en vivus, and their potential forces had basically dwindled by the hour. The fact the Aun were the most enthusiastic forces doing the Sealing, propitiating the spirits of the enslaved and the fallen and sending them on ceremonially, certainly had no effect on Hea morale as they lost any overwhelming numbers they had, and still found themselves unable to deal readily with an organized army on the march, nosirrree. If they fought, they died, and virindi-bonded respawn magic notwithstanding, they really died and did not come back. They were no longer immortal warriors in a great game. They were just the Hea, and they were being killed. There were only a couple attempts to fight, by overconfident chieftains who didn¡¯t comprehend that there¡¯s a lot of difference between once and done, and do-over-endlessly. Challenge combats to their position everyone lived through were definitely not the same as an organized battlefield under Warlords who knew what the Hell they were doing, leading soldiers trained in team tactics and able to overcome warriors of superior numbers and skills simply by working together and doing what they needed to do. Soldier mindsets were some of the toughest things for barbarians to learn, caught up as they were in cultures of either hunting or glorified combat that made them great adventurers, and grossly inferior in the true arts of war. The Hea had played at being soldiers, but they didn¡¯t have the actual training and discipline needed to really do the job, only making the jump to a conqueror¡¯s mindset under the instruction of the virindi. Their religious and cultural background certainly didn¡¯t support them, and the virindi themselves were of scant help on a psychological level, being of the mindset of manipulating puppets who were proving not to be so adept at the job as the Isparians they¡¯d once driven away successfully. This was war, and Isparians were very familiar with war. ------- So it was that the armies of the Freeholders eventually drew up outside the walls of Fort Dryreach, now the last redoubt of the Hea in the lands of Osteth. It was a formerly Aluvian holding, lost during the Fall like the rest, and gleefully claimed by the Hea as they had taken it once before. A sprawling place with lots of room, it was now packed with thousands of Hea civilians in crowded conditions, as well as surrounded by thousands more of the remaining Hea Summons that were standing in lines both on the walls and around outside it, living obstructions for the army of vengeful Freeholders come to deliver the same kind of treatment their friends and families had received during the Fall. Pretty much every fighting soul from the Vesayans was here, including the King and Queen Mother, who had actually been quite active in leading companies on the battlefield and on the hunt. If they were following Diviners sniffing out the Hea for the latter, nobody cared when the arrow fire flushed them and they died fleeing from their failed ambushes. There¡¯d been a lot of sniping attempts and sneak attacks, and nobody had any sympathy for the overconfident Hea who thought they were being clever about such things. A whole generation of young Hea who¡¯d never known life without being immortal were being wiped out, and it wasn¡¯t going well for them. Thus bringing us to our current position near Dryreach. --------- ¡°How many virindi in the place?¡± Briggs asked me directly. ¡°Three dozen or so, by the divs. They sensed me looking and tried to block it, but I only wanted numbers, wasn¡¯t worried about the details.¡± ¡°Do you believe they are here to fight?¡± King Borelean asked urgently. Nobody wanted to see high-tier magic we couldn¡¯t match flying out to one-shot people. ¡°No. They are taking pains to remain out of line of sight and out of range of archery.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± Queen Elysa smiled suddenly. ¡°That was why you had Warlord Kris fire her Autobow over the walls¡­¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. ¡°And she split a flagpost doing so. Yes.¡± Queen Elysa looked impressed at the feat at such a range. ¡°That was specifically to tell the virindi that we could reach them, and they better stay under cover, or they¡¯re going vivic and not coming back.¡± ¡°So, they are here to evacuate the Hea back to Marae Lassel.¡± Aun Hemenua said with some relief. Not having to slaughter kin, even if they were estranged, was always better than having to slaughter kin. ¡°They were brought here originally by the virindi, they can be sent home the same way. Whether or not they can thrive on the island is another matter, but I imagine if they get rid of the olthoi there it will be possible.¡± I shrugged ¨C it was not our problem. ¡°They still seem unwilling to leave the virindi after all this, so they get to live with the results.¡± ¡°The virindi are indeed a separate problem to deal with. Removing some of their pawns here doesn¡¯t mean we¡¯ve really touched their power. However,¡± Briggs¡¯ voice dipped dangerously, making the toes tremble, ¡°I want them off the mainland here. Not in the Dires, waiting to come stalking back for a little vengeance. I¡¯m aware there are plenty of Hea clans still in the Dires. If they are going to the Dires, we¡¯re going to be fighting them again. ¡°If that¡¯s so, I want the Portal blown, the place Interdicted, and we¡¯re going to slaughter them here and now, rather than play cat-and-mouse with them over the coming months and years.¡± ¡°Aun Hemenua, you may wish to send a runner to convey that sentiment to the Hea leadership. I can indeed ascertain where the Portal the virindi are going to bring up will go, and if it¡¯s not to Marae Lassel, there¡¯s going to be a big explosion, and then a lot of Hea are going to die.¡± The tall green shaman bowed slightly, motioning to one of his attendants and quickly making gestures over a hide, causing glowing symbols to etch themselves onto it. The initiate bowed and trotted quickly away, directly towards the gates to Fort Dryreach a quarter-mile away. ¡°You can reach that far with your magic?¡± King Borelean was impressed. ¡°Yes. There are ways to enhance the range of magic to incredible levels, and Dispels are a cross-theurgic discipline that benefits from such things enormously. I can reach what they are doing, I can target them by merely gaining a little altitude, and I can shut them down,¡± I confirmed. Eyes looked up at the sky, wondering how high I would have to get, and how I would get there. None of them asked, however. The magic field here was very hard on flight magic, it turned out. You could fly¡­ just not very high, very fast, or very long. The weight of the magic field here seemed quite biased against the magic, which I actually thought was really smart. Having static ground fortifications was stupid if you didn¡¯t have control of the air, and the only things the Empyreans had proven to have that flew were massive floating platforms channeling huge amounts of magical power to do what they did¡­ and even they didn¡¯t get more than a hundred yards off or away from the ground. I didn¡¯t think it was a worldwide effect, but it certainly contributed to all the stuff that might be able to actually magically fly not being able to get more than a certain height off the ground, in reach of ground attackers all the time. ¡°We need to drive the point home that they don¡¯t have a choice in that matter,¡± Kris pointed out sharply. ¡°Some of them are still sure they can fight, and others will feel that obeying us while they are fleeing is simply an unacceptable stain on their honor. I would prefer that they be utterly crushed and running to run, and not thinking of anything but not getting themselves slaughtered.¡± Eyes turned on Aun Hemenua, knowing he understood the Hea best, despite the differences the virindi had inflicted upon them. ¡°They know the living walls failed them. The stone walls give them some hope. Maybe Isparian walls will defy the Isparians, especially since they are linked to the ley lines and we cannot harm them. I have been told we do not truly have the normal numbers required to breach the walls of a fortress like this?¡± the Aun asked, looking around. ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Briggs rumbled. ¡°In a classical engagement, with no magic involved, you want a minimum of five to one, and ten to one is preferable.¡± ¡°Then break the walls, and they lose all hope. Can this be done?¡± the elder shaman of the Aun asked calmly. Everyone turned to look at me. I, in turn, looked at the fortress walls over in the distance. ¡°If I can Shape up stone walls, I can Shape down stone walls, especially once I cut them off the ley-line. But there¡¯s a small problem of the Summons standing between me and those walls.¡± ¡°Cleaning off the Summons should provide no obstacle, and we can either chase them off the walls, or your Shards will basically sweep them from the tops, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± No need to deny it, and the archers there were basically lower-Level Summons that would not survive a Shardray. ¡°Okay. Start moving the troops up, the goal is to clear out the Summons on this side and make sure they don¡¯t move any more onto the ground outside. Then we move the Lady Magos up, and she removes their walls.¡± He looked around once. ¡°Any issues or problems with that.¡± ¡°I watched you pull up castle walls and fortress lines out of the stone that would take months or years to erect, and now I get to see you take them down. And here I thought I had seen most of what magic had to show me in life,¡± Queen Elysa smiled at me. ¡°If they could secure their ley line connection, removing the walls would not be a tactic. However, that doesn¡¯t secure the stone outside their walls. I could, for instance, simply start a ramp here, build it up around me, and make a beeline right for the walls, raising a path directly to the top of their walls above and around me as I did so.¡± There were murmurs from all around as everyone pictured the tactic, the stolid lugian Kopf representing his king looking the most pleased. Briggs smiled hard, having come up with the tactic. If it came to a sudden fight, our army would be able to flow right over and past the walls and into the heart of their fortifications almost immediately, completely bypassing their protection! I hadn¡¯t been using my ability to Shape Stone in such amounts publicly recently, and only in the simple forms of walls around the town. The Hea doubtless believed I was tapping ley lines to erect the things where I had, and they had no reason to fear that power. ¡°If ye drive the ramp right up to the walls now, the Summons are mostly useless and we don¡¯t even have t¡¯ fight,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°All they can do is mass troops at the point o¡¯ entry an¡¯ hope they might stop us.¡± ¡°True,¡± Briggs acknowledged. ¡°But I do want to kill all those Summons, this is a fine excuse to do so, and our Lady Magos can wall off reinforcements so they can¡¯t be brought in from the other sides to replace those we are slaughtering. ¡°And this is about absolute despair. Look at the fortress out there, and then picture it with the entire wall facing us no longer there at all.¡± Everyone stared that way, picturing it all. ¡°We¡¯d murder them,¡± Kris stated confidently, four pairs of canines gleaming. ¡°Half an hour. Let¡¯s get the forces in position. They are Summons, we don¡¯t need to show any mercy or consideration. Wipe them down, and let the Hea despair,¡± Briggs ordered, and it was so. AF Chapter 230 – Reaching and Coming Up Dry It was a show of force, lining up as we did. They could see it all coming, but they couldn¡¯t do much about it. The clouds started to rumble and gather, and they¡¯d all heard the tales and saw the signs. Silver Light inside the clouds. The feeling something was looking down upon you, upon your soul, and finding you wanting, that you¡¯d done something fundamentally wrong with your existence and now, you were being caught and judged on it. By some of the energy fluctuations inside, the virindi weren¡¯t taking that assessment and feeling of being so small very well. Those clouds also meant I could open up the bombardment with a whole lot of lightning. Celestial bells rang out, and Hea screamed and covered their ears. The Summons could only gape up as the sky came down, and Heaven came calling. Ectoplasmic bodies went flying, torn apart and dissipating in midair. Great eruptions of the Light and earth flew, gouging massive holes in the thickest parts of the line of Summons, tearing them wide open. Our archers and Casters calmly drew back, Buffs sparkled over them with Arrowflight and Mass True Seeking going off, and the first volleys of spells and missiles flashed out. Thunderbolts crashed down and added to the confusion as murderously accurate and powerful arrow fire was backed with Gold spells flying in to deal their own havoc. Even if the spells weren¡¯t lethal straight off, they were powerful enough to finish the wounded if they could reach them¡­ and the Hea were shocked to see those spells were actually ranging nearly twice as far as their own magicks were in return, even though some of their powerful Casters were actually spitting out Pyreal, or even Platinum-grade spells, courtesy of their virindi patrons. With the absolute range advantage and the bombardment from on high, we pounded a hole through their lines, reaping the Summons and turning one whole side of Castle Dryreach into a field of white. I was Invisible as I materialized next to the fort¡¯s outer wall, and just reached out and touched it. Finding the ley line connection there wasn¡¯t that hard. I couldn¡¯t actually alter the Fort¡¯s connection, but isolating it from the ley line wasn¡¯t hard. I reached down through the earth and stone, wrapped a bundle of nonconductive inert rock around the nodes, and like that, the ley line energy coming into the stone was blocked, draining away with great speed. It wasn¡¯t even an attack, more like putting a door in the middle of a road. Thunderbolts rang out in glory behind me, the Hea trying to organize some kind of discharge as they were pounded on, realizing immediately that the same Bolts from Above could easily be coming down inside the walls instead of outside, and choice paralysis of taking cover or charging to the attack ran through them. Even if they thought they could defend the walls, no one wanted to go up on them under the stern judgment of the Light dwelling within the brooding clouds above. There it went, the magic was receding from this entire section of the walls. With a sigh, I began to Shape and send the stone down and broad, instead of high and square. Panicked shouts began to arise as the first of the stones flowed down like water behind me, those atop the walls or hiding behind them watching them flow away in disbelief. Suddenly they were looking out over a low ramp of molded, fused stones, staring out at our forces outside there staring grimly back at them, with absolutely no protection. That first narrow gap and the panic it started only grew as I walked slowly along the wall, Shaping thousands of cubic feet at a time, and I wiped away the southern wall of Fort Dryreach completely. Behind me I left a great gaping breach, widening with every second, that led directly into the encampment of the Hea within. A great many crimson to violet faces stared as their protection flowed down and away, and their last hope to withstand the attacks of the coming Isparians faded and died. There was an audible rumble as the lugian Vanguards and the phalanx soldiers moved to the front. Their lines were tight, their discipline impeccable, and they were not something the Hea could confront with similar tactics, broken and disorganized as they currently were. The Summons, on the other hand, were noting the Thunderbolts didn¡¯t land beyond the walls, and were instinctively withdrawing through the opening gap, further gutting their defensive position, even as Thunder rang out and shivered the souls of the watching Hea. When I was done, a hundred-paces wide, twenty paces thick walkway had replaced the wall of Fort Dryreach. I flitted back to the lines on a Dimension Door, while the defenses of the Hea collapsed and they could only stare at the line of soldiers out there who would march right through their arrows and spells and grind them into the dirt. Then I noticed the turn the virindi efforts on their Portal-making were doing. ¡°DO NOT ADVANCE!¡± Briggs, about to call for that, turned to look at me inquiringly, then at the swirl of purple virindi energies at the heart of the place. ¡°ALL UNITS TURN AND DOUBLE TIME TO HALF A MILE AWAY FROM THE FORTRESS!¡± Briggs just blinked. ¡°You heard the Lady Magos! Pull back, NOW!¡± He didn¡¯t call it a withdrawal, and left it to their imaginations on why. Warlord¡¯s Voice ripped out, soldiers turned without thinking, and even if they wondered why, they still trotted away steadily and very quickly, astonishing the watching Hea. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I wasn¡¯t about to just watch them die, however. ¡°To the Hea: The virindi have betrayed you. The Portal they are about to open is going to rupture in an explosion of dimensional energies and wipe away all of Fort Dryreach when it does. ¡°I suggest you run, because you¡¯re not going to be coming back from the death they are giving you with vivus Burning on the battlefield there.¡± The shocked Hea looked at the building energies that were supposed to carry them to safety away from there, then at the missing wall. ¡°RUN, YOU FOOLS!¡± a deep voice cried out. ¡°RUN! RUN! RUN!¡± Spurred by the command, the women and children of the Hea began to run, even as a roar of outrage from the warriors signified that some of the elder shamans had realized the truth of the matter. Violent magic was already flying in the heart of Dryreach as they attacked the creatures that had betrayed them and their families¡­ and called on spirits they had forsaken two generations ago in their wild wrath to do so! Desperate figures in robes and simple garb of leather and hides found themselves racing after the very army that had harassed and chased them all the way across Osteth¡¯s plains. The energies of the traitorous Portal behind them seemed to shriek and quiver, like a powerful and nasty bow waiting to be released. Thunderbolts rang down again, this time plunging into the heart of the exchange of magic at the heart of Dryreach, adding purifying Silver slashes to the array of dimensional energy fluxes at play there. Reality seemed to collapse about them, condensing in their wake, driving the rupture back, delaying it second by precious seconds as Heavenly bells pealed brazen and iron clangor, bent and twisted by the assault on the integrity of reality, until¡­ The explosion was mostly soundless, seeming to catch the ringing of a Thunderbolt in mid-stroke and freeze it. Those looking on from the distance could indeed see what looked like a plunging Silver spear coming down, brought to an impossibly slow pace as something expanded at the heart of Dryreach, turned inside out, and then billowed out in a wave of wrongness that just hurt the mind and eye to look at. It washed out across all of Dryreach, reached out to a hundred paces beyond its walls, lashing and clawing and writhing at the edge of reality, as if trying to grab it and stuff it inside a mouth that could not be filled¡­ Six more Spears From Heaven suddenly rained down along the path of that one impossible Thunderbolt hanging there slowly in the air, cutting and stabbing through the expanded dimension interference, and detonated in the heart of it. Soundless Thunder picked up those running away and deposited them on their faces in a wall of wind and silence. A moment later, a hurricane swept back in and past them, rushing to the place where the fort had been, blinding Light covering all in smoke and dust and the haze of an explosion unlike anything anyone had ever felt before. Looking on from solid lines crouched and braced against the wind howling past them, undeterred, Briggs said, ¡°Guard formation. I¡¯m going to see what¡¯s going on out there. Kris, Magos, with me. Aun Gulchuta, Aun Hemenua, if you would join us.¡± ---- The Hea families were still struggling to their feet when our group strode past them. There had been no noise, precious little light, yet the impact to their souls made it hard to see, and hear, and even think. Nonetheless, some of them managed to get to their feet, looked around, and saw that behind them was only a roiling cloud of smoke and dust, and there was no attacking army coming to slay them all. What warriors and shamans had managed to flee the place staggered up and stumbled after the outsiders. If they had no weapons in their hands, lost in the fallout of the explosion, it was probably for the best at this point. The air was aswirl with dimensional fluxes that made settling down the air and dust in it hard, at least until vivus was introduced to the game. Unwhite flames lit up on Weapons, poofed out instantly to clear the air for twenty feet around us, and streamed on ahead, clearing up the view as the wind carried it to all the active particles and ate them free of the dimensional residues. The circle of falling crystalline dust around us expanded faster than we were walking, the air stilling. It was a surreal experience to the Hea trailing cautiously after us, watching glittering stars fall out of the nimbus of dust and ash. Briggs just grunted as matters became visible ahead of us, and we all stopped right on the edge of it. The falling crystals swept on ahead, widening and rising and clearing the view of the crater that was extending down and away from in front of us. We were a hundred yards outside the walls of Dryreach yet. Well, the former walls of Dryreach. Shell-shocked Hea tottered up on either side of us, watching with us as the dust and smoke cleared. The fused arc of stone and soil, sparking with vivic energies falling and misting over it, crawling eagerly forward as they found residues to feast on, extended out before us. Out, and out, and out¡­ It took several minutes for the wind and appetite of the vivus to do its thing, sparkling falls of misting matter spattering down to the huge concave crater where once one of the largest fortress complexes in all of Dereth had stood. Now, it was just a curved crater of dimensionally-sheared stone, everything within taken up and devoured by a tide of energies that had left nothing behind. With it were gone the majority of the Hea¡¯s warriors and shamans, as well as most of their elders. They had been the ones helping and guarding the virindi with their rituals, the ones to finally rebel when they realized what was about to happen, and the ones who had stayed behind trying to delay the incoming magic as long as possible. The Hea had nothing left to fight with. Naturally all their Summons had been consumed at the same time as the fortress had. ¡°Hea Kurugus.¡± The tall and strong chieftain did not look so tall and impressive at the moment. As a matter of fact, he looked like he was about to break under the weight of what he was seeing. Nevertheless, he turned at the sound of Briggs¡¯ voice, finding himself actually looking up at the towering Warlord. He had almost no choice but to straighten under those pale green eyes. ¡°The fate of your people now rests in the hands of what Aun Hemenua and Aun Gluchuta decide,¡± Briggs stated grimly, waving to the senior shaman and chieftain of the Aun. ¡°I think you have much to talk about now.¡± The two Aun were rather surprised at the trust, honor, and responsibility thrust upon them, but both of them bowed to accept the duty. AF Chapter 231 – We Come Bearing Memories Briggs turned away, and started marching back towards the lines. ¡°All troops are to drop all non-essential food and supplies. Start spinning up Disks for rapid withdrawal and pull out as the troops are ready. I want everyone heading for Hebian-to and encamped there before nightfall. All Aun troops are to assemble and await further orders from Aun Gluchuta. ¡°We¡¯re done fighting here, soldiers. Move out and leave them to their grief and the price they paid for honor and loyalty to those that did not deserve it.¡± The Mick had tagged along because he was incorrigible and decided to. He leaned over to Kris and I, and whispered under his breath, ¡°How fast do ye think we could get word o¡¯ what the virindi did t¡¯ the Hea clans in the Direlands?¡± I just glanced at Princess Kristie, who had a thoughtful expression. ¡°I think the Aun and the Hea between them can come up with something suitably scathing and scornful, don¡¯t you think?¡± Kris postulated. ¡°Aye, simple barbarian savages that they be. I¡¯m sure they have no way to convey the magnitude of this betrayal to their kin.¡± =========== Weeks later¡­ Hea Kurugus did not look well, but he still looked better than he had after The Betrayal. It was mostly the workload. As the most senior and powerful surviving chieftain, the decisions that had to be made ultimately fell at his feet and hands¡­ hands and feet that, he had to admit to himself, were looking more and more alien by the day, as if he was trapped in the cage of his own body. He had only made the trek to the Overlord¡¯s Fortress once, as distant as it was, and there was precious little he needed to do with the haughty and arrogant clans that inhabited the Dires, with all of its dangerous inhabitants. His job had been to oversee and raise the next generation, not engage in glorious battle with the powerful creatures of the Direlands¡­ and serve at the beck and call of their cloaked and floating masters. Still, he made his way to the gates of the Fortress without much incident, the magic of the Isparians dropping him literally a mile from the gates, with the Hea sentries about having absolutely no idea of how he¡¯d gotten so close without being seen, especially coming from a soft lowland clan as he did. Still, he wore a chieftain¡¯s markings, and even though the least of them were more than his match in battle, respect had to be given for his seniority. Although they were arrogant and somewhat disdainful, it was the lowland chieftains who sent them their new recruits and young warriors to be turned into proper warriors. Treating them with disrespect was to dry up the pool of new warriors and tribute that came from to the fortress from afar, as well as irking those warriors who hadn¡¯t forgotten where they came from. They let him in with only mildly disparaging looks, seeing that he brought little with him and was doubtless coming to beg some favor from the Overlord. It was said the lowland clans were being pressed back by the returned Isparians, a humiliating event that only indicated how soft they had become. While asking for reinforcements to drive the soft-skinned monkeys back to whatever holes they¡¯d crawled out from was certainly within their rights, the price in tribute that would come from it was going to basically wipe out this one¡¯s clan in the asking. If they could not fight, their kin would be absorbed into a clan that could and would do so to defend its own! Hea Kurugus largely ignored them and their scornful gazes, knowing what they thought, and not caring a whit about it. Some even knew who he was, and how he had quietly turned from the martial path to showing more respect for their old traditions, from the times before the cloaked masters and when their chosen had overthrown their elders with the power of the new ways. He still knew the path, and it was fairly apparent just by the guards standing about on the approach. In older times, Isparian adventurers had often breached the gates and walls of this place, slaughtering their way through the guards, much to the dismay and disgrace of the proud Hea. But those days were long past, and if the guards chose to think it was because it was of fear of their own prowess, well, their delusions would only last until they died, Hea Kurugus thought. The Overlord was named Arantah, and was the oldest and most experienced of those favored by the Virindi two full generations ago. He had led the way in toppling his elders, transforming his tribe into their current quasi-Isparian forms, and had embarked on a path of conquest and war at the instruction of his masters that had only dimmed, not faded. There was still conflicts to fight, with the undead and shades and olthoi and burun and other things, even some of the rival tribes who had grown strong and attempted to organize themselves. The Overlord was over seven feet tall, massively muscled and wielding a great two-handed blade of much fame, perhaps the most powerful Weapon of Lightning in all these lands. Rumors had it that it had been burned out by the Fall, much like so many other magical Weapons, but the virindi had quickly replaced his symbol of power, and it was on display as Hea Kurugus was announced into the Overlord¡¯s Hall with cold formality. His worn condition and downcast expression were open and obvious, further indicators of his lack of strength, and the keen-eyed members of the Overlord¡¯s Court instantly picked up on them. The more arrogant fought to hide their snickers, knowing what was coming, and wondering how badly this lowlander would pay to receive the boons of the Overlord¡¯s warriors. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Hea Kurugus. Your name is known to me,¡± the grim voice of the Overlord rumbled out, staring down at the long chieftain, who had no allies in this hall. ¡°Speak! What brings you before the throne of your Overlord at this time? Have your battles with the Isparians not been to your satisfaction?¡± was the almost mocking provocation. ¡°I bring a gift from the women of the clans of the East to the court of the Overlord, my liege,¡± Hea Kurugus bowed to the enthroned tumerok, covering a mounting aversion to the very sight of what should not be a Hea at all. Arantah was one of the very first of them to be transformed by the virindi, the one who had forced so many others into the same fate. That checked the whole court, who were not sure they had heard correctly. Certainly he bore no packages, and the bags and packs from before the Fall, which could hold inordinate amounts of material, no longer had that ability. Indeed, he was carrying scarcely more than the minimum a hunter would take for a daily tour of their traps and hunting routes. ¡°A¡­ gift, you say.¡± The Overlord looked him over once, seeing nothing that would indicate anything of substance. ¡°You have come a long way to deliver a gift, Hea Kurugus.¡± ¡°The women were most insistent that it be delivered to the court of the Overlord,¡± he responded with a shrug there every male recognized. If the women insisted, well, they insisted, and it was not wise to invoke their ire. Better to run across half the island on a fool¡¯s errand then to dare the wrath of all the females of the tribe, yes? ¡°I see.¡± A partial smile indicated his amusement at the thought of such travails, and the chieftain¡¯s obedient compliance to those basically only useful for breeding. ¡°And what have they sent you to deliver to me?¡± Hea Kurugus reached into the pouch at his side and pulled out the rolled scroll there. It was of Isparian design, of paper and not hide. It instantly caught their attention as he unrolled it, and a single square unfolded above it, fine details upon it, circling slowly there in the courtroom. ¡°Interesting, but I fail to see¡­¡± the Overlord began, when Kurugus abruptly tore the Scroll in two. There was only a shimmer, and the gift was towering before them for all to see. It was a tapestry, a grand and gorgeous thing of women¡¯s work, and the eyes of all of the Hea widened to see it. While the virindi cared not for the traditional crafts of their people, creating such tapestries was still considered high art by the Hea, things to immortalize one¡¯s deeds and feats forever, showing the history and greatness of the objects of the weaving. They were all on their feet, eyes going to where the story the tapestry was telling would begin automatically, reading what was there, what had happened¡­ And they read what had become of the Hea of Osteth, the lowlands of the east. Of the spears of the Isparians, coming in tight formations, chasing the Hea before them. Camp after camp overcome and destroyed, hunters who never returned, the symbols of their true deaths bright and poignant as their bloodlines ended. Forced back across Osteth, to the fortress taken from the humans a generation ago, defended by the last of Summoned armies, while the virindi worked to generate a Portal allowing them to flee. The armored armies of the Isparians waited without, and dark clouds burning with a silver lining began to rain lightning like silver spears down upon them. A whole wall of the fortress vanished! The Overlord¡¯s court hissed to see it! And then the Isparians turned and retreated, instead of attacking, and foul darkness writhed and spun at the heart of Dryreach! Death welled in the center of the clans! Hea shamans and chieftains rose up against the robed masters in horror and bravery! Silver spears rained down from Heaven, but the ritual of the masters concluded! Demonic claws seized everything and pulled it all into darkness! And what was left was a featureless crater, where the hearts of the Hea in the east had once been! Not a single Isparian had been killed! The death symbols of clan after clan of Hea, hundreds, thousands of them, lit up and gone forever, decorated the trim of the tapestry, immortalizing those gone forever, sacrificed by the masters who, impaled by six silver spears fallen from heaven, had still sacrificed and killed them all for nothing! They were choking gasps and calls from several members of the court who had come from the east, pointing out the symbols of their own kin among those wiped and gone forever. Brothers, fathers, cousins, even some sons-! Some fool shouted that this was all a lie, that it had to be, but nobody even bothered to shout the idiot down. This was women¡¯s work, it shone in the magic upon it, the heart and feelings of mothers, daughters, sisters grieving for their mates and children and parents, striking at the heart of what it meant to be Hea. There was no warrior who could commission such a thing for falsehoods, lest the lies it was based upon show right through with the scorn of the women weaving it. Everything this showed was the truth. And the keen-eyed noted that, there at the end, the armies of the Isparians had walked away, and the green forms of their cousins, the Aun, waited with food and blankets. With them were the symbols of the old Totems of Audetanga, Volkama, and Tanae¡­ and Hea with the forms of tonk, not of tumeroks! ¡°Kurugus!¡± Arantah thundered, staring at this work, the tale of treachery pointing a clawed tonk finger straight at his masters. The disdain and the scorn of the females shone from it, spitting and hissing, like his own mother was clawing at them in hate and spite! But of the lowland chieftain there was no sign, nor any indication of how he had left. Arantah stared at the work showing the true nature of his masters, and his eyes fell on two of the Clan Totems embroidered about the edge of the magnificent work. They had been soft and cared nothing for the glory of war, but they still had been his sons, their mates, his grandchildren¡­ He knew his masters could not be allowed to see and understand this, or it would be destroyed as the poison it was. Likewise, he knew he could not destroy it, or half his court would rise in rebellion against him right now, and the Hea tear themselves apart. ¡°Bring it to the third assembly court. Conceal this from the masters,¡± he ordered curtly, and if the calls and rumblings of the warriors flocking here fell only slightly, they did fall. ¡°Ensure all see and understand this, and know our true status in the eyes of the atual arutoa.¡± The very fact he used an old tonk description for the cloaked masters silenced all of them. Careful word was passed, making certain no virindi was on the path, and the floating tapestry carefully ushered from the court to a long-unused side assembly hall with both no traffic and more space than his court. Hea Arantah, the Tumerok Overlord, sat back on his throne and contemplated on the course he had taken his people on, the uncaring emotionless nature of his masters, and the scorn and disgust of the females of his people. His masters would probably not like where the women were leading him... AF Chapter 232 – Settlement Rights ¡°Giving Soushi to the Aun as a settlement, and them allowing the Hea settle amongst themselves was a very good idea.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have the people to settle or hold territory north of Hebian-to as yet. Leaving the plains to the wild tribes for now works best. A bit of discourse with them to get them organizing themselves¡­ although they¡¯ve been stuck at warband level for eons, rovers and takers, instead of builders.¡± Princess Kristie shrugged, but her pale violet eyes danced. ¡°We just have to make sure we claim territory and hold it, and let them know it.¡± ¡°Or skulls will be cracked?¡± I asked, Kris¡¯ unique diplomacy with banderling chieftains well known. Her knuckles popped with a flexing of her fingers. ¡°Indeed.¡± She eyed the preparations being made. The tumeroks were a resilient people, in the end. Catastrophe was not unknown in their tales, and they picked themselves up and carried on as they must. If there were fewer hunters to bring in prey, that just meant more trapping and fishing for the now, as the remaining elders once again passed on knowledge to the young to raise them into hunters, as well. If most of those elders were Aun, and the serious-faced youngsters Hea, well, it was what it was. But that wasn¡¯t what was going on here. The trappings of the Ritual were mostly complete, being fine-tuned in accordance with the ancient Hea totems of Earth and Water and Sky¡­ which had new additions among them for the Eye Beyond the Sky, which the tonk called Hehvun. Who had not felt that force riding the clouds, Silver shining inside the roiling black? Had they not seen the Thunderbolts ringing like bells as they came down, full of condemnation for Sin and Evil deeds? There was no doubt whatsoever that I was representing some great and profound force and power, and the Hea and Aun were naturally interested in knowing more of it, especially as it was an entity of the soul, not of the elements. The Power of Ten approach to worship was largely based on single gods, yet the Church of Heaven, which backed ALL the gods of Good, was definitely an institution, and the most widespread of all the Churches, if only because a follower of any Good god was welcome at any and all of them. This distinction was pretty important, because the highest levels of Healing magicks that I had to teach my students were all involved with Divine energy, not just arcane Life Magic and its variants. That meant getting the attention of Heaven and its deities, realizing the Alignments were totally real and totally able to reach out and touch you, and the powers they granted were intertwined with Faith and the fates of mortal souls. It was a big leap, it was basically tossing religion on its head¡­ but if you shatter one set of beliefs, it opens the way to others, and people desperately wanted to make sense of the world after catastrophes. Divine Magic was also Eminent in its domain. You could replicate what it did with other energies, but you couldn¡¯t truly surpass it, or even truly rival it. While I didn¡¯t have access to the gods to truly establish such Eminence, neither did anyone here have access to something that might think it could compete with them. There weren¡¯t any other Nines capable of Casting Divine Magic around, especially the enhanced Healing Magic. Support Casters were long seen as secondary types to the more aggressive War Mages, but I¡¯d just turned that on its head and made sure they exploited Support Magic to the fullest. Vulns and Imperils meant everyone on the battlefield followed their lead, which meant they had to know what, where, and when to target something to make it dead, playing into the greater tactical situation and setting up their comrades for success. If said comrades tried to take control and bull forward to showcase themselves, they had to shut those people down, sometimes aggressively, and bring them back in line. Teamwork players in a Fellowship or a squad, not adventurers able to do it all themselves. No Rending or Cleaving Wands letting them skip the debuff portion of attacking now, teamwork ruled the day. Support Mage mindset was Life Mage mindset, which was a proper Priest¡¯s mindset. Cults couldn¡¯t do what they were doing, and the political position eclipsing the faith positions in a Church was not how the Heavenly religions worked, although the Neutral and Evil faiths often loved them some lethal politicking, they did. Lots of acolytes and the first few Divine Casters were coming here to help with what we were doing, with the shamans of the tonk looking on in great interest as we all took our places. Hea Kugurus sat in the middle of the Formation, weary but composed, frankly ready to die if things went wrong here, a model and test for his people. As the first words were spoken, he did not open his eyes or even glance about, just waiting patiently for his ending¡­ or a new beginning. The mana coming in had to be attuned to the Divine, and without powerful Divine Casters, that meant it took more time than normal. Thankfully, the Ritual only had a single target today, and I was here, which simplified matters a great deal. The Melody I Sang today was the Chorus of the Spheres, specifically Aligned to Good Magic and building it up in power and potency. It swirled and danced in all the Rainbow Colors of Heaven, more specifically the Chaotic side of the Empyrean, and it slowly converged on the motionless wine-skinned Hea tumerok waiting at the center of the formation. Colors danced across his skin, and found things they didn¡¯t like there. Sparks of purple-violet light spit and fractured and looked to be repulsing the Colors, who seemed to take that as a personal challenge. Notes became sharper, clearer, wilder as the tone of the magic changed. Heaven was gentle until it was provoked, and then, like all the Profound Forces, it rose to the fight! Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Swirling Chaotic lights descended on the waiting Hea chieftain, and he twitched and jerked as the plumes of imbued virindi magic seemed to erupt from inside him, throughout him. They were smashed apart and hounded relentlessly by motes of light that looked increasingly like little fey spirits chasing eagerly after their prey while mounted on kaleidoscopic butterflies and dragonflies. They cut the virindi magic from Hea Kurugus, bit by bit, singing and dancing in swirls and whorls of Light and Hope, and the tumerok began to change. His vaguely scaley skin softened in places and began to bristle, the sight spreading more and more as the little pixels of color hunted down the remnants of virindi magic ruthlessly, swooping right through him as they shaved off the bits, impaled them, chased them around and burned them in flashes of Silver and Gold. Bones creaked audibly, transformation magic long-settled began to reverse and restore as alterations to the very Life Spiral were wound back and unmade. Flesh rippled under gently furred skin as the body of Hea Kurugus altered back towards its racial paradigm. All the Axiomatic virindi magic imposed upon him was sliced apart, falling away, undone as pixels danced around the Hea in celebration for his return. His dark eyes opened, watching the spirits playing around him in joy and wonder and celebration. If what he saw caused his eyes to suddenly tear, the low cry that came from his transformed chest and jaws only made it clearer that something momentous was happening. The humanoid neck and skull lengthened and extended, tusks becoming more prominent, his head narrower. His build lengthened as his feet went from humanoid to digitigrade, extending his legs, while the vestigial tail behind him lengthened and extended a good two feet. The spirits of Light danced before him, welcoming him back to what he had been, to what he truly was, and he reached out with fingers that now sported longer white claws than before, as if to touch the gathering of motes. Two of them seemed to split themselves from the mass and alight on his extended claws for a moment, staring deeply at him. Then tiny spears were raised, and as the Song reached a crescendo, the motes and pixels whirled about him, rising towards the sun on a beam of Light that washed over him, inside and out, as he stared upwards and bared himself to it. The magic stilled, and the Ritual fell quiet. Many were the expectant eyes as Hea Kurugus lowered his eyes. Then he brought up one leg, then the other, and rose to his full height, standing proud and tall as the Hea tonk he had not been since he was a fresh young hunter on Marae Lassel. He was half a head taller than he¡¯d been before, a true and noble Hea tonk as had never quite walked these lands before. ¡°The spirits of my ancestors, they have welcomed me back to who I was.¡± His voice was rough but still recognizable as his own, even if all else had changed about him. He held up the clawed hands that had not been his for nearly two generations, worked lips around tusks an inch longer than his had been not long before, and his tail switched nervously. ¡°THEY WILL WELCOME US ALL BACK TO WHO AND WHAT WE WERE MEANT TO BE!¡± he howled, spreading his arms wide and raising his face to the sun, standing taller than he ever had in his life, and the roar of acceptance from Hea and Aun alike watching from all around us indicated they were more than ready to cast off this last great chain of the virindi and rejoin their ancestors, too. --------- To me, it was a combined Ceremony to Revert Shapechange, Dispel Magic, and administer Atonement. To the Hea and the Aun, it was a Miracle of Hehvun, a show of the power of a new and benevolent entity worth the effort to worship. The Eye Beyond the Sky joined the elemental Totems they had long paid heed to, their naturist magic accepting a new Tradition that was more philosophical than practical¡­ but it was but one more road to the tonk, who had come far from their great and distant moon-world to here. The Hea had already been forced onto a road unwanted, while the Aun had to find a way and alliance with new species that were not banderling, mosswart, or drudge, an agreement built on peace and mutual benefit, as opposed to who was stronger. New roads of life built by Good weren¡¯t roads for conquest, they were roads of exchange and understanding. We¡¯d see where this new road took the Hea and us in the future. ------- The Mick lifted up his left hand, hissing at the sensation as he wiggled the ring finger there. The finger he¡¯d lost on the day of the Fall, when the ring given him by his long-lost lover had exploded, along with so many others, and taken a promise to be forever together with it. ¡°¡¯Tis pink,¡± he murmured, and poked it carefully. ¡°An¡¯ sensitive!¡± he complained. ¡°It will take on the characteristics of your other fingers quickly, it¡¯s the nature of the magic. Likewise, you¡¯ll be recovering your muscle memory of it, too, so you won¡¯t feel awkward not compensating for it again. ¡°You should probably still put in about a hundred hours of swordwork to get back to truly feeling proper, right?¡± I glanced at Kristie, who had a wide smile on as Lord Mick slowly clenched his hand and opened it. ¡°Aye, you¡¯ll feel a bit off until you put the time in and your grip becomes second-nature again. Rotating ki through it constantly and doing katas will really speed things up,¡± Kris agreed. He grunted, looking at his right hand as he carefully made a fist, and then slowly and more carefully did so with his new left. Ki rippled under his skin, Ocean style, and he broke into a flowing combination of punches and palm strikes with smooth efficiency. Kris tilted her head as he paused. ¡°Aye, still compensating for it. Be a bit,¡± he acknowledged, complex emotions in his voice. Then he turned to look at me, and bowed slowly. ¡°Thank you for this, lass. I¡¯ll not be forgetting it,¡± he promised. ¡°I imagine ye¡¯re off to see the kings, then?¡± Although he¡¯d a crude magical arm to replace the one he¡¯d also lost during the fall, Borelean¡¯s handicap was actually one of the reasons so many followed him, his loss reminding everyone of what they¡¯d all lost. Kresovus¡¯s loss of a hand was similar. ¡°There are a lot of people going to be getting something back soon enough,¡± I told him, and that was truth. AF Chapter 233 – The OTHER Important Island Regenerate was a V Valence spell, so again, it required a Nine with Divine or Primal Magic to pull it off, and nobody used Primal Magic here. The ability to use the power of Heaven to restore lost limbs, even those lost years ago, did for the Alliance what banishing the altered forms of the Hea and restoring their own did for the tribes. It was a trickle, which would have become a flood if we were capable of handling more souls than we were. On the other hand, it was a lot of Karma being able to return the Hea to their natural forms, it could all go straight into Priest Levels if that was so desired, and progress was swift as a result. The Overlord¡¯s scouts had come to Osteth to see with their own eyes what had become of Dryreach, the shrines and mementos to the fallen there laid by the grieving hands of the survivors. Slain at the hands of their own masters. Stacked armor and weapons of virindi design soon joined many of those mounds, as some of the strongest warriors of the Hea abandoned the cause and way of their masters to return to their kin. When they also saw with their own eyes their people returned to their ancestral forms, and the spirits of their ancestors blessing their returns, the hardened and even cruel warriors often broke right down as memories of their childhood returned, the love and care of their elders as they grew, and the times before the unceasing and uncaring demands of the virindi. The distant Overlord was not happy with the desertion of so many of his warriors, but there was little he could do. The returning scouts informed him of the white fires that brought true death, and would even consume the virindi in their entirety, along with the shades and undead alike. The returned Isparians had completely cleared the maddened shades of Tou-Tou, and had cowed the warlike Gotrok entirely with their display of unity and returned magic. Muldaveus seethed in Linvak Tukal, waiting for the Isparians to attempt an invasion and deliver to them a deadly blow they simply were not falling for, while his lands and holdings were chipped away around him by the day, drawing tight the snare he had stuffed himself into. Even the lugians working the mines in the Direlands were slowly being recalled, which meant the flow of metals and worked goods was slowing down. Many of the lugians in the Direlands were Tukora, the most formidable of their kind, and would certainly buttress the Gotrok against any invasion attempt. But the Isparian adventurers had long-proven to be masters of the skirmish campaign and raiding tactics, and were proving skilled at using the hilly terrain against them. Their haunting reputation from before the Fall began to slowly rise again. They were also Sealing the Summons points, removing the threat of endless armies and continuing reinforcements entirely from the conflict. The whole southern area of Osteth was basically worked free of Summons now, a cooperative effort among all the races there, freeing up the landscape from the random threats that had characterized it since any knew of it. The Overlord could not send his army off to round up the deserting Hea and force them back without rousing the entire Alliance and whatever powers they now commanded¡­ and his command would be fought the entire way by his underlings, as fighting their kin was much different from fighting the alien Isparians and even the lugians. Arantah could only sit there and wait, silently questioning the will of his masters. He suddenly found that the future, instead of a potential empire awaiting him, now was starting to look remarkably bleak and lonely, his proud throne a hollow and mocking seat that meant nothing, and the powers his masters had given him just shackles upon his soul he could not throw off... ------- I went along because she was my Null and I was her bondmage. Expanding Lived-Lines through the teleporting murk of the island was important, and this was our first trip up into the area of the olthoi north. We went up the east side of Lake Blessed, mainly because we had a lot of people going over the landscape eliminating all the Summons points, and because we had no choice but to leave a force here to prevent any olthoi from filtering down this way¡­ which, I was told by the Hea, they did on a regular basis, always testing, always seeking more land. The main settlement in the area had once been Eastham, right on the ocean, but not really a port or bay of any kind. Its claim to fame had been the nearby gateway to Asheron¡¯s Island, where the great Empyrean Mage had his residence, isolated from the rest of Dereth and safe from any olthoi bugging him. That also meant the abandoned town was largely abandoned, because not even the wild tribes wanted to settle into the place when they could look right to the east over the sea, and see the multi-colored, elemental flames still burning on Asheron¡¯s Castle there after fifteen years. We did run into quite a few banderling clans, all of them sniffing around the area now that the Hea had pulled so far back, eager to move into cleared areas and claim them for their own. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Princess Kristie¡¯s usual method of beating the stuffing out of their chiefs and great warriors went a long ways towards earning respect for Isparians once again. Her words that setting up a territory for them was totally possible, that no Hea or Isparian would contest, if they took responsibility for that territory as well, were also paid attention to. Namely, they had to kill any olthoi who came that way, a task they weren¡¯t opposed to undertaking at all, although the bugs were very dangerous for the lesser tribes. They¡¯d have to bring in some of their more skilled and powerful brethren to do what they intended, which was absolutely fine. Kristie was absolutely willing to beat the crap out of them, too. ------ ¡°Anything special?¡± Kristie asked me, as we sat up against the ruined windmill that had once been a key landmark for the town of Eastham. ¡°All four primary Isparian energies released, a massive Elemental rupture of some kind, and it is being continuously fueled. But¡­ that¡¯s not Asheron¡¯s energy signature,¡± I stated absolutely. Kris was chewing absently on a long stalk of grass, staring out over the water at the sight that dominated the eastern sky, clearly visible even in the dusk. Her pale violet eyes narrowed, considering that. ¡°Well, it¡¯s his Wards and ley line taps that are on fire? Why would it be his energy signature?¡± ¡°The signature would be what was burning, as the Wards fight to reestablish and repair themselves. All the Empyrean stuff is regenerative, and that would include anything he made for himself. I can see the energy signature¡¯s effect on the grounds and the Shoreward, although the Shoreward is much older. He definitely tweaked it to do something, possibly allow himself free passage as he desired. ¡°That magic we are seeing is not his. Someone else¡¯s magic is on fire there.¡± Kris weighed that in her thoughts. ¡°So¡­ any hint of virindi-esque energies?¡± she asked shortly. Because the reason we were coming up here was to see to the fates of Candeth Martine and Gaerlan, and the latter loved to work with Elemental powers. ¡°Not at this distance, but if they were used to disrupt something going on there, any traces of them would be long since vanished.¡± ¡°Uh-huh. Suspicious?¡± she asked me, spitting the grass out. ¡°Gaerlan¡¯s hate for Asheron was his predominant personality trait, and his hatred for every other sapient race was second. If he was set free, the first thing he¡¯d do would be to investigate and see how Asheron fared, and he¡¯d take great delight in seizing control of whatever Asheron left behind. ¡°Candeth Martine proved great at cracking open things that shouldn¡¯t normally be opened, wielding energies Isparians weren¡¯t meant to¡­ and he would have a massive grudge against Gaerlan. ¡°Fucking up whatever he intended to do would be what he would do. It¡¯s just that assaulting an Empyrean mage in a fortified position would likely be too much even for him in a more¡­ enlightened state after his return.¡± ¡°But we won¡¯t know until we get in there,¡± she pointed out. ¡°Exactly.¡± ¡°The stuff on the shore is wimpy as far as Summons go. What do you think about the sea?¡± I was silent as I contemplated those waters, waves sparkling under the stars and moonlight. ¡°I think the servants of the Deep are not fools, and both did not reveal themselves, nor did they ignore that the single most powerful land-dweller on this island, his magic reverberating through the ley lines, lived out there. I think there¡¯s some monstrous shit in the sea here,¡± I judged at last. ¡°Mmm.¡± Kristie¡¯s eyes sparkled. ¡°No Wagon with us this time.¡± ¡°Roughing it with Shelter spells and Sustaining, that¡¯s us.¡± ¡°Think Asheron knew they were out there?¡± ¡°Almost certainly¡­¡± my voice trailed off as we both leaned forward at the same moment. A shadow had risen out of the water, and then fallen back, far off in the distance, beyond any normal vision, over a mile from this shore. Without our Masks down to study the burning island, we wouldn¡¯t have noticed anything. ¡°That dorsal fin was twelve feet high,¡± Kris noted professionally. ¡°If that came from a shark¡­¡± ¡°Hundred footer? Megalodon?¡± I had to ask, running through Aelryinth¡¯s memories of some of the creatures of the magical seas he¡¯d seen, not that any of them looked like the natives of Auberean. ¡°Or a leviathan. Either way, that was big, even though it was curved back¡­¡± ¡°So, the odds Asheron knew about the shit around his island and maybe brought something in to disperse their attention?¡± Kristie extemporized carefully. ¡°It would certainly do the job, wouldn¡¯t it? Especially if the nautiloids are one of their prey animals¡­ or the remorans, at the least¡­¡± Kristie hmmphed. ¡°The banderlings had no tales of massive beasts popping up in the seas in this area, so nothing has been breaching or drawing attention. If there¡¯s been feeding, it¡¯s been out there, in deeper waters.¡± ¡°And maybe as you said, they chased all the Deep¡¯s creatures away.¡± ¡°Think they might come after us?¡± ¡°If they were called to act as guardians of one sort or another? Yes.¡± ¡°They?¡± she repeated. ¡°Let¡¯s assume it is a natural animal. That means it has to feed. Since it will chase away the creatures around here, that means it has to go out and range for food. It can¡¯t guard while it is doing that, so that means at least two of them.¡± ¡°We should tell them there¡¯s a bunch of potential prey further south.¡± ¡°Thinking they don¡¯t know is probably a mistake on our part. But you know how unnatural the temperature changes of the water are here, and, I imagine, the waters down there are probably shallow enough to feel very uncomfortable. If the Deep¡¯s creatures are down there, it¡¯s because they don¡¯t feel threatened.¡± ¡°True enough. I was going to let the island lie, but I think it¡¯s within our remit to investigate the place.¡± ¡°Mmm. That fire is going to disrupt a lot of things, but I probably won¡¯t be able to spellcast without drawing a lot of attention, so you¡¯re definitely on lead. The odds there aren¡¯t going to be a lot of Elementals around the place is slim to none.¡± ¡°How fortunate someone has a Prismatic Elemental Stone and is partially prepared for such stuff.¡± ¡°I could Abjure the crap out of the things and you know it, but that would be even louder.¡± ¡°Fear not, delicate flower of a magos! Your stout and doughty Bonded Null will take care of you!¡± she promised with solemn cheese. ¡°I expect we¡¯re going to have to run fast.¡± ¡°Eh, me too.¡± AF Chapter 234 – To Asheron’s Island With no Wagon, punching the Shoreward on the Eastham shore and powering east was easy and impromptu. I crouched on my Disk tied to Princess Kristie as she Skated along above the waves, slicing through the things a third again as fast as we had on that run to the Vesayans over six months ago now. A Rantha couldn¡¯t ever gain too much Karma, there was always more to pay. Kill an Elder Avatar or something like I had? The Karma could be gone in minutes just paying for her racial upgrades. She had gone to utterly superhuman lengths on Ithaenc in the Quiddity Dungeon to maintain positive Karma flow, just because she needed so damn much of it. If that meant being in the dungeon without paramount oversight and backup early in the wee hours, then that was what she had done. Also, a bored Rantha tends to start things, being the physical types they are, so hours and hours of slaughter was like stress-venting meditation for her. I had the Detects up and was watching forward and back as we shot across the waters. Mostly forward, as warning would be important if Kris had to swerve out of the way, backwards was mostly visual. Which didn¡¯t make the sudden appearance of that dorsal fin over twice my height, even arched backwards as it was, coming up out of the water behind us any less ominous. The water getting out of the way of the creature bearing said fin was cutting an impressive wake. It had to be at least forty meters long. Kris saw it with only a flicker of thought from me, glancing back out my eyes from the Detect display ahead of us, which had plenty of Aquatics, but nothing of great size or danger. ¡°Big fellow,¡± she murmured, but didn¡¯t increase her speed. That was because it wasn¡¯t actually closing in on us, although it was trying to. ¡°A distraction?¡± was all I said, while she listened to the calls it was making, some form of whalesong, so not a shark. ¡°Possible. Coming in from the side or below?¡± The range of my Detect wasn¡¯t affected by either, but there wouldn¡¯t be a whole lot of warning. ¡°I¡¯m guessing below, as from the side they¡¯ll break the surface and warn us.¡± ¡°Ho, I just heard a reply, but I couldn¡¯t tell the direction,¡± she murmured, but was looking down and ahead. ¡°It¡¯s going to have to move fast at this speed¡­¡± A mile in thirty seconds didn¡¯t give much time for a five mile channel crossing. I was actually surprised one was in range to do anything about this. Both of them? Whoops! ¡°Below.¡± A huge form had just came into range of my Detect ahead of and under us, and was rising with great speed on an intercept at the surface. ¡°Eh.¡± Kris cleared her throat as the Whiskers of the Wild popped upon her cheeks. ¡°Hey down there. Yes, I can see you. No, you¡¯re not going to surprise me. Save yourself the effort, you¡¯re not going to hit me, you can¡¯t move fast enough. I¡¯ve got no bad intentions for the owner of the island, and I¡¯ll even let you know how he¡¯s doing on the way back.¡± The rising submarine coming up faltered as her voice echoed through the waters, and the one pursuing us abruptly slowed down, shocked that it could understand Kris as well. ¡°There you go. Patience, elders. I¡¯ll be back shortly and let you know what is going on.¡± The second leviathan surfaced well behind us as we scooted towards the island, and we could feel their attention on us as we zipped in towards the Shoreward, breached it without effort, and were past and onto Asheron¡¯s Island. -------- ¡°Huh. Would you look at that.¡± We coasted into a short and sandy beach, pristine and clean, perfect for sunbathing and reading a book with a nonsense tropical drink on hand. It was very near the ¡®normal¡¯ historical landing spot for those Portaled here from Eastham, the only historical way to get here in the past. A short distance away was a popping, fizzing, broken, and burned-out device that had dimensional magic wrapped about it, the ¡®quick Teleport¡¯ up to Asheron¡¯s Castle, located atop the severely-sloped hill to the north of us. We were at the base of Mount Empyrean, the other steep hill that formed the island. Both it and Mount Asheron were about a thousand feet high, extremely steep as mountains went, more like mounds of rock than natural formations. Once inside the Shoreward, something had changed drastically. Elementals that we couldn¡¯t see individually before were all over Mt. Empyrean, and the top of it was dancing with multi-elemental flames spewing up out of what looked like a massive gash or cleft into the inner side of the hill. I could see Elementals of all sizes and hues, including mixed Elementals, and some of them were much, much larger than any I¡¯d seen in person here before, bringing to mind some of the Greater Elementals and Elemental Monoliths Aelryinth had seen in certain places before. Still in the Empyrean Mold, however, not the Four Elements of Alchemy. Opposite it, on the hilltop where Asheron¡¯s Castle was¡­ the same kind of fires were there, but they were dancing in the air above the castle, instead of dominating the whole hilltop, and were clearly visible doing so from Eastham. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. A spiral path wound around Mount Asheron, a long path that would have been absolute murder to have to siege and attack, exposed to fire from above for basically the full distance. And indeed, there were at least hundreds more Elementals roving about that path, seeming a bit agitated, but none of them in conflict with one another despite their opposed natures, and more pointedly, they weren¡¯t even harming the vegetation. ¡°What are your Detects telling you?¡± Kris asked, her expression flat and pale violet eyes not blinking as she took it all in. ¡°Not to trust what they are Detecting,¡± I frowned. ¡°I¡¯ve only got Det Magic at V, and See the Invisible. Everything else is from Valence. I could bring up Detect Illusion if you want me to spend the Valence¡­¡± ¡°That would be an excellent idea for you.¡± Behold the Waking Dreams, Detect Illusion at V, was promptly spun out from me, and settled across my eyes. I¡¯d seen the massive amounts of magic in the air, so much so that it had obfuscated much of its nature. With Detect Illusion, however, it was made plain that a whole crapload of it was meant to do exactly that, saturate the sky and make it impossible to read the manafield and see what was really going on. There was a lot of now-blatant illusion magic swimming in the air, a terrain-warping display of both illusion and phantasmal power, playing on the senses and mind together. The island¡¯s landscape was not green and fine. It had largely been melted, blasted, charred, dissolved, and frozen down to the stone by the Elementals wandering about it and removing anything impure. The Castle itself far above us had been blasted open along its south-western corner, the white crystalline wall blown completely out and away by rampaging Elemental energies. The crystal white of the stones were all charred and seared, anything but pristine, and the plumes of Elemental energies reached all the way down to the tops of the walls and towers, melting and fusing them there as residual Wards kept them at bay. That gash and crack in the ground leading up to the top of Mt. Empyrean also had some familiar and unnatural energies wound through it. ¡°Those are virindi dimensional manipulation energies,¡± I stated in no uncertain terms, pointing at the gash. ¡°It looks like something tore open the ley line connection between the two hills, and really disrupted something.¡± ¡°The entrance to that castle is supposedly on the north side,¡± Kris said slowly, still studying everything. ¡°You can see through the illusion?¡± I asked rhetorically. ¡°Succubus True Sight becomes available to purchase at Rantha Eight. I bought it with my Tou-Tou Glory Award. First time it¡¯s actually come in useful.¡± ¡°This is a bloody massive Hallucinatory Terrain. Ritual-class and backed by a lot of magic.¡± ¡°Oh, copy that. Somebody broke something really, really big here. Can you identify the energy signatures?¡± ¡°I would dearly love to, but there¡¯s massive thaumic fog here, all the magic is blending in to one another. With my Detect up, I can see the illusion, but its still overriding normal results, so it¡¯s at least an VIII Valence effect.¡± Since with Earth Spell and my feet on the ground, Detect V was at the power of a VI. ¡°Not a lot of people who can Cast illusions at VIII hereabouts,¡± Kris noted dryly. ¡°What if we got closer to that gash?¡± ¡°You want to see if Martine did it? That¡¯s fine. But¡­ you probably don¡¯t want me Casting if I can help it.¡± ¡°Whatever did this illusion wove some sensory perception into it, eh?¡± She was unsurprised. ¡°If I have it right, the closer you get to it, the more realistic and concealing it is. I bet if we started walking up to the Castle, all those Elementals would look like rabbits or peafowl or something.¡± ¡°Nothing wrong here, walk on in, said the spider to the fly?¡± ¡°That sums it up pretty nicely as to what I think is going on,¡± I agreed. ¡°Half-tempted to fall into the trap just to see what the heck is up there.¡± ¡°Just do the latter half and I think we¡¯re fine. I¡¯ll come along if you want, but if I start pulling at the magic, I have the feeling we are going to be attracting the very much wrong kind of attention.¡± ¡°The kind that might, say, throw every single Elemental on the island after us?¡± she theorized blandly. ¡°Miz Sherlock, you are doing fine, fine, in your chosen profession,¡± I replied loftily. ¡°And yes, I can track your thoughts with your eyeballs and it would indeed be a fine amount of Karma, however¡­¡± I pointed at the crack running down the side of Mt. Empyrean, ¡°that¡¯s likely the respawn point, and I don¡¯t know how much vivus it would take to Seal that. Furthermore, until we know what¡¯s going on here, I¡¯m not actually certain that we should.¡± ¡°You think something¡¯s going on up thar in that thar Castle, huh?¡± she drawled at me. ¡°I think something went down on Mt. Empyrean to stop it, too, and that¡¯s where the crack came from. It looks like someone opened the ley line up to vent the energies it was conveying, probably at the exact wrong moment for something else.¡± ¡°It is spewing a LOT of Elemental energies, that is true,¡± Kris noted. ¡°Also, note the Elementals are wandering on Mount Empyrean, but not around the Castle.¡± It was true. The ones on the spiral ramps below the Castle were basically holding positions like Summons, while the ones on the slopes of the mount and its lower ground were wandering slowly and organically around, only keeping an automatic distance between one another. ¡°So, there¡¯s a controlling force in the Castle, but the ones down here are outside of its control.¡± That wasn¡¯t ominous, either. ¡°That sounds more and more like a certain mad Empyrean obsessed with the old fart who lived here.¡± ¡°It does, doesn¡¯t it.¡± She turned to glance at me. ¡°You want to come along, or to remain here?¡± ¡°Your judgment. Basically the only thing I¡¯m going to be useful for is the quick escape and maybe flanking for you.¡± Which I could do perfectly well, of course, I just wasn¡¯t a devoted melee¡­ and I wasn¡¯t going to be pumping any Valences through Crown during a fight, either. ¡°I think that might just be enough,¡± she agreed after a moment¡¯s thought. ¡°The mount first, I trust?¡± ¡°That would be my choice.¡± AF Chapter 235 – The Prodigal on the Mount Bringing up a Force Blade out of Reserve atop Crown wasn¡¯t spellcasting. Furthermore, I¡¯d already Cast my Stone Shaping, so that was considered a passive effect. More importantly, the Empyrean view of the Elements rotated around the energies usable with them. Actual matter and such were considered dull, lifeless outtakes of where the real power was, and so were relegated to lesser magicks, utility spells, and things to aid crafters. That¡¯s really an unwise attitude to have when you¡¯re dealing with someone able to shuffle around more than three thousand cubic feet of stone in under six seconds. I couldn¡¯t get close to the killing power Kris had in close combat, and didn¡¯t try. But just being able to split something¡¯s attention gave her all the openings for lots of fun, and if I managed to hit once, well, Opportune Strike and some other fine things all got to trigger, and the various Elementals just dissolved in front of her. Landscape Elementals generally came in four sizes/aspects, often as a ¡®family unit¡¯: Least, Lesser, Major, and Mote, the latter of which were basically devoted missile tossers/spellcasters. Greater Elementals only popped up in areas that also spewed out multi-Elementals, requiring greater amounts of energy. Amusingly, in the ¡®families¡¯, if the Major Elemental was killed, the others destabilized also and were snuffed out as it fell. None of those were truly dangers to us. Quaver was shifting between Phases of Elemental damage of her own volition, maximizing the damage Kris was doing, and prismatic folds of light and crackling fractals were surrounding the golden edge of the blade as the Prismatic Stone¡¯s Elemental Slayer effect did its work on them, chewing through the force structures that constrained the roiling energies that made them up and tearing them apart with devastating speed. We started running into some of the Lord Elementals, below only the Elemental Monoliths in the hierarchy of Elementals. These weren¡¯t limited by humanoid forms, and frequently took the forms of stalking beasts, with bears and wolf-cats being rough favorites¡­ although bulls and stags, a serpent, and a drake also wandered across our path and wanted to be exciting. It was obvious that the Elementals of opposing types had been ordered not to approach one another, and totally ignored us fighting others a few dozen yards away as if we weren¡¯t there at all. Of course, once we killed and dissipated one of them, that area was open, and they were prone to stumbling over into the new open area to see what was there, and clean up/attack any lingering Elemental residues of the ¡®wrong¡¯ type. Fighting Elementals was analogous to fighting the local golums, although they were made of energy instead of matter. Indeed, as we chopped into the third family of Cold (not ice, just cold energy!) Elementals, it was plain to see that the Empyreans had designed their Golums on a basis very similar to how the Elementals maintained physical forms. Shells of living force surrounded seething masses of incarnate Elemental energy, which plumed and roiled about them in searing clouds at close range. They could release War Magic of their Elements, issue Vulns to their Elements, and even Protect themselves against attacks of the opposite Elements, if they chose to¡­ meaning they actually had levels of sapience and responded like living things, not like Summons, if not being too bright about it. The Prismatic Stone effect reaped them all nicely, with the Lords putting up a strong fight with their strength and power. We both had Stones, so I really did notice the way it chewed through the force-skeins that doubled as armor, even if I wasn¡¯t actually doing hefty loads of damage, operating strictly with Reserves at this point. The energy damage wasn¡¯t a threat to either of us. Neither of us were susceptible to the fire and cold energies of those Elementals, I had Lightning Rod on Crown to suck down any electrical damage thrown our way, and we both had constant Acid Protections and Resists up as our main vulnerabilities. The main thing to fight was attrition, something Kris had little problem with. Not being able to Cast made that somewhat harder for me. Still, I had Healing Reserve active, and if it didn¡¯t restore Soak, that just meant I was taking more impacts on my Health than I wanted to. I did grumble and reflect that I needed more passive Healing for situations like this, where Casting had to be minimized or eliminated. Mostly, I just let Kris take lead and the attention, while I just worked as her flanking partner so she could kill the stuff faster. Triggering all her Sneak Attack damage and a couple Attacks of Opportunity was enough to really whittle down crap pretty fast, and even the Lord Elementals couldn¡¯t keep up with her speed, although they could match her power. Healing Edge and Kris¡¯ Fast Healing took care of her endurance, and she had no recovery problems, plus a huge damn bank of both Health and Soak regardless. I tensed a couple times as some awareness swept past us, perhaps wondering why some Elementals were Casting. My Astral Bar kept me from being sensed, Kris¡¯ Null did the same, and there was no further reaction. Elementals just being randomly destructive, that was all¡­ If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. --- Mt. Empyrean was a thousand feet high, and there were Elementals all over the place on it, no way to get up there without coming into the response radius of them. We didn¡¯t vivify them, as that would have left a very obvious trail, and as a result I noted that plumes of energy tended to erupt within a minute or two of our killing them. Another set of Elementals came dropping out of the energies of the ley line spewing up from that crack in the hillside. Endless numbers of Elementals to fight, then. As a result of that, it took over sixty separate encounters with ¡®family groups¡¯ or powerful individual Elementals to make our way to the top of the place. We didn¡¯t leave a trail of openings or anything behind us. Within minutes of our killing, other Elementals were encroaching on our back trail, and the only way to not be fallen upon from behind was to keep pressing into the territory of the next Elemental stumbling about and finding some hapless bit of earth or stone to inflict itself on. All of which brought us to the edge of the mount¡¯s top in the end, where I plopped down, breathing hard after a whole lot of fighting. Realigning my Healing Reserve from patching up bashes and burns from things made of energy that hit like bricks to pumping some energy into my very tired muscles wasn¡¯t too hard to do, master of healing and lord of theurgic magicks that I was, yay me. ¡°That¡¯s a lot of fighting for you,¡± Kris said, crouched down next to me, nothing wrong with her but some scorch marks on her leathers. She¡¯d broken a couple bones and ribs and the like when Lords had managed to tag her good, but that was rare, and the Lords didn¡¯t live long enough to capitalize on it, a couple thousand Health ripped through with energy and gusto. Resetting the bones to heal properly was the only thing that slowed down her rapid recovery. ¡°Yeah,¡± I admitted, breathing slow and steady as Healing Reserve slowly pumped juice into me, working with Sustaining to help me recover. ¡°I¡¯ve done Melee turns in a Dungeon or three to devote the Karma, but could always Infuse to get back Health or stamina while fighting. It definitely isn¡¯t my strong suit.¡± ¡°Starting strength?¡± ¡°8, 10 in the Isparian system. I¡¯ve raised it a hundred points in the Isparian system, but that just gets me to 18 or so. Which is nice, but it doesn¡¯t get me to a true Melee¡¯s level.¡± ¡°Well, you went from average to devoted weightlifter, that must be nice.¡± ¡°As opposed to the Hag sitting over 30 and able to lift an auroch?¡± ¡°No being envious of the inferior physical Stats, you Powered superhero, you!¡± she said cheerfully. ¡°You¡¯re just pissed I can kill a thousand undead faster than you,¡± I sniffed. ¡°And probably Elementals, if only you dared to Cast without maybe calling down the power of a demigod or something on us. So sad!¡± she rebutted cheerfully. ¡°Now give me your take on what the fuck is going on ahead of us.¡± I kept my breathing up as I considered the sight ahead of us. ¡°Those are Eternal-class Elemental forces. If the stories about the Harbinger are correct, they are Elemental Essences.¡± The crackling, pulsing ring-like Elementals were motionless, but seething with tremendous power, clearly dominating every other Elemental here. ¡°They¡¯ve been secured inside a massive Thaumaturgic Circle, which is keeping out the lesser Elementals, and then secured themselves inside secondary Circles, which are bound to the Core Circle which is empowering the whole thing.¡± The figure floating in the middle of a distorted Elemental plume, redirecting it into the circles, was pretty hard to miss. He had a pretty ragged blue-black robe on, and a bone-white iron mask or helm, it was hard to tell, carved to look like a featureless skull like it was. ¡°That¡¯s almost cringingly edgelord in appearance,¡± Kris scoffed. ¡°Just needs to add a few more bones to go right over the lip and into maximum cringe-worthiness.¡± ¡°Not everyone gets to be the universe¡¯s coolest hags,¡± I sniffed at her. ¡°Not that I agree with his fashion sense, either. And yeah, pretty sure that¡¯s Candith Martine. Signature on the virindi energies there is definitely his.¡± ¡°You know any other humans using virindi energies?¡± she asked me. ¡°Haven¡¯t heard of one, never seen another, doesn¡¯t mean they don¡¯t exist. How long do you think it would take me to learn how to use them?¡± was my reply. She pursed her lips, arching an eyebrow as she looked at me. ¡°Should I go over there and introduce you to your prospective mentor?¡± ¡°I¡¯d love that, but I¡¯d disrupt the Circles if I breach them, and I have the feeling that whoever and whatever is over in the Castle might really, really want us to do that.¡± She followed my gaze to the south, and the crack in the land leading directly towards it. ¡°And what do you think happened?¡± ¡°Gaerlan didn¡¯t impress anyone with his innovativeness. He originally brought in the Harbinger to take command of an Elemental army and give him the power to face Asheron. He sacrificed the Essences for the strength to control the Harbinger, as he didn¡¯t have the power on his own. ¡°Martine sacrificed himself back then to break that hold on the Harbinger and shatter Gaerlan¡¯s power-up. Gaerlan was imprisoned in his own nexus of power, converted to a Phylactic Prison. Pretty slick work, really. Adventurers coming in afterwards didn¡¯t have nearly the fight they could have. ¡°At a glance, I¡¯d say Gaerlan attempted the same thing again, using Asheron¡¯s Castle as his focus and the ruptured ley lines as an easy fuel source. I¡¯m guessing Martine figured that out, split open the ley lines completely, dropping Gaerlan¡¯s power at a key moment, and then ripped the Essences away from him and has held them here since, preventing Gaerlan from sacrificing them. ¡°I imagine the Harbinger was Summoned in over there, Bound, but Gaerlan wasn¡¯t able to Seal it and take its power, meaning he wound up in a Summoning Circle being depleted of power in company with the Entity he was Summoning and planning once again to be very rude to.¡± Kris¡¯ pale violet eyes twinkled with schadenfreude as she considered that. ¡°And we know how well such Entities treat the arrogant who deal with them¡­¡± AF Chapter 236 – A Meeting with Martine ¡°But obviously he¡¯s not dead, or all this Elemental stuff would have settled down, and the Harbinger would have been sent back to where it came from.¡± ¡°Imprisoned and cheerfully tortured for presumptuousness as his Contingencies keep him alive.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome to go running over there and find out for yourself. I¡¯ll note there are a LOT more Elementals, they seem bigger, and they are deployed in a guard formation.¡± ¡°Had noticed that. You going to be okay here?¡± ¡°We¡¯re right on the edge of the repulsive field for the Outer Circle. It¡¯s like a Protection from Evil running at IX. I¡¯ll be fine, they can¡¯t target or even acknowledge I¡¯m in here as long as it¡¯s being powered up.¡± I made a go-hither gesture. ¡°Highness, go meet the man who would be king.¡± She snorted at me, but didn¡¯t hesitate to bounce smartly to her feet and glide forward with the confidence of the supremely deadly. ¡°And don¡¯t forget post-Eternal Elementals can have access to Primal energies.¡± She paused in her advance towards the Fire Essence, glancing back at me, and then wagged a finger back at me in reproof for the late warning. Really, she should have known. --- Princess Kristie was still quite calm as she glided towards the Fire Essence. Primal Flames, huh?, she mused. She was completely immune to heat and fire damage of normal sorts, but Primal flames transcended immunity to such, and could burn things immune to fire without any problem at all. Standard was 50% of the damage was effectively ¡®typeless¡¯, and resistance and immunities wouldn¡¯t really apply. Her half-exhausted bondmage behind her could do that with Primal, Sacred, and Arcane energies, literally over 100% typeless and thus able to burn gods, Elementals, and demons that thought themselves immune to flames with no difficulty. It was something the local mages with their Protection spells would not be happy to find out if push came to shove. She hopped over the outer Thaumaturgic Circle, really a double Circle filled with arcane energies, Runes of various sorts filling out the space in the middle. It wasn¡¯t a Fivefold Circle like Ryin had used down south for her Commune with Nature attempt, but it was powered at IX at least, so there was no chance of anything below an Elemental Monolith being able to break it, and they hadn¡¯t seen one of those around here. The four surrounding Circles containing the Essences didn¡¯t quite touch, but there were unseen energies playing between them which constituted an unseen conduit she didn¡¯t want to risk disrupting with her Null¡­ and she totally could. Her Null slid through the currents like a bubble of nothing moving through water, effectively not there, and she could largely ignore the pressure the mana created as inconsequential, the flows devoted to other purposes and not trying to enter and come after her. The Essence could see her, she was sure of it. No eyes, had 360 awareness. However, her lack of magical Aura would lead it to think she was a mundane creature, possessed of no power. Between one step and the next, she broke into Lightning Across the Hill. Normally this was something that required chi to execute, but instead she burned Stamina on the Enduring Road, doing with ki and physical power what chi made inconsequential. It was the least of the Lightning Charges, basically turning a charge into a near-instant movement that avoided all obstructions and terrain to deliver the warrior to their target. Or past them, as the case was here. The blast of flames from the Essence of fire exploded harmlessly behind her, filling the Circle at her heels as she stepped into the inner Circle, venting momentum with her Cloudstepping Sandals Tats, not even skidding at all as she resumed her normal pace. Agitated Elemental energies crackled and seethed all around as the other Essences reacted to her sudden presence in the inner Circle, doubtless completely wondering how she had managed to get in there without any use of true magic. The Golden glitters at her heels misted away to nothing, and she strode towards the plume in the very center of the circle where floated the edgelord in a quiet meditative pose. ¡°Good evening!¡± she called out cheerfully. ¡°Candeth Martine, I presume?¡± There was a stirring in the plume, and slowly the too-white mask/helm turned in her direction. She could almost hear him blink, assuring himself that she was there visually. She could also feel his senses trying to reach out to her and instead running into her Null. Magically, she looked like an empty spot in space, nothing there at all. ¡°Hello? Hyem got your tongue?¡± she asked more loudly, as he seemed to be staring at her. ¡°Pull the magic senses back, old man. You¡¯re not going to see me with them.¡± ¡°Are¡­ you real?¡± rasped a voice that hadn¡¯t seen use in some time, while his legs lowered and he turned himself to face her, still levitating within that plume of mixed energies. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°If you¡¯re Candeth Martine, I am. If you¡¯re some poser with horrible fashion sense, no, I¡¯m not, and I¡¯ll just go.¡± His hands twitched, processing the fact she¡¯d just politely told him he had no sense of fashion. ¡°Have a care, girl,¡± he finally responded, equal parts irritation, amusement, and some confusion in his voice. ¡°I am indeed Candeth Martiine, and I am not someone to offend!¡± ¡°Oh, good. I am Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, second daughter of Emperor Briggs of Ispar, Warlord of the South personally appointed by King Borelean and vanguard of the Isparian return to Dereth. A pleasure to meet you, although I have to say, your welcoming committee made it quite the slog to get up here. Nice bit of light exercise, however.¡± He stared at her again, processing what she said, probably still trying to reconcile her absolute not-thereness in magic with her visual appearance. ¡°So¡­ the Isparians have finally come off of the Vesayans, have they?¡± he finally murmured, and then his head rode in a jerk. ¡°Imperial Princess?¡± he repeated. ¡°Of Ispar? You come from Ispar?!¡± he gasped. ¡°Probably the last person to do so. The Portals coming from there are being shut down en masse by my folks, who don¡¯t like other planets coming in and snatching up their citizens willy-nilly. If you¡¯ll take a look out there, you can see my companion resting up outside your little Circle here.¡± She turned to wave back at Ryin, who waved back from out there, somewhat visible in the night with Crown glowing gently back there. She was sure he could make out Ryin, even if only because her Wards blocked all the details, because he seemed to relax somewhat. ¡°Are the two of you the only ones here?¡± Marine asked slowly, looking back and forth between them. ¡°That seems¡­ unlikely?¡± ¡°Aye, just the two of us. Actually, we were going to investigate Gaerlan¡¯s prison, when we decided to take a detour here based on something Ryin saw. I guess we saved ourselves a trip further north, if Gaerlan is actually over in the pile of rocks to the north of us.¡± She tossed a thumb at the lit-up remains of Asheron¡¯s Castle a good five miles away. ¡°He is!¡± The satisfaction in Martine¡¯s voice was unmistakable. ¡°As is the Harbinger he attempted to bring into Dereth once again, the fool! He had no idea I was released and able to reform myself after his precious prison nexus was disrupted and he was freed. Attempting the same madness as before¡­¡± The disdain in his voice and dismissive gesture was unfeigned. ¡°Looks like you rather messed up his nefarious plots and schemes, somewhat more successfully than last time,¡± Kris noted professionally. ¡°However, I think the requirement that you have to stay here to keep things under control was a bit of an oversight on your part?¡± The man in the ivory mask bristled somewhat, then relaxed, clearly still not knowing exactly what to make of her. ¡°It was unexpected, yes. If you had more adventurers with you, I would ask you if you could make your way to the Castle and kill Gaerlan, then dismiss the Harbinger¡­¡± ¡°That is rather assuming the rest of Dereth wouldn¡¯t like to see you sitting in there doing nothing and leaving them be,¡± Kris noted cynically. ¡°You didn¡¯t make a really good impression the first time around, Lord Martine, and transforming Isparians into your Simulacra was not a triumph of magic, it was a horror of it.¡± ¡°What?!¡± he blurted out in defensive disbelief. ¡°I made them powerful! Unaging! Immortal!¡± ¡°You made them slaves to whatever you are using for a Singularity and Quiddity,¡± she corrected him coldly. ¡°They were and are nothing but pawns to you, bound by your wills and desires since you dominate their collective. Of the ones inside your Retreat, only the ones you allowed more free will did not leap to embrace vivus and free their spirits of the enslavement you thought was ascension.¡± ¡°You¡­ freed them?¡± The shock in the rough voice was genuine. ¡°They are free of the Quiddity¡­ yes, I can feel it now. Only Hibdin and Ambrosia remain there¡­¡± he trailed off. ¡°They are probably incapable of defying your will and even asking to be released by you, but if you have others you have¡­ converted, I¡¯m pretty sure that exactly none of them want to remain your slaves, trapped in those shells and bound to your Quiddity. The fact people want to escape the fate, and the fact you might be able to do it against their will, makes that a horrifying power and terrible fate, Candeth Martine, not an upgrade!¡± ¡°Severing one from a Quiddity is almost impossible. How did you do it?¡± he asked after a low and thoughtful moment. She flicked out Quaver, and lit up the vivic fire on her Sword. Whiteness poofed out for twenty feet around her. Alarmed, she sheathed her Blade even faster than it was drawn, and even before Ryin¡¯s ¡°PUT THAT AWAY!¡± Magevoice was echoing in her ears. The fire had actually partly eaten into the plume of Elemental energies around Martine, making him flinch in alarm! ¡°Vivic fire,¡± Kristie said, keeping her voice razor-calm and expression unsurprised. ¡°The Fires of Life and the Mortal Realm. They devour energies not native to the mortal plane, and that includes the quasipsionic quantum flows wielded by the virindi, as well as these more Primal Elemental energies around us.¡± Kris paused, looking around slowly. ¡°I imagine that if I kept my Blade out, the first Wisp would soon spawn from the agitation of the Land, and I would start a cascade of them that would sweep over this entire island in writhing tide of rejected corruption by the Land, killing everything upon it.¡± Her gaze settled back on him, as well. ¡°It would also consume the energies tying you to your Singularity, and you would perish as any other human would, were I to slay your physical form, Candeth Martine.¡± The dark holes in his mask and glitters of blue-purple fire in his eyes regarded her with more intensity and focus than they had a moment before. ¡°An¡­ extraordinary discovery,¡± he admitted after a long moment of thought. ¡°Do you intend to ply it against me?¡± ¡°You have done nothing that I know of that would demand I do so at this time. I do know that if you start converting more living Isparians to slaved simulacra, I will hunt you down and kill you forever. If you think your power entitles you to reign over all Isparians¡­ given the lack of wisdom and control you¡¯ve displayed in the path, and the way the alien energies you wield have forced you to adapt, it will probably be time to end you, as well. ¡°And before you ask, no, I am not the only one who knows of the vivic fire. It is widely spread among the warriors of the Freehold forces, and pretty much every paramount still alive. It is exactly as dangerous to Summons, virindi, shades, and the undead as it is to you.¡± He considered that in silence for a moment. ¡°Then it has made you some powerful enemies very quickly, Your Highness,¡± he said respectfully. AF Chapter 237 – The Meeting Concludes ¡°Yes,¡± Princess Kristie agreed. ¡°Those who think they are immortal do not like suddenly realizing they can die like any mortal, and that the Land will feed on them most happily.¡± ¡°You are certain this vivic fire would kill me?¡± he asked, inclining his head towards her Blade and the spirals of Lost Light about it. ¡°No, actually. If your link to the Singularity is powerful enough, you might be able to survive with a permanent loss of life levels, as it burns away part of your soul as you cling to your connection. That is how powerful demons and the like can survive it, sacrificing part of themselves. ¡°It means we would either have to kill you by slaying you multiple times, or reduce you to a level of power where you are no longer a threat.¡± ¡°I see. And if I¡­ walk away from my thankless task here?¡± he asked, gesturing at the borders of the flames he stood within. ¡°I am not here to kill you, so that would be your own choice. You have no duty save your own conscience to do what you are doing¡­ but likely you are the only one alive who could do this, save perhaps Nuhmudira. Abandoning your position, with all the consequences to Dereth that are likely to happen¡­ well, perhaps the undead might be able to stop what is coming, they have the knowledge. But Gaerlan does not hate them nearly as much as he despises Isparians, I¡¯ve been told.¡± He glanced at her sharply. ¡°That woman still lives, as well?¡± ¡°We have correspondence from the undead that confirms it, yes. Nuhmudira set up another assassin¡¯s guild which we¡¯ve been folding up, courtesy of Master Oswald and his knife. She¡¯s proven quite elusive, which should come as no surprise for someone who has mastered at least some of the Empyrean magic.¡± ¡°She deals in blood magic and souls, her patrons are no more friendly to mortal life than the Harbinger!¡± he spat. ¡°I, at least, underwent the tortures of the virindi and was made into what I am! That one, she walked into her corruption with her arms wide open!¡± ¡°I am not going to defend her. She was nowhere to be seen during the Fall, and her actions afterwards include mass recruitment of orphaned children to become her pet assassins. Any moral high ground she claims was revealed as the sham it was. If we have the chance to end her, that is what we are going to do.¡± He grunted once, looking away, back at her, away again. She could tell it was a reaction to suddenly being judged by another, lesser being, something he doubtless thought he¡¯d grown past, and found irritating and annoying that he might have to put up with such nonsense again. At last he partially turned away, bringing his legs up and resuming his meditative position. ¡°I will know when you kill Gaerlan and banish the Harbinger again, and I can contain the four Essences until that time. Return when you are strong enough to do so. Your Highness,¡± he added belatedly. Kris smiled thinly and turned back around. The roused Fire Essence was regarding her closely as she strode towards the Circles containing herself and it. Flames billowing about it, the ring-shaped creature prepared to stop her- And she jumped clear over it, outside its reach and over ten feet above it, as fires blew by below her and dispersed harmlessly against the bounds of the Binding Circle. She actually landed outside its Circle and Skated leisurely away above the ground, absolutely certain Candeth Martine was watching her from behind, and adding some proper Night Rose hipswing just for him. If there was a sputtering discharge in the central plume, she serenely ignored it. Ryin just watched her with her usual tolerance for Rantha antics, completely unmoved by a lightfoot jump spanning a hundred feet and reaching nearly thirty feet in the air. ¡°Hey, you are supposed to be impressed by my athletic ability!¡± she complained to her bondmage. ¡°Handles ninety percent of the combat load for four hours, burns through her stamina pool three times over, is completely fresh and ready to go for more, and I¡¯m supposed to be impressed by you bouncing over a burning doughnut.¡± Ryin¡¯s head tilted in disbelief. ¡°Are you serious?¡± Kris had to laugh. ¡°Well, when you put it like thaaat¡­¡± she admitted, rolling her eyes and hopping over the edge of the external Circle. The magical field closed behind her without ever acknowledging there¡¯d been a breach, something she was sure Martine was pondering almost as seriously as her ass. ¡°Pretty serious magic here, Ryin,¡± she observed as she squatted down. Ryin looked at the angle, and rolled her eyes. ¡°He needs to get laid?¡± she asked with a sigh. ¡°Oh, so bad I could smell it on him, if the air weren¡¯t burning four ways right there,¡± Kris grinned, not bothering to look back and see if the mask was fixed on her, as she was sure it was. ¡°Poor guy. What¡¯s the word?¡± The Marklink was broken by the Circles as readily as it would be by a Protection from Evil spell, anything that severed telepathic contact or control able to do the job. ¡°Gaerlan¡¯s over in Asheron¡¯s Castle, held there by the Harbinger, who can¡¯t kill him until it¡¯s free. Martine wants us to kill the guy, then get rid of the Harbinger, then he¡¯ll be able to handle the Essences and clean up this Elemental infestation.¡± ¡°Hey, look at that, we got a killquest marker! Should I lodge it in my Visual File and ask for the particulars of the Glory Award and what phat lewt we¡¯re going to get out of it?¡± Ryin wondered aloud, clearly not impressed. ¡°Well, if that guy was responsible for loosing the olthoi on the planet, he¡¯s a mass-murderer unrivaled in planetary history and definitely deserves to get aced. Repeatedly, if needed.¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to have to go ask Oswald for the secret of severing the unwanted from their system resurrections. You can be sure Gaerlan has one, and the Harbinger is probably forcing him to not use it, or maybe killing and resurrecting him, or close to it.¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Think I¡¯ll be able to do that?¡± Kris asked, intrigued by the idea. ¡°Not his way. But a Forsaken way? Sure. It¡¯s nulling some form of magical binding to a magical field or construct. He¡¯ll tell you his way, and you¡¯ll figure out how to do it the wrong way.¡± Kris nodded. ¡°True, true,¡± she agreed, completely serious. Powered had their way of doing things, and Forsaken had others. ¡°However, I really don¡¯t think I can make it up to the twat over there quite yet, given some of the shit guarding the way, and that¡¯s if I bother to climb and don¡¯t kill everything on the way up.¡± ¡°The probable meteors descending from on high is likely a thing to take into consideration, too.¡± ¡°Hmm, yes. Wise Warlord maketh calculations and say, No Fuckingeth Way.¡± Kris glanced at the Palace in the distance. ¡°Just how badly would we fuck everything up if we started a Wisp Cascade here?¡± she asked, speculating. Ryin¡¯s instant reply was enough to show that she¡¯d been thinking about it the instant Quaver had been drawn. ¡°The Wisps are materializations of Corruption in the manafield, the Elementals of uncontrolled mana. The Elementals would win early, then the Wisp numbers would overwhelm them, then the Elementals would just keep coming, even if the vivus slowed down their materialization, while the Wisps themselves would eventually end. ¡°We could probably warn Martine to stay in that plume and not fight, but everything else here is going to die under a tidal wave of Wisps, the place will reach vivic saturation, the Wisps will stop spawning, and the Elementals will slowly grind them down. ¡°Importantly, Gaerlan would get away, and likely the Harbinger, too. They¡¯d be among the last to be reached, and no vivic saturation would be in place up there by then.¡± ¡°Well, that would just be cheating, then,¡± Kris huffed. Letting both the extraplanar Entity with malevolent designs get away, as well as the total fucktard who¡¯d brought it here, just was not part of her mindset. ¡°Still, if we set up a vivic blaze and feed oh so many Elementals and Wisps to it, do a good job of calming down that ley line, right?¡± ¡°Should do about ninety percent of the work, yes. Give a bunch of archers a LOT of shooting practice, too.¡± ¡°Place will be just about covered in Wisps, with Elementals popping out the crevasse, right?¡± ¡°Basically, yes.¡± ¡°Free Wisps, not Summons.¡± Meaning more Karma. ¡°Correct.¡± ¡°I could probably practice Cleave Trains for hours and hours.¡± ¡°An unusual metric, but likely.¡± ¡°Plus it would be really cool to see.¡± ¡°See, yes. Get in spell range of, likely not.¡± Kris whistled as she pictured just how many spells going off that might be. ¡°Damn. Someone is going to have to take a picture of me going through that on a Cleave Train. It¡¯s going to be hotter than Midsummer Festival!¡± ¡°That is absolute truth, I agree.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± She turned her attention towards the slope. ¡°How do you want to go down?¡± ¡°Well, there¡¯s the Rantha-tagalong way, there¡¯s the-let¡¯s-test-our-lightfoot way, and then there¡¯s the exciting way.¡± The drab and conservative-not Imperial Princess promptly smiled excitedly. ¡°I vote for the third way!¡± she declared instantly. ¡°That¡¯s you hauling me on a Disk dodging fireballs from the sky at top speed while I Spellflare the things to irritate the piss out of it for annoying me by not being able to Cast while I¡¯m here.¡± Kris¡¯s smile grew even wider. ¡°We¡¯re five miles away!¡± she pointed out. ¡°And likely they¡¯ll be following us out to sea,¡± was the calm reply. Dancing pale violet eyes met serene silver, her Stupidity Stat flaring brightly, indeed. ¡°DEFINITELY option three!¡± Kris repeated eagerly. ¡°How do we go about this?¡± Ryin¡¯s Disk-leaves came lotusing out of her Masspack, formed into the standard concave shape of a Disk, Runes glowing and ready to take her weight. ¡°It should activate with the first spell that I Cast,¡± Ryin said, standing up and sliding aboard the Disk. ¡°So, whenever you want to get started.¡± Princess Kristie rose to her feet, stretching fully to the left long and slow, fully to the right¡­ No, no, Ryin was not smirking as she glanced over Kris¡¯s shoulder, back at the staring Candeth Martine. Kris went up on her toes, doing a full overhead extension, touching one foot all the way up, then the other¡­ ¡°Okay, I see a rough route down, but the bigger ones can really move, so we¡¯re going to be trucking it to outrun them. Probably have quite a train of them chasing us¡­¡± ¡°Good. Perfect for Chains.¡± ----- I Cast a spell to eliminate my muscle fatigue, and the manafield went abruptly still. Even Kris noticed it, the brushing against her Null all gone absolutely still. All the Elementals down below suddenly looked up this way, in all their energetic multi-colored glory. ¡°Fuck!¡± she shouted, grinning as she did, and bolted into motion. Up on the hill behind us, someone¡¯s eyes were definitely following her. Let it ride, let it ride, I repeated to myself, ignoring the fact I definitely should¡¯ve just received some whiplash by how fast Kris had burst into motion. Five miles in the distance, the first fireball shot into the air, incandescently white-hot, arcing and bending this way. Kris saw it, and immediately juked. We both watched it shift course, neither of us surprised it was tracking us. It crossed the intervening distance in under ten seconds, so it was really moving as it came down at us, huge and massive and full of Primal energies that were going to take a chunk out of this hill. Kris was running, jumping, dodging, juking, sliding, veering, and generally being a superhumanly fast gnat darting around. I repeated ¡®Let it ride, let it ride¡¯ as gyrations that should have sent me flying, inertial jukes and rotations that should have sent anyone daring to stand on one of these things whipping off, were utterly ignored by the mechanics of the Disk. If you maintained contact with it, you ignored inertia and gravity, if not the wind whipping at you. If you were stupid enough to jump and lose contact, well, that was on you, good luck! I lifted up Crown and set off the Spellflare. AF Chapter 238 – Elemental Bombardment Looked like a Caster Level of 40, obscene range, didn¡¯t know what Valence it was, probably Source Code class and didn¡¯t really matter. Primal Elemental energies falling from the sky with at least a thousand damage, ready to cook anything below. The whirling ball of kaleidoscopic colors smashed into it a hundred yards over our head and detonated it. Wild magic covered the sky in rainbows and flowers and butterflies and perfume factories and a dozen orchestral symphonies warring with heavy metal and grunge sweat. A dozen new species of birds flew chirping in all directions, colorful frogs rained down from the sky, and back along that conduit of control, a whole goddamn lot of feedback damage lashed back into the Castle in the distance as fast as a bolt of lightning. Something Way Over Thar blew multi-hued plumes of Elemental colors into the air. About twenty-three seconds later, a roar like an underwater volcano meets a thunderstorm blew past us, even as we watched a half dozen more of the fireballs lift off, one after another, this time in all four base Elemental hues. Guess it had never heard of Chain Spellflares, either. The sky blew up in a thunderstorm of lullabies and falling chocolate candies, the charnel smell of a day-old battlefield stirring up the sensation of thistles and mudpacks on the skin, and purple syrup rained down and stained everything grape. Six successive bolts of lightning ripped back along the control vector, and something didn¡¯t much like it when it took the feedback to the brain. The Elementals were ignoring the way dances were skying in the clouds, sunbeams threw out shadows, chiaroscuro trumpets blared drumrolls in soprano, and strings of jellybeans exploded in popcorn firecrackers, pelting us with sand and saffron. The Elementals were focused on chasing after us, ignoring one another despite opposed Elements as they raged after us down the ravaged slope of stone, side effects of the wild magic hissing and burning as it impacted them. I blew Shardrays through them because I was irritated and the Harbinger tossing shit at us gave me the time to do so. Wreathed in Prismatic energies for Elemental Slaying goodness, ripping streams of force tore through them with one, two, three, four parallel sets, and the Kickers blew them apart violently as Zealotry made sure that even nominally unaligned Elementals not in service to the Good could be removed from the game. No vivus, though. That was for the future. I did NOT want to start a Wisp Cascade right now. Blasted Elementals blew apart, especially any smaller ones still managing to keep up somehow as Kris zigged and zagged down that hill, finding a route between those Elementals below that hadn¡¯t been sealed off, even if it turned our path into a longer arc instead of a straight descent. More Fireballs, this time in new hues of mixed Elements seething and coming for us, rose from the distant palace and turned in our direction, and they just kept coming. Still took only ten seconds to cover the whole distance, but that was just fine, because I could Chain up to twenty-five targets regardless, and that was going to be one monstrous Concentration check to keep those things on course. I couldn¡¯t even describe the sky, there was so much reality-twisting madness going on when ten of those things detonated in series and went feeding back to the Castle, although the fuchsia candy canes dueling the plaid ice cream cones stuck out. There were still more of the Fireballs coming, but that was fine, as they all suddenly diverged from their courses and went flying in all directions when their controller took all those hits to the frontal lobe, or whatever stood in for it. Massive detonations of Elemental energy exploded all around us, none on top of us, shaking the ground, blowing open hundred-foot wide sizzling craters, spewing ash into air which wasn¡¯t sure if it was liquid or gas at this point, and sending shockwaves of air blowing this way and that which hurled many an unsuspecting Elemental off its feet that wasn¡¯t prepared for it. Notably, one blast hit the water well ahead of us, sending a geyser of steam hundreds of feet into the air and kicking up quite the waves. It was also a hundred yards OUTSIDE the Shoreward. Went right through it, just like our own spells could. Kris ducked twice, dodged once, jumped over in a 360 vertical spin, veered left, slalomed right and left, and I just followed her through it all as we broke past the last line of converging Elementals. They were only behind us now as she raced for the shoreline. More Fireballs in clusters were rising into the sky, magic was swirling in the air around us. I gathered up the Spellflares, pulling extra juice from Kris to break the manacap, and as eighteen separate Admixtured Fireballs in lots of six came plummeting at us in a hexagon pattern that would blow out acres of ground, the Twin Chained and Quickened Chain Spellflares went out to counter them. Thunder like a million screaming howler monkeys flattened the waves all around us as Kris hit the water, testing our Thunder resistance as a cacophony of sounds ultrasonic and subsonic battered at us. The sky was a kaleidoscope of impossible materializations, and Kris dodged the yellow elephant that fell out of the sky, clucking and flapping ridiculously small wings as it did so. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. She smashed through the Shoreward without stopping, stripping the homing magic from around us, and kept right on going at full speed, laughing as she did so. ----- We were a mile out to sea before the Fireballs really stopped getting anywhere near us, probably a combination of visual sight and losing control as they breached the Shoreward. Kris didn¡¯t slow down before we were TWO miles out, finally straightening up and allowing herself to slide onward as she looked back at the fit of pique blowing into the sky and raining down in our direction, detonating in explosions of violent color as they struck the surface of the sea. ¡°You can come on up, Elders. The magic isn¡¯t reaching this far,¡± I said in Magevoice with Whiskers of the Wild empowered. A couple breaths later, there was a surge on either side of us as two immense forms surfaced with smooth sprays of water. Sonorous calls filled the air around us with demands and questions. ¡°I don¡¯t believe the one who called you to serve is on the island, no, Elders. Something not of this world has taken his home for itself, whose magic I¡¯m sure you can see and feel there.¡± The leviathans watched the pulsing Fireballs rising into the sky and falling, not even bothering to be accurate now, heading in all directions as something with way too much mana to spend did so with crazed abandon. ¡°There are a LOT of Elementals running around the island top, Elders. You can¡¯t see them because there¡¯s an illusion active on the place, but the whole island is basically a blackened mess now.¡± They rolled slightly sideways to study the Holo I brought up, large multiple eyes matching it against the sight before them. ¡°On the other hand,¡± Kris broke in, ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯d like to glut yourselves fat and fine before heading back out into deeper waters, right?¡± That drew an interested note from them. ¡°Stick an Extended Resist Fire on them good for a couple days, would you, Ryin? I¡¯m sure they¡¯d like to stay nice and cool when they head south around the Vesayans and start eating everything.¡± I lifted an eyebrow, considered that a damn good idea, and inquired softly, ¡°With the permission of the Elders?¡± as I raised my hand, a cool blue light glowing upon it for them. For some reason, they had no objection at all. ------ Ten minutes later, we¡¯d waved goodbye to the two gargantuan whales as they eagerly turned south and began to plow through the waters. The leviathans had long heard the sounds of floating meals down there, and now it was time to indulge. I dearly hoped there was another of those super-sleeches down there waiting to get its shell cracked by some point-blank Thunder peals and some really, really big jaws. Kris glided ashore, standing up as she skimmed up the beach to the waiting burned windmill that was such a landmark, and turned around to slide right into it before dropping to sit down. False dawn was out there. Less than an hour to daylight, and the Harbinger was still tossing up Fireballs through the facade of the elemental flames concealing it, although not as many as before. ¡°Well, that saved us a big run up north to some place I¡¯m betting is just one gargantuan trap right now,¡± she said to me as I plopped down next to her. ¡°Meaning someone who knows what they are doing still has to go into the place and either spring it or defuse it before some unlucky sot stumbles into it and things go crunk?¡± I paraphrased, leaning against her shoulder. ¡°Ah, dammit!¡± she muttered, hitting the protesting ground, which proclaimed its innocence with an ineffective thump. ¡°You¡¯re trying to keep me away from my Fuzzy, aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°You know even he¡¯s not going to be able to keep up with you, right? Give the guy a day or two to recover.¡± Her face twisted. ¡°Unfair!¡± she declared with authority. ¡°Infinite sexual endurance should be a Fuzzy thing!¡± ¡°You have GOT to put that in the next Sending to your mom.¡± ¡°I think I will,¡± she grumbled. ¡°Just because a guy can survive being laid by you without you holding back is no reason to kill him via exhaustion. You know he appreciates having a woman who won¡¯t break, too.¡± Her shit-eating smile flared back up. ¡°That¡¯s true! It¡¯s not like he¡¯s going to find some frail thing to replace me, right?¡± ¡°I shudder to imagine the woman who thinks she could take him from you. Her fate would not be pretty.¡± ¡°And that is truth!¡± All her knuckles popped at once. ¡°Okay, still gotta run too damn far over new terrain, see the sights, pop some land spawns, and get blown up by a huge arcane trap. Sounds like another day of work!¡± ¡°Sounds like shirking work, mighty warlord,¡± I corrected her easily. ¡°Shhhh! Don¡¯t let them know this is actually FUN!¡± she stage-whispered back to me. ¡°I don¡¯t have to. They grew up on adventurer stories, remember? Soldiering is work. Adventuring alternates between utterly miserable riding the edge of death to woo-hoo we won! They are all utterly aware you¡¯re taking time off and gaffing them the fun stuff.¡± ¡°Hey, Fuzzy has them crawling all over the landscape shutting down spawn points and identifying new Dungeons that popped out of nowhere! They are getting plenty of excitement in!¡± At least forty extradimensional spaces that corresponded to no pre-Fall Dungeon anyone knew of had been discovered here and there all over the eastern plains of Osteth. In addition, there were a ton of former settlements and villages out there to be scanned, scoured, and Sifted for loot. ¡°Let us compare the excitement of walking a patrol route to venturing into the great unknown, shall we?¡± I replied to her. ¡°You¡¯re raining on my parade here, Magos!¡± she complained emphatically. ¡°Just keeping the highest-ranking military official mindful of her obligations,¡± I answered lightly. ¡°Now shaddup and get your mana back I had to pull off you. It¡¯s gonna be time for the Salute soon, and we¡¯ll be on our way.¡± Grumbling, she jerked her head, and a drop of blood materialized on her nose. It didn¡¯t get to drip down before it was sucked back in, and she sat back and relaxed as her inhuman vitality and Furnace of Life began to repair the Constitution damage she¡¯d just given herself to top off her Matrix. We were going into a magical trap, and would be running through a dangerous section of the North. Not having reserves was pretty stupid. AF Chapter 239 – The Olthoi North comes Alive -You don¡¯t do things small, do you?- I /asked rhetorically. -Hey, don¡¯t blame it on me! How was I supposed to know that was a real Matron and not a landscape Summons! They all look the same to me!- she /shot right back. -Admit it. It was obviously the head of the Arwic Hive and you just wanted to kill it.- Princess Kristie /grumbled somewhat. -Fine, I wasn¡¯t taking a chance.- -And now we have literally a thousand bugs chasing us.- -Which we can run away from at any time, and which is totally cool because they are offering themselves up to be wiped away by the army-slaying Magos I drag around to do such stupid things.- I rolled my eyes and sent off another set of Split Shardrays, the diamond wedges of Piercing magic ringing the beams and showing that the damage was not generic Force, it was strictly defined piercing damage. The Rays slammed back into toughest members of the horde of olthoi racing after us in single-minded frenzy, hundreds of them Burning with multiple flames right now. Kristie hadn¡¯t bothered to wipe off the death pheromones of the Matron from herself, and the monstrous magical bugs wouldn¡¯t stop chasing until the smell was gone. They were also generating their own ¡®Kill Her!¡¯ pheromones that were sweeping up every single olthoi Summons we stumbled across, in addition to random hives and nests we crossed, grabbing patrols and everything and sending them raging after us. The air was thrumming with the wings of the fliers, droning like thunder as they tried to catch us, and instead ran slam-bam into a Magos with ceaseless Darts with Kickers going off, and a damn Hag who could outrun a bird overground, let alone these clumsy fliers who could barely get their weight off the ground. Even the spider-like killer olthoi chewing at the ground with four limbs as they scuttled after us had no chance of catching her. And, well, if a group came up in front of us, Kristie had no compunctions whatsoever about barreling forward at full speed, smashing through startled olthoi, shattering carapaces, sending acidic blood flying everywhere, bugs shriek-screaming and filling the air with death pheromones as they died and Quaver issued its dislike of them in swaths of Lost Light cracking and crunching them loudly. I didn¡¯t have to worry about Dispels, so I was switching between Chained Fastcast Darts to deliver Kickers and Split Chained Shardrays for some damage to the tough things, pounding and pulping into the mass of bugs raging after us. Carapaces in green, violet, red, dark blue, black, white, and brown screamed and dropped when the Shardrays punched through them violently, creating great holes in their armor and organs and splashing glowing green acidic blood everywhere, while they just kind of stumbled, fell over, and died, trampled by those behind them when the Kickers bit in deep and did their things. Vivic fire spurted and feasted at the magical creatures¡¯ death, nom-nomming away in trails of unwhite fire the olthoi ignored, as well as the way mushroom spores popped and Burned around the vivus¡­ I was leaving trails of their dead behind us, and had been for miles. If I was good, I could time a spell right on top of a Summons area, and so Seal the point even as Kris dragged the Summons on top of it away and they were lost in the shuffle of bugs jostling for position as they ran after us. There were some tough bastards in the mix here, but the majority of them were under 300 Health, and ninety-plus percent under 500. That was enough for Shardrays to pop them, especially with their vulnerability to piercing damage, and the Kickers riding the Shards were enough to finish off those that weren¡¯t killed with the initial hits, or the numerous weaker ones trailing and trying to keep up. Wailing and shrieking olthoi in all four main body-types screeched and died as they pumped out their lifeblood, and we let them drop and die and Burn. Wiping the fliers was primary, as they were the only olthoi with ranged attacks. We weren¡¯t exactly vulnerable to the Acid they were spitting, pre-Cast Resistances and Protections up, but I didn¡¯t like to take chances. The swarms of them buzzing above their fellows made perfect targets to swat out of the sky and send tumbling and crunching to the ground. For the rest, it was just killing the fastest and closest ones most likely to reach us, at which point Kris slowed down so we wouldn¡¯t lose the rest. The bugs would get a second or tenth wind and charge up closer, and then go spitting and spraying ruptured innards in tandem with those before them. I was getting up to 75 kills every six seconds at my best rate, and the horde behind me wasn¡¯t going down in size. Kris was running by every spawn, nest, and hive that she could see as she booked it across the landscape, and the olthoi were squealing and charging immediately to the attack, no hint of hivalry, rivalry?, for being in different hives or swarms apparent at all. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I had already killed thousands, and the swarm behind us was actually GROWING. It was surreal to watch, even as streaks of burning jetsilver diamonds pulsed into them and sent dozens at a time shrieking to their deaths all Burning alive and whatnot, to be trampled uncaringly by the single-minded pursuit of those behind. -I confess that your talent for pissing off bugs is extreme. I can smell you from here, so you must be driving the olthoi just insane.- -I¡¯ll line ¡®em up, you knock ¡®em down,- she /replied breezily, keeping a look out of my eyes and the Detect Bugs and Evil I had up. The latter actually Detected non-Good and thus they overlapped some, but the Detect Bugs was more specialized and had a much longer range given the fact olthoi were alien to the environment and what Primal Magic I had reacted adversely to them. A normal Isparian mage only able to target a handful of these things at a time would have been overwhelmed by everything, but that wasn¡¯t me. These lesser olthoi weren¡¯t much danger to me, and the Paradox Olthoi clustered around that mountain at the south end of their territory had absolutely been the first ones I blew all to shit, taking multiple spells given how tough and magic-eating they were. -Three miles to the Citadel Valley!- Kris /announced cheerfully, giving me a look at the cleft in the mountains to the west ahead of us where Gaerlan¡¯s grounded once-flying Empyrean Citadel was stuck. She zeroed in on the gaps in the peaks there, and we both noted the dark, sparking spiral of smoke worming its way up into the sky there. -Don¡¯t recall that in the Mick¡¯s description,- she /grinned. -Looks like something with too much Elemental energy around is burning, maybe?- -No, no, I don¡¯t think so,- I /lied badly. -Just a coincidence, some minor Ward leakage, nothing to be concerned about. He¡¯s still in there, trapped in his Phylacteric Prison, assaulted by uncontrollable energies all hours of the day and night, yes, indeed.- -Such an optimist you are!- she /answered cheerfully, slowing down another beat as I scanned the horizon. -Hey, that looks like another Mansion on that hillside over there.- She¡¯d been a bit preoccupied with overrunning spawn sites and hives and whatnot to notice the building standing forlornly on the mountainside miles behind us. I /agreed with her. -Why don¡¯t we swing by and investigate it in between dodging thousands of olthoi?- I /asked her. She just /laughed back, glancing north, where a dark wedge was spilling down the mountain ahead right for us. -Hey, more bugs to join the fun!- The dark stain of a major hive sprawled down from the top of the mountain, home to at least hundreds of bugs, if not thousands of them, tunnels worming through the stone to house them all. It looked like all the excavated stone had been brought out as sludge and packed up into the fifth towering major hive structure we¡¯d seen since coming into the Olthoi North. Master Oswald had assured us there were at least eight of the things scattered in the mountains and the plains below said mountains, and likely there were several concentrated on the Olthoi Island off the coast. They¡¯d been attracted by all the buzzing following something, and had enough brains to turn out in force and try to join the fighting and the hunt. I looked at the angles and realized they actually would cut us off on our direct course at this speed, Kris figuring it out at the same time. Kris kicked it up a notch, laughing at the olthoi behind us, who seemed to find new life and frenzy with the approaching olthoi in the distance. I spun my Disk around and let those coming in from the north trying to broadside us have it, especially the fliers skimming over the landscape and leading the way. Given I had a range of a thousand yards, I got started on their progress pretty early, even as they fanned out to try to surround us for a nice swarm envelopment first. They didn¡¯t calculate that Kris was moving at maybe half her top speed and had no problem sustaining it, while even the best of the bugs behind us had to be getting tired. They could probably run themselves to death, but that was fine, the chase would be largely over soon. The fastest olthoi of the new hive in the advance were popped off in spurts of glowing green and chitin-punching diamond pulses and Flames in five colors Burning over them. We swept by within ten feet of the pincers of lunging spider-olthoi, squealing in frustration as they missed us, and then fifty of them blew up as bouncing, piercing Shardrays passed through them violently. Behind us, the two swarms merged together without issue, united in their fresh territorial hatred of us, and we swept into the narrow, high-walled canyon that led into Citadel Valley. The second clue that something was going on, other than the unnaturally thick spiral of inky smoke peeling skywards from the top of the Citadel, was the fact that the ground had dozens of Elementals of all kinds scattered around it, and not the weak ones. They couldn¡¯t miss our approach, of course. The numbers of olthoi were shaking the ground as they charged after us, and didn¡¯t look like they were hunting us, it looked like we were leading them to the attack! Which viewpoint I was happy to mislead along as I stopped firing backwards and started firing ahead, while Kris had Quaver out and extended like a shining lance, Prismatic anathema to Elementals gleaming off her Blade and letting them know we weren¡¯t friends at all. I popped an entry wedge even as dozens of Elemental spells were going off, Kris juking as the Bolts and Arcs slammed past us and into the incoming olthoi, who ate it all up and didn¡¯t slow down in the slightest as more bugs died. -So, you wanna do some exploring, or just spring the trap?- she /asked me, as I crouched down and tight behind her as she juked and swerved with impossible speed and surety through the collapsing crowd of Elementals. It wasn¡¯t a real question, as we weren¡¯t going to be exploring anything. -I would like to engage in patient looting of his libraries and appropriation of any significant cultural mementos or useful tools that we might run across, of course!- I /answered aloofly. -Spring the trap it is.- The gaping doors of the Citadel yawned before us, bunches of Elementals on guard in front of it, bracing for the incoming olthoi horde that had crashed into the Elementals, bowled them all over, and was running over the knots of combat that had resulted without really slowing down. -Displacing,- I /murmured to her, and she acknowledged it as the image of the two of us slowly slid three feet to our left, and the missiles and spells coming our way followed it, as did the eyes of the enraged and frenzied olthoi. Kris didn¡¯t charge through the lines of Elementals, of course, letting the Displaced image race in between them and fade away, at the same time as she vented away the stink of the death pheromones all over her and leapt first for the wall, then scampered up it to the ceiling as Invisibility followed Displacement. AF Chapter 240 – Elementary, my dear Olthoi The olthoi horde¡¯s shrieks at the concentrated death-scents Kris had just shucked off made absolutely sure they weren¡¯t going anywhere but inwards and onwards, while Princess Kristie and I scampered upside-down across the ceiling, back out the gateway, and then up the side of the grounded Citadel. -That leads way back into the mountains,- Kris /remarked as she pumped up the side of the Citadel on her Cloudstepping Sandals, the slight mists they exuded unnoticed as we headed up higher at ninety degrees. -Unsurprising. The Dungeon Lord Mick described was absolutely huge and couldn¡¯t possibly fit into an Empyrean Flying Citadel. Slightly more worrisome is the Interdiction across the Veil. We can¡¯t ¡®port out of here...- -Oh, so the bastard didn¡¯t want people to run. That it extends outside must indicate that his trap does, too.- She /veered quickly sideways, while I watched the olthoi horde streaming into the valley below and slowly overwhelming the various Elementals, even starting to pick at and tear apart the reinforced stone of the Citadel with their mining pedipalps. The Citadel was actually leaning against the canyon wall. Kris made the leap over to the natural stone smoothly and booked for more height. The whole olthoi horde was streaming into the open gates now, the Elementals not having enough mass or numbers to stack up and stop them, or disintegrating as acid-streaming and magically-enhanced pincers and pedipalps punched into them and tore them apart. The alien bugs were quite resistant to Elemental energies overall, so the spells being tossed by the Elementals weren¡¯t very effective, and the missiles and pummeling attacks didn¡¯t do much to their armored chitin at all. Eh, didn¡¯t matter. Couldn¡¯t kill Elementals without vivus, they just discorporated until magic brought their spirit together again, and I was sure the numbers of them that could spawn here were without limit¡­ just not with instant speed within that limit. A pulse of violet came up the plume of oily dark smoke, as if something had ignited down below. Kris watched it pass us up into the sky, and her feet glowed golden as she suddenly shot forward, moving MUCH faster than the olthoi had seen her, aiming for the lip above us with all due speed now. We cleared the lip and slid through the curve up and down like riding skateboards on a loop, instantly flipping over and heading downslope, distance increasing and height decreasing as our speed hit a whooping new high, equal to a plummeting in free fall as we drove through the sky away from the citadel. Green pulse. A breath later, blue pulse. We both held our breath, and the crimson pulse flashed up. Something lit up down below and behind us, a garish and harsh illumination with no natural origin lighting up the sky with a medley of very wrong hues, while the manafield bounced and went bonkers as all the Elemental energies there jangled and twisted themselves into knots. The blast of Elemental energies didn¡¯t reach above the valley, but off to our left, what looked like a tidal wave of thaumic annihilation spilled out of the Citadel canyon like a living thing, rampaging over the landscape and destroying everything in its path as it did so. The sound, the roaring of Elements in pain releasing and finding all sorts of fun ways to vent their ire on the world, slammed into us a moment later, but all it did was run into my Ward Wall, pushing me back into Kris¡¯ feet, which braced against my back as we let the shockwave of the explosion push us across the sky and away from the stream of para-volcanic devastation that had just made sure nothing was going to get out of that valley alive. -Some fuckhead had a bit of a temper after being tortured in a prison of his own making for years,- Kris /snickered, stretched out flat in the air like she was body-surfing as we were shoved across the sky at a couple hundred mph, at least. The crack of breaking stone and ground reached us then. Immense jagged lines flew up around the valley¡¯s walls, and hunks of rock the size of small castles began to fall from it. -Huh. Did he trigger a volcano or something?- Kris /asked, rolling her eyes. -Some fuckheads just can¡¯t stand not making a goddamn spectacle out of everything, can they?- -I be Gaerlan, feel my might, you insignificant Isparian curs!- I /announced silently, concentrating on keeping my impromptu sail up as it shoved us across the sky. -Five seconds, start running, don¡¯t stop. The Interdiction zone is miles wide at this point.- -Hey, we can explore that Mansion!- she /exclaimed brightly. -Yeah, I think the olthoi are going to be a little bit busy in a moment...- The glow from the Citadel Valley was getting more crimson and lurid, while the molten wave of Elemental fury had collapsed into a massive fan of boiling, burning, sparking, shattering stones covering the ground for quite some distance. Thaumic chaos writhed over them as the different magicks tried to dissipate and warred with one another while trying to do so, kicking up a vortex of mindbending colors as they clashed. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The mountains were shaking all around, the ground was rippling with shockwaves, and here it came¡­ The explosion was loud enough that we both would have been deafened without Thunder resistance. The top of the Valley¡¯s ringing mountains just vanished, which meant they had been suddenly launched skywards and would be coming down in all directions. -Fuck!- Kris /swore cheerfully, getting her feet, still glowing Golden, back under her and booking for more distance. Tower-sized hunks of rock high in the sky were arching in all directions, including at us, and a massive mushroom cloud of superheated stone, ash, and random Elemental furies was boiling up into the sky for our appreciation and aggrandizement, send donations to www. Gaerlanputsonnashow. com. Ass. More ley line disruption going on. The idiot had no idea what might be Sealed under this island, what those ley lines might be keeping in place, and he had just helped punch a conduit DOWN into the island! Kris caught my trepidation as she studied the wild display of disrupted energies through my eyes. -He made a volcano,- she /said, as the first steaming, sizzling, freezing, and molten bits of rock started to fall down around us. I tilted my head back to look up at the sky for her, so she wouldn¡¯t have to skate backwards to dodge the crap coming down. -He shouldn¡¯t have made a volcano, should he?- -All of the volcanoes of Dereth are tapped and controlled¡­ except this one,- I /informed her coldly. She slid aside, and a house-sized chunk of lava streaming frozen mists plummeted by twenty yards to our left, hitting the ground and scattering molten stone and freezing mists in all directions. A random olthoi caught one of the chunks and blew apart, superheated innards freezing in midair as the various body parts hit the ground and shattered like china. -You think that thing that was reaching out for you might have made contact with him?- Kris /asked, legs still pumping as she regarded the sky behind her through my eyes, sliding this way and that to ignore the debris coming down around us and trying to pelt us. Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis reached out and began to shove the smaller rocks this way and that, clearing the air above us of lighter stuff so Kris only had to ignore things larger than a bowling ball. Happily, the energies sticking to the things made even the smallest chunks fairly easy to see and track, with some of them even exploding into dust when knocked aside or into one another. -Fucktard Empyrean who enjoys bargaining with fell powers being tortured by the end product of his own maddened efforts might be receptive to corrupt power promising much and delivering something? Especially when he doesn¡¯t realize he doesn¡¯t have a choice in the matter?- I /sniffed. -That sounds like classic irate evil madman needs to have a good healthy ranting monologue, tell us all his sinister plans, and get ganked.- -You Ranthas, the very definition of understanding and hospitality for the insanely deranged.- -Fuck, touch the Hag Akasha someday. The nature of the Planar Lore we get off those Skill Ranks is puke-worthy to any normal person. Yeah, we understand ranting villainous tirades pretty damn well.- She rolled her eyes for emphasis. -Thank you, no. You wouldn¡¯t even have said that if you thought about what might happen to a Powered who had that kind of access to a Sinborn Akasha.- -Eh, right. Sorry,- she /apologized without hesitation. A chest-sized rock falling about half the speed it should have as lightning crackled over it and emerald acid trailed it tumbled slowly on by us towards the ground below. The landscape below was now a veritable pyrotechnic display of uncounted Elemental energies lashing at everything around as devastation dropped from the sky, above and beyond the huge psychedelic field of ravaged stone already there. I¡¯d alerted all the Casters I could, who¡¯d passed it on to their companions so the huge hiccup in the ley lines didn¡¯t disrupt anything important. Tools were put down, Rituals paused, and Casters waited for the shockwave of the eruption to pass on by and the ley lines to settle once more before resuming anything magical. -Decent karma,- Kris /pointed out, and I looked at my personal Assay. Huh. -Well, we killed a lot of olthoi, a lot of Elementals, triggered a trap so it did the absolute minimum amount of harm possible, and even warned distant people so there¡¯d be no ¡®happy accidents¡¯ stemming from it. It¡¯s not a Glory Award, but for magnificently useless fits of pique, we did a pretty good job foiling it, didn¡¯t we? And even led a bunch of bugs into it to enjoy the sensation.- Really good planning, says I. -Maybe there¡¯ll even be something useful in the Mansion for us to use,- Princess Kristie /smiled hopefully, and I had to chuckle as I kept my eyes peeled for all the stuff still falling from the sky we had yet to outrun. Naming Karma was saving our bacon as long as steady advances were going on, but more loot and goldweight was something we were still sorely lacking. The huge pent-up demand for such for everyone meant there simply wasn¡¯t enough to go around, even for the extremely useful low, broadly employed magic that was best put into place. I definitely could have used those mountains of pyreal that the Mick liked to talk about, goldweight of salvage and stuff in just silly arse numbers being coughed up by the magic of the system without any restrictions or reasons. ---------- The Mansion was remarkably intact, all things considered, with remarkably few olthoi tracks around it, and even fewer other creatures. The doors had been ripped off the hinges, so the entire thing was open to anything that wandered in. Judging by the remains of stuff splattered on the walls and floors here and there, this was a potential den that the olthoi basically cleaned out on a regular basis whenever anything moved in, and basically left alone otherwise. So, there were signs of combat here, and the furnishings and d¨¦cor had definitely taken a beating, but the olthoi hadn¡¯t reduced it to a big pit, which they most certainly could have with little effort. It was still forced up off the ground by the emergence of its dimensional basement beneath its existing basement, and the fact it was on a mountainside meant solid stone all around, so it was accumulating water steadily from rainfall and melting snow. I bored a hole with Shape Stone and drained the water out and down the mountainside, the whole thing emptying out inside ten minutes and making it much easier to Sift through the remains. AF Chapter 241 – Spoils of Battle Kris ran her fingers over etch-marks on the Mansion¡¯s wall. ¡°Their fliers were down here. I imagine they sensed anything magical and removed it for their acidic feeder pools and stuff.¡± There¡¯d been absolutely no magical remnants left behind in this place at all. For a Mansion located a long, long way from any intelligent scavenger who might have gone through the place, that was pretty telling. ¡°None of the normal devices the Mick listed as common Mansion fixtures for the Allegiances using them were around the outside or up on the balcony, or on any of the internal fixtures. Even the flower pots were broken and the magical plants removed or eaten, and the keystone marking the owner was shattered and its nexus point dug right out of the ground. ¡°So, yes, I agree. The fliers probably came down before it was all flooded, picked over everything, and then flew back up out of here.¡± We still had Disks full of raw salvage which had been heaped up and were laying around, bags and stacks of various minerals I would Itemize later so we weren¡¯t hauling a full train of the things overland. Kris prowled around the wet floor, looking at everything, and shook her head when there was nothing more to be found. ¡°Raw materials to Burn is nice, but we¡¯re coming out of this with a whole lotta not much, Ryin.¡± ¡°You know we¡¯re also pretty scarce a lot of olthoi skulls for Baneskulls, too.¡± She glanced at me sharply. ¡°That¡¯s right, we left the real ones Burning with the Summons, didn¡¯t we? I suppose that means we should hunt down some of the stronger ones and abscond with the heads they won¡¯t be needing shortly?¡± ¡°It may be a little crazy, but I volunteer the Paradox nest. Plenty of real bugs there, they are pretty much all strong enough to contribute skulls, and you¡¯ll enjoy carving them up. Downside is with that Paradox infusion, they are extremely magic resistant. I could punch Shards through, but I¡¯m not sure about Vulns and Imperils, especially 100% of the time.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t get over the fifty percent hump with Arcane Mastery?¡± Kris asked quickly. The ability to take 10 on Caster Level checks meant that if you could succeed 51% of the time, you could succeed all of the time. It was one of the big Feats you took when eligible at Nine or Ten. Conversely, if you couldn¡¯t hit 51%, it was 100% failure and you had to trust to luck to land your spells. Chaos was seldom reliable in such circumstances. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. The Paradoxes were among the most magic-resistant things I¡¯ve Cast on here, even worse than the Baishi hive, especially those centauroid Sentinels. Mid to high 30¡¯s at least. Plenty of Paramounts without the right Feats and Buffs would just be bouncing off them.¡± ¡°More gloriously unwelcome news from the swift-kill department, one more nod to the glory of melee supremacy!¡± ¡°You do know how big a bitch they were to kill, according to the Mick?¡± I asked archly. ¡°I¡¯m confident of my ability to hit them, but that¡¯s a lot of Health Qi they have,¡± she nodded. ¡°But if what you said is right, and if the way they are scrapping for magical items here is any indication, then they probably have an even lower birth rate than we expected. It¡¯s just thrown off by all the Summons points. The major hives being expanded like that, instead of them building new ones all over the place, speaks to them concentrating their power, instead of expanding it. It¡¯s further noteworthy that the little hives we¡¯ve seen have rather intense numbers of Summons on or about them, to the point they may only BE Summons, at some point. ¡°Look at how small the Holtburg true olthoi presence was, by the numbers you gave me. Surely they should have produced more olthoi and expanded, and even had the eggs and grubs for it. Just¡­ nope, didn¡¯t happen.¡± ¡°Magical bugs who shouldn¡¯t be able to support their own weight need magic. Shocking, just shocking. I don¡¯t understand whyyyyyyyy¡­¡± I whined extravagantly. Kris just snickered as she hopped onto a Disk and rode it for the surface, instead of skittering up the wall herself. ¡°Let¡¯s head back south and ¨C whoa!¡± I came to a stop there, ten feet below the fallen hallway gaping open to the nave and doorway outside. The stone of the basement gave way to wooden walls, my Detect swept outside¡­ and pinged the shit out of me! There were suddenly dozens of olthoi crawling over the area just outside! And more were coming! ¡°Why do I get the feeling that we were seen escaping the blast by random olthoi, and they decided to wander over and investigate the Isparians falling out of the sky?¡± Kris snickered, Stand swirling out of her backpack and into her off-hand as Quaver popped into her left and extended out, trailing swirls of killing Lost Light. There was a rustling and a clattering, and a pure white olthoi, pedipalps and pincers swirling with the magic-defying light of refined chorozite, came up to the edge of the floorboards and looked down at us, its talons clicking on the protesting wood of the main floor. It looked at us, we looked at it, and then it squealed, a sound echoed and taken up by a large number of bugs outside, who began to converge on the doorway. The next second Kris had jumped up and across the gap between it and her and slammed Stand into its chin. Its carapace shattered as its magic-chewing pedipalps glanced uselessly off the Tempered adamantine, Quaver went in and out and in before it hit the floor, and she was spinning around it into the face of the dark black walking beetle trying to fit in the doorway with its massive pedipalps raised above it. The death shriek of the Hollow Olthoi as it fell on past me into the basement drove the swarm into a familiar killing rage, and in mere seconds insectile limbs were chopping into the walls of the Mansion, intent on tearing it down and getting to the intruders within. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I rose up to the level of the hallway, Shards spinning up as Kris kept Stand lifted against the punching assault of those primary appendages stabbing down from above. Quaver pumped in and out like it was held by a steel bar, punching through steel-hard chitin and deep into the alien flesh beyond, drawing gouts of flying acidic blood as it did so. Diamond wedges wrought in a dozen hues and schemes coalesced down into a single orb of chromatic radiance, extended out into a Ray that hit an unseen prism in midair and fractured into two equally strong Rays, lunging out above Kris and on either side of the olthoi she was actually forcing back into the press of its own kind scrambling to get at her. There were a lot of screams as the primary targets had holes punched right through them, and then fifty more got to feel the impacts as the Rays Chained through randomly close members of the swarm beyond, killing the weakest of them and wounding the rest¡­ wounds which would break them down as Silver Fire and a bunch of Kickers raged over them, ignoring their Elemental Resistances entirely. Stand shattered the spindly legs of the bug and it fell over, Quaver blink-and-you¡¯ll-miss-it quick as it plunged into and out of its glowing right eye, and then the Eviscerator behind stepped up to take a shot at her, one of its arms already wavering weakly from the hole punched through its left abdomen and the Flames eating away at it hungrily. Vivus burst up around the acidic blood spilling and hissing on the wooden floors of the Mansion, ensuring that the olthoi weren¡¯t going to survive this fight intact any more than the walls of this Mansion and its internal rooms were. The area around the doorway was already shredded, more olthoi were savagely ripping at stone and wood reinforced by ley line magic, their acidic pedipalps able to dig into stone doing savage work as they tried to expand the area to get at Kris. Kris wasn¡¯t going anywhere, laughing softly as she engaged the Eviscerator, its natural weapons skirling off Stand¡¯s polished blue-black sheen, heavyfoot anchoring her against the mass of the bug and superior strength defying it as two of its arms went sailing off, severed through by arcs of Lost Light. Then Quaver was up in and out of its head, and Stand slammed it aside into its fellows to greet the next one clawing to get at her with the Archer Stand Thrust, the olthoi Soldier in purple running up on the point and impaling itself nigh-instantly. My Detect Vermin was getting packed with bugs. I shook my head, brought up my Shards, and let go again, while Kris hooked Quaver right through the dripping, burning hole in the Olthoi Noble that came prancing up on her and spitted what passed for its heart instantly. She heaved the dead bug over to the side, drawing and reversing Quaver into a backstroke up under a Worker¡¯s chin and killing that bug instantly, as well. --- I made sure every olthoi within potential reach of Kris had Flaming holes in them with every volley, before randomly sending Dartrays through the incoming swarm that was trying to press in and overwhelm us. The waspish fliers rising from the masses attracted primary attention from me as their acidic bile peppered the entryway and dissolved it into sludge under the weight of multiple volleys of the stuff. It normally wouldn¡¯t have been very effective, made to dissolve flesh and not stone, but it seemed to be mixing with the acidic splatters of the stone-chopping diggers trying to get at us, and so it did the job marvelously well. Kris was in the zone, laughing constantly as olthoi shrieked and died around her, taking their potshots on Stand or hewing through stone-cutting pedipalps and pincers, Quaver shifting length on demand to flicker-stab in and out towards their weakest points. The joining point of the thorax and throat, the mouth, the eyes, and especially any holes I punched in them saw her Sword¡¯s point go in and come out in ripples of Lost Light, tearing open their insides and the acidic blood within. Acid spurted, vivus ignited, and the dead began to heap up nastily even as they began to crumble. Out in the Swarm, I was hitting over twoscore at a time, killing the weak, staggering the stronger, and annoying the strongest with the Kickers from the Darts I was putting out. They clearly had no familiarity with multi-target magic like this, the acidic attacks of the waspish fliers being similar to Isparian War Magic, and so the horde of bugs did not understand the sheer amount of damage I was doing to them over time as the Kickers were soon burning on hundreds of bugs at a time, even if only for eighteen seconds at a time. With a whoop, Kris blurred forward out of her position, leaving me open and exposed as she plunged through the horde. Everything behind the first olthoi in front of her died, was shoved off the motte, and down she went into the numbers scrambling over one another to get up to the doorway and after us. The Cleave Train plowed right into the numbers of wounded olthoi. One-shot kills sprayed violently in all directions as she smashed dead and dying bugs out of her way, plowing them back, stepping on them, over them, under them¡­ and around her, the Lost Light swirled in and out, and olthoi collapsed and died everywhere within her reach. The profound nature of the attack made her move ever faster as the killing progressed, and she was out there and then coming back as the olthoi by the doorway first turned after her. Only then did a couple see me bring up Darts out of the corner of their eyes and actually saw me standing there in the exposed hallway. They were just starting to turn back at me when Kris came back, crushing the head of a spidery Eviscerator with Stand and riding a Noble down with Quaver hooked around to insert into its eye socket. Behind her, dozens of olthoi staggered and died as the arcs of Lost Light joining each and every one of them faded away, and vivus spurted up and raged in a carpet of dead shelled corpses thirty feet wide in front of the Mansion and its motte. There was a dire hissing shriek, and bounding up came TWO of the Olthoi Sentinels, although thankfully not Paradox ones. The other olthoi scattered from their path as the tauroid beasts, their humanoidish upper torsos waving pincers as cleaver-like spidery legs launched them up the motte at us, came in to fight. AF Chapter 242 – A Swarm of Surprises The Olthoi Sentinel on the right drove itself right onto Quaver¡¯s poised point, locked statue-hard and unmoving in the Archer Stand Thrust. It squealed and kicked at Princess Kristie, the blows ringing off her Shield Stand, and then it took both my Shardrays in its abdomen, right where torso and bug-body met and some rather important organs were located. Vivus blew out as its insides ruptured, the braced Sword doing enough monstrous damage to weaken it to the magic. Kris promptly juked sideways, hacking at the lead leg of the other Sentinel and chopping it off, even as the Chains from the Shardray went into it first, and then split off to ravage through another four dozen olthoi beyond it. Kris drove two plunging stabs into the tauroid Sentinel through gaps in its chitin, then bounced back to her original position before its rearing not-retreats could pull her out of place. It came down, and she was out of reach and in place as the next wave of olthoi crowded it, staggering from the flaming holes in them but still trying to get to me. Stone sprayed and tumbled as the raging Sentinel cleared the wall out of its path, plowing through the foundation trying to get around Kris and maybe at me. Kris just backed up, letting the olthoi tear apart the Mansion¡¯s walls without batting an eye. I turned both Shardrays on the Sentinel as it lunged for me, and it was unceremoniously bashed against the wall by Kris moving with way too much force for her size. Wedges carried on coruscant force-rays punched through its abdomen and out, raising shrieks of pain as they glowed and Burned on its insides. Flaming acidic ichor sprayed from the two holes in it, but it kept right on trying to reach me. Unfortunately, such single-mindedness let Quaver plumb the depths of it and send Lost Light ripping through its underbody, tearing apart important stuff there with every jackhammer strike up into it. Something key ruptured, internal pressure was lost, and its legs kicked and folded up underneath it. Kris spun, the insectile skull of the thing leapt from its neck, and then she was back in front of me as more Burning wounded olthoi clambered over the dozens killed by a double set of Chained Shardrays punching through them, all trying to get to me. Olthoi carapaces cracked and shattered as acid and vivus combined to break them down quickly, a supplement to the clacking progress of insectile limbs carrying their heavy bodies into this fight. Kris just grinned as her Waveskating Step handled the ¡®broken ground¡¯ effortlessly, sometimes crushing rounded shells flat as she stepped on them with far too much heavyfoot force for her weight, sometimes dancing over corpses as she slid and juked into position with weightless speed and flowing precision. She was treating the olthoi like bumper cars and beer cans, to be punctured, punched, kicked over, and stomped as she deemed fit. Olthoi were heaped up in front of us and then broken down by the tromping of their own kind or Kris collapsing their shells as she held her circle of death around us, not bothering with another Cleave Train as we were pushed back into the Mansion¡­ not that such meant anything to her, either. I Shaped off a support from the stone walls, and she coolly stepped off the broken wooden flooring onto a platform in midair, while I calmly floated in open space behind her, keeping up with my salvos of Shards. The swarm outside was actually falling in numbers faster than it was growing now, and I matched the vector to the way the wind was blowing. They¡¯d been dragging in more olthoi from the east, doubtless stirred up by all the burning Elemental gunk popping and steaming all over the landscape. It was now coming out of the west, where, well, the olthoi were pretty much cooked. Still, it was thinning, and my being able to hit fifty of them at a time, every time, was certainly helping. Kris was one-shotting all but the toughest stuff, and the tough stuff still wasn¡¯t strong enough to get past her, especially when she expeditiously began batting them off the stone walkway for a sixty-foot fall to a very uncompromising floor¡­ a floor I quickly had hundreds of yard-long spikes jutting from just to give them an even merrier time of things as they plummeted down from above and impaled themselves. Then I had to grow the things bigger as the falling olthoi kept stacking up on themselves faster than vivus ate them away, but that was fine. Mira was happy to handle that matter while I did the Darts-targeting off my Detect Vermin, and Kris was smart enough to bat them around to different locations and give them time to crumple and Burn down without stacking up too high. The tipping point was reached when the last of the powerful Swarm variants, which seemed to draw strength from the presence of their kin around them, was chopped down, and all that were left were standard olthoi of fanatic mindset, but not the same level of durability. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Kris began to advance on them, anything wounded and Burning not able to sustain a hit, and everything close to us was wounded by now. Her Cleave Train went off, and olthoi shrieked and died by the dozens as she just didn¡¯t stop moving. I ripped more flaming holes in more and more of them around her killpath, and she veered to include them in a relentless butchery of the bugs. The last five hundred of the bugs lasted less then two minutes as I holed them and she put them down, at the end there building up so much killing momentum that the olthoi seemed to be exploding to pieces around her as she tore through the mass of them, unstoppable and undeniable. The last thirty of them died in less then six seconds, ripped through and apart and tumbling out of her path as they ruptured in Flames and dropped with their shrieking cries, acrid death scent, and spurting acidic blood going vivic. I stood up by the fallen and shattered ruin of the doorway and nave, looking out over a field of misting olthoi carcasses all breaking down and covering the ground in heavy mist. There was only their death scent in the air now, no fighting scent, and the incoming olthoi I could see in the distance were slowing now, the smell of their living kin alarmingly absent before them. I flicked a Mending at Kris¡¯ leathers, and she grunted as they began to put themselves back together. She had a lot of light injuries, and had taken a couple nasty impaling stabs at some point or another, but everything was being Fast-Healed away. Her Vajra and Necklace had dealt with pretty much all of the acidic damage, and at least kept it from coagulating on her. ¡°That was a lot of Shards,¡± she noted, eyeing my Aurora Stance and the subtle glitter of mana draw as I was standing there surrounded by Disks of salvage, two heaped up with olthoi heads of the more powerful bugs. ¡°I thought you were having problems with Perpetual not working properly now?¡± I lowered Crown, popped off its noquar cap, and the Wand of Shards within it was ejected. It fell into my hand, and the rowan-wood and quartz length promptly collapsed into flinders that fell to dust before they hit the ground. ¡°Oh, well, that explains it,¡± she said easily. A Wand held up to a hundred charges of a minor spell, and Wand as Staff meant I could use them at the same level as my own Casting ability. ¡°How¡¯s your Reserves?¡± ¡°Pool down to one-fifth,¡± I admitted. ¡°Sorcerer Slots down to half. Wizard is fine, but that¡¯s emergency-only, danger-level.¡± ¡°And now you¡¯ve got to make a back-up Wand.¡± I inclined my head at that. ¡°Really, you should have a few of those, right? Can¡¯t your apprentices make them?¡± ¡°Yes. I generally have them make them, and then I charge them up. They don¡¯t do offensive spells much, as without Wand as Staff their offensive power is very limited, so they enjoy the change of pace.¡± The single biggest use of Wands was for Healing magic, naturally. ¡°Like every Caster who can use a Wand Chamber doesn¡¯t grab that Feat,¡± Kris snorted, turning around to look at her handiwork while her Fast Healing did its thing. ¡°Only two-thirds Summons,¡± she judged, looking at the way most of the bodies had already disappeared, the living taking longer to break down, and that still happening fast with so much vivus in so small an area. ¡°That¡¯s a lot of olthoi.¡± ¡°And more coming, trying to work up their nerve to investigate further,¡± I pointed out, and she huffed, a cruel smile flitting across her lips before she looked away, pale violet eyes flashing a promise to come back and finish the job. ¡°Right, so we¡¯re out of here. Straight south and over the mountains, let them whine when they can¡¯t chase us readily?¡± ¡°If at all possible, I want to investigate the top of the mount and one of the Dungeons near the Paradox Olthoi Hive.¡± She gave me an inquiring glance. ¡°The Mick said there was an NPC there who sold an Olthoibane Infusion for the Swords of Lost Light. Their tent was right above the Paradox zone, yet was never attacked by the olthoi. Also, down in that Dungeon were the bunch of NPC¡¯s who made more Olthoi-Slaying Weapons out of olthoi parts.¡± We only had four of the things to use as references right now. ¡°Ho, that is indeed worth investigating,¡± Kris admitted with a nod and glance at Quaver, her Sword pulsing with satisfaction at a job of extermination well-done. ¡°Do you think they might still be alive?¡± ¡°The ones above-ground, no. I am hoping the olthoi would leave alone by instinct any materials that are baneful to them. The ones below-ground¡­ the way Lord Mick described it, the Dungeon was designed to defend against olthoi, and they had excellent Weapons for doing so. I don¡¯t know where they¡¯d get their food and drink, but they seemed to have no problems doing so before, so who knows?¡± ¡°And if not, if there¡¯s even one of their Weapons left around, that¡¯s good enough for us,¡± Kris nodded understanding. ¡°Okay, that¡¯s pretty reasonable.¡± She flipped Quaver over and resheathed the Sword as it fell to dagger-size, stretching out and popping her shoulders as she did so. ¡°I¡¯m guessing we should also take a different path there? Or how do you want to play this?¡± ¡°Well, we can¡¯t do much investigating if we¡¯re trailing a horde of them again,¡± I noted. ¡°That leaves Cloudstepping or Invisibility,¡± she murmured. ¡°The latter won¡¯t last overlong, while the former does leave us attracting fliers, but the bugs on the ground shouldn¡¯t chase us¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯d suggest waiting until nightfall and doing a Cloudstepping Run along a new course, seeing what we can see with our Masks and noting it down for the future. This IS a scouting trip, after all. Gotta get some work done.¡± We both turned to look at the ruin of Citadel Valley. A lambent glow in two spectrums painted the sky there, while unleashed Elemental energies were riding out on the multi-colored lava spilling out the former canyon entryway to the place. The great hive up the mountain nearby was peppered with all sorts of unusual Elemental fires, while olthoi swarmed the place and tried to pry them out, causing Elementals to erupt out of nowhere when they did so. ¡°I imagine they really don¡¯t like us by now, but lo and behold, they aren¡¯t running about the landscape where all the happy burning lights are,¡± Kris noticed with a practiced eye. ¡°Might sound funny, but I can probably get mana back faster around stuff spewing out lots of it. Hey, you might even amuse yourself with popping some Elementals up and putting them down for practice.¡± ¡°Kill counts are eternal!¡± she agreed. ¡°Mom gets so envious about the fast spawn of stuff here. She wants you to hurry up and make Thirteen so her and dad can take a high-karma vacation here!¡± I didn¡¯t know what Levels they were, but the idea of a pair of senior Ranthas vacationing here with karmic accumulation on their minds was all sorts of bad news for someone! AF Chapter 243 – An Elemental Paradox ¡°We haven¡¯t even entered any of the truly legendary high-Level Dungeons or fighting areas, if what Lord Mick says is true, although the Frozen Valley is probably less desirable than it once was. Basically down to Frozen Wights, Bloodstones, and Frost Golums.¡± And Briggs and his boys up at Stonehold were exploiting that, with rather more than a few paramounts wanting to head up there and also take part in some old excitement¡­ once they had more magical protections in place against the Frozen undead of Gellid, of course. ¡°The Matron Hives should take care of blooding the lads on olthoi,¡± she nodded, pointing. I stepped up on a Disk, rapping Crown against Quaver to pass control, and she headed back towards the sparks and flames and mists of the volcano blast area, replete with Elemental lights blazing and no doubt many Elementals trying to get free. ¡°We just need to grab the other two so we¡¯ve a clear and easily accessible progression.¡± ¡°Uziz and Khayyaban,¡± I recalled, as her gliding steps picked up effortless speed. The watching olthoi in the distance could see us go, but if they were following, it was very slow and more like investigating what had happened at the Mansion with the thick mist boiling over everything¡­ and eating away all signs of olthoi ecology in the area, too, so they¡¯d find it very uncomfortable to remain there. ¡°It¡¯s hill country, on the border of the deserts the undead basically claim, so right on the edge of a new conflict zone. Unless we roll across the deserts and clean the undead out first, which we basically were going to do regardless.¡± ¡°After we dealt with the Gotrok.¡± ¡°Correct,¡± she confirmed. The renegade lugians needed to be dealt with, and were under increasing pressure as we tightened the noose around them, Sealed the landscape spawn points, and reduced their Summons to a mere tithe of what they had been able to command before to artificially swell their forces. That, and their warriors not coming back when they died had dropped some lightning on their too-conductive heads, while our refusal to be baited into a fight where hidden armies of Lugian Summons would erupt out of mines, surround us, and annihilate us on their behalf was making them gnash their teeth. ¡°Let¡¯s get your mana back, wait for night, and go do some investigating. I¡¯ll add another stop: we need to check out Arwic.¡± We¡¯d only run by it in the distance earlier, and gotten lucky with popping the Matron coming to move into the place. Arwic had once been the big adventurer¡¯s city of the Aluvians, and the busiest center of adventurer traffic in Dereth. Flattened by the Shades and rebuilt bigger and better, it had been abandoned like all the other cities during the Fall, with many of its buildings shattered and fallen from magical feedback stemming from the Wards about the city. The paramounts in particular spoke about rebuilding it wistfully, but the scouting reports were that the area was crawling with olthoi after the Hea had cleaned it out. I considered that, and inclined my head. ¡°The Olthoi Hunter?¡± I asked reasonably. ¡°Pretty powerful NPC, for all her low Levels, if she can instantly transform olthoi hides and carapaces into shields and armor, right?¡± Numerous examples of her craft had survived the Fall, although they needed alchemical skills to maintain and repair them now. Both Briggs and Kris had examined samples of all of them, and dearly wanted to know the methodology behind them, as the results were clearly superior to what Briggs had been able to work out for himself. Like all the NPC¡¯s, nobody knew her actual name, or how she was THE Olthoi Hunter, despite her Level, which was much too low to fight the more powerful olthoi successfully. Heck, the appellation should have gone to Queen Elysa, who had at least wounded and nearly killed the senior Olthoi Queen! Established NPC¡¯s were hard to get rid of, clearly tied to the System in some way, and even the undead had recognized that fact. If they were harmless and useful, the undead had only corrupted them into undead themselves, instead of slaughtering them and making sure they couldn¡¯t respawn. ¡°Didn¡¯t the Hea have some tales about some vengeful ghost killing the olthoi near Arwic?¡± I asked thoughtfully. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s why I¡¯m curious. It would be funny if the Olthoi Hunter was actually hunting the olthoi there, right?¡± ¡°Decked out in her own olthoi armor, no doubt¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯d like to see for myself. But one thing at a time.¡± ¡°You¡¯re so lucky you can Warlord from half the island away without missing a beat, and we can get to a needed location so fast as needed,¡± I sniffed. ¡°Bondmages for fun and profit!¡± she laughed at me. ------ The Hellfire Elemental¡¯s white-hot, or rather, blue-hot flames snuffed out as Quaver disrupted its force structure, and it dropped to puddles of Elemental fire, which rapidly dissipated back into the manafield and ground, leaving only scorched spots behind to indicate it had been there¡­ and an array of glittering stones. I scooped them up so Kris wouldn¡¯t have to, shaking my head. The biggest one was nearly the size of my fist. I flicked it over to her, and she nabbed it to examine closely. It had been a head-sized chunk of burning Firestone and oozing Acidic energies, which she had taken upon herself to split apart to alleviate her boredom while I drew mana and we waited for nightfall. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. The eruption of the Elementals was anticipated and dealt with coolly, one of each energy type popping up after she split the stone. What was not anticipated was how minor gemstones seemed to be part of their makeup. Furthermore, Kris, being the perfectionist she was, had started carving down the two resulting stones, whittling away the dead areas and imperfections in the crystal¡­ and more Elementals had spawned out of the stones she cut away, then dropped refined minor gemstones when she killed them off. She was now holding up a fiery jacinth, swirling with purified Elemental energies, a clearly magical gemstone worth at least ten goldweight, twice that in Fire aspect. It matched the new glittering box-cut emerald also quietly seething with corrosive Acidic power. The minor stones themselves in total added up to more than a goldweight of assorted stone types, all with a Fire or Acid bias doubling their value if used in such forms of magic. Kris looked at me over the fortune in her palm, and our eyes mutually followed a complete circle looking at all the rocks around us, seething and spitting with so much imbued Elemental energy. ¡°Are you thinking what I¡¯m thinking?¡± she asked shortly. ¡°That Gaerlan¡¯s ego deserves a big fat kiss before we take his head?¡± I asked her quietly, helplessly counting lights and numbers. We both stopped looking around as we settled onto the multi-colored lava spilling out of the Citadel Canyon a few miles away. ¡°Not only did he throw out a few zillion Elemental gemstones for us to scavenge, he gave us an active mine of them,¡± Kris said softly. ¡°Do you think the arsehat knew what would happen?¡± ¡°Nothing I¡¯ve heard about him indicates much in the manner of foresight. Maniacal monologuing, hatred of everyone, ambition for power, and underestimating short people seem to be the things I remember most about him,¡± I answered. ¡°So, gloating over the fact he may just have solved the goldweight problem for all Isparians is totally proper.¡± ¡°Oh, it is,¡± I agreed, shaking my head. ¡°Even if the mining involves killing at least four True Elementals or larger.¡± Based on what had just happened. ¡°Not something for all the low Levels, true, but¡­ loot drops!¡± She had to grin at the irony of it. The manifesting Elemental gathered up the discarded stones from the gemcutting and refined them into viable gemstones that regulated its form. We hadn¡¯t found anything worth more than a hundred gold coins, a fifth of a goldweight, for value, but it was still money falling out of nowhere. ¡°And from what I can see, the olthoi aren¡¯t scavenging them, they are just removing them. They probably discovered that cleaving them generated Elementals, and decided to just move them out of the way.¡± At least, that was what the olthoi on the mountainside seemed to be doing, shoving them into small stands and piles, and very obviously NOT taking them into their hives to scavenge and transform for their own uses. ¡°I¡¯m gathering they are antithetical to the olthoi ecology, and can¡¯t be broken down by their mold, slime, and acid baths.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a lot of money just sitting around,¡± Kris mentioned thoughtfully, her soulclaw, which she¡¯d used to cut the stones, glittering over her black nails. ¡°And you need to be a master gemcutter AND an extremely skilled combatant to take advantage of it all. That¡¯s not a common combination,¡± I pointed out. ¡°The Mick has been wondering what kind of trade skill he could be picking up that would be useful. He was leaning towards Whitesmithing, so he could triple the value of pyreal making Craftcoins in his downtime. I think I have a better idea for him.¡± ¡°Claiming and working that mine is going to be quite the adventure,¡± I mused, eyeing the matron hive sitting there like a swollen boil on the mountainside above it. ¡°There¡¯s still three hours to sundown. Mind if we make a fortune during that time?¡± I considered the downsides of having a metric arseload of goldweight to play with, instead of just Naming Karma, and nodded slowly. ¡°I need to get started on my Primus, my Prime Elemental Command Ring. This is just perfect for doing so.¡± Kris gave me a look, doubtless running over the Stats for such a thing in her head. ¡°Mithar and His mighty Mutt, you can actually make one of those?¡± she finally asked. I nodded again. ¡°The important thing is the Elemental Command and the passive abilities. The triggered spells are mostly electives. I¡¯d rather have four-way Elemental Command than Burning Hands on demand, but everything in time. ¡°It takes a full year of Karma to make a Prime Elemental Command Ring to completion, but only three months to get all the passives in place.¡± I inclined my head at the nearest chunk of too-energetic rock, fire and lightning chasing one another over its surface. ¡°Given how the System works here, I imagine wearing one makes the Elementals regard you as one of their own, unless you attack them. We might even be able to talk to them, and if so, give them orders.¡± Kris¡¯ eyes narrowed. ¡°An Elemental army could be VERY useful. Weren¡¯t the people at that Crater place doing that?¡± ¡°Localized to their area, and it¡¯s probably the biggest Fire mana hotspot on Dereth, but yes.¡± According to Master Oswald. ¡°I¡¯d like one!¡± Straight-up admitting it, no hesitation. ¡°I can make one up as a Bondring, tied to our Bond. That means you can use Naming Karma on it, as well as drop goldweight into it.¡± ¡°What about the differences in Elemental definition?¡± she asked archly, considering the implications of that. ¡°I¡¯ll go with the traditional Four, and you can make up the Isparian equivalent. We¡¯ll find out together, I imagine.¡± ¡°Sounds good!¡± She grinned in anticipation, quickly selecting a lightning/cold rock, so we¡¯d have one of each Element to compare to one another. Quaver hummed in anticipation, the sharp hues of the Prismatic Stone¡¯s anti-Elemental effect shimmering over her Golden edge as Kris paced towards her target. I probably wouldn¡¯t have to do much, and I still had lots of mana to get back, given how low I¡¯d been in Pool and Slots, but no reason I couldn¡¯t help with Elemental Dart Cantrips, for instance¡­ AF Chapter 244 – The Hill and the Hole We were both in a good mood as Princess Kristie hustled across the sky, Cloudstepping out of reach of the olthoi on the ground. Any lacerators or other flying types that zipped after us I popped with no-cost Darts until they dropped out of the sky, Holy Banefire Kickers doing their things as the wedges of fire-force smashed into and through them patiently and accurately while Kris just ran away from them. There was a net thrown over the bundle of Elemental rocks on one Disk, thoughtfully woven of chorozite-laced strands in order to contain magical things like virindi, and which proved adequate at tamping down the Elemental reactions of the rocks. There were only a dozen of them, kept separated by the mesh, as we were sure they¡¯d build into a chain reaction and start generating Elementals if allowed to cluster, something we¡¯d seen happen to the nearby olthoi hive¡¯s little mounds after an hour or two of stacking. Over a dozen spontaneous materializations of multiple Elementals had exploded out of the mounds of rocks the olthoi had stacked up, all up and down the mountainside, and the place had erupted into fast combat as the olthoi had to put down well over two hundred Elementals that had come out of nowhere. Then they had to redistribute the rocks that were in the way off to the sides and further apart, too. I had remarked that the olthoi probably wanted nothing more than for someone to take all those rocks off their hands, and an amused Kris had agreed. We were painting the landscape below into The Map. It was free of Elemental stones burning away, but it was chock full of a lot of stands of mushroom the size of trees. Faintly luminous spores drifted in the air, kept at bay by Kris¡¯s Vajra and me with my Mask warding my face. Paths and layers of matted olthoi fungi-ecology cut across the valleys and hills, replacing the grass and brush which would normally grow there, and even the moss and algae along the rivers and streams was a hue that glowed at night and seemed to turn the water a greenish hue that generally flowed east towards the ocean. Here and there great sloped holes gaped in the landscape, and Summons stood around waiting to be triggered, universally olthoi or their nominal predators, the grievvers. Nests of the spidery beasts were visible here and there, draped in silk between stands of mushrooms. There were also buried tunnels which the grievvers could pop out of with frightening speed, levering webbed caps back into place after snatching a young olthoi drone or grub that wandered where it shouldn¡¯t have, sweeping them up and making them vanish with commendable speed. I also spotted thrungus who had moved in among some of the mushroom stands, the stands¡¯ color changing to more reds and yellows after they did so. It didn¡¯t seem to alarm the olthoi, so I wondered if the mucor ecology was actually compatible with the olthoi, and the fungi-folk had no trouble adapting to the differences¡­ I did hope that mucor didn¡¯t have magical effects on olthoi, or we could be in for a bad time. ------ Our entry path had taken us over the Paradox Hive, generating all sorts of territorial response from the landscape spawns and a few real olthoi. The trail we¡¯d taken off to the north was apparent to a discerning eye, as it was largely free of any and all Summons, courtesy of the vivus from the kills I¡¯d made as Kris lightfooted on through the place. The Paradox Olthoi Queen was the last of the prodigal mutations undertaken by the renegade virindi named Aerbax. Originally captured from the infamous hive called the Black Death Catacombs, she had been pressured by other olthoi suspicious of the changes to her and her brood to move down to the south, by the mountains bordering the lands nominally held by Isparians and the wild tribes of banderlings, monugas, and mites. She was now in the foothills of the Lost Wish mountain range, her Hive one of three Dungeons there forced back into reality by the Fall, which seemed to have affected even olthoi dimension-digging. One of those Dungeons ostensibly led to an underground colony of olthoi-fighting survivalists with specialized weapons, a truly unfortunate location for them when the Paradox Queen arrived with her brood. Atop the hill nearby had been an outpost of Royal Guards sent here to watch and perhaps trim back the size of the Paradox Queen¡¯s brood, even sponsoring attempts to go in and kill her¡­ which never lasted, tied to the System as she was, and nobody knowing how to sever the link. For some reason, the olthoi never came up high enough to threaten the tent, although subtle Wards encouraging them to turn away were certainly possible and not spoken about. The fact the place was important enough to serve as a Recall anchor for a custom Item Magic spell certainly indicated that something important was going on below the surface, but it all appeared to have been broken at the Fall. Kris glided down onto the location of the tent, visible simply by dint of being a stretch of stone not covered by a carpet of brown-gray alien moss. There were shattered boxes and poles strewn around, somehow surviving fifteen years of the Elements, although there was no sign of anything living now¡­ or we would have seen it the first time through. Her Tremblesense worked better than a Detect, since it had could go right into the dirt and earth, seeing everything instead of a specific target. She had to concentrate to filter out the unwanted stuff, but hopefully there shouldn¡¯t be anything too deep, given we were on top of a stone hill. Of course, the Paradox Hive squatting down there at the bottom of said hill was definitely a looming threat, and the number of Summons and real olthoi on the landscape was not small. Happily, if you could quench your scent, you stood a good chance of escaping their attention in the night and the dark, although we did have to be quiet. The area to walk around wasn¡¯t very big, and she just paced along the perimeter, then proceeded directly into the center. I waited while she sorted through random impressions, not really expecting anything, but then her brow furrowed and her head turned around. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Seriously?¡± I asked, glancing at the area she was looking at. My Detects had nothing but more moss and fungi. ¡°Seriously.¡± She sent me the visualization, and I had to lift an eyebrow, too. One foot on stone, I could easily Shape the rock of the area to cut through the fungi mat, push it slowly up and aside, and then open up like a flower, revealing what was buried under dirt, debris, and a carpet of otherworldly lichen. There was just one, sitting among the fragments of maybe a dozen others. It was greenish-yellow in hue, the flask still capped, and the one bit of lichen that fell down onto the stone around it withered and died almost instantly. An Olthoibane Infusion... ¡°Huh.¡± I studied the structure of the crystal, and then reinforced it with another layer of stone around it, lest fragility break it apart where time had not. I reached out and broke it off the Shaped extrusion, which I sent back down into the ground, even roughly closing the lichen above it. ¡°Only one enough?¡± Kris asked, eyeing it in fascination. ¡°Yes. I can do a Divination to reverse engineer the construction process and find the formula as an alchemical derivation. Pretty sure a lot of concentrated olthoi acid is required.¡± ¡°And that¡­ Radiant Infusion he talked about.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re ready to be traipsing around the Dark Isle yet, if his stories are correct.¡± ¡°No, no, I agree with you on that,¡± Kris agreed. She turned around, paced off southwest and looked over the edge of the hillside leading down there, where the two secondary Dungeons close to the Paradox Hive gaped open, ready to admit the recalcitrant to their doom. ¡°Lot of olthoi around those,¡± she said, as I stepped up next to her. ¡°Paradox olthoi. Mmm,¡± I agreed. ¡°Might be wise not to run in all Swords blazing and making a bit of a target of ourselves, right?¡± ¡°And just how confident are you that something able to drill through dimensions can¡¯t shut down Teleporting as an extension of the Portals the adventurers here used to use?¡± ¡°I am not certain at all of it. How about I send down a Wizard Eye at V+2 or something, and we see how much we can see that way?¡± She didn¡¯t need to think it over that much. ¡°They can pop it like an egg if they sense it, but hopefully it¡¯s small enough to fly under the radar, and it should have all the range we need, right?¡± ¡°Hoping. I can use any basic Detects through it that I need to, also. If we find something underground, I¡¯ll have an automatic location, and should be able to D-Door right down to it without any problem.¡± ¡°And if there is a problem¡­ then perhaps we can just drop down and you Shape us a slide right to the desired location or something.¡± Kris¡¯s thumb moved over the Prismatic Stone currently set in Quaver¡¯s pommel. ¡°Do you really think there¡¯s going to be any Isparian survivors down there after so long?¡± ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know. Supposedly they survived underground near the olthoi for almost a full generation before they were discovered. However, that was with Asheron¡¯s Protection and the deathstones, later on, and before the Paradox Hive. They could try going back to their former methods, but who knows if that actually worked?¡± ¡°Or they could have been just NPC¡¯s, as Lord Mick couldn¡¯t find any mention of this colony of survivors they supposedly came from,¡± Kris murmured. ¡°If they are just standing about a room down there after all this time, I think I¡¯m going to hit something, just on general purpose.¡± ¡°Pretty sure the olthoi can kill something tied to the System here if they have the time and inclination, especially the Paradox Olthoi.¡± I sat back against the Disk behind me as I began to bring up the up-Valenced Wizard Eye VII, Heaven¡¯s Eye, which coalesced as a spot of flickering black light, a tiny glint of silver glowing on the surface of the eyeball-sized divination sensor. I flipped up the relay on my internal Visual File, shared it through the Mark with Kris, and we both watched it as it zipped over the edge and plummeted straight down at breakneck speed towards the nearer of the two Dungeons below. It was night, and even if the olthoi were somewhat sensitive to magic, I¡¯d wound the magic tight, and they noticed nothing as the Heaven¡¯s Eye shot past them and into the Dungeon they were standing around. The Visual File painted the 3D map of the Dungeon into place as I zipped down along the ceiling, noting that the olthoi goo and film typical of their Dungeons we¡¯d been in with them was present here, but didn¡¯t seem particularly well-maintained. Detect Vermin did spot three olthoi in the main chamber below, but there didn¡¯t seem to be an egg chamber there, and I avoided the Summons that were sitting there twiddling their pincers as I zipped towards the back wall, looking for¡­ huh, that. There¡¯d been a passage leading out here, with spikes inset into the walls to hinder the olthoi and force them into single-file, made from their own pedipalps and capable of punching into them if they tried to go too fast or with too much force. I could see the spikes on the ground, left there when a bunch of olthoi had simply lined up and carved out the passageway there, widening it by mined force and making the obstructions to them basically worthless. ¡°I don¡¯t imagine the natives made that work easy,¡± Kris murmured, as the view moved fairly quickly along the acid-seared, pincer-chopped tunnel cleft through the stone. ¡°But they obviously got through.¡± ¡°Aye, I imagine the olthoi would recycle their own dead, so no carcasses¡­¡± I murmured, following the winding track of the tunnel through over fifty yards of stone, where it abruptly widened out into a larger chamber. AF Chapter 245 – The Fate of the Olthoi Slayers There had definitely been some kind of fighting here. There were chop and stab marks all over the walls from acid-sheathed pedipalps, along with the cuts and crunches from magical Weapons tearing into stone during combat and spells going off, largely piercing and bludgeoning spells leaving their telltale penetrating or ring-like impact signs behind when they¡¯d missed a target. There were no olthoi remains per se remaining, and any form of ornamentation or furniture that might have indicated an Isparian presence had been chopped apart or acid-sprayed, and were probably buried under mounds of phosphorescent slime of olthoi origin growing here and there. ¡°No way out of there? That¡¯s just a deathtrap then¡­¡± Kris commented, as the Eye slowly panned across the room, Devilsight lighting it up as brightly as a noontime plaza. ¡°Any indications of magic?¡± ¡°Not a one. Note the lack of spores in the air, and the spread of slime looks more like a dying network trying to hold on, rather than something expanding into this area.¡± ¡°Huh. Something here is killing the ecology?¡± Kris obviously liked the idea. ¡°Then examine the floors in the middle of where it isn¡¯t growing, right?¡± The Eye tilted down to more closely examine the ground. ¡°Definitely something lying down there,¡± Kris murmured, leaning forward unconsciously to inspect the image in her head. ¡°Looks like a knobbed staff made from some really long legs, right?¡± It was broken in two, but it was also right in the center of a circle that the slime wasn¡¯t approaching on the floor. ¡°Kind of janky and jagged for a Weapon, but manageable enough,¡± Kris judged. ¡°If there¡¯s more than one down there, that¡¯s worth popping in and collecting them all.¡± I turned to glance at the unnatural mound of the Paradox Hive over there. ¡°Guesstimating ninety percent or more that whatever is generating the fluctuations in magic I can sense is going to sense a Dim Door popping up.¡± Kris nodded coolly, even as the Eye stopped on top of an axe made from two melded and molded pedipalps fused together, the haft shattered, but the head still intact. ¡°You can Shape a tunnel up and we can get out of there quick, come back here, grab the Disks and get out of there?¡± I just sighed. ¡°But you¡¯re not going to leave it at that, are you?¡± ¡°Godsdamn, Ryin, you know me too damn well.¡± Eight canines gleamed with vengeance. ¡°It¡¯s like two monstrous butcherings of olthoi in one day aren¡¯t enough for a Hag, or something.¡± ¡°We can assume a Hivemind, so the response will be quick.¡± I waved the Disks into a tight circle and lowered them to the ground, taking the Orb off the top of Crown to float in the middle of them to give them a magical focus so they wouldn¡¯t dissipate once we got out of range. ¡°I¡¯ll take the tunnel-¡± ¡°Speed run the chamber and paint it in your tremblesense,¡± I interrupted her calmly. ¡°I¡¯ll grab everything relevant with TK.¡± ¡°That¡¯s faster,¡± she agreed without hesitation. Quaver fluttered motes of Lost Light as it slid into her hand. ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡± I flicked up the flat, rectangular darkness of the Dimension Door between us, centered on the Eye down below, and we leapt through opposite sides of it at one another. --- One of the things you need to do if you work with Dimensional Magic is get used to the disorientation of skipping points in space. There are many things that your body registers and compensates for that you aren¡¯t consciously aware of, from air pressure and magnetic orientation to gravitational pressure and illumination. I had to say that this was a great world for practicing that stuff, since the rapid Mana Renewal allowed a lot of ¡®porting to and fro via everything from Blink to Teleports to get used to the disorientation, and Kris had been with me for most of those sessions, popping all over isolated areas, gridmapped out for precision ¡®porting tests and visualization practice, including to areas only seen through Divinations. That tactic had a particular name: Whizbanging. Take a team, drop in on a position, and hit it with overwhelming force. If there¡¯s any type of opposition remaining, ¡®port on back out before they get an Interdiction up and can whelm to trap you. The existence of the tactic and it being used against you was why Interdictions were so damn common in any society that had dimensional movement options. The variant the Olthoi Queen in the Hive nearby used was different than normal, a vibratory shaking of the Veil that would rip any other dimension-shifting magic apart even as it was forming. I guess she had experience with Isparian adventuring teams coming in and beating on her brood and didn¡¯t want them just Recalling out when they were all ready to go. That said, normal Isparians had never had the movement options we had. Kris slid through and took no time to readjust, her exquisitely sensitive Tremblesense snapping from details of one location to another with a resilient speed that completely ignored the stress of the abrupt relocation, while I just pivoted and looked around with layered Divs to see what else I could see around here. The edge of her Tremblesense brushed past some of those mounds of fungi and slime, and I grimaced as she snarled. Vivic Darts promptly exploded on those mounds, blowing them apart, and the heaped bones that somehow still remained at the bottom of them were exposed as the vivus began to Burn on them, despite being so long dead any hint of negative energy should have been long gone from them. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Zeks yanked, and a Wand was pulled out from under the first pile of bones and slime, spinning end over end before being deposited on the Disk that unfolded out of my Masspack to receive it. I could feel a hissing and vibration of the psiscape, indicating that telepathic commands were coming out from the Hivemind. Kris zipped around the whole room in less than ten seconds, and then was Skating out the tunnel leading in here. A grim smile was on her lips and a wide arc of Lost Light trailing behind her as Stand flipped onto her right arm, and she was off to intercept the olthoi who would be coming this way. Zeks grabbed and pulled at multiple targets on the floor and under mounds of olthoi slime after I blew apart the latter. Multiple weapons, all of them broken or damaged if in the open, fully intact but leached of magic if under a mound, tumbled onto the Disk floating behind me. They were all obviously made from olthoi body parts, particularly the pedipalps. There were also pieces and shards of olthoi armor from at least ten different sets and people, left behind just as the weapons were. It was quite a mound, and I had to stack things up smartly as Zeks dragged them over to me, even as I stepped towards the access tunnel myself. I reached over and picked up the first Wand Zeks had pulled over. It was cold and had no mana within it, none of the supplemental Runecraft that the Mick had indicated was integral to them¡­ except one. A spark of thirst and enmity to olthoi ignited in the Wand as I brought power in through it. I established a conduit of power across my shoulder blades, moving from Crown to this Wand, which was happy to accept the energy and do all sorts of fun things to it. I heard an olthoi scream at the far end of the tunnel as Kris jammed Quaver up through its thorax. Her Tremblesense was telling her that a lot of olthoi were moving this way to help the three, two, one, none Summons left in this place. She was only smiling in expectation as she moved towards the incoming ramp to give herself some opening room to retreat¡­ and me to Chain shit through a whole lot of them in tight quarters. There were going to be a lot of olthoi dying in here, although I didn¡¯t know if it would do any good. I was pretty sure the Queen was ordering the Summons this way to be the ones killed, and the real olthoi would be left outside to help maintain the Interdiction. Thus, our fighting here would be ultimately pointless. We¡¯d only shut down a handful of Summons points, kill a bunch of constantly-replaced Summons, gain some Naming Karma, and prove to the local Queen that Isparians had returned and were deadly enemies once again. That last was going to be important. Would it trigger an invasion, or fortification? Would the Queens understand what we were doing in this place? In the end, it didn¡¯t matter all that much. Kris was pissed at them, wanted to vent, and Naming Karma waited for nobody. --- We held out for a fairly easy two hours. Bolstered by the Slaying effect on my Wand, even endlessly repeatable Darts had impressive olthoi-eating Kickers to them, and enough Chains tearing through the packed olthoi trying to get at us could wear down even the toughest of them eventually. Still, there were too many of them to prevail against, especially since their Summons points just brought a new one back within five to ten minutes, all of which were simply added to the rush coming after us. That was fine. A whole lot of olthoi died as I punched holes in lots of them, Slaying Fires in multiple colors ignited on them. Kris would then run a Cleave Train out and back through them, chopping down dozens with harmonious death-shrieks in just seconds, and was back in position to take their charges and punish them for it before any of them could get past her to me¡­ not that I didn¡¯t have plenty of reserve Casting to deal with them with more force if needed, but we both knew that wasn¡¯t very important. The Slayer effect was very noticeable, the enhanced Kickers rendering the Cantrip offense nearly as effective as spending minimum Mana on a I Valence Shards¡­ which meant infinitely sustainable useful firepower. The olthoi actually couldn¡¯t shove us back down the tunnel. They were too wounded by Burning alive by the time they crowded into it and made it to Kris, who basically chose when to charge into them, reap them all, then retreat and start the process all over. I just punched holes and lit up everything popping up on my Detect, streaks of hard force piercing through two dozen at a time and winding their way through the swarm of bugs until they dissipated. They even twisted up out of the Dungeon itself and played havoc with the olthoi outside. I noted which ones retreated to safer distances when the Darts got in among them and reaped them some real olthoi who were a little too close to us. --- ¡°Time?¡± I asked her politely, another trio of Darts coming up around the Wand made from polished olthoi spine and tipped with precisely ground-down mandible tines. The vivus was literally waist-high at this point, so many Summons dying and the ground stained absolutely white. Olthoi slime and mold was falling off the walls, pillars, and ceiling, revealing veins of white shot through the stone as they did so, and it was pretty plain that the olthoi were not very comfortable in here. Well, any that were in here were Burning alive, so that was kind of redundant. ¡°Yeah,¡± Kris admitted reluctantly, sliding and spinning to a stop in front of me once again as she finished another Cleave Train. Flaming carcasses gouting glowing green acidic ichor dropped to the ground, heaped on top of other Burning carcasses whose chitin shells had not yet fully discorporated, but which fell apart under any weight or pressure. Then she turned around, and I looked past her as my Detect registered an abrupt halt of the olthoi. Indeed, they were parting ranks, as if making room for something. ¡°That is in no way at all ominous,¡± Kris remarked upon seeing the odd behavior. ¡°You thinking what I¡¯m thinking?¡± ¡°Sending in a champion-class to really test and see how tough we are?¡± I asked her. ¡°Here it comes down the ramp¡­¡± Quaver began to ring louder in anticipation. Kris barely shifted her Stance, but advanced up seventy feet of tunnel, the corpses of the freshly killed kicked out of her way and breaking apart as she did so. I followed calmly. AF Chapter 246 – The OP Olthoi Super Sentinel The tauroid olthoi sentinel, vaguely humanoidish torso atop a weaponized insect body, clacked slowly and confidently into our sight, the other olthoi keeping a wary distance from it, even retreating back up and outside to free up more room for it to fight us. ¡°How fast can Quaver devour a Weapon?¡± I asked Princess Kristie quickly. ¡°Depends on how powerful it is.¡± Things clattered as a broken, jagged-edged Sword stood up, hilt upright, on my Disk. ¡°Quaver, eat fast.¡± Kris slammed down her Sword onto the pommel of the broken Sword, and Lost Light sparked and flowed, streaming down over the black chitin of the blade as golden Light pumped into it, cracks flaring with magic and energy and a hissing stream of greenish energy arose from the chitin. It was promptly surrounded by swirling Lost Light and channeled right back into Quaver, while the dark organic material crumbled swiftly and fell apart, cracks spreading and then spilling out as the magic inherent in the broken blade was devoured by Quaver. Runes etched themselves into the blue-black adamantine of the Blade, pulsing and ringing with a sharp ding, ting! They also sparked with an emerald hue that fell off them, out and over the metal and its Golden edge, giving it a poisonous green hue that definitely attracted the attention of the Sentinel in front of us. ¡°Olthoi Slayer active,¡± Kris confirmed, getting Stand ready as she settled into position. ¡°Mind telling me why it was so urgent?¡± ¡°One hundred thousand Health,¡± was my short reply, staring at the thing. ¡°Paradox, basically anti-magic on its pincer attacks and bite.¡± She eyed the swirling blue and red lights, as if the cleaver-limbs and jaws of the things were lined with refined chorozite. ¡°And it¡¯s intelligent, even if it can¡¯t understand what we¡¯re saying.¡± She looked right and left. ¡°I note it¡¯s all the weak olthoi who retreated, and the ones left don¡¯t look like they are resting.¡± ¡°It probably wants to pull you away from me and send them against me while you are occupied. They are all above one-shot kill status for me, at least two thousand Health each, with Paradox attacks so my Force Armor and Shields are basically worthless.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s nip that in the bud, then, shall we?¡± she asked rhetorically, as the Tats on her waist glowed. The spidery black lengths of her Arakne Arms grew out of her hips and reached up to grab her Autobow Drop as it rose out of her Masspack and into the grip of the Soul Magic appendages. A bolt slid up from the magazine and into place as the untiring Arms racked the Weapon, and it thrummed out, sparking off the hide of the Sentinel with a bright greenish flash of Health Qi evaporating, leaving no injury behind. Tireless arms of soul energy racked the Autobow again, while Kris basically held down the trigger and didn¡¯t take her eyes off the Sentinel as she fired again. I brought up a full flight of Shards, condensed them to Orb, Ray, and Split them out in a chain of diamond pulses, punching into and through two dozen olthoi with angry pulses of Force Magic tripping on the Slayer effect from the Wand I was wielding. Double damage to the first olthoi, Kickers and all, full damage to those after¡­ I¡¯d be punching them all down in quick order! The Sentinel snapped its head around, realizing what was happening. They were all only Summons, but its tactics obviously weren¡¯t going to work. Perhaps it thought offering a duel was going to make us stupid. With frankly astonishing speed, it leapt right at us with the confidence that it couldn¡¯t be killed, pincers raised and lashing out. The Archer Stand Thrust drove right through its head, its whole body convulsing and its attack faltering because Sword in Brain is not an acceptable living condition. It also vented a metric ton of Health Qi instantly from the triple-damage braced thrust, quadrupled crit, and Slayer double damage on top of it all, eating in excess of 4k damage or something instantly, likely harder than it believed it could possibly be hit. Well, duh, slam your head down onto a spike and see if it don¡¯t hurt, I thought, unleashing another round of Shards, this time Paired up and so doing twice as much damage as the one before. My single primary target up and died instantly, while the olthoi crowding in behind the Sentinel writhed and sprouted a diamond pattern of Flaming holes in their chitin as the magic punched through two dozen more of them. The Sentinel was trying to drive Kris back, and she wasn¡¯t having any of it. With only one opponent to focus on, the others unable to reach her due to the Sentinel¡¯s size, Quaver was a blur of ringing tones and motion, meeting pincers and legs and arms with Sunders that made those limbs convulse in nervous feedback before the Health Qi would annul the hits. They created awkward imbalances and openings in its fighting style as it lurched this way and that, constantly ¡®losing¡¯ legs to her swings, while Quaver chewed into and through its natural armor as if it were soft leather instead of harder and more malleable than steel with Brilliant up and running, a blur of light sliding through its carapace and into the burning acidic blood beneath. It did manage to tag her a few times, whereupon we discovered that its offensive power wasn¡¯t much better than any other Sentinel, it wasn¡¯t really any stronger, and so her defenses and Fast Healing could take care of most of the fighting. It also turned out it could breathe fire at short range, which was plenty amusing, and something we¡¯d noticed among several others of the olthoi, typified by bright red scales around the thorax/throat of the things. Since fire was less of a threat to us than acid, that was all fine. There were around sixty other Summoned Swarm olthoi in the chamber. Three spells later, there were thirty-two, and three spells after that, there were none, but a lot of freshly Burning carapaces were scattered about and feeding the vivus here. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. I shifted methods from Chaining to Echo, and now sent eightfold volleys of Dartrays into the bastard at point-blank range. It still couldn¡¯t get past Kris, who was punishing it with an absolute whirlwind of primary attacks, Sword Beats Fist, and Opportunist fun, along with Hedge of Thorns punishing it for pulling back and attempting to charge back in on her. Too reliant on its armored carapace and monstrous Health Qi, its ability to predict and anticipate blows to dodge them was minimal, and Kris was shredding it for thousands of points a round, the Biting Strike on Quaver triggering again and again for monstrous x4 crits from Crippling Blow. Health Qi vented constantly from wounds that gaped open, then glowed and silently closed. To her thousands of damage I added my own, piling in on top of her to accelerate her attacks and offer her more Opportunist attacks. I was burning Mana and Slots if I upgraded to Shards, but doing thousands of damage, its Health Qi dropping in free fall as it tried to pound at Kris, grab her, throw her, bite her, spit at her, tangle her up, and open up the way to get to me. Kris just wasn¡¯t having any of it. The thing ate her Shield Stand bashing it at least six times, shattering mandibles and teeth each time, while the blade of Quaver played around in its head, abdomen, chest, and throat, hewing off arms and legs repeatedly and letting it know it wasn¡¯t all that. Ding, ting! rang out again and again, reverberating in their minds and chitin that wouldn¡¯t understand our speech, but smashing itself onto the hivemind as the sound of death, coming over and over again. ¡°Health Qi gone!¡± I said, stepping back and going down to mere Darts as a thrumming quarrel from Drop punched into the Sentinel¡­ and this time the blazing hole hissed and leaked flaming acidic blood. The souped-up Sentinel seemed to realize it was about to die, and chose to charge in a frenzy, attempting to overwhelm her with one last smashing flurry of two legs and two weapon arms behind a blowtorch breath. I scooted back another ten feet as Kris did the same, and she once again planted herself. The reaching, rearing pincers o¡¯ doom fell a bit short in chopping down, actually losing most of their force before they could descend. As the fight had started, so it ended, as Kris retreated enough to turn its lunge into a charge, and it hurtled forward to plant its warped insectoid skull on Quaver¡¯s point, nailing itself to the unmoving spike there that finished all its thoughts for it. Kris actually held the whole corpse upright as reflex action began to curl up its legs, so I stepped past her, force-blade snapping into existence atop Crown. I politely hacked through the exposed neck, the magic reinforcing the Sentinel¡¯s carapace dying and fading as it did. The carcass fell down, but even losing the weight of it didn¡¯t break Kris¡¯s Stance in the slightest. She flicked Quaver absently, and I watched the gaping skull arc over her back and fall onto the assembled weapon and armor pieces I¡¯d salvaged perfectly. Before she could say anything, I asked, ¡°How fast can you harvest its carapace?¡± She turned to look at me, ignoring the squeals coming from up above as the smell of its passing ignited both fury and terror, and the air was vibrating with the fury of the distant Paradox Queen. ¡°Hah!¡± she grinned, her Arms grabbing both Stand and Drop and moving them out of the way. Soulclaws crystallized in golden razors over her right hand, Quaver was down to Brilliant heavy knife size, and the Hag¡¯s Laugh that erupted out of her throat with the motion churned the vivic mist over the place as she began to rip the fucker apart in a literal explosion of motion and acidic body parts flying all over the place. --- The olthoi were just starting to stream into the place when blurring hands tossed limbs and body parts into the gutted shell of the thing, Kris hefted it onto on her Disk she had brought out, and we booked for the rear room. The olthoi could only attempt to run after us through the twisty tunnels their rigid bodies couldn¡¯t navigate so easily, and I was nice enough to Shape up bunches of wall razors and spikes to greet them as they charged in. The very sharp and pointy obstructions drew screams and shrieks behind me as enraged Summons drove themselves onto the things, hacking and beating at them as they came after us. I pointed at the wall, and Kris splayed her fingers, Golden claws sank into the stone from both fingers and toes, and she began to climb. I rose up after her, the Disks under us, while below us a wall Shaped up out of the floor and filled in, while ahead of us a tunnel slid open in the ceiling to admit Kris as she climbed up as lithely as a monkey. The olthoi could come into the room, follow the scent trail of blood and gore, and proceed to hammer on the walls there all that they wanted to. They were just burrowing into stone, while we went straight up. --- The tunnel and chamber of this place were actually underneath the main slope of the mountain, meaning we didn¡¯t emerge directly underneath potentially a whole olthoi swarm surrounding that hole in the ground. We came out about a hundred feet up when Kris pointed, and I turned vertical tunnel into horizontal. Kris stepped out into the new tunnel I was Shaping out of the way, and walked steadily behind the receding stone as I rose up and our Disks trailed after. The last layers peeled away, and air rushed in and out as we hit the night sky, allowing us to look out over the fun below. I eyed a good thousand olthoi gathered all around the hole in the ground, numbers streaming inside it as fast as they could, until they couldn¡¯t gather any more because there was no room to fit them and they were really backing up outside. There was another shrieking in the psiscape as the Paradox Queen realized that we¡¯d escaped. All the olthoi below went into a tizzy, running around and scrambling wildly, trying to find something that wasn¡¯t there¡­ although the wasp-like ones buzzing around madly in the air didn¡¯t help us out much. ¡°Can you cover the scent on that thing?¡± she asked, tossing a thumb back at the carcass of the Uber Sentinel. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Then toss up some Invisibility and let¡¯s get out of here.¡± AF Chapter 247 – A Mitey Maze It was night time, and they didn¡¯t have great visual acuity or range of vision, relying more on scent and hearing. We avoided the flying olthoi as we zipped up to the top of the hill, reclaimed the Disks waiting under covers waiting patiently there with their loads of Elemental gems and the like, and simply took off and up for the higher mountains they couldn¡¯t pass over because the geomagnetic repulsion that enabled the bugs to fly didn¡¯t work at those altitudes. No such problem with Cloudstepping Sandals and Flight spells, however, or the Disks being towed after us as long as they were towed. If the Disks lost the link, they¡¯d wink out and everything on them fall to the ground instantly. I noticed Kris turning suddenly east as she studied the ground below us, a long valley running along the south side of the Lost Wish mountains. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you found something else to hunt...¡± Her reply was to point at my hand. ¡°Harlune used to have a base in the Mite Maze, right?¡± I thumbed Rose on my hand. I¡¯d been applying goldweight to it intermittently, as well as some crafting time, using Fabricate to purify and restore the damaged energy channels inside, and rebuild them to a different pattern and standard. ¡°You are correct.¡± I turned my head. ¡°And it¡¯s only a couple miles that way¡­¡± ¡°The odds are it was overrun with olthoi at some point, but Lord Mick indicated it was full of Wasp and Mite Summons, who likely aren¡¯t going to go easy on any olthoi who came wandering in. If there¡¯s any clue on where he went, it might be in there, right?¡± ¡°I¡¯m game.¡± The Olthoi Hunter, if still in Arwic, could wait as we followed up on the clues for the hidden quest. ¡°The Stone Collector said Harlune hated olthoi, and the town criers said he was seen in the Olthoi North. If there¡¯s a clue to where he might be, the Maze might have it, I agree.¡± ¡°And call me jaded, but I¡¯m not too worried about a bunch of Gold Phyntos Wasps and Mites.¡± ------- Six arcs of lightning crashed past and by Kris as she waited there, completely ignoring voltage that would have chopped down a paramount without any effort on her part. I stepped around the side and loosed three teardrop-shaped Darts, which flashed out and hit with bone-crunching blunt force trauma, smashing the thoraxes of three of the wasps flat and knocking them out of the air. The other three zipped forward towards Kris, who impaled the first on Quaver, Shield-slammed the second, and flicker-cut the third eagle-sized insect with bright yellow and jet black markings in two. Visual Files gave us a map-as-you-go, her Tremblesense alerted us to adjoining passages or physical problems, and I could discern all the magical points and forces at work here. Between us, the Dungeon didn¡¯t have many surprises. We didn¡¯t Seal anything here. This was a good Dungeon for learning to fight in cramped spaces, use the environment, and deal with an enemy in melee that newbs were usually able to poke down from afar. We merely cut down the Wasp Summons as we moved through the place with speed and alacrity, mapping as we went. It had three ¡®levels¡¯, a main level with basically two ¡®upper floor¡¯ sections that weren¡¯t connected, and an extensive ¡®basement¡¯, which was the home of the mites. It appeared that the olthoi had indeed made several stabs to get into the place, judging by the fried and punctured shells we found all over the place, occasionally blasted with lightning by hovering Wasps just on instinct if they were in sight, breaking down under the repeated treatment to little more than scattered purplish dust. The Golden Phyntos Wasps ruled the main floor, found everywhere and racing to reinforce one another if they dropped within sight or sound, a fact which could rapidly get a whole swarm of them barreling in, geomagnetic wings all aflutter, stabbing with a lethal stinger or letting loose volleys of lightning spells up to Gold Scarab in strength. Happily, they had fixed respawn points, which meant that you could make your way through the Dungeon without too much problem if you were quiet and knew the layout. That was discernible by the fact we could smell the presence of mites moving in and out of the place, but there were no bodies of them anywhere to be found, meaning they knew how to avoid the wasps when needed. The Mick had said that Harlune¡¯s area was at the rearward upper floor. Given that we were who we were, we did the responsible thing and ventured throughout the entire complex, charting where all the spawn points were, mapping the thing out for later teams to use. That included heading down the first ramp into the basement to see what the mites were up to. It rapidly became obvious there were living mites among the Summons down here, as shattered olthoi carapaces littered the area, along with the bones of dillos, reedsharks, shreth, rabbits, rats, and grouse. Since Summons didn¡¯t hunt and didn¡¯t really need to eat, that was a quite smelly clue there were living things in here taking advantage of the Summons to guard themselves, and probably actively helping in and directing the defense. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Fox-headed anthro Summons yelped and squealed in laughing barks that were extremely annoying in all the ways and came at us, flailing paws in crude punches, clawing motions, nipping bites¡­ and kicks that could actually result in them doing backflips in the middle of combat. Not a one that did such a thing got another blow off at Kris, imagine that. They came streaming in to attack us with laughing barks and territorialism overriding any sense of self-preservation, which I had heard was one of the few things that kept their population under control. The other wild tribes had a severe dislike of mites and tended to war with them constantly, especially the banderlings. Even the Hea thought of them as barely more than pests who were constantly raiding, stealing, attacking, and would kill anything if they could get away with it. We chewed through the fox-headed things with speed and alacrity, me popping them off in trios and Kris mowing through the rest. They were not a species that had any positive contributions to any society, not even having developed tool use, barely a step above apes and far more aggressive. Mites fell, Summons and living alike, the smell truly impressive as they hadn¡¯t even bothered to keep their lair clean normally, probably because dragging kills down was a necessity, but taking the trash out past the wasps would be real work, and the smell would probably pull wasps right to them. The bigger male consorts and the females who led the tribe were at the end of the basement, supposedly where the fire-using mage Brannith had met his end. If a copy of his Staff had been spawned after the Fall, that was a Fire Cleaving Weapon we could plumb for more information, as it was at a lower level of power than the Bloodscorch Replica we¡¯d taken apart to learn its secrets as best we could. Thus, killing everything, including Summoned Mite Matrons attacking alongside the real ones, was completely on the plate, and we did it without qualms. And down here, we vivisized them, too. Didn¡¯t need this place turning into a breeding pit for mites, which undoubtedly it had been for a very long time. With no Summons for free security they didn¡¯t have to feed, this place would be much less friendly to them when the next inevitable olthoi incursion happened. --- ¡°Yow!¡± I blinked at the locked double doors, holding traces of some very energetic attacks upon them from both pincers and claws, all self-repairing because of a devoted ley line link here the rest of the place didn¡¯t actually have. It also meant the walls couldn¡¯t be dug through here, and had kept the Dungeon¡¯s maze intact when I couldn¡¯t actually affect the walls and floors at all. There was a reedshark sitting there¡­ a big one, the size of an auroch! It yipped and sprang at us. It only managed to jam itself onto Quaver and Kris¡¯s ready Archer Stand Thrust Stance, braced and solid and punching right into its brain on the pounce. She braced with heavyfoot and held it back, her legs flexing as she absorbed half a ton of mass slamming into her as the thing jammed itself hilt-deep on her Sword even as it died. ¡°Must be Alfrega,¡± I muttered, eyeing as Kris levered it sideways in the tight hallway. ¡°A bit bigger than Lord Mick described.¡± Harlune had named his pet reedshark after the infamous Mad Queen of Aluvia who had inspired the rebels who first wielded the Rose of Celdon. ¡°And, I presume, much more capable of taking on olthoi,¡± Kris noted. ¡°A Summons, want me to vivic it?¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s probably kept this area mite-free, among other things, and I doubt anyone else has used the place for shelter because of her. We hopped past the corpse, which would discorporate very quickly. A backed-up Summons spot could pop up a new version of her in less than two minutes. We quickly moved past her and into the living area that the reclusive Harlune had used for years before finally being lured out by Ben Ten to help lead the magical side of the Celestial Hand Faction. Even then he¡¯d had some followers/acolytes maintain the place in his absence, the enchantments he¡¯d made on the place making it basically self-sufficient if you weren¡¯t inclined towards sunlight and open spaces much. Those enchantments seemed to have largely faded, and hadn¡¯t been put back into place. On the other hand, I hadn¡¯t seen any sign of adventurer or animal remains, so the Dungeon coming into the real world hadn¡¯t been an automatic killing experience. --- ¡°Anything important?¡± Kris asked, walking up behind me as I surveyed the withered remnant of a full-grown apple tree, clearly once fully nurtured and growing down here underground. ¡°You might not have seen it in Holtburg, but they had similar things there in the entry Dungeon. Trees growing underground. I¡¯m looking at the support matrices that generated the magical effects. They are much denser and stronger than others I¡¯ve seen in use tapping ley lines, save perhaps at Ithaenc Cathedral.¡± ¡°Harlune was supposed to be the finest master of Item Magic on the island, even better than Asheron, as well as a master of Life Magic. Makes sense he could build something that would support life down here, and there¡¯d be a master¡¯s touch to his work,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Find anything yourself?¡± I asked her, not turning away from my examination of the Formations used here, painting them into my Visual File for later replication. There were details of flourishing and depths of complexity, in addition to the clarity and quality of the work, that other, similar things that I¡¯d seen used, including those I¡¯d inherited from Mira and learned from the Item Magic masters down south, didn¡¯t really hold a candle to. They also had a similarity to the complexities of the work inside Rose on my finger. Not surprising, if they were the work of the same person¡­ ¡°He had a rock collection.¡± The way she said it made me turn, and she held up a chunk of ore with crystals sticking out of it of a certain hue. ¡°Amarinthine Rose Quartz in its natural state.¡± I accepted it from her with anticipation. ¡°Well well well. The Stone Collector was right, was he not?¡± ¡°You can trace that back to the mine it came from,¡± Kris grinned expectantly. ¡°I most certainly can.¡± ¡°Think we¡¯ll find our reclusive archmage there?¡± I lifted my left hand up, where Rose glittered for her perusal. ¡°No. There¡¯s four upgrades to this.¡± She lifted an eyebrow, opened her mouth to say something, and thought better of it. ¡°Right. Chain Quest, gotta jump through hoops.¡± ¡°Yes. But at least we know the next stop.¡± AF Chapter 248 – Not so Deathly Lair, and to Arwic! At one time, there was a well-known Portal from the valley with the Mite Maze to and from Arwic. At the top end of the valley, nearer the mountain, was a well-known olthoi Dungeon called the ¡®Lair of Death¡¯. It had been an introduction to the olthoi for a great number of low-Level adventurers from Ispar who had never fought them before, who had died under the grace of the Deathstones many times figuring out how to fight them, cementing the hatred of olthoi for a whole new generation of people. There was nothing but to go investigate the place, which represented the oldest olthoi expansion outside the Olthoi North. This was the place the incursions of the olthoi into the Mite Maze came from, territorial instincts fueling the constant conflicts, the infinite Summons in the Maze winning in the end, and Harlune¡¯s reinforcement of the place defying the olthoi¡¯s desire to change the ecology inside it. The wild tribes killing off wandering olthoi if they could, and instinctively destroying the mushrooms and fungi the olthoi spread, had basically kept the bugs mostly contained to the North in force, or at least to the territory of their hives. They had still expanded without adventurers constantly cutting them down, but the low magic had definitely hampered their efforts, and the Hea were at least smart enough to mow them down whenever they saw them. Thus, we went into the place and emptied it out of the living and the Summoned. There was a Matron at the bottom of the place, where once the most powerful olthoi was a Noble, and she had an acid pit there raising a few grubs. Everything died, but it wasn¡¯t all vivified. The place was there to train low Levels, a Dungeon that was a resource, and if it attracted living olthoi to be wiped out as well, that was a bonus, not a detraction. We charted it out in its rings and circles to the bottom, and posted it to the Map for the careful and determined to test themselves against, once we expanded up here. In the meantime, squads of adventurous and eager sorts could venture up here to clear it out on a regular basis, as surely the living olthoi would be restocking it. From there, it was south overland, wiping out any olthoi landspawns and Sealing those points as we passed by as we headed for the ruins of Arwic. ------- Arwic had an up and down history that the Mick had been eager to relate. Early in his career, it had rivaled and then surpassed Mayoi and Zaikhal as the city of adventurers on Dereth, the place to see and be seen. The biggest claim to fame for the city was an abandoned mine Dungeon near the city, occupied by lesser undead confined to the place. Down at the very bottom of the Abandoned Mine had been the Subway, the largest collection of Portals to the settlements of Osteth. If you wanted to get to almost any of the cities of eastern Dereth quickly, then Arwic was where you settled in and based yourself, heading off to the Subway to get to those places. Arwic had eventually been attacked and destroyed in one of the regular island-shattering events or invasions by the virindi or shades or whatever, but the Subway was too important, and so Arwic had been rebuilt, this time with high walls, grander buildings, wards, and became even more important. The one detractor had been the establishment of the Town Portal Network. Harlune and Asheron had both been involved in that effort, massively bending the naturally existing Portals and placing them in a new extra-dimensional space. They removed the Portals from their locations around Osteth and beyond and placed them in one location with over twice as many Portals as the Subway, one far more conveniently accessed from ALL the cities so linked. That move had removed the biggest reasons to remain in Arwic, but it had remained an important base of operations, used by many factions as their primary point of contact, instead of Dereth¡¯s nominal capital of Cragstone. That had likely saved a lot of the civilians here when the Fall came. Not only were there some high-level ¡®retired¡¯ people here who¡¯d survived the Fall, they had managed to band up and withdraw, while the initial attacks had been fended off by the walls of the city¡­ and there was no Killer Drudge nearby coming into the city and killing everyone. Arwic had probably had the highest number of paramount survivors of any of the towns, as plenty of semi-retired adventurers NOT wearing all their Gear had lived in the area. They had formed the core of the force that had headed south, linking up with King Borelean and eventually making it to the Vesayans. The walls were still standing, as the olthoi hadn¡¯t massed in numbers enough to overcome the ley line link for the walls. It was easy to see that they regularly swept in and cleared the place, given the tracks and scarring from acid and stone-cleaving pedipalps on the buildings, and the utter lack of things living there larger than rats. The olthoi had marked the place with acidic spoor, letting everyone know that this place was off-limits. The wild tribes who had thought to shelter here had paid time and again for trying to do so, keeping the blood rivalry with them fresh and powerful. A reason the olthoi had not moved in permanently existed to the northwest of the city, a crater where one of the Shadow Spires that had attacked and destroyed the city had been brought down and destroyed. The corrupted energies had wrought Summons of powerful shades and mukkir about the crater that were a convenient enemy to fight for local adventurers. The residents had eventually managed to clear the Summons points¡­ but it was quite simple to observe from afar that the reports from the Hea were absolutely true, and the black figures of powerful shades and the spidery forms of the twisted mukkir were once again residing in the crater there. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Entrances to the city were located on the west and south sides. The movable gates had been chopped down and cast aside by olthoi and other intruders, while the great rows of Empyrean Columns, their true purpose unknown but famous for being used as jumping tests for the competent and athletic, lined both roads coming into the city. There were many farms and small homes in the vicinity, outside the walls, all of them now abandoned to the rats, shreth, dillos, and reedsharks. Kris pointed out the entry to the famous Arwic Mines, another key reason for the early growth of Arwic. It had led to a mine overrun by banderling spawns, yet still worked by the natives for its iron, copper, and pyreal, which never seemed to really run out. At the bottom of it was a link to another mine, this one claimed by the Gotrok clans. It was the ultimate cause of the rivalry with the Gotrok, due to the constant intrusion by Isparians eager for combat. The Lugian Mines had in turn led to another Portal to a Dungeon dominated by the undead. Conquering all the Dungeons connected to Arwic was basically the litmus test for calling yourself an adventurer among the roustabouts of Dereth. We made one circuit inside Arwic on foot, enough to Map the place, attract a dozen nests of over-aggressive rats led by the wicked fire-breathing Mountain Rats, and even observed the remains of the Legendary Chests that had appeared in one of the buildings there. They had coughed up the finest loot to the Legendary Keys awarded by the powers that be in Dereth at the time¡­ Keys that said powers had no idea how to make, or how they had made them back then, just like the Chest themselves, the Mana Forges in other cities, and so much more. Briggs regarded everything we painted into the Map solemnly, and began making plans. We wiped the rats out, and when we left, the entrances to the city were completely sealed behind by walls of stone ten feet thick. Arwic would be retaken and re-manned, as soon as enough soldiers Leveled enough to fight for it and hold it. Our goal was on the road going south out of town. There was a small village down there, about a mile outside of the walls of the city, well past the columns lining the way into the place. When Arwic was first destroyed, the residents had relocated to those peripheral villages. Most of them had resettled back into the city when it was rebuilt, but a number, led by Magus Guthima the Wise and her good friend Laqisha the scribe, had remained outside of the city. The town¡¯s major supplier of magical components, Guthima had remained outside of the city itself right up through the Fall, and had been the leaders of the civilian survivors heading south to the Sho lands afterwards. They were now fixtures in Freehold and the royal court there. The other famous inhabitant of the area had resided in a farm near Laqisha¡¯s two-story home further south from Guthima¡¯s shop at the end of the columns, usually to be found in the barn there, day or night. She was an NPC, nobody actually knew her name, and her Level didn¡¯t seem to indicate the prowess needed to hold such a title. However, if you brought trophies from the olthoi to her, she had endless supplies of armor and weapons and other rewards, especially Karma, to give to you for them. As a result, every single adventurer who killed olthoi knew of her and had profited from her. Like the Collectors, she had refused to leave when it was time to go, meaning she was the only living Isparian in the environs of Arwic. The Hea had reported that dead olthoi south of Arwic were a common sight, especially around this village. Their scouts and hunters had also reported that the Olthoi Hunter was still at her post, and her barn was maintained and the animals about it cared for. She was no longer there at night, and the Hea had wondered if she was living in Laqisha¡¯s old house, which seemed to have endured the time and elements as long as her barn had. They had never actually seen her hunting the olthoi there, but who else could it be? She was people¡¯s first contact with the forces who had organized themselves to face the olthoi, a legacy of hatred and revenge against the creatures that had killed and enslaved them after their arrivals from Ispar. There was no doubt that group had been well-funded and well-connected among the older folks of Dereth, a network of contacts that included bandit leaders and former High Queen Elysa Strathelar herself, ensuring that deathly intent against the olthoi was never going to be forgotten or died. ------ It was dawn as we walked down the road to the south, leaving the columns outside the city behind, the crumbling remains of the village ahead of us dominated by one barn and one two-story home worthy of a wealthy person¡¯s abode. Guthima¡¯s old shop at the end of the columns and by the southern Welcome to Arwic sign was in ruins, chopped apart by infuriated olthoi at some point in time. Likewise, the stone pole from which had hung the proud banner of Arwic was fallen and broken, and the Town Crier doomed to remain there was also now absent, likely another victim of the olthoi and their ability to eventually crack the System¡¯s settings. There were a lot of rabbits and chickens in the area, which was a good sign as far as predators were involved, but that meant something was killing off said predators. There were known to be subtle Wards around all the settlements which discouraged wandering real wild creatures from getting close to them, efficacy varying dependent on how many actual living residents of such areas there were. For instance, wild phyntos wasps rarely intruded into Freehold in the Vesayans at all, despite tons of potential prey in the form of humans being there. The more people were in such areas, the more powerful the Wards were. Only the weakest creatures could intrude, expanding to wider areas as more people settled an area. Even the residual elements of them had kept anything stronger than a Mountain Rat away from Arwic, and the Summons of creatures I¡¯d seen had been even less powerful in the area, with the largest being a powerful Hunter Shreth sitting there waiting to kill something in the distance. AF Chapter 249 – The Olthoi Hunter Kris pointed to a set of mounds, which I belatedly recognized as crumbling olthoi shells, likely sniped down one by one by a foe they hadn¡¯t seen. We walked over to investigate them more closely, just in case. Kris heaved one of them over, a Servant by the color and size of it, her Tremblesense giving her a full view of the entire carcass. Her hands went to a hole in the back of its narrow skull. ¡°Narrow blunt trauma entry wound, punched right through, nearly went out the other side.¡± She pointed out the hole, turned the skull, and tapped the far side in a particular place, which instantly crumbled to form a hole of similar size. ¡°Those silly teardrop quarrels they had is my guess. One shot, one kill. Not a surprise, given the power of their crossbows against these things.¡± She dropped the carcass and moved on to the next one. Thorax shots. Leg joint shots, the equivalent of hitting the femoral artery. Precise, accurate, and lethal blunt impact wounds shattering the chitin of their carapaces and instigating the catastrophic cascade of rupturing acidic blood and killing them with their own internal chemistry running out of control. ¡°Pretty good shot for someone supposedly low Level,¡± I noted professionally, eyeing the dead olthoi. ¡°That¡¯s a Warrior, with three Servants and half a dozen Harvesters, in one cluster of olthoi,¡± I looked back at the olthoi remains sprawled over a hundred yards. ¡°Pulled and killed professionally, coolly, probably at night. The olthoi could track the shooter once they caught a scent, so start upwind, or have something to neutralize your scent, while shooting at night to minimize their night vision.¡± ¡°I¡¯m aware enough of the Isparian system that killing these things alone would get you above Level 9, and there¡¯s no way a 9 is going to be that precise,¡± Kris agreed, rising to her feet, flicking her fingers to clean them off. ¡°If she¡¯s responsible, she upped her Level and her game significantly¡­ or she was never that Level to begin with. The Mick did indicate she was Aluvian.¡± Some of whom were very, very good at obfuscating information about themselves. The Mick, for instance, could either totally shut down routine attempts to Assay him, or make his Level appear anywhere from 1 to 275 on a whim. He could lie as naturally and easily as he breathed, and his ability to Feint in combat was unreal. Naturally he loved the Shadow Stalking style of combat as soon as he was introduced to it, and his natural combination seemed to be Ocean/Shadow. His sword style was improving rapidly as he took the Ways and upped his game relentlessly. ¡°It could explain why the Hea never actually saw her fighting. If they did, they might have been designated enemies and wiped. If they just saw her as an NPC, she¡¯s obviously not capable of being so dangerous.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s see if she¡¯s in the barn, and if she is, how she reacts to some of the stuff we¡¯ve got with us.¡± We headed towards the cluster of buildings that had been a village, only the two left fully intact at the moment, although signs of predators were small or absent. Either the Wards were still up, or something was killing them if they wandered this way. That, or they didn¡¯t like the smell of the dozens of olthoi remains we could pick out on the landscape in the area. And one had to wonder if the Bronze Statue of an attacking Hea tumerok up on its pedestal might not have something to do with things, too. It was in remarkably good shape compared to the others we¡¯d seen... ¡°Huh. I¡¯ve got one Isparian in the Barn ahead, and the spell is glitching and won¡¯t give me any more,¡± I let Kris know as we got within a couple hundred yards of the place. ¡°That is not in any way suspicious,¡± Kris declared loftily. ¡°Not at all,¡± I agreed with serene and utterly non-believable smoothness. ¡°Happens all the time.¡± We strolled past the one house that had been kept up and repaired, even the lawn cut back around it, probably with a variant of War Magic, perhaps used through a Wand. She was standing in the barn, and was turned to face us before we ever got in sight of her, as if she could sense we were coming. Brown hair, blue eyes, trimly toned physique, basic working clothes, leather apron, absolutely nothing on her that would indicate any kind of lethality, and even her callused hands and good muscle tone could be attributed to farm work. The barn about her was in faultless shape, made for housing chickens and aurochs, it looked like, and there¡¯d been a few clusters of both grazing in the immediate vicinity. There was even feed in the bins, despite who would possibly deliver such things to her here? She looked to be in her thirties, and the Mick, now watching curiously from the distance, affirmed she looked like she always had, despite close to two decades having passed since he¡¯d seen her. She had the same relaxed and ready air about her that the Town Criers and Collectors had possessed, always ready to do their job cheerfully and without complaint, for whoever and whenever it was required. So, despite possibly having been here for hours, days, years¡­ she didn¡¯t look bored or apathetic at all. An NPC, programmed to do a job, and that was that. Programming we¡¯d already proven could be broken, meaning that they were slaves to the System. ¡°Greetings!¡± she called out to us neutrally, looking us over and sizing us up as someone she¡¯d never met before. ¡°I collect Olthoi trophies. If you''re willing to give yours up, I''ll return part of it as a useful item. I can also craft nice helms from Olthoi Heads. If you''re interested in proving your hunting prowess, I have some Olthoi I''d like you to hunt." Kris stepped forward as if she had not spoken. ¡°Hail and well met. I am Kristie Rantha, Swordmaster, and this is my companion Ryin, Magos. Who do we have the honor of speaking with?¡± Pointedly, her Null was out and on top of the woman, whose rather vacant gaze faltered and refocused on her for a moment. ¡°I am¡­ Shayla Vundanewall,¡± she got out hesitantly, as if dragging out her own name was a grim and laborious thing. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Of the Vundanewalls of Estor County?¡± Kris immediately asked sharply. The Olthoi Hunter actually flinched at the remark, her jaw working before a strange, ¡°Yes?¡± managed to wriggle its way out of her throat. ¡°The Vundanewalls have been the huntsmasters for the Counts of Estor for twenty generations,¡± Kris informed me, and I made an impressed face. ¡°You come from a line of true hunters, Lady Vundanewall. Also, Queen Mother Elysa sends her regards, and wants to know if you¡¯ve been keeping busy.¡± There it was, a tight spark of anger igniting behind her eyes, and a quick reply, ¡°There¡¯s no queens hereabouts to kill, but you may tell Her Majesty that I¡¯ve been keeping busy, indeed!¡± ¡°We were told that you might know the fate of the tribe of olthoi slayers that dwelt near the current location of the Paradox Hive. We visited the cave they were dwelling in just over the Lost Wish mountains, and it had been overrun by olthoi.¡± She turned as I brought in our mounds of olthoi trophies, including the Olthoibane Infusion, the assortment of broken and semi-intact Olthoi Slayer weapons, and of course the body parts of various dead olthoi and the nearly intact hide of the Paradox Sentinel. She was quite distracted seeing our haul of stuff, her eyes zeroing in on the Baneskull I¡¯d made from the Matron at Holtburg, which I handed to her immediately. She was a bit dazed as she answered, ¡°The tribe has taken up residence in the Arwic Mines, chasing out the banderlings there. They help to keep the olthoi at bay and the creatures in the area down.¡± By strengthening the local Wards just by being there, if absolutely nothing else. Kris and I shared a glance at realizing the tribe apparently was indeed real, and had the sense to run from the olthoi after the Fall, just not bothering to go any further than right here. ¡°What¡­ is this?¡± she asked, holding up the enruned and shrunken head of the Matron. ¡°This¡­ does not look like any work of the tribe, but it is clearly antithetical to the olthoi!¡± ¡°It is a Baneskull to Olthoi, giving any Weapon or Implement it is attached to the Bane property against Olthoi and things which share their ecology, such as grievvers,¡± Kris informed her firmly. Her eyes openly flared with light, and a ripple went through her as something ignited inside her. ¡°Could such a thing be made of any Olthoi¡¯s skull?¡± she asked quickly. ¡°They would have to be sufficiently powerful enough to bear the enchantment, but yes. I believe the head of a Noble or Mutilator is the minimum level, as well as the weakest of Matrons.¡± Blue light suddenly ignited around her fingers, dancing on the runework encapsulating the skull. ¡°Thank you for bringing this work to my attention. I will see to it that more are spread about to battle the bugs wherever they are!¡± she reported to us in an odd voice that didn¡¯t quite match her movements, almost jerkily. It was like something was getting rewritten or¡­ updating? ¡°You may keep that one to refer to for your work. Mount it right at the front of your crossbow, it will shrink and seal to it.¡± She looked at Kris, paused as if warring over something, and then a dark black crossbow, clearly carved from olthoi chitin and limbs, popped into existence in her hand. It was nearly identical to a broken one laying upon my Disk, but the Runes on it did not include the Pierce Cleaving property that was burned through and out on the original, nor the Item Magic spells built into it that had operated off the mana reserve within all the devices that had exploded during the Fall. She set the Baneskull on the fang-like tangs at the front of her crossbow, and the Baneskull shrank perfectly and slotted in to fit as if it belonged there. She snapped it to her shoulder in perfect Crossbow Stance, aiming out the door there and squeezing off a shot in but a breath. -She¡¯s got extradimensional storage,- Kris /noted, keeping her face unmoved at the revelation, which only made sense. She was a variant Collector, and had been able to sometimes pull out hundreds of items to compensate olthoi killers in very short periods of time, never running out. She didn¡¯t wear a pouch or a pack. Extradimensional storage was the only explanation, an order even higher than the absolutely ridiculous amounts of storage space that the backpacks Lord Mick had told us about could hold. Her armor-piercing quarrel, tipped with what looked like the spikes from a grievver, drove precisely into the knot of a broken branch on an elm tree forty yards away, punching in deep. She lowered the Olthoi Slayer Crossbow with approval. ¡°It doesn¡¯t throw off my shot at all! I will disseminate more of these to any who can bring me an appropriate skull!¡± she assured us both, almost robotically in words, but the emotion around the words was real, unlike the almost autonomic speech. Kris reached over, pulled the Disk with the broken Olthoi Slayer Weapons forward to her. ¡°If possible, we¡¯d like to replace these, and are wondering if it might be possible to replicate the Slayer effect on more standard equipment, Lady Vundanewall.¡± She staggered without moving, catching herself and not even noticing she did so. We watched in fascination as muscles ticced out her control all over her, something reaching out to do something to her from a distance, and not even Kris¡¯ Null was interfering enough to stop it¡­ but it WAS interfering enough for us to see it happening, and narrow our eyes. ¡°I can see to it that these Weapons are restored and repaired to usable condition, adventurers-¡± ¡°That would be Master Rantha and Magos Ryin,¡± she corrected sharply, making the woman twitch again. ¡°Or, if it pleases Lady Vundanewall, you may call us Kris and Ryin.¡± The glitches to her programmed state sent her face in three directions of control at the same time. But something flickered deep in her eyes. ¡°Master Rantha,¡± she whispered, her blue eyes fixing first on Kris, then on me. ¡°Magos Ryin. K-K-Kris a-and Ry-Ryin,¡± she repeated in sharp staccato, as if overwriting something on the fly. ¡°Yes, Lady Vundanewall?¡± Kris asked, as if nothing unusual was happening, while I simply inclined my head politely. Her head jerked slightly. ¡°Kris, Ryin,¡± she repeated, her voice rising a sharp octave for a moment, before continuing on, ¡°But in the meantime, I can give you replacements for them, if that is fine with you?¡± ¡°Certainly, Lady Vundanewall.¡± I kept the Wand I¡¯d taken earlier, as there was a second one among those on the Disk. She picked up the broken Axe. ¡°Made from the pedipalps of a Swarm Eviscerator!¡± broke out of her mouth in distressingly level tones, as if reciting words she would have to say dozens of times. ¡°Repairing this will be quick and simple.¡± Getting the corpses of Swarm Eviscerators was so easy? I was quite amused, even as I filed away the fact for the olthoi-slayers who would be coming to her after us. Now that we could kill olthoi and rip them from the System that might have protected them, there were going to be more olthoi parts available than ever¡­ The broken Axe vanished from her grip, and an instant later a replacement Axe, similar in overall form, yet the Runes gleaming green upon it distinctly altered from the previous Axe, appeared in her grip. She presented it formally to Kris, who took it with a ¡°Thank you, Lady Vandanewall,¡± and set it upon another waiting Disk without complaint. AF Chapter 250 – Olthoi Armor ¡°Ah, a broken Olthoi Slayer Spear! Made from the long pedipalps of the Olthoi Nobles and the deadly pincers of the Olthoi Mutilators!¡± ¡°My thanks, Lady Vundanewall.¡± ¡°Ah, this Dagger made from the pincers of an Olthoi Slasher is in need of fixing! Here, let me issue you another!¡± ¡°You help is appreciated, Lady Vundanewall.¡± ¡°Ah, one of the old Wands made from the stingers of a Paradox Olthoi Needler! It is dangerous to wield these now. Let me issue you an updated version!¡± ¡°We appreciate your help, Lady Vundanewall.¡± And so on it went, moving from one item to another, her eyes just barely flickering as she made sure to inform us what each item was made from, then take them and issue us one of the new models that had ¡®replaced¡¯ the old ones. Every time, despite the obviously canned patter, Kris thanked her warmly and differently, as if nothing was wrong, and indeed, the Olthoi Hunter was almost glowing with gratitude and relief. The treatment continued as we moved through the broken pieces of armor, and then the body parts we¡¯d actively salvaged. The Olthoi Hunter enthusiastically swapped creature parts for fully crafted and ready-to-go pieces of armor. ¡°What is this? The full carapace of a truly monstrous Paradox Olthoi Sentinel, one of the personal guards of the Paradox Queen?¡± There was a sense of satisfaction behind the robotic delivery. ¡°Armor can be made from this that draws on some of the anti-magical properties of the Paradox olthoi themselves, but it will interfere with any spellcasting that you do. Is this a problem for you, K-Kris?¡± she asked. ¡°Non-Casting armor? For me? Why, no, that is not a problem, Lady Vundanewall,¡± Kris smiled, and eight canines gleamed, startling the Olthoi Hunter enough to make her pause at the sight. -Lass,- the Mick /said softly to me as I watched all of this from the side, -Queen Elysa be sayin¡¯ that Shayla Vundanewall be an old member of their band o¡¯ fighters against the olthoi, way back when. She left the group after Thorsten chose Elysa over her, an¡¯ Elysa has nae thought of her fer close on forty years an¡¯ more, now. She didn¡¯t think she were living or dead¡­ she just never thought o¡¯ her at all.- Which was the exact mental process we¡¯d been telling the old timers to go through for many of the ¡®NPC¡¯ people they¡¯d run into in the past. Mental fuckery around them was a sign they¡¯d been messed with by the System here. Queen Elysa was not a member of the Markspace as yet. It wasn¡¯t that we didn¡¯t think she¡¯d qualify, but she felt she¡¯d be too influenced by it and us to trust joining it. That was significant, because how had the Mick asked Queen Elysa such a question at this time of the morning? -And she never visited the Olthoi Hunter...- I decided to /reply. -Aye, were beneath her to visit such a specialized Collector, although there were those who hated the olthoi and were in an informal network to oppose them, she were a font of information, supposedly.- He /paused a moment. -And nae, Elysa can¡¯t think of the names o¡¯ more than two o¡¯ them. Although she remembers the fellow in Redspire who spurred the killing o¡¯ the olthoi on Marae Lassel with his rewards, Behdo Yi.- He /paused again. -No idea who paid for the stuff he was willing to give out for those pincer rewards, either. A Collector or Olthoi Hunter-type they just gave a name to? I seem t¡¯ remember him being a Sho researcher o¡¯ old Empyrean places...- The Olthoi Hunter received the whole carapace, grunting at the weight, but somehow managing to hold over five hundred pounds of chitin without falling over. She turned around, and suddenly there was no carapace there, but she had a neatly stacked set of light brown, white-veined chitin in her arms. ¡°Please accept this armor and wear it in battle against the horrid swarms!¡± her atonal voice recited to us for the first time. ¡°Lady Vundanewall, one of these days I¡¯m going to get to talk to your smith and find out how to make these things myself,¡± Kris said archly as she received the bundle of armor. ¡°Rest assured I shall put it to excellent use.¡± It wasn¡¯t magical, so it had to be made to fit the wielder, and just a glance from her my way assured me that it was pre-measured and would fit her. Which meant something could indeed observe her quite closely... ¡°Do you wear a set of this, Lady Vundanewall?¡± Kris asked calmly, setting her bundle on the Disk there and starting the deft process of putting the new suit on piece by piece. She didn¡¯t have to worry about chaffing with her skin like bronze and more damage reduction than steel, so underarmor and padding wasn¡¯t required, and she just strapped it on with real experience. There was that sensation of a record skipping as you looked at her and she went off-script. ¡°I wear a set of the traditional olthoi armor made from olthoi matron parts, K-Kris,¡± she finally responded, the words seeming to escape her as her face was caught between frozen and showing emotions. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Ah, the old purple and blue stuff? I saw some drawings of them, but there was obvious magical and some exotic alchemy involved in their creation. All the existing suits shattered and decayed during the Fall, and weren¡¯t available for use when they were needed the most, nor did anyone know how to make more.¡± There was a flinching and a shudder from the Olthoi Hunter. ¡°The process to make them rapidly is very magic-intensive. If more time is taken, they would not be so susceptible to irregularities in the manafield.¡± Kris just nodded as her armor linked up. I narrowed my eyes as I noted there were no straps on her armor. They knew she didn¡¯t need straps to hold her armor in place, her Vajra could do so for her. She¡¯d never slapped on armor here yet. ¡°I would like to vein this armor with adamantine. Can you give me a copy of the process by which these armors are made so I can adapt the process to it?¡± There was a flicker of light in her eyes, and her voice went even flatter than before. ¡°You can modify a unique armor like this?¡± her voice spoke as she stared at us. We were both pretty sure that it wasn¡¯t her who was speaking. ¡°Of course. I would know how to work chitin if olthoi existed on Ispar, we would have worked the process out long ago, as well as using olthoi Weapons. It is not rare or impossible, just new and different, and has to be approached appropriately. It¡¯s just an alchemical synthesis of leatherworking and armorsmithing, after all.¡± Her casual dismissal of the work involved was completely unfeigned. Everything was custom-fit to her like a master armorer, although I noted that it was not a perfect fit. QL¡­ 35 or so. Extremely good, but not Rantha Quality. ¡°That¡¯s like a somewhat lighter set of +III Full Plate, Kris?¡± I piped up with a sniff. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you¡¯d even wear something at that level¡­¡± There were ways to make non-magical arms and armor effectively +I to +IV without Slots, requiring the right materials and sheer excellence of craftsmanship, whimsically called Jade Craftmanship. The Sentinel chitin obviously qualified as a material, but only up to QL 35. It would take a 40 for +IV. Given that you could do the job magically for +IV at a mere 32 QL, and hit the mortal limit of +V at a 35, there was rarely a need to do such a thing¡­ especially since it all had to be crafted, not Infused or Invested, which meant massive crafting multipliers needed to get something like that done in a reasonable amount of time. Both Briggs and Sama Rantha had been Master Smiths at the top of their rankings back in the Power of Ten. They could totally turn up their noses at QL 35 stuff, but almost nobody make Jadework stuff, it being too time-consuming and not stacking. ¡°Well, yeah, that¡¯s why I need to upgrade and refine it. Can¡¯t believe something made out of olthoi that strong only got to a 35¡­ Well, they probably only took the process to this level and found better things to wear, or just didn¡¯t have the skills to reach higher Quality Levels. ¡°Adamantine with a couple Slakes and reinforcement is definitely better, but this will do if I can reinforce it suitably.¡± Loot-shaming someone who no doubt thought they¡¯d dropped a particularly fine set of trophy armor on someone for an epic kill in the classic video game style¡­ and found it just didn¡¯t do the job it was meant to. The old olthoi armor had been non-magical and unbuffable, but had been at least as strong in its protective values as mid-range enchanted armor. Adamantine was really hard to beat as armor, however. It might be heavy, but that stacking DR it had was nice. If you were going to be hit and take the damage, every little bit less you took was great. From Kris¡¯ standpoint, Mithral just didn¡¯t do the job. Either your Armor didn¡¯t restrain your Dex at all, or it wasn¡¯t worth making special armor to that effect. Obviously she didn¡¯t care about the weight at all. ¡°So, equal to mithral, it seems?¡± I asked as she slapped on the backplate, just fixing it to her back and leaving it there while she fit on the breastplate. ¡°Fundamentally. Probably has better elemental ratings in some regards,¡± she said dismissively, vambraces clicking into place with fascinating speed and surety, and no magic involved at all. I noted she made no moves towards the gauntlets at all, which, since she wore enchanted Gloves, didn¡¯t surprise me. No transferring the magic to this armor! ¡°Repairing it will likely be a pain since it¡¯s non-magical. Eventually it¡¯s just going to break and be useless.¡± ¡°The armor will protect you from magical spells and elemental attacks that normal armor would not!¡± the Olthoi Hunter spoke up hastily, and did that sound a bit petulant? ¡°Yes, it¡¯ll act like Energized Armor without needing the magic as a result of the chorozite within it,¡± Kris nodded casually, reaffirming the fact. ¡°Truly useless without it, makes it at least a good filler.¡± ¡°The process isn¡¯t that secret, but it does have some value. Perhaps a showing of your valor to earn the right to gain it?¡± the Olthoi Hunter asked somewhat awkwardly. ¡°If you say something stupid like getting the head of a Hive Queen, I will laugh at you,¡± Kris answered to that, and, I noted, did not address her by name. ¡°We need the armor before we take on the hives, not afterwards.¡± There was motion at the edge of my Detects, and I snapped my head around in that direction as Kris finished up with the bracers. She also turned around and looked out the barn¡¯s entryway. ¡°We have some buggy visitors again,¡± I murmured. I glanced at the Olthoi Hunter. ¡°They aren¡¯t coming from Arwic, and are bee-lining here.¡± Kris¡¯s eyes flashed. It was entirely possible they were just Summoned out of nowhere just to satisfy the conditions for this fight. ¡°The town is regularly attacked by olthoi swarms looking to keep Arwic uninhabited! Aid me in killing them all, and I will give you what you want!¡± the Olthoi Hunter stated, but there was a bit more legitimacy to her voice now. Well, it wasn¡¯t like we couldn¡¯t kill them, it was just open field instead of controlled conditions. There was a swirl of magic and the Olthoi Hunter¡¯s classic Olthoi Armor was Summoned right into existence around her, equipped out of extra-dimensional storage, while her Crossbow appeared in her hands again. If the normal pattern of such Quests was trying to repeat, she could kill all she liked, but the numbers of the Swarm would actually only go down if we killed them, seemingly being replenished as she dropped her victims. ¡°Not a problem. More bugs is fine by me!¡± Kris chortled, and it was time to go kill some more olthoi. AF Chapter 251 – Slaying the Olthoi Again I hopped on her Disk, and Princess Kristie charged right out of the barn, while I left my own Disk behind to anchor the flotilla of Disks with our loot there. Lady Vundanewall, the Olthoi Hunter, was right behind us, a gleaming bolt already in her Olthoi Slaying Crossbow and sticking magically in place. Looked like¡­ maybe a hundred of them. I glanced at their colors, and told Kris calmly, ¡°Swarm variants, and they aren¡¯t Summons, either.¡± We both glanced at the Olthoi Hunter as she bee-lined it for the Bronze Statue¡¯s pedestal, slapping it before backing up a few steps. There were creaks and groans as the Statue came to life, orienting on the olthoi it could doubtless see incoming over the ruined buildings. It hopped off instantly and went charging out to meet them. At almost the same time, the Olthoi Hunter crouched and jumped up onto the pedestal the Statue had just vacated, giving her an elevated sniping position which she promptly used to send a quarrel winging out to impale a flying olthoi and pop it out of the sky. ¡°She¡¯s using full-grade Item Magic at Eight on that Crossbow, too.¡± Didn¡¯t have to worry about using stuff intrinsic to your Gear if you could still get off the Eights that had been almost impossible to Cast after the Fall. ¡°Surprise, surprise. Start shooting so we can get this kill task over with.¡± Princess Kristie painted my targets in the shared Markspace, and I promptly flicked out my Darts and sent them on the way. All of these olthoi, regardless of what they looked like, were Swarm variants, and so had better Stat lines across the board, as well as increased natural armor and at least +1000 Health. It didn¡¯t save them from Kris, who wasn¡¯t going to get in a scrum with them as she accelerated, greatly outpacing the Statue and zipping towards the horde of incoming olthoi. The first targets she picked were all Cleave targets. Going for damage, I didn¡¯t bother to Chain yet, letting her take the lead. She was doing the One Strike thing, slamming into the lead Eviscerator for double damage, x4 for the charge, and the crit went off as Quaver smashed into its thorax like a bar of steel, clotheslined it. The next three were already smashed off their feet, and a combination of Cleave and Wolf takes Rat Opportunity attacks on prone enemies swirled in arcs of cutting Lost Light and glowing green-yellow Olthoi Slayer light. They were cracked, shattered, and died on the ground while she peeled away, drawing most of the olthoi after us instead of the Statue pounding up to also do battle. The olthoi couldn¡¯t match her speed, and the position of the Disk freely pivoted around her as she circled the horde of them, dipping in and out as she followed my Darts, the impacts of them plowing dozens of them at a time off their feet, and a bunch of those Burning bugs never got back up. I also professionally noted stragglers coming in at the same exact pace as the Statue and the Olthoi Hunter were taking the olthoi out. A hundred kills wasn¡¯t nearly as onerous as it might have been for others in this situation, but they were likely to get swarmed, surrounded, and if not killed immediately, exhausted by unceasing attacks and overwhelmed by attrition. ¡°Chain that line!¡± Kris ordered. My Darts became a Ray and Split, two crunching impacts became a long double line of bugs smashed both off their feet and out of the sky, Kris reversing course so sharply my Disk turned vertical as it was dragged after her. The line I¡¯d pounded down off their spindly legs was two dozen Burning bugs strong, right through the heart of the horde. Crits roared as Quaver¡¯s Biting Strike found the weak spots, Crushing Blow blew them open, Wolf takes Rat basically turned a One Strike into two, and Cleave attacks looped and swirled too fast to really follow at the speed we were moving, here, there, and everywhere as Lost Light plunged and battered, and olthoi shrieked while glowing acidic ichor sprayed. We were abruptly out of the back of the swarm, and half of the swarm was now dead and dying. Kris circled left, a hunter¡¯s prowl on her face as the running olthoi all turned around to face us, driven to attack, uncaring of how many others were already downed and gone. They were trying to catch us, converging as she circled and drew them into a nice cluster. She painted the rest of them. A Split Dartray lanced out, smashed into the lead ones, Chained to those behind in the wedge forming there, and even as Kris was charging at them at the speed of a courser, they went falling and tripping wildly from the impact of Force Magic and a bunch of Holy Kickers. She tore through the collection of flailing pincers, pedipalps, bites, spraying acid, writhing legs, and twisting carapaces to shatter and crack everything around her explosively, dealing mortal wounds with catastrophic criticals and double-taps on everything on the ground. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Quaver exited the skull of a Swarm Mutilator, the small and deadly white olthoi trying to get a bite out of her with its mandibles, failing utterly as its thorax blew out explosively, and then we were outside the swarm and prowling for more targets. The only olthoi left were the ones harassing the Bronze Statue, which was already getting chopped and blistered apart by acid, and a dozen or so around the Pedestal, clawing impotently at it as it refused to allow them to climb it, while powerful quarrels drove down into their skulls and dropped them in two or three shots. A Dartray leveled those around the Statue, and Kris basically ran through them. They¡¯d already been pummeled by the impressively fast fists of the Statue, and shattered and broke with even more speed than our own unfortunate victims. As for the ones around the Pedestal, well, they were in a tight circle. The Dartrays lit them up and smashed them down in a buggy flower around it, and Kris ran the circle of them, Quaver swirling with beautiful petals of Lost Light and olthoi blood to accentuate them. Not a one of them made it back to their feet. The Olthoi Hunter looked down at us in disbelief as Kris glided to a halt nearby, but before she could say anything, Kris called out, ¡°Come on down and point out what needs to be salvaged on these things for standard armor and Slayer Weapons, Lady Vundanewall!¡± Her face worked, caught between impassivity and glitching with real emotion and desire flickering through for just a few moments. ¡°Of course!¡± her flat voice called out as she jumped down to join us. --- Kris had just handed over her fourth piece of steaming, hissing olthoi shell when I asked, ¡°So, Lady Vundanewall, how often do these olthoi swarms come running in to bedevil you?¡± Her impassive face turned to regard me, but there was another glitch. ¡°I would not expect another one for a week,¡± she replied to me after what seemed like a moment of thought. Or for a new quest timer to be slid into place. Kris glanced up at me as her Gold-wreathed hands plunged and steely carapaces cracked while olthoi meat sizzled and dissolved to their ichor, and nodded once. Now we just had to see if that timer was by people or Fellowship or whatever, or an absolute timer. Which meant Briggs and a whole bunch of very heavily armored fellows would have to come up here ready to fight if needed¡­ possibly a big waste of time, or possibly finding an easy way to get salvage kills off a hundred non-Summoned olthoi without having to dare the unpredictable depths of an Olthoi Hive. I was going to have to bring up more Disks to satisfy our haul. The mundane olthoi armor we were pulling here was alchemically treated and could warp to fit those it was fit to with little problem, unlike the Paradox armor. We also knew how to acquire the Paradox armor. Just needed an Uber Paradox Sentinel¡¯s shell... ¡°Do you also have the method for treating and molding olthoi armor, Lady Vundanewall? You can hand it to Ryin,¡± Kris asked as she moved to the Noble, her hands like metal cudgels and fingers like Golden razors. ¡°Of course. As-as I promised, K-Kris,¡± she announced, turning to me and holding out a text in the standard format used by alchemists and crafters who were Empyrean-trained. ¡°It is in the original High Empyrean. Indeed, the usefulness of the olthoi in forging weapons may have been a reason that the Empyreans returned to the olthoi homeworld, to further pursue the alchemical uses of the olthoi.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine. I read High Empyrean.¡± Her face glitched as she blinked in surprise at my reply, watching as I flipped the book open and began to scan each page, painting them into my Visual File, and Mira promptly started studying them. ¡°Kolloqui acid baths. This must be the only reason why that stuff is in the Empyrean lexicons of alchemical formulae, the crap is utterly useless anywhere else. There¡¯s something in the olthoi¡¯s resistance to acid that triggers the PH reversal of the stuff and it temporarily softens the shell after being immersed.¡± ¡°That crap actually has a use? Wow. Thought it was just an idiotic trivia question they sprang on those testing for the Master Alchemist license here,¡± Kris said over her shoulder. ¡°Same here. Acids with a weak PH reversal after running a lightning charge through them are unique, but what¡¯s the use of them? Softening up incredibly acid-resistant chitin, apparently. ¡° ¡°Huh. Is Kolloqui a derivation of grievver acids?¡± Kris wondered aloud. ¡°Huh.¡± That was a good observation. ¡°Nobody likes to work with grievver acid because of the organic poison components. The poison starts pre-digesting olthoi flesh without allowing their blood to slurry it. Olthoi basically recycle themselves when they die, setting themselves up to contribute to the olthoi acid pits. The poison aspect basically combines with olthoi acid to stop that. Now we¡¯re going to have to figure out a filter to get the poison out of the grievver acid,¡± I sighed. ¡°Totally explains why they have electrical abilities when olthoi are almost immune to such, right?¡± Kris conjectured, and I nodded. ¡°Clever judgment by someone.¡± I flipped to the back of the book, and frowned. ¡°Lady Vundanewall, why is there no accreditation? Is the name of the inventor or inventors of this method unknown?¡± ¡°I-I-I,¡± she stuttered, eyes widening. After all, if it was translated like this, in the accepted format, that included accreditation to the original discoverers. ¡°I¡¯m assuming the copier got lazy and didn¡¯t want to include the names of his predecessors?¡± I arched an eyebrow. For just a second, the glitch showed glee in her eyes before it was wiped away. ¡°My apologies.¡± She held out her hand, and I returned the book to her. It vanished from her left hand, and a slightly bluer covered book appeared in her right. ¡°This has the original accreditation in it.¡± ¡°Excellent.¡± I flipped it to the back, and there were indeed ornate and flowery names there¡­ along with the dates of their discoveries. Who knew what might be done with those things¡­ and it showed that Kris¡¯ Null was having an effect on NPC¡¯s that couldn¡¯t be denied. At some point, we were going to come back here and free this woman from her status as a Slave of the System¡­ if she wanted it. Which, judging by all the glitches, she certainly did. ------ We left Lady Vundanewall holding onto half a skin of Freehold wine¡­ half because we¡¯d made sure she got to drink the other half with us in several toasts to the death of olthoi and olthoi queens in the future. By the look in her eyes, it had been ages since she¡¯d gotten a chance to eat or drink anything... Then we ran off, waving to her, telling her we¡¯d be back in a week, and she might be getting more visitors soon enough! AF Chapter 252 – More Plans for the Future ¡°How long before we can start making olthoi armor and Slayer Weapons?¡± Princess Kristie Rantha asked me as she raced across the plains south toward Eastham once more. Briggs had moved our northern forces up to Eastham and no further, wary of Bonecrunch and the drudges he protected in Cragstone. The main focus of the Freehold forces was now in whittling down the forces of the Gotrok, squirreled away in their secret locations in the Tukals and being discovered one by one. I was already disseminating the information herein to every crafter and mage in the Markspace, who were going over it all with a fine-toothed comb. ¡°This method for treating chitin is nearly universally useful for bug parts. They are pretty sure that if we discover the proper reactant, we can use it on grievvers, too. Probably niffi, nefane, and sleech shells, too, and other things with carapaces.¡± ¡°Scales?¡± Kris asked shortly. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think so. The proteins are very different from typical chitin, which is a modified sugar. Scales are also part of a living organism, and most carapaces are effectively remnants of the organics gathering material and dying off. Still, it¡¯s novel in that whole alchemical weird science ¡®holy shit this works because alchemy is strange¡¯ crap it heaps upon real science.¡± ¡°And that coming from someone who makes their living twisting the laws of the universe!¡± ¡°Any good mage will tell you magic is about Rules, not laws. Rules are basically exceptions to the laws of any reality. Spellcasting is about messing with the Rules. Speaking of which, how is the Lost Light reacting to your armor?¡± ¡°Seems to be the same as the Bracers, really. Loss of flexibility, covering for it with massively increased Damage Reduction.¡± ¡°Should be +9 for Crystal Armor, no adamantine, yes?¡± ¡°Yes. Is there a method for Veining the stuff?¡± ¡°Technically no, but it¡¯s inferred. You¡¯ve seen the Infusion methods they used to use for armor before the Fall?¡± I inquired of her. ¡°Shards of steel to increase the protective value? Yes, basically an alternative way of increasing the base enhancement non-magically. But that was more Burning it to harvest the essence, not actually implanting it. There was an infusion to actually reduce the weight of the armor, for instance.¡± ¡°Correct. The fundamental core of the veining technique is the same, you simply have to implant the proper materials instead¡­ or something infused with the essence of them.¡± Kris smiled toothily. ¡°I don¡¯t think Veining my armor with wool for some cold resistance would be very wise.¡± ¡°Agreed. This method appears much more common sense than that Infusion process was, and not as reliant on a vibrant mana field.¡± ¡°I¡¯m all for dependability,¡± Kris assured me. ¡°Most of the previous Infusions seem to have changed to damage reduction for a specific Element, while the steel is obeying the rules for non-magical Jadework-equivalent Crafting enhancement. All the examples I could find that were still intact topped out at +IV, and there weren¡¯t many. Anything improved to that level was almost always magical and blew out, usually taking its wearer with it.¡± ¡°Non-Slotted?¡± I asked for confirmation. ¡°Technically, yeah?¡± ¡°So, leaving ten Slots open for other things, if you didn¡¯t care about pure armor?¡± ¡°Huh. Technically, yeah¡­¡± I could see her thinking hard about that. ¡°Not a whole lot of things more important than base protective value. Maybe Fortification, but we can get that outside of Armor, so it¡¯s not a concern. Soul Forged, maybe¡­¡± ¡°That Eternal-grade +VII speed Buff? Constant Haste?¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t that require orichalcum armor?¡± she shot back at me. ¡°Oh, right, you¡¯d have to make some skinplate for that¡­¡± Her head turned right and left, then she flicked two signaling fingers at me. ¡°No attention on us.¡± I exhaled softly. ¡°Bastards. At least we have positive confirmation that there is an existing Eternal-grade power around able to use magicks way beyond the mortal. It Fabricated that armor through in an instant custom build for you, and made up a bunch of new Olthoi Slayer Weapons on the fly¡­ then Called in scores of real Olthoi, not Summons, to give its little test some legitimacy, while tempting us to send up a repeating quest schedule, and they generated a bunch of instant olthoi armor parts, too.¡± Lady Vundanewall had definitely been pushing them to deliver on something they hadn¡¯t anticipated, given the heaps of armor pieces on the Disks, complete with knowledge of what olthoi pieces were best for what armor pieces, too! ¡°That poor woman has been trapped inside a scripted NPC shell for thirty years,¡± Kris murmured grimly. ¡°Did you manage to read her Level?¡± Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Not with magic. You?¡± ¡°300.¡± Boosted Sense Motive checks sidestepped all sorts of magical defenses, and clearly her Deception skill hadn¡¯t sufficed to evade Kris¡¯ spiritual senses. Being able to assess your opponents was key for a Melee character, and so judging someone¡¯s level and Attack Bonus, among other things, was a standard component of a character assessment check via the Sense Motive Skill. ¡°I¡¯d say that¡¯s a bit higher than 15 or 25,¡± I noted in amusement. ¡°As expected, although I doubt anyone was expecting it to be that good. Her Crossbow was also better than the rote one. Biting Strike and Crushing Blow were both maxed on it.¡± ¡°Ah, no wonder she was one-shotting half of the suckers she hit. Big crits,¡± I agreed. Couldn¡¯t have your pet Olthoi Hunter be incompetent, after all, even if you didn¡¯t want the rubes able to tell that. ¡°And supposedly the Olthoi Slayer tribe escaped and is living in that mine outside Arwic. We¡¯ll have to send someone in to contact them now,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°We¡¯ve also secured a source of massive amounts of goldweight for personal investment in our Arms and Armor, which we sorely needed, and it¡¯s also there as a potential harvest for anyone greedy enough to pursue it¡­ and the fun thing is that the olthoi probably won¡¯t even mind if we cart all the stuff off, since it competes with their ecology.¡± ¡°If we can actually mine that Mana Volcano that Gaerlan set off¡­¡± I murmured, trying to picture that. ¡°Possible, but extremely dangerous. More likely the Stones in the neighboring area will be cleared out first.¡± I couldn¡¯t argue with that. ¡°How¡¯s this affecting the timeline for Cragstone?¡± ¡°Briggs and I still aren¡¯t confident we can take out Bonecrunch. Are you?¡± ¡°No. I might be able to land Shards, but that¡¯s about it, and he can probably bat most of them away, then Fast Heal through the rest.¡± ¡°Cheese?¡± she inquired. ¡°His anti-magical nature likely translates as a flat bonus to Saves against Magic. Given his Level and Stats, he is very unlikely to miss a Save, and even then, he¡¯ll just blow Health Qi to get rid of the effect.¡± ¡°That uber Olthoi Sentinel was no slouch, but that Drudge is just so much more dangerous it isn¡¯t funny. I don¡¯t want to take him on until I¡¯m a Fifteen, at least, and solo I¡¯d prefer a Twenty.¡± I considered that estimation carefully. ¡°As a Fifteen I could probably wear him down with magical attacks, and I¡¯d have the mana to do so and overwhelm his parries. But you know that is a ways away¡­¡± ¡°Unless we clear Asheron¡¯s Island, kill Gaerlan, and release Martine.¡± ¡°That is going to be a lot of Karma, sure, but that much? You know how much Karma is involved with making Fifteen in the Power of Ten?¡± Kris grumbled under her breath. ¡°Too goddamn much!¡± she admitted freely. ¡°And you know you¡¯re the only one who can go ahead and kill the bastard once his Harbinger buddy gets taken out by the Wisps, right? So you¡¯ll have to be sitting up there waiting as the whole island goes to absolute shit between warring Wisps and Elementals.¡± That naturally didn¡¯t deter her at all. She grinned cheerfully at the thought. ¡°I¡¯m going to thank him for making us rich as I kill him at the moment of his great escape, his hope and joy will become the final shroud of death taking him, and those Things he made deals with coming to collect his soul, fucking Empyrean supremacist bastard.¡± ¡°Does someone not like Casters who sell out their people and world for power?¡± I chided her in mock disbelief. ¡°What goes around, comes around, and I am fucking coming around at the rat bastard.¡± ¡°If you want to start the cascade on Asheron¡¯s Island, I¡¯m more than happy to do so. We¡¯re going to be sitting out there on Disks soaking in the Karma while vivus Burns the dead and the fighting escalates like goddamn mad.¡± ¡°Hey, we¡¯ve got the gold to make OMA Quivers for anyone who can¡¯t master basic windfire, at least,¡± she pointed out to me. ¡°Huh.¡± Getting direct kills, instead of derived kills from vivus Burning dead Wisps away, would be¡­ incredible. The number of Wisp and Elemental kills we could get would be staggering. ¡°There¡¯s the little problem of the Harbinger bombing us out of existence from half the island away, too.¡± ¡°I imagine that if the only magic we use is to start the Cascade and dropping a vivic hot spot, and then using rote Weapons to kill the rest of the things, everything will be just fine.¡± ¡°Huh. And if I restrict myself to just Darts, Cantrip-level attacks should be lost in the general chaos of what will be happening.¡± It wouldn¡¯t be a lot of damage to any single target, but I could Chain and wear down a whole bunch of targets slowly instead, lighting them up and getting them to Burn, if nothing else. Any other Caster was basically going to be restricted to Healing, as none of my students were overly adept with Shard Kickers, none of them possessing my Traits or broad array of Metas to wield¡­ especially the powerful Holy Metas which really packed the biggest Kicker punch out of all of them. Good people and Really Good People, their souls going Silver, Gold, or Rainbow, just weren¡¯t easy to come by, and there was nothing for it. Decent archers wouldn¡¯t have nearly the problem. ¡°Talk to Briggs and start setting up the teams. I¡¯ll select the mages who¡¯ll run the Mass Disks once you have the numbers. We¡¯ll get all the OMA Quivers made up that we can think about before the attack.¡± She glanced away. ¡°A lot of the men we want participating in that are on duty in the Tukals right now, drawing the noose tighter. So it will have to be back-burnered until we finally drive the Gotrok out of there. The lugians aren¡¯t getting antsy, given they know what the tactics are, how much of a disaster it could be if thousands of Tukora Summons are sprung on us in tight quarters, but they definitely want their kingdom, city, and people back.¡± She hesitated, clearly speaking with Briggs in the background here. ¡°Briggs would like you with the elite teams going into Linvak Tukal to make sure the Gotrok don¡¯t take any of their anger out on the civilians there.¡± We¡¯d discussed that possibility before. The mounting frustration of Muldaveus and his cronies, and the lack of incoming aid from the virindi, could easily precipitate a thought for maddened revenge from the leader of the Gotrok Clans. My ability to simply Shape a tunnel straight through the heart of the mountain and reach the city, potentially leading an army right into it, was a big reason for that, plus my ability to protect and Heal a large number of people in very quick fashion compared to other Casters we had. ¡°What¡¯s Briggs up to now?¡± ¡°Setting up patrols to ward against the olthoi, operating out of Eastham, which just became our northern border. We won¡¯t move past it until Bonecrunch is down. The drudge can easily run down to Rithwic or east to Arwic in a few hours, and we don¡¯t want to trigger that action if we can help it.¡± ¡°Bonecrunch is fast enough to reach Hebian-To in a day,¡± I stated firmly. ¡°The only way to survive if they meet it is to flee in all directions wildly, and it will still kill everyone it catches.¡± ¡°Yes. We have to Level and build up to be able to butcher it. The numbers just are not in our favor at all.¡± As all the inhabitants of Cragstone had once found out¡­ AF Chapter 253 – Building Up in Eastham Our return to Eastham¡¯s ruined buildings and domiciles was more welcome than when we¡¯d left, as scores of soldiers of multiple species had moved in and were rebuilding some of the homes. They were quite happy to see us, and maybe me in particular, because I was about to save them a lot of brute force labor. It was fine. I established a connection to the bedrock underneath the town and began to lay out the barracks, homes, streets, fountains, wells, storehouses, and the like as the engineers had all hurriedly marked off for me under Briggs¡¯ precise instructions. I politely did not bother to tell them that Briggs had the whole redesigned town in Visual File in the Markspace, and I could have literally made everything needed blindfolded. The Hea in particular watched in disbelief as I was putting a couple thousand cubic feet of stone into place with every breath or two, often sweeping away the stone remnants of other homes or buildings that were in the way as I did so, or precipitating a general collapse of aging, exposed wooden parts that the whole company descended on and cleared up as fast as possible so I could work through it instead of around it, not incidentally helping the firewood supply. I was done when I erected an inner and outer wall around the place, turning the place into the fortified city it should have been and was not. The soldiers all cheered in disbelief and admiration that their crude camp had now been turned into proper living quarters and storage areas, like a true military fortress should be. Not having to worry about random wandering olthoi bands or the random and unpredictable wild tribes, as well as having a very secure fallback point, was always appreciated. Nobody saw Kris or Briggs until later on that evening, which came as a no surprise to anyone. My building so much stuff and issuing orders on who to move in, and what and where, all matching what Briggs wanted to have happen, stood in for them. I was surprised by just how many Hea were here, all of them bristling to prove themselves, yet subdued by the heavily-armored Isparians and lugians present. ¡°Problems with the Hea?¡± I asked the Mick, who had wandered over to shoo off the admirers who wanted to follow me around with a scowl and a few choice curses about lazy heaps of cow leavings letting their work slack off to talk to a pretty lady. They scattered quickly enough as I was rescued from their inane questions and hopes that I would grace them with my attention by dint of rapid reassignments to setting up lavatory holes and moving supplies into all the new buildings instead of admiring the damn things. ¡°Nae much, surprisingly. The Aun are in charge o¡¯ them, which is only wise. They be wantin¡¯ t¡¯ learn the old ways regardless, an¡¯ the Aun are good judges o¡¯ character. If an¡¯ when they say a Hea is good enough t¡¯ be promoted, he¡¯ll be promoted. They bristle a bit, but the people dealing with them be the elites, not the rote soldiers. There¡¯s strong discipline here, an¡¯ any mocking or taunting be enough t¡¯ get sent back to the common battalions, an¡¯ Valus cuff me head, some o¡¯ them might well kill themselves in shame be that happenin¡¯ to them.¡± ¡°Good to hear,¡± I agreed, as another two-story storehouse drew itself up out of the ground and began to flow into shape. Floors, buildings, windows, rolling shutter doors, support beams, second floor, movable walls¡­ I had tons of plans for stuff like this inherited from Aelryinth, so it only took a little concentration to get it all done right and ready to go. ¡°Before it becomes a rumor mill, you do know what you are doing, messing with the Queen Mother, right?¡± He looked only a little shifty, but his dark eyes met my silver ones, and he swallowed anything trite. ¡°Aye, she¡¯s not a woman t¡¯ be lovin¡¯ an¡¯ leavin¡¯, that be certain,¡± he agreed after a long and thoughtful moment. ¡°If ye be asking if I love her, lass, that be nay. But¡­ we be comfortable with one another, an¡¯ she¡¯s found her youth again, without all the weight o¡¯ the crown pressing in on her. The weight is off her, an¡¯ she¡¯s free t¡¯ live as she¡¯s not been in nigh forty years. ¡°I be understandin¡¯ her, an¡¯ she be understandin¡¯ me. She¡¯s had the great love of her life, an¡¯ I had the great love o¡¯ mine¡­¡± he trailed off, and I knew what was coming as he took a breath. ¡°What did ye find, when ye went lookin¡¯?¡± ¡°I found that I couldn¡¯t curse the System here enough.¡± His eyes closed once as he took a deeper breath. ¡°The Cursed undead I can reach, because their souls and bodies are here and material. But those who died during the Fall? Either the cataclysmic realignment of magic broke something, or they¡¯ve been grabbed by the System. I couldn¡¯t get a lock on Bunita¡¯s soul at all, Lord Mick. If she¡¯s out there, she was taken beyond my reach by the wild magic, or something has her¡­ and I am very sincerely hoping she¡¯s at peace, and not a prisoner. ¡°It¡¯s good to know now that I can¡¯t reach anyone who died during the Fall or soon after it, because if and when I start returning the Cursed undead, people are going to be begging me to bring everyone back¡­¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°And ye can¡¯t.¡± His fists tensed for a moment, and then he relaxed. ¡°Ye warned me not to get me hopes up on that matter, but it were so hard¡­¡± ¡°Getting your uncle back instead of your bride isn¡¯t a fair trade, I know it.¡± He barked out a short, wicked laugh. ¡°I still be thinking about me uncle owing ye for his second life, which means his whole life. He been running away from his debts his whole life, but I dinnae think he can run from this one.¡± ¡°I¡¯m kinda hoping that he finds a fire in him and isn¡¯t afraid of dying like so many others, and he can fight a bit more actively against those who killed them, now that he¡¯s not tied to a grave.¡± ¡°Or maybe find a woman of his own and stay with her, as he never could.¡± The Mick¡¯s smile was self-mocking. ¡°Spared himself some pain, aye.¡± ¡°He spared himself ever knowing the love of his life,¡± I corrected him mildly. ¡°I think that, for all the pain her loss has caused you, you¡¯d suffer a whole lot more to keep it, aye?¡± ¡°Aye. Like Elysa, she¡¯s never forgotten her husband. Told me a lot of stories about him. A good, solid, dependable man, driven t¡¯ help people an¡¯ not afraid t¡¯ fight an¡¯ work hard for that. He¡¯d¡¯ve been a fine king, I be thinking, especially if his son be any sign o¡¯ the matter, an¡¯ that be hard for even a McMikal t¡¯ deny, now.¡± ¡°You must be spending a lot of time with her?¡± I arched an inquiring eyebrow. ¡°She¡¯s taken a shine t¡¯ bein¡¯ a Royal Scout, an¡¯ is helping the Roaches with their stick-spitting as I be with their energetic flailin¡¯ about. The woman learned her scouting the hard way, few teachers but survivin¡¯ an¡¯ not getting killed when she screwed up. There¡¯s a hard an¡¯ mean woman ready t¡¯ kill under that courtly demeanor she¡¯s practiced a long time, an¡¯ she¡¯s getting¡¯ more comfortable bringing it out again,¡± he assured me. ¡°She¡¯s not the gleeful throat-slitter Her Imperial Highness is, nor the opportunistic bastard I be. She¡¯s patient an¡¯ calculatin¡¯ an¡¯ kinda deadly murderous when it be time t¡¯ be killin¡¯.¡± ¡°You seem to be attracted to deadly women, Lord Mick! Wasn¡¯t your Bunita a bit of a swashbuckling duelist?¡± ¡°She were indeed, happy t¡¯ risk the fight t¡¯ win the day, an¡¯ not afraid t¡¯ die, an¡¯ I believe wouldn¡¯t be even if the Deathstones were no longer there t¡¯ catch her.¡± His eyes misted over a bit, finding a distant laugh and far-away smile in the clouds no one else could see, his hand clenching on the hilt of his Morphed Claymore. ¡°Working with an archer be quite different. They be patient, deadly, an¡¯ hunters, waitin¡¯ for that shot that brings shit down. It ain¡¯t the contest t¡¯ them, it¡¯s the kill.¡± ¡°I can see that. I might get excited at a contest of magic, but the main result is to win, there¡¯s too much danger to have fun doing it¡­ and I tend to be too bloody busy to enjoy it while I¡¯m doing it.¡± ¡°Aye, but the Markspace gives ye yer own cheering section now, do it not?¡± he asked in a lilt, and I had enough grace to blush. ¡°I am aware I have a LOT of admirers, Lord Mick, and their ages span¡­ well, older than you, to younger than me!¡± ¡°Surprise, surprise. Ye hold yerself like a queen born, lass, while the Princess be holding herself like a Warlord. Ye done more for the good image of Casters in the last six months than they clawed back in the last fifteen!¡± ¡°I suppose it¡¯s a good thing I¡¯m a charitable, generous, hardworking, and capable soul, instead of a greedy, ambitious, and power-hungry bitch then, right?¡± ¡°Ye¡¯d make a damn horrible McMikal, that be sure,¡± he agreed immediately. ¡°All that truth and honesty and hope for the future and determination like a steel plate ringing with Thunder¡­¡± he trailed off, shaking his head. ¡°Question, then.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°The Words ye know¡­ did ye decide on them, or did they¡­ just come out?¡± he asked carefully. ¡°Hmm.¡± A difficult question to answer truthfully. Inheriting Words learned out of choices made in a video game... ¡°It¡¯s¡­ about fifty-fifty, I¡¯d say?¡± I hazarded. ¡°You tend to be drawn to the Words that are most suitable for you, the easiest ones to learn. Trying to learn a difficult Word is like trying to learn a virtue that is foreign to you, it¡¯s not just something you can work hard to get. You really do want something that speaks to your heart, not just a desire for power. ¡°That said, the soul I inherited wanted them as yet another tool in the arsenal, not primarily for some greater understanding of Goodness. The Words I know are Words for fighting, not for support or non-combat uses. They directly crash into and defy the biggest tools of the enemy: Fear, Despair or Apathy, and Lies. Hope is a fire that never goes out, Valor is a Shield that never falters, and Truth is a Sword that is always ready to cut. ¡°They are the greatest combat Words of Heaven, meant to directly go up against the machinations of Evil. They are far from learning Words of Joy, Compassion, and Charity, among others.¡± Only the slightest brushing of those Words I didn¡¯t really know at all. ¡°And if I were t¡¯ reach for them?¡± he asked wistfully. ¡°What do ye see me getting?¡± ¡°I think that you cling to Hope as the furnace it is, needing something to drive you on. I think you lost all fear of death long ago, when you realized it would just bring you to your bride, so Valor is not for you, that just passes on through, and Truth and you have a flexible understanding of sorts.¡± ¡°Aye, we do, an¡¯ it be quite understandin¡¯ about it all, too!¡± he agreed cheerfully. ¡°What I see on you are Liberty and Fortitude.¡± ¡°Liberty an¡¯ Fortitude,¡± he repeated horribly, but he could, in fact, repeat them. ¡°An¡¯ why those?¡± ¡°You¡¯re a McMikal, and you value your ability to choose for yourself above pretty much everything else in your life. You¡¯ve learned that such choices don¡¯t need to impinge on others, or be cruel to them, and Liberty of yourself, and giving it to others, appreciating that free will and the freedom to use it, is a great and mighty gift.¡± ¡°Huh. All me life, been told it just makes me a trouble-maker.¡± AF Chapter 254 – Mine, Mine, Mines! ¡°Only to those overly concerned with Law, and making you conform to the decisions and desires of others. Too many civilizations confuse following the law with Goodness, and they are far from the same thing,¡± I told Lord Mick. He huffed his understanding with that point. ¡°And Fortitude?¡± ¡°You experienced the greatest lows of your life, and you came out the other side with pure cussed unwillingness to give in. You made it a positive force, not just for yourself, but for others. You climbed out of a pit of rage and despair and you¡¯ve led a lot of people in doing likewise, whether you admit it or not, Lord Mick. ¡°That is pretty much the essence of Fortitude. Taking it on the chin and falling to apathy or outright Evil as a result happens all too often.¡± ¡°Like the paramounts what still don¡¯t want to leave the Vesayans. Lacking a mite bit of spiritual fortitude, aye,¡± he nodded at no one. I¡¯d met most of the paramounts still alive by now. He wasn¡¯t wrong. Even the Words couldn¡¯t shake some of them, they just didn¡¯t care anymore. Most of them Chaos had a hard grip on, and they only cared about themselves and their own broken goals and desires, even if it lay at the bottom of a rum bottle. They rose to cheap and easy power, then fell, and they didn¡¯t have the fortitude to climb out and do what was needed to gain that high point back, especially with all the emotional scarring. It was life, I had too many things to do, and my Words didn¡¯t include Mercy or Compassion. I would have to leave them to others, for now. ------ The Mick was tapped to stay in Eastham for the short-term and watch over it as it was re-established as basically a frontier position. The fact he got along well with the Aun, had the grudging respect of the Hea, and he and his Scouts understood the ways of a Hunter fairly well meant he had respect and authority there among them, and setting up scouts and patrols and organizing information gathering was what he¡¯d been doing for years. Wiping the random Summons and Sealing the Spawn points was continuing. Even the Hea agreed the world was much calmer and seemed a lot emptier without random creatures waiting in fixed places for one to stumble across and fight. There were still random creatures, wanderers, and dangers, the phyntos wasps, zefirs, and wisps being chief among them, but the land was open, and much safer to traverse, if not completely so. They were anticipating a good hunting season as the natural animals expanded more easily into the areas cleared of Summoned creatures. Word that Gaerlan was trapped on Asheron¡¯s Island by the maneuverings of Candeth Martine, that the Harbinger was there torturing the deranged Empyrean, and Elementals were all over the place there, was quietly spread among the soldiers and adventurers. More people were coming to dare the reach of the olthoi, especially as the maps were updated, the new hives were considered, and more importantly, the potential for a lot of wealth just laying around to be harvested was spread¡­ if you could fight through the olthoi to get there. Pretty much nobody was of the opinion they could do so, as yet, but it didn¡¯t stop the young and the older from quietly heading out to clear the landscape, cut into the advancing ecology, Seal more Summons points to stop the spread of the olthoi, and maybe even quietly start pushing back. The fact olthoi could be harvested for some very good armor and weapons was also a draw, but the fact they were breeding Swarm members en masse kept everyone checked. Slowly and gradually, more of the paramounts were pulled off of Ithaenc by the lure of better Karma at the Baishi Matron Hive. There was none of the danger of grievver spells, and if the fighting was mean, intense, and tested all of their skills¡­ at least it was predictable and the place easily fled. Soon enough the place had numbers of high-Level people from all the races frequenting it. They clutched at working Olthoi Slayer weapons, and went in to try their luck on things they could have killed in massive numbers without fail once, long ago, and now had to spend a great deal more time and effort to do so, with precious little reward other than chitin and Karma. Somehow, that would have to be enough. The other towns that harbored Matron Hive Dungeons were soon put under intense scrutiny for liberation from the undead. Nanto¡¯s Hive was already being plied around the clock, and even the local banderlings were taking turns daring its depths and the massive bugs. Uziz and Khayyaban were both still in undead hands, on the eastern edge of the deserts and the territory the undead claimed. That wasn¡¯t going to stop us, of course, and so Briggs was departing to oversee part of that effort, while the main focus was naturally on corralling and containing the Gotrok¡¯s ¡®surprises¡¯, eliminating them and the Summons points they came from, and eventually liberating Linvak Tukal. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The Gotrok could feel the noose tightening about themselves, and were guarding their mines ferociously, using only Summons tied to points they controlled within their lairs to fight with and presenting closed doors to all manner of raids and probes. That, of course, was where I came in. ------- Whether or not the Gotrok realized that the ability to put walls up very quickly also meant the ability to take them down quickly was one thing. They hadn¡¯t made the mental leap that I could also dig tunnels very, very quickly. All their little homes inside the stone did to me was ensure that I knew exactly where to find them, and that they couldn¡¯t get away from me. Kris paced me as I silently cleared away the stone in front of us, her Tremblesense radiating out and able to see any halls or tunnels or other chambers in front of us before I blundered into them. I Shaped it out of the way, forming just a small tunnel big enough for humans for now, our intentions very simple. The lugian mines and holdings relied on having only one path of entry to defend themselves. Making multiple points of entry would naturally shatter their defenses and destroy their plans. So, I had to encircle the mines, determine how many layers it had, and figure out where to put those entry points. In better circumstances, a Commune with Nature would have laid out the entire mining complex for me. I could have posted it to a Visual File and we could have made plans that way. This time, I had to extend thousands of feet of tunnels into and around the passages the Gotrok had already made, figure out some of their layouts, and hopscotch around the place as we moved from area to area. Kris was more than happy to flit out of a hole I opened in a wall in a remote area and go sniffing around. Likewise, I could send out a Wizard Eye and go scanning through the area, both of us putting everything into Visual File and organizing it for the planners. The chosen mines were both erratic, as they had to follow the ore, and predictable, as they followed traditional lugian patterns of construction and enlargement for living quarters, processing areas, any smelteries and work areas, and for defensive areas. They also had a LOT of Summons stuffed into areas that normally would be sitting unused, patiently awaiting the calls to battle. Pretty much all of them were the highest level renegade Summons, including many of the Tukora rank. Advancing into the area with traditional tactics would have been a meat-grinder of a fight, and everyone knew it. However, taking this force out into the open field with our superior ranged and magical advantage would have rendered the Summons worthless. There were nearly two thousand Summons jammed into the older, worked-out section of this particular mine. The best thing was¡­ they weren¡¯t really monitored much. Oh, an officer wandered through the place regularly, making sure the Summons had stayed in position and hadn¡¯t strayed, but basically they were out of sight, out of mind of most of the Gotrok. The ones who were pulled out to fight were all located closer to the main gates of the complex, including those who might have been pulled off the landscape and might not be replaced ordered in further and deeper in case of need. Which naturally was a huge opportunity for us. Kris tailed the review trails of the keepers watching over these packed lugians, confirming that they didn¡¯t deviate from their paths at all, following them religiously as they meandered through tunnels and assembly rooms where the Summoned Tukora waited patiently for the call to battle. Very tellingly, there were whole swathes of the suckers who were out of line of sight of any reinforcements, and so would have to be alerted by shouts and the like if there was any fighting. Shouts could be cut off. Sound Bubble was a very useful spell that way, while Permanent Illusions could make it seem as if they were still there and nothing in the room or tunnel had changed at all. My students could easily take care of the one spell, and I could come in smoothly behind them and take care of the other. ------ Operation Silence went off startlingly well. The keeper was gone not even five minutes when I opened the first of the tunnels into the deeper mines, and our Casters crept out to throw up the Illusionary walls that would block line of sight between locations of Summons. Then the fighting teams with the Sound Bubbles up around their Weapons came stealing out, the sound of their Armor on the stone contained within the spheres of the magic, and violence erupted into tight little knots of fighting. The Tukora Summons raged and shouted and did not run away, and so they died and were set en vivus, staining the stone white as they fell and died. The teams quickly leapfrogged from one location to the next in tight squads, bringing the fight to the scouted-out chambers, always making sure to have the number advantage and knowing who was going to take what and why. As the Summons died and were set to Burning, I covered each area in a Permanent Illusion to look exactly like it had before, even concealing the vivified stone from view. It could even respond to simple questions and commands if required, although naturally none of the Illusionary lugians could leave the area of effect. It took a lot of mana and dozens of illusions, and the fighting went on for more than twelve hours as we ranged through the more isolated areas of the mines and wiped away all the Summons waiting there. Scouts posted outside reported dozens of lugians manifesting on previously unknown Spawn points near the mine, too, which were hastily addressed before any of the Gotrok noticed them. We had to take it on faith that they were efficient and didn¡¯t leave any local Spawn points Summons in the forgotten areas, as new Summons popping up in a heavy traffic zone would definitely alert the Gotrok that something was up. Thankfully they seemed to have done the job right, and the ones pulled into the mines from outside were the ones we were killing, for the most part. It took twelve hours of fighting in the distant parts of the mine, broken only by the teams retreating into convenient tunnels nearby when it came time for the Keeper to make another round. They waited as the bored sentry made his rounds, did little more than grunt at the unmoving lugians there, and returned to his post without realizing half the lugians he had passed by weren¡¯t really there. That, of course, was fine by us, and exactly what we wanted to see. AF Chapter 255 – It’s all Mines Now ¡°Morning, Commander Kopf,¡± I winked at the big lugian Vanguard as he marched out of the big tunnel in the wall that had opened up a couple minutes ago, courtesy of yours truly. ¡°Magos,¡± he responded in a warm lugian tone, which sounded very much like a grim, stoic, grinding iron tone if you couldn¡¯t tell he was actually happy to see me. ¡°I regret that this is not a time for conversation¡­¡± His big Axe Lapis was crackling in Lightningphasing, and his fellow lugians were giving him careful berth. I just fell in with him as he led his company of heavily-armed shield-users out of the tunnel. He was in exactly the wrong spot to be stopped, the back end of their defenses. The main defensive forces were going to be shoved right up against their own fortifications as they were taken from behind. Vanguards were all Marked. Kopf just pointed with his Axe, and the line of trotting lugians split off, the maps we¡¯d made of the area quite accurate and laid out for them to advance in. Kopf was heading up the main line of advance. Fighting was bound to be the heaviest there, so it was where I was needed the most. Kris was up at the main nexus where any Summons who could be called would have to press through. When they did, they were going to run into her and any Vanguards who made it to her. The miners who were down here gawked to see the fully armored and very non-Gotrok lugians moving through the area. Some were rash enough to call out alarms¡­ calls that were swallowed and canceled by Sound Bubbles, and did little more than pick out troublemakers and rebels from among what was almost a slave force. Lugians loved to work with stone, but reluctance to work for the Gotrok as they tore apart lugian society with their continued civil war had made their workforce evaporate, and now the majority of their workers were conscripted. Still, there were loyal clansmen working for them, generally placed in positions of supervision and tasked with prodding their reluctant miners into productivity. They were generally leveled and silenced with the blunt side of a Moon Axe to the skull, or if they raised a weapon to attack, were cut down without further ado. More to the point, their bodies were left to Burn vivic. They wouldn¡¯t be returning to the special virindi-powered version of their Deathstones, either. The Summons among the miners naturally went right to the attack, with no hesitation whatsover. However, they were miners, not warriors, and the Vanguards smashed them back, crushed them, clove skulls and chopped necks, and down they went, Burning vivic by Weapon or spell, never to return to their labors in this life. Lugians didn¡¯t much believe in lifts, so ramps and personally carrying burdens up, instead of carts, tended to be the rule. Given how much they could carry, that wasn¡¯t much of an issue as far as getting the good stuff out, although they still appreciated a good cart system if Isparians set one up. After all, they could push or pull far more than they could carry¡­ The Vanguards swept into the entry areas to the mines, hitting the defensive points and sentries posted there with basically total surprise. Sound Bubbles attached to their Shields cut off all the sounds, the nature of the mines and the tunnels interfered with line of sight. The guards weren¡¯t expecting trouble from behind them, of all places, and Kopf and his lads were moving quickly and viciously. Gotrok warriors fell shouting, defiant to the end, perhaps knowing they might not be coming back, but certain they¡¯d bellowed the alarms out. Sound Bubbles weren¡¯t fields of silence, after all. So, they shouted and bellowed and died, and if it was all futile, they at least died happy they¡¯d done their duty. The Tukora appearing at the end of the corridor and coming this way, halting when he saw the intruders coming through the guard post¡¯s doorway, was exactly the kind of random variable that was going to mess up this silent takeover. He immediately snatched up a horn at his waist, and blew it powerfully, a strong, high blast that we couldn¡¯t hear until Kopf came pounding in with far too much speed and slammed into the senior Gotrok warrior, driving him back off two-toed feet and into the wall, his growls of fury and the crunch of a half-ton of lugian smashing into the wall cutting off the alarm. -Heard that,- Kris /reported from her position. I /glanced at her /window and noted four dead lugians stacked up against the wall, just out of sight of the guard station over there: the lugian keepers supposed to be checking on the Summons. No surprises allowed at this point. We couldn¡¯t get all of them, but we¡¯d gotten most of them. The abrupt cutting off of the alarm horn as the Sound Bubble covered it did more for the authenticity of it than letting it play out, as all the lugians could imagine something cutting off the blower of it abruptly in mid-note. They surged to their feet, and more horns began to ring out. That was fine. Ahead and to the flanks, stone was Shaped out of the way, and more lugians surged into the sides of the second tier of defenses. An alarm coming from behind was going to pull forces from the front, who were going to find intruders already inside the mine and coming at them from the sides and behind. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The fighting was going to be vicious and brutal, but it was not going to be lasting long. -------- Briggs had Endure locked to the back of his breastplate, the adamantine gleaming blue-black and completely unmarked. His arms were folded over his chest, and he was somehow managing to look bigger and badder than the lugians who loomed over him from behind. The last of the Tukora were gathered in a circle in front of them, while the bodies of all the fallen were Burning vivic. None of them would be returning via the Deathstones. I was sending out Healing spells to the injured, getting them out of danger and reattaching chopped fingers, ears, limbs, noses, teeth, and jaws. Minor Telekinesis put everything back in place and careful Healing magic rewove it all back into working condition. I used Healing Reserve for the most part, enough to do the job, saving mana for the ranged Heals that had saved at least three dozen lugians from death during the fighting. I didn¡¯t Heal any of the Gotrok unless they surrendered and threw down their weapons. Since very few of them did that, not many of them were going to survive this fighting. There was a murmur from behind Briggs, and the lugians silently parted to let Kris through. The Hag Princess had a very unsettling smile on her face, a custom-pattern chorozite lugian morningstar taller than she was on her shoulder, with six heads stuck on it to make them easier to carry. She strolled easily up next to Briggs and brought the bigass morningstar taller than she was down with an emphatic crunch that pitted the stone floor. She had a lot of lugian blood all over her she hadn¡¯t bothered to get rid of, plus some rather important internal parts splashed here and there. ¡°Hey, Fuzzy. Problems here?¡± she asked, as if they were strolling down the beach. Briggs just grunted in reply, brought his arms down, and stepped forwards. There was a crunch as his heavyfoot drove his boots down into the stone, and it cracked around the crater he made. There was no emphasis in the motion, he was just taking a step, not pounding his feet down, not breaking his stride at all. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The lugians could feel each and every step through their tough bare feet, shoes and boots rather alien to them. I slapped my latest patient back to his feet so he could watch better. The Gotrok began to flinch as Briggs came in, casual and easy, and the stone split and began to eject shards around his feet, which both he and Kris totally ignored. He strode right up to Clan Lord Olgelvor, proud and arrogant in his bright green Tukora armor, clutching a really big Axe in front of him as he prepared to sell himself and his fellow Tukora dearly. That wasn¡¯t going to happen, either. It probably didn¡¯t help his resolve when Briggs stopped directly in front of him, in reach of that Axe¡­ and the force of his footsteps drove the lugian clan lord backwards unstoppably. He would have fallen if his bodyguards hadn¡¯t caught him and helped him back up. And then Briggs reached out and grabbed his Axe with one hand. ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± he ground out, glaring into the eyes of the clan lord. His gauntlet closed, metal squealed in alarm as it distorted under his grip, and all of the Gotrok there fixated on it in fear and horror. Briggs¡¯ index finger came up, down on the haft of the Axe, and Olgelvor shouted as his hands were forced off his own Axe irresistibly. Briggs whipped the Axe back and behind him, and there was a swirl of Lost Light from Kris that seemed to sweep through the motion. Unable to look away, the Gotrok commander¡¯s eyes, and a lot of the troops surrounding him, followed the hurtling Axe as it cleared the heads of their encircling enemies and slammed into the wall with terrifying force, the bit burying almost up to the haft. Both halves of the double-bitted Axe that had been cut in two right through the haft in its middle, the metal still red-hot where it had been sliced through. ¡°You are done.¡± The rumble of his voice had all the command of a Warlord and warrior who had absolutely won. ¡°You know if you die here, you are not coming back.¡± Their eyes turned to the heads mounted to the head of the morningstar that crunched into the floor and was released to stand on its own, gory skulls that should have dissipated under the magic of the Deathstones instead gaping in fear and shock at them. ¡°You fight for nothing but your deaths now. Your cause is a lie and always has been. Your allies will not save you. ¡°All who wish to die, stand up and I will give you death.¡± Lightning crackled in tonal bells, and the lugians all cowered instinctively as they saw the silver electricity writhing above their heads, growing and gathering above them. ¡°All who wish to live, kneel and ready yourselves to give your oath of loyalty to King Kresovus, as your predecessors did to the lugian kings for a thousand years¡­ and whose traditions you have shat upon for two generations now. ¡°That dishonor ends now and today, by one means or another.¡± Bells rang above them, somber and deep, whorls of Silver gathering and deepening above them. It was like the entire mountain that was supposed to be their fortress and home had turned against them. ¡°AHHHHH-!¡± screamed the Clan Lord, snatching the hammer from one of his guards. He started to pound forward, raising it to strike at the unmoving Briggs. The TOOOOOOONG of the bell as the Thunderstroke came down was deafening to anyone not of Good heart, just as the Light of it was completely blinding. It drove most of the Gotroks right from their feet, screaming as they clutched their ears, clutching blinded eyes also streaming bloody tears now. The melted and fused remnants of the hammer hit the ground at Briggs¡¯ feet. White ash sprinkled down where the clan lord had been. Ding! Ting! They were deafened, their heads ringing with the condemnation of Heaven, and they still heard those two notes sound out¡­ and they knew what those notes meant. ¡°Kneel to your king, or die. Heaven has no use for the mad,¡± Kris¡¯ voice whispered right into their souls. Blinded and unable to see, they still looked up, and they saw him there, standing next to the Isparian Hag and¡­ whatever the Warlord Briggs was. Kresovus had TWO hands upon his Axe, staring down at them with regal authority and the stature of a king, backlit by the authority and power of Heaven! AF Chapter 256 – Unexpected Reinforcements ¡°Impressive Thunderstroke,¡± Princess Kristie complimented me, all cleaned up and the stench of her not watering eyes at ten paces anymore. ¡°Thanks. When they are nice enough to just stand there and let me center multiple Castings on them, it really does help,¡± I nodded. ¡°How¡¯s the fallout?¡± ¡°Briggs actually let a couple of the fanatics go to spread the word that Olgelvor is dead, literally throwing them out of the main entry after carrying them there by their throats.¡± She beamed widely at the memory of her man doing that. ¡°Spreading them morale problems and everything,¡± I acknowledged the move. Fanatics or not, the bastards would be unable to help having a lingering fear of Briggs after such a display of overwhelming strength, shaming their own. He was basically the epitome of what their Tukora traditions wanted in a lugian, and he was disgusted with them. Warrior traditions tend to respect a certain kind of strength, and if theirs was wrapped up in specism, well, it just meant they were so inferior to him they weren¡¯t anywhere in the same class. It was a message they would not be able to stop themselves from spreading, given that the lingering fear of the power of Heaven was also rocking their souls with the pain and guilt of their deeds, much as they might try to deny it. ¡°The plan?¡± ¡°Race word of the fall of one of their precious Tukora reserve surprises to Linvak Tukal.¡± ¡°So, heading directly there, skipping the three, four mines on the way. There¡¯s nine total we know of, right?¡± ¡°And probably one, the biggest, under Linvak Tukal. They keep the citizens out of the old mines for a reason, not just ¡®safety¡¯.¡± Kris made the quotes with a snort of exasperation. ¡°So, decapitation, insurrection, flank attack, what¡¯s the play here?¡± ¡°Civilian protection.¡± I looked up and over at her, frowning. ¡°Yeah. Briggs thinks Muldaveus is becoming increasingly instable, and might take his failures out on the lugian people who are ¡®betraying him and the true lugian cause.¡¯¡± ¡°Unleashing Summons against the clans who won¡¯t fight for him is definitely insanity. There¡¯s not that many lugians on Dereth that they¡¯ll be able to recover from such a culling of their population. Is Briggs moving forces to stop that, or are we vacating the city?¡± ¡°Both. We definitely need ingress and egress that Muldaveus is not expecting.¡± I inclined my head. It was definitely something I could do. ¡°I can be there in an hour if needed, if it¡¯s just a small team going in. But unless he can control the environs, they¡¯ll just be running into more Gotrok patrols in the vicinity. We¡¯ve shut down the Summons, but they control the environs of the place pretty well.¡± ¡°He can get a relief force to the outer areas of their territories quickly, but he¡¯s also relying on the fact most of the lugians won¡¯t attack women, kids, and elders of their own kind, even if they are renegade clans. He¡¯d like to bottle up those mines hard, but the news we took one got out when three of them managed to die without being vivified before they broke down. They know we took a mine, if not how, and that means we can take the others. ¡°They know we¡¯re coming, and their cute little trick isn¡¯t stopping us,¡± Kris stated grimly. ¡°And you¡¯re going in to silence the Summons, if you can.¡± ¡°As long as they¡¯ve no line of sight, I can keep the butchery absolutely quiet as I work through them. I¡¯ll get the layout, figure an angle of attack, and start the process, if nothing else. With you there pulling that Illusion trick, we should be able to stay unknown for some time.¡± It was true. Nobody continually monitored the waiting Summons, it was pure boredom and a waste of time. The fact none had come to their relief in the fallen mine could be attributed simply to being cut off, although how we had bypassed their defenses and gotten inside was doubtless mystifying them. Still, we¡¯d done it, which probably meant we could use our strange new Isparian magic to do it again. The mine was already back into almost full production, the happy miners eager to return to work under the direction of their king. The Gotrok weren¡¯t taking the loss well, their spirits crushed at how they¡¯d still failed to win the hearts of their people, and Kresovus had swept in like the returning savior that he basically was. His intentions for the Gotrok were his own, but once they¡¯d surrendered, execution was basically off the table. They¡¯d given up a death in battle, which meant trial by combat was too good for them, so they were basically looking at severe demotions in status and being conscript labor of some kind or another. I wasn¡¯t up on lugian laws and traditions, but I was sure there were some grim negotiations going on of some kind or another right now. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Let me get this lot of Infusings done, and we can go,¡± I told her, and she nodded, heading out to grab the team that would be handling this. ------ ¡°Should¡¯ve known!¡± I rolled my eyes, as the Mick and his Roaches all grinned when I entered the room. Even Kopf was back with them for this important mission. ¡°What did you do to rate coming on this one?¡± I asked him. ¡°Better throat-slitting technique than the lugians?¡± he offered me in return cheerfully, looking around, and the half-dozen lugians in the room all nodded slightly in grave agreement. ¡°Also, I¡¯ve spent some time bein¡¯ a careful rat around Linvak Tukal. The Map is fine an¡¯ all, but someone with a feel fer it is useful, an¡¯ o¡¯ the Isparians, that means I be the most qualified!¡± I just sighed and shook my head. ¡°Alright, then. We¡¯re going to be doing this trip differently, because I can¡¯t normally transport this much weight. In short, we¡¯re going to shrink everyone down to reasonable dimensions, then return you to proper size once we get there. I¡¯ll be bringing us in on a Seal Focus I left there some time ago when Princess Kristie and I did a recon in stealth around the mountain, and I can immediately proceed with heading into the mountain from there, concealing it behind us.¡± The Mick raised his hand at me. ¡°Ye¡¯ve not heard the latest news.¡± That was a very weird thing to say to someone with access to the Markspace, so he was making a point. I just lifted an eyebrow at him. ¡°We got a runner out one o¡¯ the secret tunnels who managed t¡¯ reach us.¡± I glanced at Kris, who had a sour expression on her face. ¡°Ye know we got two Marked in the city, but they dinnae contact us, an¡¯ we can¡¯t contact them easy, unless they get outside the city proper.¡± ¡°There are virindi in the city, and like as not they¡¯d sense the trans-telepathic nature of the Mark communication,¡± I nodded, since I was the one who¡¯d told everyone about it. Using the Mark would basically mean burning the spy who did so, as the virindi would zero in on the user, likely find the Mark, and then go looking for others who had it. ¡°There be a LOT of virindi in the city, startin¡¯ t¡¯ arrive a week ago. Many o¡¯ them went down into the old mines, an¡¯ some o¡¯ the more vocal detractors o¡¯ the Gotrok have up an¡¯ gone missing.¡± I put my hands up to my temples. ¡°This is not good news. Virindi are very sensitive to magic. The psychic stuff is probably the stuff they are most sensitive to, along with battle magic. I can probably make a tunnel into the city, and if they aren¡¯t right on top of it, they won¡¯t sense Earth Magic at work through the stone itself, given the power of the ley lines under Tukal. But there¡¯s no way I¡¯m going to be able to get down into the mines readily if they¡¯re running around down there.¡± ¡°I confess t¡¯ bein¡¯ a mite worried about what they are doing t¡¯ the lugians down there. We have t¡¯ go regardless.¡± I could only take a deep breath at the difficulty having suddenly increased an order of magnitude or more. ¡°This is very unwelcome¡­ and it started before we took that mine. We might just be forestalling something that could spread to the other mining sites¡­¡± Kris nodded as the warriors in the room looked at one another, just realizing that. ¡°Guesses on what they are doing?¡± she asked me. ¡°My guess is a violent surprise, perhaps inspired by what Gaerlan did up north.¡± That opened the eyes of everyone all around. ¡°On top of that, they are experienced at body modification and enslavement of the will, and have an easy time working with Summons. I¡¯d also be guessing much stronger defenders¡­ and the virindi themselves.¡± ¡°They are taking huge risks if they know we¡¯d taken one of the mines already. The Singularity is not set up to take permanent removal of the minds and energy bound to it,¡± Kris pointed out coolly. ¡°I imagine their first reaction when vivus pops up and some of them get perma-ganked will be to flee immediately, possibly setting off their trap as they do so.¡± ¡°Puppets and Hollow Minions will not inconvenience the virindi the same way, nor even some of the Simulacra,¡± I spoke up ¡°Empowering lugian Summons with the essence of either would be an excellent way to boost them, especially if the lugians can¡¯t Cast. If the missing lugians are being converted into Simulacra, that means we really have to get the people out of there quickly.¡± ¡°Even if they don¡¯t know that we know, they are forcing us to move, and making us vulnerable to a mass Summon army of Tukora and strong Gotrok Summons when they do so. If we move a force to guard and succor any civilians fleeing the city, it will likely trigger a massive attack that will not go well for us in that terrain, with them coming from all directions,¡± Kris said grimly. ¡°And if they get spotted early, the civilians could run right into a meatgrinder.¡± I just closed my eyes, and sighed. ¡°How is Kresovus about the probability of losing the former capital?¡± I asked aloud. The faces of the lugians were pained. It was Kopf who said, ¡°The reclamation of Linvak Tukal is in the hearts of all lugians who retreated with the Fall, the sign that our path was just and righteous, and we are returned because of it. Losing the city¡­¡± He took a big, somber breath. ¡°It would be devastating¡­¡± ¡°Probably why they are doing it. Pure spite, as well as a very good strategic move, especially if they can take out any of the surrounding mines and deny their resources to us in addition,¡± Kris snarled in irritation. ¡°We hit one of the far mines and saw nothing, and the Gotrok hadn¡¯t heard anything of any new virindi involvement. But we can¡¯t say that about mines closer to Linvak Tukal.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Lord Mick, I need you to go counsel the King. His heart is big and his thoughts are clear. We all want the city, but the city is nothing without those who are living there. His people are far more important than any city, and we have to get them out of there. ¡°Lugians can rebuild, better and higher and more glorious than before. Dead lugians can do nothing but be fodder for the undead, or whatever schemes the virindi are dreaming up.¡± The Mick nodded and got to his feet. ¡°I¡¯ll go talk to ¡®im. He won¡¯t like it a damn bit, but yer right, he¡¯s never let his anger guide his actions. ¡®Cept maybe when cleaving undead,¡± he grunted, and was out the door and on his way. ¡°Small bit of a delay to our departure,¡± Kris deadpanned to me. ¡°Really,¡± I muttered, and just frowned more as I considered the issue of the virindi. Aberrant hiveminds. What a shitshow that could end up being¡­ AF Chapter 257 – A Careful Stroll to Linvak Tukal With the appearance of the virindi, a fairly simple and straightforward infiltration had become more complex, and potentially much more deadly. It also couldn¡¯t be delayed, given what they were already doing to the civilians there. So, spinning up alternate scenarios became a rush, and ultimately we went with cheese, because cheese is what you go with when good practical solutions aren¡¯t possible. Since we couldn¡¯t get an army closer because of the forces of the mines that might swarm out to engage them, there was only to excavate the escape tunnel starting ten miles away on the other side of an otherwise impassable section of the mountains, and extend it all the way to Linvak Tukal! I brought my team there, Reduced in size so my Teleport could fit them all in, set my exit position up in cover as careful forces converged on the location to wait for any refugees there and get them out and away in time. I even Shaped out a cavern large enough to hold hundreds of lugians and supplies right under the nose of Gotrok scouts watching from the top of the mountain, alert to all the distracting movements of soldiers below moving east and west to no real purpose, but with great energy. They¡¯d learn of what happened at the first mine soon enough, but Linvak Tukal had to be cleared now! --------- ¡°Aye, ¡®tis the great task o¡¯ the loyal freedom fighter an¡¯ rebel against tyranny t¡¯ tolerate the sheer enormity of their task as we be looking on the stone an¡¯ setting one foot in front o¡¯ the other for miles an¡¯ miles,¡± the Mick extolled sadly, earning chuckles from everyone behind him. I was not just boring a tunnel under and through an entire mountain, hoping like Hell not to run into any secret Elemental Nodes, buried Empyrean Dungeons, or broken stone and chasms leading to some subterranean underkingdom that was going to mess with us. I also had to bore under the valley and then up to the level of the city without intruding on the complex mines and tunnels beneath it, for fear of alerting the virindi. ¡°You¡¯re welcome to pace us up above as long as you stay alive,¡± Kris shot back promptly, stretching out lazily as she kept walking forward. The stone in front of us was receding at seventy feet every six seconds, forcing everyone to keep up at least a trot to keep the pace, startling a good number of them. Many instead opted for riding Disks I snapped up when it became clear it was going to be hard to keep the pace. It also impressed them to silence when they realized just how long a tunnel I was making and how much stone I was Shaping out of our way. The Mick took the retort with his skin as thick as normal. ¡°An¡¯ go up an¡¯ down all them hills for no reason? I be not a raw recruit needing to get his arse in shape an¡¯ his lungs t¡¯ breathin¡¯ properly, Highness,¡± he answered in an injured tone. ¡°Yes, yes, you¡¯re exercising at all hours, I¡¯ve heard,¡± she threw back at him, drawing a whole lot of stifled exclamations behind him. ¡°Them special chakra release techniques do require some practice,¡± he admitted with a scholarly air. ¡°An¡¯ ye know well that the introductory ranks be workin¡¯ best in the wee hours, aye? Can¡¯t be just flexin¡¯ me greatness during the day only, aye?¡± ¡°Greatness, you¡¯re calling it now?¡± ¡°Quoting, more like?¡± he corrected her sagely. ¡°If you make me listen to the two of you dancing around your amatory exploits, I¡¯m going to drop you both into a pit, seal it tight, and see how long it takes you to chop your way out,¡± I said over my shoulder. ¡°Not the same pit, I should hope!¡± the Mick cried out quickly. ¡°Me reputation would never take such accusations as would arise!¡± ¡°Please. The only way any claims would be true is if you couldn¡¯t walk when Kris got out of it and strolled away.¡± Snickers broke out, and Kris put her nose up in the air proudly. Even her Cursemark seemed to pulse righteously at my words. The Mick lifted his hand to say something, paused with finger upraised, then just grinned. ¡°Fair,¡± he agreed cheerfully. ¡°But that be a special kind o¡¯ stamina, not runnin¡¯ for practice, ye have to agree.¡± I gave him an exasperated side-eye. ¡°I could pick one of your Roach-queens and make it deep enough that a minimum of four hours is needed to hack your way out. Who knows what might happen during that time, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Now, now, don¡¯t be dragging the wee ones inta things,¡± he just grinned back. ¡°Ye¡¯re much too nice t¡¯ do such an awful things t¡¯ their reputations!¡± ¡°Awful things. Yes.¡± I ignored the cheeks flaring on the cheeks of Selena, Milee, and Polita, and their conspicuous silence. ¡°Perhaps better to leave such matters between consenting adults instead of those heading into a hellhole, then?¡± Stolen story; please report. ¡°Aye, aye. Tell us all how ye¡¯re keeping us on course an¡¯ not wandering in t¡¯ the surface accidentally an¡¯ all, what?¡± ¡°Detect Location is a basic Cantrip that gives you an approximate location relative to a known point of interest, and indicates magnetic north. Higher Valences can provide completely accurate mapping coordinates, including vertical height, and even dimensional coordinates up to thirteen vectors or so. ¡°I¡¯m basically moving between waypoints I set up in my Visual File based on my lived-line over the surrounding terrain as a moving point of reference.¡± ¡°Thirteen vectors?¡± a stunned Rogar spoke up. ¡°Sufficient to navigate between multiverses,¡± I informed him. ¡°It¡¯s possible to travel between multiverses?!¡± the Mick exclaimed in shock. ¡°Isn¡¯t going to the likes o¡¯ Bur just five vectors?¡± ¡°Six. That Bur is located outside our dimensional plane, but parallel to it. Most of the worlds the Empyreans traveled to are in slightly different planes to this one. Once you can shift between dimensions, it¡¯s actually easier to shift your physical location and place of appearance than trying to Teleport across interplanetary or interstellar distances. ¡°This is true for Ispar, as well. Ispar is not merely a very long distance away. It¡¯s across a dimensional divide entirely, like most other such worlds.¡± Kris just nodded. The dimensional divide was enough that with the nominal disruption to magic here on the Marks, she couldn¡¯t stay in contact with her parents. An in-plane destination, regardless of the distance, would not have had the problem at all without some very active magical interference, as normally mono-planar distances were no problem for a Mark, either. ¡°How¡¯d they find whole other worlds out there, then?¡± Selena asked the most pertinent question. ¡°If they were already tied to another world, I can see that being easy to reach¡­¡± ¡°Empyreans also regularly deal with Mythos Entities, who exist at eight dimensions and higher, potentially up in thirteen. They can look across the dimensional divides and see the streams of souls moving in and out of the mortal plane, follow them to living worlds, and then mark those worlds and all their iterations and equivalents as easily as you or I could pick up a book and read it. ¡°So, the Empyreans talk to them, and the Entities might give the location of such a world if asked, if they have a motive for them to learn it, or perhaps just for some random entertainment. ¡°The Empyrean ¡®discoveries¡¯ of thousands of worlds were the results of a lot of bargains with things mortals really shouldn¡¯t be talking to. It¡¯s also remarkable how information about all those many, many worlds seems to have vanished from the memories of the Empyreans so readily, and also how so very, very few Empyreans ever grow strong enough to actually empower such magic without directly calling on such Entities once again¡­¡± I trailed off into the silence behind me. ¡°That be not the same as gods, aye?¡± the Mick asked carefully. ¡°From our perspective, it may pragmatically not make much difference, if the gods being compared are also bastards. But no, Gods and Titans are very different from Mythos Entities. ¡°The most powerful Mythos Entities come from Outside Creation, beyond the constraints of a multiverse. Many other Mythos creatures are descended from those powerful beings, and some lesser gods may indeed be born from them, too. They usually give their forebears names like Chaos, Madness, or somesuch thing to indicate the difference in power and age. True Gods come from inside Creation, inside their own multiverses, and while they might be able to reach out and between them, they are still Gods and tied to where they come from.¡± ¡°Titans?¡± Kopf, walking further back, piped up, interested in that. ¡°Four nominal tiers of Gods: Demigods, Lesser Gods, True Gods, and Greater Gods. True Gods and Greater Gods are explicitly not finite, akin to existing as concepts and ideas, and can manifest material avatars. ¡°Titans are explicitly creatures with the power of Gods, but a material existence. There technically are no limits to their size and power, but they often tend to be primitive, violent, territorial, and prone to fighting one another or the Gods. They tend to get killed off over the ages, while Gods rise and fall with those who remember them and what they are. ¡°Mythos creatures from Outside Creation follow the rules of both and neither. They have no rules save when they come into contact with a multiverse and have to adapt themselves to interact with it. Gods, Titans, both, neither¡­ they are Outside Creation, and while their spawn may infect realities and be subject to the laws of those realms, true Mythos Entities obey nothing except their own whims. ¡°The virindi are a Mythos Entity existing here as a Hivemind of separate units actually all united in their Singularity and Quiddity. Why they are here is their own business, but I doubt they truly understand it. However, it means we are dealing with a very non-mortal thing with non-mortal drives, which has problems even existing on the mortal plane¡­ yet still it is here and bothering us, instead of whatever realm is its true home. ¡°Whether they were brought here by some idiot Empyrean or attracted by something else, we still have to get rid of them at some point or another, as their plans surely have no concern whatsoever for us¡­¡± ¡°We believe there¡¯s at least eight other minor or Lesser Mythos Entities who have interests here. The Deep, T¡¯Thuun, the Harbinger, the sponsors of the Falatacot, the Burun, the shades-maker, and Grael¡­ there are a lot of things interested in this little island for some reason, and we really don¡¯t know why.¡± ¡°Asheron abandoned the rest o¡¯ the planet to the olthoi an¡¯ came here, where the Olthoi Queen was, an¡¯ where all the olthoi are trying to get to,¡± the Mick pointed out to everyone. ¡°That be pretty insane on the face o¡¯ it, aye, everyone?¡± There were hesitant murmurs of agreement as they considered that. He would only come here if it was important, more important than the rest of the world, and so he did¡­ even if the true Olthoi Queen was here. ¡°It is logical that in the eyes of the virindi, the lugians are nothing more than animated, walking pickaxes that can hack at the world for them, valued when useful, discarded or ignored when irrelevant to their goals. ¡°The Gotrok have thrown themselves on the mercy of things they think have shreds of decency, gratitude, and honor, and they are going to pay for it badly. ¡°Our goal is to see that the rest of the citizens of Linvak Tukal do not also pay for it.¡± AF Chapter 258 – Into Tukal Everyone grew quieter as the miles slid past. It helped that we were actually making really good speed through the triangular passage I was Shaping up with great speed, but the real reason was we started to hear and feel the hum. ¡°Fuck me, but that be really, really nasty, be it not?¡± the Mick asked softly, continually looking around as the hum grew about us. We could now hear subtle little gyrations and alterations in its constant power. ¡°Ley line tap, and a big one. The glitches in it are whatever they are charging up and doing to the natural flow,¡± I informed everyone in a Magevoice whisper. ¡°I¡¯m having to be very careful drawing on ambient Earthpower and not the ley line right now. Don¡¯t use any magic, and minimize all vibrations. Sound travels a long way through stone.¡± Most of them were riding along on Disks, so that wasn¡¯t an issue. But they all took deep breaths and started using the motionless Stealth training they¡¯d all been put through, stretching muscles one by one, relaxing and yet ready for something to happen. Those with lightfoot could keep walking and did, but the sound of footsteps behind me vanished completely, and conversation ceased entirely. ------ Down nearly three hundred feet slowly over the course of nearly two miles, and then much more rapidly moving up. Still smooth, still ramplike, as we¡¯d have to be moving people along these, and I didn¡¯t want them tripping over stairs in the dark. The hum was loud enough to be definitely annoying and a distraction, with pulses and breaks in it that were very noticeable, and sounded very virindi-like. It felt to me like something was telling the magic where to go in a complex series, but it was Spellcraft, not a language, so there was nothing to decode that I or Kris could tell. Given we could understand virindi quasi-machine language when they scrabbled to one another, that wasn¡¯t surprising. ¡°Timing,¡± Kris murmured behind me. ¡°The pulses are timing something. It¡¯s a countdown.¡± I didn¡¯t have her Tremblesense or level of spiritual awareness interacting with it. ¡°I can¡¯t tell via pulse frequency. Amplitude?¡± I asked back quietly. ¡°Yes.¡± She reached out to the walls sloping together on either side of us, tracing her fingers on the stone. ¡°It¡¯s built up by a decibel over the last mile, fractional increments on every third pulse.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t know the goal, so that¡¯s useful trivia until we get it.¡± ¡°Aye, but most timers, dinnae they count down to going boom in all the stories?¡± the Mick asked quietly behind us. ¡°You didn¡¯t think this was going to end well, did you?¡± I whispered back. ¡°Kris, what¡¯s your coldly logical best heartless bastard scenario here?¡± ¡°The mines under the city offer useful veins through the earth they don¡¯t have to excavate and clear, they only have to alter them into useful forms and start making grand patterns out of them. Residual minerals form useful catalysts, and there¡¯s multiple easily accessible ley lines to tap. ¡°Cold heartless bastards would remove non-productive units and turn them into something productive. Then they would transform the area into something more useful to them, using a catalytic transformation of great scale attuned to the desired minerals to bring up more from the depths of the world, and incidentally trying to time it to dispose of random chaotic elements threatening them on this world. ¡°The desires of the lugians in this matter are naturally irrelevant.¡± I could feel the half-dozen lugians behind me grimacing at the very cold-blooded plan she¡¯d put forth. ¡°Axiomatics are the worst. They don¡¯t even have any malice in this, they just don¡¯t care about anything beside their own goals,¡± I explained quietly. ¡°Organics and mortals are just chaff, interference, imperfections in their plans, to be dealt with as efficiently as possible to move the plans forward. This can mean accommodation and treating with them, or it can mean extermination. All one and the same.¡± ¡°Can we stop it?¡± the Mick asked for everyone. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s always possible. Is it worth it to?¡± I looked back at them. ¡°Our goal here is to get the civilians out, end stop. I¡¯m not sacrificing you in a bum rush to get down to the heart of the Formation, interrupt it, set something off prematurely, and hopefully damage it beyond fixing while slaughtering enough virindi that they don¡¯t attempt to do it again as we die valiantly under hundreds of spells. ¡°There¡¯s times to die for a cause, and this is not one of them.¡± ¡°I be likin¡¯ t¡¯ stay as far away from such times as I can,¡± the Mick uttered in a light yet grim tone. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°The best way is to stop those times before they start. Of course, that just makes the other party speed them up, which is a royal pain, or make them totally secret as long as possible, which is just as bad.¡± ¡°If only there were some all-seeing divine beings around who could clue us in on the shit that was trying to kill us all and send us out to snip things in the bud,¡± Kris grinned hard. ¡°Then we¡¯d have t¡¯ complain about us doing all the work o¡¯ the gods an¡¯ them never doing anything themselves!¡± the Mick coughed knowingly. ¡°I don¡¯t think any of us want to consider the kinds of things Mithar and His fellows up in Heaven there have to do and what they have to face down, because there¡¯s no way we could handle any of them,¡± I murmured softly, and heard some subdued grunts behind me. ¡°That¡¯s where Faith comes in. I trust them to do what they need to do, and they can rely on us to do what we need to do. Sometimes, that just involves praying. Sometimes, it means you wade through gore and you put armies to the sword.¡± ¡°The latter times generate a lot more Karma,¡± Princess Kristie reminded them over her shoulder, and earned some grim chuckles for that. ¡°Yes. But it means that kneeling at dawn, raising your sword at noon, saluting the sun going down, and singing at Highmoon all contribute to the fight. You give your Faith to the gods, and they do something right with it. ¡°The gods who do selfish things with it, well, those aren¡¯t the gods you want to worship. They may not give you a choice, but if you¡¯re the kind to serve THEM wholeheartedly, then you¡¯re probably one of those high karma-value problems we have to get out of the way.¡± The Mick turned and wagged a finger at everyone behind him. ¡°No betrayin¡¯ us all t¡¯ the dark gods fer fabulous power an¡¯ tentacle sex an¡¯ whatnot!¡± he admonished them all. --- I stopped in place, staring ahead, and then slowly moved my head in a circle. Everyone behind me waited patiently. ¡°Four hundred paces to go,¡± Kris informed them quietly, tapping the stone gently. ¡°Three audial nodes close by. They¡¯ve done some diversions and alterations to the ley line formations.¡± ¡°Like spiders pulling on a web from the main lines of the old tunnels they¡¯ve adjusted,¡± I agreed into the quiet. ¡°I¡¯m going to be making spirals and turns now, avoiding what they are doing with the magic flow. If we disrupt it, they¡¯ll know something is happening, and likely wrench open the ground to find out what.¡± I spun the tunnel sideways and up, and began to spiral into a rise to get over the diverted ley line in front of us, keeping the rise gentle enough to not throw off anyone walking it in the dark. Up thirty feet, ahead a hundred feet, move left, spiral down ten feet, diagonally sixty feet, up, hard left again, diagonally back right¡­ It looked like they had a complete formation up, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about them adding additional nodes and intercepting anything. Still, the hum was a bit more discordant once inside it, an asynchronous meshing of multiple magical flows originating sounds which were difficult to place and track as a whole right now, but whose frequency and amplitudes comprised the count-down for whatever they were doing. ---- ¡°Legs ready.¡± Kris¡¯ order sent all the melees quietly extending their feet and scooting up to the edge of the Disks that had carried them this whole distance. Metal and leather creaked as they kicked and tensed. Weapons were quietly unlimbered, Shields propped on boots, and bowstrings tensed calmly as archers and mages moved from sitting to crouching or kneeling in readiness. I waited for Kris to gesture, and when she did, the last foot of stone flowed out of our way, and Linvak Tukal was open before us. No Casting. Kris and the Mick spun out in opposite directions, blending into the shadows here. Just a glimmer of light, and I stepped out, the rest of the team coming out on the cloak-covered Disks and getting rapidly into formation. The heavily-armored lugians still weren¡¯t setting foot on the ground, while the archers and two support mages rose to their feet, the latter hoping they wouldn¡¯t be needed, as any Casting was going to raise the alarm instantly. Behind Politia, the last to exit, the wall flowed back into the same carved design it had possessed before I¡¯d sent it out of the way. The Mick held up two fingers as we looked out over the cavern in front of us. Kopf, Gross, and two other lugians confirmed, we were on the second tier of the city. He made a down and to the right motion, tilting his head. Kopf frowned, and corrected it to more central. The other lugians confirmed, Kopf¡¯s partner Gross pointing emphatically right and ahead of them. We had a very, very good map of Linvak Tukal in the Markspace, but everyone had Marks closed and quiet right now. Everyone could feel a static on their Markdoors that didn¡¯t belong there, and knew that conferring by Mark was going to be sensed and start something bad, so we could only infer and match up inside our own heads, matching the views to the internal map as we hit waypoints or landmarks that stood out. Visual Files were nice, but not being able to share information perfectly was annoying. The lugians all had soft leather and cloth on their big feet in case they needed to move, but the Disks had perfect steady control that kept them from knocking their metal against the walls as they floated along. Shadowslake was on all the Armor, which made it non-reflective, non-magnetic, quiet when knocked on, and really muted the magical signature of the stuff down to just a few feet. The city was well-lit with magical torches, but that just made areas of shadow in between areas of illumination from the torches and crystal-fed moonlight piped in from overhead. Nighttime, about 11 pm. Curfew magnifying the effects of late night, almost nobody was moving around here. What was moving would be Gotrok patrols keeping the people in, or virindi gliding about for their own purposes. Good enough for us. Kris was in the absolute lead, the Mick gliding second, and I was leading the Disks in third, with everyone scanning to the sides as we followed this side tunnel down towards an egress. Gross was dead on, the tunnel coming out into a cross way that led in a ramp towards the bottom level. As this was the outskirts of the subterranean city, there were no guards posted out here, so far from the residential areas. The Mick pointed out the signs indicating tier and direction for everyone, and there was a quick realigning of internal maps as everyone figured out where we were. The Mick pointed down silently, everyone else did the same, and down we went, Kris the ghost, the Mick the shadow, and the rest of us just floating apparitions. AF Chapter 259 – Contact in Tukal Quaver inserted itself into the Hollow Minion¡¯s voicebox and ripped up and out through the Construct¡¯s control Formation. Bunita started a bit lower and wrenched up into the other¡¯s vocal apparatus. Both Minions shuddered and tried to cry a programmed alarm, then crumbled and fell basically in tandem. I put my foot on the ground, and carefully used Earthpower to open a small cavity in the ground, just big enough to fit two trashed Minions. The scarecrow-esque Constructs were smoothly dumped into the hole in the corridor floor by Lord Mick¡¯s experienced hands, so convenient to always have stone to work with here. I smoothed the floor over and back to unbroken status as everyone else paused to listen to see if there was any alarm. Virindi were inscrutable, and if they moved some of their guards around, who was to know? A vertical hand went up at the edge of the light, Kris already off and in front of us, and four fingers were broadly displayed. Guardpost. Living guards who would be missed. Happily, there was someone here who could go around such blockades if required, and in the populated areas, the walls weren¡¯t all that thick. We all glided up to the edge of the zone, just able to see the place where four Gotrok were standing around one of their chest-high tables, playing one of the forty different kind of stone and board games that were popular in their society. Probably their equivalent of checkers, I noted, studying the board with magnified vision from Eagle Eyes. Mick chopped right, I agreed, and looking back, so did all the lugians. I put my hand on the wall, and opened it up. The passage was low and not very wide, but that was fine. The Disks obligingly dipped down, the melees put up their feet carefully, and we quietly scooted along on a diagonal around the guard position. The tunnel beyond opened up into the main population caverns of the city, where the wall apartments and towering multi-chambered towers held the population of the city. The Mick took everyone into the shadow of the nearest tower as I closed the passage behind us, leaving no evidence of bypassing the guardpost. His hand gestures were to the left, up two, and two doors down, and off we went. --- There were only a couple patrols to dodge, easily sussed out ahead of time by how loud they were clomping around, more intent on intimidation of the people than anything else. The Gotrok basically concentrated on control of the gates of the city and stomping around in rigid marches to show their strength and discipline, all of which made them extremely predictable. The virindi and their servants weren¡¯t much in evidence here, there being very little to investigate. Even with twenty people moving around, given they were dragged quickly and all in complete silence at this point, navigating to the meeting point with the contact we had in here wasn¡¯t all that hard. The ¡®apartment¡¯ turned out to have what could only be called an internal courtyard, and Kris had the complex lock up front open in seconds by dint of sticking her nail in it and a Mark III Vajra moving the tumblers and opening it up faster than a key. Lugians didn¡¯t have sensitive fingers for that kind of work, and actually preferred complex locks to brute force solutions in polite situations. Our line of late-night intruders were in the door zip-zip-zip, it was almost comical how fast it was. Once inside, the Mick didn¡¯t knock, he opened the inner door, and closed it, then opened it and closed it again, waiting patiently. ¡°Air pressure alarm,¡± Kris murmured to me, eyeing the windows of the place and the ventilation system, right through the stone. ¡°Probably makes a water trap somewhere bubble or burble. There is someone coming down the stairs now.¡± A minute later, the door cracked open, then a brawny lugian miner there opened it up, a mine-light in his hand. He found himself looking out at a bunch of Isparians and lugians standing silently in his entry hall. ¡°Poklio, how the stones are ye?¡± the Mick smiled cheerfully to the startled informer. ¡°We¡¯re here t¡¯ tell ye, ye gots t¡¯ evacuate everyone from the city now, an¡¯ were dispatched t¡¯ help that happen.¡± The miner blinked several times, as if trying to believe what he was hearing. ¡°Lord Mick?¡± he finally got out, overcoming his astonishment. ¡°We sent word that the virindi are here, but our messenger did not return¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s because the virindi tracked his way out an¡¯ booby-trapped it nicely. We had t¡¯ make our own way in,¡± the Mick replied testily. ¡°It¡¯s bad, Poklio.¡± He stared the lugian directly in the eye. ¡°The virindi are goin¡¯ t¡¯ take out the city, an¡¯ that be no lie. Ideally, we need everyone getting out o¡¯ here tonight, if at all possible.¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°Tonight?¡± The lugian¡¯s eyes boggled at the demand. ¡°But how? There¡¯s no way to organize anything that fast..¡± ¡°Highness,¡± the Mick asked without turning around, ¡°how long do we have?¡± ¡°There were three timing nodes active during our walk into the city. One of them has gone silent. Based on the rising amplitude of the current node and when the third one stopped, whatever the virindi are planning is going to go off at highmoon two nights hence.¡± Kris paused significantly. ¡°At that time, everything in this city is going to be gone. ¡°I imagine they can set it off early, such as tomorrow, or right now. If that happens, the city might well still survive in some form, but there isn¡¯t going to be anything alive in it that is not virindi.¡± The miner blinked again, looking at all of us looking back at him grimly. ¡°That¡­ is very, very bad,¡± he agreed quickly. ¡°We will have to abandon almost everything¡­¡± ¡°Or ye can stay here an¡¯ die because it¡¯s too much work,¡± the Mick said disparagingly, and the reluctant miner bridled at his tone. ¡°Let me alert my wife, and then I must talk to my neighbors quickly!¡± the stout lugian snarled quickly. ¡°Do you have a secondary tunnel system in place for communication, Master Poklio?¡± I¡¯m sure he reddened at my words, as he didn¡¯t have the tats or air of any kind of Stone Master. ¡°We¡¯ve slowly dug out tunnels here and there between key areas,¡± he admitted. ¡°Nobody knows where all of them are, and the Gotrok have only stumbled across a couple of them.¡± ¡°I can connect them all very, very quickly if you need them to get people out of there. What was the proper location of our entry point, Axemaster?¡± I asked Kopf quietly. Kopf reeled off a string of coordinates in the lugian tongue quickly, startling the miner more with the placement than anything. ¡°An evacuation tunnel they know nothing of?¡± he asked eagerly. It was a given that any of the secret tunnels to the outside they had made were probably just traps by now. ¡°The Lady Magos made it herself, we all took it. It is a long and unbroken journey, but it leads to safety on the other side of Linvak Kom-Kommon, below and beyond where the Gotrok can reach,¡± Kopf replied stoically. The miner gave me a sharp once-over. ¡°And you can make another tunnel like that, leading to a safe way out?¡± he clarified. ¡°I can and will,¡± I replied firmly. ¡°Then you will be coming with me.¡± He looked around at the rest of the team, assessing them and reading them properly as being very dangerous. ¡°Can you beat the Gotrok?¡± he asked firmly. ¡°Any o¡¯ them? Yes. ALL o¡¯ them? No. The big danger be the virindi, now, aye? All that magic flying around. Ye need to get the word out, an¡¯ the people need t¡¯ move now, the sooner, the better.¡± ¡°I will spread the word quickly!¡± Poklio agreed hastily. ¡°Tell us where we need to be to protect them, and we will be there,¡± Kopf ground out in his deep voice, his Shield currently at merely half its normal size so as not to be so bulky. ¡°That we will, my lord!¡± the miner agreed, recognizing a noble by his bearing. ¡°I have no room for all of you, but make yourselves at home¡­ for as long as I will call this place a home.¡± ------ Sound carries a long way through stone. Lugians had used hammer tapping and drummings through the stone to carry messages in the past, and the practice never really stopped for the convenience of it. Different codes beat back and forth, from everything from children signaling to one another between the walls of their abodes, to marking the time and shift changes, to entire messages that could be conveyed with the proper melodies. The first of those tapping melodies went out, and then Poklio led me into the lower storage area of his apartment, a place crammed with old worn things of stone that had likely seen generations of use, along with some preserved food reserves and rough tools and clothing appropriate for miners. The door was appropriately hidden behind a heap of clothing, counterweighted marvelously, and it slid open smoothly to reveal a narrow (for lugians) passage beyond. The miner had to squeeze into it, it really wasn¡¯t going to fit the armored lugians in our own band or any Gotrok soldiers, so the Scouts followed after, Kris staying behind with Kopf¡¯s Vanguards for an emergency contact as needed. Tellingly, Poklio¡¯s wife and two kids had already grabbed up ready packs, stuffed them with extra food, and were with us as we wound through the carefully-chiseled passages, the stone from excavating them carried with the miners to their working areas and tossed into the carts so there would be no sign of the tailings. I smoothed it out and widened it around them calmly, the miner swearing softly as he watched the strenuously-chiseled stone Shape itself smoothly around him. Still, he only led us to the next house, tapping a careful beat upon the stone as he did so. Soon enough, other lugians were coming down into the tunnel network, waiting for Poklio. He exchanged urgent words with them, and then we were moving on and down and around, while behind us the city was waking up at night. I was keeping track of our placement, and he did indeed lead us out of the residential section, artfully skirting with masterful skill any corridors or tunnels used by primary traffic. Soon enough we came to the end of the tunnels they¡¯d been working on, and pointed at the wall of stone ahead of me. He was absolutely silent as he watched it all melt away ahead of us, but simply pointed in the proper direction to go as I charted it all in my Visual File, matched it up with the map of the city I knew¡­ and made any sudden alterations to the course that were needed as the webwork of shifted ley lines got in the way. The hum here was actually subdued. I gathered it was because the ley lines were pumping the magic into something here, and so the Formation was actually being filled here under the city, while the magic was all flowing together into the narrow channels as we were arriving. Soon enough, we came to a storage chamber almost adjacent to the tunnel I¡¯d made coming in. We stepped out of the wall into a room filled with racks of old suits, helmets, and wagon parts, things that had to be moved out of the way quickly. I expedited matters by dropping the floor down with all the stuff and then filling it in on top, opening the way to the door. ¡°Okay, the only thing we need to worry about is virindi flying by through the center of the cavern, or a wandering patrol deciding this area needs to be tromped through,¡± I told them all. ¡°If we can let a patrol pass without killing them, that is ideal. If not¡­ it has to be really fast and clean,¡± I warned them all. AF Chapter 260 – Failure is Important! ¡°We¡¯ve gotten quite good at that, Lady Magos!¡± Selena declared quietly. She and Rogar split the Roaches up to handle each direction, relay signals of tight-beam flashlights set up quickly, and they were off into the shadows, much more quietly than lugians could do. I showed Poklio¡¯s wife and kids the section of wall, made a counter-balancing door out of it that could be closed, and opened it up to reveal the triangular tunnel beyond. ¡°Just follow the walls, and it will eventually take you out. It is not a short trip, however. If you get tired, lay down to the sides so that others can pass you, as there is not a lot of room.¡± The miner-spy and his wife embraced, the children valiantly not showing their fear as they quickly moved into the strangely-made tunnel¡­ and other women and children were soon following them hastily. ¡°We need to go connect more sections of tunnel,¡± Poklio advised me quickly. ¡°It will take hours to quietly move everyone out of here, even if they carry little.¡± ¡°I notice none of the elders are coming,¡± I said softly, following him as he hurried back down the passageway to an adjoining tunnel. ¡°They will come last, Lady Magos, so as not to slow the rest of us down,¡± he said grimly. Lugians had both a rich martial tradition and a lot of recent conflict with their civil war, giving them the mindset to make brutally hard decisions for the welfare of their next generation. ¡°One of the things I was tasked with doing was potentially saving the lore and history of the sages of Linvak Tukal. The Scrolls of Failure and the genealogies in particular were considered paramount.¡± ¡°There are a great number of them,¡± the miner answered slowly, as he suddenly pushed a carving and it slid out to reveal another hidden tunnel behind it. He tapped gently on the side of it, and there was another very quiet tapping in return. A minute later, the first women were coming out of it, he whispered the directions, and she and her children were pacing quietly yet hurriedly on the right path. ¡°I can see I¡¯m going to have to widen this,¡± I noted, following him inside, which I promptly began to do, making it wide enough for two lugians to squeeze past one another. ¡°As for carrying the Scrolls, as long as they can fit inside a twenty-foot cube, I can take a great deal of them.¡± He gave me a thoughtful glance, but his attention was dragged back by tons of stone Shaping out of our way as we followed this new tunnel around and away. ¡°The virindi are known to be investigating the records of the sages there, seeing if there is anything of interest. If you intend to retrieve them, there will likely be fighting involved.¡± ¡°Then best we save it until it is time to leave.¡± ------ Poklio had an incredible memory of the city and awareness of where he was, which I backed up with my Visual File. At specific points, he pointed and we changed direction, soon intersecting other tunnels or rooms, often with surprised lugians waiting in them, all shocked to see the stone flow away and us standing there looking back at them. The quiet evacuation of Linvak Tukal proceeded forthwith. Headmen in each discrete area contacted their people, and the evacuees poured down into the tunnels, which ran together as I connected them and drove new tunnels. They headed first to the outskirts of the city, and then emerged long enough to find the doorway to the tunnel out and move into it in a constant and steady stream. If an alarm went off, we¡¯d hear it as quickly as the Gotrok would, and could be in position to cut them off much more quickly. The citizens of the city who remained, which were mostly the male miners and makers, would also boil out to confront the Gotrok if required. The biggest wild card factor was going to be the virindi. The lugians were startlingly good at noise discipline, not wearing metal to bang against the stones as they moved. They also had excellent endurance and none of them were carrying much, stripped by the headmen if they tried anything so foolish. They were leaving with some clothes, food, their most treasured mementos and valuables, and not a whole lot more. They were leaving the city they¡¯d carved out of a mountain behind, because their king said their lives were worth more than reclaiming the city. It was a great reason for doing so. The miners and workers would be rousing soon, playing at going to their jobs soon enough. The movement of the men would actually hide the evacuation of the women and children, right up until the Gotrok realized no women and kids were going to where they were supposed to. It meant I had to rush back across the city and immediately hook in some connecting tunnels on the way to the mines that the workers could duck into and run away into once past a certain checkpoint. The kids not going to schools or trades might be looked at oddly once their indoctrinators missed them, but that wasn¡¯t our biggest problem. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. There was a steady flow of lugians walking the long tunnel to get out of there now, and there had shockingly been no interference from the virindi. Granted, this was all being done without lots of shows of magic and no violence if at all possible to maximize the people who were evacuated, but it was still surprising. Kris and I had no problems communicating. Bondmage and Null still had our link, and I hadn¡¯t told anyone that I could Cast without alarming the virindi simply by pulling the magic out of her instead of the manafield. But that was going to be our surprise¡­ and in the meantime, tapping on our Bond was the equivalent of Morse Code, and we could dit-dah-dit pretty damn fast and text one another with what we needed to say. --- INTENSE VIRINDI ACTIVITY DOWN BELOW. IT SEEMS THEY ARE CONCENTRATING ON LOWER SECURITY INSTEAD OF UPPER. THEY MIGHT ALSO NEED THE EXTRA BODIES TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF WHATEVER THEY ARE DOING HERE, she /texted me through our Bondlink. So, she had gone down into the secure virindi areas and infiltrated where they were sure nobody could. It didn¡¯t surprise me, as that was actually the plan all along. YOU GET PART TWO DONE?, I /blipped and blopped back to her, as I was working on my own special project. MIDDLE OF PLACING NUMBER SIX DOWN NOW. FIGURED TWO NICE SPOTS TO PUT SEVEN AND EIGHT BEFORE I BAIL, she /beeped back. THEY REALLY AREN¡¯T GOING TO LIKE US. THAT DAMN VIVUS SHIT GETS INTO EVERYTHING, I /agreed with her, /tapping in response. STAY SAFE. WE¡¯RE ON THE WAY TO RETRIEVE RECORDS OF FAILURES. IT¡¯S ME!, she /worded back, and I just shook my head. Ael¡¯s Sama had a serious lack of fear, a REALLY healthy store of emotional issues, and a surfeit of what was often called the Stupidity Stat, that thing which made really smart people do something absolutely idiotic simply because they thought they could get away with it. When you were dealing with people with superhuman capabilities, the stuff they could actually get away with was pretty extraordinary, and Rantha Hags were no exceptions to that. When Kris got her ire up, she was willing to dare some pretty insane and dangerous stuff to make sure some things got what was coming to them. I could only imagine where she was going to place those Vivic Orbs... ----- They were all looking the wrong way. Kristie¡¯s cloak was molded around her, disrupting any registration of an improper form. The Displacement effect was currently modified to send her visual image right into and flat against the stone , an alchemical illusion and cloaking effect of light-bending that effectively eliminated her profile against the magically-smoothed stone and Rune-channels pumping magic into that nasty combination of crystals and Formation down below her. Purple extra-dimensional energies were humming as they built up, aetherium lighting up to open up something that was going to utterly magnify the ley line energy being drawn in here and set up something really big. Maybe even big enough to surge all the Summon Points and pop them open again with the wave of energy. That wouldn¡¯t be a catastrophe, but it was going to be annoying to have to shut them all down again. Unlike before, all those points were clearly marked, and what was required to shut them down again was already known. But, why go through that hassle again? The crystals hanging down from the ceiling were difficult to cling to, what with the rush of energy running over them, but that was why a tight Null and a really high Ki reserve was so useful. Her Vajra gripped the very structure of the stones, the fabric of the crystals enough to give her purchase, and she once again thanked the First Rantha for protrusions up front being completely elective and making this easier to accomplish. The brand-new Lugian Simulacra made from hollowed-out corpses, assorted Hollow Minions, and virindi in the chamber were not looking at the Formation. They were there to guard against external threats, not internal ones, and a stealther coming down their precious Mana Condenser to place a Vivic Orb inside the crystals at the very center of their work was simply not possible. Sure, she should have been spotted right away, except the damn bastards had shit for visual capabilities, relying on off-spectra that her Darkstalker ki neutralized completely, as well as an inhuman sensitivity to magic that could include life Auras, which her Null shut down on top of that. She was just an inert shadow creeping very slowly across the crystal, palming the Orb from her backpack. As a certain rotation in the guard patterns drew attention in the wrong directions, she flicked it down and placed it precisely between the crystals and out of line of sight. Her hand was withdrawn before any smiling or frowning masks were turned her way. Chortling quietly to herself, she started backwards up the crystal, towards the upper mine door she¡¯d come in through. She moved right past the Virindi Executioner that was supposed to have seen her, and slipped past it a second time during the two seconds it had removed its imperfect mask to clean it of energy residues building up inside it. The Vivic Orbs had only one purpose: to suck in a whole lot of energy if it was released violently, then convert that energy into the fire of shattering matter. All of it would now be nicely chased with a whole lot of hungry vivus expanding into what should have been a manafield saturating with extra-dimensional energies at their thickest and most vulnerable point. She couldn¡¯t stop the whole thing from blowing to Hell and gone, that was a given. She was plenty sure, by the feelings from her Tremblesense of the energies running through the walls, that the virindi could blow the Formation right now and take out the whole city and everyone in it, at the very least. It might not have the transformative properties they were looking for, and might not send out a full pulse to fry any non-virindi magic using the ley lines, but it would definitely kill everyone here and likely harvest them as slaves to the Virindi Quiddity as it did so. Making up the Orbs had been frantic enough, considering quality level had to substitute for time spent in this case, and the whole fact they didn¡¯t have the energy to do what they wanted to was shaky. But, hey, if the virindi were nice enough to power up the Orbs for them, what did they have to complain about? Three taps came over her bondmage link, and she knew Ryin was about to pop up in the Hall of Sages and start gathering a whole lot of records. That was also extremely important, but first, she had to get out of here¡­ AF Chapter 261 – A Tapestry of Failures I came out into the lower storerooms of the Hall of Sages of the lugians, with Junzun, an older lugian who had worked here as a caretaker and knew the entire place like the back of his hand, tasked to assist me. He had brought along two assistants, there to provide extra hands and access more areas more quickly. His white facial Tats almost shone in the dim light down here as I looked at this particular room full of records. The lugians didn¡¯t use paper for their records, they used fine metal or stone. That naturally meant the records were much harder to make, but they also lasted a very long time without incident, and not much was going to be capable of destroying them. Being heavy was a feature, not a drawback here, indicating age and solemnity. This area here was filled with some of the older records, things copied over from the homelands, remembered and committed down to gold, silver, or copper, or perhaps sheets of flexible crystal or obsidian. They didn¡¯t need to be referenced, because they were all about the history of things well-established in the trades, like different cooling methods for metals, different carving techniques for stone, or different tanning techniques for hides. With the main techniques themselves still in use and not needing to go looking for improvements, these records languished in the shadows, kept faithfully if the sages needed to go and look back at what had been done before, the results, and see if there was some other road that might be more promising that had not been covered already. I could feel the presence of alien magic nearby. There were at least three virindi in the building, who had been going through the lugian records constantly and efficiently, seemingly focusing on the lugian studies of mineral veins, their surprising regrowth, and the interactions with the ley lines that might be involved with the process. I gathered they didn¡¯t know enough about the mortal plane here to realize that veins of metals and minerals regenerating and growing as if they were organic was actually NOT something that was normal at all. Standard forging techniques were also completely alien to them, judging by their robes, scythes, and the Weapons they¡¯d supplied the Gotrok and Hea for their services. None of such things had been cast or hammered into shape using traditional methods, at all. That said, they obviously had ways of looking at the world and methods suitable for those ways that allowed them to do some pretty damn strange things to normal materials. There was little doubt that part of what they were going to do here was arrange for some magically-formed exotic materials of some kind or another to be formed here, the old mines under the city saving them tons of time in establishing a Formation to do so. These virindi I was going to kill. They never received visitors, only leaving occasionally to report to their seniors and then returning. Thus, popping them would only leave a quiet hole in the local hivemind that would likely not even be noticed until a check-in time passed, and even then probably wouldn¡¯t be investigated if there weren¡¯t other things to worry about. By then, we¡¯d be long gone, and the evacuation of the city mostly complete. ¡°Start gathering crates to divide the records among, and a suitable room to set up the Tapestry,¡± I told the retired sage, handing off the roll of cloth to one of his aides. He waved me off with bright eyes, and his second assistant, a rather thin and oddly energetic younger lugian named Morimur, led me quickly through the chambers and ramps towards where the virindi had ensconced themselves. The lugians did have their Casters of magic, but few of them had remained in the city. Only the oldest, who the Gotrok largely wouldn¡¯t bother, stayed behind to take care of the needs of the people, while the active generation had left with King Kresovus when the Fall came and the Gotrok clans stormed in to take everything. Their king had shown his uncompromising support for those wielding magic and forging magical items, even when the products of such arts had, in the end, even taken his own weapon arm from him. Given the Gotrok disdain for magical arts, and arrogance over the Making and Mining traditions, Kresovus¡¯ undying support of the sages of his people had won him the unstinting backing of the lugian Casters. Indeed, the next generation of lugians was their largest class of Casters ever, the lugians standing firm in the face of adversity and clinging to the teachings of their ancestors. That the virindi were plundering all the work and secrets that the lugians had discovered since coming to Dereth enraged the sages the same way that them using the weapons of famous fallen warriors would enrage the Gotrok. That I was going to strike back against them was a huge thing for them, and spiriting their tediously-won knowledge out and away from the city before it fell was as great a feat for them as conquering an enemy keep might be for others. Behind me, the Mass Disks I¡¯d summoned up after pulling on power from Kris were being loaded down with heavy tomes of non-paper, pushed towards the room where the large cloth that would comprise the Tapestry that the spell would make was spread out, and the records were being set down upon it. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The records were large and heavy, and despite there being but three generations of them at most, they were still going to take up a lot of room. Happily, that did not matter for the spell. Once it was Cast, they would all be reduced to a picture upon the Tapestry, and it could be transported readily anywhere, or even Itemized itself to an even smaller form for transport. Everything was coming together, we just needed the virindi gone from the top floors so that we could empty them, as well. As I walked through the place, I looked at everything, and I painted it all into Visual File, and into The Map. Like the city, I expected the statues and carvings of sages and elders to be destroyed, their works erased by devastation and war¡­ but as long as their names and accomplishments lived on, that would be enough for their descendants, and, I knew, for the ancestors who wanted their people to have a better life than they had. I could recreate it all with a Permanent Illusion if I needed to, as could anyone who beheld it in the Map. I didn¡¯t have the time to see everything and everywhere, or at least, that was what it seemed. But a Wizard Eye didn¡¯t need to follow me, and Mira was on that task, zipping the little thing through the place, looking at all the walls and ceilings and floors, impressing every sight into the Visual File, room after room filled with myriad designs of crystalline, liquid, and fiery lights, art that spoke to the soul of magic and the secrets held here¡­ and all the failures that had led to the knowledge that became common use and was spread through their people, bettering their lives. They would be remembered. --- It was a Virindi Consul in a bright red, severely cut robe, with two Masters aiding it and following orders. I waited patiently until all three of them were together before swinging into the room they were in and lighting them up. The Chained Slash Vuln was probably overkill, but I didn¡¯t care. The Arcane Fusion went off, delivered my Shards as a Split Ray with a heaping of Silver Whirling Blade on top of it, and the Consul was literally shredded into dozens of crystalline red fragments, going poof as it was torn apart, and its Master underlings were blasted and shredded in similar fashion. Vivus reduced most of them to dust before it could hit the ground. ¡°Keep what they were examining to their own crates, we¡¯ll try to deduce more once we pull out,¡± I instructed Morimur, who was trying to hide how impressed he was that I could take down three powerful Virindi so fast. Some of the Disks that had been following me were parked in the room to take the tomes and ledgers the virindi had brought here and left heaped neatly if dismissively off to the side. ¡°As you command, Lady Magos!¡± the lugian historian bowed to me, and bent to his task quickly. ------ The next hour was a combination of touring the rooms of the place and heaving heavy tomes via Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis onto Disks, running the set back to Morimus, who hustled them all downstairs, where the other lugians stacked them up on the tapestry. Soon enough the tomes were stacked more than ten feet high, and the lugians were even using Disks as steps to place new tomes higher. Crates formed corner posts and divisions as the tomes were systematically put in place in the best order possible, and the lugians worked with the tireless endurance and strength of their kind to succor the past of their people. The first alarm horn going off in the distance was not unexpected. It was almost noon, so this had proved to be wildly successful. The alarms also meant it was time for what elders who could to leave, and those who couldn¡¯t should make their way to the exit to the city in due time, prepared to flee if given the opportunity, even though the Gotrok had sealed the gates. After all, they knew what was coming, and the Gotrok probably didn¡¯t want to die, either. There was another cruel fact circulating, too. Muldaveus and his commanders had already left the city, ostensibly to investigate the news of the Isparians pressing from the east, leaving only the most ill-trained, belligerent, and undisciplined members of the Gotrok behind. Gotrok who were also prone to believe the words of hundreds of their elders shouting at them that the virindi were going to destroy the city, and they had to get out of there! Elder Junzun led his aides into the tunnels, towing twoscore and more elders on the Disks, which had no better purpose than transporting them and some precious items from the place. The Tapestry of the Hall of Sages¡¯ Failures was in my Masspack, as safe there as anywhere, and I began to close tunnels around the city so they could not be found as the last of those who were going to use them passed through. ----- Tukora Jigbril of the Kahruiin Clan was an arrogant, contemptuous son of an ancient warrior clan, known for hard drinking, hard fighting, and willingness to die in battle. He also had very little restraint for his tongue, regularly cursing loyalists, Isparians, his fellow Gotrok, any clans not vassaled to his own, magic, the virindi, and anything else that came to mind with little hesitation. Looking down at hundreds of elders drawn up before the gates to the city, little more than sacks of food and water and the clothes on their backs with them, calling up to him to be let outside, was a situation beyond his limited care or imagination. The problem was that his immediate superior was already out of Linvak Tukal, and so the decision on what to do devolved to him. He had been ordered to keep the city closed to all except Gotrok forces and supplies moving in or out of it¡­ supplies that had been growing noticeably thinner by the day. He was pretty sure that the stores of the city would only last another day or two before the food ran out, and would probably cause an immediate riot. The news that the mining forces had vanished from the mines, save for those trusties and overseers who¡¯d been clubbed unconscious and left behind, had him gripping his axe in fear and excitement that an attack was imminent, and he could finally enjoy his true calling. AF Chapter 262 – Who is Failing Whom? But no. The scouts made it very plain that there was no attack incoming, there were no forces out there, and if any forces had snuck into the city, they were keeping to themselves and not ambushing any forces. Indeed, several patrols beaten black and blue were found, but not killed, with signs the refugees had passed them by¡­ and vanished into sections of solid stone at least tens of meters thick, with no sign of how it had happened. Now those left behind, the slowest, oldest, and most crippled members of the city, had hobbled their way up to the gates and were demanding to be let out, shouting at them that the virindi were going to destroy the city, that Muldaveus knew it and had already fled with his cronies. Tukora Jigbril was prone to dismiss this as more rebellion, although he certainly saw the sacrifice for what it was. The women and children had been whisked away before the men had gone, and they¡¯d even had tunnels in the very mines to take the majority of them away. The elders had stayed behind as the slowest, so as not to weigh down their children, and now were openly trying to leave, daring the Gotrok to do something about it. They didn¡¯t have the strength to force the issue, and everyone knew it, but the Gotrok didn¡¯t dare to kill them, either. These were elders, venerated and taken care of, those who had built the city and forges and mines that all lugians now trod upon. Killing them, even if they were loyalists and of clans that meant little, was a terrible crime among the lugians and would basically condemn the Gotrok as the most evil of murderers and brigands on the face of Dereth. Some of his own clansmen and vassals would be sure to desert if he ordered them to strike down the elders, rather than just push them back rudely and tell them to go home. Then he looked up from the guard post where he was brooding over what to do, what to believe, and his blood ran cold. The virindi were coming. They came in perfectly ordered ranks, hovering just above the ground, their armored robes in a motley of colors from black to bright red, moving as swiftly as a lugian could run. With them came dozens of their unsettling fighting Constructs, the crude caricatures called Hollow Minions, powerful things with great agility, speed, and crushing power in their blunt arms. ¡°The virindi will not tolerate your disobedience well!¡± he shouted at the elders who were defying them. ¡°You need to return to your homes right now and wait for instructions, or for your cowardly children to return!¡± ¡°Hmmph!¡± an old Maker he knew to be a smith, judging by the arch to his back and curve of muscles that no longer worked a hammer. ¡°If we are to die, then we die here, before the eyes of you fools who work with uncaring alien things, rather than as a sacrifice to them when they destroy the city we raised with our own two hands!¡± It was a small spark, but a spark it was. Husband and wives, brothers and sisters, old friends stepped together, drawing strength in their pride as they stood up to face the aliens that the Gotrok had invited into their homes, and in doing so brought disaster upon them all. Jigbril clutched his axe tighter as the force of virindi slowed to a halt on the other side of the crowd, who had turned silently to regard them. Even floating, the average lugian still towered over the virindi, but there was no denying the power that hummed around the alien creature and the arcane energies whose shadows played upon the floor and behind the mask that covered empty hoods. He had seen enough virindi die to know there was naught but a flash of energy behind those hoods when they crumpled, that nothing of flesh and bone was within them, or ever would be. But even if he was a proud warrior and despised magic as a weapon of the weak and cowards, he could not deny that the virindi were VERY dangerous¡­ and their Minions were likewise dangerous. This force of virindi and their servants was likely capable of killing all of the lugians here! ¡°Non-productive lugian designates will disperse and return to their centers of habitation immediately,¡± the lead virindi, a powerful Virindi Inquisitor in smooth robes of bright crimson, announced in its stereo-toned, artificial voice. ¡°Failure to disperse will not be tolerated among deficient lugian units.¡± Jigbril¡¯s veins ran like ice, especially when the elders refused to move. ¡°Die here, die there, all the same,¡± the old smith retorted proudly, not even glancing about and refusing to move. ¡°You¡¯re going to kill us all back in the city, why should we wait for it? Be about your bloodwork before everyone, now.¡± The warbling among the virindi reached a frightening intensity. Jigbril felt his breath leave him in mounting horror. He knew what some of those exchanges were, he¡¯d heard them before, years ago, when Isparians stumbled on groups of virindi and their servants, and combat ensured. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Very well,¡± the Inquisitor answered, and the lightning exploded out in purple-white arcs of horrifying strength. The old lugians there had no chance. They were all targeted, none of them escaped notice, and the deluge of roaring thunder and sizzling lightning was precise and overwhelming. The elders screamed helplessly as their ancient elemental enemy coursed through them, frying their nervous systems, roasting their brains, stopping their hearts, turning their muscles into twitching machines that made their corpses dance and spasm for long moments after they were already dead. He didn¡¯t need to look at his underlings to know that they were experiencing the same gut-wrenching horror and mounting fury that he was. You just did not treat your elders that way! Lugian elders! The Inquisitor drifted over directly in front of him. ¡°Tukora Commander,¡± it recited in its emotionless, level voice. ¡°You will keep the city sealed from any further efforts to escape or enter,¡± it intoned to him. ¡°Of course!¡± he replied with his usual bluff curtness. ¡°I know my duty, Inquisitor!¡± he reaffirmed. ¡°Noted.¡± Cold, clinical, unfeeling. His subordinates weren¡¯t looking at him as the virindi turned away, but he knew what they wanted to say, what they wanted to do. Since when did lugians knuckle under to some murderous aliens wielding their filthy magic, instead of cold, hard metal grasped in strong hands with skill and force? He simply stared there and watched the virindi turn around in place, their lurching Minions turning around as well, and headed back off as precisely and quickly as they had come. He also now knew they were watching and aware that the population of the city was gone, and the fact they were gone had¡­ upset them. What then, if the rest of the lugians also went missing? ¡°Colgok, Margond.¡± They were two of his most unruly and rebellious subordinates, kept in line only by use of strength, ever eager to contest his decisions. He could tell they were sensing an opportunity now. ¡°Sir.¡± Not an ounce of respect in the word, it was almost spit at him. Well enough. He¡¯d probably spit at the fool in the mirror, too. ¡°Colgok, take two squads of soldiers and scour the city. I want anyone left behind the city brought to this gate and shown politely out the door. ¡°Margond, I want word spread to every patrol and guard station. When the last elder is escorted out of the city, we are leaving.¡± The eyes of every Gotrok around there widened, first in disbelief, and then as the grim smiles spread, immediate understanding. Even Colgok and Margond were shocked at his words, their opportunity to rebel slipping away. Their only way to stop this was to inform the virindi of his rebellion¡­ and that, that would likely get them murdered by their own underlings right now. And besides, they wanted to stick it to the virindi, too. ¡°It will be done!¡± Colgok bellowed, hitting his chest quickly, before turning and stomping off to get his team ready. By recruiting the patrols on the way, he could complete the job even more quickly. ¡°Azkoth,¡± he went on, the most senior and even-tempered of his lieutenants. The older lugian straightened ever so slightly, a gleam of admiration in his eye that had been lacking for some time. ¡°Cover all the dead and arrange them with what honor you can. See if they can all be identified, and I want their names slated. Every single lugian leaving this city is to walk past them and see what the virindi did. If they have questions, let them ask our elders what they think.¡± ¡°SIR!¡± the Tukora lieutenant bellowed loudly, and began to gesture to those nearby. There was little need for him to berate any of the Gotrok who were looking on. Those he didn¡¯t call on abandoned their watchposts to help with the respectful moving and situating of the dead, calling out names of the fallen with all the reverence and respect they might give great warriors breathing their last. Two hastened to get slates to scribe the names down on, diamond chisels skirling over the stone and inscribing their time of death. The Slaughter of the Elders was something that would shake the core of the Gotrok and make them question all the deals that had been made with the virindi over the years. Jigbril still did not know what had become of the Hea, their erstwhile allies and partners in opposition to the dominance of the Isparians. When he found out and finally understood just how cold and uncaring their virindi ¡®allies¡¯ were on top of what was done this day, there would be no working with them ever again, just as none dared to work with the undead who had enslaved, slaved, and then reanimated the dead as their own undying workforce to mine for them. The Isparians had not acted against non-combatants, even if they were scheming rats with their own unclean magic and cowardly attacks, raids, and ambushes. This, this was simply WRONG¡­ and Commander Jigbril, proud warrior and leader of the Tukora, the most elite warriors of the lugian peoples, was going to have none of it. If the King¡¯s army decided to roll into Linvak Tukal, let them have it after the virindi were finished. And if Muldaveus didn¡¯t like it, he could come and take it back himself. --------- ¡°Butchered over threescore elders by the main gates, proved what treacherous shits they are, and they likely don¡¯t even realize it.¡± Kris related what she¡¯d seen coolly, but there was an eight-canine grimace on her face that looked just utterly savage. The grim lugians listening to her report who wanted to leap up and chop down virindi found their own rage dimming in the face of so much naked savagery being restrained. Stone peeled away like wood shavings under her black nails, and killing lust was in the air. And it was held in place. Rather than racing down to avenge the fallen elders, Princess Kristie Rantha had pulled back and watched what was going on, not sniping even a single virindi down in revenge for the sacrifice of the lugian elders. She had watched the Gotrok come out and attend to the twisted corpses of the old, even scribe down their names. And then she¡¯d watched them start filing silently out of the city, sometimes even escorting other elders out as well¡­ even carrying them, if they had to. Shame, it seemed, had finally touched the Gotrok. ¡°Perhaps there is some small hope for them,¡± King Kresovus murmured, ruminating from where he sat on an impromptu seat, thick neck bowed as he listened to what had transpired in the city of his people. AF Chapter 263 – The Failure of the Virindi ¡°You have brought out the true treasures of our people in saving our people,¡± King Kresovus stated bluntly. ¡°The succoring of our records was a wonderful supplement to that feat, and all of my people thank you for it,¡± the lugian monarch continued nodding to me. ¡°The sages and Makers are already at work setting them in their new home, Your Majesty,¡± I replied firmly. I¡¯d already been back to the Vesayans, my lived-line extending across the waters after being towed across it a few times by Kris, and thus allowing me to Teleport across the Vesayan Channel and skip any irritable aquatics there, as well as not needing to use the Big Jump at Fort Outlook. The sages there had been waiting soberly there for me, a whole area to the side of the city of untouched stone ready for me. They had followed me as I had looked at the stone, and it began to Shape itself into a twin of the Hall of Failures. They had followed as I hollowed out the stone carefully and precisely, matching reality to the image in my Visual File, recreating the sculptures, the statues, the monuments, the carved words and images in exacting detail, if not color or type of stones. That was the job of the Makers. But I would give them the models to work from and towards, to limn and inlay, to work with tool and hands what I was doing with magic, and give the stone a soul my precise but emotionless work just didn¡¯t have. It was just a reproduction, not something made with the magical significance of an artist. But when it was done, they had a new Hall of Failures, based on the old one, but one ready to be customized and added to and contributed to by the artisans and sages of the people. Also, lots of room for the tables needed to start surveying the tomes and records the virindi were investigating. ¡°I do not know how important it is, but I am sure they will continue failing until they get to the truth of the matter. If the virindi were still looking, that means they did not find what they were looking for¡­ which means either it does not exist, or they did not look hard enough. ¡°The virindi¡¯s outlook on the world is very different as beings of energy bound into a hivemind structure. It is likely that what they seek is not something any of us know of¡­ but they are not expecting to find that.¡± The lugians looked at one another sharply. ¡°They are seeking our failures and charting them,¡± King Kresovus growled, as the sages there all nodded slowly. ¡°Many, many failures, saving them a great deal of time along whatever lines of inquiry they are pursuing. Their expertise in material sciences might be vast, but in the materials here¡­ perhaps not so much.¡± I shrugged slightly. ¡°We shall see, shall we not?¡± ¡°I confess to a delight that at least some of what they learned was lost when you vivified their scholars,¡± he admitted with a laugh that was anything but funny. ¡°Now we-¡± The tent rocked around us, the floor jumping in a sudden jolt that definitely was not an earthquake. Kris and I were on Disks and so unaffected, but the standing lugians were bounced right from their feet, and shouts, exclamations and crashings indicated that the pulse had definitely rattled just about everything. Even King Kresovus was almost bounced off his seat, but he had recovered with seasoned reflexes, down in a three-point stance against the afterwaves coming through, a stance rapidly matched by the lugians around, locking their muscles and in effect being bounced around but not being turned over. Kris was already heading out the door, dragging me with her. ¡°Six hours early?¡± I asked her, over the crashings and shoutings from the soldiers and civilians about. Most of the civilians had already been hurried off towards the Vesayans, and few were inside the chambers I¡¯d hollowed out for them¡­ but I¡¯d made them with the idea of stability, so there was no chance they¡¯d collapse. That wasn¡¯t true for some of the neighboring hills and mounts, where stone slabs started sliding, knocking other stones loose and beginning the process of launching avalanches down the mountainsides. We were in the lee of the almost vertical slopes to the south of Linvak Tukal, so there was little chance of such a thing endangering us, although the mountains around us were in motion, stone like streams of ants racing down them. Some weakened stones and even a hundred-foot facing of the nearby mountain let go at the pulse, cascading down the slope, but they weren¡¯t going to be much threat to the camp here, located a good distance from that wall. ¡°Up top?¡± Kris asked quickly, looking up at the top of that facing. Like her, I swept my eyes across it, noting a couple sections had fallen free. Notably, not a damn Gotrok was visible up there. I pressed at the Veil automatically before trying anything. ¡°No. The Veil is being stretched right now. I¡¯d rather stay my normal dimensions right now. Run it.¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. She hadn¡¯t really slowed down, so now she turned on the afterburners and headed for the thousand-foot facing of the mountain at full speed. When you¡¯re a Hag with Rising and Racing Winds taking dual advantage of Hotfoot going uphill, that¡¯s impressively fast. Things were still falling down the neighboring mounts, and we had to avoid some bouncing boulders and rocks as we headed up. She didn¡¯t slow down as she transitioned to the vertical, and zipped up against gravity, the mists around her heels transitioning to burning flames and literally lifting her towards the sky, not slowing down in the slightest. A minute after we¡¯d left the camp we were over the edge, pivoting through a 270 degree turn and heading for the edge of the slope down. We could already see the dust cloud that hadn¡¯t been visible from down in the valley behind us, however. Stuff like that, all pulsing virindi purple and shot through with flashes of whiteness chewing away happily at the alien energies, were hard to miss. So was the line of Gotrok sentries standing up there, watching what was beyond. Well, it wasn¡¯t like we were afraid of them. Kris ran right up between two of them, and we got a good look for ourselves. The entire side of Mount Tukal there was gone, as was most of the peak and the interior of the place. Where the city used to be was a massive glowing pit going down a long way, seething purplish energies warring with hungry white mists chewing patiently at them as they tried to surge up from below, and were visibly slowing in doing so. More mists surged both along and up from crevasses and fissures extending out from the new crater there, presumably along mining paths and tunnels already existing and blown out by the explosion. Irradiated, glowing dust and rocks doing battle with hungry unwhite mist that was only growing as we watched now covered most of the mountainsides and valley below. One of the sentries finally noticed we were up there. ¡°Hey! Stunties!¡± he blurted out immediately, and they all turned their startled eyes on us. ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Kris stated, not taking her eyes off the scene below. ¡°That white mist devouring the purple virindi shit is because of us, and so is the fact most of the city got out so quickly. Don¡¯t you think you¡¯ve done enough stupid shit to start more of it?¡± Her accent in their language was exquisite, and the punctuation of Quaver coming out just an inch with ding! clearly audible to them all was enough to give them all second thoughts on starting something. They knew what that one note meant. I saw mouths open and mutters of ¡®Tremble, she comes¡­¡¯ pop out under the breath of a few of them as they recognized us both, but especially her. Isparians who could pick up and toss lugians around like children were very impressive, and females who could do it even rarer. As they were ideologically devoted to the arts of war, Princess Kristie had rapidly forced them to respect who and what she was. ¡°What do you want here, Isparian?¡± the first one to notice us growled, lowering his morningstar, plainly not in the mood to start a fight with us now. ¡°I want to know why that explosion took place twelve hours earlier than it was going to,¡± she growled. The sentry looked down at the ruin of the place, and even drew himself up higher. ¡°The Tukora.¡± That was enough to earn our attention. ¡°Those dumbshits finally acted like a Tukora was supposed to?¡± Kris demanded to know, her gaze no less hard, but also not so hostile. The lugians bridled at the words, but the sentry went on. ¡°Commander Jigbril called together all the Tukora and anyone else who wanted to take vengeance for the dead elders slaughtered before us. They pulled out from the armory Weapons made to kill the virindi, harbored for just such a time as this, and he led them off the walls and into the workings of the virindi.¡± Kris said nothing back to that for a moment, merely scowling down at the devastation below for long seconds. ¡°I expect the slates to be delivered to King Kresovus before the morning, or we will come looking for them.¡± All of the lugians bridled again at that, and the sentry scowled back at her. ¡°What slates are you speaking of?¡± he demanded to know. ¡°The slates naming the elders who had to die to get your attention, and the lugians who died like lugian warriors should, to be interred in the Hall of Ancestors as the heroes and martyrs they all are.¡± She glared right into his flinty eyes, and I was not surprised when he was the first to look away. ¡°Let¡¯s see if this was the lesson finally needed to teach the Gotrok some wisdom¡­ or if the children have to die next time, too.¡± None of the Gotrok could muster up a rebuttal to that, looking down there and knowing that if we hadn¡¯t gotten them all out, hundreds of lugian women and children would have died as well. ¡°Was it worth it?¡± The question turned her head as she started to head back. ¡°What?¡± she asked curtly. ¡°They were going to destroy everything. Was destroying it early the right thing to do?¡± the lugian growled, desperate for an explanation to believe in, and not knowing where to get it. Kris looked down at the devastation, and almost sneered. ¡°Let us ignore that they did what a Tukora is meant to do, and were ready to sell their lives for the honor and safety of the all the lugian clans and their peoples. ¡°The virindi didn¡¯t get out of there. They had to detonate their device or see it ruined. That didn¡¯t concern them, as they would just rejoin their Quiddity if their construct bodies were destroyed. ¡°But the vivus took them, as it is taking whatever they decided to do here. Your Tukora, whether they personally took them down or not, threatened them enough they blew the Formation early, and killed themselves, too. ¡°Your Deathstone was down in the city. I imagine right this moment, if I kill you, you will also die forever, as you could do to me. The virindi also thought they had a Deathstone¡­ and they did not, and now they have paid for it. ¡°All the virindi who did this are dead, and your Tukora drove them to it, even if the vivus we planted allowed it. We would have stopped what they are trying to do, but the virindi themselves would have gotten away. ¡°Fighting to the death to bring justice and death to the guilty. The highest ideals of the Tukora since ancient times. ¡°I will see those slates tomorrow.¡± The lugians said nothing as she headed downslope, leisurely gliding at least twice as fast as they could run, and hopped over the edge with my Disk trailing her without the slightest hesitation. They had things to think about. AF Chapter 264 – A Crack in the Gotrok We heard the commotion before we saw them. I opened my eyes from Meditation, having emptied my mana pool fueling Adamant spells on forged items ready to receive them, of which there was a never-ending supply. Tack on Reed, Stone, Edge, and Bond spells, and I could go through a very impressive Mana Pool very quickly indeed, even with my Mana Conversion skill as impressively high as it was. ¡°They came,¡± Kris informed me calmly, even before a messenger could run breathlessly up and deliver the news, just in case she didn¡¯t actually know everything that was going on around her. No need to be towed this time. I walked out of the tent behind her, and headed for the center of the camp, where King Kresovus had set up his flag. Several sages among the citizens of Linvak Tukal had stayed behind after hearing of the devastation of Linvak Tukal. Gotrok armies had rolled out of at least two of their hidden mines, advancing quickly here to see what was going on, and found no attackers, only a gaping hole in the ground where the pride of the lugians had once raised its proud towers and carved caverns. The scouts had reported some shouting matches between the living lugians outside the city and the commanders of the army of Summoned, the former obviously not impressed with the late arrival of a bunch of Summons who were completely useless. The unrest had spread among the new arrivals instead of being quelled, and the Scouts had reported the disgust of the survivors was not tamped down, but instead seemed to be rising. Control of the Summons was impacted by the unrest, and the scouts even saw some uncontrolled Summons go wandering off towards wherever their Spawn Points were, effectively deserting unless rounded up by other Gotrok¡­ and if those Spawn Points were any real distance from the Gotrok holdings, that mean the departing Summons were going to be in hostile territory, wolfpacked down, slain, and their Spawn Points Sealed. Too, the loss of a major Deathstone was also going to impact the lugian army¡¯s morale. Presumably virindi-supplied to them, the one in Linvak Tukal was now gone, leaving two others that we knew of, both of them to the west in the Direlands. Far away and hard to reach, thus hard to destroy. The odds more hadn¡¯t been put up in the past fifteen years was also low, but those were the only ones we knew of¡­ for now. That might change now. The soldiers had lined up, but also parted to give them an avenue of approach. Over three hundred Gotrok had come, not just a small party of them. Among them they carried or escorted nearly a hundred elders of Linvak Tukal, some on stretchers, some merely supported as they walked. Tellingly, there was not a single lugian in the armor of a Tukora among them. A Gigas seemed most senior among them, given by the arrangement of the force and the way they were deferring to him. The other Gigas and Tiatus were supporting him, and there didn¡¯t seem to be any uncertainty among those following him. We moved up to the flanks of King Kresovus, pointedly closer than his generals and advisors. Kris¡¯ Warlord Rank hadn¡¯t actually changed in the slightest, despite Briggs being the primary mover right now, and that meant she outranked the king. However, this was a matter among the lugians, and she wasn¡¯t going to interfere with what were effectively internal matters¡­ unless things got violent. Then, then there was going to be a lot of interference. King Kresovus was standing there, both hands on the pommel of his new Axe, showing the gleaming blue-black of worldbone and a diamond-hard Silver edge to its Soulbound edge. He was known to have lost his arm, and that was not the ancestral Axe of the King. That¡­ was a wickedly nasty and dangerous thing built to kill, and it was made of worldbone! If they didn¡¯t realize who we were, they deserved to die if they tried anything. I didn¡¯t expect a final charge upon the king, but if they did try to suicide valiantly, they weren¡¯t even going to get close to him. The Throne Guards in full armor of worldbone surrounding them would make damn sure of that. -I think they are starting to realize why they are losing all the fighting,- Kris /sniffed, standing there with her arms crossed. If you were listening for it, there were two long, drawn out notes ringing softly yet pervasively in the air. The lead Gigas marched up before the king of the lugians and there halted, his fellows stomping to a halt in time with him. In his arms he bore a stack of carved slates. ¡°I am King Kresovus,¡± the king rumbled, but did not raise his Axe. That would have meant hostilities were ready to erupt, and he was not going to give them the idea that they were even a threat to him. ¡°Who stands before me, and for what purpose are you here?¡± ¡°I am Tunokfur, a Gigas of Clan Kahruiin,¡± the leader of the Gotrok rumbled out in return, his voice lower, the equivalent of bowing his head. ¡°I have come to deliver the Slates of the Fallen to the Court of the King, that they may be interred in the Halls of the Ancestors.¡± He lifted the slates in his arms towards the king, who made no move to accept them. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°The Hall of the Ancestors is for heroes of all the clans. Name the battle honors of the fallen, that we may decide if they are worthy of inclusion in the Hall!¡± ¡°Before all the clans, I, Tonokfur of Kahruiin, declare the names upon these slates to be heroes by proof of undinting courage and resolve. They are the names of the elders who stood before the gates of Linvak Tukal, seeking to leave before the virindi destroyed the city, and to join their children, who they had sent on ahead. ¡°The virindi came and ordered them back to their homes, and to a one, they refused. ¡°They did not flinch as the virindi cut them down with lightning. In their screams, there was only defiance and curses for their murderers. None ran, none cowered, and all fell where they stood¡­ innocent, and brave beyond the measure of the cowards who watched them die.¡± The rumbling from the watching lugians was absolutely awful, the hate in it almost liquid as it churned at the air. A sage came forward and took the slates from the Gotrok warrior¡¯s arms. He looked them over, and a woeful light was in his eyes as he saw the names. ¡°Read us the names, and let the people say who will be interred in the Hall of the Ancestors,¡± King Kresovus rumbled so, so softly. The sage, obviously a native of the city, nodded as he held up the first name. ¡°Zhilla the Maker, who wove clothing for her many years, and bore six children for her family. Dead before the gates of Linvak Tukal, slain by the virindi.¡± ¡°HAROO!¡± boomed out like thunder, as arms rose, weapons in hand, Gotrok and loyalists alike. ¡°She will enter the Halls,¡± Kresovus pronounced in the rather stunning silence that abruptly followed. ¡°Ongfang the Smith, bent yet proud, who stood as Armor Master for a generation, father of four. Dead before the gates of Linvak Tukal, slain by the virindi.¡± ¡°HAROO!¡± roared out their approval. --- And so it continued, for twoscore names, and none remained silent as the lugians saluted those who had died forever and with courage. And then there was silence as the sage stepped back, and the Gigas held up two more slates. ¡°Commander Jigbril of my clan could not tolerate the shamefulness of what he had seen done before him. Everything we had fought for, every tale of the elders¡­ no Tukora would stand and allow such a travestry to be unavenged. ¡°And he knew that. He told us he had finally seen the heart of the Tukora, and it was great and mighty, indeed. ¡°He gathered every Tukora in the city, and they, in turn, took every Gigas and Tiatus with them of their clans and vassals, save one of each family, to report to the clans what had happened, and what they had done. ¡°They turned and they marched into the tunnels the Virindi took, there to undo the machinations of those things that would dare to attack elders who were no threat to them, dare to spit upon the honor of the lugians, and perhaps, to die, for the first time in many, many times, as the Tukora of legend died. ¡°We have been told that because of his attack, the virindi who would have escaped Linvak Tukal have perished forever, and the souls of the slain will never be slaved by the system, to become dull Summons to fight and die for the living. ¡°Jibril and his warriors strode to battle to avenge their elders, and they died as the Tukora should die, bringing death to the enemies of the lugians.¡± And with great awkwardness, the Gigas fell to one knee, a massive act of submission as he held up the slates. With clinkings of armor and the rustle of massive bodies, the Gotrok behind him went down to one knee as well! ¡°We, their soldiers and clansmen, ask that their names be placed in the Hall of Ancestors beneath the elders that they and we failed, that all know that they were avenged honorably.¡± Well, that was a big moment, and a huge request to make of a king the Gotrok had been fighting for two generations. ¡°To be called a Tukora among the people is nearly an insult now, Gigas Tonokfur of Clan Kahruiin. The deeds of those among the Gotrok who claim to be Tukora has spat upon a thousand years of honor and service, deeds vile and contemptuous paraded about as if they ideals of legends and worthy of being stored in the tales. ¡°But, we remember the old tales. The great heights of honor, the depth of sacrifice, the duty that extended past the clan and kin, to all lugians, and gave us all ideals to look up to and strive for. ¡°Thus did the Tukora endure a thousand years among us. ¡°But, it is not I who will determine if they will stand beneath the elders they failed in life. Let us see if they will stand with them in death.¡± King Kresovus raised his head slightly. ¡°Elders of Linvak Tukal, were you witness to these events, and to the choices of Commander Jibril of Clan Kahruiin?¡± An old woman, shockingly thin for a female of the species, leaned on the sturdy Gotrok in front of her as she rose as tall as she could. ¡°We were, Your Majesty!¡± she called out deferentially. Around her, the other survivors who could rose to their feet, and those who could not, were brought to the shoulders of the kneeling Gotrok so they could at least sit tall among their own. ¡°Tonokfur of Clan Kahruiin, read the names of the fallen, and let the elders of Linvak Tukal decide if they died as Tukora should.¡± The Gigas was actually trembling as he set down the slates on the ground, and lifted the first one. ¡°Jigbril of Clan Kahruiin, who said that only if he died here was he ever worthy of being called a Tukora!¡± he called out loudly. That name would decide them all. The Gotrok did not dare to look at one another, keeping their heads down and holding their breaths as the elders looked at one another. The old woman raised her arm. Slowly, some of them barely managing to do so, the elders followed suit. ¡°HAROO!¡± they shouted as loudly as they could. ¡°HAROO!¡± the watching warriors thundered back in acknowledgment of their elders¡¯ judgment. Some of the Gotrok immediately broke down in tears and deep gasps that passed for sobs among their kind. ¡°He will stand beneath his elders in the Hall of Ancestors, there to avenge them forever!¡± King Kresovus declared formally and sternly, and Gigas Tonokfur choked up, so relieved that his commander and kinsman had been acknowledged and would be remembered with honor. How many of the Gotrok had fallen, whose names might be remembered in the halls of the clan¡­ but possibly barely, even then? ¡°Continue, Tonokfur of Clan Kahruiin.¡± --- The roll of the dead continued, thunders of approval echoed in the valley, and none were turned away. AF Chapter 265 – Got’Cha, Rokky! ¡°The random Summons have been stopped and Sealed?¡± I asked Princess Kristie, who was kicked back and relaxing for the moment. ¡°Yeah. The scouts have a pretty good lock on the landscape, and a random lugian popping up out of nowhere is pretty obvious now. It won¡¯t do for any spots inside the mines themselves where they are securing the rest of them again, but we knew that from the start.¡± Kris lifted a bottle of something with a kick about twice as high as most humans could tolerate leisurely and took a drink. ¡°Briggs is pulling the attacking forces back. The Gotrok defectors are being tasked to simply go and shout their story before the mines of the remaining Gotrok, and let¡¯s see the Tukora stifle that with a little magic to magnify their voices.¡± Since I¡¯d supplied the spell to do just that, she raised a toast to me for it. I just had some creamy coffee. Wrong time of day to drink, but that seldom stopped Kris. The spell would allow the speakers to be heard everywhere within a mile, including down in the mines. It would be simple, it would be direct, and it would include the roll of names to be entered into the Hall of Ancestors. No Gotrok had ever been interred there, something that had been utter truth for the last two generations of their rebellion. Even claiming Linvak Tukal after the Fall had not allowed them to enter the names as they wished, with any slates and tablets bearing ¡®names of honor¡¯ shattering as they crossed the threshold into the Hall in humiliating disapproval. King Kresovus didn¡¯t tell the Gotrok to fight for him. He simply bade them tell their story to their fellows, and then go home to their clans, pardoning them for their rebellion simply by failing to do anything about it. He did not ask their names or record them for later vengeance. He just¡­ let them go, when the Gotrok knew they could be facing the full fury of the King¡¯s Justice for what they had allowed to happen in Linvak Tukal with their choice of allies. The expressions on their faces when they heard what happened to the Hea had been interesting to see, too¡­ and how long ago it had happened, and that they had not been told of the virindi¡¯s maneuvers. Even the most reluctant of the Gotrok lost all faith in their commanders after that, and in doing so, lost the heart to fight. ¡°I know that we¡¯re going to be grinding some Dungeons, but those are going to be useless on the Matrix side as soon as we actually beat them,¡± I told her. ¡°By the tales the paramounts told, the Matron Dungeons really aren¡¯t all that hard, nor all that large. What do you plan on doing that¡¯s productive in the meantime?¡± ¡°Well, we¡¯re going to kick the undead out of Osteth entirely. The only place we want to see them on the landscape is in training areas. We¡¯re going to kick them out of the Gharu¡¯ndim cities in force, even if we can¡¯t resettle them. I want them all off the landscape, and the only place to find them in useful training Dungeons, of which we don¡¯t need that many.¡± I concurred with that. ¡°Army stuff, except maybe the initial strike. You, us, the Roaches.¡± ¡°The eastern islands?¡± she asked, raising an eyebrow. ¡°Only in the south, I trust?¡± I flicked up the Holo of Dereth and the minor islands around it, of which the Vesayans were only the ones used the most now by us. ¡°Okay, securing the islands as places to expand would be good, and they have Deru Trees on them. Nobody has reached them in years that we know of, and the general consensus is that any people who were on them have probably died.¡± ¡°It would be nice to take out the major Phyntos hives there and really stop them damn things, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± she asked me. ¡°The Mick said some of the creatures there were among the most difficult for melees to fight in all of Dereth. The whole ¡®melee defense¡¯ thing made them damnably hard to fight even with utterly top-end Gear and maxed-out Buffs.¡± ¡°Mmm. Which means they might be a suitable challenge and way to improve paramounts and those climbing the Isparian system along with the Matrix system.¡± Kris had long maxed out the Isparian system¡¯s version of swordplay, and was naturally more concerned with the Attack Bonus side of things on the Matrix advancement paradigm¡­ and more particularly, the assorted bonuses for being a very accomplished Melee Class combatant, and a true master of the sword. ¡°The Mick has problems with the Crazy Flame style, right?¡± I asked her. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Aye. Not surprising, total all-out offense with two weapons has never been his style, and Shield-bashing shit simply doesn¡¯t count. One Weapon is really all he wants to concentrate on, and he¡¯s having problems mastering the Opportunity tree, let alone the Ways.¡± Technically we were making more Karma than the Mick was, but he was both not going as Wide as we were, and he¡¯d already maxed the Isparian side of things, so he basically spent no Karma in that direction at all. So he progressed quickly on the Matrix side of things, even with less of a Karmic Haul than we generally received. ¡°Planning on making contact with Bobo?¡± I asked her shortly. The islands of the Tusker King were the northernmost of the archipelago, and nobody had dared enter his domain after the fall. ¡°If I can, sure. If not¡­ the places are still overrun with Summon points we can sweep off the landscape. And¡­ I don¡¯t think we want a tusker army to be let loose on anyone, and we don¡¯t have full knowledge of what Bobo can actually do on the magical end of things. We only know that he can solo Tremendous Monugas, and hand out Karmic awards with clouts on the head.¡± ¡°Better to deal from a position of strength, then. One wonders how the tuskers relieve their population pressure, cooped up on their islands as they are, and nothing whittling down their numbers¡­¡± ¡°It might mean they killed and ate all their human converts,¡± Kris agreed with a slow nod. ¡°He made it over to the island, so I¡¯m sure he could organize a way off as a virindi Paragon creature. But it¡¯s true that there are almost no wild tuskers in Osteth at all. I asked the Hea about that, and they confirmed that the Tremendous Monuga wandering around does indeed go after every tusker he sees.¡± ¡°That one¡¯s going to have to be dealt with, too,¡± I told her. ¡°It comes wandering wherever it wants to here in the east, and only avoids the towns because of the spellcasters in them. It¡¯s grown smart enough to run away if it is losing, so we¡¯ll have to set a trap for it, like a pit or something, or pen it in long enough to take it down.¡± ¡°One million Health,¡± Kris muttered. ¡°That would take so damn long to kill solo, and then it can just step on you to kill you.¡± ¡°The Mick¡¯s stories about being able to deflect its kicks with his Armor, or dodge it without real effort, really do fall flat, don¡¯t they?¡± I had to agree. ¡°The look on his face when he tells them now indicates he doesn¡¯t quite believe himself how they fought the suckers, or even soloed them.¡± ¡°Crazy magical logic, crazy magical rules,¡± I agreed. Armor? How was armor going to save you from a foot the size of a boulder and a leg thicker than a hundred-year oak slamming into you? Unless you had the heavyfoot of a Crystal Master or something, you were going to go flying, and that was that, even if you survived the process. ¡°Oh, oh, oh!¡± Kris piped up. ¡°I do have something special planned!¡± she said cheerfully. I just took another sip and watched her, saying nothing. ¡°Frost Haven.¡± ¡°The snowman town?¡± It was located in a valley about ten miles north of Linvak Tukal. It was clearly a magical place, being cold and snowing the whole year round, and it was still populated by seemingly living snowmen, NPC¡¯s of various sorts. It also was under continual assault by an Abominable Snowman who constantly tore the town and its inhabitants apart, but they System-reset constantly, or just hid from it to avoid its wrath. We¡¯d run past the place, and yeah, seeing a twenty-foot snowman hopping about with ridiculous speed, and tree trunks with inset obsidian blades for arms, had been quite the thing to see. ¡°With vivus we should be able to do the full quest chain and shut him down, then go after the intelligent magma golem that made it and shut him down, too.¡± She grinned brightly. ¡°I want to try soloing that Abominable Snowman!¡± I considered that about her, and finally shrugged. ¡°The Mick said it died hideously fast to magic once it was debuffed, but yeah, Melee fighting it was a bit more of a struggle. It was also a pretty high-tier Caster, so he¡¯ll test your Null¡­¡± ¡°Which is why I¡¯ll have a Caster along as backup!¡± To Dispel any Vulns or Imperils that landed on her, of course. She wasn¡¯t immune to cold, after all, just very resistant to it, unlike me. I could weather its War Magic all day without an issue¡­ but it could probably beat the crap out of me if it got close. ¡°It¡¯s not a true Golem, so it¡¯s not immune to combat magic or Debuffs. I can kill it from the air if I have to, so, no, it¡¯s not a challenge for me, and should be left for a good melee to kill. Somehow, I doubt you¡¯re going to be tanking it like the Mick did.¡± ¡°Mithar and his Mighty Mutt, no. One hit from those arms and I¡¯ll go flying, heavyfoot or not.¡± The damn thing could spin its ball sections like a top, and really smash things at speed in doing so, we¡¯d seen it do so when we¡¯d run by the place. One blow had easily smashed apart a just-reassembled snowman home of solid ice like it was paper, just rupturing the stuff without really slowing down. ¡°But Firephasing should do for it, and it has a lot of Health Qi to work through. I¡¯ll get a good workout, and a lot of practice for Healing Edge, more than likely.¡± That was the positive energy Healing effect she had on Quaver, restoring a mighty 1-8 Health with every blow. That wasn¡¯t a lot of Healing by itself, but when you hit a whole damn lot, it amounted to an incredible amount of Healing in a very short time, certainly more than even her Warshaper-boosted Fast Healing, complete with Soul Magic and Alchemical kickers. As a Rantha, she had a ridiculous amount of true Health, tons more than any normal human, such as myself, did. Taking the blows on Health, not Soak, meant she could Heal them, even if it meant she earned herself some broken bones and was stabbed, bitten, and bruised while she did it. ¡°Sure, I¡¯ll shirk some duties while we wait patiently for the Gotrok to send their message, and even fetch the Mick and his Roaches for the quest line. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll love the break, and terminating the quest should be fine.¡± AF Chapter 266 – But it’s SAAAAAAANTA -We should be killing Santa Sclavus, then.- We both just looked at the Mick in the Markspace. -Seriously?- Princess Kristie /asked. -Aye, and not Sealing the Dungeon there, either. Some nasty high-Level crap there for the killing, although not near as friendly as slaughtering olthoi be.- I was going to say something about olthoi not being friendly, and just paused. -Using magic AND high-Level?- I /inquired bluntly. -Aye, and so doubtless worth far more than some mere bugs now. Wouldnae actually know, since I never went in the place after the Fall, but things are a lot more balanced around such things now, aye?- -They should be,- I /admitted cautiously. -What are we talking about?- -Powerful Knaths, be looking like moving gumdrops. Tasty, too.- Okay, that was extremely dangerous ranged attacks¡­ but tasty? Well, Knath¡¯s looked like jello... -Very nasty Penguins.- I /blinked, then remembered that the Penguins here were magical, dangerous, and intelligent, among other things. -Hostile Snowmen, and the nasty sclavi as it were. The Knaths were the worst o¡¯ it.- -Well, then, I guess we¡¯re going to have at least something to look forward to later on.- -Aye. Be eager to see how well I do in that place...- ----- It was pure stupidity, but Kris didn¡¯t care. Sometimes what you earned out of something was based on how you approached it. For Melee types, that meant bonus Karma for openly confronting something and overcoming it with raw skill, strength, and ability, rather than clever tactics. Basically, it was gimping yourself by not playing it smart so you¡¯d get a ¡®fair fight¡¯. And while it was stupidity incarnate, well, Rantha Stupidity Stats were pretty damn high, as her mother always said. They weren¡¯t going to permit this thing to return. So, once it died, it was going to be vivisized. There was only one of them that they knew of, and they knew its spawn location, too, given that it sat right back on top of it whenever there was nothing else to kill. It was only supposed to spawn in the Winter, but nobody had bothered to kill it for years, so it had remained around. The Gotrok had lost enough warriors to drunken dares trying to kill it, only for it to respawn in the winter over and over once again THE Abominable Snowman. It couldn¡¯t fail to see her coming, with Quaver out and ringing out DING! TING! Along with a Blade that was Firephasing and basically solid fire, just this side of a lightsaber. Lost Light swirled around her Sword, with Soulfire, Banefire to Constructs, the gleaming stars that were the Blackfire Stones, and the Fire Atlan Stone glowed hotly in his pommel. Lost Light was ready to do its deflecting business, and she was ready to hew into this thing. It was just an animated Construct, with only vestigial awareness and thoughts, although word was it had learned some basic tactics by staying around long enough to realize that Yield, then Vuln, then blast away, and Imperil, then bash away, worked a bit better. But she had numbers working for her, and if she wasn¡¯t as full-amped as someone doing a total debuff on the thing, she didn¡¯t really care. The Magic Yield Other swirled out, trying to take down her Magic Resistance, and ran flat into her Null and failed utterly. Plat-grade, Princess Kristie noted as she charged in. Triple damage charge, quadruple damage One Strike, plus a crit exploded on the hit, and solid flame roared through ice both harder than steel and as fluid as water. Conduits of force slid around and past Quaver¡¯s edge as she chased after them, fine-tuning her awareness as she did so, and the dance began as her opening lunge buried hilt-deep in its center section, snipping the internal energies animating the thing¡­ but there were a whole lot of them, and snipping them down faster than they mended themselves was going to suck. But hey, that¡¯s why it had 100k of Health Qi to rip through. Seven Dragons ki ignited and swirled around her, heightened consciousness and awareness of battle flows, rhythms, movements, and weaknesses rising about and through her as all the Ways came online and dancing to the attack. It was a Construct, a magical thing, with programmed analytical attack patterns, power that ignored the limitations of flesh and bone, no sense of pain, and speed very unexpected of a snowman. It would have Healed itself at a fearsome rate without the Blooding on Quaver to stop it, and she attempted to get Seven Dragons Raging going on it, not bothering with the Blood Rose for the moment. It started to Cast War Magic at her, and her attacks blurred into existence, a full Flurry, preset pattern executing faster than she could think, trailing lines of different color as one Dragon fed into another. Bright shining Sun leading the way, gentle Moon arcing past ethereally, Shadow snaking in, Ocean coming out of the darkness, Crystal cleaving long and sharp, Storm rebounding with impossible speed, and Fire blazing up and high in triumph¡­ If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. She ducked just enough for the lashing tree-trunk arms spinning like a power drill to only rip down the side of her face, sliding around them and continuing her flurry unabated. +7d6 each attack until they stopped chaining, Crushing Blow and Flaming Burst crits exploding with fire and fury. She¡¯d actually Invested Flaming Burst into her Sword for this fight, just to add more explosive power into her crits! Its torso bent and twisted crazily, rotating in three different directions and changing its axis. Quaver flicked back and Lost Light was like a bar of light in front of it, but it still caught her straight on. Three hundred pounds and more of weapon arm, hardened wood infused with razored obsidian and steel smashed into her like a battering ram, and she went flying backwards, her feet leaving the ground. She pulled a complete somersault in the air as she vented the kinetic impact and landed a full fifty feet away in a crouch, skidding another thirty feet as dirt flew up beneath her feet, turning, sliding¡­ And then she was coming back at it in a charge far too fast for a human, while it was upping for another blast of magic at her. The impact of it on her Null was jarringly crystalline, feeling like something violent and cold had invaded the stillness of her Null. It was a sensation she had not felt much, save when Ryin was unleashing spells at her to test and temper her Null. The protective effect of her Necklace saved her from the liquefied nitrogen and frozen carbon dioxide doing major damage, and she bulled through the impact that splashed her with a terrifying, skin-shattering cold. With grinning rage, she tore back into the thing, her charge ripping and tearing as she hit its upper body, nearly impaling herself on its spear-head of a bright orange ¡®carrot¡¯ nose. Fire erupted, and Healing Edge flared over her frozen face, starting the process of chasing away and mending over a hundred points of cold damage as fast as she could swing. The unanchored pivots of the head and torso chased over its face as she clove two of the armored nodules that formed the points of its jagged-tooth smile, icy steel for jagged teeth vibrating and snapping over as she drew Quaver around against its rotation. The jagged crystals of its snowy body tried to rip and tear at her skin and gloves as she slid around it, timing her descent for the wind-up of its center torso. A long line of melted water and severed force-strands followed her down as she dropped, refreezing behind her in a visible line, and then she was scrambling sideways, grinning, as she cut and slashed through the largest bottom portion just as crashing and slashing timbers whirled and chased after her with uncanny speed, ripping up the ground with brutal violence behind her heels. Chopping off bits and pieces of it didn¡¯t seem very effective, but the number of strands it had holding itself together was finite, and the spinning anchors that connected and pulled back the three spheres that made it up were constantly shifting and re-orienting. Cutting its torsion points only gave it a momentary disconnect, snapping back into proper tension after literally two seconds¡­ but two seconds was enough time to do something if timed right. Like now. Another blast of cold magic smashed into her, but she was already into making a Blood Rose, her Null rotating and sinking the blast. First petal, second, third¡­ Her fourth petal was formed by blazing right through its lower pivot, and the arms starting to spin and tilt towards her popped violently high as they went uncontrolled and lost their aim. Five, six, seven! The pale icy white rose swirled in profound beauty and alignment, drawing random factors together and lining things up as the Snowman tried to get back online, even lurching down and over to try and impale her with its bright orange spike of a nose, maybe chew on her skull and neck. Flurry into Seven Raging Dragons. Each successful attack added another d6 to the stack atop each blow, even as crits erupted wildly for the few seconds this thing in front of her was most vulnerable. Fire exploded up and down the Snowman, incidentally shearing through the top pivot it had whipped down into range of Quaver, and its center ball almost fell off its bottom one at the feedback from two released pivots, needing to be re-established¡­ Another blow snapped around, its abdomen hanging off the side, jerking around wildly and lashing across to slam into her right side and smashing her off it and backwards¡­ just as her culminating One Strike hacked into the incoming blow no organic thing could have gotten off. Over half of its left trunk arm blew apart with a truly monstrous crit, basically four at once going off on the cut and blowing right through its solid core and frozen hardwood instantly. Kris let the impact send her flying into a nearby house and through its roof, crashing against the far wall and mostly out the window there. Five ripping cuts, trying to bleed despite stabbing frozen daggers into her flesh, were embedded up and down her side. Her healing factor, juiced by Soul Magic and alchemicals, stopped the bleeding almost instantly, and her reinforced bones weren¡¯t chopped apart, although she did dislocate her shoulder. Ki grabbed as she rotated her arm, muscles pulled and twisted with the immaculate control of a Vajra-user, and her shoulder popped back into place, just as steel-hard snowballs the size of her head, hurled with the power of a repeating catapult, pounded right through the house¡¯s walls, looking for her. This ability was why the Gotrok had stopped messing with the Snowman, as the number of iceballs the Abominable Snowman could hurl was equal to a whole group of lugians. It had battered down dozens of them at times when they tried tossing rocks at it. Most such groups had been shattered and sent running as balls of jagged, steely ice exploded around them, letting them learn the hard way you didn¡¯t have to be rock or metal to be a thrown weapon. Kris rolled and was on her feet, motoring sideways into the open. Iceballs raced past and behind her. It could certainly spin faster than she could run, but its projectiles still needed to reach her, and it still needed to manifest the iceballs, so there was a gap between the balls she had no problem dodging back and forth between with superior lightfoot¡­ and it was spinning in a non-weapon mode as her closing rotation became a high-g juke and was suddenly in on it before it switched to weapon mode. One Strike, charge, focusing all the damage into the solid, adamantine-hard flame that Quaver currently was, Lost Lights wedging open and cracking loudly through its throwing stump. AF Chapter 267 – When it Snows, it Scolds The end of the severed stump hit Princess Kristie¡¯s head so hard she was clothes-lined down and over on her backside before she could think about it. She stretched the process of not thinking as she continued the roll over and back, tons of crushing steel ice smashing down on top of where she¡¯d been, and leapt backwards to plant herself, shake her head, and grin savagely. Extending limbs that could shoot out to near fifteen feet long wriggled angrily on its torso, cut back to less than five feet long now. With that went much of its reach, and the rotational kinetic energy of its wild-angled spin-cuts. It took her another few seconds to remember how to speak as her Fast Healing tended to restore combat effectiveness before witty quipping, but her smile was unfeigned as she growled, ¡°You¡¯re mine now!¡± It had lost reach as well as size of its attacks, the stumps much less spread out than the branches had been. Tremble, oh, oh, ohhhhh, Tremble, I come... Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. Dead thing of ice and coal, snow and iron, Meet Light and steel, skill and fire. All my Ways, all my Dragons rise to the fight, My soul is singing, dancing at the sight. You¡¯ve no soul, I know, I know, but I¡¯ll give you the honor as I stand over your bones. Tough bastard, Abominable named truly, But no little snowman I. You faced a Rantha Hag, and it was your time to die. Tremble, ohhh oh oh ohhhh, Tremble, I come! ====== ¡°Fucking Hell,¡± Lord Mick murmured, unable to stop himself, spellbound as everyone else was as they watched Princess Kristie Rantha blaze through a Bladesong. Ding¡­ ting¡­ ding¡­ ting¡­ The notes beat a countdown to doom, and it was simply too gorgeous to look away from. Her Vajra had extended down Quaver, and the Lost Lights and flames of the Blade had wrapped around her in serpentine coils of multi-hued light, dancing with her and leaving lingering images here, there, and everywhere as she blurred through her attacks with impossible speed and surety. The Snowman could move fast enough to keep up with her, but it couldn¡¯t track her fast enough to land a blow now. Deprived of reach and area, she had no difficulty moving just enough to prevent it from touching her, and the swirl of savage grace cutting through it from all directions was just as damnably confusing to watch from up here as it was down there. Conceptually, it was a Blade Dance, a Heartsong technique that internalized your Heartsong and doubled the bonuses derived from it. Her active Heartsong bonuses could hit +6, Courageous on Quaver¡¯s Greater Soulbound Bane/Constructs Bane of Legends +VIII chassis added another +4, and suddenly she was rocking +20 to hit and damage, much of which she was feeding into Combat Expertise to raise her Armor Class into the stratosphere. It couldn¡¯t hit her, and that meant she was simply going to Seven Rending Dragons it into oblivion once she hit the +7d6 cap and continued it unceasingly into a blur and wildly savage dance of oblivion. She was carving it apart and down with blasts of exploding flames propelling chunks and shards of it away from its mass, slicing through it in a carefully-contained superflurry of blows dancing on the edge of disaster, spin moves no one should try in a fight, dares moving in and out on it, and just plain playing it like a dance partner coming to the end of the music. I listened to all their breaths catch at the same moment as the Blood Rose shimmered into view, this time run through with blazing multicolored flames. Those same flames were burning on the frozen steel-ice of the Abominable Snowman, nobody knowing when they were actually inflicted. And then they were all lost as everything swirled and became lines of light, became lashes of fire exploding here, there, and everywhere as everything crit, and the Abominable Snowman was covered in exploding sword strokes. I watched the impaling nose fly away. Iron icicle teeth shattered and fell, glowing red hot as they were severed and blown away by the eruption inside its mouth. The stovepipe hat was shredded as it blew away with what would have been a scalp, the coal eyes exploded and blew out of its skull as its flailing arms became true torches, unable to maintain their cold against the fire splitting through them. The double eruptions on its torsions of force ripped them apart this time, and something ignited in every single snowy sphere as the eruptions followed the threads of force deep inside the integrity-comprised icy shells. A cold light turned fiery over all those slash lines¡­ The Abominable Snowman didn¡¯t explode. With sort of a tired sigh and crunch, it collapsed down, falling apart, hissing and steaming as it lost all cohesive and internal resistance. Enchanted ice finally collapsed and melted under the assault, and it was all over. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Well, sort of. ¡°MOVE, YOU GAPING IDIOTS!¡± I told them, shoving the Mick and Rogar ahead, because there was something gathering and starting to burn as those split, fiery coals ignited on the ground, forming a Summons pattern. ¡°Ah, fuck!¡± the Mick shouted, which turned into a whooping warcry as he drew Bunita, and the somewhat shocked and dazed Roaches went screaming after him as arcane flames ignited on the ground and then leapt up in thick flowing streams of molten earth. ¡°Foolish meatbags! You believe defeating my creation will save these abominations from their proper fate! I have waited too long-¡± The Coldphasing Claymore executing a beautiful arc of pale light reflecting off a thousand particles of Lost Light bisecting the half-molten black and red-hot skull of the towering Magma Golum that had popped into existence there rather interrupted its monologue. A unique Magma Golum, because the Assay gave it a Name of Scold. Ostensibly it had made the Abominable Snowman to kill the snowmen, hating the frozen village that existed close to its lair on the nearby Mount Ingot, beneath which it had a lair and forge facility. That meant that it was supposed to be intelligent, and if so, it should have had some kind of agency in the intervening years where nobody had disturbed it at all. It was definitely a whole lot tougher than it had been all those years ago, as Lord Mick and the Roaches quickly discovered. Still, their Wolfpack was supremely coordinated and effective by now. Shafts of frozen energy spiraled into it as the archers unloaded on it, and ice spit and crackled and blew into steam upon the red-hot stone blazing forth between ridges of black obsidian and solid basalt. My contribution to the fight was Dispels and Counters to its Buffs and War Magic. It quickly noticed that I was canceling out its spells, and stopped trying to use them, making this a pure melee fight¡­ where it wasn¡¯t nearly as dangerous as its Snowman creation. That was especially true when the Mick Infused a Gold Frost Break armor Debuff into it via Bunita, while Rogar thoughtfully added a Silver Impenetrability Buff to it via his Glaive Accent. Increased Armor skyrocketed, while already low resistance to cold went negative. The black stone of its body magnified the incoming icy Weapon attacks chewing into it. Strokes leaving cold streaks that would almost instantly evaporate before were now leaving swaths a good hand wide and more, while points of cold from the arrows became small mounds of ice that took that much more Health to melt and evaporate. Of course the Roaches were knocked around. Those were limbs made of solid stone over a core of molten rock, and weighed hundreds of pounds. If someone was clipped, they didn¡¯t bounce the hit, they went stumbling. If they got hit squarely, bones creaked as they rolled with it and went flying. Good time to practice some Healing magic on themselves. Princess Kristie wasn¡¯t going to step in at all, but saw an opportunity for fun and couldn¡¯t resist. As Hundig was knocked away by a sweeping blow, the uppercut from the other hand ran right into her as she cycled in on Scold, her feet anchored just so¡­ and she threw the multi-ton Golum with a smoothness that looked absolutely effortless with The Turning of the Bright Moon. ¡°WAAAAHHHHH¡­¡± the shocked Scold shouted as it went over her head and crashed into the frozen ground. Everyone was on it instantly, hacking and slashing on it, driving blades in deep, including Politia and Mizaya, who¡¯d been playing archer. Coldphasing Blades and Axes of solid Cold drove in deep¡­ Multiple internal eruptions signaled the end of its internal force structure, but instead of just crumbling apart and falling, each section of the golum was forced apart, churning and rolling and changing¡­ and bounced to their feet as five-foot tall versions of their original source! The seven mini-Scolds howled in anger. ¡°Meatbags!¡± the exclaimed in grating unison. ¡°Do you think this will stop me? I am invincible!¡± It definitely didn¡¯t remember how many times it had been slaughtered before the Fall, then¡­ The little Scolds couldn¡¯t fight nearly as well as their bigger form. Their limbs could actually be parried and withstood, and dodged much more easily. The Mick blew through his in seconds, and then helped out Selena, their combined blurring strikes of cold eliminating hers, and then both spun in opposite directions to help others, wolfpack tactics opening up Opportunities for one another and ensuring each died quickly. Of course, then the mini-Scolds only three feet high popped up out of the rubble of the fallen ones, shouting about how they couldn¡¯t be killed and were beyond the limits of puny meatbags¡­ although their high-pitched voices didn¡¯t sound very convincing. They died even faster than the little ones had, naturally, leaving only lambent molten cores behind that still pulsed with faint heat and power. ¡°Seven Cores to the thing?¡± Hundig murmured, pausing as I swept a Mass Silver Cure through all of them, taking care of burns, bruises, and cracked bones, and even mending Soak on most of them. I had really good Healing Magic, silver sparklies with Holy Boosts, and vivus-charged Kickers of positive energy all heaping on top of it to make them far more effective than almost any other Healer could manage, even with potentially higher Valences. ¡°Probably why it¡¯s intelligent. Highness, any presents or extras inside the big fellow?¡± the Mick asked, picking up one of the Cores from the rubble. The Roaches hurriedly followed suit. ¡°Nothing. Sorry, Mick. A custom drop that isn¡¯t working any more, probably.¡± ¡°Aye, ¡®tis unfortunate. Lass, any use for these?¡± He hefted the lambent Core in my direction. ¡°A superior Golum Core? I can¡¯t imagine where that might be useful, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Good. Heap ¡®em up.¡± He dropped them onto my Disk as it scooted over to accept them all. ¡°We should get a nice bonus if we can find the Mayor o¡¯ this place.¡± There was indeed motion in the devastated town. Snowdrifts were being pushed aside and things long concealed underneath them were coming out of hiding. Packed balls of snow were rolling and picking up snow, coming from multiple directions, picking up sticks and stones and carrots and buttons and hats from somewhere as they came together, rolling up on one another, sticking and revolving upright. It took about five minutes for the slow and fascinating process to finish up, and we were facing a dozen or so Snowmen in a variety of cheerful outfits¡­ except looking somewhat worn and tattered, somehow sad as they gathered up to greet their liberators. The Mick pointed out the Mayor easily, as he was the one in a top hat. Kris let him take the lead as he walked up, taking one of the Cores, called Scold Hearts, in hand. ¡°Ho, Yer Honor, got something for ye that ye might appreciate.¡± Lord Mick bowed slightly and presented the lambent Core to the snowman. Twig arms bent and extended out to accept the warmth of the Core, which dimmed immediately in his grasp. ¡°Oh, thank you, brave adventurer! Our town is usually much more peaceful, but we¡¯ve been having a spot of trouble recently! Thank you so much for helping us! ¡°I think I can dip into the Slush Fund to reward you¡­¡± How they could have anything made while hiding so thoroughly was obviously a diversion, as the Heart disappeared and a glittering snowflake medallion appeared dangling from the twig-fingers. ¡°Here you go! I name you an Honorary Snowman of Snowman Village!¡± AF Chapter 268 – The Lair of Scold The Snowflake Charm was a pretty thing, and the Mick took it with a smile. I could see the magic on it, too. Silver-ranked Cold Protection, and it didn¡¯t consume Mana, either. Princess Kristie leaned in to me. ¡°Can you fix them up? They all have those smiles, but you can almost feel the sadness and fatigue coming off of them,¡± she whispered. She was right. The tattered clothing and drooping stances, plus the devastated village that had probably been destroyed so many times the Snowmen had given up on repairing it, gave the whole assembly a depressed air that mere System programming should have ignored entirely. Obviously these were something growing or evolving past their System defaults as well, Chaos seeping into the order of whatever the System here was doing. Prestidigitation Raised to One with Earth Spell could easily take care of their apparel, fixing it all up, restoring color, texture, removing soils and stains, and replacing them elegantly on their wearers. The silently waiting Snowmen turned to look at one another, and soft exclamations not programmed by the System escaped them, especially when the comments started about how their scarf or hat or sash was so pretty now! Their ice houses obviously didn¡¯t benefit from a ley line connection to make the walls unbreakable, although there was definitely a major line running down through the valley under the village, powering the chilling effect here. Well, I could obviously do something about that. Stone flowed and rose up where their houses had been, most of them already shattered and in rubble. Easy enough to figure out that they were mostly one-room cottages with enough room to store some stuff in, and not much more, decorate with cutesy stuff, and so forth. I made them about half again bigger, with nice tiled roofs and plenty of protrusions and flowerboxes and shutters and stuff. The snowmen of Frost Haven turned and watched me, ¡°Oh My!¡± and ¡°My house!¡± ¡°Goodness, look at what she¡¯s doing for us!¡± and so forth and so on ringing out one after another as I strolled around the village. Frozen tears dripped from eyes of coal as the snowmen bounced and rolled after me, twig arms clasped to lips or abdomens in disbelief as they looked at the rising houses. -Color these houses. Bright primary colors!- I /instructed Lord Mick and the Roaches. The Scouts jumped, then broke formation and hustled up to the snowmen and snowwomen, inquiring politely what color they¡¯d like the walls, shutters, tiles, and so forth. The snowmen were jumping up and down in joy, cheering and dripping frozen tears of joy as they called out and pointed at their new homes. Homes now tied to the ley lines below and so basically indestructible without breaking that link, as the Scouts were quick to inform the delighted snowmen. --- The Scouts and Lord Mick had big smiles on their faces as they came out to the edge of the town where Kris and I were waiting. The snowmen were in their new houses and outside, puttering and planting snowflowers and ice lilies and the like, bouncing around cheerfully with child-like energy. Bright reds, pinks, oranges, yellows, pale blues and lilacs were painted over everything in whatever fashion the snowmen had desired. The snowman village basically exploded out of the whiteness of the perpetually snowy valley, bright as a festival or flower garden. ¡°That were a rare bit of fun in this life,¡± the Mick declared with some satisfaction, rubbing his hands together. ¡°And now, now I¡¯ve a measure o¡¯ resolve t¡¯ going after Scold an¡¯ making damn sure he don¡¯t come back.¡± ¡°Killing him here didn¡¯t stop him, eh,¡± Kris asked, as we turned and headed up towards the Dungeon of Scold¡¯s Laboratory on the slopes of Mount Ingot. ¡°Well, it never did afore. The big Snowman were one o¡¯ those seasonal things that happened every year, but Scold were always to be found in his lab if ye wanted t¡¯ go looking for ¡®im.¡± He caught my look at Kris. ¡°Ye got that look what fer spoiling my good mood, lass. Dinnae tell me ye gots bad news, like!¡± ¡°If he can transfer consciousnesses among his bodies, he¡¯s likely got ones hidden outside this lab we¡¯d have to track down, Lord Mick. Killing him here won¡¯t kill him, just irritate him,¡± I told him. ¡°Would you only have extra bodies that all your opponents knew about, especially with fifteen, twenty years to ponder the situation?¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He thought that over, wincing as he did. ¡°Right, done spoiled my good mood ye did, true enough. That still don¡¯t mean we can¡¯t go in there, trash his home, put ¡®im to the sword, an¡¯ then, huh¡­¡± ¡°I could fill the damn place completely up and erase it from existence?¡± I offered calmly. Everyone blinked. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s¡­ well, that¡¯ll definitely encourage him to find someplace else to do things at,¡± the Mick agreed, and then remembered something. ¡°If ye¡¯ve got one o¡¯ his Hearts, can ye track him, lass?¡± he asked, his dark smile returning. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Potentially, one at a time, whatever one is next in the link of extra bodies. So, in the end, it¡¯s going to depend on how many he has, and how we¡¯re going to chase him.¡± ¡°Well, now, don¡¯t that sound interesting¡­¡± the Mick drawled, as the tunnel to the Dungeon, extending impressively out of the mountain as a pair of huge double doors wrought of stone, loomed before us. It had once been only a Portal entry that couldn¡¯t be closed, leading into a Dungeon made from mines worked by Golums of various sorts¡­ Golums that we had to prepare for now. ¡°Ach, could use the big galoot right now. Shame he had to stay with the king,¡± the Mick murmured, speaking of Kopf. ¡°Aye, he¡¯s unhappy to be missing such fun as well, but with the defections of the Gotrok making the lower levels of the renegades¡¯ movement fall apart, things are pretty busy among the lugians on several levels. He¡¯s one of the most impressive of the lugian warriors who would have been raised to the Tukora in previous years, so he¡¯s got status and influence, but he refuses to entertain the Tukora outlook on only classic lugian techniques, armor, and the like be employed by those who adhere to the code. There¡¯s some big debates going on about adaptations and evolving to face threats and forces the original Tukora never had to deal with, and he¡¯s one of the biggest proponents for dragging conservative lugians kicking and screaming into the modern age. ¡°For the sake of his people, he¡¯s doing good work where he is. Just not violent melee stress relief, which I¡¯m sure he¡¯d rather be doing as simpler and enjoyable.¡± ¡°¡¯Taint that the truth,¡± the Mick agreed, and all the Scouts nodded along to that as we all stopped before those double doors. ¡°Bound by magic,¡± sniffed Kris. Ding! Quaver was back in its sheath, an arc of light had cut between the two doors. She and the Mick stepped forward in tandem and kicked out, the massive doors swinging in as if hit by two rams from the impacts. ¡°Ho, that Ocean pushing stuff comes in right handy,¡± the Mick murmured. ¡°Long ago, this were a minor Golum-clearing Dungeon, with rocky golums in it ye basically hammered down with blunt damage,¡± he told everyone as we looked down the slope of the long hallways there, the sunken rails that had been there dusty and long-unused¡­ and there was no sign of anything outside for them to dump into, regardless. Just a mine, thrown into existence for some odd reason. ¡°None o¡¯ us believe it t¡¯ be that simple anymore. The easy Golums belike still there, aye, but I fully be expectin¡¯ golums associated with fire and stuff t¡¯ be here as well. Magmas, aye, as well as the gas golum-types o¡¯ Vapor and Plasma, what are damn hard to see an¡¯ worse t¡¯ be cutting at. ¡°Happily, most o¡¯ them be vulnerable to cold, an¡¯ the lesser ones will be easy t¡¯ take down. ¡°If we¡¯ve the chance to use bows, we use bows. The fire golums can use Gold and Pyreal spells, and we saw Scold using Platinum-grade the lass was shutting down. So we do this careful an¡¯ thorough, mark all the Summon spots, an¡¯ the lass will be filling stuff in as we go, sure enough. This Dungeon won¡¯t be seeing Scold working in it again, an¡¯ he can take his annoyance on those bouncy little snowballs t¡¯ some other volcano until we track him down again.¡± The Scouts piped up that they were ready. All of them had some measure of Versatile Strike, so their Bonded Weapons were ready for use, and in an emergency and for the later fights could pop Coldphasing on their Weapons or Bows to attack the later golums. Without further ado, we headed down the stairs against the rush of too-warm air gushing up from below, and I spent Mass Silver Protection against Fire and Lightning on everyone, then followed up with Mass Resist Fire and Lightning to supplement. I didn¡¯t expect this to be too hard a Dungeon crawl, but I could be wrong. Better to err on the side of caution, right! ------ The Royal Scouts were all breathing hard as they looked at one another. ¡°Limestone Golum, Lord Mick?¡± Selena asked carefully. It had taken them almost two minutes to beat the thing down. They were a common and fairly fragile type of golum. It should have taken them seconds to break its Core and collapse it! Instead they¡¯d been spinning about it, taking crashing blows on Shields and Bucklers, blows that were hitting a whole lot harder than any Limestone Golum I¡¯d ever seen. His face was mixture of consternation and cheerfulness. ¡°Ye kenned that carving on its chest? No Limey ever had a Rune structure there I remember, aye?¡± He glanced at Kris for confirmation, who just nodded, not that she¡¯d killed all that many of the things herself. ¡°He enhanced every golum in the Dungeon, like as not,¡± Rogar breathed out, gripping Accent in both hands. ¡°This isn¡¯t going to be as easy as we thought, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Aye, that be truth,¡± the Mick agreed, hand on Bunita, which had not left his side as he looked on while the Roaches wolfpacked and brought down the Limestone at disconcertingly slow pace. ¡°Lass, how much Health this Limey have?¡± ¡°Ten thousand, Lord Mick,¡± I informed him calmly. ¡°That be a mite more than the hundred or two I remember,¡± he replied after a moment of hard recollection. ¡°Stat levels a hundred points higher, too, particularly strength. Not that much more armor, but it moved a lot faster, you noticed, and it was Casting Silver. Limes Cast Iron, as I recall.¡± ¡°What is it with these Dungeons an¡¯ all the damn upgrades after fifteen years or whatlike?¡± he groused, but his smile was still in place. ¡°That means we be going t¡¯ get a mite more Karma out o¡¯ this trip than we expected, lads an¡¯ lasses!¡± he noted brightly. ¡°That¡¯s Mickspeak for ¡®the princess and I are going to dirty our hands¡¯,¡± I noted to Kris, who just grinned ferally. She¡¯d been prepared to just stand by and let the others do the fighting, but this was looking like it was going to be a grind. ¡°Except for the raw Health Qi, it was fighting like an Eight, albeit a strong one,¡± she noted for them. ¡°I think we can expect similar upgrades as we head through the place. Ryin, Silver Imperils if you think you can afford them.¡± ¡°Ehhh¡­¡± I said, and she turned to look at me. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I tried to Imperil it at the thirty-second mark.¡± Everyone looked at me. They knew I had an incredible Caster Level, and so my Spell Penetration through magical resistance was better than most Paramounts. ¡°You failed to land the Imperil?¡± Kris asked, just to be sure, and now her hand was on the hilt of Quaver. ¡°Utter failure. Might have been that Rune on its chest, but the thing had at least some of a true Golem¡¯s immunity to magic. I was tempted to try Shards on the thing and see if those worked, testing to see if this was a School-related thing, like the Life Magic immunity of Paradox Olthoi, but figured you needed to see how long the thing took to kill.¡± AF Chapter 269 – Rocks Fall, People try not to Die ¡°Horribly unwelcome news, lass,¡± the Mick murmured, as he pulled Bunita fully out. ¡°I know ye can help with the Staff an¡¯ Healing an¡¯ Countering, but I really want to know if we can¡¯t count on yer War Magic if needed.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll unload on the next golum we see and let you watch,¡± I promised him. --- It was a Copper Golum, and died as Quaver, looking like a solid bar of green acid, sloshed up through the middle of its body and cracked it open like an egg, sending the hints of rock streaked with coppery bands clattering to the ground to break apart. Milee Sifted out the pyreal and raw gems from the matrix that held it together there and dropped them on Kris¡¯ Disk, which was trailing after us. We still weren¡¯t out of the entry shaft, just further down it. ¡°Nae War nor Critter, aye, lass?¡± the Mick asked, and I just shook my head as I put my hand on Hundig¡¯s shoulder, where crushed bone and mangled flesh needed to be put back together. Just a glancing blow, but it had sent him flying ten feet back up the long hallway and made him drop his Saber Qamar. He didn¡¯t complain at all, being the stoic sort¡­ and it was an excuse for me to lay my hands on him, which few of the men ever got tired of. I had the tingliest Healing magic, after all. ¡°It¡¯s like the smart creatures o¡¯ the world are adaptin¡¯ to the sheer domination o¡¯ War Magic in the past, an¡¯ comin¡¯ up with new ways t¡¯ foil it,¡± the Mick mumbled, shaking his head once in mock frustration. ¡°Well, just leave it ta the muscle-heads ta get the job done on these things, then!¡± he grinned gleefully. ¡°I¡¯ll keep you as safe from spells as I can, and Heal you up in emergencies. Try not to force me to Heal you in a fight, that could get dangerous.¡± Everyone nodded, testing out Potions, tapping Wands concealed in chambers in their Weapons. Emergency use only, that¡¯s why I had the Reserve, and I could slowly get mana back and use on Mass Cures to recover Soak for everyone, or to recover a lot for one person, as might be needed. If the golums were upgrading their War Magic, that might well be needed. ¡°Shields all, no parrying this time. Hundig, Enhance that Shield,¡± the Mick ordered, and the tall Gharu¡¯n bowed his head and swiftly sent Artificing Infusions into his Buckler, something he¡¯d not Invested much into as yet. Cash flow problems and all, of course. Thousands of gold coins for Investing into stuff wasn¡¯t just falling out of the sky. The Mick¡¯s Buckler had no problems taking the blows from the bludgeoning limbs of the golum, deflecting them into the walls or ceiling, or just plain bouncing them back. But he¡¯d had more to Invest in it, while the Scouts had preferred to spend the money on their Bows. ¡°As these things get tougher, we¡¯ll be backing off and doing a Disk line with yer Bows,¡± the Mick stated grimly. ¡°But for now, ye work on yer fightin¡¯ face to face. We should be good for a few more golums, at least¡­¡± ------ ¡°There be a LOT more golums in here than me memory serves me,¡± the Mick muttered, shaking his head as he kicked at the rocky limb of a Rune-carved Granite Golum that had taken far too long to cut down. ¡°An intelligent Construct making more servants to protect itself and expand its mines and facilities?¡± I was examining the revised map of the place. The Mick had dredged his out of memory, compared and matched with a dozen others who had gone through the Dungeon in the past¡­ including King Borelean. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine any intelligent being trying to upgrade its security like that, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye¡­¡± he trailed off, looking into the next room. ¡°That cloud there be no cloud, lass, Highness.¡± Some arcane heat exchanger pulling pyromana out of a subdued lava pool in the room seemed to have multiple clouds of steam billowing out around its base, rolling heavy and thick about it. I turned my head so my Assay could wash over and past them. ¡°Two Plasma Golums, two Vapor Golums. First prefers fire, the second lightning, yes?¡± ¡°Aye. Both vulnerable to cold¡­¡± The Mick winced as he considered them. ¡°One Vuln or Imperil in the past, then one blow from a Cold Weapon.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to have to kite them,¡± Kris said coolly. ¡°Ryin, can you limn them?¡± ¡°That shouldn¡¯t be an issue.¡± Motile things made of force-solidified air were not easy to track. A little Faerie Fire over them should take care of that problem. ¡°I doubt they can truly harm either of you two in melee, and your magical defenses should still be beyond them. Anything they land I can Dispel or Heal. ¡°Go tank them and let the Roaches volley them down. We¡¯ve seen no sign of intelligence among them, nor any commanders giving orders as yet.¡± The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The Mick and Kris looked at one another, shared the same devil-may-care smile, and he Infused Bunita with Coldphasing as the Roaches hurriedly got out their Disks and did the same with their own missile weapons. ¡°Selena leads the volley. Focus fire down one at a time. They¡¯ll be taller than either of us, so go high while we stay low. All ready?¡± I dropped an Arrowflight on everyone. It would double the base damage of their missiles. ¡°Don¡¯t stop when done. I¡¯ll Sift and be on your heels.¡± The two melees laughed, and the Archers lifted up behind me as I swept Crown back behind me and tapped each and every Disk of theirs. Arrows and bolts that looked to be made of solid ice leveled on the distant golums, and the two melees charged to the attack. They were halfway there when the indigo Faerie Fires, colored by the aeromancy involved in the making of the golums, swept over all four of them, clearly outlining the crude multi-part humanoid figures of the Constructs. Two flickered with faint yellow sparks, the other with ethereal scarlet ripples. More importantly, the Fires swirled around the central chests of the creatures, where that master Rune and its circle of lesser Runework sparked with the deep crimson of empowering pyromancy. The first golum didn¡¯t get to its feet before they both reached it. The Mick went high in Cuts the Waterfall leaving a great rippling blue-white arc chased by diamonds of Lost Light behind the blade of Bunita, while Princess Kristie came in straight and fast, her feet accelerating her with every step so that it looked like she was being carried along by clouds and flames, Quaver a lance of streaming Lost Light in front of her. Selena picked the golum next to them as I glided smoothly after them, watching the whole situation, and especially tracking anything that might be coming from adjoining chambers. The place was full of the rumblings of the earth, bubbling lava, and creaking arcane machinery hissing with energies they shouldn¡¯t be messing with. The simple, primal design of the stuff bespoke intimate familiarity with the energy, but not of how to truly Craft¡­ but the work had been clearly getting better and more refined the further we penetrated into the facility/mines/lab/Dungeon. Someone had been learning, building on affinity and instinct with experimentation and practice. Unfortunately, it was intrinsically hostile to mortal life, not all that unexpected for something inhabiting a body made out of magma and lava, and we were probably going to have to kill it. Not unexpected, just regretful. The missiles cracked to solid halts and hits, slamming to a stop in the mists and spreading snowflakes of icy stillness about themselves, congealing the matter of the golum¡¯s body and sending faint crystalline shimmers along force-bonds of the chosen Vapor Golum¡¯s chest and head. Shields snapped up for both Kris and the Mick, arcs of transparency limned in phantasmal indigo fires clanging loudly yet hollowly off of them as the pair concentrated on the one wavering in front of them. It currently had a massive rending cut down its entire middle from head to girth, and a solid bar of solid ice impaling that Rune on its chest, which was spitting arcs of lightning and fire in response. They Wolfpacked as if born to it, spinning around it as the neighboring golums concentrated on them, trying to follow them. The golums were not slow, but they were not agile, whatever solidified the air upon them also making the somewhat stiff and ungraceful of movement. They didn¡¯t have any true joints, however, and so had ranges of motion that no organic being actually did. Crosscutting Coldphased Blades formed a complex icy flower around it, erecting a Blood Rose of icy derivation in scant seconds, which exploded into icy motes and flurries of monstrous crits erupting over the hapless Vapor Golum caught from both sides. The archers ignored the teamwork of the two and concentrated on their own slamming volleys, their target absolutely ignoring them as it tried in vain to land a decent blow on Kris or Lord Mick, who were exchanging positions in a complex and fluid dance of footwork that had their target spinning like a disoriented dance partner, whose ending was only going to have one conclusion. About twenty blurring strokes in six seconds later, the lines of ice fully crystallized, leapt along chains of force structures, and shattered them like brittle china. The Vapor Golum crumbled with a somehow heavy roar, and there was an actual rush of superheated air as the heavy atmosphere of its body swept out along the floor in all directions, released from its compressed state, yet somehow not exploding violently¡­ although, I noted with some alarm, that potential was certainly there. -Be wary of a compressed air bomb when those things fall!- I /told the two of them. -Especially if it ignites!- The Mick spun off to hew smoothly into the Vapor riddled with arrows, while Kris buried Quaver in a Plasma¡¯s torso, grabbed a swinging arm of solid superheated air, and spun in a full circle, whipping the golum completely around, slamming it into its twin, and plowing them back into the hulking machine they were guarding. Quaver was tugged out smoothly by the braid of her hair wrapped around his hilt and flipped perfectly back into her hand. Selena smoothly shifted targets for the archers as the golums smashed into the iron wall of the device, making perfect targets, and Coldphased Bane/Constructs punched deep into the first of the Plasmas as the rest of the archers clustered their shots around hers in the center of that glowing Rune structure. Meanwhile, the two master swordsmen set up their Wolfpack dance around the second Vapor, and rapidly chewed it down. -Archers, continue shooting at whatever golum we are attacking,- Kris /ordered them coolly. -You are wasting Opportunities.- I felt their embarrassment as they realized it. Touch of the Wasp, Ranged Flanker, Deadly Sniper, and Break the Shield were all specifically designed for archer/melee teamwork and interaction. Adding ranged Sneak Attack damage, and creating extra opportunities and openings for one another accelerated the attacks coming in with profound teamwork linking together into a greater synergistic whole. They were supposed to be softening up opponents for the pair or distracting them. They were trying to kill stragglers with focus fire! The next volley went high, and somehow the pair of melees timed their spinning dance and cuts to give the archers great broadside shots, while icy shots locked up force matrices momentarily and ice clad in Lost Light streaked in to magnify the damage done. The annoyed Plasmas got themselves sorted out and came pounding back into the fight. Kris and Lord Mick stopped their spinning dance simultaneously, ki feeling their intentions smoothly, Shields snapping up, and Cleaving attacks began to rip out from both of them at the two new arrivals. AF Chapter 270 – A Big Boom Rending Cleave: you may take an Attack of Opportunity on another target in your reach if you hit the first target with at least one melee attack. This attack does only base Weapon damage. Which didn¡¯t sound like much, but it instantly doubled the number of attacks the two of them were getting, and their attacks were up, down, sideways, crisscrossing in blurs of motions as Opportunities given by and to one another and the archers wrapped the whole scene in transcendent synergy. The number of attacks generated was unreal. I didn¡¯t have to do anything at this point. The golums were largely focused on melee, and the few spells they¡¯d attempted had directly fizzled against the pair of them, I hadn¡¯t had to spend any mana at all. That compressed air surge had really alarmed me, however. Making a golum out of solidified heavy air¡­ that was a bomb waiting to happen. Either the release could be done all at once, creating a wall of air, or it could be ignited¡­ And there was a freaking lava pool over there, and golums with pyromancy! The whispering shrieks of frost cutting heavy air were impossibly fast, Kris and Lord Mick up to at least eight attacks each to each of their two targets, eruptions of cold and Banefire swirling around them in diamonds of Lost Light as the golums were hacked into with crazed speed and fluidity, while hammering limbs smashed into shields and generated more Riposte Opportunities... Vapor collapse! The Plasma on Lord Mick instantly broke its attack pattern to adopt the surge-and-point stance of War Magic. -LEAP AWAY!- I /ordered, as I flung up a Ward Wall between the archer line and the fight. The two broke their attack sequences instantly, Lightfoot taking the shift in momentum and sending them away as the Fire Bolt went off right in the face of the blasting wind that came howling out of the decaying structure of the fallen Vapor Golem. The entire chamber in front of us filled with the eruption of gases igniting and exploding in hearty confluence with all that extra atmosphere to have fun with. I heard Lord Mick¡¯s grunt as he smashed into the Ward Wall with his back, his Shield Clan up to its full size and taking the shockwave and blast of fire with, eh, cool power. He slid down the Ward Wall, landing in a crouch with Clan still in front of him as the flames blew past on both sides of him, along him, and past the archers staring at the shockwave blasting past while searing cracks rippled across the Wall and prevented them from being tossed away as badly as their teacher had been. The air reversed abruptly, blowing back in past us, then cleared away with, eh, magical speed, the explosion fading and leaving only superheated air behind, which the Fire Resistance dealt with easily. The Ward Wall flared up and was eaten away by tongues of fire, the Mick rocking back before he caught himself with a step and rose back to his feet. ¡°That were a fucking nasty surprise,¡± he grunted out with grim appreciation. He turned at a streak of motion, just in time to see Kris slam into the midsection of a Plasma blasted off its feet and sprawled near the lava pit being tapped by the arcane machine here. It was just starting to rise when she hit it, and whatever it weighed didn¡¯t seem to make any difference as her double kick smashed it backwards and over the sheer edge of the pit down to the superheated stone below. -Withdraw two rooms!- she /ordered as she somersaulted in a full layout over from the rebound, landed on her feet, and was Skating in our direction with haste. The Mick simply rounded about, Bunita already sheathed, grabbed Crown, and dragged me after him. With me came the line of Archers on Disks. Everyone ignored the fact they should be whipped off their feet by the abrupt motion, the Disks handling the inertia as they snapped around and were pulled after Lord Mick, while I concentrated on staying on my feet and hanging onto Crown, not having quite the same protection. We passed through the previous chamber, connecting hall, and slid to the side of the next room, around three bends and with a clear avenue of retreat over spreads of sharp white against the black of the smoothed magma floor where Summon spots had been Sealed by vivus. Kris Skated up, turning as she glided up next to us and around the corner. ¡°Wait for it.¡± We all blinked, wondering what she was saying, and then there was another BOOM, a roar, and a wall of flames pounded along the wall from two rooms away. It had us stepping back and away from the corner as it blew past us. BOOM, the second one followed about ten seconds later, right into the teeth of the backblast, the air turning into a churning frenzy of motion from the double explosions so close together. ¡°The wounded Plasmas were real, and they overloaded on the lava and exploded,¡± I murmured as the echoes of the explosion slowly died away, running over memories of the fight. ¡°I didn¡¯t see a true positive confirmation from the first Vapor going off¡­ there was a flaring from the lava pits, but it was minor spread. I think that was a Summons and couldn¡¯t rupture fully, a lot of its mass dissipating more slowly.¡± Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°That¡­ be sounding like a cheese move,¡± the Mick grinned shamelessly. ¡°I admit I never tried t¡¯ push around a golum made o¡¯ gas. How much did those two things actually weigh?¡± ¡°About five hundred pounds,¡± Kris said professionally. ¡°That is a LOT of compressed gas,¡± I muttered. ¡°Like, six thousand cubic feet released at once. Blast it into flame and it takes up even more volume, somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand cubic feet¡­ and then it creates a backwash, too, as it cools back down. ¡°The explosion itself will do almost nothing to any of the golums, although it can blow them over because they have high centers of gravity and will turn to face it like dummies. What¡¯s the weight on the material golums?¡± ¡°We¡¯ll probably only see magmas from this point, mixed in with the gas golems,¡± Kris replied. ¡°Easily a ton if they are ¡®real¡¯, like these exploding bastards are.¡± ¡°But easy enough t¡¯ knock over, if hit high enough¡­ an¡¯ close to a convenient lava pool.¡± The Mick rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ¡°Nae Plasmas or Vapors normally take damage from fire. Be guessing that happened because we chopped into them a few times, aye?¡± ¡°Aye. The cuts broke its force matrix connection to the frozen vapor, the fire infiltrated and overloaded the internal structure, the uncontrolled gas went up, broke the matrix, and triggered the major explosion. Like tossing a torch onto a pool of oil, only much faster and more violent,¡± I agreed. ¡°That was just murderous how you two were handling them, and fortunate.¡± ¡°Easier for the Shields to handle the gaseous ones than the solids,¡± Kris grumbled, giving her right arm, where Stand was riding, a shake. ¡°We do NOT want multiples of those things going up at one time in our faces, or everyone is going for a hot ride,¡± I pointed out. ¡°Bah. It was only 10d6 or so.¡± Kris caught my eye. ¡°Okay, 15 dice if you were too close.¡± ¡°Multiply by two or three, plus concussion effects.¡± I flicked out Crown¡¯s foot to tap Lord Mick¡¯s left greave. ¡°Thirty points of impact damage smashing into my Ward Wall, no?¡± ¡°Fair,¡± he acknowledged. ¡°What are we looking ahead o¡¯ us, then?¡± ¡°I was blasted into the next room. Two magmas and two vapors,¡± Kris reported calmly. Rogar spoke up, ¡°Won¡¯t the remains of the Magmas still be hot when they go down?¡± ¡°And then we pop a Vapor and it be like pouring firebombs on the flames in front of ye,¡± the Mick mused. ¡°Kill the Vapes first, then¡­¡± ¡°Ideally, at almost the same time. Voltage can also light off the gas. Although if any are Summons, they can die first without any sympathy, given how fast they degrade,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°Odds are the Magmas won¡¯t have their own surprises at this point?¡± I prodded their bad news instincts. ¡°Everybody likes being covered in red-hot liquid rock from pyroclastic Magmas?¡± Kris queried everyone. ¡°Resist Fire won¡¯t take it all,¡± I informed them. ¡°Assay the golums, identify the Summons and take them down with speed. We can assume the Summons are bouncing or attuning to the real golums here to upgrade themselves, just because the System hates us all.¡± Everyone grunted agreement with that. ¡°Kill the Magmas first, then, and cool down the remains with cold attacks until they cool. It should only take an arrow into anything glowing red.¡± The spidery Soultats around Kris¡¯ waist shimmered as she fed them Soul Essence, and the thin black, insectile Arakne Arms materialized next to her hips. Her Autobow Drop and second Shield Tall flipped out of her Masspack into their hands. The Autobow was at Hand size, and auto-loaded with one footstep, a gleaming Cold bolt coming up as Main Gauche keyed off Quaver¡¯s active magic. ¡°Lord Mick and I can probably avoid the Magmas if they actually explode. Mick, Fire Bane your Armor and Shield.¡± ¡°Aye, there¡¯s a good idea,¡± he agreed, promptly Infusing his suit and Shield as instructed. If he was going to be splattered with lava, be good for his Armor to be soaking in the heat instead of transmitting it on to him. He had Bludgeon Bane on both currently, as the golums universally attacked with their bashing attacks, but there was no reason not to stack them now. Once, he would have routinely Baned his Armor to every Element, but that used up mana he likely wouldn¡¯t earn back for hours, so he had to be much more frugal now. ¡°Shall we?¡± he asked Kris, and Quaver rang softly, icy diamonds chiming along with her expectantly as the rigid ¡®flames¡¯ of Banefire to Constructs rippled around everything. With a swirl of the rest of the Soul Tats popping up around her waist, the arching curve of her Manticore Tail popped up, and four spikes of solid ice revolved around them from where the Main Gauche Runeseal glowed on her tailbone. Mmmm, she wanted those magma remains cold fast... ------ Really fast, because she lit up her Phoenix Cloak, too, reversing the Element to Cold and surrounding herself in a nimbus of icy blue flames that were going to chill the heck out of anything that hit her, or that she skated over or near¡­ like a bunch of really hot rocks on the ground. The extra Fire Resistance would have helped anyone else, but Ranthas were immune to fire, so that was somewhat wasted here. It was fine. The Mick and Roaches were staring after Kris enviously, wondering just how the heck she was managing to coordinate so many different limbs so smoothly and in so many different directions at once. Not once did she ever bother turning around to look at her targets or the things she was shooting around and behind her in the slightest. Someone with viable Blindsight could have done much the same, and Kris had the Rantha Trembling Domain going full bore, her eyes just secondary to everything she could perceive in its reach. The Pyroclastic Magma Golums did indeed explode, scattering their molten innards in all directions. The superhot rock did no damage to the gas or other lava golums, but covered a twenty-foot area around them in hissing lumps of red-hot molten stone. Kris and the Mick got their Shields between them and the blasts, bashing off anything that clung to them, while Kris made a circuit of the area, cooling everything with her Cloak while blasting anything else with her Tail and Drop, trading red-hot for cold and black. It didn¡¯t much interfere with their offense at all, although more coordination was needed to take the remaining Vapors down in tandem, so one couldn¡¯t light off the other. That was fine, teamwork was what they did best. AF Chapter 271 – A Final Scolding? With proper tactics for this worked out, our advance through the Dungeon was steady, if not fast, and it was very definitely not quiet. Which was why we were currently standing quietly behind a wall of black magma as a whole lot of tromp-tromp-tromp marched by on the other side of it. -Our good friend Scold actually ordering his guards and workers around?- Princess Kristie /mused in the Markchat, -Must be the noise we be making,- the Mick /chortled, while Healing Magic crawled over him and buffed back his Soak. Minor magic flowed over him and cooling black blobs of lava shattered as they fell to the stone floor from his Armor and Shield. -It can be damn hard to concentrate on precious experiments with all the earth-shaking booms and stuff going off,- I /agreed. -Congrats to us for being more than minor annoyances?- -If it has the ability to command its golums, then the fact nothing respawned behind us was probably alarming enough to trigger this sweep, right?- Selena /asked, listening to the clomping. -Aye, good thought. Which reminds me¡­ the thing ain¡¯t no general. Ye think it was stupid enough t¡¯ send out its real ones with its Summons here?- I think everyone tilted their head at the thought. -Then it¡¯s worth it to kill them all here, especially if we can beat the respawn of the Summons...- Kris /smiled. -Uh uh. First, Invisible Kris is going streaking through all the remaining rooms and vivifying all the Summons points she can suss out with her Tremblesense. Then she comes back and we kill them all.- I pointed as a transparent circle waited around the head of Crown as I tipped it in her direction. -Oh, fuck yes.- She clapped her hand atop my Staff, and I made a slender slot in the wall, which she promptly skated sideways out of and was off and running totally unseen, even as the sound of loud footsteps grew much louder with the opening. We watched her dizzying progress in the Markspace through three rooms we¡¯d cleared and a dozen more rooms and halls we hadn¡¯t gotten to, which I also tracked up in a Holo in front of us all. The floors of the place were generally quite smooth and didn¡¯t have much dust, but that didn¡¯t mean much to her Tremblesense. The places worn by the weight of something heavy standing there simply showed more wear and tear than other sections of the floor¡­ and an adamantine Blade shearing through the stone sputtered with soft vivic flames as the vestigial magic of the Summoning points reacted to Quaver¡¯s presence. Scold might not have been the brightest, but he¡¯d at least left two Plasma Golums and an overbuilt Pyroclastic half again as tall as its fellows waiting at the entry to what was probably the final room, judging by her glance within it. A familiar Magma Golum was standing in the middle of various blocks of stone and iron in a round circle in the middle of another of the crazy lava chambers here, the red-hot stone held back only by the magic draining the heat and power for whatever purpose he had. Kris was on her way back as the Mick /observed, -Ye saw the Runes on that one column were all in virindi purple?- -I¡¯m thinking that our extremely intelligent golum here might not be interested in playing the final boss to the Dungeon,- Kris /deduced. -Awwww, I wanted to kill him and his little kids again,- Rogar /protested, earning a laugh from everyone. -We¡¯ll do what we must,- the Mick /pointed out, -but that column indicates he¡¯s measuring the manaflow an¡¯ energies o¡¯ neighboring mountains, an¡¯ he managed to suck some of the virindi energy out o¡¯ there before the vivus got to it all. That¡¯s not a simple thing t¡¯ do.- -Upgrades to himself being only part of the potential process,- Kris /agreed. -This place needs to go, and I¡¯ve the feeling that he¡¯s perfectly ready to blow it as well with that virindi energy.- -At least he¡¯s not trying to force Summons through the vivic seals on them. He¡¯s got more than enough arcane power pumping through this place to do so,- I /added. -I could always drill us a new tunnel out, but that would be annoying, having to fight our way back out through his enhanced golums.- -I want a chokepoint so we only have to take on one of these golums at a time and can cut them down in series. There, there, or there.- We all looked at the map at the points Kris had indicated. -Second point. Shape it like this.- The Mick indicated a thick wall, the passageway through it like an L, with the bottom opening fan-shaped so he and Kris could hold the way. -Make ¡®em slide through it at an angle so they can¡¯t snipe from behind the one fighting easily.- He drew two more lines. -Archers an'' ye stand behind walls with slits in them here, while Her Highness an'' I can swing behind these if there be an explosion. Counter any fire or electric magic if there be a threat, prime for Healing if need be, an'' I think we can take down most of these things.- They had been getting murderously fast at the task, the building cycle of Opportunity Attacks an engine of slaughter the golums simply couldn¡¯t deal with normally. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Didn¡¯t help them that Kris could also pump some point-blank shots into them if she didn¡¯t have magma to cool down, either. -Line it up.- Disks snapped into order, I sat on Rogar¡¯s Disk as the Mick grabbed Crown again. -Go.- The concealing wall flowed away in front of him, deeper and wider than the opening I¡¯d made for Kris. Lord Mick was already in motion and sprinting towards the hallway we¡¯d been driven back from. Everybody was looking backwards, the golums having mostly marched past us. But guards had been posted, and one Magma raised its crude arm and pointed at us, magic flaring and coming after us. I flicked a Dispel into the Volley¡¯s path and it shattered in Silver sparkles, but all the golums that had passed us by in sight, and likely those beyond sight, spun around to face us. Then we were around a corner, and a dozen War spells blew against the walls, gouging out chunks of black rock and dust as they did so. ---- Princess Kristie was coming back in the other direction, meeting us where we were going to make a stand, such as it was. The golums were not slow, pounding after us with heavy steps powered by the Force Matrices animating them. But I could move a lot of stone really fast, there was stone all around us, and suddenly the nice and wide hallways that allowed them to move two or three abreast was down to only a couple feet wide here, and they could only move by turning sideways to do so, even the ones ostensibly made out of gas. They could, of course, start beating on the stone with the reinforced limbs they had, and given they were used for mining, they¡¯d make relatively quick progress. At which point I¡¯d just put the walls back up. And even more fun, I could easily pose tons of stone atop them to come smashing down if they removed the supports, which I was absolutely sure they would do. It likely wouldn¡¯t kill them at all, but they would be trapped and slowed down¡­ and I could fill in the stone all around them to basically trap them there, although they could certainly try to blast themselves free from their awkward positions. The blind turn was up, our protected enfilade was ready to go to work, and I sealed up the end of the hallway behind us as Kris and the Mick lined up for the first golum to come clomping out of the narrow cut, take a load of frozen OMAs to the face, and diamonds of Lost Light were fracturing as they began to cut and thrust with swirling speed. ------ It went surprisingly well, all things told. The gas golums being chopped down were out of direct line of fire of the incoming golums, who weren¡¯t smart enough to light up the stiff breezes that popped as they slowly decompressed after falling. Any rubble from Pyroclastic golums going down was iced down in short order and could not ignite anything coming afterwards, scattering by the sweeping legs of the golums advancing eagerly behind to come to grips with us. They were making decent progress on the walls I¡¯d put in their way, at least until multi-ton blocks and spheres came crashing down on top of them, giving them more work to do. They didn¡¯t help one another, either, simply queuing up to beat on us as quickly as we could chop them down. I Sifted away any gems or pyreal from those destroyed, of course. There were two explosions, both caused by the hot bodies of magmas igniting gas golums. Neither explosion was unexpected or dangerous, as the Mick and Kris spun away to the alcoves there so the fires blew past them, and the archers and I simply stepped away from the slits and let the fires blow past and above us. As for the exploding Pyroclastics, Kris¡¯ two Shields and the Mick¡¯s Clan formed a trifecta of cover as they snapped together back to back and the hot lava spattered over them, failing to harm them. They spun back apart just as smoothly, and the fighting continued, scarcely broken in tempo. ------ The oversized Magma Golum guarding the final entryway died first, Shields warding off the supporting Plasma Golums until its 20k of Health and Health Qi was chewed through. Its detonation was enough to blast Kris and the Mick fifty feet back through the air when it exploded¡­ and left two Pyroclastics behind it to cause more trouble. I blew some Healing Cold Shards through the two of them to take the edge off of any damage, and then they kicked off one another to separate and dodge the incoming Firebolts coming in to finish them off. Their charge attacks hit the same one high and low, and the dance of dying golums continued in arcs and walls of frost and diamonds of Lost Light. ----- ¡°You again.¡± It recognized us. Definitely not a standard NPC boss if it retained such knowledge independently. The oversized Magma Golem swiveled fully to face us, crude fingers that had been manipulating odd lights and levers on the devices around it disappearing back into the big bludgeoning lower arms of its own kind. ¡°Your destruction of my little frozen toy was annoying, but I have better things to concern myself with than those sniveling balls of ice. As you have already proven you can defeat me in combat, I see no reason to remain here with you¡­ or for you to remain here.¡± His surge of motion towards the column with the purple Runes might have been a little unexpected, if he¡¯d not said what he¡¯d said. ¡°OUT!¡± I shouted, and my long-form Dimension Door popped up, a black doorway in space which everyone promptly jumped through. I watched his head turn as the destroyed arcane device sparked, and then a plume of violent unleashed warring arcane energies blew for the ceiling. Scold leapt over the edge of his platform onto the lava field below, but I swear there was some irritation in his burning eyes as he left my sight, and I hopped backwards through the Door. --- With a head-spinning jerk, we were up and outside on the side of the mountain, and I realized the world wasn¡¯t spinning so much as the ground was jerking. ¡°Off we go!¡± Kris ordered, tossing me onto Selena¡¯s Disk and promptly motoring down the mountainside, wobble-legged Roaches crouching down on their Disks and the Mick trucking afterwards as things began to bounce free on the mountainsides. Plumes of steam and similar things suddenly erupted out of vents that sent boulders flying hundreds of meters into the air. -Two in three days? This be unfair!- the Mick /protested, unable to be physically heard over the rumbling in the ground. -It¡¯s not going to erupt, just bubble and flood. I think Frosthaven is far enough away to avoid it, and the cold magic there will freeze any lava regardless, but we¡¯ll have to see.- Stone cracked to the left of us, the landing where the entry to the Dungeon was splitting wide open and flinging one of the stone doors right out its hinges. A whole lot of hot gasses went roaring out of there in a blaze of flame we veered away from, raging for hundreds of yards as it vented angrily from below. -Aye, see we will,- the Mick /mused, as we booked for distance down the unkind slopes of the mountain. AF Chapter 272 – The Regression A ridge nearby was a decent place to stop and watch a mountain become a volcano, at least partially. Hot lava was boiling and bubbling out of fissures and fractures that hadn¡¯t been there before, and the frozen upper limits of Mount Ingot were starting to melt, causing mudslides and avalanches to add to what was going on. ¡°It¡¯s spreading southeast,¡± Kris pointed out coolly, pointing to an attaching ridge that was visibly steaming. ¡°Towards Mount Tukal,¡± Hundig noted somberly, ¡°and whatever the virindi did there.¡± ¡°Wait, wait,¡± Milee complained. ¡°Didn¡¯t we vivify all the virindi energy and mess up whatever they were doing?¡± The petite dark-haired Roulean Autobow user had a ¡®gotcha¡¯ moment on her face as she clutched Hail closely, watching the destruction rippling and erupting slowly on the slopes of the mountain. Lord Mick just lifted an eyebrow at her. ¡°Aye, so we do. Why be those things in conflict?¡± ¡°I¡­ but,¡± she scrunched up her face in thought. ¡°He was draining the virindi energy before their whole scheme blew up, probably as soon as it started so they didn¡¯t realize what was going on,¡± Rogar grunted from her other side, giving her a friendly slug on the arm. ¡°Oh,¡± the junior Scout murmured, clearly embarrassed. ¡°Life lesson. Even golums can be sneaky underhanded shites,¡± the Mick said in his best pontiff¡¯s tone, drawing chuckles from everyone. ¡°Thinking we¡¯re going t¡¯ be seeing that thing again, aye?¡± ¡°It knows how to tap ley lines and siphon energies, and not just those related to earth and fire,¡± I pointed out for everyone. ¡°We are definitely going to see it again.¡± ¡°Always nice to have something t¡¯ look forwards to in the future,¡± the Mick said brightly. ¡°On that note, do we go after Santa Sclavus¡¯ place, or no?¡± ¡°Just how badly do you think they have been upgraded or sidegraded since the Fall, Lord Mick?¡± Kris asked conversationally. His mouth opened, then closed, head turning to where the lava-filled mineshaft down to Scold¡¯s lair was now oozing out bright burning molten stone. ¡°Well, shite,¡± he said by way of reply. ¡°Those were some damn tough Gumdrops¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to be involved with tanking Knath explosive volleys with the power of Incantor spells,¡± I said carefully. ¡°They DO run out of mana... eventually,¡± Lord Mick remarked lightly. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s always fun, playing dodge the many, many volleys of magic¡­¡± Kris drawled, and they all snickered. ¡°I¡¯d say we are going to save this until we get some upgrades on the defensive ends.¡± ¡°And the money for that, Highness?¡± the Mick asked seriously. Upgrading Gear took some serious cash. ¡°Ryin, can you pull up ore, or are we going back to the olthoi north?¡± I frowned, looking at the lavaflows being belched up by the mountain. ¡°I can¡¯t Commune to find the mineral veins. I can do localized divination searches, but that is very time-intensive. ¡°Seriously, the olthoi north is our best bet. It shouldn¡¯t be too hard to make ten goldweight and more a day per person off the Gem Cores there. Good teamwork and the ability to Infuse is really important when facing so many Elementals. We can only pick and choose our targets so much, after all.¡± ¡°Can the team hang?¡± the Mick asked reluctantly. ¡°No, but we can get them a quick Karmic boost that will test out a lot of their archery.¡± The Roaches all perked up at Kris¡¯ words. ¡°There¡¯ll be plenty to go around, so we¡¯d like to have several Fellowships working that. Briggs has a Fellowship he¡¯d like to bring in on it, and Kopf is setting up another one. If you¡¯ve another team or two of Scouts you¡¯d like to drag into there, more than welcome.¡± He gave her a side-eye. ¡°That much Karma? Even compared to something like this?¡± ¡°Remember the Wisps?¡± ¡°At the Black Mound there? Aye?¡± he asked curiously. ¡°All of Asheron¡¯s Island, warring with Elementals spawning just as damn fast.¡± His dark eyes opened wide, as did everyone else¡¯s. ¡°That¡­ is a lot of wisps. And Elementals,¡± he pointed out. ¡°That¡¯s why ye were insisting on the Returning Rocks and the OMA Quivers¡­¡± ¡°The struggle will be keeping everyone fighting and firing as long as possible to harvest as much as possible. We¡¯re working on stamina Potions, because no spellcasting whatsoever.¡± Kris also held up the glittering Prismatic Stone in the pommel of her Sword. ¡°Also, need to field test a new batch of these!¡± she grinned. ¡°Oy, freebies!¡± Mick said enthusiastically. ¡°The Core Gems we brought back from the Olthoi North were perfect for them¡­ as was seeing Candeth Martine¡¯s magic from where he¡¯s trapped on Asheron¡¯s Island,¡± I nodded along. The Mick had heard that tale, but not the Roaches, who clamored for it, and Kris was happy to unload it. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ------ In the end, we opted to return to the main forces where Briggs was pressing the last of the Gotrok. They had been plagued by desertions after their defecting kinsmen went around and told their tale, and the mines with all the Summons armies had only token forces left to control the lugians. The force that had marched down to Linvak Tukal was already gone, cut down by merciless pincering actions that had first taken out the real commanders with ruthless precision, then chased down the Summoned who had fallen out of command and were returning to their Spawn points. The senior leadership of the Gotrok had wisely fled, heading for their holdings in the Direlands along the southern landbridge there, led by Muldaveus and fracturing even then. The Renegade leader was a powerful combatant, aided by the virindi in order to gain more influence among the lugians, but the Tukora were now riven by doubts and umbrage at what their paymasters had done. The report that Tukoras had once again been allowed to list their names in the Hall of the Ancestors was a huge thing for the arch-conservatives among them. Chasing down Summons and taking out them and their Spawn points was not something that required a Warlord to coordinate. It did require a lot of bodies going through mines and over the landscape looking for Summons standing around and then taking them out, but that was something for coordinating squads, not maneuvers, formations, and troop positioning. If there were followers of the Green Hunter tailing those fleeing lugians to wherever their hidey-holes were, well, that was only to be expected... ------- ¡°I¡¯ve got you covered,¡± I said simply, and closed the door to the room on the two of them. The Mick and Korvus, Briggs¡¯ right-hand man from Stonehold, were waiting there with their personal teams. ¡°I¡¯ll not be moving from here. Place yourselves as you wish. This will probably take at least twelve hours, according to the Princess.¡± My Disk flipped out and spread itself beneath me. ¡°I gather this be not one of those romantic moments that get excitable?¡± the Mick asked with false lightness. ¡°I expect them to totally trash the entire building by the time they are done,¡± I admitted. ¡°And not in a good way.¡± I paused as I regarded the two of them, both hard men, the Stoneholder a good twenty years younger than the Mick. ¡°This is a past-life regression. Both the Princess and Briggs are reincarnated souls. It¡¯s a requirement for being who and what they are. ¡°Moreover, they are linked souls¡­ souls who died horribly to great evil.¡± Both men blinked, looked like they were going to say something, and then shut up as I continued. ¡°This won¡¯t change who they are. It¡¯ll be like watching a real-time play of someone else¡¯s life, as seen through their eyes. ¡°But they¡¯ll know. Know what was done to them, and they are likely going to be extremely pissed at someone.¡± ¡°That sounds pretty messed up,¡± Korvus murmured cautiously. ¡°They¡¯re going to be out of it the whole time, so we look after them for this. Set up your people as you like.¡± I made a shooing motion. ¡°I don¡¯t expect troubles, but I also don¡¯t not expect them. Go.¡± I closed my eyes and began extending my awareness out and around on several levels. Like I said, I didn¡¯t expect any problems. There were a lot of armed people around, the two were both Forsaken and nobody active was Scrying on them¡­ but if someone was looking at us who was manipulating events, they might want to use this opportunity for something. But those whoevers shouldn¡¯t know exactly what was going on, and if they tried something stupid, well, we could only be aware of it. ======== Minimum of an Eight. Preferred at Ten. Best at Twelve or later. It took a lot of spiritual power to slide back through the reincarnation barrier and take a look at who you had once been. If you had weak spiritual power, you could be overwhelmed by your past life and your personality warped or even replaced completely by your previous self. Thankfully, the advantage was with your new incarnation in such matters, as your past self had died, and that finality was a part of the whole process. Plus, reincarnating as a Rantha involved the massive amount of templating involved in becoming one¡­ and then the process of breaking the Hag Curse was a tempering experience like no other, basically yet another ¡®death¡¯ in the cycle of the soul as the most powerful and pervasive Curse in existence changed a human Forsaken into a Rantha Hag. No, she had no fear of what was going to happen here, only grim anticipation and some curiosity. She was a Rantha, and loved being one. At the start it wasn¡¯t that impressive, and the amount of Karma required-! But once it got rolling, the ability to naturally advance past human limits was just too priceless. It didn¡¯t matter who she¡¯d been, could it be better than who she was now? The start of new life, the point where the Curse of the Hags swirled in, and instead of an Evil soul going to be reincarnated as backhanded reward and punishment alike, a soul murdered by Evil, prime and ripe for vengeance in a new life. That continuity was the gate to her previous life, and Kristie Rantha-Briggs followed it through to the bright, hazy blur of new life, so similar to her wakening moments right after Sage Sama spoke to all Ranthas¡­ ¡°Oh, my little Eleonora is awake¡­¡± Eleonora? Kris had a terrible foreboding, then realized that was par for the course. She couldn¡¯t focus on anything yet, only experience what a babe had experienced... --- Eleonora of the Bellenesse Clan. A Viamontian noblewoman, from one of the most powerful clans of Viamont, leaders and generals of the conquering Viamontian armies. Blue-skinned descendants of Empyreans who had interbred with Isparians while visiting in the ancient past, and ridden that reverence for their ancestry into racial superiority and bias against mere pureblooded Isparians, considering themselves a superior species. But Eleonora had never fully bought into those lessons, even as a child, and her mother being born of Silveran royal blood did not hurt. Books from Roulea held words that cut through the self-serving indoctrination of the noble family, hinting at greater truths and equality that a child could see clearly, even if her elders turned blind eyes and hard hearts to the suffering that was caused by their beliefs. That belief had grown into contempt for the Corcosi and the way they ran Viamont, decadent and arrogant in their inherited positions of power. The lessons in swordplay and a warrior¡¯s spirit were not things she skimped on, knowing that only martial power was truly respected in Viamont, and she had to be strong to defend her beliefs from those who seek to bury them. Like the Corcosi that thought she was a soft persimmon to be snatched up and sampled as he pleased, even taken as a bride at his will after she caught the eye of Prince Renlen di Corcosi, the youngest prince and son of King Varicci. Kris knew the tales, a great romantic tragedy in Viamont, but the surge of hatred that flared in her heart when she witnessed the prince kill the love of Eleonora¡¯s life in a supposedly friendly duel was too, too familiar. She had felt that hate many, many times when her mother and father invaded Viamont on a tide of blue-skinned blood and butchered their way through the royals and nobles of all the Viamontian Families. She had also felt it coming from her mother and father, if not her siblings. The grim thoroughness with which they battled Viamontians was not a coincidence¡­ AF Chapter 273 – Regress to the Present Princess Kristie followed the tale of woe and revenge all the way through, because she couldn¡¯t stop the rush of recollections now if she wanted to. Eleonora¡¯s brutal and non-stop training to become one of the greatest swordmasters in all of Viamont, Silveran swordplay added to Viamontian knightly training, all for the purpose of taking her revenge. And revenge she¡¯d gained, in a tournament sponsored by the Corcosi, when that smug prince Renlen, confident that no noble lord or lady would dare to strike him down, had moved overconfidently into the final match against her. Assured of his victory, he had been stunned at his loss, outraged at her effrontery, and refused to yield at the crucial moment, even demanding that she surrender after she had so clearly bested him! And so she was given leave and right to cut him down by the Viamontian codes of honor, and so she did. The Corcosi, of course, cared nothing for the codes of honor when such things restrained them. The killing was just an excuse to make war on the Bellenesse, finally and forever bringing them to heel, and so start a civil war. The Royalist forces had greatly outnumbered those of Bellenesse, old clan rivals finding reason to profit from attacking them, and the Royalists had aimed to extinguish the Bellenesse clan entirely. The defeats. Burning the land and its wealth to deny it to the invaders. The siege at the castle, and then the appearance of the Portal, which had given them a way out to a new land and place, leaving the Corcosi and their corruption behind. Until the Royal Army, led by Renlen¡¯s elder brother Varicci, had followed. Victories had followed in the new land, and then¡­ The betrayal by Binwas Loc. The ambush and the slaughter, and the capture. The torture by the perverted, arrogant whelp, massive efforts made so that she could not be resurrected made, to the point where they had cut out her heart while she still lived. It had taken her days to die, and the sneering face of Varicci II, and the arrogant disdain of Binwas Loc, filled her eyes and mind¡­ ------------ The raw fury inside the bellows and screams that erupted almost in tandem crawled right down my back. There were cracks and crunches as really hard things left sitting around just in case there was a need to vent were vented upon. They were pretty loud, too, and everyone was staring at the building the two of them were in, wondering just what the Hell was going on, and who was going to get it so bad when everything finally shook out. There was a good ten minutes of rock crunching, and several holes put in the walls, and a couple sections fell down when a really sharp sword slashed through them too fast to see, only the sparkles of Lost Light left behind even letting anyone know it had happened. The roof falling down on the pair of them finally settled them down a bit, as they had to dig themselves out from under it, cursing black streaks as they did so. The door and part of the wall fell in as I pushed it. I whipped the dust in the air away in a swirl of magic, leaning against the ruins of the jamb as Briggs picked up a rafter before Kris hacked it apart, and slowly helped her up. Man, when his face got mean like that, it got really, really mean. He really was a gentle giant, but when the right buttons were pushed, Briggs could be as elemental as any berserker born. Kris left Quaver sticking in the floor, latching onto Briggs¡¯ arm, and just stood there holding him, her pale violet eyes smoking, while Briggs¡¯ emerald eyes were almost glowing. ¡°Darren?¡± she gasped out, in a very Viamontian accent. ¡°Ele¡­¡± was the soft rumble in reply, and Briggs shuddered, some of the wrath leaving his eyes as he slowly bent his head to knock into hers. ¡°I killed him for you,¡± Kris hissed. ¡°I slit his throat in a duel, the honorless twat, right in front of his fucktard of a father and brothers.¡± ¡°Good,¡± Briggs rumbled again. ¡°Ah, gods, Kris, I heard what happened to her¡­¡± ¡°Treachery and more treachery,¡± she spat. ¡°That snake of the Locs¡­¡± ¡°You said¡­ you said your folks wiped the nobles and royal line of Viamont to the bone and sand.¡± ¡°They did. I¡¯m betting they were someone the Viamontians treated like absolute shit, too. Probably Aluvians. Rebels gutted and strung up like fish, or subjects of studies in torture¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to wipe every royalist left loyal to the Corcosi name from the face of this world.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Fate trembled under the Oath of a Source. A Pillar of Reality had made a solemn promise, and now the river of destiny was starting to turn, the blades of doom were being polished, and things were going to start to go all wrong for them. Kris transferred her grip from his arm to his neck, and was lifted effortlessly off the ground in a rib-crushing hug which would have broken the bones of anyone softer. I just watched it all as the Mick wandered up behind me, taking in the holes pounded in things, the many things cut into many pieces, and the general degree of messiness involved. ¡°Something a wee bit drastic, I¡¯m thinking?¡± he asked softly. ¡°Meet the reincarnations of Eleonora di Bellenesse and the love of her life, Darren di Marden. Both of them murdered by Corcosi treachery,¡± I whispered over my shoulder. The Mick¡¯s right eye twitched, just once. ¡°The Lady Bellenesse?¡± he repeated quietly, not a little awed. ¡°That were¡­ that were a really bad end, lass...¡± I made a show of looking around the room. ¡°Are you sure? I don¡¯t see any signs of that,¡± I lied badly. He looked at the two Warlords, just sitting there and holding onto one another, tears of grief and joy and other emotions running down their faces. But their eyes were closed now, because when they opened, they¡¯d only be shining with fury. ¡°If he¡¯s not dead already with all his twats, he¡¯s so fucking screwed,¡± the Mick said, nodding slowly to himself. ¡°Get those Fellowships all set up?¡± I asked him. ¡°We¡¯re going back to Asheron¡¯s Island in twelve hours or so.¡± ¡°Yeah, they¡¯re all ready to go, lass.¡± I pushed him back and away from the door, leaving the two to just work out whatever emotions were slamming them the hardest. ¡°Are the two of them going to be okay?¡± He didn¡¯t sound too worried about that, but it was best to ask. ¡°I think you¡¯ll notice it first. Wasn¡¯t the Lady Bellenesse supposed to be one of the best swordsmasters in Viamont?¡± He looked back sharply. ¡°Aye,¡± he confirmed from memory. ¡°At the least, none of the Corcosi were her equal, that were certain.¡± ¡°Well, she just relived ALL of that experience.¡± His black eyebrows rose sharply. ¡°On top of her being screaming death on wheels already?¡± he protested. ¡°That be totally unfair, lass!¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah, she just closed up your twenty-some year headstart,¡± I rolled my eyes, giving him a knock on the arm (it bounced). ¡°So I¡¯m betting she¡¯s clocking paramount as soon as she digests everything and starts adding it to her skills.¡± I doubted Briggs¡¯ preincarnation had gotten anywhere near that level of skill, but still, it wouldn¡¯t have hurt him. He was just a whole lot bigger and stronger now than he¡¯d been back then. ¡°Ye said she needed to be in position t¡¯ kill the Harbinger when things go to shit and gone,¡± he recalled. ¡°That¡¯s some mighty convenient time for a big Level-up.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like she¡¯s a cunning bitch looking for an edge, and if she has to relive the second most harrowing experience of her existence, well, so be it.¡± ¡°Second? What be the first?¡± he had to ask. ¡°The thing which turns them into a Rantha Hag, of course. Warps the body, warps the soul, tries to turn them into true Hags, and they have to fight it and overcome it with raw willpower as it is corrupting them mind, body, and soul into something they can¡¯t and won¡¯t become. ¡°Definitely number one. Death by treachery and torture come in distant seconds. She can handle it, and so can he. Sources hate people who break their own codes of honor the most.¡± A wind was blowing towards the Hlaetian Islands off the northwest of Dereth, and a hammer and a sword were going to be riding it. The Viamontian Empire and the Corcosi were dead on Ispar, and the treacherous, arrogant son of the Corcosi here was going to join his forebears and relatives. If the bastard were still alive. Seems they were going to be doing some exploring soon¡­ ------ No remorans or sleeches bothered us around Asheron¡¯s Island, for some reason. In truth, the number of them seen further south had declined precipitously a few weeks back, for reasons most people were entirely ignorant of. It meant the Wagon wasn¡¯t bothered from where it was sitting outside the Shoreward of the island now. The place was still crawling with Elementals of all types, there was still a major Rift leaking raw magic cutting down the center of the island from north to south, and there was still a whole lot of raw magic gathered at the top of each of those mountains. There were a bunch of Disks, a couple towed trailers on Disks, and Archers and the like mounted on their own Disks. I was keeping watch on the waters, making sure nothing unintended tried to do something stupid from below. The waters weren¡¯t deep here, so nothing too big was going to get close, but a pack of remorans flying up would have been annoying¡­ and stupid, with this many archers ready. Archers and crossbowmen all ready with OMA quivers, limitless ammo, and Potions to combat muscle fatigue. It was going to be a Karmic Buffet, but spellcasting was not, not, not on the menu, except outside the Shoreward. So, we¡¯d had to stockpile a bunch of Healing Potions for this trip, just in case, but were hoping to not have to use many, what with the reinforced Mantlets protecting the floating Barge-trailers and the Wagons, and mounted on the Disks used by the more skilled people here. In addition, Prismatic Stones gleamed on grips and stocks of their Weapons, gleaming with anti-Elemental killing power as hadn¡¯t been seen in nigh on fifteen years. No spellcasting, because the Elemental Harbinger would sense it and bombard us to Hell and back, forcing us to run. Nope, this was ALL about the archers, and a whole lot of armor-piercing arrows about to be expended. Kris was moving quickly across the island, aiming for the Rift. The Elementals hadn¡¯t noticed her with some camouflage and her crazy Stealth check, especially with her Null out, and so there was no disturbance at a distance yet¡­ Then Lost Light flared and flashed, and an Inferno went down on the edge of the Rift, sliced apart in vivic fire. At which point she turned and booked for distance, heading a couple hundred yards south of us as she did so. No spellcasting from us, the Harbinger would feel the magic going off, but not at who or what. Caught within the walls of the castle, it could at best look down from the hole smashed in the walls there and see¡­ absolutely nothing at this distance, she was running too fast. Also, there was a distraction as an Entropy Wisp abruptly congealed at the edge of the Rift out of nowhere. Finding Elementals all around it, it promptly opened up with magic to attack them, and the Elementals both returned the blasts in kind and charged in to the attack, destroying the thing in seconds. Six seconds later, two Wisps congealed out of nowhere after it blew apart above the vivus, and the area of whiteness expanded¡­ AF Chapter 274 – The Math is Elementary, my dear Wisp The Elementals were already focused on the Summons point of the new Wisps, and the spells converged quickly, more Elementals racing to melee with frost, fire, cold, and acidic energies to do battle. Wisps blew apart, fell into vivus, the whiteness expanded along the edge of the Rift. Four Wisps congealed out of nowhere. Kris was off the beach and punching through the Shoreward effortlessly, the pursuing Elementals basically giving up at the water. They stared after her for a moment, then headed back to either Spawn points they¡¯d taken over or to random wanderings. There were thousands of them in view at this range, illusion wrecked during our last visit, scattered all over the fifty-some square miles of the island whose greenery they¡¯d blasted down to black, charred stones. The Rift cutting diagonally between the two mountains was shining day and night, highlighting the bundles of glowing Elemental energies all over the place, but now, now things were going to change. ¡°Spotters, pick your targets!¡± Briggs said as he launched Endure. As the Mick advanced over the water, drawing the whole line of Disks, Wagon, and Barges forward with him, the Shoreward in front of us shattered, and the line of archers moved smoothly inside it to where we could shoot. Kris flashed by us on the outside, going north. She had a mountain to climb and a position to reach. The Spotters, Lord Mick included, lifted simple wooden Batons, each of them painted a different color, and each of them capped with a Continual Aural Fire effect drawn out in a long line before them. The Spotters removed the projecting Caps, and pointed. The Elementals along the beach lit up with flames that were black and white, the slightest trailing illumination following the path of the Baton to the chosen target, giving the archer squads their targets to focus down. Six platoons of archers fired, and sparkling arrows trailing prismatic energies shot out, smashed into the Elementals, and tore them apart. ¡°Forward slow,¡± Briggs murmured, watching calmly, Endure now resting in front of him, and a Baton finding another Elemental with the white upper and black lower Aural Fires of his personal Baton. Upper/Lower, Lower/Upper, Right/Left, Left/Right, Checkerboard, and Swirls were the six patterns in use alternating black and white, each team knowing the target, with the goal of one volley, one kill on the Elementals. I couldn¡¯t even Sift for stuff the Elementals might drop right now for fear of the Harbinger, but that was merely annoying. A second volley hissed out, and we advanced slowly into range of more targets, mowing them down smoothly, while I kept an eye on the middle of the island. The middle, where things were rapidly starting to heat up, because the Wisps just kept on spawning, and I think were getting stronger, as Nightmare and Chaos varieties seemed to be popping in now. Elementals were starting to converge on the site of the conflict, as it was making a tremendous ruckus and show as a whole lot of magic was going off¡­ and Elementals were actually starting to die before all of the more fragile Wisps could be put down. Amusingly enough, the two types of creatures could be largely immune to one another, with the Wisps almost impervious to fire and cold, and the Elementals likewise selectively immune to energies. But the Wisps also chain-Cast Drains and Heals and Harms, in addition to War Magic, not relying so much on coming to blows as the Elementals did. It did wrap the Wisps up in a lot of Elementals, but it also made for a lot of point-blank magic coming from them, and for every Wisp that died, two more popped up to replace it. The amount of War Magic at play over there was soon pretty ridiculous. Then the first Elemental respawn pulled itself up out of the edge of the Rift, looked around, and raced for the excitement taking place over there. The numbers of the Wisps were increasing far faster than the Elementals were, and so they couldn¡¯t be contained. Enough War Magic and Harms converged, a section of Elementals were torn apart, and the Wisps spilled through the gap into open territory as more of them materialized and pushed the others through. ¡°We¡¯ve got a Wisp breakout,¡± I reported, as the Mick strolled down the beach, the Elementals that came into range of us dying before letting off any spells. Their proc range was much less than their Casting range, and also much less than the range of the arrows coming in. Wisps were starting to spread, more Elementals were starting to converge as they came into mutual range of one another, and the conflict was starting to spread all over this side of the island. Dead Elementals were replaced one by one, dead Wisps replaced by two. The arms race was rapidly turning in the favor of the Wisps, even if they died much more easily than the Elementals did. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Nobody said anything, concentrating on killing as many Elementals to feed the conflict before the Wisps started spilling down this way and took away our Elemental targets¡­ meaning it would be time to switch to them. But that was still a ways off. --- The Wisp/Elemental fighting slowly snowballed, spreading out from the vivic epicenter which fed the whole thing. Elementals and Wisps died atop the vivus, were quickly replaced, and the fighting area spread, and spread, and spread, Wisps chasing Elementals, who converged on Wisps, and the air was thundering with the amount of non-stop Mana in use, blasting back and forth as creatures of Elemental energy and creatures of Psychic detritus coughed up by the Land blasted away at one another. We watched it spread roughly equidistant in all directions, the untethered Wisps attracted to the brightly glowing Elementals and expanding the circle of conflict. Around the Rift itself, the fighting was murderous and non-stop, as Elementals and Wisps were spawning on top of one another and getting right to it instantly when they did so. They all died, and us helping feed that conflict meant Karma was accruing steadily as we kept killing outlier Elementals, and the line of Wisps drew closer¡­ ¡°Switching to Wisps!¡± Briggs ordered, as the first of the twisting, writhing spheres of negative Psychic energy started entering arrow range. Two shots on target was enough to pop a Wisp. These were good Archers, keeping their Bows and Crossbows Infused for accuracy, Named and being fed a quiet stream of Karma over the past few weeks and months to improve their accuracy, range, and damage. Three shots on target, and Wisps popped. They weren¡¯t Vivified, as that would set up a Spawn Point almost on top of us, but they were replaced at the primary spawn site, contributing to the ongoing havoc there. Incoming Wisps died with great speed, Spotter-fire dancing back and forth between their numbers constantly, drilled teams letting loose in split-volleys to pop them relentlessly, one after another. The Elementals in the main area of conflict were basically dead now, but the fighting along the Rift itself was only increasing. The Wisps were spreading north and south towards those bright targets over there, our own area being surprisingly free of them for some strange reason or coincidence, dun dun dun... That meant the Wisps were spreading all around us, but not behind us, largely north and south. The big restriction on their spreading was the Rift itself, as they couldn¡¯t pass it¡­ and the only way around it was to circle the two mountains and make an end-run around them. But that was certainly going to happen, as the areas the Elementals were springing out of were widening, and the Wisps were chasing right along with them. The Wisps would happily chase the Elementals right around the mountains¡­ which would also take them UP the northern mountain towards Asheron¡¯s Palace. The Palace, where Kris had gone right up the slopes while the distracted Elementals stationed along the slopes were all looking south at the simply impossible-to-ignore conflict that was growing relentlessly there, even as the dark circle of Wisps was expanding over the landscape and sweeping the Elementals at the edge of it away, swirling darkness eating multi-colored points of light. Us, we just kept shooting Wisps. Nice, cheap Karma, generated more Wisps to be killed by the Elementals over there on the massive line of ground stained so white it was already misting. If it would have stopped making new ones in front of us, we would have vivified the stuff out here, too. Superior range and proc range was key here, and the fact they weren¡¯t all coming directly at us since we weren¡¯t all that showy compared to the Elementals. Also, we were backing up as the crowds swelled in our directions, retreating to the periphery. The first Stamina Potions were sucked down as hundreds of arrows and bolts fired took their toll even on superhuman muscles. There was crazy Karma being made as we fed the engine of conflict relentlessly, the Land obligingly vomited up as much internal corruption as it could¡­ and the Elemental energy blazed and Burned it with the vivus. --- We watched it reach the on-ramp of the great circular path that revolved around Asheron¡¯s Mountain three times, and the whole thing erupted in magic. The wave of Wisps down low continued north, circling around the northern end of the mountain even as the waves crashed relentlessly against the most powerful Elementals and coursed slowly up-slope, pushing and pushing with unthinking persistence. That seemed to finally trigger the Harbinger watching all this, its Elementals clearly losing the fight between Summoned power and condensed Psychic crapola. The abrupt jolt in the manafield was felt by everyone, magic flinching and swaying and momentarily pausing the regular volley fire that was mowing through dozens of Wisps per minute. The Wisps themselves shuddered and dimmed, even as the remaining Elementals seemed to flare with new light and strength. We watched the first Meteors come down as flames, which was amusing, as the Wisps were going to be almost unaffected by them. Indeed, the spell fell into the masses of Wisps along the Rift and sent a bunch of them tumbling and scattering with its impact, but it didn¡¯t actually kill anything, although the Meteors did leave a nice new white crater at the edge of the Rift. The next set was vile Acidic green in nature, which was at least partially effective¡­ and when that much damage was coming in, partial damage was enough. So, we got to watch the heavens raining acidic fire, continually and awesomely. ¡°Back it up and rest,¡± Briggs murmured, and the Mick obligingly started Skating backwards quickly and smoothly, distancing us from the Wisps who had other things to worry about. ¡°Lass, if ye were Casting, that¡¯d be coming down at us, aye?¡± the Mick called out, watching with everyone else as the rain of Meteors marched out from the middle of the island and towards the thick waves of Wisps boiling up the slopes towards Asheron¡¯s Palace. ¡°Yes, and even faster,¡± I confirmed, earning some whistles from the careful men and women stretching out their shoulders and sipping at bright yellow glass vials carefully. None of them had ever gotten in such intense shooting anywhere, and this wasn¡¯t a Dungeon grind. Every single dead Wisp was a Good Thing, more corruption dissipated and rid of. The Wisps were going to win the battles, right up until they lost the war. At some point the Land was going to run out of local corruption, while the Elementals weren¡¯t going to run out unless the planet died. So the Wisps would ramp up, and up, and up, and then at some point they¡¯d just stop, and the Elementals would start killing them all. The only way to get rid of the Elementals was to Seal the Rift, and that wouldn¡¯t happen until the Harbinger was gone. AF Chapter 275 – Wisps of a Chance Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! See the Link above! ================ The Wisps started boiling into the eastern side of the island before they made it up and around Asheron¡¯s Mountain the required several times. A virtual fountain of Wisps erupted into existence as the vivus spread around the edges of the Rift in the south, and the Elementals they killed respawned out of the Rift on top of them to continue the fight with mindless enthusiasm. I snapped my head around as I felt a locus of magic moving to the south and up the mountain. ¡°Problem?¡± Briggs called out immediately, the Mick instantly backing up out of shooting range. ¡°The Wisps must have breached Candeth Martine¡¯s Summoning Circle.¡± There was massive amounts of magic going off over there. ¡°The Essences there are being massively engaged by Wisps, and Candeth has moved before they focus on him. He¡¯s...right in the middle of the Rift on the south side right now, keeping the energies spread out and redirected. Clever choice. Both forces are paying attention outside, and his defenses are enough to endure the Rift, since he¡¯s the anchor for it. ¡°He¡¯s keeping this going. We can continue as long as we want.¡± Briggs nodded, slowly looking over the flow of Wisps moving north. ¡°Eleven o¡¯clock, Lord Mick,¡± he pointed, and the line of archers formed up to keep taking potshots as long as they could. The Karma being made here was going to go down in tales for decades. It was time to share it. I turned and lit the candle on the top of the Wagon. ---- On the shore, near a thousand men, lugians, and Aun were gathered on Disks and Barges. Their attention was riveted on the magical conflagration and fires blazing so bright even from this distance, but their heads all turned at a popping sound. The candle in the hands of a young-looking man with white hair standing upon his own custom green and brown Disk flared and died. ¡°Bring down the Shoreward!¡± King Borelean ordered from atop the Battlewagon made to be his personal ride. Mages gestured with precise Casting practiced many, many times on Shorewards on the Vesayans. Circles of magical force drifted out, sparking as they touched the Shoreward, and then visibly and rapidly expanded, linking up into one another into a gap in the Shoreward big enough to admit the entire waiting floating fleet. Oswald the Green Hunter turned about, and started moving. Cross-linked Disks, Barges, and Wagons were pulled after him, snapping into alignment as he picked up speed and began streaking across the waters with the speed of someone Flying¡­ but his feet never left the Disk underneath him, although he was moving far faster than anyone else could move a Disk. To be expected of the Green Hunter. He¡¯d be across the strait in about ten minutes, and then the main force of archers and rock-tossers would join the fight until they ran out of ammunition. There were Itemized piles of thousands of throwing rocks waiting, multiple quivers of arrows joining them. Tear the papers, and stacks of ammunition would materialize for everyone to use. There was only one rule: no spellcasting whatsoever. Watching the constant fall of those Meteors coming down from the sky, everybody was quite determined not to Cast if at all possible. Getting out of the Shoreward might be a bit harder than getting through on the way out than the way in¡­ --- Briggs went out with his Cloudstepping Sandals allowing him to walk on the water, and rapped on the Shoreward with his Hammer Endure to admit the flotilla into the shallower waters, everyone watching him with impressed faces as he shattered the screen of force casually with such gentle taps. That included Oswald, who shook his hand in greeting. Briggs turned and led the way as the Green Hunter pulled the rest of the eager fighters along behind him. In scant moments, the new ranged attackers had arranged themselves next to us, their Spotters were in place, and our fusillade of Wisp-killing salvos increased by a factor of ten. They didn¡¯t have Prismatic Stones, but it was just Wisps, and they didn¡¯t need them. If they needed one more archer per target than we did, that was fine. They were there to get as much Karma as they could while the ammo held out. More fun, when all of this was done and over with, we were going to have a LOT of ammo to collect¡­ Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The lugian rock throwers made the biggest first impression, as their hurtling stones did more damage than arrows or bolts did, and no Wisp ever survived more than two, with occasional crits catching them square and popping them instantly. They also ran through ammunition pretty quickly, but a certain someone in the mirror had faced no problems making actual tons of ideal ammunition for them, then Itemizing the mounds into sheets of paper. A Tapestry could have assembled even more ammunition, but the pile of stone would have been too big and heavy for any of the transports, meaning it would have had to be put on the ground, and that would mean being tied to a location. There were ways to do that, but it would have taken more manpower just being used for labor and Disking rocks around, and we didn¡¯t want the bother if we had to run. So the lugians picked their targets carefully, calling out boasts to one another, and impressed all the archers with the power and accuracy of their throwing arms repeatedly. There was no shortage of Wisps to kill, boiling and spreading backwards from the Elementals at the Rift, although the spread towards us paused as there were no bright targets for the Wisps to focus on. Instead, they followed existing flows up and around the mountains, spreading like storm-tossed waves to the north and south as they expanded towards where the Elementals were still fighting. Nobody protested what was basically a turkey shoot against foes who weren¡¯t coming after us, at least not in numbers¡­ and if any did turn to come right at us, well, that was what the Spotters in the middle of the line were watching for the most. Nothing was allowed to get within spell range of us before we popped them. Once they started turning on us, it was time to retreat or we¡¯d rapidly be overwhelmed. It was fine. The Mick was prepped to run at any moment, Briggs could pop the Shoreward and lead the whole formation out into the open sea. The Shoreward would quickly mend itself and stop any Wisps from following us out in numbers. The Wisps died in droves, the tally moving into the thousands now, and throughout the killing, the bombardment from the Elemental Harbinger up on the mountain never stopped. Rains of Lightning and Acid fire were coming down from above, obliterating hordes of Wisps, cracking and crashing down portions of the spiral around the mountain¡­ but never enough to break it, the ley line reinforcement of the stone too high to damage, drawing in the magic even as it hit the stone, perhaps even responsible for the pulses in the Rift that led up to it. It couldn¡¯t collapse the trail to the top, and it couldn¡¯t stop the Wisps from coming up, even if only a tenth of the numbers starting up the spiral actually made it to the fight with the Elementals. A tenth of endless numbers was still endless, and the Elementals were still dying, still being pushed back. Another black current was wrapping around the southern and northern sides of the mountain, chasing the Elementals in place on the eastern half of the island, mowing them down like two great shadowy waves of water. Walls of hundreds of spells between the two forces marked blinding boundaries that were slowly and inexorably being pushed together over the blasted and fused stone of the place. The jaws of blackness were closing, and nothing the Harbinger did was going to stop it, it seemed. Certainly the Land was venting up a LOT of corruption in the form of the Wisps, but equally obviously it had a lot of it pent up and ready to spend. The Aun had picked off Wisps from the Black Atoll on the Vesayans for a month. It had been the best workout their archers had gotten in years, and they¡¯d been quite thankful for it. Even paramounts had come down to Ithaenc to kill them, leaving only after they ran out of ammo, and the Wisps still kept spawning¡­ The Aun had guessed somewhere between fifty and sixty thousand Wisps had been killed before they stopped coming, and that had been a little island well separated from the mainland. That was an Elemental Rift cut deep into the earth, and the mainland wasn¡¯t far from here. Whatever the Land was drawing from, it was clearly deeper and much more plentiful than what had been in the Vesayans, and the Harbinger¡¯s existence here wasn¡¯t helping matters. Still, it was going to be a finite number and amount, and the blazing bright line of Elementals of all stripes fighting, dying, and being brought back out of the Rift was simply not going to end, unless and until the Harbinger died and the Rift was allowed to close. Once it did, then it was only to pull back and wait for morning Renewal to come, wiping the vivic stain from the land, and there would be no more Wisp respawns. They could then be swept from the length and breadth of the island by the archers. Now, it was only for them to reach the castle, the Harbinger, and start that little chain of events. Princess Kristie¡¯s impatience and equal resolve radiated through the Marklink. She was obviously in position, ready to strike, and likely watching the unending display of magic from the Aberrant thing that was the Harbinger with polite disdain, desiring only to kill it dead and get rid of it, not impressed by the show. Par for the course. If she was all grown up, it probably couldn¡¯t hurt her at all, and she¡¯d grind it down with swordwork without too much trouble. Still a ways to go for that, however. ------- Kris shifted her weight slightly as she saw the first reflection of spells on the stones of the shattered main gates of the palace. Three of Asheron¡¯s great Diamond Golum servitors, carved up to look like crystalline soldiers armed with mighty magical Weapons, were scattered in pieces around the courtyard. Most of the open area was scarred and blackened in swathes and stripes, locations where ley line emanations had blown free of the master mage¡¯s control and destroyed precious magical devices, as well as ripping into some of the many Wards about the place. She was up on the wall, crouching in shadows which should not have hidden her, a stance and position she had not moved from for hours, just part of the background here. Constant ki rotation kept her from cramping, kept the shadows flowing over her, kept any attention from lingering her way, kept them from sensing her gaze and patient killing intent. The Harbinger had actually come within thirty feet of her multiple times, positioning itself in the gap in the shattered southern wall to pick out its targets and rain massive explosive Meteors down on top of them. Then it had alternated between that location and by the front gate, throwing spells at things out of sight, no doubt tracking them through magical senses as it rotated constantly around the courtyard. Magic hurtled forth endlessly, up and over the walls, down into the coming Wisps, exacting incredible tolls on them, prices no mortal army would have willingly paid, but which did not matter in the slightest to the Wisps. In the center of the courtyard, hovering in the middle of a gloriously blazing fumarole of mixed Elemental Magic, floated Gaerlan. AF Chapter 276 – A Harbinger of Defeat Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! See the Link above! ================ Gaerlan was bald now, the mad Empyrean¡¯s hair burned away by the multiple energies assaulting him, assailing his flesh and mind and soul, glowing Empyrean eyes spewing out the raging energies running through him out of his control. His mouth was contorted in a silent scream as the punishment of the Harbinger ground away at him, but he was still alive, somehow, although his sanity had to be suspect. Kris¡¯ eyes shifted to the hovering, inhuman form of the Harbinger, its malleable flesh woven of Elemental energies. It was only roughly humanoid, arms more like tentacles than true limbs, head a thing of putty dumped on a floating torso held aloft by a small whirlwind of repulsion from the earth that was protesting its very existence here, so easy to sense and feel as it gyrated about the place. It was held in the Palace as surely as Gaerlan was inside his breached command circle, Candeth Martine¡¯s artful interruption opening it up and allowing the Harbinger to turn on its would-be commander this time, exacting revenge for his presumption of Summoning and attempting to control it once again! None of the stories about Gaerlan had praised his inventiveness, so there was that. She saw the first bolts of lightning and fire coming in, and the Elementals nearby all tensed and turned at some unspoken alarm. With supernatural speed, they flowed as much as raced in the direction of the fighting, as did all the other Elementals standing guard near the entry way to the Castle. It was why she¡¯d come up the backside of it, waiting not twenty yards from the raging fury of the Harbinger tossing spells right and left, poised on the walls for her moment, and her chance. Doing anything while the Harbinger was not occupied was completely stupid, the level of magic being thrown around was just too high. When she struck, she¡¯d have to do it quickly, preferably while it was in the middle of being assaulted by a shit ton of Wisps, and that seemed to be what was coming. The Harbinger was over by the entry now, repeated waves of green and purple Meteors arcing out and over and down, the rumbles and crackles and hissing splashes of their impacts now clearly audibly, along with the shrill notes of Wisps popping and collapsing under the magical assaults. It didn¡¯t matter. With the Harbinger now focused on the fight directly in front of it, the waves of Wisps boiled up the lower ramps even faster, surging up as they were drawn in the wake of those before them to expand, expand, expand their numbers. There was literally nowhere else to go for them, every bunch of them slain spawning double their numbers in retaliation. Huh, nearing Highmoon. So much light was coming from the plume trapping Gaerlan that she hadn¡¯t noticed night falling. Good. This should all be wrapped up before dawn, and Natural Renewal would close things out soon afterward. The swirling, building hum of more and more Wisps grew louder, while the raging forms of the Elementals laying about themselves sputtered and died, one by one. Writhing dark forms boiled past them, leading with Drains and Harms of their own, not even bothering with Elemental attack spells after the Wisps realized they wouldn¡¯t work. The Wisps boiled up to the doors of the Palace, and fell upon the Harbinger. It was a big, powerful creature, with a Health Qi pool that numbered in six digits. It had prodigious regeneration and magical resistance, and a sweeping blow of its arm could kill up to half a dozen Wisps in front of it, while their lashing attacks at its form didn¡¯t seem to do more then raise welts that rapidly vanished. But then ALL the Elementals were gone, and the Harbinger was all alone, facing a river of Wisps all by itself. No matter how many it killed, it made no difference in their numbers whatsoever. And at least fifty of them were focused on it all the time. Harms and Drains warred over it, leeching at it, sucking away its Health, Stamina, and Mana. Point-blank Rings of spells cleared away dozens of Wisps, making no difference as those beyond immediately charged in to fill up the openings. The Harbinger killed hundreds more, thousands more, before it slowly drifted back from the entrance, as if realizing that it simply couldn¡¯t win here. It drew back, trying to narrow down how many Wisps could attack it, but the ones behind kept up their spell assaults mindlessly. Even if only one in ten of their attacks landed, they were still leeching it down, and the constant pressure never stopped! Mindlessly, the Wisps followed the living, moving target they could not ignore, and slowly, over minutes that stretched into a full half-hour of grudging, step by step retreat, spells assaults rocking and cratering the gate even further as hundreds and thousands of Wisps died, the Elemental Harbinger was forced back towards the flume of ravening energies that was the true source of the Elemental Rift that had torn the island open. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Wisps spilled around the Harbinger, some of them beginning to mindlessly attack the fountain of energies, to little to no effect. Some even blew apart after trying to pummel it with their swirling bodies of negative energy, going up like fireworks and fading away before they could hit the ground. That left the Harbinger, who now had its back to the circle imprisoning Gaerlan. It was visibly frantic as it lashed out in all directions, called down more spells to clear out gaping holes in its attackers again and again¡­ and the holes were filled with new Wisps, the assault continuing without let up as its Health and Mana plummeted and were sucked away. Now. From absolute stillness to leaping motion, covering thirty yards in one lightfoot-powered bounding strike. Quaver was out and blazing crystalline Ruby and vivic, the Flames on it very red, indeed. Her killing intent was so pointed that her target even jerked his head around to helplessly stare at her coming down out of the sky. Quaver cut down in a swath of Lost Light to chop completely through his neck. Banefires latched onto Elemental energies, led them to all the right spots as vivus chased them, and Gaerlan¡¯s headless corpse blew into white dust almost instantly. That also happened to remove the Harbinger¡¯s mortal anchor to this plane¡­ and left a roiling ball of vivus right in the middle of some corrupted Elemental mana of the most ferocious sort. The Harbinger turned on her just as its anchoring faded, and a huge chunk of its remaining power melted away, just like that. It stared at her as she landed, Gaerlan¡¯s severed head still dripping elemental goo from it in her hand, and she looked up at it. Then the fumarole of elemental fury exploded, and it was time to go. Kris leapt just as it was going off, and the explosion caught her in midair. It was quite impressive, hammering her with a wall of solid air preceding all the energies going crazy as vivus ripped them apart and the Land fed¡­ and the Harbinger exploded in a blast of Pyrrhic doom, a mind-rending scream ripping out of it as it wasn¡¯t just expelled from the mortal realm. Oh, no. Vivus was much hungrier than that, and destruction of its mortal form was an excuse for vivus to feast on its spirit. It raged across the fading form of the Entity like fire on gasoline. The Harbinger couldn¡¯t fade away fast enough to stop it as it paid a price for manifesting in the mortal world that it likely had never imagined was even possible. As for Princess Kristie, she was launched right over the walls of the Palace as the explosion ripped up into the sky behind her. All the Wisps there in the courtyard were wiped away, a secondary Vivic Spawn position was started there, and she fell with the heavier remains of the top of the walls towards the ground below. Cloudstepping Sandals turned that arc of descent into a downslope skating race. The Wisps below didn¡¯t really realize what was happening as her arc of flight became a straight sliding slope down toward the shores. If dozens of spells reached up to take potshots at her, her Null either dealt with them or they missed her entirely as she headed down and around to the slightly sparkling line of archers still hard at work near the shores there. It was also the moment that using magic became available, and the War Mages of the kingdom hovering offshore raced ahead on their own Barges and Wagons to join the fun. They could only contribute until they ran out of mana, it was true, and this wasn¡¯t a foe they had to Imperil or anything, so they could fully use their War Magic and blast away to their heart¡¯s content¡­ with the caveat that they¡¯d attract the attention of the Wisps if they did so. But that was okay, because the numbers of Wisps weren¡¯t going to stop increasing, especially since the Harbinger wasn¡¯t thinning them at all anymore, and the Elementals were continuing to slaughter and be slaughtered in turn by them. It was Karma, and it was waiting for no one. That also happened to include the Lady Magos. Everyone saw her finally take her Staff in hand, having done precious little besides monitor the magic, flow of Wisps, and positioning of the force. Long glittering wedges of force, three of them, spun up around her arm, counter-spinning to one another, seething with so many energies hostile to the Wisps it was hard to discern them all. The Darts shot out, condensed into Rays, the Rays doubled themselves in midair, and slammed into their first targets, popping them instantly. Then the Chains raged out in a wild dance, slaughtering two dozen Wisps each in a crazed dance of silver and golden Holy Force magic like nothing any other mage could manage. With a snap, three more sets of three Darts each popped into existence around her arm, while the nearest Wisps turned her way. Their numbers were already bringing pressure in their direction that was prompting the Mick to walk the archer line backwards, even as their volley fire continued. Three sets of Darts turned to Rays, doubled, became six Rays, and plowed into the Wisps, blazing a trail of death through the incoming mass of them, over eightscore popping and dying as the magic tore through them and wiped most of the incoming horde, Spotters shading the rest for missile fire to tear through. Now, their continuous advance became a slow retreat. Wisps attracted by magic and the only resistance aside from the lines of Elementals boiled swiftly in their direction. Fifty died every two seconds, webs of dual Chains bouncing unerringly between them, popping them instantly as they passed, thinning out those that were coming precipitously, and the archers and rock-tossers dealt with the rest. Still, some were approaching close enough to get off spells before they were popped, but the mantlets on the Barges and Wagons did the job of containing and deflecting the blasts. Plus, ammo was starting to run low, so there was no real reason to stick around. ------ I had a lot of target tracking to do, but that didn¡¯t stop me from admiring Princess Kristie¡¯s newest trick. Drop lined up, and profound targeting did its job. The thrum as it released was audibly different from the Bows around it, which all paused as she shot¡­ and her bolt hit a Wisp, popped and sparkled around it, lighting it up, and then the quarrel continued on unerringly, driving through seven different Wisps behind the first one, lighting all of them up for the archers¡¯ perusal. The Roaches shot off in series, and finished every single one of the Wisps she wounded, Kris smoothly taking over primary first-shot duties as the Mick continued picking out the target. Penetrating Shot was quite the nice feat, as it were. It slowed down her rate of fire, but with so many targets packed so close, it hit far more of them than if she was pumping bolts as fast as her Autobow could send them out. She didn¡¯t really do that much more damage than any of the devoted archers was doing, but she hit far more enemies than any of them! AF Chapter 277 – To the Shoreward and Morning! Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! See the Link above! ================ Lord Mick slowly skated backwards as the Wisps pressed towards the line of archers, still Spotting as he did so, listening for Briggs¡¯ orders to go faster or slower as required. Strobing Dartchains flashed past him, while a crackling bolt led a staccato flight of finishing arrows and bolts into the incoming Wisps. It was all Karma, accruing nice and fast as the glass cannon creatures spit, sparked, and died, collapsing back into the mana field as the great field of vivus in the center of the island continued to expand with all the repeated deaths of Elementals and Wisps still duking it out in brilliant, loud, and nonstop exchanges of magic and bodies of opposed energies. Still spawning two to one, the Wisps overflowed the kill ratio, which was improving in their favor as the Rift visibly began to close at the ends, restricting the area the Elementals could crawl from. ¡°Martine is retreating with the ends of the Rift, keeping it open as long as he can,¡± I reported to the others, who just nodded and kept at our end of the task. It was a long way to dawn. ------- Eventually we were indeed pushed back off the island by the relentless increase of the numbers of the Wisps, and Briggs had to break open the Shoreward and start sending the Barges and Wagons on through as those behind covered for them. The Mick stepped through the Shoreward as the last person to do so, and Briggs moved away from it, allowing the field of protective magic to slowly regrow and cage the Wisps inside it once more. Not that it stopped the Wisps from undulating wildly out over the shallows and letting loose with fire and lightning as long as their mana held out at the archers sitting out there. Said archers now slumping down where they¡¯d been standing, groaning and clutching at aching shoulders and backs, fingers often bloodied by hauling back strings too many times for even their calluses to handle matters, even draw rings tearing at the skin of the digits they were upon. The supply of arrows, bolts, and rocks was thoroughly depleted, Briggs¡¯ calculations good to within twenty minutes of complete deprivation. All the archers were laying down to rest after sipping at bright yellow Potions or alchemical Foods to relieve their muscle fatigue, while a wave of minor Healing magic fixed all the bloodied fingers and hands enough to get everything fixed up enough for them all to doze off. ¡°Three hours to dawn,¡± Briggs rumbled, looking at the first stirrings of false dawn coloring the sky beyond the bright and continuing conflict doing its own job of lighting up the sky. ¡°Confirm what happens then, Magos.¡± ¡°Natural Renewal will sweep across the world, and break continuity of magic,¡± I said quietly, standing there in Aurora Stance to also regain my own mana from the AoE Heals I¡¯d just dished out. ¡°The vivus on the ground will be drawn down and away and dissipate. The Elemental Rift, no longer having the Harbinger as an anchor point, will finish closing, cutting off the Elemental reinforcements. That will break any Veil disruption entirely, and Martine will likely Teleport away if he can do so. ¡°The remaining Elementals will be killed, and the Wisps will be packed to the gills on Asheron¡¯s Island. But the Wisps will also be done respawning, and as long as we don¡¯t kill any more with vivus, they can be mowed down and safely harvested.¡± ¡°With the Rift closed, there¡¯ll still be Wisp generators popping up?¡± Kris asked casually from the side. I had my Detects going for Aquatics, so we weren¡¯t going to be surprised by any showing up, but the only thing that had popped up was a school of remorans that hadn¡¯t gotten within a hundred yards of us. ¡°This island has several major ley lines running through it, particularly between the two mountains. It¡¯s probably why Asheron built his castle up there. Those ley lines are still down there, and the magic is heavy here. The Land may have vented up a lot of corruption, drawn from a large area, but I¡¯ve no confidence that it is all used up if we want to restart the process.¡± ¡°This is one of the best archer training missions I¡¯ve ever seen. If we can replicate this basically at will, we should have an almost unbeatable archer corps fairly soon,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°High Karma, quick kills. The only limit is ammunition and stamina, basically.¡± ¡°And Asheron returning and not liking what was done to his d¨¦cor while he was away,¡± Princess Kristie smirked. ¡°But I agree. The island is isolated. As long as someone is here who can bring down the Shoreward to retreat behind, we can basically pop a vivic spot, keep shooting wisps down, fill the landscape with them, and then the dawn wipes the vivic spawnpoint and we can wipe them clean away. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°XP gained equal to how fast and how long you can kill the Wisps.¡± ¡°Put it in the books as a training plan, soon¡¯s we get more mages what can take down the Shoreward,¡± the Mick drawled from where he was sitting on our Wagon¡¯s steps. He waved negligently at the veritable wall of Wisps still writhing and undulating on the other side of the Shoreward. ¡°Any plans on how t¡¯ clear those away so we can re-enter easy-like?¡± I flashed up three circles of thirteen Greater Shards, each of them as long as my forearm and wreathed in all sorts of nasty Kickers for the benefit of the Wisps. ¡°Oh, right,¡± he murmured, looking at the wheeling wedges of crystalline force. ¡°Forget I asked anything,¡± he smiled cheerfully. ¡°Don¡¯t be killing all of them by yerself now, lass!¡± ¡°I had to sit there for twelve hours while the archers got in hundreds of kills each because helping out would have just cut into how many of the things we could actually kill,¡± I reminded him primly. ¡°While absolutely necessary, it¡¯s also very boring being the watcher and a support mage doing almost no support.¡± ¡°Aye, running all us Spotters¡¯ arcs of fire in yer head while maintaining yer Detects so we got no surprises an¡¯ having Heals on fast trigger an¡¯ Spellflares ready in case the bloomin¡¯ thing up on the hill decided t¡¯ have some fun with us. Most of the archers don¡¯t have a clue just how well they were being watched over, but some did, lass.¡± ¡°Still relatively boring, Lord Mick,¡± I smiled, inclining my head towards him. ¡°But thank you.¡± ¡°Dinnae mention it, lass. Had too many former experts at bein¡¯ support mages turn t¡¯ just blastin¡¯ stuff, simply because it were more exciting. I notice when someone does the job well, now, especially when I see it so rarely.¡± ¡°The slower mana regen should have corrected a lot of their attitudes,¡± I sniffed, fully aware that being able to endlessly send out combat-worthy attack spells was the main reason I could actually contribute. Otherwise, like every other mage here, a few dozen War spells and I¡¯d be out of mana, and that would be that until I sat through a lot of boring mana renewal. I was just lucky that I had Spell Slots which gave me a whole lot of reserves even if I was tapped out in my Mana Pool. Still, relative, and none of this fighting was small squad stuff where you could regain at least something between encounters. No, this was constant, full-time go-go-go, and spell management was totally real. Sieging spells wasn¡¯t possible here, either, although Reserves were, and the Mana Pool made the rep counts easy to get on the core spells. The main problem was that all the Reserves were rather minor in power, with only Healing Reserve really proving useful for the long-term. By the time the Reserves were useful, they amount of damage they did was so incidental it was basically only useful as backup if you really did run out of almost everything else. Different world, different Rules. ¡°Take your rests, then. After dawn, we start up again,¡± Briggs ordered, his green eyes gleaming in the flashes of unleashed magic in the distance. ¡°We¡¯ll see how well and fast we can sweep the land free of these Wisps.¡± ------ It really was kind of surreal, watching the sun come up and the effect it had on the land. The white area covered by vivus extending back at least a half-mile from the Rift there, clearly visible even at a distance with the writhing masses of Wisps juking around on top of it. The blasts of War Magic and Elementals coming up and dying hadn¡¯t stopped all night, but now, now the light of the new day stole across the center of the island, the sun sweeping forth after everyone rose to finish the Salute to Aru, chasing away fatigue and nerves and leaving everyone fresh and composed to start the new day. The unwhite mists and glowing ground evaporated under the impact of the rays of the sun. The glowering Elemental Rift putting up so many unhealthy Elemental energies began to shake and fade, even as the incoming Wisps stopped happening entirely. We watched the arrayed lights streaming up from the Rift slowly retract down the sides of the southern mountain, leaving double rows of Elementals there locked in combat with Wisps and no more reinforcements incoming. They were blasted down quickly enough, the Rift closing up as smoothly and easily as it had opened, leaving barely any sign it had been there at all, save for a seething mass of very densely packed Wisps where it had once been. The Wisps were now trapped by their own numbers, bouncing around and wondering what to do and where to go once all the Elementals had been killed, a process that took less than five minutes after the last of the Rift had gone away. It also left us at least forty square miles of territory absolutely covered by tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Wisps. The landscape was basically covered in them now, wheeling and whirling balls of dark negative Psychic energy, looking for something to unload on and not knowing what to do. ¡°We don¡¯t have enough arrows to kill them all without OMA Quivers,¡± Selena said, swallowing slightly. Yesterday had been a long day, Wisps continually coming, sniped off of flows going this way and that. But now¡­ the entire island was just covered with them! ¡°Magic use is on the table, which means we can fight our way through the areas we were addressing yesterday, and reclaim arrows and rocks,¡± Briggs pointed out to everyone, which cheered everyone up. ¡°Furthermore, although the Wisps may stream in from other locations, they are no longer spawning at all. What you see in front of you is what is there to be killed, and we¡¯re going to be killing them. ¡°Anticipate a lot of hiding behind those Mantlets, there¡¯s a reason they are in front of you and a reason we are having you Infuse them against Fire and Lightning. This will not be the steady slaughter of yesterday! The Wisps will be shooting back more often, and we will be advancing and retreating as needed to keep pace with their numbers,¡± Briggs announced to everyone. ¡°Bows up! The Lady Magos will clear the entry point and start our way in, you will be backing her up and building on her opening efforts! ¡°Your Highness, if you will.¡± Princess Kristie was standing out there on the water, grinning hard at the swirling tailed orbs whirling madly in the air just on the other side of the Shoreward, trying to reach her and failing miserably at it. They¡¯d long expended all their mana, so there was no magic testing things out as she raised her hand and solemnly punched the Shoreward. Three dozen Greater Shards shot past her, hit a whole bunch of Wisp targets there, exploded with Kickers, and then were blasting every which way in overlapping layers of destruction as each one of them sought another twenty-five targets to vent themselves on. AF Chapter 278 – Wisps of a Harvest Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT ON AMAZON! The First Month, Part Two! ================== Wild and twisting lights blew through scores of Wisps clustered out in the water by our entry point, and they shattered shrilly and fell into the waters as dissipating energy, the explosive nature of the Kickers and especially Holy energies quickly drawing attention from other Wisps nearby, which began to close in on the source of the new activity. Kris raced down the Shoreward, peeling it open, and the Barges, Wagons, and Disks re-entered the area of Asheron¡¯s Island, the first volleys already spinning out and popping incoming Wisps before all but a few could throw the first spells, which crashed into and licked at the Hardened Mantlets protecting all the Vehicles there, ultimately failing to do any harm. The Mick advanced slowly, while I spun up Darts to Chain together and pull more Wisps in, basically acting as the aggro dealer with the showy magic attracting attention. Hissing enhanced Darts enhanced by a lot of Kickers went out, Spellwarped into dual Rays, Chained, and blew through two dozen targets, harvesting them. Several dozen more Wisps reacted and started coming our way. The Spotters lit them up, the archers released in series as they came into range, and Wisps died, only a handful getting off their magic before they were dead. They were free-roving Summons, of programmed behavior, definite short ranges of attention, and they would always zip up to the attack, maybe shooting spells as they came, maybe not. They wouldn¡¯t be clever and stand off and bob and weave, trying to evade spells. Nope, it was Cast or charge into close range¡­ and the archers weren¡¯t going to miss at close range. Taking the withdrawal route we¡¯d used earlier in reverse, my Ring Zeks busied itself harvesting arrows by the hundreds and thousands via Telekinesis, sending clusters of them zipping down to waiting archers waiting in reserve to stuff into quivers, while rocks stacked themselves up neatly for the lugians on Disks Summoned up for that reason. There were a lot of arrows to harvest, not all of them were still viable, but the raw numbers meant someone else had to filter them out. I was staying busy both pulling Wisps and dealing with any overflows that came in too close, although our pace was slow enough that it generally wasn¡¯t a problem¡­ and Zeks could actually harvest faster than the archers were shooting, so it was fine. I just had to run a custom Detect Arrow so it could pluck the arrows and throwing rocks up in broad batches all at one time and send them to the waiting archers from where they were scattered all over the landscape. It was a lot of arrows, but then, there¡¯d been a whole lot of Wisps. ------ The hours crawled by as we advanced across the island, cycling the teams in and out to keep everyone fresher and reserve the Potions and Alchemical Foods we had only limited amounts of. There was no rush, as the Wisps would stick around forever, imprisoned on the island, but for now they were nice and clustered up, making them easier to kill in numbers. The Karmic harvest was impressive, too. Everyone had gained Levels in both Systems, shooting skill increasing, Feats taken, Masteries advanced, Stats gained, generally maxing out everything possible they could for two days in a row. That was an incredible amount of Karma for anyone of decent Level, and it wasn¡¯t stopping. Or, at the very least, none of them wanted to stop and miss out on this. The numbers of them around where the Rift had been were incredibly thick. Poking just one of them generated a veritable flood of Wisps in the direction of where they thought the attack came from, so Kris was usually elected to pick one out while I waited with a full Shard array spread out to obliterate a bunch of them from the incoming cluster if needed. A Dartray combo was usually enough to deal with them once they left the main mass. The archers were having a fine time of things, and the way the Wisps staggered themselves between charging in and pausing to Cast spells always delayed the full mass of their attacks enough for the back-ups to finish any truly stubborn ones that came in too close. Kristie able to put a bolt through up to a dozen of them at a time got a lot of attention, too, even if she only killed the ones she managed to hit squarely and crit on. That was fine, as the wounded ones she hit were all staggering, sparking, and finished off with one arrow each. She also wasn¡¯t on the Wagon, but instead down there next to the Mick, her Null protecting him as he kept with playing Spotter, not that he wasn¡¯t casually juking to avoid most of the potshots coming in at him, the two of them the preferred targets as the first living things the Wisps usually came in range of. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ------ ¡°Visitor coming in behind.¡± Ryin¡¯s voice broke over Briggs, who was surveying the land and sprawl of the writhing mass of Wisps ahead of the line of archers intently. The formation of the archers changed subtly, silent /commands going out to change arcs of fire among the Spotters, sometimes spread, sometimes concaving, whatever eliminated the Wisps at the best rate with minimal risk. -Kris, take over, back off the kill rate twenty percent and then pause for a break,- he /instructed his girl. She promptly kicked off backwards, sliding in reverse until she drew close enough to the Wagon to hop into the air, two Mantlets there turned aside to let her land smoothly, and she didn¡¯t even lower Drop as she did so. Briggs directed his Disk back and around to the rear of the formation to await Candeth Martine. The Prodigal Human was clad in a full-body blue-black robe, with a white theater mask showing a frowning face covering his own. He was also levitating with effortless grace above the ground, shimmery red-purple energies glowing faintly beneath his feet. An Aura of power that ruffled the dust on the blackened stones and soil about him was even faintly visible in the air. Briggs didn¡¯t look aside as King Borelean and Master Oswald silently joined him on Disks of their own. ¡°Borelean. Oswald,¡± the raspy voice of the single Prodigal Human spoke up as he glided up, glancing at both men, young in spite of their years, before settling on the towering Ancient standing between both of them, hands on a massive Hammer that fairly pulsed with deadly intent. ¡°I am not familiar with you¡­¡± ¡°I am Commander Briggs, Warlord of the united force to take back Osteth, and the architect of the plan that released you from your de facto imprisonment, Candeth Martine,¡± Briggs ground out in a magnificent bass voice that gave the extremely powerful spellcaster pause, for it totally belied his primitive demeanor. The verdant emerald eyes fixated on him were definitely not those of a dumb brute. ¡°I would like to thank you for keeping the Harbinger and its Elemental horde imprisoned on this island these many years. I imagine the undead and virindi could have come up with something to chase it off, but we do not know what might have happened in the interim, especially with Gaerlan¡¯s admitted hatred of Isparians and other races.¡± Martine actually paused to formulate a reply to that, studying the way the brute was staring at him without fear or nerves¡­ and feeling the way his Aura of magical power was being subtly blown away, unable to approach him. ¡°It was my pleasure to see Gaerlan tormented these many years under the attentions of the thing he attempted to enslave, and keep both of them imprisoned in a place of their own making,¡± his raspy voice finally replied, surveying the group of them, and then looking past them at the Wagons, Barges, and Disks, where Isparians, Aun, and Lugians had all paused in their slaughter of Wisps and were turned to face him. Hard eyes that had seen a lot of slaughter and death, and death you couldn¡¯t come back from easily. He saw the Banefire to Aberrants Burning cerulean on so many Weapons, Runes and subtle changes to magicks he wasn¡¯t familiar with. His glowing eyes finally settled on me, facing him with Crown in hand. ¡°I do not see the Imperial Princess,¡± he murmured, attempting to pick her out. ¡°She¡¯s getting ready to kill you if need be, as she killed Gaerlan and popped the Harbinger. You won¡¯t see her unless you depart in peace, or depart in death, Martine,¡± Master Oswald half-smiled, crossing his arms. ¡°You are in no danger from me,¡± Candeth replied after a moment, ascertaining the threat and slowly turning his head. Just like back then, he was unable to sense her with magic, a disconcerting fact that had intrigued him. ¡°Perhaps,¡± King Borelean spoke up then. ¡°But your past record of instability and ambition are not so easily set aside, Candeth. Your work in this matter is commendable, but your power is great and past deeds not so easily forgotten. We would know your goals and desires at this time.¡± ¡°Oh? Do you have designs for me and my power?¡± His scratched and hoarse voice was amused as he spread his gloved hands. ¡°Do you think that you can comprehend the sights I have seen, the powers that I can wield?!¡± ¡°The True Death you¡¯ve escaped once, but won¡¯t the second time?¡± Briggs replied levelly, unruffled by the display or the spike in Martine¡¯s Aura. ¡°You believe you are a danger to me?¡± Martine¡¯s voice was half-sneer, half-warning. ¡°I think you-¡± Briggs lifted Endure, and put it back down, tapping it on his Disk. All the Disks, Wagons, and Barges abruptly jerked and dropped to a mere six inches off the ground, those riding them swaying for a moment at the suddenness of the movement. As for Candeth Martine, he dropped from his floating position down to the ground, stumbling and falling down in his shock at being dropped from the air so quickly and easily¡­ and he¡¯d only felt the barest hint of any kind of magic sweeping out! And despite willing it, he could not lift himself off the ground he was sitting so ignobly upon! Briggs stepped forward off his Disk, booted feat crunching on the stone with ominous purpose and weight, the pebbles forced away from each foot as it set on the ground and grabbed the soil with more than mere gravity. ¡°Candeth Martine,¡± Briggs said gravely, ¡°If you wish to start a fight here, we will take you up on it, and you will die. It will be a sad reward for the noble thing you have done here, but if you expect us to bow down to you simply because you have power, you have learned nothing from the examples of Asheron, Rytheran, Aerefalle, Bael¡¯Zharon, Gaerlan, the Olthoi Queen, or the Singularity. Their power equaled or exceeded yours, and we did not just bow down to them, either.¡± Martine slowly rose back to his feet, picked up magically directly back upright, but his feet still did not leave the dirt beneath them. ¡°An impressive trick,¡± Candeth admitted, straightening up, anger and caution warring in his voice as he looked up at the hulking warrior who was making the ground subtly tremble beneath him, and finally according him a measure of careful respect. ¡°How did you do it, if I may ask?¡± ¡°I increased the power of the natural laws your levitation is fighting against a hundredfold and more. The amount of power you¡¯ve allocated to your ability to fly is completely unable to bend the will of King Gravity. I am a Pillar of Reality, and you don¡¯t have the power to ignore those laws in my presence,¡± Briggs stated, as grimly serious as a thunderstorm on the horizon. ¡°I am a Forsaken, and I will never craft a single spell in my life, but any dweomercrafter standing before me would be well-advised to check their attitude at the door, Candeth Martine.¡± AF Chapter 279 – A Mighty Fortress is Our Candeth Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT ON AMAZON! The First Month, Part Two! ================== There was silence and stillness, eventually broken by the twangs of a dozen Bows thrumming as they picked off a trio of Wisps coming this way. ¡°Interesting.¡± Candeth Martine reached out and stroked a ripple in the air in front of himself. ¡°Formless and completely resistant to attempts to manipulate it, yet incredibly pure in all aspects. You are a very curious being, Warlord Briggs.¡± Briggs just grunted. ¡°Curious about your intentions, Candeth Martine. Indulge this magic-less idiot and his companions, if you will.¡± ¡°Very well. I first intend to return to Rithwic and re-establish my base of power there. I originally left it only to investigate the final fate of Gaerlan, which led me into the situation that you released me from. I will invite the surviving Isparians to join under my banner and complete the their return to the mainland of Osteth under my protection.¡± ¡°So you seek to divide our power at the very time it should stay united, Martine,¡± King Borelean stated with a grim frown. ¡°Great power does not a great leader make, Martine, as even Asheron knew, and so many of the mighty beings we have met on Dereth have proved over and over. You seek to follow an unwise road, Candeth Martine!¡± Perhaps at another time he would have laughed, but a monstrous warrior who was radiating a field of magic that blew aside all his attempts to pull at it was glowering down at him with the conviction of a true threat. And he still could not sense the Princess Kristie Rantha, who had fought her way up a mountain of Elementals, and then survived the wild bombardment of the Harbinger with flare and style. With help from the white-haired Gharu¡¯n woman now watching him from the top of their floating Wagon. A woman whose magic was able to tear apart the magic of the Harbinger, and furthermore feed it directly back into the monstrous thing launching the most powerful Elemental Magic attacks known to Martine. If she could similarly disrupt his own magic, while he was trying to Cast through what would be horrible interference from this¡­ Source field, then he could truly be in a great deal of danger from these people. Oswald the Green Hunter was known to be able to kill people through a Lifestone¡¯s protection. If he said the Princess could kill him, she probably could¡­ and if she was responsible for Gaerlan¡¯s death and the Harbinger¡¯s violent banishment, she was likely a dire threat as well! ¡°Do you expect me to retire to some reclusive area and only come trotting out when called on to deal with something you cannot?¡± he rasped at them in a half-laugh of scorn. ¡°I will not repeat Asheron¡¯s mistakes!¡± ¡°Indeed, you are definitely making mistakes he did not,¡± Briggs rumbled by way of assessing reply, making Martine bridle. ¡°We have indeed had discussions and plans for what to do with a man of your power, Candeth Martine. You cannot fail to realize that a being like you have become has little place as a monarch of normal humans anymore. It does not mean you cannot be a member of human society, but you have advanced far beyond the wants and needs of normal humans, and that makes you an unsuitable leader of them,¡± Briggs stated firmly in his deep and so-strangely eloquent voice. ¡°Are the changes to you so extensive that you cannot even reveal your face now?¡± he asked morbidly. Martine actually tensed up at the direct questions, purple-red energies flaring around him and dying¡­ and notably dissolving into a sphere of nothingness around the Warlord confronting him. ¡°There have been¡­ changes since my return. Reclaiming my sanity demanded some sacrifices.¡± Briggs¡¯ face was unmoved. ¡°As expected. The virindi are not kind to body or soul,¡± he said, nodding once. ¡°That said, we do not wish to see you exiled, as you clearly desire human contact, and you have earned that consideration, of all things. However, the ones who deal with you should be those who can understand and empathize with you most, and you need to be given something to do to occupy yourself productively. ¡°Thus, we have a task for you.¡± Martine paused, tilting his head slightly, almost in disbelief. ¡°You¡­ have a task for me?¡± he repeated, as the situation turned on its head. ¡°Something you can¡¯t handle and need me for?¡± he almost jeered. ¡°No,¡± was the curt denial. ¡°It is something we can and would handle, just not right now. But it is ideal for you NOW, and into the future. Are you willing to listen, or should we get to the fighting?¡± Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Martine made a dismissive gesture. ¡°I can listen,¡± he rasped curtly. ¡°Tell me of this¡­ task,¡± he almost sneered. Briggs nodded, unperturbed. ¡°All Isparian holdings in the Direlands are gone. Almost all of those who lived there died during the Fall, or if not then, to the creatures which rapidly overwhelmed them after much of their Gear was destroyed. The mines they oversaw and the fortresses they held are in other hands now.¡± He continued on before Martine could comment, ¡°The newest, best defended, and most productive settlement in the Direlands was home to many, many paramounts in its heyday, staffed by powerful and skilled experts, and a busy and lively place for both exploration and mining. ¡°It is now in the hands of the undead, according to Master Oswald, who seem to take a grim delight in occupying it. ¡°We would see to it that the place is rebuilt, eventually restaffed, and held against the creatures and forces native to the Direlands, a job that will require power and persistence. ¡°The name of that holding in the south of the Direlands was Candeth Keep.¡± Martine froze. It was a long and awkward moment before he finally rasped, ¡°They named this place after me?¡± he finally asked in a low voice. ¡°We named it after a true hero who fell taking down a terrible villain, redeeming himself and his name,¡± King Borelean spoke up warmly. ¡°It was made and settled in that spirit, and was our greatest holding in the Direlands, bar none. ¡°Candeth Martine, we would like you to take over as the Overseer of Candeth Keep, and help us rebuild the city to what it once was!¡± he asked formally. The berobed man stooped slightly, as if overcome by memories. ¡°What of Ayan Baquar, then? Fort Teth? Wei Jou?¡± he rasped, caught off guard by all this. ¡°Ayan Baquar was wiped off the map by the virindi, perhaps excising distasteful memories of their own rogues based from there once. Fort Teth was overrun by the Gotrok and the Hea, and much of it demolished. The Shades tore through Wei Jou, and there is no sign Isparians ever lived there, now, save perhaps the crater of the Deathstone that existed there,¡± Master Oswald spoke up in his clipped, precise manner. ¡°Fort Candeth is the best place to reclaim and the most intact, as well as the easiest to defend once it is reclaimed, although we¡¯ve no doubt the undead have left surprises in it that need be sussed out.¡± ¡°The Empyreans, dead or alive, have many tricks up their sleeves, that is certain,¡± Martine murmured absently. ¡°Will there be issues if I move my abode from Rithwic to there?¡± he asked roughly. ¡°Some of your people chose to give up their existences as Simulacra there, but if you can relocate it and those who remain, that is certainly your right. Your Fort will need those to run it and manage it, and your personal followers would be ideal,¡± King Borelean agreed without hesitation. ¡°Fort Candeth¡­¡± Martine whispered, caressing the words. ¡°Where can it be found?¡± ¡°Do you know where the South Dires Deathstone was, east of the Tombs of the Sand Kings? They are due east of Candeth Keep. You can see the walls easily from the Tombs,¡± Master Oswald replied immediately. ¡°West of the southern landbridge, then,¡± Martine mused in a low voice. ¡°I¡­ will investigate this fortress, Borelean,¡± he said, stressing the name and lack of title, talking to at best a peer, more likely a junior. ¡°If it is amenable to my needs, then this minor task of yours is something I will avail myself of.¡± ¡°We can only hope you find some satisfaction there, Martine,¡± King Borelean bowed slightly. ¡°In time people will find their way to you, and begin the rebuilding. But for now, allow us to reclaim our dignity, our honor, and our vengeance upon those who chased us away on our own. We need to know that we can do this without you, and without Asheron, as we have endured all these years without either of you. ¡°It is a new era, and we will claim it properly, in the face of those who thought to take it from us!¡± Martine paused for a moment, then bowed slightly in return. ¡°I trust clearing the old fool¡¯s island is part of this process?¡± he asked mildly, much of the tension evaporating suddenly as his Aura receded into itself. ¡°It is a marvelous way to Level up our Archers with astonishing speed, and in circumstances we can recreate with some control. We plan to use it in the future for that very purpose, but for now¡­ we¡¯ve many, many Wisps to grind away,¡± Briggs replied deeply. ¡°And I am taking you from your task, Commander. Very well, I will leave you to it. Is there a place I can contact you if communication is necessary?¡± ¡°If you leave word with the commanders at any of the settlements we have liberated, we will know about it soon enough. If you clear Fort Candeth, alert us and we will send an attache to liaison with you,¡± King Borelean spoke up quickly. ¡°Very well, then. I leave you to your work, Warlord, Borelean, Oswald.¡± Candeth Martine made a somewhat awkward but nonethless polite bow of retreat and dismissal from their presence, mostly because he had to physically step away instead of float smoothly and regally away from them. Everyone watched the proud and powerful figure retreat. A hundred yards away, his feet rose from the ground, and his stride became an energetic low flight at much higher speed, heading for the Shoreward and the open ocean beyond. ¡°Looks like he can¡¯t Teleport over the water, either,¡± Master Oswald observed in a low voice, and then nearly jumped as Princess Kristie unfolded her cloak and rose off the ground like a shadow right in front of them, only an arm¡¯s-length from where Martine had been standing. There were curses and a lot of pointing figures at that. Nobody had seen her move into that position, and many of the sharp-eyed archers could scarcely believe it. ¡°Very smooth, Your Highness,¡± the master assassin said, with more respect in his voice than he¡¯d given Candeth Martine. ¡°He was a fine distraction, everyone watching him and his magic so hard they ignored anything subtle going on around him, figuring it was his magic at work,¡± she sniffed, playing down the deed, then grinning widely to show her pleasure at the compliment. ¡°Nice big distraction, Fuzzy!¡± Briggs returned her smile with a grim one of his own. ¡°Only the best attention-getters for you, Your Highness!¡± he replied easily, turning around. ¡°Alright, show time is over! Catch a drink, grab a bite, and we are back on the grind!¡± his Warlord¡¯s Voice boomed out, and all the soldiers there reflexively straightened right up at the pure command in his voice. ¡°There¡¯s Karma and Levels to earn, soldiers! We do this right and we walk away, setting the precedent for everyone who comes after you!¡± ¡°SIR!¡± all of them shouted together, and if that inspired a few Wisps wandering nearby to trundle over and investigate, they didn¡¯t live long enough to cause any real problems. AF Chapter 280 – Food Fit for Royalty Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT ON AMAZON! The First Month, Part Two! ================== The garrison in Eastham was now full of groaning archers. There was a lot of stretching and use of minor Healing magic being used on backs and arms, and exhausted men and women of three races catching up on sleep. Three days in total it took to clear the island of Wisps. However, it was enough Karma for at least seven more days of advances, which was more Karma than any of the soldiers under forty years old had accrued in their whole lives. I¡¯d outkilled any single archer out there with Dartrays, being able to harvest more at one time than anyone else, with occasional bursts of Shardrays to obliterate an acre or two of the things at one time, as needed. We¡¯d finished up at Asheron¡¯s Castle, sweeping the last of them off the spiral ramp around the mountain. There¡¯d been some inside the Castle itself, but not many, given how fast the fighting wound down once the Rift had been closed, and the way those at the summit had been annihilated by the Harbinger dying and Rift closing. Asheron¡¯s Castle itself had yielded up nothing much to study, having been completely taken apart by the infuriated Harbinger or by Gaerlan¡¯s investigations, if not destroyed when the Harbinger lit off, or whatever happened when the Rift there had opened. Master Oswald had already flitted off, gone to check and see if Martine was letting the undead know whose fortress they had seen fit to take over, among other things. The rest of the soldiers were totally envious of the missile tossers, words of cross-training getting around eagerly as soldiers looked ahead to the time they might become adventurers and wouldn¡¯t have devoted specialists around themselves. On the other hand, they had their own devoted Dungeons around to test themselves in against foes constantly, and if their foes weren¡¯t glass cannons worth easy Karma like the Wisps, archers had problems in tight corridors and the like, and a good team of melee fighters could chew through their opponents fairly quickly, if they were smart. Having to be careful of point-blank War magic was the biggest concern, of course, but the additional threat meant they also earned more Karma in melee combat than archers did in ranged combat¡­ Such fatigue wasn¡¯t allowed to slow down elite members, of course, and so the Roaches were immediately off to the olthoi Dungeons to work on their bug-killing tactics. ------- ¡°Time to sweep the desert?¡± I asked rhetorically, seeing the Holo from Kris¡¯ bracer over the table as Briggs looked over the whole thing. Current dispersion of forces friendly and hostile played out over the map where more officers could study it, including King Borelean and his daughter and mother. The air was a little uncomfortable, as the king was always affected by Briggs¡¯ looming presence and the Source air about him. Small wonder. A king of men and a King Among Men were very different animals, and his position was threatened by the latter, even more than it had been by Kris when she sat down with him all those months ago¡­ =========== Six months previously¡­ I didn¡¯t want to be there, really, but Kris wanted some help with the cooking, and nobody around knew all the dishes she was making like I did. Also, Phantasmal Servant Horde for all the magical help that was required. King Borelean and the Queen Mother had stressed that they wanted to meet us both, so we¡¯d invited them over. Given how busy Kris was dashing all over the place, she¡¯d set a date to go to Freehold, rented out a private hall, and was fixing up a dinner for them¡­ rather the opposite of what the royals expected. Rather bemused, they did show up on time, a couple of knights going through the place to make sure there weren¡¯t any surprises, scanning for poison and the like. Borelean, Elysa, and Fan showed up in carefully casual attire, still finely made, but not showing off excess wealth or a fashionable edge. I noted that none of the accenting jewelry was tied to a mana pool, which made sense given that the King had lost his arm and wife to such things, and Princess Fan her mother. They¡¯d likely not trust such magic until the day they died. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. We did say to bring their weapons, just so they¡¯d feel more at ease. Word of Kris¡¯ ability with a blade had spread, and neither of us doubted the king would want at least a bout with her, to see if the tales of her bladesmanship were true. Lord Mick had upsold us pretty well, and the tales coming out hadn¡¯t gotten any lighter. That was especially true in regards to the magic I was starting to make known, which had upended a lot of the standard Isparian magic and was starting a revolution among the younger generation of mages, along with causing consternation among the older paramounts who had long maxed out their magical skills. The chicken nuggets were totally new and novel, and the dipping sauces had them calling out in delight at the variety. The onion soup went down so smoothly it had them all shouting excitedly and clamoring for more broth. The shrimp appetizers were perfectly cooled and crunchy, a delight to a place that ate a lot of seafood, and the sauce was exquisite, a QL 32 mix that simply shouted for attention on the tongue. The salad was a gorgeous melange of six different varieties of lettuce, five cheeses, olives, ham bits, bacon, almost transparent pear and apple slices, crumbled boiled eggs, and a ranch sauce that they¡¯d never had anything like. They raved about it and devoured the entire batch of it, totally able to make a meal of just that. The inch-thick auroch steaks that came out for the main course had them almost drooling just from the smell, sizzling and fatty and rubbed and spiced and with three more sauces for them to dip and test out as they cut in and their knives almost glided through the fresh pinkness within. The potatoes were whipped into cream, dripping with butter and garnishes of onion and finest garlic and pepper. I saw Princess Fan¡¯s eyes roll up and she almost fell over when she had a taste of them. Sama had always been obsessed about great mashed potatoes, and Kris was continuing the tradition. You could pour them down your throat. Dessert was a tapioca pudding in a style none of them had had before, going down despite their overstuffed protestations as they couldn¡¯t help themselves. When the gentle candies came out in the mignardise, along with a hickory and chocolate coffee blend that had them slurping at it much too loudly, they were about as relaxed and cordial as they could be. So were their guards, served at their posts by Phantasmal Servants in ghostly formal attire, meals on Disks and helplessly eating everything with at least as much gusto as the Royals were. The four different wines selected over the course of the meal went with everything perfectly, and if there was some alchemical fine-tuning to that effect, well, master chef with enhanced taste buds will do what they want to do. The table was cleared away by Phantasmal hands, Kris and I made our appearances to applause and compliments for the meal, and our Disks came out, molded into floating chairs to match the force Disks that they were all sitting comfortably in, while yet another Disk materialized between us all into a perfectly situated table for us to sit around. ¡°Are you absolutely sure you¡¯re a spellcaster and a sword master?¡± the Queen Mother asked with a sigh of regret. ¡°I definitely would hire you to work in my kitchen in a heartbeat!¡± Kris just beamed a bit. ¡°The chefs at the Imperial Palace thank you for the compliment. They were great teachers, and we were demanding students as well as beneficiaries of their skills. ¡°I will also note that I know how to poison each and every dish I indulged with you. The chefs in our kitchens are trained in how to protect against such poisons, and naturally know how to apply them if needed.¡± All the royals stared at her in disbelief, and she just sipped her coffee, as did I. ¡°Well, it seems your training is a¡­ bit broader than I insisted on my daughter learning,¡± King Borelean finally spoke up, also taking another sip of the exquisite coffee¡­ and then setting it down to pick up one of the delicate, melt-in-your-mouth pastries that went with it. He sighed in wonder. ¡°Is this how they eat in Roulea back on Ispar?¡± he had to ask. ¡°I am impressed despite myself, Princess.¡± ¡°Dad isn¡¯t so fussy, but Mother can go on huge bitchfests if her food isn¡¯t up to snuff. It both terrifies and delights the servants, because she won¡¯t accept them getting crappy food, either, and she regularly sends them out to teach people new dishes and how to eat and prepare them. The Imperial Culinary School gets a lot of applicants from all over,¡± Kris replied warmly. ¡°As far as Roulean cuisine goes¡­ they know how to go truly overboard and waste a LOT of food on utterly magnificent feasts. That, I¡¯d say, is the high point of their cuisine.¡± ¡°Oh? And Aluvian cuisine?¡± Queen Mother Elysa asked, curious now. ¡°Fills you up the best of all of them. Dad¡¯s favorite, always will be. Sho cuisine has the widest variety of spices and sauces, while Gharu¡¯ndim cuisine has the most overall variety and exotic elements to it. I admit I¡¯m not impressed by frozen monkey brains, but there you have it.¡± I had to roll my eyes. ¡°They actually served a course of the Nineteen and Nine Great Exotic Dishes to you?¡± I huffed. ¡°Nobody eats those things in real life, Your Highness.¡± ¡°You are absolutely correct. The Gharu¡¯n chefs were dying to try them, however, so Mom and Dad let them, but the only ones who ate were the family and the kitchen staff, who had to critique each and every dish. Of the Nineteen and Nine, I think six ended up with excellent grades, twelve were meh but too bloody pricey for what you got, and ten of them were basically either eye candy or disgusting and tasted like crap. Whoever wrote down the recipes was an imbecile or a fraud. ¡°The Gharu¡¯n chefs were mortified at the results and were immediately tasked with setting forth a new Nineteen and Nine. I think they were up to Twelve and Four last I heard, every dish a Gharu¡¯n classic and awesome to both look at and taste.¡± ¡°Only four main dishes?¡± I had to ask her, thinking about that. ¡°There were debates on four others, including two from the original list, but they hadn¡¯t been finalized, not the least because you just don¡¯t get Ancient Sand Worm meat fresh enough to experiment with very often.¡± ¡°Ah.¡± I flipped up an image of the massive deep desert predators for the local Royals to enjoy the camel-swallowing size of. ¡°Can¡¯t imagine why. Kill one of them, feed a whole village for weeks.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t recall steaks being cooked quite like that in the past,¡± the Queen Mother pointed out. ¡°Dad does love his steaks from the grill,¡± Kris shrugged, then smiled, all eight canines on display. ¡°It also puts Mom in the mood for midnight shenanigans, so there¡¯s a lot of experimenting with beef in the Palace!¡± That earned some coughing laughter out of everyone there, especially the sole male at the table. AF Chapter 281 – A Kingly Conference Hey There! 1900 days in, and so on the centennial is my little bit of extra haranguing for the readers! If you''re reading here, well, it''s been nine months since this particular story started, and nearly 300 chapters in. I hope you are enjoying the change of pace for the video game setting I have here. As you know, if you don''t join an author''s Patreon for a bit of financial support, the best way to show that support is to give Ratings and/or Reviews. This helps move the book up in the rankings, makes it more visible to others who skim for books, and is the best feedback to the author that he''s doing a job well (I notice every new Rating and Review, thank you!) So, if you''ve got a few minutes, giving a Rating is hopefully at least some way to reward an author for doing a good job making a paperback novel a month for you to read. Remember that anything below a 4.83 is basically a downvote! :0 =============== ¡°May we get on to more¡­ political business, if I may?¡± King Borelean asked Kris, who just waved at him to continue. ¡°The news that an Aluvian overran and mauled Viamont, then seized an Imperial throne is startling enough in its own way. That a princess of the Imperial Family that seems to have conquered most of Ispar has made it to Dereth is¡­ somewhat disconcerting.¡± ¡°You¡¯re worried if I have designs on your throne, conquest, and similar red-handed treacherous thoughts and ambitions,¡± Princess Kristie Rantha of said Imperial Family paraphrased for him, not at all offended. ¡°The matter had occurred to me,¡± he admitted, trying to read her and finding no hostility there. ¡°I¡¯m not a ruler and will never be, Your Majesty,¡± Kristie replied easily. ¡°My dad and my brothers are the ones who like being on top and getting things done. However, none of them like to rule just to rule. Ruling helps them get stuff done. If they couldn¡¯t get stuff done, either they¡¯d step down, or they¡¯d react really badly to the ones in the way of getting stuff done, which,¡± she coughed into her hand, ¡°happens more than anyone would like. ¡°There¡¯s a huge difference between wanting power and being able to wield power well. My parents can both do the latter. Most of those people who want the same amount of power¡­ can¡¯t.¡± The king could only nod to that. ¡°I am far from the only paramount on these islands, and I have¡­ issues.¡± He waved at the empty sleeve at his side. ¡°Loss of my arm makes me weak and vulnerable in the eyes of many paramounts. However, they can¡¯t muster any of the popular support to take the throne from me, as what did they sacrifice to succor the people here?¡± His smile was thin. ¡°However, it makes them a rebellious and cantankerous lot, with little respect for the throne and what I do.¡± ¡°Power without responsibility,¡± Kris snickered. She gestured at me, and I popped up another bottle of pink wine and five delicate glasses. The cork popped as I handed it over, and she poured a glass for everyone, one by one, to precisely the same level, standing up to hand them over. ¡°A toast, then: to Duty, to Loyalty, and arsehats who don¡¯t know the meaning of either!¡± ¡°Hear, hear!¡± all three royals smiled in grim agreement, taking sips of the wine. It cleared away the coffee aftertaste nicely, mild and pleasant. The beers poured out to the two guards were actually higher QL, but we weren¡¯t going to tell the royals that. ¡°What are your intentions? Do you plan on taking service under the crown?¡± the Queen Mother asked calmly, studying the formidable young woman in front of her. ¡°If you¡¯re asking for a fealty arrangement from me¡­ no, that won¡¯t happen. I¡¯m psychologically unable to subordinate myself to you, Your Majesty. Force the issue, and I¡¯ll force it right back.¡± Kris shook her head meaningfully, pale violet eyes hard and intense. ¡°That said, I¡¯m totally willing to work with you towards mutual goals, and I daresay you will find me the finest of allies to associate with. I¡¯ve no ambitions on your throne. By everything I¡¯ve seen, you¡¯re doing a wonderful job for the people and you haven¡¯t let your position get to your head.¡± Her gaze traveled over to the Princess, who flushed under the direct, hard stare of a woman who didn¡¯t look any older than she did¡­ and at the same time gave the impression of having waded through rivers of blood to stand where she did. ¡°Hereditary royalty is extremely susceptible to arrogance of position, but you¡¯ve a lot of very powerful people who are forcing you to stay on your toes and focus on what the core of leadership truly is. ¡°This state of affairs is likely to continue, and there is precious little you can do about it. In effect, you have two strata of people you have to deal with, and you are king of only one of them. Lose the support of the civilian population, and you will fall very quickly, indeed, and no hereditary bloodline is going to save you.¡± The Queen Mother was first to speak up. ¡°We are not so far removed from being adventurers ourselves, you realize?¡± she stated firmly, being the progenitor of said inherited bloodline. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Well, that¡¯s better than the robber barons and bandit kings who started most of the noble bloodlines in Aluvia and beyond, right?¡± Kris grinned, giving her a wink, which earned a snort of laughter from the elder matron. The Queen Mother was close to seventy years old now, and while youthful for her age, was definitely showing it, despite being a Paramount herself. Age simply was not kind, even with a superhuman stat line. ¡°I¡­ have been required to Level up and improve myself ever since I could string a bow,¡± Princess Fan finally spoke up under Kristie¡¯s stare. ¡°The idea of being a flower on someone else¡¯s arm while they took my father¡¯s throne¡­ does not sit well with me.¡± Kris nodded slowly. ¡°And yet, if someone capable of doing the job comes along and does take it when it is time, are you willing to let that go?¡± Her fists clenched as she stared at Kris. She had her mother¡¯s beauty, fairer skin than most Sho, and bright blue eyes the Sho also didn¡¯t have, along with much paler hair, a brown so light it was almost dirty blonde. She also had an archer¡¯s wide shoulders, arms, and hands, so she was no delicate persimmon. ¡°I¡­I do not know. I have trained all my life to succeed my father and do the job required of a monarch properly. If they were truly capable¡­ I suppose I could swallow my pride and let it pass, but I would feel as if I had failed my family.¡± ¡°I am not denigrating that training, either,¡± Kris told her calmly. ¡°It is a huge amount of stress, having to learn everything a warrior needs to learn, and then everything a ruler needs to learn on the side. Without those Levels, you will not gain respect. Without that education, you will not truly keep it. Rulership by the strongest fist only lasts until the next stronger or more clever fist comes around, a fact most paramounts don¡¯t really realize. Levels do not mean leadership.¡± ¡°How did you handle it? It could be maddening, always being hurried from one set of lessons to the next!¡± Her exasperation showed through, although she wasn¡¯t denying it was effective. ¡°Ranthas are perversely chronic workaholics and overachievers,¡± I supplied before Kris could reply. ¡°The Imperial tutors were infamously overworked and barely able to keep up with their charges. It can be very difficult teaching children who are smarter than you are, and they all learned that the hard way.¡± I raised an eyebrow in thought and turned to her. ¡°That¡¯s why you went into genealogy. You must have been bored out of your skull and wanted something that would suck up endless amounts of time!¡± ¡°Shhhhh!¡± Kris put her finger to her lips. ¡°Everyone thinks it is because I was being as merciless as my mom and doing it so I could track tax evaders better!¡± ¡°Her tax audits were legendary. Ah, the red¡­ ink that flowed when she and her accountants went to visit someone¡­¡± My eyes glazed over at some of the stories Shamira had heard. ¡°Conversely, the people who paid their taxes never regretted it. Mother was very good at generating business opportunities for those wise enough to believe in what they were trying to do,¡± Kris smiled smugly. ¡°All that money flying around and multiplying itself once she cracked enough heads so that they stopped hoarding it for themselves,¡± I nodded. ¡°But! The difference there is no paramounts. I imagine the paramounts pay jack-all in taxes, Your Majesty.¡± ¡°They are loud in acclaims of their wealth and miserly in parting with it, yes,¡± the king agreed with a sigh. ¡°It is as you say. They sit on what wealth they squirrel away and do little to create more, only moving if there is money to be made for themselves and otherwise withholding their strength and influence. The only thing which seems to motivate them is new paths to power, shame, or guilt.¡± ¡°Save a rare few with a knot of vengeance burning deep in their gut that they won¡¯t let go,¡± Kristie agreed firmly. ¡°Those are the fellows I¡¯ve been roping in, like Lord Mick. They don¡¯t want your throne. They want back what they lost, and if they can¡¯t have it, justice for those they lost, in one form or another.¡± ¡°And your intentions?¡± the king asked her archly. ¡°I intend to reclaim the lands of Dereth for Isparians and their allies, and punish all those who thought their deeds during the Fall were perfectly justified and reasonable. I¡¯m going to strengthen the Artificing, spiritual, and mundane foundation of the people here, while Ryin works on the spellcasting side of things Then I''ll start pressing back the creatures who thought we¡¯d run into a hole and were going to hide forever.¡± The royals considered her expression and demeanor, and could not help but be impressed. The determination in her voice and icy resolution in her pale violet eyes were hard to speak out against. She was a Null who¡¯d just said where she was going to take a stand, and fuck the whole world if it tried to sway her! ¡°How qualified are you to undertake such a large task?¡± he asked, and I had to look away not to laugh to myself. The royals did notice it, while Kris just smiled thinly. ¡°I am likely the most skilled Warlord among the Isparian peoples here, extremely experienced in actions tactical, operational, strategic, and logistical. I can run an entire army, train them, command them with a proficiency and skill you¡¯re going to be no more familiar with than the Viamontians are, and build them into a force the other species on this island aren¡¯t going to be able to stand against. ¡°On a personal level¡­ I am a Null Forsaken. Do you know what that is?¡± she asked them bluntly. The royals looked at one another. ¡°It sounds¡­ burdensome?¡± the Queen Mother finally ventured. ¡°Forsaken is a very¡­ judgmental term?¡± ¡°It means I have a rigid soul, and cannot wield any form of magic without a tool interface,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°So, I cannot Cast any spells of any kind, or any school. I can, however, wield magic items designed to work for Forsaken. Most importantly,¡± she smiled, and they stared at her eight canines, and the sudden, dangerous impression of a beast ready to spring, ¡°I am extremely resistant to magic. Considerably more than your own spell resistance is likely to give. I can enforce that resistance to magic upon the world in various ways. ¡°However, that lack of magical ability means that I focus on mastery of mundane skills to a level you Casters do not. That is especially true in regards to profound fighting styles. ¡°I can and have beaten Lord Mick at swordplay, despite his being a paramount and specialist in the claymore, and he has little chance of besting me in return. He simply does not have the skills in profound martial combat to defeat me.¡± ¡°That¡­ sounds extremely interesting,¡± King Borelean murmured, placing his arm on the table and leaning forward. ¡°What does it entail?¡± ¡°Power systems.¡± They were startled when I broke in, their eyes snapping over to me. ¡°There are four known systems of power mortals can tap.¡± AF Chapter 282 – On Swordplay Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT! The First Month, Part Two! ================== ¡°The first system of power is science. As far as martial combat goes, these are all the techniques, footwork, thrusts and counters, angles of attack, patterns and movements taught to you by your masters, the pure raw skill of combat as perfected by masters over the centuries and passed on to our generation. In archery, this is the evolution of throwing rocks, to throwing pointing sticks, to shooting pointing sticks, to having machines shooting pointed sticks! ¡°The second power is magic. Enhanced Armor that can bounce blows that should knock you off your feet, and Weapons moving faster and hitting harder and more surely than pure skill can alone, for example. Magic comes in many varieties and types. ¡°The third system is psionics, which is not viable here, as we¡¯ve no talents for it. Reputedly its effects are similar to magic, but subtly different in many ways. ¡°The fourth system is spiritual, the foundation of which is ki, the height of which is chi. Chi has many analogues to magic, but is more martially inclined. Ki represents the profound truth and core of spiritual mastery, and Princess Kristie and her family are masters of profound combat.¡± I inclined my head at her. ¡°Like magic, she cannot spend nor wield it actively or externally. But she can accumulate a lot of it, and she can employ her spiritual strength as readily as you can flex your arm. ¡°She is very, very good at martial combat, at a level you simply are not familiar with, Your Majesty. ¡°She can run faster than you could back when the Land fed you the power to do so. She can pound stone with her fists, slash a silken ribbon in half with her elbow, and throw a toothpick into a rock. ¡°She is aware of everything that is going on within thirty feet of her at a level of detail you would find excruciating. She can count every nail in the floor and see bodies buried underground, look inside a lock to see how to pick it, see the mechanisms of a trap or pit within the walls and floor.¡± I extended my hand back out of sight of her, held up four fingers. ¡°Four,¡± Kris said without turning her head. She looked at the Princess and the Queen Mother. ¡°Two and three,¡± she smiled slightly, and both women flushed at being caught out on their own tests. ¡°Your reputation among the swordmasters has indeed spread quickly,¡± the king admitted, his blue eyes keen with interest. ¡°I would be honored to test your skill, but I am afraid that after that magnificent meal¡­¡± I lifted a hand. ¡°If Your Majesty is willing?¡± I asked, an orange light gathering in my fingers, my other hand on Crown. He only hesitated a moment. ¡°It is said that you have many strange and unique spells at your disposal, Lady Magos. Lord Mick¡­ demonstrated the ability to fly and become invisible to sight!¡± he said, softly enough that his guards by the door couldn¡¯t hear him. ¡°As well as See the Invisible,¡± I half-smiled, ¡°which a number of assassins and spies did not realize, to their detriment. This¡­ is simply a variant spell to aid digestion.¡± He blinked. ¡°So specific?¡± he had to ask, startled at the implications. ¡°The best spells are niche spells!¡± I offered, raising the light. ¡°If I may?¡± He bowed his head slowly, and I reached over and flicked the orange light into his chest. For a moment it was visible as illumination inside his nose and throat, and then it was gone. He almost bounced to his feet, his one hand clapping to a gut still hard from constant workouts and superhuman vitality. ¡°Ah!¡± he exclaimed in surprise. ¡°I am not hungry, but the feeling of being full is completely gone!¡± ¡°If you would like to spar with Princess Kristie and verify what I have said, now is the time, Your Majesty.¡± I glanced over at her. ¡°Oh, right.¡± She reached over her shoulder into her Masspack, and pulled out a finely polished wooden case. She set it on the table between us, pausing just long enough for everyone to appreciate the craftsmanship, then unlocked it with a tap of her thumb and opened it up. Two identical longswords rested in there, facing one another. The Queen Mother and Princess Fan rose to get better looks at them, while the King leaned forward to feast his eyes on them. Literally. QL 40 stuff just tugs at the eyes and is REALLY hard to look away from. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. I broke their reverie at the gleaming lengths of blued steel, ornate guards, wrapped pommel, and gleaming pommelstone, reaching over, placing my nails on both blades, and murmuring another spell. Runes shimmered into view on both blades, sinking down into the blueness, but not going away. Completely unruffled, I lifted one of the swords out of the box, and chopped it down across the fingers of my other hand. There were exclamations of shock and dismay from the Royals when it hacked clean through them¡­ and then I lifted up my hand, completely intact, save for a very visible red welt across my fingers. ¡°A little numb. Both blades are now endowed with Mercy, and cannot truly harm anything living. If Your Majesty and Your Highness would care to take up a blade?¡± I asked perfunctorily, presenting the sword in my hand hilt-first to the king. He took it up slowly, marveling at it. I inclined my head, and the floating Disks that formed the chairs and table moved off to the side of the room, which was plenty large enough for what was coming next. Princess Fan held up her hand to pause, and pulled a silken ribbon out of her hair, letting her braids fall down. ¡°With your elbow?¡± she asked, in only a little disbelief. ¡°Toss it into the air,¡± Kris instructed her, amused at the challenge. It was promptly flung into the air, not getting far because cloth. Kris¡¯ speed shocked the other young woman, because suddenly Kris was airborne and spinning six feet above the ground, her elbows circling and going right through the ribbon¡­ which broke apart into three pieces. Then she was suddenly on the ground much too quickly, lashing up with one slippered foot, then the other in long yet devastatingly fast spin kicks. The ribbon continued dropping, now in five pieces. Kris jerked up and over and froze, staring at Princess Fan with a feral smile, as the last and longest piece of ribbon fell off Kris¡¯s nose, also cut in two. Kris spun away and stepped away without looking, and everyone could see the air ripple and thin out as her black-nailed fingers lashed back. Twelve separate pieces of ribbon fluttered to the ground, barely moved at all by the attacks which had sliced them through. Princess Fan could not help swallowing, watching the pieces of silk hit the ground one by one. Then she blinked, realizing the sword that Kris had taken up was sitting there point-down on the floor, simply balancing by itself, and Kris just plucked it up like it was weightless and instantly being able to do such a thing was nothing. ¡°She is very, very good at fighting,¡± the Queen Mother breathed out softly from next to me, impressed in spite of everything. ¡°Mmm. Toothpick!¡± I announced, and flicked one in her general direction. It wouldn¡¯t have made it to her, but her foot came out, tapped it up before it could hit the ground, and it spun up to her hand. In the same motion, she caught it and threw it. There was a mild crack as it hit the center of the circle made by my thumb and forefinger against the stone wall of the hall, burying itself about halfway in. The Queen Mother blinked at the sight, her grip tightening on her famous Bow, supposedly enchanted by Asheron himself. Nevertheless, she still leaned over and whispered with great interest, ¡°Can she do that with an arrow?¡± ¡°Throw it? Yes. Shoot it? No, she¡¯s not a primary Archer. A proper Archer could punch an arrow right through this wall and hit a fly on the other side of it.¡± She blinked at that, looked at me to see if I was joking, then decided I was not, and paused to consider that. ¡°I would like to hear more about profound archery, then,¡± she said urgently. ¡°I¡¯m sure it would be Kris¡¯ pleasure to introduce you to the basics of such.¡± --- The match began with little fanfare, both of them wielding identical swords one-handed. The tips touched, legs tensed, and the now-jacketless King instantly lunged. There was a ping, just a flash of motion, and he had a red welt across his cheek, while his own thrust had gone just an inch wide. Kris¡¯ eyes were completely intense, a slight feral smile on her face as she raised an eyebrow at King Borelean. ¡°My apologies,¡± he murmured, not touching the welt, and the duel began in earnest. It was obvious in seconds that he was overmatched. He had nothing on her in strength, and their strength was such that his weight advantage meant less than nothing. She was tall enough that his reach advantage was less than two inches, and she worked around that edge easily. Her speed and ability to find openings was surreal, however. The sword she used seemed to bend and twist as she wielded it, slicing here and there, cutting through his shirt and pants and raising red welts as she grazed him, clearly pulling blows that could have crippled him instantly, especially a flicker-cut across his sternum which would have gutted him like a fish. The King¡¯s eyes, however, were not depressed, but excited. He was attacking in furious and controlled blurs of motion, even one-armed a powerful and ferocious combatant who would easily have overwhelmed both of the guards here. Kris didn¡¯t appear to be putting in much effort, almost surreal in how smooth and controlled she was. He couldn¡¯t match her speed or footwork, and she seemed to be reading his every move, no matter how complex or odd the angle or approach, and had the counter to it or avoided it with minimal movements time after time. They were both masters of the blade, but it was plain she was operating at another level, and the only times he hit her were when his own attack set up killing blows for her at throat and chest and groin. Still, it was obvious the king was having a great time, watching everything she was doing with wide, intent eyes, even more enraptured than the two guards witnessing everything were. Then Kris¡¯ head jerked around abruptly. ¡°Swords out!¡± she snarled, and there was a swirl of motion. Abruptly the king was disarmed, both of the blades they¡¯d been using were spinning end over end towards his guards, and Kris was pulling out Quaver. I flicked a finger, and the king¡¯s own Blade flashed from its scabbard, spinning end over end toward him, where it was plucked out of the air like an errant toy. The guards were pulling at their own weapons urgently when the blades flashed past each one¡¯s shoulder, and they looked back at the grunts there, shocked to find both blades were stuck in midair, crimson liquid oozing out around both of them. Then the faces of men in dark silks materialized around the blades, gazes forever frozen in shock, and the rest of them followed into visibility as both men crumpled. There was no motion for that startled half-second, allowing the swords of the guards to clear their scabbards and reflexively parry the curved blades thrusting for their throats as two more assassins in masks and dark pajamas popped out of nowhere. ¡°Kitchen door, Your Majesty!¡± growled Kris, and was off for the six men in the hall as steel rang on steel. AF Chapter 283 – Conflict Resolution Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon! EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT! The First Month, Part Two! ================== A second later, the Bows of the king¡¯s mother and daughter slapped into their hands, even before they could lunge for them, accompanying quivers hooking to their belts. Startled, they nevertheless drew and entered the Archer¡¯s Stance, even as the kitchen door suddenly flew open loudly, despite no one being there. Borelean spit the first unseen man through the liver, crouching as he did so. The man folded over him, eyes astonished as he appeared and died, and then two arrows drilled into nothing in midair, crimson popping up and something getting jerked to a halt by the impact. Two Phantasmal Servants standing there with ewers of water calmly flung them at the doorway as the king rose, his face black with rage as he tossed off the quivering dying man there. Sheets of water droplets broke on unseen figures, soaking their clothing and making them quite visible as dripping sheets hovering in midair. He chopped through the second man, who appeared about halfway to the ground as crimson jetted out his half-severed throat. A long lunge between two sheets of water, and another assassin was falling as the king dropped into a crouch again. Two more arrows punched coolly into the fourth man¡¯s sheets of sodden clothing, and he jerked and died as well. Kris hit the hallway, her Null in front of her washing across the Invisible attackers and breaking their magic, revealing six of them, four trying to press past the two engaging the guards. ¡°Tremble,¡± she murmured, yet everyone heard it. Her pale violet eyes were aglow, and the gazes of the four bulged in terror as Lost Light rose and swirled and came in, on, and through them. Then she was somehow on the other side of them, and heads were falling from shoulders, blood somehow not spurting out, and five bodies crumpled to the ground in astonishment. The last one was engaged with an infuriated, roaring guard, who was proceeding to beat him and his curved sword down with murderous intensity and skill. The killer looked back, only to find Kris slowly turning to stare at him from between him and his way out. The decision to sell himself was made just as the other guard cut into his leg, and his stance crumpled. He wasn¡¯t to the floor before the sword in his opponent¡¯s grasp smashed his weakened parry aside and buried itself in the side of his head, a sickening crack echoing in the narrow hallway as his neck broke. There was a tinkle as glass broke on the sun roof above, a black Wand extending through. A second later, it belched out an expanding ball of black flames which would fill the entire room here and turn it into an inferno. Or it would have, if I hadn¡¯t idly Countered it. The Queen Mother and Royal Princess shifted targets up in tandem, and their Bows thrummed together. There was a guttural cry as glass shattered again, the black figure above falling away as they lost their grip on the Wand and it tumbled through, caught by Zeks just inches from the floor. I noticed one of the guards was very red in the face as he wrenched his sword free of the skull of the attackers. He turned to look at me, and I just nodded at him. He slumped into the wall in relief, tears coming down his face as he began to sob uncontrollably. His reaction didn¡¯t escape the keen eyes of the Queen Mother. ¡°What is the matter with Sir Darvis?¡± she asked quickly. ¡°The assassins kidnapped his wife and son and sent him her hand with their wedding ring on it to indicate they meant business,¡± I replied, and her eyes widened in shock and outrage. ¡°Lord Mick and a team of Aun Hunters got to them thirty minutes ago, and they are fine¡­ as is Lord Gerschwin¡¯s paramour.¡± King Borelean heard it all, because I wasn¡¯t hiding it, but still took the opportunity to make sure there was no one else lurking in the kitchen. ¡°It¡¯s clear, Your Majesty. We¡¯ve got Scouts tracking the mage, although she doesn¡¯t know it yet.¡± Kris glided back into the room, unmarked by any of the blood or anything, looking like she¡¯d just strolled in from a light walk. ¡°I could not help but notice the swords did a fine job of killing those two men,¡± the King noted, raising his hand towards the welt on his cheek tellingly. ¡°I Nulled the Infusion when I grabbed both blades,¡± Kris replied calmly, as if discussing the weather. ¡°My apologies for not warning you ahead of time. We drew the meal out a bit longer than was truly needed to give Lord Mick and his friends time to get into position and take out the Tanada safehouse, and with the Invisible watcher up above, wanted everything to appear sincere and unremarkable.¡± ¡°The Tanada, here?¡± hissed Princess Fan, an arrow still nocked and ready to draw. ¡°I¡¯d hoped them dead during the Fall, father!¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°It appears they still loathe your mother¡¯s clan, Fan,¡± the king answered grimly. His eyes were on his compromised bodyguard, who refused to meet his eyes. ¡°Thank you for making sure my man was not forced to break his oaths,¡± he told Kris calmly, earning a heads-up look of gratitude from the man. ¡°Happy to do so, Your Majesty.¡± Her eyes fell on the Wand Zeks had caught just before it hit the ground. ¡°Something special, Ryin?¡± I eyed the thing carved from some really fine obsidian with a shadow-filled red garnet topping it, the whole thing filled with fire mana. ¡°This thing shot out a Blackfire Fireball,¡± I informed her. ¡°Not a Firebolt?¡± Kris blinked. ¡°Or Deathbolt, as the case may be...¡± ¡°Correct. It¡¯s got a unique matrix formation inside it formed from incredibly attuned pyreal.¡± ¡°Blackfire? If I may?¡± Queen Mother Elysa Strathelar asked, holding out her hand. I handed it over calmly, and she took it, lifting it up before clear blue eyes. ¡°Well, this is most curious¡­¡± she murmured. ¡°I recognize the material, although the appearance has changed slightly. This is made from the occasional black sphere that drops from obsidian and magma golums. Well, partially. As I recall, the black spheres were brought to a Stone Collector, who rewarded you with the polished version, an obsidian sphere. This was then brought to the Obsidian Enchantress near Hebian-To, who would carve it into this Wand for you. ¡°It was one of the rare ways to reliably gain a Wand that shot out Pyreal-grade War Magic without needing to be a mage,¡± she told me, handing it back. ¡°The magic was indeed a darker crimson than normal fire magic, but I don¡¯t remember it being black¡­¡± ¡°Blackfire is a type of shadowfire. It will damage things normally immune to fire, and defenses against fire aren¡¯t fully functional against it.¡± I held it up for closer examination. ¡°It feels similar to the magic I was seeing at Tou-Tou from the distance, and around the shades we met from there.¡± ¡°That¡­ is a considerable change from the Wands I am familiar with,¡± the Queen Mother admitted carefully. ¡°It means the Tanada are working with the shades, if these allegations are true,¡± King Borelean growled. ¡°A response to the Assassins working with the Undead, and the Renegade Hea and Gotrok working with the virindi, no doubt,¡± Kris sniffed. ¡°It also means an Obsidian Enchanter survived the Fall. Is that something you were aware of, Your Majesties?¡± King and Queen Mother glanced at one other. ¡°No, I¡¯d not heard of that fact, but that does not mean others were unaware of it. I shall make inquiries¡­¡± ¡°Obviously the Tanada knew it, and may have kidnapped her directly. Someone has certainly taught her something new,¡± I pondered aloud. ¡°A useful toy, able to use magic in a way an Isparian Caster cannot. Given the level of craftsmanship, I sincerely doubt this is made as easily as handing her an obsidian sphere¡­¡± ¡°Well, they did a superb job interrupting our meeting,¡± the King groused, looking at all the dead men. He was not disappointed, their bodies crumbling to ash as whatever rebirthing effect they were endowed with destroyed their previous shells. A fwoosh from the main hall merely doused the place in vivus, and turned the bodies of the dead to white powder. ¡°It seems some lessons on how to keep the dead from coming back are in order,¡± Kris smiled dangerously. ¡°Why don¡¯t we return to our discussions while the Royal Scouts handle clean-up, and I¡¯ll talk to you about some of the things I¡¯m bringing to the Isparians of Dereth and their allies..¡± ========= The present... Sir Darvis¡¯s wife had been the third person I¡¯d performed a Regeneration on, after Lord Mick¡¯s ring finger, and King Borelean¡¯s arm. He¡¯d been moved into the Royal Scouts thereafter, particularly the assassin-hunting arm of it. Which meant¡­ ¡°How far are we pushing the effort? To the landbridge, or along it all the way to the Direlands?¡± I had to ask, eyes focused on the narrow strip of land to the south of the sea in the center of Dereth. ¡°The Tanada are supposedly running their main training camp in the canyons after the landbridge, but none of the trackers have pressed into that area, especially closer to the Direlands.¡± ¡°With Martine taking Candeth Keep back, our natural expansion stays in the south. We¡¯ll be looking at other ways to re-link the North, presumably through Teleportation or similar things,¡± Briggs noted. ¡°Clean the desert, and basically Osteth is ours again. Reinforcing it properly this time may be more difficult, but it''s something we have to do¡­ and we certainly aren¡¯t going to resettle any areas that are not secured properly, unlike prior generations who settled anywhere a Deathstone made them unkillable.¡± ¡°Aye, that¡¯s not what we are looking at. We need that buffer zone now, but the south is more than big enough to support the current expansion of the population. We¡¯re going to do a Neutral Zone approach, which will cater to the adventurers involved on our end.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to have to raise Interdictions of some kind across the whole of the south to stop the inevitable Portal-born super-summoning or mass Teleporting sure to be coming, based on the history of our opponents.¡± I rubbed my temples and sighed. ¡°That can be done?¡± Briggs asked, startled. ¡°Obelisks?¡± he inquired, going back to Argos¡¯ infamous Bug Towers back in the game. ¡°Obelisks are akin to the floating anti-Shades pylons that Asheron put up.¡± I¡¯d studied enough of the remains of those things to have their entire structure down pat. ¡°Basically they stopped local spawns and any of the floating Shadow Towers coming in, and that was pretty much it. Also, they ate up a lot of time and energy, so he only bothered with them around the three starting training villages.¡± ¡°The best defense was blowing the damn thing up at Arwic,¡± Kris muttered, earning nods from all around. ¡°How is this done?¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I considered the option a bit more intently than I had in the past. ¡°True Pyramids. They are the most powerful form of magical architecture when made for that purpose, instead of just big edifices thrown up for aesthetics or edification of the dead or whatever. ¡°A forty-step Pyramid can throw up an Interdiction field eighty miles in radius, where no Summoning or dimensional movement can happen without being attuned to the Pyramid in question. It wouldn¡¯t cut off something like Tou-Tou¡¯s rupture, which is already in effect, but it could sure as Heaven keep it closed once it is in place.¡± ¡°Eighty miles in radius?¡± Briggs whistled slightly. ¡°Through the Shoreward?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not teleportation and blocked by water. It¡¯s a strengthening of dimensional barriers. The Shoreward doesn¡¯t block dimensional travel even now. There¡¯s plenty of reports of Portals extending from the mainland to the islands, which we used to justify building the Jumps on the Vesayans.¡± ¡°Give me a circle eighty miles in radius, covering the Vesayans,¡± Briggs directed me. I drew in a line eighty miles long from the outside of the Vesayans, up into the lands of Osteth, then picked a spot along that line coincidentally near where the Deru Tree between the Sho and Gharu¡¯n lands of old had grown, and drew out that circle. Well, it was a big circle. Dereth was under a two hundred mile square in size, so that circle basically swallowed all of Osteth. AF Chapter 284 – The Implications of Pyramid Power ¡°Shift it over here,¡± Kris directed, and I moved the circle so that it covered all the eastern islands, from Asheron¡¯s Island, over the Aphus archipelago, and down and over the Vesayans. ¡°Damn,¡± she muttered. ¡°That is a LOT of area covered.¡± ¡°But only one point, which means one target to hit,¡± Briggs growled, seeing the most important point. ¡°I take it this method is usually used on a continental basis, surrounded by well-secured buffer zones?¡± he inquired of me. I wiped away the Holo, and replaced it with a map of a location only Kris and Briggs recognized after a minute. The mitten-shaped peninsula was pretty singular, after all. Four Pyramid Power fields winked up around the former state of Michigan, while lines of Obelisks popped around the periphery to supplement them. Shattered rifts and cliffsides warded against overland attempts to invade from all sides. The view drew back further, and a land and continent no Isparian had ever seen before hove into view, Briggs and Kris sucking in their breaths as they identified areas in relation to Michigan, and the changes. Then Briggs noticed the orientation, and swore softly. Kris followed his eyes, saw the compass point, and hissed. Obelisk lines and Pyramid Power Fields ignited on location after location, centered on areas where people were living, settlements indicated with names nobody there except the three of us knew, gradually encircling and filling in area after area, filling in the hollow areas and forming an unbroken circle against intrusion. Green areas indicated completion, red still to go. ¡°Obelisk purpose?¡± Briggs asked, staring at the completed view of North America¡¯s current state. There were plenty of holes in areas away from settlements. It was a lot of continent to cover. ¡°Two-fold. Atmospheric filter, drops volcanic ash out of the air, stopping an ice age. Secondly was a pure Interdiction barrier between them. Stopped Fiends from Teleporting back and forth willy-nilly.¡± ¡°Well, we don¡¯t have quite this much area to cover, so we can be more tactical about how we make things,¡± Briggs stated. ¡°You can make smaller Pyramids, I trust?¡± ¡°Of course. A forty-stepper is the basic size for a civilized area, but Grand Central here was fifty steps high.¡± The very first PPF put up blinked for attention, noticeably larger than the others. ¡°They also go up much faster.¡± The maps all vanished, and a display of a Pyramid etched itself in Holographic detail in front of them. It started with a twenty-foot cube illustrated in scale next to an image of Briggs, connected to a line of them forty cubes long, and then thirty-nine more lines slapped into the side of it, forming a field forty cubes by forty cubes. A second layer one less cube in dimension starting assembling atop it, cube, line, square, settled on top of the first one. The remaining levels stacked themselves up quickly, culminating in a single altar-like capstone. ¡°Aesthetics are highly mutable, as is the secondary purposes of the Pyramids.¡± I shifted the image to a more martial structure, complete with battlements, walkways, platforms, and multiple interior hallways, rooms, and storage chambers. This then transformed to a more administrative structure, with audience chambers, meeting rooms, offices, and so forth. ¡°Useful to know,¡± Briggs nodded, already drawing up plans in his head. ¡°It seems you don¡¯t want to build a massive Pyramid, either.¡± ¡°No. A mere ten-stepper can cover all the Vesayans, and can be erected in but a day outside Freehold. The Pyramids should be allocated to cover areas we control and can protect, not just for the heck of it. Another Pyramid in Hebian-To extending to Fort Overlook.¡± The map popped back into being as the Pyramids faded away, circles covering all of them, and meshing and merging into one another for greater areas of conjoined coverage. ¡°When King Kresovus consolidates control of the Linvaks, make one in Kara, where I understand he is considering expanding to, now that Linvak Tukal is destroyed.¡± Another Sphere popped up, meshed and merged with those existing, now extending all the way to the southern landbridge. ¡°When we can hold the Gharu¡¯n and Aluvian lands, they will get Pyramids of their own.¡± Briggs was running the math on the size of the Pyramids and the number of blocks required. ¡°Am I correct in deducing that many smaller Pyramids are faster and easier to put up than large ones, and actually cover more area?¡± he inquired quickly. I inclined my head. ¡°At risk of more areas to guard. Every primary settlement could conceivably have one, and were preferred for use as secondary military holdings or temples, or combined for both. However, for Pyramid Fields to merge without disharmony, there must be a Central Pyramid and its lessers. It is the main reason you build a Grand Central first, and the others fit into its Field.¡± ¡°How long would that take to build?¡± Briggs asked reasonably. ¡°If I worked twelve hours a day straight with no breaks, about a month,¡± I answered easily. ¡°Just building up a mass of stone? Am I missing something?¡± Kris asked sharply. ¡°Ah, yes, you are. You¡¯re conflating just whipping up six-meter cubes of stone and tossing them together with making a Pyramid. Let¡¯s just say the Rune Circuitry needs to be put in at QL 50 or higher, there are six faces and the internal structure to Shape, and I need to purify any flaws out of it first. ¡°I can do about a Block a minute. I can potentially Shape a much bigger volume, but I can only Shape one Block at a time, and I have to know what I¡¯m building before I begin.¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Briggs grunted his understanding. ¡°Changing the size of the Block wouldn¡¯t speed things up, then.¡± ¡°A bigger one would slow me down, but this maximizes the volume and thus amount of power of the Pyramid for that many levels. Cut the cubes down to half-size, and you halve the radius. Double the size of them, and you slow down making the Blocks, and you only increase the radius fifty percent, even if you do make it stronger inside that area. A six-meter/twenty-foot Block size seems to be optimal.¡± ¡°Stone source?¡± Briggs asked reasonably. ¡°As long as there¡¯s some in the area, that¡¯s usually not an issue. Rock connects to rock, so the supply is basically infinite. ¡°On the other hand, if you want me to excavate a small lake with what I¡¯m pulling out, it¡¯s a good thing to tell me ahead of time.¡± ¡°Ohhhh, good point. You¡¯re pulling out how much stone?¡± His eyes lit up. ¡°Over four and a half million cubic meters for the basic model.¡± Kris whistled for both of them. ¡°That is a LOT of rock¡­¡± she murmured. ¡°It¡¯s about building a crafted hill of stone eight hundred high. It is NOT small,¡± I reminded them. ¡°We naturally would have to completely clear the area out of Summons and any patrols from the undead, shades, or virindi,¡± Briggs reflected. ¡°Seems a good time to make a push to clear western Osteth.¡± ¡°That is not going to leave you much time to gain Karma or Craft,¡± Kris pointed out reasonably. ¡°Going down to eight hours a day would extend the time from a month to a month and a half, leave me eight hours for Crafting, and four hours for Karma. As long as the time was scheduled, it should be no issue, and Illusion magic can be used to conceal the Pyramid as simply a wooded hill from a distance.¡± ¡°Wooded?¡± Kris blinked. ¡°Isn¡¯t there supposed to be a Deru Tree near there, hidden behind a dimensional fold? Wouldn¡¯t this force it back into reality?¡± ¡°Force it to materialize, or bar it from materializing,¡± I confirmed, and all their faces grew serious at the implications. ¡°So we¡¯re also looking at the return of the intelligent gromnies, or dragons, however you want to call them.¡± ¡°Boss-level creatures who might or might not be on our side,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°The tales told about the intelligent ones indicate they are revered and should not be hostile, at the very least¡­ although how they react to this sudden change of dimensional mastery might render them quite uncomfortable if the Deru Tree chooses to materialize. Perhaps we can make it more palatable by killing hostiles in the immediate area, but as I understand it, the Deru tree is not friendly to any of the three existing powers.¡± ¡°Which means revealing them is not a priority we are worried about. How about the A¡¯nekshay?¡± I inquired smartly. ¡°The Field will also cover the area they claimed as their ancestral home of Neftet? They vanished during the Fall entirely, and the scouts report that the terrain that appeared so many years ago vanished with them. They will probably be forcibly returned as well.¡± Briggs grumbled, while Kris just sniggered. ¡°They can¡¯t flee their problems forever. At least we can give them the chance to fight back. They are basically a part-elemental race of some kind, right? I think we¡¯d call them a type of genasi? After being enslaved for so many years, I think the fact that they would be coming out free would be worth some consideration¡­ and I think we¡¯d be happy to give them vivic Weaponry to kill the undead and the shades¡­¡± ¡°Truth to that,¡± Briggs agreed calmly. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I am far more worried about a high magic strike or Summoning assault than I am over the feelings of any specific power that has fled the fight being dragged back into it. If they want a positive future, they should be fighting for it, instead of waiting for us to do the fighting for them.¡± ¡°The odds they wouldn¡¯t come back after any real threats are gone is slim to none,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°And¡­ what about the Gear Knights, now that we are on that topic?¡± Both Briggs and I frowned at that, too. ¡°Have their been indications they were being reanimated?¡± I asked, having heard nothing on that score. Kris shook her head quickly. ¡°The scouts have checked the area by Al-Arqas thoroughly, and in addition collected as many stories and tales about them during the Fall that they could. ¡°The overloading of their aetherium cores basically destroyed their power sources and rendered all of them inert and immobile. The undead were observed to destroy and scatter the bodies of any Gear Knights they found, looting them of anything important. Given they are an acknowledged independent civilization, they probably don¡¯t want the Constructs coming here to interfere.¡± ¡°Did they manage to save any remains at all?¡± Briggs frowned. ¡°That seems very strange¡­¡± ¡°The least of the Gear Knights is a machine Construct wrought of metal and weighs over five hundred pounds. Given how chaotic the situation was, few would have had the capability of transporting inert shells weighing that much. The standard tactic was to dig them a grave, bury them, and hope to come back later to fix them. ¡°For the ones who were under the Deathstones, the destruction of them ravaged them beyond recovery, the same as any other corpses,¡± Kris finished, but her eyes had a special gleam to them. ¡°I see a useful secret there. You¡¯ve the locations of some of these graves?¡± Briggs asked knowingly. Kris inclined her head slightly. ¡°We sent out word among the older generation that if they knew where some of these graves and concealed inert Gear Knights were, we would go try to recover them. We got quite a few replies, as the nobler of the Constructs were great companions to many of the adventurers back then. ¡°More importantly, one of the people who lived in Xarabydun back then reported to us carefully. They¡¯ve been leaving in secret for fear of being found out and kidnapped or killed by the undead or virindi, but,¡± her pale violet eyes were dancing, ¡°he was relieved to finally give us the location of where they buried Atamarr!¡± ¡°The leader of the allied Gear Knights? Primus of House Gold Gear itself, I believe?¡± Briggs asked, his bushy eyebrows rising. ¡°That¡¯s some really good news¡­¡± ¡°The news is also that Xarabydun is the area held most strongly by undead in all the Gharu¡¯n lands. There was a lot of mining and alchemical work done in that area, and the undead have settled into it very strongly,¡± Kris added on. ¡°It¡¯s because it¡¯s built underground and they can stay out of the sun,¡± I sniffed. ¡°That still gets us an objective. If we can reanimate Atamarr, that would go a long way towards getting us some new allies to help things out,¡± Briggs pointed out thoughtfully. ¡°The biggest problem will be getting him some aetherium, if indeed any is still extant after the Fall.¡± ¡°Hello, Magos here. Animating Constructs through alternate methods is not THAT hard,¡± I reminded them. ¡°Expensive, maybe. I just need to be a Thirteen and I can probably get him moving without any aetherium whatsoever.¡± I paused in thought. ¡°Although I will probably need a Gold Golum Heart or four.¡± Briggs just laughed softly. ¡°There¡¯s hundreds of those things stacked up in Stonehold, all kinds of Golum Hearts awaiting any use we could have for them. You¡¯re welcome to any of them and all of them.¡± ¡°Excellent. So we just need to schedule things out and move as we can,¡± I nodded. I brought Briggs back to Stonehold regularly, moving teams back and forth, so accessing that whenever I needed it would be simple, or more likely he¡¯d just grab a supply of all of them golum hearts and just have them available for use¡­ AF Chapter 285 – Operation Desert Freedom Fighting people want to fight, especially when coming off an enormously successful military campaign that had succeeded in shattering two of our greatest enemies of the Fall. Going after the third was basically a given, especially since we¡¯d already proven we could handle massive numbers of undead if needed. The spawns of the dry, sandy, and desolate areas of Osteth were basically contested between virindi and undead spawns, with occasional shreth or reedshark spawns around to spice things up. Virindi Dolls and Minions alternated with undead of all levels and types, and seemed to edge out the virindi¡¯s spawns in terms of power and lethality. It didn¡¯t much matter to the Fellowship squads that started hunting them all down and vivifying their spawn locations. Taking the surface towns took one day each, and they scheduled the assaults for my down time so I could contribute if required. The stories of how I could rip through undead had definitely made the rounds, and me being on oversight in case of surprises really gave the soldiers confidence that anything they ran into could be handled. I didn¡¯t actually do much fighting, because I didn¡¯t need to. The undead in charge of these places weren¡¯t all that powerful, and were still overconfident as to what we could do versus them, the immortal undead things that couldn¡¯t die. Hmmm, must not have spread word of what vivus was doing to them to the rank and file¡­ and the upper ranks must have been confident that they could handle anything and so hadn¡¯t tried devoting overwhelming force to stopping it. Qalaba¡¯r, the southernmost city and the guardian of the main route to the southern landbridge, was also the first city target of the clearing teams, while the squads basically spread out across the desert and wiped them clean of the Summons, replacing them with black and yellow spikes as they spread out across the miles. Briggs and Kris ran into no problems clearing Q-bar, and vivified every undead inside it. I kept myself busy Healing others from War Magic to the face, and the warriors chewed through them with Undead-Slaying Undead Bane Firephased Weapons of various sorts, putting those Artificer Infusing Levels to use. From there, it was north to the lightly-defended town of Khayyaban, skipping Xarabydun to clear the valley village of Al-Arqas, once considered the prettiest of the Gharu¡¯n settlements. Then it was on to the more colonization-friendly town of Yaraq, which had the best farmland in the rather arid lands here, being right on the Inner Sea and benefiting from coastal humidity. From there to Uziz, the most eastern of the towns, situated in the hills that formed the eastern demarcation between desert and merely plains¡­ and also held the last of the very important Olthoi Matron Dungeons for training our people. With the southern desert firmly in our grip, and the undead already knowing we could clear out the northern cities, we went after Xarabydun. ------ Bolts of fire and acid exploded off the walls. They weren¡¯t powerful, but nobody wanted to run out into them without good reason. The undead were making a fight of it, actually putting some real effort into not dying, including Healing themselves and one another, using proper tactics instead of suicide rushes, taking cover, and so forth. Unfortunately, they were still arrogant and moved stiffly and slowly, clearly not used to such energetic styles of combat, as opposed to the charge-and-die scenarios. The Fellowships really missed them acting so stupid, but it was only a matter of time. Happily for me, Detect Undead at V didn¡¯t care too much about corners and walls that weren¡¯t too thick, and so I could pick out the undead down the hallway without having to poke my head around the corner. Seeking Shards could turn corners, too. Without revealing myself, a volley of Shards lit up around my arm, took off, turned right ninety degrees and zipped right on down the corridor. One breath later, the soldiers here were charging around the corner as the Revenants or whatever down there were blasted off their feet. That rather interrupted their defense, along with the fact they were on fire and their torsos were blasted open by hungry vivus feasting as they died. They didn¡¯t manage to get to their feet before the soldiers were on them, cutting and hacking at arms so there was no Casting, then finishing them off with practiced teamwork and ruthlessness. It was the first time any of us had heard the undead begging, staring at the unwhite fire that was going to cut their eternity short. Every single one of them was undead by the sacrifice of another living being whose soul was burned to provide them with their unlife, literally born of murder. True Death was administered to all of them. I looked around as I brought up another flight of Shards and sent them out down an adjoining tunnel, two right turns and coming up into the backside of another line of undead taking cover behind columns and pillars. The impacts sent the undead flying and let the shielded men waiting for their chance to charge out with great speed and fall upon them. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. For some reason the undead thought the shops and central ring of the city was an important area to defend, so we had to dig them out of the caves, cubbyholes, and connecting hallways that made the place a maze to anyone not familiar with the place. Or, you know, with a Markspace Map filled in by some of the former Xara natives eager to contribute, said Map being revised and updated in real time with the changes the undead had done. They still hadn¡¯t bothered to make proper defenses after all these years, perhaps foolishly thinking that circular tunnels and many rooms would be enough to give them the advantage against any attackers. When those attackers came up from the bottom instead of the top, including out of their very own escape tunnels, while blocking off the surface access entirely, well, that hadn¡¯t worked out too well for them. There was a sharp crack ringing through the stone, followed by the air a few seconds later, and I knew a wall had just been introduced to Endure and fallen down in shock and awe. Whatever undead were on the other side of it probably had, too. I felt a draw on the manafield from Incantor-level magic, glanced at the Map, and noted Kris had ghosted into that area and probably just aced whoever was in charge. They seemed to have a core of powerful Casters with them, because I felt three different Incantor-level draws, which meant powerful enough that they had a chance of damaging her. Of course, being able to damage her was not the same as being able to hit, given the way she was juking, sliding, and rotating through the area at speed. One eruption of War magic after another failed to find her, while she was darting through the center of the area with three painted undead in the Indigo range of post-200 all trying to land spells on her instead of coming to blows with her. The team in reserve behind her was caught up on another line of guards as I ran swiftly towards them. I wasn¡¯t a master lightfooter, but I wasn¡¯t slow, and soon enough the audience chamber leading into the private chambers and research chambers of the undead was ahead of me. The undead were crouched behind stone couches and loosing either arrows in Acidphase or more magic at the attackers, especially Harms or Drains which could strike right through the pillars and columns they were taking cover behind. I came right up the middle with Seeking Shards, and the undead could only brace to see them coming before they were blasted off their feet, back against the wall, and to the floor with a prismatic blast of force and fury. Kris¡¯ team surged out from cover, charging with speed and fury, and was on top of the undead before they could get back to their feet and back to Casting or shooting. The undead were incredibly strong and decently armored, but the flaming Weapons coming in at them didn¡¯t particularly care at this point. Kris had come in through their own escape route with speed and silence, taking out the guards and alarms in her way with Ruby Strikes and Spell Cuts respectively with little problem. I Knocked open the door in front of me, breaking the magical Seal on it and sliding it open, to the astonishment of the leader of the undead guards and its two lieutenants, who I drove three more Darts into as I passed their Burning asses by and pressed in towards their masters. A forking for their private quarters, sliding right and left, around to what was probably a Summoning chamber of some sort from which the detonations and massive mana draw was happening. Ah, there was an altar in the middle of the place, and a undead in important red robes was slumped over it, missing his head and Burning nicely atop it. The braziers all around it were lit and ready to go, stinking of things harvested from the dead not long ago, and the Circle on the floor was actually glowing and ready to bring in something. Unfortunately, there was the primary Caster Burning vivic over there and really messing up the mana draw of the Circle, and there was a Null radiating Interdiction and cutting through the Circle repeatedly as she bounced around like a pinball, coming in and carving up two of the blue-robed undead trying to Cast at her and being punished for it. She¡¯d seen me coming, and her course just so happened to take her to the back of the chamber as I entered, turning their heads to follow her and Quaver¡¯s deadly trail of Lost Light. My Chained Shardrays were a full volley, thousands of points of damage smashing into them and launching them tail over teakettle right for her as zigzagging sets of six Chains bounced between them and fed them all of the damage. They crashed to the ground basically right at Kris¡¯ feet¡­ all of which triggered a whole bunch of Attacks of Opportunity. Rolling through her Hedged Thorns Stance, Wolf takes Rat because prone, Sword beats Fist because not armed, and Touch of the Wasp because my Shards hit them, as well as Mage Slayer when they desperately tried to Cast at the madwoman surrounded by dazzling Holy lights in their midst. All the AoO¡¯s went off before her Flurry went off, surrounding her in a whirl of Lost Light that carved into those undead, and the most wounded one didn¡¯t make it through the five of them. The Cleave and full Flurry that followed blew four more attacks through the one that was the least wounded, and relieved that one of its head. The Cleave off that one¡¯s demise turned into three finishing blows from her Flurry, and she took off its head as smoothly as the other two. The Echoing Shards that came up I drove down into the magical Circle beneath us. Multiple energies blasted through the whole carved formation of the thing, but the only one that was important was the vivus that rode the wave and happily devoured all the arcane energies at work here, effectively snuffing the thing instantly before it could rupture or go wild and probably bring something seriously wrong into this place. ¡°Good morning to you! So much more fun than Pyramid work, right?¡± Kris grinned, Quaver flicking out and batting three skulls very suitable for undead Baneskulls in my direction. Zeks nabbed them in midair and deposited them in my Masspack deftly. ¡°Kara is lovely this time of year,¡± I replied calmly, turning to look back to where her team had finished off the guards and was coming this way. A flicker of thought from her turned them back around and rushing off to another finishing fight. She¡¯d been planning to use them to bum rush the three undead from behind, pin them, and just Ruby Strike Death Attack them while they were pinned, rather than chew through all that Health Qi. Me showing up had nicely accelerated matters for her. ¡°Well, you did get that one in Freehold done fast,¡± she admitted. ¡°Didn¡¯t that give the Freeholders a fright, waking up to find a two-hundred foot Pyramid looming over the town like that, and you calling out the Salute to Aru to everyone on the whole island!¡± That was true. Pyramid Power was just a nice thing to use. And since I was the maker, attuning it to the Jumps was effortless, so they still functioned. Master Oswald, on the other hand, was going to need permission from me to Blink past the Shoreward like he had¡­ AF Chapter 286 – Holes in the Ground A twenty-stepper was only six days. I¡¯d be done with Kara¡¯s Pyramid tomorrow. The lugians moving into the area could just sit there and watch me Shape for hours and hours, totally mesmerized by the amount of stone I was shifting and the eye-watering quality of the Runework I was putting in. ¡°Briggs still set on hitting the northern towns again?¡± I asked Kris, eyeing his plans for the raid in the Markspace. There were big red indicators all over the place, however. ¡°It looks like he thinks it is going to be a trap.¡± ¡°Oh, the undead have definitely been busy with somethings when they restaffed the towns,¡± Princess Kristie assured me grimly. ¡°Pretty sure that wiping the towns off the map is part of what is designed to happen.¡± ¡°Well, it wouldn¡¯t be the first time, although it was the shades historically, wasn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°In Isparian memory. You¡¯re forgetting how old this place is. I¡¯m sure the settlements have been razed many times over, and just rebuilt by the next group drawn to settle in there by the lack of Summon points.¡± ¡°If it¡¯s an ambush, then the best thing to do is counter-ambush or spring it the wrong way. We don¡¯t need to take the towns back right now at all, and while the undead may be patient, that¡¯ll evaporate if we start picking off their people.¡± ¡°Hearing them wail as they Burn has been rewarding, then,¡± she sniffed, while she finished going through the belongings of the dead and pocketing everything. ¡°Opinion on what they were planning here?¡± ¡°They were going to bring in something big.¡± I eyed the empty Runework speculatively. ¡°Something of earth, I think, big and mean and strong. Perhaps a monolith or elder monolith, or an Elemental Princeling. In an underground area, it would have been invincible.¡± ¡°Well, a good thing it wasn¡¯t brought in, then¡­¡± She paused, and looked down sharply. At pretty much the same moment, the Circle refilled with energy with a snap of restored power. ¡°Code Violet!¡± Princess Kristie shouted aloud and in the Markspace, as we both sprinted towards the doorway. She tried dragging Quaver through the Runework, but it only caused a momentary blip in the surging energies around us before the damage sealed itself behind us. ¡°Vacate the city IMMEDIATELY! RUN! RUN, YOU IDIOTS, AND DON¡¯T SLOW DOWN!¡± The Marked shouted back and combats broke off instantly all over the place, Alliance troops booking for the ways out that manifested in their Markspaces at top speed, even as the earth jerked sideways underneath me. Happy for Footsteps of the Mage keeping me six inches off the ground, Kris Skated right through it, while many a soldier cursed as they were thrown off their feet or into walls by the quake. Something was coming in, clawing at the Veil, and a lot of power was pumping into the effort to get through. ¡°Existing dimensional funnel, Interdiction isn¡¯t stopping it because it¡¯s already extant!¡± I breathed out. ¡°It¡¯s just having to work to expand it instead of bringing in whatever is coming almost instantly!¡± ¡°Lucky, lucky us!¡± Kris /snarled, paying for the Mass Disks to be Flashcast through her Matrix as they popped up around us, just so those we passed could fling themselves onto them before they could be tossed off their feet again. Whole teams basically barely able to stay on their feet piled onto the swarm of Disks as we caught up to them, making for intersections we could reach, and soon over a hundred people were sprawled two and three to the Disks as the ceilings cracked, walls began to splinter, dust fell down all around, and something REALLY big began to come on through behind us. I shot up out of the ramp to the outside, my own Disk unfurling behind me for me to drop into as I Cast another Mass Disk, noting everyone outside the area of the underground city was already fleeing into the desert. They saw/heard/felt us coming, and happily got themselves scooped up by more Disks as Princess Kristie ran by, the only one who didn¡¯t take one being Briggs, who was towing a half-dozen steel ones with wounded soldiers seated on them. I flashed burning, Healing Shards through the wounded, everyone who raised their arms, and if they yelped at the fiery heat that welded injuries shut and powered the fast closing of wounds and replacement of blood, it was kind of lost in the cracks and rumbles of the ground giving way behind us. There were above-ground buildings in Xarabydun, but not for long. The crater expanded with great speed, swallowing the extant buildings and sending them sliding and falling into the growing pit there, cracking and crumbling on the sand and stone that kept right on moving and churning after it hit the bottom, sprays of dust leaping fitfully into the air. ¡°Pressure from the Veil is acting on whatever it is. It might manage to get here, but won¡¯t be able to sustain its presence for long. Briggs, get on a Disk!¡± He blinked, then hopped up, pulled out his own Disk, landed on it, and bopped fists with Princess Kristie as she veered over instantly to take over the towing. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. She wasn¡¯t in contact with the ground, and realized the problem, immediately tacking off at an angle to our previous course. The crack of the desert splitting open around our previous course was deafening, sand and grit exploding into the air as a yawning chasm opened up right along the course Briggs¡¯ heavy boots had been making. Likely he¡¯d¡¯ve been able to sense it coming and jump to avoid it, but nobody felt like playing dice and testing his reflexes that way. Someone, multiple someones, screamed something. I looked back at a twisting, multi-segmented tentacle or appendage, it was hard to really say what, as it shot out of the air, jointed at weird angles, tipped with razored spikes¡­ which seemed to have clattering mouths at the tip, the spike itself being an extruded tongue. It arced down and drove into the ground, much like a finger clawing for purchase, and another one heaved itself up out of the pit at the same time. I watched the shockwave traveling across the ground with plumes of rolling dirt and spray. Kris obligingly hopped a foot higher off the ground, skating along as it blew by beneath us, spraying and rasping against the bottom of our Disks, everyone covering their faces to keep it out of their eyes. We were making really good distance and time, however, as Princess Kristie was not slow. A third tentacle, another shockwave, and then another chasm split open to our left as something too big cracked and crunched and tried to get through solid matter where space wasn¡¯t giving way to fit it in. The rigid edges of a multi-leaved shell began to extrude above the pit, the edges of which began to rise¡­ I dropped a Darkness spell on the backmost Disk, startling the riders, and snapped all the other Disks into abrupt alignment with the Darkness between them and whatever was looking after us from back there. ¡°Nobody is looking at that thing!¡± I informed everyone with Magevoice that could be heard despite all the rumbling. There was a grinding, screeching sound building, like all the fingernails on the blackboard ever, and I threw up the Sound Bubble right on the heels of the Darkness. Most of the rumbling from without went away, the sudden quiet absolutely jarring as Princess Kristie didn¡¯t look back and kept booking. I flashed up a big Interdiction, the strongest I could, and sent it back that way. The way the Veil suddenly quivered, as if something really strong had just rammed into it, was good validation of the move. I pulsed out more of them, ten in total, forming a long line of absolutely-reinforced reality in massive bubbles that could anchor and buttress the greater reality back there, bringing more and more pressure to bear on the thing. Princess Kristie juked aside again. The chasm that ripped past us only missed by about ten feet, almost upsetting several of the Disks to the left. Obviously the fleeing globe of blackness was pretty easy to see, but that didn¡¯t mean we couldn¡¯t get out of range of the thing pretty damn quick, as she¡¯d seen where the first two had petered out. We couldn¡¯t hear the cry, but I could feel the air vibrating through Primus¡¯ nascent Air Elemental Command, my second Ring¡¯s harmony with Air registering the sound even if the only thing we saw was the view outside growing increasing blurred and static-like as the air rippled so fast. The end of the chasms flashed past, and we were on open ground¡­ ¡°Rock in the sky!¡± Briggs shouted, and all who could see looked up to zero in on a hunk of stone larger than a house was waaaaay up in the air¡­ and coming right for us. Kris promptly juked right, and we fed her the Markview as it slowly veered after us, closing in with impossible speed and accuracy¡­ ¡°Close your eyes and hang on!¡± It was a second from hitting us when she did a sliding ninety-degree turn to the left, far too many gravities to pull for anyone running without lightfoot, or without Disks to keep people on board them and ignore the physics of the direction change. The rock slammed down exactly on where we¡¯d been going to be, unable to slow itself fast enough to catch us. Kris snaked through another ninety-degree turn as everyone¡¯s stomachs leapt for their throats, and made for more distance, having just been shown we hadn¡¯t gone far enough. It did try another rock, but it couldn¡¯t quite get the range on it, considering that we were now a mile away and only picking up speed as Kris burned Stamina for extra juice and her feet glowed with Soul magic. Nobody there had ever moved so fast, and that included those who¡¯d been lucky enough to enjoy some freefall. We were two miles out before she slowed down slightly, and three miles before she stopped sprinting and settled into a jog which could still have outpaced a thoroughbred. ¡°The Mick is over that hill. We can stop there,¡± I murmured, looking backwards at the manafield and feeling the inexorable strength of the Veil pressure closing in on the unwanted Entity there. The sands were all wrong, as it were... --- We crested the hill like a ramp, Kris surfing down the air in a casual corkscrew or four, the whole raiding team managing half-hearted whoops as she did so. She slid right up on Lord Mick and his Roaches, assembled there on their own Disks and astutely not looking back whence we¡¯d come, even through the hill did a good job cutting off the view. A crude barge raised on Disks held over a dozen mangled forms made of metal. The Constructs¡¯ chests were fused and blown out, internal mechanisms there completely destroyed. They had dome-like skulls on swivels, broad shoulders, and heavy primary chassis, armored and all built of various hued metals. Dominating them was a massive Knight of golden metal, easily head and shoulders above any of the rest of them. The rupture of his core had done considerably less overall damage to him than to his subordinates, so Atamarr the Golden Primus was mostly intact, but as inert as any of his comrades. This was the main objective of the raids. The undead had likely known there were buried Gear Knights in the area, particularly the Primus, but they¡¯d all been stuck at least ten feet down and artfully concealed, so casual digging efforts by the undead had found nothing. Kris had discovered the graves with some crisscrossing of the area under the directions of the diggers via her Tremblesense, and the Mick and the Roaches, with the help of some Summoned Elementals, had been quick to get started pulling the fallen Constructs out. AF Chapter 287 – Constructed Remnants ¡°Well done, Lord Mick!¡± Briggs congratulated him, standing on his Disk with his back to the hill as well. ¡°Gor, we were only a mile away from the dig when that whatever-that-is decided t¡¯ make a fuss,¡± the Mick admitted, digging his little finger into his ear. ¡°Figured legging it an¡¯ not looking back was the wisest move, ¡®specially when I heard the Violet Alert.¡± I had moved the globe of Darkness off the rear Disk and flattened it into a general wall and barrier behind us, allowing the riders there to see again. Nobody got off their Disks, and the Mick was standing just above the ground, his Waveskating Step keeping him an inch above it on constant streams of ki coming from his heels. ¡°We are stopping why?¡± Kris finally asked, perfectly content to leave the horror from beyond the aether behind to stew and get farted back out to its own dimension on its own time. ¡°We need to witness it going away, and then we have to go back there to make sure it didn¡¯t leave something really bad behind,¡± Briggs ground out. Kris chucked herself on the side of the head. ¡°Right. Responsibilities of command and all that,¡± she nodded, glancing over the men. ¡°Lord Mick is to get these Gear Knights out of here, however, and he should take most of the team with him. ¡°Leave me my squad, and escort Lord Mick and his prizes outta here. Ryin and I should be able to determine if it left something behind, get rid of it, and make sure it doesn¡¯t come through again. Kara¡¯s Pyramid can wait a day.¡± I inclined my head and decided that agreeing was a good idea. I could pop up a basic ten-stepper pretty easily to cover this area, and the crater over there basically went down to stone, so raw material shouldn¡¯t be an issue. If its primary purpose was forever blocking this particular access point some dickless corpse had shoved through the Veil, ten steps was more than enough to do so. ¡°Give us a Sound Bubble and let us know when it is gone and Markspace is safe,¡± Briggs nodded once, bending down to give Kris a smooch on the forehead. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Lord Mick.¡± ---- I popped the Sound Bubble on them as the Mick trotted away, rapidly picking up speed as his Waveskating Step hurtled him along at four times the speed of a jogging man without apparent effort. Kris¡¯s team of Royal Scouts wasn¡¯t quite at the level of the Roaches, but they were all swordsmen and idolized her unabashedly. While they could and would use ranged attacks, they were basically being trained up as Swordmages, giving themselves versatility on the spur of the moment that would take far too much time and passive abilities investment to acquire on an ongoing basis. Tremblesense, for instance, was exceedingly difficult for most people to learn and acquire, especially at the level hers was at. Learn the right spell, boost it a little, and not an issue, however. Detects might even do the job better. Thus, more focus on stealth, infiltration, and swift kills among her team, although she hadn¡¯t worked up to Death Attacks with them yet. The cheesy way to kill was also dangerous and led Down all too easily. Strong moral codes were as necessary to become one of her little Skeeters as an inclination for a blade. ¡°Any rough ideas on how long?¡± Kris asked, giving a careful look at the wall of blackness still in the way. Mira happily flexed some math and gradients, blah blah numbers curves hyperdimensional geometry blah blah. ¡°Half hour minimum, based on current resistance it is putting up. If it gets stubborn and my estimates of its strength are on, forty-three minutes until it gets squeegeed back home. If it takes longer, it might lose whatever it has extruded here to dimensional pressure.¡± ¡°So, we chill, get mana back.¡± At the not-quite order, all her Skeeters promptly pulled in their legs, got into a sitting Aurora Stance, and started pulling in mana likely quite depleted after the fighting in Xarabydun. ¡°You expecting anything?¡± she asked in a low voice, while the Sublime Chord rose up and promptly doubled the Renewal rate of her team as magic began to harmonize around me. Speaking didn¡¯t interrupt my Singing, Subvocalization being one of those necessary Feats if you want to get into raising everyone¡¯s magical ability around yourself while still Casting. ¡°It was Elemental Earthen, but clearly Aberrant. The latter is the important part. If it can cleanse its Aberrant nature from something, it could leave it behind.¡± She looked that way again, her eyes narrowing. ¡°So, anything up to an Elemental Monolith, given the size of the thing.¡± ¡°It would have limits to it, as free Elementals don¡¯t coalesce easily on the Prime. Probably tied to whatever pre-opened Portal¡¯s remnants are still in place. It might even be able to recreate that Summoning Circle, given enough time.¡± Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°Wonderful. What are we looking at to use?¡± ¡°Won¡¯t know until we see it and verify everything. Can¡¯t give you Infusion recommends until then. If it is an Earth Elemental, Enmity to Elementals and Acidphasing, in addition to Bane/Elementals. If it¡¯s something else, wing it until I get the Assay off, or an Assess Creature lands. If it isn¡¯t Aberrant, I shouldn¡¯t have any problem landing Divs on it.¡± ¡°Good enough.¡± Quaver hummed along behind her to the Sublime Chord, but couldn¡¯t truly sync to it, not being an Implement. Crown nevertheless joined in, probably a little bit competitive in that regard. Quaver was a far more dangerous Weapon, with the Lost Light, Blackfire Stones, and now a softly glowing green Elemental Stone adding to the fact that he could innately swap around his own Enhancements from his storehouses of Arsenal and Slaughter, things that could not exist on Weapons not Bound to a Forsaken. Also, a full Zehn-rank Weapon, matched only by Endure in Briggs¡¯ hands. While Slaughter and Arsenal weren¡¯t exactly as versatile as having access to ALL Weapon Enhancements with the right Infusion¡­ Infusions only lasted so long, and had to get re-applied, taking both time and mana. In the middle of a fight, Quaver just shifted his nature to whatever was needed against a particular foe, Kris not needing to do a damn thing. The fact that we could actually make intelligent Weapons with their own will still amazed and shocked some people, as no other Isparian had yet managed to do the same task. There were whispers from our rivals that we had trapped souls into our Weapons to do it, naturally enough, but one declaration of Truth had put that slander to rest. Item Familiars were great things, and this place had far too much necromancy and messing with souls around. I wasn¡¯t going to show people how to put souls into items, even if they were willing. Soon enough there¡¯d be soul-shackled Constructs running around, just like unwilling undead¡­ Kris had the least to do here, and we weren¡¯t going to be doing telepathic stuff around an Aberrant. -------- Just about forty minutes later, there was a shuddering in the air, snapping through the Veil as it rebuilt itself back to impermeability. The shrieking that had been rising and falling the whole time was abruptly gone, and an invisible tension in the air vanished, sensed only by its sudden absence as everyone looked up and around simultaneously. I popped the Sound Bubble, letting the sounds of the afternoon and desert come gusting in softly. ¡°Let¡¯s go see what surprises it left behind.¡± Ten minutes of an easy jog later, everyone slid off their Disks and looked at the deep crater where the town of Xarabydun, above and below ground used to be. It was at least a hundred feet deep, and nearly a quarter-mile across, a whole lot bigger than it should have been. ¡°Looks like it took some matter with it when it left?¡± Kris offered, turning her head over to where the fissures it had split into the land had once been, having slammed themselves back shut after it had left. ¡°Opportunistic or thinking it could be used as an anchor on the far side to come back.¡± My eyes were glowing softly, scanning the ethersphere of the Veil around me. ¡°There it is, the anchor Formation. Pretty damn small, almost no Veil distortion around it. If you didn¡¯t suspect it was there, you¡¯d likely miss it entirely.¡± Crown tapped the ground slightly, feeling the Earth-attuned mana in the area, not something Isparians normally could sense for. ¡°Oh, yeah, there¡¯s a locus of Earth mana underneath that. It doesn¡¯t appear to be moving around as yet.¡± ¡°Any random other traps?¡± Kris asked calmly. I scanned right and left. ¡°Buried nodes of magical power.¡± I brought up a Holo of a screen up in front of me, and indicated the points and positions on the sloping sands of the crater in front of us. ¡°Those are at least at V. Earth-bias¡­ possibly suck-you-down spells, or erupting spikes. Not Summons or conjurations.¡± ¡°The big thing?¡± Kris indicated. ¡°Pure earth power, if¡­ twisted. Gritty, almost fluid. A form of extremely fine Sand Elemental would be my guess.¡± ¡°Masks down.¡± Hands slapped to faces with alchemical breathers on them, while Masks of Clarity with investments into them descended over the faces of everyone, a medley of custom beasts and artistic forms, each individual to the one using them, although the colors shaded towards the dark. They were also hardened to keep the breathers in place, and thus would keep everything from infiltrating the orifices of the head. Kris¡¯ Mask took its key from her Whiskers of the Wild, black and catlike with white whiskers on her cheeks, which her Cursemark flared a proud and angry purple against the left side of it in contrast. My own Mask had evolved into something more reminiscent of a veined jet and silver butterfly pattern over my face, the celeste blackness filled with stars and two floating strands of my hair playing at antennae. ¡°This is a lightfoot test,¡± Kris informed her squad, who nodded quickly. Basically this was a fluid surface, not much different from mud¡­ but the main power of the Waveskating Step was ignoring difficult terrain like this. ¡°You¡¯ll all be popping one of these traps. They are magic, so you can cut them with vivus on your Blade, so let¡¯s see how good your spellcraft is today.¡± They all glanced at me, and I just shrugged. There was no doubt I could pop all of them with very little trouble, but that wouldn¡¯t give them a chance to show off in front of their impossible-to-impress instructor. --- Their Detects didn¡¯t rival mine, but that didn¡¯t surprise anyone. Still, knowing the area, they were able to sense the traps once we got close enough, and then one by one, Kris had them slide on up to see if they could disarm them, and how they could do it. Magical trap disarming was generally of three kinds: cut key parts of the woven spell and make it collapse on itself; overwhelm it with an infusion of hostile energy and disrupt it; or slice into it and bleed the energies off until it dissipated entirely. Figuring out what to cut, what kind of energies to infuse, or how to drain it dry was basically a process of experimentation and skill, related to how good you were at magic. A Dispel Magic could use any of the methods, but doing it by hand and passive magic was subtler and nowhere as flashy and loud, magically speaking. AF Chapter 288 – Masked Responses ¡°Damn it!¡± Fendro shouted in embarrassment as the sands spun out wildly beneath him, while a surge of gravity tried to drag him down into the depths and suck him under. The fellow with the Black Bear Mask sprinted around the edges of the sand vortex at top speed, barely disturbing the coursing sands as he ran faster and faster around the edges, gaining altitude instead of falling. He actually managed to clear the edge, jump, somersault and twist, and get back to the sandy slopes as he landed and slid along the surface, barely raising a trail at all. The vortex stopped about a long breath later, collapsing on itself and sealing itself up, as if had never been there at all. If it had worked, a ten-foot radius of people would easily have been sucked ten to twenty feet underground and buried in compacted sand, to be crushed and suffocated in the dark. It was the fourth trap, all of which had been triggered, and none had been exactly the same. The first one was spikes exploding out of the ground in a wide area, requiring a really long leap to get out of the area of effect or some nice contortions to avoid being run through from below. Jorgio the Black Tiger Mask had barely tumbled out of the area of effect, tearing open his pants as a razored edge just missed his groin, much to his dismay and wincing amusement of everyone else. Tia the Two Moons Mask ended up with a vortex of rocks rising up to crush and spin around, trying to pulp anyone in the area. She had jumped with the rotating of the field, suffering a couple impacts which only helped her be propelled out of the area of effect and barely bruised her. Markel of the Black and Green Crosses Mask got the closing flower trap, and barely launched himself up in time, using the closing momentum of the jaws to propel himself high enough, then kicking off the top edge as it slammed shut just beneath his heels, and finally off the top and backwards as far as he could, landing just beyond where the jaws had come up. It was Enki¡¯s turn next, the Gharu¡¯n man with the Blue and Brown Lightning Bolts Mask sighing as he considered everyone¡¯s approaches so far. ¡°Do we have permission to confer with one other about what to do?¡± he asked Kris with a long face. Obviously, their ability to get through magical traps like this simply wasn¡¯t up to par. ¡°Sure, we¡¯re not in a hurry. As long as we don¡¯t wake up that big guy over there.¡± The students all looked down at their feet nervously. They weren¡¯t quite off the ground, but moving so gently it was no worse than wind blowing across the sand. If they did something so basic as land off their feet, welp, it was right to roll initiative¡­ He focused, and approached the next trap, his eyes glittering as he brought up his ability to Detect Magic and focused it intently on the slumbering yet poised spell formation. I helpfully brought up his discoveries for them all to take a look at in the Holo, exactly as he was perceiving them. The Skeeters crowded around to look at them closely. Nedlike the Black and White Spears Mask spoke up, ¡°Can I get a summary judgment? Draining the traps is completely not viable with that thing over there feeding energy to these traps.¡± I nodded once. ¡°Well deduced.¡± I added a faint golden shimmer leading in slow pulses out from the middle, and they all drew long faces at being unable to sense the movement of mana like that. Tia cursed quietly, shaking her head, as that had been what she had attempted. ¡°So, we¡¯ve only cutting and disrupting. We¡¯ve failed twice at the one and once at the former. Does the method differ between the traps?¡± Leslee of the Four Flowers Mask asked, rather helplessly. I just looked at Kris, who smiled slightly. ¡°They were laid down basically at the same time by an Aberrant entity in a bit of a literal time/space crunch, using the same amount of energy in each one. I haven¡¯t seen any indications that each pattern is different in its vulnerabilities,¡± she informed them. I nodded agreement. ¡°Okay,¡± Jorgio took his turn. ¡°Two failures with cutting is bad, because that means we didn¡¯t get the pattern right, OR it can¡¯t be cut successfully. I¡¯m looking at this pattern here, and according to what we¡¯ve been taught, cutting here, here, and here, in that order, should collapse it?¡± He looked around at all of them. ¡°Alternately, here and here?¡± Grey Clouds on Yellow Mask Xena offered hesitantly. ¡°That looks like a regulator node, right?¡± Enki nodded as he backed away from the formation, back to the Holo. ¡°I was going to cut here, here, and here,¡± he confirmed, pointing at that node and two of the ones Jorgio had indicated. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°That¡­ looks good to me, if that¡¯s a regulator node,¡± Jorgio agreed, and there was murmured agreement all around. There was no one way to take out a magical trap, simply whatever method could be found to work relatively easiest, especially when it came to cutting. ¡°If that doesn¡¯t work, let¡¯s concede that cutting the spell doesn¡¯t work,¡± Nedlike proposed, and was immediately interrupted by a cough and sour look from Kris, which made his black and white mask go perceptibly gray. ¡°That is incredibly arrogant. Just because you aren¡¯t good enough at a method that it¡¯s not the right way? What did I teach you?¡± she asked sourly. They all looked embarrassed. Quiet Sonya the Blue Wave Mask spoke up, ¡°We verify the reaction of the trap. Cutting doesn¡¯t work if the mana is set up to react if the formation is cut.¡± ¡°And did anyone do that?¡± Kris asked coolly. There was more embarrassed silence. ¡°She wanted you to disarm the traps individually, but that doesn¡¯t mean you stopped being a team,¡± I informed them. ¡°Basically all you learned from the previous traps is what you saw looking on and what method was used and failed.¡± Anyone complaining that Kris hadn¡¯t told them they could do that would probably have been thrown right off the team. Instead, all they could do was hang their heads. The team lived and died together. Part of the competition and rivalry was how they could lift one another up. She wasn¡¯t training them up to be Champions. That was a completely different set of skills! ¡°So this is a group effort, and each of us get a chance to be the steady hand. I propose each of us doing the job say what we¡¯re going to do, and get feedback on that. We coordinate until we figure it out, and can advance smoothly through the traps,¡± Sonya said firmly. ¡°What we need to do is a proper assessment. Xena, you¡¯re going next. Get up there and watch the reaction of mana while Enki makes his cuts. If it¡¯s going south, warn him.¡± The sandy-haired southern Aluvian quickly walked up next to Enki, and they both returned to the edge of the trap¡¯s sensory range, with the young woman staying further back, squatting down and staring intently at the mana in the trap. Enki drew his Saber and extended it, the Blade gently dripping vivic mist, out with a hand steadied by his ki. Delicately, he inserted it into the Formation, cleanly severing the regulating node, and pulled it back carefully. ¡°No reaction,¡± Xena reported, staring at it intently. Enki took a deep breath and reached out again, the tip of his Saber Skyfall plunging into the sand again. ¡°Crystallizing!¡± Xena shouted, and both of them leapt back as far as they could as the trap erupted, thousands of spikes erupting out of the ground and nearly catching both of them as they bounded back once and twice and barely outran the area of effect expanding out. ¡°I don¡¯t think cutting it is going to work,¡± Jorgio mumbled as everyone straightened from their crouching as dirt and disintegrating sandy needles fell on everyone. ¡°What did you miss?¡± Kris asked, completely unmoved as she watched all this. There was awkward silence. Kris pointed her chin at me. ¡°Enki, you did exactly the right move in cutting regulatory node in between pulses. Did you plan the timing?¡± I asked calmly. He stiffened. ¡°No¡­¡± he admitted. ¡°Lucky, then. If you had waited another twelve seconds while backing away instead of making a second cut so quickly, the feeding pulse would have come through, the lack of the node would have set off the mana, and the Formation would have blown without you being in the middle of it.¡± All of them groaned. ¡°But we can¡¯t see the feeder flow?¡± Nedlike asked earnestly. ¡°All of you can see the Formations glow and dim ever-so-slightly. What do you think it was from?¡± Kris demanded to know, and they could only shuffle their feet nervously. Sonya was the first to find her voice. ¡°So cutting and draining don¡¯t work. We have to disrupt it. Markel attempted that with vivus and it didn¡¯t work. What do we disrupt it with?¡± ¡°The Elemental Dominance pattern suggests acidic energies to employ against Earth,¡± the only Viamontian among them, Jorgio, immediately recalled. ¡°Is this Earth mana?¡± Sonya asked instead, staring at Xena. ¡°You had the closest look at the mana. Did it respond appropriately?¡± Xena frowned as she recalled what she had seen. ¡°That¡­ no? Earth mana is fairly rigid, right? It should have fractured as the pattern broke. Instead, it¡­ crystallized? Separated and became solid?¡± ¡°Acid works because it melts and fuses through the Earth mana, not letting it fracture, effectively dissolving it as it spreads,¡± Sonya continued. ¡°Crystallizing instead¡­ to solid crystal or motes, Xena?¡± ¡°Motes,¡± she replied without hesitation. ¡°I could see the little crystals gathering¡­¡± ¡°So it didn¡¯t ¡®freeze solid¡¯. It froze in little bits¡­ like snowflakes or something?¡± Markel piped up. ¡°Or hail. Which is the reaction of water to air. Stays as vapor until it hits a trigger, and then condenses abruptly at that point!¡± Tia blurted out. ¡°It¡¯s an Aberrant,¡± whispered Jorgio. ¡°The Magos said its power was more like sand, fluid and gritty¡­¡± ¡°Air uses lightning to dominate water¡­¡± ¡°Lightning would force a path of conduction through the pattern when it is set to break apart¡­¡± ¡°Drawing the mana away from the pattern and fusing it into an inferior whole in the moment it is supposed to be congealing!¡± They were getting a bit excited as they reasoned through everything. ¡°Colmus, you¡¯re on with Xena.¡± White on Brown Striped Mask brawny blond Colmus, having been watching all of this silently, just nodded at Sonya¡¯s directions. -Just need steady hands, and I think they have it- I /noted to Kris, who was not letting her satisfaction show quite yet. -They have to time it right,- she /answered. -Right at the apex of the fill is the best, the lightning will have maximum effect and short out the whole thing. They do it at the bottom, and the mana in the Formation won¡¯t be strong enough to form the complete circuit, and it¡¯ll break down in the remaining portion and go off.- I had to smile to myself. Little tricks, let¡¯s see if they could catch it¡­ AF Chapter 289 – Monolithic Lessons Apply Chum-li was the last of Kris¡¯ students, he of the Bronze Foo Wolf Mask, and the only Natural Swordsman among the set. He was a quiet and introspective individual who had once wielded his grandfather¡¯s katana¡­ until Kris made him give it up for a chance at one of her own QL 40 creations, which nobody in their right mind was going to turn down. He set it aside for his son, and was undoubtedly the most formidable swordsman among the students, with the downside of not being quite so up on the other skills the others were gifted at. Everything in balance. He was up as Colmus¡¯ backup, as Xena had taken the option of sticking a Lightning- phasing Longsword into the Formation at the lowest point of the mana surging, failed to establish complete conductivity through the pattern before the Earth mana faltered and crystallized, resulting in the eruption of a whole bunch of ten-foot stony tentacles flailing madly about. Colmus had chopped two of them down as Xena somersaulted back frantically out of their range, then retreated with a parry or two keeping him from being locked up. The depressed students who thought they¡¯d worked out the reason why instead had glum glances at their definitely amused instructor. Colmus was thus the first to put his Bastard Sword carefully into the spiraling vortex formation, and administer a shock to the whole system that abruptly dissipated the mana involved in it, rendering it inert and collapsing the spell entirely. The students celebrated briefly, and then Chum-li led the effort around the pit where Xarabydun had once been, ringing around the thing at the middle of the crater. They popped trap after trap if not routinely, at least with great speed after they verified that each one was indeed set up the same way and there were no great surprises to be found. Then it was time for the Boss Fight, as it were. --------- ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s aware of us. A quartz jewel popped up out of the bottom down there a while ago, probably an eye, after we popped the second-to-last trap. It stopped sending out so much power from the ley lines, and stopped completely after the last trap failed.¡± Kris leaned her head from side to side, popping her neck. ¡°So, can you contain it?¡± ¡°Already done.¡± Everyone looked at me in surprise. ¡°Oh, please. We made three complete circuits of the thing. Do you think I was really doing nothing more than looking on and preparing to Heal you all?¡± I just rolled my eyes dramatically for them. ¡°I am an advanced Warcaster and magos, and the fact that I can be the support mage with great efficiency does not change what I am. ¡°You all were a nice distraction. Every time a trap collapsed or triggered, it formed a perfect cover for the Circles I was completing and cross-linking. This thing in the middle is totally confined and not going anywhere. You can all retreat any time you like, and it won¡¯t be able to do anything about it. Once these Circles activate, it¡¯s going to be forced out of phasing and into materiality. ¡°Just say when.¡± The students were too impressed to say anything, so it fell to Princess Kristie, who just grabbed my head and gave me a noogie. ¡°See?! SEE?! Awesome bondmage is awesome!¡± she proclaimed, while I reclaimed my head from her with a uselessly aggrieved expression. ¡°Base Natural Armor +25,¡± I grunted at her. ¡°Huh.¡± She looked at her students pensively. ¡°They aren¡¯t getting through that...¡± ¡°DR 15/-.¡± She snarled visibly. ¡°Okay, even worse. Can it be overcome by anything?¡± ¡°I¡¯m thinking a full-out acid onslaught of Acidphasing, Acidic, and Neutralizing will chew through its Damage Reduction like a firehose of sulfuric acid. You might even trigger Anathema if you¡¯ve got enough Penetration...¡± ¡°Can you Brilliant all of their Weapons? If so, they can go to town with the Infusion trifecta.¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± ¡°You heard her. Let¡¯s see a lot of dripping green on those Blades, and go kill us a hill.¡± ----------- I slammed Crown down on the Summoning Circle, and dumped a V+50 Mana into the submerged circles of stone I¡¯d Shaped underneath the sands here. They blazed to life, rising to the surface in flashes of crystal and throwing off the sand and earth above them as they shone with energy. There was a hollow rumbling and explosion of earth and sand as the monolith at the center of the Formation was forced out of its Phased Earthgliding state and onto the surface of the pit. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. They all came down on it even as it was erupting forth, Swords descending in Cuts the Waterfall all blazing liquid green and solid fluid emerald as they hacked into the monolith. The massive Earth Elemental definitely didn¡¯t like all those Charging Leap Attack One Strikes slamming into it and carving so many glowing furrows down its sides a full foot deeper and longer than any of the Blades themselves were. Princess Kristie¡¯s were particularly noticeable, as she started up by the conical lump that was its head, sliced right through a big chunk of crystal that was probably an eye and down and around its no-neck and actually across three other furrows. Lost Light ripped and tore open the gash to huge effect, and despite coming down after her students, she hit the ground and plunged Quaver into its side at the same time as they did. All of them took six powerful steps around it counter-clockwise, linking up a horrible set of wounds that would have disemboweled something that wasn¡¯t made out of sand and stone, before just as abruptly and quickly leaping away. Nedlike caught the sweep of a boulder of an arm, and went flying like he was a soccer ball. That was partly lightfoot, pushing off the arm even as he was smacked and sent out of range, but it would have splattered a normal human like a grape in so doing. Happily, he just went sailing out of bounds, which I stopped with a Featherweight and blasted a series of cold Darts into him to take care of the physical damage. At least four broken ribs were reset with cold pain, but he drifted to the ground outside the containing circle a hundred feet away, irked, but basically fine. Everyone else joined him out of reach of the charging Elemental which could not even touch the Circle, let alone pursue them past it as it futilely tried to catch up to them. The ones on the far side promptly raced towards it together, while Kris pounced right for its other visible ¡®eye¡¯. The whipping limb it leveled at her would have punted her a good hundred yards or more, except she kicked herself abruptly over the blow, a cushion of Lost Light sliding her right along it and up towards its head, which it ducked out of her reach before she could zag back from her zig. Instead, this time she plowed a glowing green furrow down and around its backside in contrast to the one she¡¯d left gaping and glowing on its front side, earning its attention and focus as it followed up with another full-power slam down at her. The impact of that man-thick tendril sent out shockwaves, none of which truly discomfited or interrupted the driving attacks around its lower fringes, as glowing Blades plunged into the existing disemboweling attack around its base and sliced in deeper and more strongly than before. Combined with the prior damage, whole sheets and slabs of its mass broke free and slid away from it, sliding into and disappearing into the sands beneath like water dropping into a lake. It had missed Kris, of course, and she promptly ran right up that pillar-sized tendril, Quaver ripping along the course and peeling its stony hide open like an overripe orange. It spun around underneath her, having no bones or true physiology. The other tendril came around to smash at her, ignoring the others carving a glowing, sizzling path around its base and collapsing its body mass catastrophically in favor of the one who had just split open its second tendril and somehow managed to half-sever it from its base. Kris¡¯ students didn¡¯t know I could have Banished this thing away with a single spell, but that wouldn¡¯t have fed it to the Land, or really disrupted the conduit of power it was tied to and defending for its master. Feeding the Land really was the better play, and making the cost for the creature leaving an avatar behind a permanent expense it would long remember was the best play for us to use by far. It obviously wanted to come back, or it wouldn¡¯t have left the guardian behind to protect its way to do so. It didn¡¯t matter if it was for revenge or curiosity, making it more reluctant to do so because it might lose even more was the right message to send, a defense of territory everything that lived understood on an instinctive level if it had any intelligence at all. I added triple Dart hardshots to the thing¡¯s woes, just because I could, leaving Fastcasts for emergency Healing while blowing out craters in its bulk. I drove them into cross-pattern joins, detonating Elemental and Holy energies inside it to crack and shatter and slough off more of its mass¡­ and set it on eager vivic fire. -Hitte!- Kris /ordered, and all of her students leapt away for all they worth as a combination of massive sweeping arms and pounding body mass tried to sweep the area clear and disrupt what they were doing to it all at once. I had to Featherweight Colmus, who took a full smashing attack, and three of the others were also caught in the shockwaves and went tumbling like leaves in the air. Nobody between me and the Monolith then, and it abruptly lost its head as a vengeful Kris landed on it and promptly Flurried the ever-loving Hell out of it, sending the top six feet of its body tumbling and away in blurs of emerald A full Shardray volley of Acidic fun punched into all the cross-patterns facing me, driving deep into its mass and liquefying tons of mana-infused mass while Banefire chased its lifeforce throughout the mass of it, even as Kris ran around it and hacked off both of its tendrils somehow while doing so. It was clearly not enjoying the fact it was coming apart, boulders cracking and sinking into the stone and sands beneath it, green-touched white mists starting to bleed out from within it and all the cracks and furrows carved into it. Then Kristie was up and I was done Healing her students even as they all charged at once at full speed. It was still regrowing its limbs when the corkscrew attacks chewed through and into it, and some critical lack of mass was reached. Light pulsed, another -Hitte!- went out, and everyone was in the air when it blew apart in a tumbling, ripping volcanic eruption that unfortunately for it had no heat behind it, and the green and whiteness was eating at the force of the blast, not enhancing it. They had to do a lot of bouncing away from boulders and crushing rocks coming down all over the place, and I rolled my eyes as I realized I was going to be Healing more after the thing was dead than from when it was alive and well. But the monolith left behind was dead, the message was sent, and Xarabydun was no longer in the hands of the undead. AF Chapter 290 – Gives us the Presents It turned out the acid-seared eyes of the monolith made for decent raw material, one for an Orb, and the other for a Crystal Ball. Having a decent scrying tool available when needed was never a bad thing, especially if cross-enchanted as a backup Divination-enhancing tool, which pretty much any kind of crystal was good for. Force magic was a derivation of Earth, the highest end of Earth magic, as it were, structure and rigidity without mass. The Monolith¡¯s eye was perfect for a new Orb atop Crown, as Force magic was my favorite kind of magic, bar none. Xarabydun itself was a complete loss, but getting the undead completely out of southern Osteth was totally worth it, and Neftet¡¯s potential area wasn¡¯t too far away, regardless. ------- Weapons hacked away at the demented head-sized gummy drop that was shooting out explosive volleys of Force magic at us in synchronized hacking attempts. I snuffed one, two, three Volleys as the gumdrop tried to blow the Roaches back and failed utterly to do so, eventually being chopped apart as its Health Qi failed and the injuries inflicted on it failed to heal. Everybody was breathing hard, a little wide-eyed at the savagery of the past two minutes. Vivus popped over the Summoned thing, ensuring it would not respawn, as it had the five before it. ¡°Along the wall now,¡± Lord Mick said easily. ¡°Leave the three left for anybody who needs exposure to high-end knaths, we¡¯ve separated them nicely enough.¡± He quickly led everyone away from the remaining Gummy Drop Knaths, around a divider and up towards the next level. ¡°That place must have killed a lot of people, Lord Mick?¡± Selena asked, shaking her head. This was a place for sword work, not missile fire, as all the targets were small, fast-moving, and quarters were tight, with little room to maneuver for a better angle. ¡°Aye, people talking to Santa Sclavi found themselves in a high-Level Hell, stumbling through those Gumdrops and unable to keep up with the spells being chain-launched here.¡± ¡°Five k Health, too. For something with the body consistency of thick jelly,¡± I muttered from the back, pulling up as Mick raised a hand. ¡°Now ye get to practice archery. Lass, I¡¯ll have ye Imping each of the targets if ye care to.¡± They went to negative Armor fairly quickly, so it was better than Vulning for an opening move. Mana Conversion was the first Isparian Stat of any kind I¡¯d maxed out, a trend followed by everyone who needed to closely restrict how much mana they used at a given time. My Sorcery Slots gave me lots of backup mana if needed, but backup was what I wanted it to be. So, a spell that should have cost me forty mana base normally went off for four, which stretched my mana out a lot more. The Roaches were breaking out the bows and lining up to maximize their shooting profile. First row kneeling, tallest people in the back, three ranks of shooters. I stood on the side and looked down the long hall with the rows of gumdrops rocking back and forth or milling around in circles. ¡°Mass Imping them all at once, drawing fire with an illusion,¡± I informed them, materializing the Spectral Force in the room in front of the Knaths, very near the wall. There was an instant fusillade of shots from the nearest two knaths, who ignored the humans lined up in the hallways just outside the doorway. The knaths¡¯ shots seemed to explode on a force barrier, in reality detonating across the wall behind the illusion of me that was gesturing dramatically to keep their attention. The Imperil IV¡¯s snapped up one by one, and the arrows followed them unerringly as the Gumdrops scooted forward towards the illusion obviously Casting the spells at them, yessir. Summons intellects, have to love them. The Autobows and Bows thrummed all together, and gumdrops kicked over and died one by one as they shuffled to the attack with steady patience and rains of exploding Force magic that wasn¡¯t threatening any of us. Zeks calmly moved each impaled candy-monster corpse back to its Summon point to Burn down. ¡°Each of ye talk to a Moarself in one o¡¯ the cells here, an¡¯ dodge the Gumdrops on the other side, mind ye,¡± the Mick said genially, walking ahead to the first cell and throwing it open before striding in to lay a gentle hand on the cowering small moarsman within. ¡°Ye¡¯re free. Go,¡± he said simply. Whatever programmed speech was going to be blurted out from the thing seemed to have faded after so long, and the Mick breaking the normal pattern. ¡°Th-thank you, savior!¡± the ¡®Moarself¡¯ stammered, bowing and almost losing its bright red cone-cap with the white ball atop it. The Mick waited until it vanished from in front of him, then dropped a Vivic Light spell atop its Summon point before turning back to face us. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°Most of fifteen years it be waiting in here for folk to come through here, I reckon,¡± he said flatly. ¡°Nae again, I be thinkin¡¯.¡± The Roaches all nodded and hurried to their own cells to follow the example of what he had done. ¡°Get Karma for releasing them, I gather?¡± I asked him as I strolled to the last cell in the rows. ¡°Aye, at the very end. But we¡¯ll likely be stopping them from returning too, I be thinking,¡± he nodded at me, dark eyes thoughtful. ¡°Near twenty years stuck in these cells. Even NPC¡¯s should nae be subjected t¡¯ such a life, aye?¡± ¡°Truth. What are we looking at next?¡± ¡°More Gumdrops, then the Rolling Balls o¡¯ Icy Death. Should nae be a problem with yer Walls.¡± ¡°Literal death?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Aye. They hit ya, freeze ye solid if they do. Seen it, felt it. Were not fun.¡± ¡°And likely worse now, if you don¡¯t have a means to be Revivified quickly. I¡¯ll note that an unnatural Wall will be attacked and probably shatter quickly, so we won¡¯t be able to dawdle,¡± I warned him. ¡°They weren¡¯t hard t¡¯ avoid back then if ye weren¡¯t a cocksure arsehole missing half their wits. Will nae be an issue, an¡¯ with luck, we¡¯ll be the last people ever coming through this place.¡± He paused for a moment as I walked down, released the Moarself there, and dropped a Vivic Light on the Summons point. If they respawned, the vivus would eat the attempt and Seal the Summons point, and that would be that. Given the normal speed of a Dungeon with no other drains on its mana, that would be in about five minutes. --- Staggered out just enough in pairs, the Gumdrops fell to Imperils and volley fire taking them down before they could respond properly to the Illusion of a charging Mick racing up to them and hacking away. Everyone enjoyed his flamboyant show, complete with sliding around, doing a 360 wall-ceiling-wall run, cloak billowing out magnificently, and the damn Gumdrops trying to blow the piss out of the Illusion. The hallway out of there did indeed lead to a room with great rolling balls of frost, the temperature dropping well below zero with a blast of subzero chill to the face. I flipped up the Mass Resist Cold to deal with it for everyone. We watched the rolling boulders of Cold energy rolling back and forth across the room. The Mick was right, it wasn¡¯t a complex puzzle if you had half a brain about you. I raised my hand and pulled at the floor of the place. A Wall of Ice erupted on the diagonal towards the short side of the room, blocking off any sudden surprises from that angle. The Mick promptly strode out onto the floor, moving quickly and keeping an eye to his right. One of the balls rolled into the Wall of Ice, releasing a devastating sphere of cold as it exploded and expended its load into the Wall, which promptly gained six inches of ice while simultaneously cracking throughout its width in that area. Nobody needed to be told to hurry, racing through the place as another detonation on the sealed side sent more cracks racing through the length of the barrier. We were through swiftly, although we did pause to turn back and watch the next ball of frost roll into the Wall and blow apart the overstressed ice it was made of apart with another blast of killing cold. ¡°Freezing ice t¡¯ destruction. ¡®Tis some nasty magic, right enough,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°Now, the next section is going t¡¯ suck. The combination be Uber Penguins and Snowmen Sentries, except the Sentries are in the next room up high an¡¯ casting Life Magic on ye through the walls.¡± The Roaches shuffled thoughtfully. ¡°Wasn¡¯t soloing an Uber Penguin one of those coming-of-age moments for a proper warrior back then?¡± Rogar asked, hand on the shrunken Glaive hanging from his belt. ¡°Aye, back when we had the proper Gear. The penguins also cough up Platinum spells, with hides like feathers o¡¯ steel. Fire be best against them an¡¯ the snowmen. Lass, we¡¯ll be needing protection from Lightning, too.¡± Mass Resist Electricity danced across everyone, purple sparks sinking into them. ¡°They use both Bolts an¡¯ Rings. So, grouping on them is belike painful, but not near as painful as killing ¡®em quick. I still hate the things after all these years. If ye can double-tap them, ¡®twill be very, very useful for us, lass. Quarters will be tight in the rooms, but I think us lads will tie them up while the lasses burn them down.¡± That meant he was going in first to soak up all he could, meaning I¡¯d have only one Heal target unless they Ringed, and the men would wolfpack while the women shot the penguins down. The combination would kill the penguins off very quickly if I got the Vulns off on them, then the Imperils. He¡¯d also be the target of the Snowmen in the next room, which would save the rest of us some Vulns and Imperils coming in. Rogar, Hundig and Camwise followed the Mick up into the room, charging up on the three Penguins who had worn right through the ice on the floor with their pacing and normal motions, yet were still caught by surprise because of the Sound Bubble containing the noise we were making. The Mick¡¯s charge reached them right after my Mass Fire Vuln went off on all three of them, and Bunita¡¯s flames blazed through magically-reinforced feathers. The three backed the Mick into the last corner to poke at him with razored beaks totally capable of etching stone, and the lads leapt into position opposite the Mick behind each screaming bird. They also kept the lines of fire open for Selena, Politia, Milee, and Mizaya. ¡°Your bones will freeze and your blood explode!¡± squawked one of the birds in totally legible Isparian as a burning Saber cut into it from behind. Bunita was a spinning wheel of fire, flames erupting around her path as the Mick hacked at the thing, and his Shield Clan ate a point-black blast of Lightning completely, making the Mick grin at the shit-talking penguins. ¡°I eat penguin eggs fer me breakfast!¡± he retorted, and something sparked in the dead black eyes of the penguin, spurring it to flap to the lunging attack, beak ringing loudly off the Mick¡¯s greave and totally ignoring Rogar hacking into its backside. Flaming Weapons tore and ripped in savage unity as the Mick focused on the first one, but spared one attack each for the other penguins¡­ which naturally spurred a flood of Attacks of Opportunities for the archers and the lads, and a few more of his own as they pitted their beaks against the counter-smashing Shield holding steady against the beaks snapping in with force far, far beyond their size would indicate. It didn¡¯t save them. AF Chapter 291 – Letting Santa Rest Dartrays plunged into all the melee boys one by one, repairing copious Health damage and starting on the Soak Healing that was a bit more difficult to restore. Injuries steamed and glowed as they Healed up, vanishing before the Soak they were all down at least a hundred points on started to return. Having a reusable Healing effect with the Dartrays was powerful, even if the raw amount at one time was restricted by the limits of a Cantrip. The attached Kickers of Holy power were actually doing most of the Healing, so it was actually most effective when hitting three people at a time, instead of focusing on one of them. The Mick was actually down the least when the fighting was done, mostly because I¡¯d been Healing him right along during the fight with these obscenely overpowered flightless birds. I¡¯d been able to feel the impacts on his Shield Clan from over here, their beaks slamming into it like pickaxes. I think the fact that they hadn¡¯t even been able to mar the metal had completely infuriated the creatures, who had shrieked and kept cursing and threatening him as they fought, and he in turn had cursed them right back. Even if they were Summons, he still didn¡¯t like the creatures. But now they were Burning, one kicked over on top of its Summon point, the other left as a possible combatant for people to fight in the future under controlled circumstances. A key had somehow dropped off one of them. Everyone shook their heads at the implications, which were further reinforced when I reshaped the doorway the thick and ley-linked quasi-indestructible door there was set into, and the Mick shoulder-checked it out of his way as he dashed inside. He was up the far wall, pushing off to the near wall, bouncing up to the corner, and suddenly the three Snowman Sentries setting up on a lip around the room had an angry master swordsman with a nasty flaming Sword trailing Lost Light that they¡¯d been targeting with Debuffs for the past few minutes up among them. He got off his first swing just as the first set of fire arrows punched up from the women below as the archers came in, spun about, aimed up, and released in practiced series. A few breaths later, misting lumps collapsing to slush were all that were left of the things as the Mick rampaged through them. ¡°So, how many more of these penguins?¡± I asked him as he hopped down from fifteen feet up with effortless aplomb, skating down the air for just enough to make his last few inches weightless to his feet and knees. He held up three fingers and pointed beyond the door out. ¡°Same configuration, room after the next one, repeated twice more.¡± Everyone rolled their eyes in exasperation, and hurriedly reshuffled the men out in front again. ¡°Vivisize all the points this time,¡± the Mick ordered, taking the lead calmly again. ¡°If they want to find out how to fight more than one of these bastards, let ¡®em go to the Hlaetians an¡¯ find out fer themselves.¡± ¡°Or not go to the somehow frozen wasteland in a temperate zone?¡± Selena piped up smartly. ¡°Tsk! And not get yer full environmental and terrain training in fer yer total Ranger-hood badarseness?¡± he chucked back at her with a grin, making her blush at the mention of her ultimate goals. ¡°Alright, ready to kill some smartarse supper candidates again!¡± ¡°Yes, sir!¡± they all chimed out, and he pushed over the first door to a ¡®safe room¡¯ as I reshaped its frame around it. The room bore yet another door to a room with more Uber Penguins on the other side, still unaware of us due to the Sound Bubble in effect... ------ Two more sets of dead super-penguins and sneaky snowmen later¡­ ¡°Looks like the puzzle room we had to solve at the beginning?¡± Solving which had taken the Mick only seconds, even after all those years. The puzzle had been to open presents that matched, but you were only given three tries. So, open the near corner, and memorize the various configurations so you knew where the matching present was, and la, done in seconds. ¡°Aye.¡± He walked over, tore off the lid of the present there, and a Santa doll popped up. He sniffed once, strolled over to the opposite side of the puzzle, cut off the lid to the box he picked there, and opened it up to reveal another Santa. There was a click as the doorway out unlocked itself. We all ignored the Moarself in the holiday hat standing off to the side in a crude kitchen, watching us while going through the empty motions of making meals with nothing in front of her. Summons made of ectoplasm didn¡¯t really have to eat, although if they did, they could become more and more ¡®real¡¯ over time. Most didn¡¯t last long enough for that to happen, and in the Dungeons, food didn¡¯t pop in because the creatures didn¡¯t need it. ¡°Now, big boss fight. Were nothing much previous, but we¡¯ve a problem now. Six Gumdrops at one time, two fake Moarselfs, and the fake Santa Sclavus itself. Thoughts on how to progress?¡± This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Lure at least the Gumdrops out. We can handle the Moarselves while the rest of you handle Santa,¡± Rogar said instantly. ¡°What, no desire to be pummeled by dozens of magical attacks while we be killing their bosses?¡± The Mick¡¯s fake surprise was heartwarming. ¡°Such fine tanks ye¡¯ll never be in the future, I¡¯m proud of ye!¡± he congratulated them, earning smiles all around. ¡°As for luring¡­¡± Everyone turned to look at me. ¡°So, in the wild, do knaths eat rats?¡± I asked the Mick pointedly. ¡°In the wild, they eat basically anything moving that doesn¡¯t get away fast enough,¡± he confirmed with a broad grin. ------- The door to the chamber we¡¯d originally met the fake Santa in and been teleported away from (no, I hadn¡¯t Interdicted, on the Mick¡¯s instructions) opened up for the second time in nearly twenty years. A large black rat was revealed standing there, as the creatures within there tensed. It sniffed at the air, and then promptly pounced on the nearest Gumdrop, biting and squeaking and breathing flame. There was some startled hopping, and then the air lit up with discharges from the other five things, all of which ruptured on the back side of their own compatriot and miraculously missed the mountain rat biting so energetically at it. It still squeaked in absolute alarm and hightailed it out of the room, with the Gumdrops gliding stoically after it. They could track it over the land with tactile senses of smell as they rolled over the stone, so if they were persistent, they¡¯d eventually catch it. Jostling one another, they headed out down the hall after the rat, which screeched again in alarm, ducking around a corner before another volley of exploding magic erupted all over the walls and floor. If there was a burst of light as a Mass Slash Vuln settled all over them, followed by the gray flash of Mass Imperil IV¡¯s, the three creatures back in the room weren¡¯t motivated enough to look out and see what had happened, it wasn¡¯t their problem. The fact that as they turned the corner the passageway was suddenly only wide enough for one of them, and suddenly divided into yard-long steps up and down that forced them to bounce up and down instead of glide forward didn¡¯t occur to the simple-minded creatures as some form of trap, either. Neither was the invisible Webbing they ran into that stopped their forward progress, just as the first arrows and bolts slammed into them. I watched and waited as the Gumdrop Knaths struggled to get through the sticky adhesives. I¡¯d upcast the Web to a V, and it was capable of holding Jotuns for a time now, so even the impossibly strong little guys didn¡¯t have the mass or leverage to get through or tear free of the incredibly strong and sticky strands before volley after volley of broadheads slammed into and through them, cutting them open and tumbling them over one after another. In turn, they struggled simply to advance and return fire at creatures behind an Illusionary Wall that they couldn¡¯t see through. One by one, the archers marched their shots down the line of Gumdrops, filling them full of a dozen or more arrows each, only the compounding effect of the Imperil and Slash Vuln enabling them to kill the things so quickly. At last they were all tumbled free and dead, Burning vivic, and I dispelled the Wall, Web, and returned the passageway to normal dimensions. ¡°Nicely done,¡± the Mick grinned, eyeing oversized candy-monstrosities strewn across the passageway. Bunita led the way in flaming fashion, and the men hurriedly stowed Bows and Crossbows to draw their own Swords and Glaive to hurry after him. Arrows and bolts poised, the women hurried after them, while I brought up the rear. Sound Bubble meant they didn¡¯t hear the attack coming, so the Mick charged into the room, going right for the Fake Santa Sclavus with the silly holiday cap, shield-slamming it back into the wall and driving Bunita in deep. The other men teamed up on the two smaller Moarselves and kept them too busy to help their boss, the women all shifting to gain a bead on the Sclavus. I dropped the Imperils and Vulns on all three enemy combatants, then started Healing the Mick as the sclavus started slamming point-blank Incantor magic into him. The Moarselves still went down first, not that tough and severely vulnerable to the men once the debuffs were on. The fake Santa Sclavus was much tougher, but between the Mick laying into him with swirls of Lost Light all on fire and the girls punching burning shots into him, he couldn¡¯t do much more than curse and try to stay alive desperately while the Mick stayed all up in his face. It was also a Summons and didn¡¯t have the option to flee, so when the Mick grabbed its lashing arm, pivoted, and suddenly exchanged spots with it into the middle of the room, its reaction was just a wee bit late to preserve its arse. Suddenly the wolfpack was on full Flurry of Blows action, AoO¡¯s were triggering back and forth, and the last 3k of its Health dropped like a rock as the Weapons and arrows tore through it in coordinated savagery and accelerated killing tempos. It dropped in a hissing, twitching corpse, which the Mick chopped the head off of on a whim¡­ and was perhaps unsurprised when it didn¡¯t dissolve away with the rest of its body. ¡°Interesting that it managed to stay intact after being around for so long, aye?¡± he asked me, before handing it over for a Baneskull. Sclavi were frequent helpers of the Dericost undead, so we¡¯d be seeing more of them, and I could use it to double up Banes if needed. ¡°An¡¯ now the reward for the quest, if it still exists¡­¡± --- We were all anticipating the sight of another sclavus in a Santa hat, with another Moarself helper with it. We were not expecting two withered corpses stretched out on the floor of the cell, shrunken and withered with time and age, complete with their still-colorful hats. The Mick looked down at the pair of them with a solemn expression. ¡°They were actually alive¡­¡± he whispered under his breath. ¡°That, that were explaining why none o¡¯ the Gift Boxes sprang up after the Fall. They¡¯d come every Midwinter, right as rain, be opened an'' grant ye something when ye touched them. ¡°The damn bastards actually killed off one o¡¯ the only critters on this damned island that ever did something fer free an¡¯ fun fer us an'' the kids.¡± ¡°Vivisize them, Lord Mick,¡± I said softly. We all watched as, his face unreadable, the Mick applied Bunita to each of the dried corpses. They lit up quickly and serenely, Burning like old, dried wood, the mists licking at the stains left behind after they died. There was more than one way to be set free¡­ AF Chapter 292 – Prismatic Wealth The Prismatic Stones were, right now, among the most desired of all magical items anyone could possibly gain. It wasn¡¯t because they gave Elemental Slayer against all Elementals, although that was indeed important. It wasn¡¯t because they gave Armor Cleaving out on top of that, although that was also pretty important. It wasn¡¯t even because they were fancy and attention-getting and told people that you were trusted by the Crown and the Warlords and had connections. It was because they were only given out to people making craploads of money and incidental jewels in loot up in the Olthoi North. Lugian and Isparian master jewelers and mages were taking the Elemental Stones recovered from what were being called the Prismatic Fields up there, cutting and fusing them together to create new Stones, which were being parceled out slowly and steadily as they were created. Furthermore, you needed to have a Socketed Weapon to receive them. Normal Weapons made by any of the three species didn¡¯t have them, as once they¡¯d been the exclusive province of the Atlan Weapons and their improved successors, the Isparian Weapons. Both of those Weapons could be made by certain of the master smiths armed with Floating Forges that could melt pyreal to the desired state for forging, but nobody wanted an inferior Atlan Weapon. They wanted Warfang Weapons, things forged as only Warlords Briggs and Kristie Rantha could teach the smiths to do. They wanted Weapons that could socket multiple Gems of Power, Weapons that made the eye shudder in awe to look upon their craftsmanship, Weapons that could be Named and grow to power! And they wanted the Lost Light. Damn, did they want the showy spirals that synced with the Aura and magic, flowing as if alive for those who had them. There were only three people alive (other than me) who had functioning Weapons of Lost Light: first Kristie, then Lord Mick, and finally the Lights had Awoken on Briggs¡¯ devastating Greathammer Endure. Nobody else had figured out the trick to gaining the Light, but Kris and Briggs were more than willing to entertain the dreams and ambitions of the noble souls among them who wanted the Lost Light for more than just appearances and power. They were looking for Knights of the Lost Light, and the next phase of their campaigns was soon underway in that direction. Kristie and Briggs began the long and grindy process of clearing the southwest of Osteth, and started the long and violently-contested clearing of the southern landbridge to the Southern Direlands of the opposite shore. The landbridge was literally a zigzag course of flattened hills and mountains, an easy and level road from the Direlands over the top of extremely mountainous terrain, and a sign of terraforming at an incredible level. It was¡­ long, with all the zigs and zags, but completely level, had a paved road, and was totally suitable for marching an army and all of its supplies from the lands of the Sand Kings and undead over to the eastern lands held by Empyrean forces in the past, and by us now. In these times, the landbridge was occupied by an unholy mix of monstrous spawns, creatures tougher and stronger than almost anything found in Osteth, as well as creatures spilling out of numerous formerly lost Dungeons and hidden planar strongholds erected in the area long ago, returned to the mortal plane by the Fall. It was a test for those who might want to be Knights of the Lost Light, be they Caster, Archer, or Melee, on how well they could work together, support one another, and collaborate towards a greater goal. Candeth Martine was waiting for them in the Keep he¡¯d emptied of undead, waiting for us to arrive and forge a road to his new place of power, a place right in the heart of some of the most dangerous lands in all of Dereth. There were paramounts and aspiring paramounts chaffing to get out there and operate from a secure base of operations once again, and who were assigned to clear the lower areas to the sides of the landbridge of any and all established threats and Summons points. The Tanada camps were a particular target of those nominally independent forces, not the least because they were sure to actually have loot¡­ None of them were trying to get up to the Prismatic Fields at this time. Too many Elementals of all kinds, and when there weren¡¯t, there were too many damn olthoi. ------ Karrag and Willow sighed in relief as the Hellfire collapsed under their dual Vuln/Ice Bolt assault. Mages could and did have a lot of problems dealing with dual-element Elementals of the various types, but the single-Element ones were generally easier to pick on. Having a Prismatic Stone set in a Scepter also helped tons, doubling their damage with Elemental Slayer. Against the Dual-Elementals, it was easier to just Imperil, Vuln to Slashing, and let the Melees and Archers cut them down while conserving their magic. As for the Paradox Olthoi, they couldn¡¯t do much against them at all, the olthoi impervious to Life Magic and massively resistant to War Magic. It was not a pleasant thing to discover, nor that the bugs were much more clever than the stories about their swarms from the paramounts indicated. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Kopf¡¯s Axe Lapis, using the flat hammer end, came over and down and crushed the skull of a smaller, racing white Olthoi Mutilator, its pedipalps shining with the telltale radiance of chorozite. It burst into vivus with artificial speed, indicating it was a Summon, like so many of the olthoi sent after them were. It joined dozens of other white spots scattered around their mining spots. In the distance, olthoi flyers and Nobles stayed well away from us, keeping us in sight while not venturing forward themselves. They did order in wave after wave of Summoned Olthoi to drive us off, however. As a result, the operation had to be capable of dealing with the Elementals who not only randomly spawned around the many Energized stones and boulders scattered through the area, but popped up every time the Stones we were after were cut down. Lord Mick hewed through a Tsuric with Bunita, the Cold/Lightning Elemental scattering to dissipating droplets and random sparks absorbed by the revealed Stone crawling with raw Elemental essence of those types. ¡°These things are far, far tougher than those I remember,¡± he commented with feeling. ¡°How much Health?¡± ¡°2500 or so, ranging up to 5k from the core of the Stones,¡± I reported, watching the other members of the teams at work. Mages concentrated on single-type Elementals and Healing, keeping their mana up. The Melees had to intercept any olthoi coming in, or Elementals that spawned off the Stone-cutters. It had already been proven that transporting uncut Stones was a recipe for disaster, resulting in explosive convergences of energies and whole spawns of Elementals erupting into existence at one time. They¡¯d spawn again at great speed, too, unless the Stones were swiftly hurled far apart. Only transporting one Dual Stone to split apart per run was definitely not what anyone wanted to have happen. They all wanted to get rich, so that meant cutting Stones down to a more stable configuration, killing the Elementals that spawned, and dealing with the waves of olthoi being brought in to fight by their more intelligent living masters to drive us off. Vivus had no real effect on the Elemental energies seething everywhere here. They were derived from the land, and if unnaturally concentrated, weere completely natural otherwise. Vivus would still dissipate them slowly, but just peter out once they fell below a certain level¡­ a level which would explode randomly back to life if a surge came through or an uncut Stone flared up. The Archers dealt with any flying olthoi that weren¡¯t Stillflighted and brought down to meet their end, and also focus-fired down any Elementals the Melees were quick to engage and keep off of them. Prismatic-charged arrows weren¡¯t as powerful as the Weapons so gifted, but certainly strong enough to disrupt the Elementals when plunging into the complex Matrices which allowed them to exist as animated things of raw energy. It required a full Fellowship to execute such an operation properly, and did much better with two, covering for one another more readily and allowing the Stone-cutter to work with more peace of mind. There was definite focus on the skill of the cutter, as their ability determined how fast everyone got rich and how much work they had to do. Flub up the carving, and a massive spawn of Elementals made things totally chaotic, AND they didn¡¯t get a Stone to get rich on. The two cutters here were the Masters Feld and Ochran Belmer, a lugian and Isparian respectively, both working on Stones with care and haste as they chipped off unnecessary protrusions and cleared away the disruptive stone interfering with the harmony of the crystals in contact with them. Magic protected against damage from the essences spilling out of their Stones as they worked, wincing as they peeled away the impure fractured crystals dissipating the Elemental Essence within bit by bit. They had no confidence in doing the final cuts with any speed, and reluctantly passed them over to me to finish up. My Pyramid-making in Xarabydun was basically flying under the eyes of the undead. Undead scouts had already examined the big hole left of the place and lost all interest after the remnant power of the thing they¡¯d tried to Summon had been sent away. A twenty-stepper was going up there, going to sync up with the one in Kara and then the one in Hebian-to I put into place next, turning southern Osteth into an impenetrable wall to undesired Portaling and Summoning. Spending my off-hours scaring up a lot of goldweight and material for the highly-useful Prismatic Stones was a good use of my spare time. The effect of Armor-Cleaving was hard enough to come by normally, no need to refuse the benefit on most any Weapon. Briggs and Kristie filled their downtime with forging, abusing poor metal to work off any stress accrued during the day. I certainly had enough Artificing I could do to fill up my days for years¡­ ¡°Opinions o¡¯ anything in particular?¡± the Mick asked me as a fine adamantine chisel wielded with Zeks¡¯ TK proceeded to start tapping the gem-like glowing crystal precisely and chip off unneeded portions with speed and surety. My hands were left completely free as I worked in midair. ¡°A good way to spend my time,¡± I admitted, just as the Fire/Cold Stone in my hand pulsed, swirled, and vented out a swirl of energy that gathered into a spontaneous matrix and gathered into the eight-foot form of a churning mass of Elemental Fire and Cold in a rough humanoid form. It was a bit startled when I poked it with Crown and the Imperil went off on it. A second later, six shafts were glowing and crackling in the fields of the Theral¡¯s Matrix, and then Bunita hacked six blows through it in something under a second. It ruptured badly as crits of Lost Light blew through it in fracturing rainbows and shattered it back into random amounts of its component energies. ¡°Aye. Making money an¡¯ killing things worth the killin¡¯ t¡¯ do it is a good way t¡¯ live,¡± the Mick agreed cheerfully, glancing at my Disk and the growing stack of Stones and minor gemstones upon it. They meant more days of goldweight to improve everyone¡¯s gear, and Prismatic Stones to pass out to the Roaches and other Royal Scouts as needed. There¡¯d been some attempts to steal such things, which had been quite fruitful. I¡¯d tracked down the Stones, the thieves, the fences, the buyers, and their organizations, and there¡¯d been some rapid vacancies in those organizations, as well as eager volunteers for the army life on the frontier under Geas. We just didn¡¯t have to put up with that kind of crap anymore, and I could track every single Prismatic Stone made, since Kris or I were the final cutters on all of them. If the thieves didn¡¯t anticipate how easy finding a magical Stone I was attuned to was, well, that was on them. I certainly didn¡¯t explain it to them. The stealing attempts had fallen off a cliff, however. AF Chapter 293 – Bugs and Elementals and Prisms ¡°You notice the Paradox are expanding their territory?¡± I asked the Mick. He turned his head in that direction, considering the point, just as another wave of Summons crested the hill a half-mile away, about two dozen of them, and swept toward us. The line of Melees immediately moved to intercept in that direction, a trio of Archers moved quickly to support and get the first arrows off as they came in range, and Willow shifted quickly in position to Heal if it was required. The rest of us turned our eyes in the other directions, just in case they got clever and tried multi-pronged attacks. That generally didn¡¯t work out well for them, as the best way to break those up was to toss some Shards at rocks or boulders in their way, and POOF, up popped up to a dozen Dual Elementals right in their paths, happy to crash right into them and take that fight. By the time they could make it to us, their flanking attacks had to wade through a hundred Elementals or more from the active stuff on the landscape, and the Archers generally had a great time sniping them down as they did so. ¡°Weren¡¯t here on yer initial run through with Her Highness, an¡¯ never paid attention to the fine lines afore,¡± he admitted to me, eyes wary as he watched the two cutters at work. His job was to be the first to jump on any Duals that popped up, before they could focus on the two craftsmen chipping away with Crafting Tools of adamantine, concentrating hard as they did their jobs. Combat Gemcutting was quite an art, it turned out! I watched the first arrows shoot out, glittering with Armor-Cleaving Prismatic goodness, defying gravity for extra range and zipping in on the four-winged flying olthoi before they could evade. The first one was punched out of the air well before it could swoop over and past the melee lines, and Selena¡¯s trio smoothly walked their shots over towards the other three present. The olthoi weren¡¯t dragonflies and couldn¡¯t instinctively evade the dots of light coming at them effectively. While the shots rarely killed them outright, once they were on the ground they were much less threatening. ¡°The anti-magical nature of the Paradox Olthoi makes them much more dangerous to things that use magic than the normal Bloodlines. You notice their fliers don¡¯t spit acid, right?¡± ¡°Huh. No, I hadn¡¯t.¡± He promptly accessed the Markspace folders on Olthoi types and tactics to fight them, reading the updated material on them between glances about. There was a grunt from Master Feld. It didn¡¯t take much experience to tell when a Stone was about to surge again, and the Mick settled into a relaxed crouch, his feet an inch off the ground. ¡°They¡¯ve less magical ability and pure intelligence than the pure breeds, and don¡¯t grow quite as big or bad, but that anti-magical nature is proving useful against the Elementals. Their Queen has expanded a long distance north since the Prismatic Fields came into being, and the Summon points are reflecting her influence.¡± ¡°Has she removed a competing Queen or the like?¡± he asked pleasantly, just as Master Feld cursed, made a flinging motion, and whorls of blue Ice and purple Lightning erupted off the Stone the lugian was holding. They gathered quickly into a Matrix forming out of nowhere in the same manner as the Summons system. The Mick was right in front of the Blizzard Dual Elemental as it formed, Bunita¡¯s sparkling path of Lost Light shining with Prismatic slay-the-Elemental fun, shredding and slashing as he tore through the amorphous armor of its defenses and punched a deep Valorous Charge into it. Busy with the olthoi, only two Archers were in support of him, but I was standing right there, dropped a Slashing Vuln IV on it, and waited patiently as he hacked it down in a whirlwind of cuts and slashes, while sparkling broadheads inserted themselves at precise and awkward points in its Matrix. It took him less than thirty seconds to chew it down, its blows and spells crackling off and over Clan¡¯s Baned-up surface, the Shield taking the magic and energy of its blows as it was meant to, and the spikes across its surface cutting and stabbing the appendages the Blizzard leveled upon the shifting blue-black barrier of its surface. I retrieved the glittering jewels that fell from the Elemental as it died, and they joined a small sparkling heap of them on the Mick¡¯s own Disk. Supplementary goldweight was still goldweight, and sometimes a truly valuable jewel would appear among the purified crystals and less precious gems that dropped from the Elementals here. Best of all, most were Elementally-aligned, and so worth double value if used on something requiring that type of energy. The Mick rejoined me, first inspecting Clan carefully to make sure there was no damage. ¡°That Blueshine treatment be nice. A bit o¡¯ a shame the Silvershine is a mite too bright fer me,¡± he commented. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The Blueshine alchemical treatment was one of the new Armor processes that Princess Kristie had started spreading, as were Shadowslake and Silvershine. Blueshine made the object so treated immune to acidic and corrosion effects, so effectively impervious to acid Elementals and acidic magic, and a cinch to maintain. Shadowslake made something non-magnetic, non-reflective, and non-generating sound when they struck something, perfect for stealth types. The first two could stack, but Silvershine did not. Silvershine was bright, showy, and did everything Blueshine did, with the addition of being impervious to Lightning damage. You just had to be able to tolerate walking around in something as polished and bright as a silver mirror. No shininess meant no anti-lightning, so you couldn¡¯t dim it down, either. As a result, it was only used by the vainglorious or attention-seekers, or in Shields which could be covered when not fighting. As shiny as it was, it could be seen from a long way off, and it sent a clear message if you dared to wear it, too. Still, while it wouldn¡¯t help you wading through an acid pool or if immersed, the treated Armor or Shield took absolutely no damage from acid whatsoever, and Silvershine conducted any lightning that contacted it harmlessly away. That was an incredibly desirable effect! ¡°We don¡¯t know if the Paradox Queen is bullying the others, or if they are being coordinated by the Queen Mother. Hey, you want to go wandering down to the closest Hive to the south and see what they are coughing up?¡± I inquired. ¡°Those be looking like Paradox Nobles over there,¡± he noted, his Grey Sword on Black Kite Shield Mask of Clarity coming down and magnifying his vision toward the olthoi watching unperturbed as their Summons were cut down. No doubt another group was already being rounded up and on the way, coming in about every ten minutes, with a major group arriving once an hour. The major group had been divided into three sections initially, but after the total failure of the first pincering attempt, they all just came straight up the middle in a horde of nearly a hundred of the things now. Those were the fights where I dropped Speed on everyone and really let them go to town on the hacking and pounding, even the two cutters putting down their chisels to join the bashing crunch-work line of fighters. Blueshined Armor and Shields really did shut down the acidic aspect of the olthoi attacks. ¡°Yes,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°It means this really is going to be a melee fight when it comes up here. The forces pressing further east haven¡¯t reported any excessive numbers of Paradox yet, but I¡¯ve no doubt there¡¯s going to be some.¡± ¡°There be a Brood Hive on the southern slopes in the southeast there,¡± the Mick dredged up from memory. ¡°Sits right on the main pass inta the North here. If that Queen were deposed and it now be spawning Paradox Olthoi, that might be important, aye?¡± he mused aloud. ¡°Creating work for yourself, I see.¡± The Melees were almost done with the olthoi, a heap of shattered carapaces already Burning vivic and crumbling with unnatural speed, even for Summons. It appeared their own Paradox nature made them a fast meal for vivus. ¡°I been putting all the Scouts I can through the Hives, getting the Achievement Feats an¡¯ getting¡¯ Favored Enemy bonuses up as fast as they can. The bugs are not a foe ta underestimate. Some o¡¯ the kids actually take the advice seriously, especially when they get run over by swarms in the Hive Dungeons an¡¯ barely make it out alive.¡± ¡°How¡¯re the Roaches doing in Baishi?¡± I asked, inclining my head at his team. ¡°With Kopf there, they can hold their own steady-like, no issues there. Without him, they are shaky and they know it. They just cannae kill the stuff fast enough.¡± He flexed his arms unconsciously. ¡°Need t¡¯ be stronger, be able t¡¯ push back against them an¡¯ their mass in tight quarters where ye can¡¯t dodge everything, an¡¯ archery be not always possible. The girls be puttin¡¯ a lot inta the flanking stuff for teamwork, but ye can¡¯t surround an¡¯ wolfpack a whole swarm o¡¯ the things. It¡¯s a harsh an¡¯ cruel learning experience.¡± All of the Roaches, even the slenderest and shortest women, were as strong as the strongest of natural humans by now, investing a lot of Karma into the Isparian side of the System to get their raw muscle up, if only so they could carry more. This was helped with Scout, Melee, and Archer Levels raising up their foundations with Cover Your Weakness. The bugs were still stronger than they were, generally speaking, and they weighed more than any human of equal height, with the beetle-like ones up to twice that. When a dozen of them were running at you in a swarm, pushing, it wasn¡¯t fun trying to hold them back, and finesse-style melee combat just didn¡¯t work well in such circumstances. ¡°I¡¯ve noticed they¡¯re upgrading their Armor slowly, too, but they¡¯re clinging to their agile fighting style, so they aren¡¯t moving to the heavier armors.¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ we not be tanks, so I¡¯ll not press them on it. It be pressing on their limits, however. They be looking at Her Highness and those Bracers she wears pretty enviously¡­¡± ¡°And they saw how chopped apart she got without proper armor, right?¡± I asked in return. He flashed a knowing smile. ¡°An¡¯ that after knowing how hard it be t¡¯ hurt her. Woman acts like she¡¯s made o¡¯ steel or something,¡± he said knowingly. ¡°Her Highness says there¡¯s a couple Enchantments which make Armor move smoother, an¡¯ they be very interested in them.¡± Armor had Slot restrictions, and conserving those Slots while getting everything into them possible was important. The Classic combination was +V and Heavy Fortification, if you could reach it, giving you maximum protection and the highest order of protection against critical hits. That took all ten Slots, however, meaning that if you wanted flexibility in your Armor, you had to overwrite some of the existing magic. It was also why Greater Soulbound was so beloved, granting +IV for just two Slots and some Essence! ¡°Celestial Mail, yes. I¡¯ve seen them putting Nimbleness onto their Armor to up the Dex limit, yes.¡± Nimbleness increased the Dex bonus limit of your Armor by two. +2 to Armor Class for one Slot was a good deal, but you actually had to have the Dexterity to make it useful. ¡°What be Celestial Mail?¡± the Mick asked genially, always finding us a well of just more stuff that were possible that nobody else knew about. ¡°It¡¯s a way to make Armor that is very light and strong. It¡¯s also Slotless and pricey to construct, you¡¯re basically making Armor along the Heavenly paradigm of what is worn by actual Angels and other Celestial warriors,¡± I informed him. AF Chapter 294 – Bugs and Roses ¡°That do sound a mite fair difficult,¡± Lord Mick agreed with me. ¡°Benefits?¡± ¡°+6 Bonus to Dex limit over standard Armors,¡± I informed him. He blinked. ¡°Fer no Slot?¡± he repeated, just to be sure. ¡°None. It¡¯s like 10k in goldweight-equiv crafting, however. Can¡¯t gain it with Naming Karma.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ a lot o¡¯ work for Armor. Like, working on a full set o¡¯ adamantine full plate,¡± the Mick pointed out, remembering some of the numbers Kristie had given him for high-end Gear. ¡°The alloys are extremely exotic, the Skill reqs are impressive, to say the least, and she¡¯ll be coming to me to get the raw materials Energized if she were to make it. It¡¯s really good stuff, just a degree below skinmail or skinplate.¡± Which, since it involved a suit of Armor basically being worn as a second skin, was the apex of Dexterity-centered Armor. Shieldplate, which maxed out the Damage Reduction side of things, was its toughness-centered counterpart. ¡°So, that be something that we set up orders for. Gor, no instant armor rewards an¡¯ master craftsmen needing time t¡¯ make something! What be the world coming to?¡± he complained fervently to the sky. ¡°Speaking of master craftsmen making something, interested in a second job after this harvest run ends?¡± I asked him. His dark eyes glittered with interest. ¡°Aren¡¯t ye still workin¡¯ on yer Pyramid?¡± he inquired in amusement. ¡°Taking a day off for a break.¡± These harvest runs never went on more than four hours before taking off, as that time limit tended to just start hitting the danger level of mana expenditures. People who argued they could last just a little bit longer were encouraged to remain behind so nobody but them would die from their greed in the future. They had learned to shut up and play it safe rather quickly after that. ¡°What are ye looking at?¡± he asked reasonably, wondering what would get me so interested. ¡°Found the mine where the rose quartz for my Ring came from.¡± I pointed north and a little west. ¡°About nine miles that way.¡± He¡¯d been there when I found my Rose of Celdon replica, and I could see the instant interest of following up on a forgotten or hidden Quest chain pop in his eyes. Try as he might to deny it, those had been some of the funnest days of his life. ¡°Not something ye care to solo?¡± he asked calmly. ¡°Well, there¡¯s a new olthoi hive parked right on top of it,¡± I admitted casually. ¡°Gor, that might be a bit hard to solo,¡± he admitted. ¡°What about Her Highness? Not inviting her?¡± ¡°You might have noticed that she¡¯s in the middle of a rather involved wiping of ground with a whole lot of rather aggressive soldiers and her students. This would be taking away some of her Fuzzy time.¡± ¡°She do get a mite testy when she don¡¯t get some o¡¯ the big lug,¡± the Mick admitted casually, a fact usually taken out on anyone commenting on her resulting bad temper. ¡°Still, wouldn¡¯t that be giving the big man a bit o¡¯ R&R from the likes of her?¡± he had to grin. ¡°The only thing Briggs might be getting tired of as regards her is smiling too much after a night of power-grappling.¡± ¡°That be true. I take it she be capable of controlling her times, and no kids be on the way soon?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Aye, total control of the menstrual cycle. Kris¡¯ll have kids when she wants to have kids, and not whit sooner or later.¡± ¡°I be notin¡¯ that ye¡¯ve not managed t¡¯ find yerself a man either, lass. Ye do know that half the Casters in the Freehold forces be carryin¡¯ a torch for ye, right?¡± ¡°The likelihood of me taking a fellow spellcaster as a spouse is not very high, Lord Mick,¡± I replied with my usual calm, although he was indeed listening keenly. ¡°No such man is going to like me being better at the same duties as him, and I¡¯m not interested in having a house-husband, either.¡± ¡°Ye¡¯re lookin¡¯ fer a paramount non-Caster?¡± he asked, eyebrows rising in surprise. ¡°With steadfast morals and not intimidated or threatened by my own accomplishments. How many of the existing paramounts do you think that applies to?¡± He actually stroked his beard thoughtfully. ¡°Ho¡­ I¡¯ll throw in mature and not rash an¡¯ seekin¡¯ t¡¯ prove themselves, as ye act older than I be, sometimes. Aye, and good morals, that be difficult among me fair rivals an¡¯ peers¡­¡± he trailed off, a ghost of a smile flashing past. ¡°I saw a name pop up in that scoundrel¡¯s head of yours,¡± I noted calmly. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Well, aye,¡± he coughed. ¡°Not sure ye want to hear ¡®em?¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m definitely interested in what the Black Aluvian roguish Lord having an affair with the Queen Mother would consider a proper match for me,¡± I replied easily. He was utterly unaffected by that observation. ¡°Well, her son be one o¡¯ em.¡± I just blinked a moment at that. I had been consciously staying away from any sort of climbing the power scale, such that I¡¯d actually been refusing to picture King Borelean as anything more than a necessary and competent social acquaintance. His not being in the Markspace didn¡¯t help his chances, although his Aura was solid Silver, and he¡¯d likely be a Paladin in any other time and place. ¡°Interesting your thoughts turned that way. I have noticed the mixed looks he turns Kris¡¯ way, especially after she found Briggs.¡± ¡°Aye, that. A woman like that at his side, his family¡¯s hold on the throne be all but assured, but again, he couldn¡¯t control someone like that, an¡¯ he be loving his daughter too much t¡¯ consider such a move.¡± ¡°And I¡¯d be more appropriate?¡± I was amused at the idea. ¡°Well, ye aren¡¯t pursuing secular power at all,¡± the Mick pointed out to me. ¡°All yer power is wielded in the magical community an¡¯ in teaching people t¡¯ better themselves. The fact yer terrifyingly strong is only contrasted with the fact that ye don¡¯t show off, don¡¯t flex, an¡¯ ye¡¯ve so much restraint ye basically shame every other Caster in yer area into following along with yer example. ¡°Yer a mother figure, an¡¯ Her Highness is more a wild lover or overprotective big sister figure to everyone. Truth be told, a lot o¡¯ folk wonder how ye put up with one another so much, an¡¯ just figure ye¡¯ve the patience of a saint.¡± ¡°And you?¡± I had to ask at that. He looked away, up at the sky. ¡°She puts on a damn fine act,¡± he said flatly, and I had to smile. ¡°I can see ye both in the Markspace, ye know, even if most o¡¯ those there can¡¯t. What everyone sees as wild activity an¡¯ rambunctiousness is just her burning off those emotions that be roiling through her all the time, an¡¯ they don¡¯t see the iron hard controlled bitch calculatin¡¯ cold an¡¯ mean an¡¯ dangerous as all fuck behind them violet eyes o¡¯ hers.¡± ¡°Aye, she and her sisters and mother have a Stupidity Stat of legendary proportions, always pushing them to test their limits. People just don¡¯t understand that what looks like rash behavior from their side is just ¡®I gotta do this or I¡¯m going to wonder forever if I could¡¯, balancing costs and consequences, and taking the moment to stretch and measure the right way against the possible way.¡± ¡°A Stupidity Stat, now.¡± He tried to fight back the smile and couldn¡¯t. ¡°Well named, that.¡± ¡°Can you imagine what she¡¯d be like without it?¡± I challenged him. His eyes grew thoughtful as he considered that. ¡°That would be a damn terrifying woman all the time,¡± he admitted. ¡°Now she¡¯s fearsome, but it¡¯s a fun kind of fearsome, glad she be on our side. If she didn¡¯t act like such an emotional hothead at times¡­¡± ¡°Ranthas exult in who and what they are. They love being strong and fast and smart and skilled and dangerous¡­ but they also know very, very well what it means to NOT be that way. You want to piss off a Rantha, just start picking on those weaker than you for no reason, or to cause pain, or to kill. No surer way to tweak that Stupidity Stat, except it¡¯s all focused on you, and they will put ALL the emotion behind fixing your problem for you.¡± ¡°Aye, believing that.¡± His eyes narrowed at he looked at her in Markspace, surrounded by strings and threads connected actively to Briggs, her students, and the forces at work in the south. ¡°She¡¯s holdin¡¯ in some damn awesome grudges. I can feel ¡®em reverberating in the Markspace around her like unseen thunderstorms, ready to strike.¡± ¡°Oh, that¡¯s totally true. In anyone else, they¡¯d be life-consuming obsessions. To a Rantha, they are just items to check off the list, in their time and place¡­ but they are always working towards them.¡± ¡°Aye? What obsessions now?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Well, she went all-heart into the legends of the Lost Light. The undead and shades of Bael¡¯Zharon who brought them down are Hope-slayers to her, and she¡¯s determined to prove them utterly wrong. That¡¯s why she¡¯s down south now, considering that¡¯s the highest and best thing she could be doing. That it brings revenge for what they did during the Fall is only a bonus.¡± ¡°Aye, then.¡± There was a swirl of Radiant particles coming up his arm from Bunita¡¯s hilt. ¡°A code worth the believing in is something too few find in their lives,¡± he admitted with uncharacteristically quiet respect. ¡°Aye. Then, the olthoi made a damnably deep impression on her when we came into Holtburg. She knows what hiveminds are like and has no mercy for them. She will see them expunged from this island, and if need be, from the world entire in time. They¡¯ve made a horrible and implacable enemy of her, and likely have no idea of the scale or seriousness of it.¡± ¡°Ho. That be a grudge big enough to power you through a lifetime, I be thinkin¡¯,¡± he nodded once. ¡°On a minor level, she is definitely going to kill Bonecrunch and bring his whole kingdom of drudges down in vivic flame.¡± ¡°Made her promise not t¡¯ do that one without me,¡± he mentioned through grit teeth. ¡°So did King Borelean. That¡¯s why the Royals are so represented as she forges the road to the Lost Light.¡± All three generations of the Boreleans were fighting on the landbridge to the south, committing themselves to a cause that was even greater than the kingdom of Isparians they represented. Standing in the sun and fighting wasn¡¯t exactly what the Scouts were meant to be doing, however, so it was not a priority for the Mick to lead his people there. If they had that goal, however, he would certainly have encouraged them towards it. ¡°What was the other names? You had more than one?¡± I prodded him. ¡°Oh, that. Mmm. Master Ben Ten,¡± he mentioned in a dismissive aside that was all act. Okay, that startled me. ¡°Really.¡± An undead swordmaster was definitely not something I¡¯d been prone to consider as an amour, Curse-born or no. ¡°Aye. He¡¯s likely not aware of it himself. But when I stop in on the old master, it¡¯s not Her Highness he be asking about.¡± Huh. A traditional Sho swordmaster and philosopher. Well, that was definitely someone different from an Aluvian King, such as it was, at least once I restored him to living and breathing life. Likely he¡¯d also realized that his only legacy had been his students, and no children or family of his own, in a time and place where more children were the only way to restore the future, and teaching them the only way we¡¯d survive as a people. Perhaps all of it was only increased by his exposure to greater powers of the universe, beyond what he had ever thought possible. ¡°Your matchmaking references are noted, Lord Mick. Ready for a side trip to a new Dungeon/hive/mine?¡± I asked him. ¡°Of course, lass!¡± There was a grunt from Master Belmer, and the Mick glided forwards to confront the Fire and Lightning-incarnated Conflagration Elemental ready to spout from the shaved-down Dual Stone that the gemcutter had chipped down... AF Chapter 295 – Mines and Hives Nine miles further north in the Esper mountain foothills... ¡°Ye¡¯ll have to forgive me, lass, but that looks a wee bit ominous,¡± the Mick pointed out solemnly. We¡¯d killed every spawn within a half-mile of the hive with extreme prejudice, making sure none of the olthoi that had and might spawn upon them would be coming to the relief of the bulbous mass of the new hive sitting on the side of the mountain here. There hadn¡¯t been any olthoi among those Summons near this hive. It was covered with veins of purple-red that looked pretty out of place for an olthoi hive, which tended to the black and greenish-yellow kind of hues. The ground around and before it for hundreds of meters was strewn with crystals, stones, and sands of the same hue, pushed and piled up outside the entry like mine tailings. I eyed the Rose of Celdon on my finger. The color was remarkably similar. The Mick and Scouts noticed my gesture. ¡°Harlune found something, and the olthoi bit off something a mite extra when they went in after it?¡± Rogar asked calmly, staring at the main tunnel to the place. It didn¡¯t even have any olthoi milling about the entryway, and didn¡¯t look meticulously maintained like it should, somehow ragged and coarse¡­ and there were none of the mushroom and other fungi growths about which the olthoi encouraged. ¡°Kopf, up with me. Olthoi tunnels formation.¡± The lugian Royal Guard, on indefinite loan for his services and happy to engage in Prismatic harvesting, had his Axe Lapis flipped around to use the Hammer side of its head, now gleaming with the toxic green hue of Olthoi Slayer underneath the hard white of its Soulfire Enhancements. He was definitely looking to earn himself some Lost Light, but that was for the future. He stepped up with the Mick to take center lead together. Olthoi tunnels averaged five to ten feet wide, depending on their primacy, and the winding nature of them with so many turn-offs meant it was easy to be swarmed from multiple directions if you were unwary. That meant a true exploration had to include the side tunnels, chamber by chamber, plotting things out, and blocking off pathways that looped back and connected to other chambers. Nobody was worried about being trapped anywhere with me there. I could open a pathway through the stone with minimal effort and great speed, making it impossible for us to be buried or pinned in place, as well as easily capable of blocking off olthoi reinforcements. Our local Markspace map was up, and I had Physical, Acid, and belatedly Fire Protections and Resistances up on everyone as we headed in, to see what there was to see. ------ Olthoi with red crystals growing out of them like spikes and breathing fire instead of acid were not among what we¡¯d been expecting, and they were zealously aggressive in charging at us and trying to kill the intruders to the hive. None of them were Summons, either, which was heartening, as it meant we didn¡¯t have to watch for respawns as their glittering carapaces were cracked, shattered, and pierced through. The burning stuff that had replaced their acidic blood flamed on contact with the air as it fell to the gritty, sandy floor of purple-red sands. The normal olthoi ecology of slime, goo, and resin seemed to have been replaced by jutting stands of sometimes-sharp quartz crystals placed here, there, and everywhere, easy to get caught on and eager to cut any exposed skin not at least as tough as leather. Mass Barkskin was used to reinforce everyone¡¯s hide, although that didn¡¯t stop the crystals from scraping loudly on armor, sometimes actually igniting for a few minutes after they did so. Side chambers had olthoi chipping away mindlessly at the stone, their pedipalps all tipped with ruby-hued crystals. They seemed to be ingesting the stone and carrying it away internally¡­ but we hadn¡¯t seen any going outside to deposit their loads, so where were they dumping them? The stones they ate were reduced to molten sludge inside them, which cooled rapidly. Perhaps not oddly enough, they also coalesced into the red quartz crystals as they did so, which I loaded up with some trepidation, really wondering what was going on. ¡°There¡¯s definite a Fire basis to them,¡± I confirmed when Selena asked me. ¡°I¡¯m not sure of the particular bias. I imagine that the olthoi nibbled on them as they do trace elements in their other hives, and the elemental imbalance grew to be too much and took them over. Instead of a standard olthoi ecology, they are attempting to form one based on the growth of the crystals instead.¡± I carefully put my hand on one wall, shaking my head. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of earth and fire power in the stone here. That also looks like it was cleared by picks and tools, but smoothed out considerably by olthoi pincers.¡± I nodded at the wall, and Kopf, the most experienced with stone out of the others, grunted his agreement. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°So, there were some sort of mine here, the olthoi went into it, an¡¯ there were magic here that took them, as opposed ta being taken by them,¡± the Mick said gleefully. ¡°Aye, an¡¯ no wonders there be none outside. Looking and feeling as they do, they are basically a whole new species of olthoi, an¡¯ wouldnae the other olthoi set upon them as rivals?¡± ¡°Entirely likely. Just like black and red ants,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°That means there¡¯s a young Queen, whatever brood she¡¯s been able to start and support, and whatever protectors she brought with her, down here in the hive¡¯s tunnels, as always near the bottom and the birthing pool.¡± ¡°Aye, it¡¯s likely quick going down, just follow the chambers with the pick patterns on them,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°As I dinnae wanna be swarmed from the sides, I¡¯ll prefer we be clearing the side chambers as we go. The olthoi be not outside harvesting, so what¡¯s under here is what we be facing¡­ but we dinnae know how big these mines are. If they be expanded t¡¯ provide a different kind o¡¯ food, this place could be a mite large.¡± ¡°There¡¯s been nothing to vivify but the olthoi themselves,¡± Mizaya pointed out, watching the passage out of this expansion chamber carefully. ¡°That¡¯s very strange for the bugs, compared to the other Dungeons we were training in.¡± ¡°Aye, so it is,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Careful and patient. We got a built-in map, we¡¯ve got a tunnel digger with us, and we¡¯ve not seen anything like the Baishi Hive puts out. We¡¯ll see how much tougher they get as we go.¡± ------ It turned out that was quite a bit tougher. Their carapaces became more crystalline, thicker, stronger, and if still vulnerable to blunt trauma, the olthoi were stronger, hit harder, and the flames they exhaled were almost viscous in their thickness and ability to cling. Armor Firebanes were hurriedly added to everyone¡¯s attire (except the one who didn¡¯t wear any armor¡­ and I wasn¡¯t worried about fire damage, anyway), and Brilliant Enchantments on the Bows and Weapons were deployed to crash through the significantly enhanced natural armor of the creatures as we continued exploring and pressing into the place. They weren¡¯t any faster, but they were definitely stronger and heavier, to the point Kopf had to grunt to take their crashing charges, and crystals extruded from their carapaces cracked and shattered upon Scutum and Clan as the Shields ate some impressive impacts. The olthoi were enduring more and more punishment as we pushed in, cleaned out side chambers, and made sure there was nothing behind us, and only occasionally in front of us. There were no nictitating membranes dividing up the place, but there was a dust in the air that had everyone dropping Masks over their mouths so as to take care and not inhale. The grit and dust of the place was slowly getting into everything, and I took to cleaning everyone off with Prestidigitation just to remove the stuff. The mine also never cooled off, although that didn¡¯t surprise anyone. The glowing lights of the crystals were spooky in a different way than the phosphorescent fungi and goo of a normal olthoi cave, giving the impression of flames in the shadows waiting to materialize, to reach out and burn us if we passed too close to them. When some of those shadows were olthoi the crystals were burning on top of, instincts turned out to be right! I¡¯d Shaped up a big bowl of the local reddish stone and filled it with water, which everyone had dunked their waterskins in and drunk from, especially when I chilled it down. All of them had Masspacks of their own Artificing by now to store the water in, and we¡¯d been going through it fairly steadily. Thirst seemed to be a side-effect of the dry air, grit, and earth and fire mana present here. I was perhaps the least surprised when the reddish hue of the bowl¡¯s stone darkened to almost black when I chilled it down. I tapped a cluster of red quartz crystals off the Wall with a minor Shaping, one of dozens tossed on my Disk as open loot. As before, like every time I¡¯d handled the stuff, it lit up under my fingers, and I as held on, burst into flame at my touch, bright and steady, if not very hot. ¡°The stuff likes ye,¡± the Mick noted, and I inclined my head, testing out Investing the cold portion of my Ice and Fire nature. The fire snuffed out instantly, and the quartz paled in color to a delicate pink at the touch of frozen mana affecting it. The bright red hue returned instantly as I heated up my grip again. ¡°Are those actually valuable, or just curios, Lady Magos?¡± Hundig asked with interest. After all, we¡¯d passed hundreds of them during out explorations, and I could harvest them with basically a wave of my hands, no chipping them off the walls required. ¡°The ones I¡¯ve been taking have enough mana in them as a totality to be worth at least a goldweight in pyromana as a whole,¡± I informed them. ¡°If the crystals are broken off or separated, they drop in mana almost instantly, so they¡¯d only be useful for larger projects and almost nothing individually. You might be able to use some of the larger individual crystals as focuses or gems in fire-related objects, but not much beyond that.¡± I pointedly touched my Rose of Celdon to one of the smaller crystal formations, and there was a bright burning spark. The whole crystal went instantly white, drained of color and pyromana. I held up my Ring, staring at it. ¡°Maybe five gold of energy there, but it went right into a secondary Matrix. Does anyone mind if I keep draining random crystals that don¡¯t have much salvage value down?¡± The Roaches looked around at one another, and shook their heads. ¡°Take as ye like, lass,¡± the Mick just nodded to me, and I nodded back, going around the walls and draining a dozen jutting crystals to whiteness as I did so. ¡°Am I correct in believing they¡¯ll fill back up?¡± he asked. ¡°Yes, although I don¡¯t know how long it will take. At least a day, I¡¯d imagine.¡± I eyed the Rose of Celdon on my hand. ¡°Very small bits here, and these are just minor extrusions of the main mana vein. I imagine that I could fill it up very quickly off wherever the primary vein this Ring¡¯s stone was made from happens to be.¡± ¡°Well, now, that be sounding like something found deeper in this bug¡¯s hole we be in,¡± he nodded. ¡°We should be about finding it now, I reckon?¡± he raised his voice. His Roaches groaned at him in good-natured complaint as they got to their feet, and it was time to move out again on our intrepid exploration into a very different kind of olthoi hive. AF Chapter 296 – A Ruby Queen and her Court Our delve continued. If it was taking longer than anticipated, nobody minded, as we could just pull back if required. For whatever reason, the entire hive wasn¡¯t mobilizing to fight us like it normally would, leaving us only having to deal with one or two rooms of olthoi at a time, which, while it could get a little hairy with spiked uber-bugs trying to force their way past the Shields of the fellows in front of us, was not nearly as dangerous as a Baishi Hive rush, which could end up with literally dozens of Summoned olthoi coming from all directions to join the fight and repel intruders. Finishing up that huge a fight just meant the respawns were already on the way and coming for you, and that was if you won the fight! Perhaps because there were no Summons at all, this fight was much easier, and the lack of the olthoi¡¯s alien ecology was definitely interfering with any pheromonal alarm system they had. The dryness in the place was only increasing, but the number of olthoi was only going up, all with ever more Amarinthine Ruby Quartz sticking out of them. They were breathing fire instead of acid, their pincers and pedipalps long and vicious and now heating to cherry-red in temperature as they fought. Helms that morphed closed became quite necessary in the fight. I was still accumulating goldweights worth of crystal formations, and even had to add more Disks to set them on as we kept going, which nobody minded too much. Even if Fire-centered, that was still a bunch of goldweight for everyone to use. We learned the spikes not glowing red-hot were carrying a fire poison when one of the wingless flyers, basically fighting more like centipedes than anything, managed to bite one into Hundig¡¯s arm though the sleeve of his mail, and he screamed in agony as the blood in his arm literally lit up from within as it began to boil. The Resist Fire probably saved his life, and plunging Cold Darts slamming into it cooled things down enough for me to Neutralize Poison on it. In the meantime Politia had to take over his place on the front line, keeping a Shield up so Kopf wouldn¡¯t be flanked and could keep pounding away at the bugs. The Saber-wielding Scout was incensed and affronted that he¡¯d been forced off the front line, moreso when the Mick just told him to get on Politia¡¯s Disk and start shooting the bugs off her. He started pouring in the point-blank shots on the bugs in revenge, and they started going down with arrows in their smoldering eyes quite regularly. --- ¡°That were an unpleasant surprise,¡± the Mick admitted as we took a breather, inspecting the Armor and Shields of the tankers for signs of penetration. ¡°I¡¯m actually surprised more of the olthoi aren¡¯t venomous, but they seemed to have gone the acidic route instead. Probably their blood boils most venoms out of their systems, so it¡¯s a useless attack form against things where they come from.¡± ¡°Aye. Grievvers have the burning blood, too, an¡¯ I be not thinkin¡¯ ye poison the mushrooms easy, like,¡± he agreed, his arms lifted as Milee went all over his Armor quickly and thoroughly, while Selena was inspecting Kopf, Hundig going over Rogar, and Mizaya inspecting Politia, while Camwise stood on alert with me. The metal was generally holding, since it was now Firebaned, but the underlying leathers weren¡¯t nearly so tough, and I had to Mend up Politia, Hundig, and Rogar alike, as they were all wearing mail over leathers, instead of plate like Kopf and the Mick were. The Shields were fine, however. The olthoi clawed and scraped at them incessantly, but the adamantine was defying claws, crystals, and heat without much trouble, although the bugs were trying hard to yank them around and out of position on those holding them, too. One of the advantages of having so many limbs was that the olthoi were able to engage in such wrestling matches and still attack with their other appendages. One of the disadvantages was that wrestling a Shield was a Grappling Attack and triggered Close-Quarters Fighting¡¯s extra attack, and natural attacks at close range triggered Sword beats Fist. Landing attacks triggered Opportunist from the Melees next to you, with the result that plunging thrusts and bouncing smashes were filling the air with the cries of olthoi, and that was without the archers and melees opening up opportunities for one another as they plied their attacks in proper wolfpack style, opening up opportunities for one another. With Brilliant on their Weapons crunching through the olthoi¡¯s upgraded natural armor, it was a case of how much damage could accumulate and how fast it could do so. Politia wasn¡¯t even bothering to fight much, just concentrating on keeping her Shield up and Kopf free to pound away with Lapis. Hundig drew a stronger Bow than she did, and had no difficulty shooting over her smoothly and constantly, reaping a faster toll than the Archer as a result. His shots opened a Touch of the Wasp attack for her, usually accomplished with a quick stab to the thorax with her smallsword Poke, which triggered Opportunist for Kopf next to her and Break the Shield for Hundig, and AoO¡¯s bounced back and forth as extra attacks rippled through the Wolfpack Formation with relentless regularity and precision. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. A straight up Cursing debuff was my own normal contribution, having to be aware of Health and Healing status at all times. The shield line was an eruption of fire, stabbing pincers and hacking pedipalps, and the tanks were constantly taking damage from pokes and burns, one way or another. It was okay, I was on top of it, and the olthoi were rupturing and exploding as the number of attacks and crits blew through them with great speed. They shrieked with sharper, more grating cries than before, and then collapsed into flaming corpses the vivus slowly went to work on. -------- These last olthoi were incredibly mutated, with carapaces looking completely like crystal, soldiers with six fighting limbs that normal Weapons would probably have barely damaged between the spikes and gleaming strength of their hides. Brilliant didn¡¯t care and hacked into the reinforced body beneath them that radiated so much heat, every smacking generating a burst of liquid flames that wanted to engulf each of the attackers and splatter them in flaming blood¡­ which wouldn¡¯t surpass their Resist Fire, so it didn¡¯t matter. Hundig was back on Shield duty, wisely focusing on defense and letting the archers behind him and Kopf do the killing, concentrating on interfering with the attacks on the bugs which soon concentrated on the big lugian, impeding their strikes and opening them up for brutal retaliation from the Vanguard. He still ended up the most injured of the front line because of his lighter armor, although Rogar wasn¡¯t far behind. ¡°These are Brood Guard,¡± the Mick commented, eyeing the only way out of the chamber we hadn¡¯t explored. He, like the rest of us, was eyeing a pool full of crimson liquid gently aflame with too-scarlet fires, a fiery equivalent to the acidic pools preferred by normal olthoi. Bunita was sticking out of one of the crawling larvae, their jaws dripping fire, who had crawled out of the pool to eat the dead and attempt to nibble on the living, too. The Brood Guard looked like Soldiers, except half again taller and looking to be made out of glowing ruby crystal. We¡¯d gone straight to a three-man line to face them, with Rogar plying his Glaive from above and behind the Mick while the Archers concentrated on Hundig and Kopf. I¡¯d had to Heal the trio constantly from the damage hacking down at them from above, and Hundig was getting the anti-poison treatment again while his Armor Mended up. ¡°The queen is coming up, then,¡± I murmured, as Hundig grit his teeth while the poison in his system was chilled away to ineffectiveness. We¡¯d been through this entire hive, a winding, sprawling mass of tunnels and chambers. The areas that were built off mining tunnels were pretty apparent by how geometric they were compared to the more organic tunnels of the olthoi. ¡°We can probably expect her to be as mutated as these Brood Guards,¡± the Mick commented. ¡°An¡¯ Queens always have Royal Guards o¡¯ some sort with them.¡± ¡°Tougher than these?¡± Kopf asked carefully in his deep voice. ¡°Logically? Yes. As long as the queen survives, the hive survives. The toughest olthoi stay with the queen.¡± There were a lot of spark patterns on the Mick¡¯s Armor now, super-heated pincers lighting off against it repeatedly, looking for weaknesses and openings, and not finding many, just like Kopf. Ranthas knew how to make Armor, and mail just didn¡¯t hold up like plate did in this scenario. ¡°So a strong Queen capable of keeping a mutant hive going without external help, and possibly even rivalry from other hives.¡± I eyed the passageway leading out of this. ¡°I want to know what I¡¯m fighting, I don¡¯t want to stumble into it. I will note that that passageway is notably wider and higher than most of these we¡¯ve run across.¡± ¡°Aye, were thinking that meself,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°Narrowing it down a wee bit mite be in our best interests.¡± I breathed as I considered my mana. ¡°I¡¯m at half mana right now. That¡¯s not a good place to be for a boss fight. I don¡¯t know how much experience this thing has, but the best time to attack is while your opponent is tired and hurt¡­¡± The Mick looked at me, bounced back to his feet and ordered, ¡°Narrow that passage down,¡± as he patted Kopf on the side. The stoic lugian, having been taking a LOT of punishment and massively bruised after the last few fights, stomped up carefully beside the Mick, right in front of the passage coming in. I really wanted to get more mana back, but concentrated on Shaping the walls there, stone flowing and billowing out into a narrow profile just wide enough for one olthoi to fit through at most, taking it right up to the ceiling so nothing could scamper from on high. There was a scramble for the Disks as the Archers hurriedly got into position, with Rogar again standing behind and above the Mick with his Glaive Accent ready for use. There was a skitter down the tunnel, a quiet crunching of stone under really hard and sharp legs. ¡°Valus take the hindmost!¡± the Mick bellowed cheerfully down the tunnel. ¡°Come at us, ye damn bug!¡± -As you wish.- I swore and drove the ceiling down in my little slot further. The Ruby Olthoi Sentinel that bounced around the corner and came hurtling at us was just a moving mass of crystal and spikes moving far too fast for something that big¡­ and there were more behind it. I wasn¡¯t sure how the Mick got the Archer Stand Thrust off, but Kopf stepped into its charge, set himself, and the ground crunched under his Crushfoot as he locked his stance. Two hacking crescents came in over his Shield and glanced shrilly off his thick helm and backplate, leaving hot glowing streaks on them as they did so. Behind it was another Sentinel, which looked like it was ready to run right up and over the one in front, except the ceiling was too low for them both to fit through. Behind them both loomed the mass of the standing Queen, a burning thing of molten blood inside a body of ruby crystal, fire dripping from her mandibles and pulsing clearly visible through transparent chitin and flesh. Brilliant arrows thrummed and drove into and through crystalline flesh as shafts of cold Light, the Sentinel shrieked and surged forward again, trying to force the two bipeds with their Shields back¡­ and only succeeding in impaling itself again, Rogar almost spitting it between the eyes from behind the Mick. Then the Queen bent forward, opened a mouth looking onto an internal furnace, and vomited out a massive cone of flame worthy of any dragon. AF Chapter 297 – A Queen and her Guards The math said we didn¡¯t have to really be afraid of the cone of flame, as everyone had Fire Protection and Fire Resistance. It should basically have done next to nothing. Then again, the fact their flames spread poison was important, so I Countered it. My magic wouldn¡¯t harm Good people, so it just exploded out of me as the Cone of Cold blew out, over and past them, no more than a refreshing breeze and revitalizing inhalation as it hit her breath head-on. Super-heated gases smashed into heat-devouring chiming stillness, basically canceling one another out and doing a whole lot of nothing to anyone¡­ although the first Ruby Sentinel ended up coated in rime for a hot second, slowing down until heat pulsed up from within it and began melting the ice on its glittering body quickly. ¡°Lord Mick! Fast Assess! Do these three have the Fire descriptor attached?¡± I demanded quickly. Despite having so much fire about them, the earlier olthoi hadn¡¯t had the Fire descriptor any more than normal olthoi had the Acidic trait. He blinked from over where he was driving Bunita repeatedly into cracks in the segmented chitin, fiery Health Qi exploding harmlessly over he and Clan as he did so. He stared at the red crystalline olthoi he was fighting a bit more intently than normal, and shot back, ¡°Yes!¡± A shearing sound as Incantor-grade Fire Vulnerability landed on him punctuated his words. The Triadspell variant of Arcane Fusion got off the Dispel Magic and Mass Coldphasing at the same time. The Incantator-grade Fire Bolt the Queen spit at the Mick as follow-up could have almost killed him if I hadn¡¯t Dispelled the Vuln, but I was on it, and now all the Bows, Autobows, and Weapons were shifted to equally glittering crystalline blue frost in appearance, leaving behind drifting motes of frozen water vapor as they were swung, which the Brilliance upon them turned into almost blinding starry trails. Lapis crunched down, and the impact blew darkness into the chest of the Sentinel, distinctly making it cough in surprise as the fires within it rallied back. Diamond-sharp points of cold drilled into the thing, and circles of darkness grew within its crystalline body. Bunita¡¯s plunging point was leaving behind rime on its hide as the Mick plied his Claymore freely, now able to use slashing attacks instead of merely piercing as cold raged across and through its chitin, into its inner core. Even Accent was causing splashes of darkness inside it as Rogar hacked away over his boss. It was not a Paradox olthoi, and I could debuff it with Life Magic. Sometimes, I was an idiot. I was now in a Mana Pool fight with the Olthoi Queen, something I was sure to lose in the long run, so I had to make that run much, much shorter. I watched the magic of her next Casting flash out, fiery strands of magic looking to unmake the Buffs upon Kopf and render him suddenly and extremely vulnerable to her Sentinel. Her Caster Level had no chance of trumping mine as far as Prots went, and she¡¯d need an Item Dispel to get rid of his Infused Armor and Weapon Buffs. Silver Frost Vuln and Imperil flashed over the lead Ruby Sentinel, and the true beatdown commenced as damage suddenly was at x5 or so from what it had been. Darkness spread over its tauroid chest and through its limbs as the fiery Health Qi protecting it evaporated, and then four bolts and arrows impaled its crude head and snuffed the light therein completely. It collapsed and fell, while the second Sentinel, completely undeterred, literally leapt right over the corpse and slammed into the braced Shields, trying really hard to force them back. I blew a Casting of Shards into its face, and its Pair into the face of the Queen behind it. I didn¡¯t go to Rays because I wanted the multiple force hits. Yeah, the Sentinel was big, it was strong, and it was multi-legged. It was also 26 checks against a Caster Level of +40 not to be smashed back. It and the Queen were blasted backwards in explosions of Ice and Force, bouncing off the walls and scrambling for footing with stone-spitting legs as they went down in tangles of limbs and chitin. Whatever magic the Queen was trying to let off was lost as she was driven into the wall and floor by the magic and the mass of her own Sentinel. The missile fire from the Archers didn¡¯t let up, and the dual Imperil/Frost Vuln landed on the Sentinel before it could get back to its feet and lunge ahead at us again. I could see the massive dark gash in its front where the Mick had gotten off the Archer Stand Thrust on it, too¡­ and he repeated the Stance as it came forward again, not quite as reckless, but still a charge, and he was still considered Braced and waiting. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. A crit and an eruption of darkness, thick and heavy, blasted right into its fiery core. The explosion of fire in the Mick¡¯s face was actually intense enough to singe him, but didn¡¯t do anything meaningful other than that. Lapis¡¯ impact turned part of the force of the charge by faux gutting the thing, Kopf¡¯s Axe wielded now in cutting mode since it was all cold damage being inflicted, and the Ruby Sentinel¡¯s forward momentum sagged as the chill took over its front leg sockets for a moment. Hissing arrows and bolts slammed into its tauroid body, driving needles of ice deep into it before fiery Qi burned them away, staggering it, disrupting attack patterns, creating openings which the Mick and Kopf pounced upon, lashing out and creating more openings for the archers to get clear shots. The Queen couldn¡¯t Fastcast. I ladled cold and refreshing Healing on the Mick and Kopf, and was still able to oppose her next poison-flame breath with a Cone of Cold, preserving our momentum and rate of attack. Bunita slashed across and chopped completely through the Sentinel¡¯s front legs, dropping the Ruby Sentinel down awkwardly. The Mick leaned over and down into the cut that extended over in front of Kopf, who pivoted and spun instantly, precisely, and with great speed, Lapis a cold and icy streak as it sheared across in a perfect circle, then Scutum smashed it in the chest as its crude head fell away from its corpse. Which left us facing the Amarinthine Olthoi Queen. She had four weapon-limbs and a lashing tail that was scoring the stone where it whipped around furiously. The poisoned fire within it sparked and gouted at every contact, the impaling limbs pulsing with cherry-red heat on top of crystalline, spiked sharpness. ¡°Eh, fuck me,¡± the Mick murmured, staring intently at her. ¡°Quarter-mil of Health Qi.¡± -You think you can outlast me?- the fingernails-on-blackboards telepathic voice of the queen rasped across our minds, totally alien, and yet, suddenly, feeling totally and completely alone. -You kill all my children, come into my nest, and expect to live?!- The Mick wasn¡¯t one to take trash-talking. ¡°Well, yer Burning Viciousness, the Paradox Queen be happy to see you gone. Just saving her a spot of work, we are!¡± he lied without a shred of hesitation. That actually brought the Queen upright in shock. -She would not dare to kill a fellow Queen! She is as anathemic as I!- she /blurted back in outrage. ¡°Paradox olthoi fill the Summons throughout the southern half of the hivelands, her spawn marshal them into battle, and there is no intrusion upon her hive,¡± I added forthrightly. ¡°Can you say the same? You are all alone, Your Majesty, as you know. While it might behoove us to have one force of olthoi to play against another and watch the results, none of us believe you are the slightest threat to the Queen Mother, and you lived only while she was either unaware of you, or her revulsion had not grown great enough to kill you. ¡°Prepare to die, now.¡± Shards and Arcane Fusion spun up. The Amarinthine Queen raced towards us, the ruby spears that were her arms held high, and a shriek that made all the crystals around us quiver and sing back to her shredding the air. The impact of the Greater Shards against her totally blunted the force of her charge, even braced for the impacts as she was, and silenced her scream with icy stillness. A Silver Imperil and Frost Vuln landed on her, and we got to the grim business of killing her. Truly she was mystified how she couldn¡¯t just throw our front lines out of the way and charge at the soft and vulnerable Archers and Magos sitting on Disks in the back line. Rogar had to back out of her reach after nearly being spitted like a fish and sent sprawling halfway across the room by a whipping lash of her tail going right over the Mick¡¯s head. I chased him down with Healing Darts and he scrambled back, his Armor sheared right through by the force of her spines. He bent to plying his Bow along with the rest of us, leaving the Mick and Kopf alone up there. Their Heavyfoot was saving their asses and ours, as the Queen couldn¡¯t pick them up and throw them, bash them aside, beat them back, or wade through or over them at all. Both of them were in Thorned Hedge Stance, and any attempt by her to move over and past them resulted in her nearly collapsing as they hacked into her legs and forced her to stay put. Trying to Cast in melee like that was nigh-impossible, and just provoked hacking attacks from all directions now, aimed to redirect any offensive magic and make it miss its target. I wasn¡¯t worried, as I could Dispel any Debuff she did get off, and when she blasted out volcanic Rings, trying to drive the two of them back, they just held their positions as I blew cold Healing into them and they kept themselves in place. Crystal heavyfoot behind a strong Shield was freaking awesome. That also meant I could get off occasional attacks of my own, which I complemented by slowly Shaping closed the path behind her, shutting her off from any attempt at retreat, recovery, or an ambush. Pounding her back into the wall behind her was also an efficient way to disrupt her attacks and open her up for more Attacks of Opportunity from our front-line. I had to Mana Boost Silver and Copper to get back mana, all while I doled out six Neutralize Poisons, multiple Counters to her fire magic, Dispelled what Debuffs she got off, and renewed the Vuln and Imperil on her when they wore out. I even had to drop a Fester on her when it was plain she was draining fire from the crystals in the room and the corpses of her Sentinels to Fast Heal herself. --- The Mick left Bunita where it was, jutting through the underside of the Amarinthine Queen¡¯s head, letting his legs buckle and fall down as she writhed and hissed and pshrieked her hate and fury at them, all the while her carapace was darkening, cracking, and beginning to split from within. Kopf grabbed his pauldron and dragged him backwards, leaving Lapis buried to the handle in the queen¡¯s fractured abdominal plate, getting them both out of range of her convulsive thrashings before his own huge feet stumbled, and he also sat down abruptly. ¡°Gor, that were a fight of it,¡± the Mick hissed, as we all watched the last thrashings of the mutant olthoi queen as she cooled down and broke apart with hot, steaming blood searing the stone to glass at the same time. ¡°Made me remember why I hate fighting these bitches.¡± AF Chapter 298 – The Amarinthine Rose I was in Aurora Stance, going for mana. ¡°I¡¯ll do a Lesser Restoration for you in a couple of minutes,¡± I told them both, drawing in mana at the rate of about a point a second. ¡°I went through over nine hundred mana for this fight.¡± Everyone looked at me in shock, and I just shrugged. ¡°Only the Healing Darts are free, everything else cost, and she was ladling out the spells, if you recall!¡± The Archers took the moment to sit down on their Disks, working their arms and shoulders, each of them having loosed over a hundred arrows in this fight. ¡°Please tell me there¡¯s not another fight after this,¡± Selena groaned. ¡°No guarantees,¡± the Mick sighed knowingly, and everyone else groaned with feeling and mock enthusiasm, even the stoic Kopf. ¡°We be here to find some clues about the Rose of Celdon, mind, an¡¯ we¡¯ve seen naught more o¡¯ that, aye?¡± They glanced at me and the Ring on my finger, remembering they were here because of it, and maybe finding out something about the fate of the legendary Harlune. ¡°These chambers were excavated by tools, expanded by the olthoi,¡± I told them as I waited there, hands clasped and bright red and gold swirls of mana converging on me, dominated by the Fire and Earth ley lines through the area. ¡°They go further in.¡± They eyed the tunnel I¡¯d closed off, easy enough to Shape back open. ¡°Correct me if I¡¯m wrong, Magos, but is this place basically a regenerating mine for Fire Crystals? The olthoi looked to have placed seed crystals in the walls and all over almost randomly, yet all of them sprouted into viable crystals,¡± Kopf spoke up deeply, taking long and deep breaths as he recovered his wind. ¡°That does look to be true,¡± I confirmed for him. ¡°But I want you to remember something the Stone Collector in Ziakhal said.¡± The Mick glanced at me sharply. ¡°Harlune hates the olthoi.¡± There was silence for a few moments as everyone ruminated on that, and then Rogar looked around sharply. ¡°This place is a trap for olthoi¡­¡± he breathed out, and everyone else joined him in glancing about, and then our Markspace Map of the place, whose wandering tunnels and size now seemed to hold a bit more significance. ¡°A regenerating mine is a source o¡¯ wealth,¡± the Mick pointed out slowly. ¡°Once word leaks out, people will come here t¡¯ harvest it. Why didn¡¯t the olthoi run away when they realized it was changing them?¡± ¡°They had no guards posted, nor were there any olthoi nearby on the landscape!¡± Milee pointed out quickly. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ like they all got drawn in here¡­¡± ¡°We¡¯ve been at this for almost fourteen hours,¡± I pointed out, all of them startled at how long it had taken. ¡°We killed over six hundred olthoi¡­ and looking back on them, I can fairly say that while all of them had the same kind of mutations, not all of them came from the same hive.¡± Visual Files were good for bringing up images of the dead olthoi after our fights, everyone examining them more closely, especially their original coloration and shell patterns. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s at least three hives involved, an¡¯ that¡¯s without, what, a matron lured into here, an¡¯ force-evolved into a mutant queen to dominate all the mutated bugs?¡± the Mick asked thoughtfully. ¡°Pulling them in, getting them working on improving the mine, and ensuring that they are wiped out regularly regardless. That strikes me as efficient and pragmatic, both traits associated with Master Harlune,¡± I nodded back to him. ¡°Can ye feel any magic doing the like?¡± the Mick frowned, casting about in the manasphere. ¡°Olthoi communicate by telepathy from their queens, and pheromones and sound. That means scent and noise. I notice everyone is still wearing a breathing mask, and the olthoi aren¡¯t¡­ and there IS a hum in the air, but it¡¯s below normal hearing range. I can only feel it because it¡¯s apparent when contrasted to the Sublime Chords,¡± I confessed. ¡°So, there¡¯s something in the dust, and in the noise that pulls them in?¡± Hundig asked with great interest. ¡°Master Harlune is a fiendishly clever mind to devise such a thing¡­¡± There were general nods of agreement all around at that observation from the Gharu¡¯n Saber-wielder. ¡°So, there might be something Master Harlune left behind t¡¯ defend his little trap here,¡± the Mick drawled slowly. ¡°If prior experience be meaning much, that means magic traps an¡¯ golums.¡± ¡°That sounds like a typically non-undead Empyrean thing to do,¡± I agreed. ¡°I have had enough of olthoi for one day,¡± Camwise muttered aloud, leaning on his Autobow. That earned a chorus of aye¡¯s from everyone, as we all sat quietly and recuperated in our own ways. ------- The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. One of the Augmentations from pre-Fall involved being able to suck mana directly out of the ground to replenish yourself quickly, boosting your renewal, revitalization, and regeneration capabilities. As a result, the Mick was up and ready to go before I was, but he was the only one with the ability at present. Something else people could pour Karma into, although the amounts required on the Isparian side were kind of the teeth-gritting kind if you weren¡¯t over Level 200 and had all your skills and Stats maxed out already, just needing places to put your karma. The Shapings I¡¯d done to the stone here were set back to the way they¡¯d been and, sincerely wishing for no more fighting, we headed down the tunnel to the queen¡¯s chamber and whatever lay beyond it. There was another pool of water on fire, as it were, which I waded over calmly while everyone else rode Disks, not caring to test out something which was probably as hot as lava AND poisonous. There were a few large crystal formations scattered about on pedestals, by far the biggest we¡¯d seen, and definitely worth some good money. Naturally I appropriated all of them, spinning up some Disks for them to ride on. There was a large and very square hallway at the back of her lair, leading first up slightly, then down and around to the right. We looked at the relatively unmarked walls, and I tapped them calmly. ¡°Mana-reinforced. If they dug at them, they just healed up,¡± I told the others, who nodded the same line of thought. The rather somber and formal-felling hallway opened up into a large rectangular room, complete with ornamental carvings of pillars in the Empyrean style in the corners, and alcoves everywhere festooned with sculptures of birds, animals, and geometric shapes carved out of amarinthine ruby quartz with a master¡¯s touch. All of the objects were worth small fortunes in pyreal for their craftsmanship, but I only picked up a rendering of a gromnatross the size of my palm before putting it back. ¡°They¡¯ll fall to dust if they leave the room, and reform here. But that definitely looks like Harlune¡¯s magical signature and style of crafting.¡± The others were watching the far end of the room, rather tense at the moment. Two twenty-foot tall suits of armor were standing there, with breastplates formed in a grid pattern, showing emptiness inside¡­ and burning ruby quartz crystal Formations of spectacular power inside them, blazing bright and snappily within their iron homes, hot enough to make their cages faintly reddish in hue about them. ¡°Well, hokey shiznit,¡± I murmured, staring at the two Constructs, guarding a great steel door leading to what was probably private crafting chambers beyond. ¡°I think those are Iron Golems¡­¡± ¡°Ye don¡¯t mean Golums? They don¡¯t look like no golums I ever seen afore,¡± the Mick said warily. ¡°Remember when I said the things wandering Osteth weren¡¯t golems, but golums? These are the real things.¡± I whistled softly. ¡°I wonder where he learned to make them. There¡¯s little doubt they are the reason why the Ruby Queen didn¡¯t get any farther than this. Those things are virtually immune to magic, and fire Heals them on a point for point basis.¡± I pointed at the blaze in their chest. ¡°Not only will they be Healing constantly from those flames if attacked, but if the Ruby Olthoi did, the flames in their attacks would be Healing these two things up as they fought. There¡¯d be no way the olthoi could win.¡± ¡°How hard be they to kill?¡± the Mick asked the pertinent question. ¡°Powerful magical weapons of adamantine are about the only things that can punch their hides readily.¡± He and Kopf looked at their adamantine Weapons with some relief, but didn¡¯t seem all that reassured. ¡°They don¡¯t move fast, but they are extremely powerful, too. Can probably breathe fire and Heal up when they do, too. Almost none of my magic will work on them.¡± That was less than assuring. ¡°Will they attack us if we close in?¡± Kopf asked directly. ¡°I think it would be wise not to test it out.¡± I raised a hand, and flickered up three sigils in front of me, which glowed with a steely, metallic light. ¡°Open the doors, and let us pass!¡± I commanded, as the Master Construct spell glimmered in front of me. The two iron golems quivered as the magic accessed their command protocols and inserted itself into their recognition as one of their masters. The two golems turned precisely, put their hands on the doors, and pushed firmly. The doors swung open on noiseless hinges, and the iron golems pivoted back in unison. ¡°Move along, children!¡± I called out airily, confidently stepping forward and between the two awesome, looming Constructs. Everyone hastened to stay with me, and we hurried past the doors and the silent guardians. The golems reached out behind us, grabbed bars set into the doors, and with disconcerting quiet pulled the doors closed again. They locked behind us with a loud click. ¡°Well, if only getting past the guards were always that easy,¡± the Mick muttered in relief. The hallway beyond was large enough to give headroom to the golems, indicating they were probably used for labor within at some point. The hallway wasn¡¯t long, with a couple man-sized chambers branching off of it that proved to be living quarters and a storage room for tools and supplies. We left it all untouched as we entered the main chamber. ¡°Okay, that be impressive,¡± the Mick admitted, staring at what awaited us ahead and below. It was another one of those flaming pools of burning water, but something was growing out of this one. It was made of organic amaranthine crystal, tendrils and roots wrapped around a stone jutting out of the burnwater there. On a thick stalk with crystals jutting out like deadly thorns, all of them pulsing with their own lights, rose a gorgeous flower wrought of flowing ruby crystal, as wide as Kopf¡¯s chest. Pulses of fiery energy ran along and inside each petal in a random fashion, making it look like the thing was truly on fire inside. A strange and compelling odor touched the edge of our noses, making our nostrils burn, and we all hastily adjusted our Masks. For a moment, we did nothing but stare at the gorgeous thing, all of us certain that it was why Master Harlune had come to this place, and that it was at least as deadly as it was beautiful. ¡°My Rose of Celdon was carved from one of those thorns,¡± I said with certainty, studying the hue of the crystal there. ¡°Pretty sure this is at least one ¡®upgrade¡¯ point for the Ring¡¯s inner Formations.¡± No one tried to stop me as I walked down the gentle slope and out over the burnwater, my Ring starting to glow and hum, lights playing about inside it as I did so. I pulsed my mild internal flames from the Ritual of the Fiery Heart through the Rose, and it lit up as I did so, pulsing as if alive in the presence of that which it was made from. Pretty confident of myself, I reached up and touched it to one of the gleaming, razor-pointed thorn-crystals on the stalk of the Amarinthine Rose. AF Chapter 299 – Off to find some Lost Light There was an immediate flaring of the stone in the Rose of Celdon, and I could see the energy Formations deeper inside the Ring flare and fill up as perfectly attuned energy did its thing. Three layers completely filled. The base one, the one filled by the crystals in the olthoi hive, and this one by touching the Rose. Two more to go. === A Rose of Celdon Burden: 5 Spells: Legendary Combat Medication, Night Racer, Legendary Healing Prowess, Legendary Flame Ward Wield Level: 180 Arcane Lore Required: 300 ==== It must have been looking at total Karma, as I wasn¡¯t actually Level 180, but if counting the Karma in my Matrix Classes, I was probably closer to 200 on the Isparian scale. Arcane Lore was one of my nearly maxed skills, and was basically Use Magic Device on the Matrix side. Legendary Combat Medication¡­ was no longer a regeneration booster, as regenerating was no longer intrinsic to people. It was a +50% boost to Healing effects used on yourself, however, which could include Fast Healing, use of Potions, Healing Kits, Spells, and the like. Useful, if not overwhelming. Night Racer was a +20 bonus to foot speed on the Matrix Scale, which was pretty impressive, all things considered. Legendary Healing Prowess¡­ gave the same bonus to Healing effects used to Heal others as Combat Medication did. Oh, the undead weren¡¯t going to like that. Legendary Flame Ward stacked 25% onto my intrinsic Fire Protection, which with Silver Fire Protection was at a base 50% mitigation¡­ but I was immune to any flames below Primal-grade, so this was only useful against higher-order flames which might actually be able to damage me. This was actually a really good Ring for a melee combatant now, although the boost to Healing others was definitely useful for any support Caster. The undead weren¡¯t going to like the +50% boost of damage to my spells against them, however. Not the intended effect, but I was perfectly happy to abuse it nonetheless. Zeks sniffed mentally, as finally the other Ring would be contributing something useful. I¡¯d have to give it a Name and start improving it, preferably with Wizardry¡­ no, Regeneration would make much more sense. ¡°Lord Mick, the table,¡± whispered Selena, and everyone¡¯s eyes turned to a plain table sitting off to the side. There were over a dozen familiar purple-red Rings sitting there in individual slots on a jeweler¡¯s stand. ¡°Huh,¡± the Mick blinked, then smiled as he turned around to look at me. I glided over to look at the Rings, and nodded slowly. ¡°They need to be touched to the crystal formations out in the mines to advance the second tier, and then to the Rose behind me.¡± I drew them up out of their niches and sent them shooting out to all of the Scouts, who grabbed them eagerly. ¡°Not sure what Harlune¡¯s intentions were with these, but we¡¯re going to charge them up and give the extras away.¡± ¡°Ye heard the lady. Mark yer course, split up, an¡¯ tap the rings to the crystals until they don¡¯t dim no more. Then come back here and use a Disk to glide over an¡¯ tap it to the Rose.¡± Fatigue was displaced, replaced by the cheerfulness of actually getting a magical reward for all the fighting we¡¯d done! --- The Mick watched his team hurry out eagerly, then looked over to find me inspecting an alcove in the wall. It had a Seal on the floor, which I reached down to touch, and invoked a specific Divination I had originally grabbed to use to track the Green Hunter¡¯s Teleport destination at his message drop back in the south. ¡°Find something?¡± the Mick asked calmly. I flicked up a Holo of Dereth, assigned direction and distance, and a line shot down the map from our location in the Olthoi North, down south of the landbridge. ¡°This was a Portal anchor. It connected to Ulgrim¡¯s Island...¡± He thought about that quickly. ¡°If it¡¯s a Quest tree, that¡¯s the next step?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°I don¡¯t know about it improving the Rings further, but finding Harlune would be pretty big¡­¡± -------------------------------------- A day later, the Southern Landbridge... Briggs, Kris, King Auberean, Queen Mother Elysa, and Princess Fan were all handed the extra copies of the Rose of Celdon we¡¯d recovered from the Amarinthine Hive. None of them had functional magical Rings, so these were actually quite a gift, and the legacy behind them, as well as who made them, made them indeed something special. The Buffs also stacking with Cast Magic were also great, and very appreciated by the Royal Family. Briggs and Kris, not so much, but they didn¡¯t mind the Healing and speed boost benefits. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Warlords and Royals had led a fighting force into the Direlands that had definitely proved its mettle, clearing the landbridge itself entirely, while Scouts and adventurers opportunistically cleared out the canyons and valleys below. That had included at least one Tanada camp, and scattered enclaves of virindi, the undead, and the shades, all of them mostly ignoring one another, or using lugians, banderlings, or drudges against one another in pointless conflicts that satisfied some non-existent purpose. Whatever, the adventurers and soldiers killed them all, pretty much wiped the Spawn Points clean, and met up again as the aspirants to the Lost Light came down off the Landbridge and entered the Direlands proper. Creatures here basically started at a hundred Levels higher than were often found in Osteth, and could go much higher. The Spawns were highly randomized, and could literally spit up almost anything that could survive the terrain. Olthoi, who had no Hives outside Osteth and the Olthoi North, could be found as Summons all over the place here, whole minor clusters of them appearing at one time. One of the more annoying features were the Lord and the Champion Spawns that popped up all too often. Lord spawns were simply semi-unique ¡®promoted¡¯ bosses of normal spawns, that at one time had dropped particular magic items that had some value to them, something we were pretty sure no longer happened. They were basically a little tougher than the ¡®normal¡¯ tough creatures that spawned here, Cast a higher Tier of spells, had better armor, more Health, and so forth. The Champions were more annoying. If you killed a bunch of Hea tumeroks out here, skeletons, mu-miyah, undead, shades, monguas, or golums, a ¡®Champion¡¯ of that species eventually popped up out of nowhere and joined the fight to teach you the error of your ways. It was a decent way to earn extra Karma, sure, but the fact was that if you killed large numbers of creatures here, and we did, annoying numbers of Champions kept persistently coming in, and there was no way to stop them except having Interdictions up. When the Interdictions came down, they¡¯d materialize anyway, acting against any non-Summons nearby with enthusiasm. Beneficial yet annoying, especially when there was a route to clear to Candeth Keep. It was thirty miles overland to Candeth Keep from the end of the southern landbridge, and all of that territory was basically contested by spawn points sitting in the way, over and over again. What there was not were very many free-willed creatures running around, something nobody found surprising. Any Summons not of your own species would happily go off on any wanderers, so forces native to the Dires likely moved around in force or not much at all, keeping to their own enclaves except when they had to travel somewhere. When they did so, they usually did so here at a trot or a run, skirting the Summons and basically evading them while getting out of pursuit range as swiftly as possible¡­ or recruiting Summons of their own type and using them as a screening force to ward off and screen away any wild Summons. We did see a couple of those groups in the distance, virindi convoys racing along, with hovering virindi circled by minions and galloping enslaved tuskers racing by in the distance, both shooting spells occasionally and getting shot at by the spawns they zipped past. Sometimes their Summoned minions swept in and occupied spawns so the virindi could pass or blow the spawns to pieces, it was hard to say why they made any variations in how they approached things. Still, we definitely had the ranged advantage, and clearing the spawn points, planting markers, and Sealing them off so they wouldn¡¯t respawn gave everyone a sense of purpose as we proceeded at different speeds, companies leapfrogging one another from spawn to spawn and making steady progress along the route we¡¯d chosen. From the landbridge, along the southern sides of the triple knolls, and then into the dry and desert-like badlands of the southern Direlands, we killed everything in front of us with prejudice, and encountered not a single true living thing as we did so. Kind of spooky, really. That said, the combination of terrain and clearing a wide path meant it took a full day and part of the next to reach the Tombs of the Sand Kings and see Candeth Keep in the distance. The South Dires Deathstone was shattered and with its own steaming pit of shards and bones. It wasn¡¯t as big or densely packed as any of the towns of Osteth, but obviously there were still some people out here who¡¯d used it, likely on secretive business, and they¡¯d paid the price for it, their bones pulsing in the sun for close to two decades now, open graves avoided by the natives of the Direlands. The pit of Deathstone crystals was set to vivic flame somberly, our forces filing past it as it Burned with heavy mist, and the air of protest and hate swirling about it slowly faded away as the unwhite fires did their cleansing job. It put everyone in the mood to clear all the undead out of the Tombs to the west, too. While their duty was ostensibly honorable, all the mu-miyah guarding the Tombs of the Sand Kings, especially their revered Anadil, were Summons, and so mindlessly attacked anything nearby, while Summoned pests, like Wasteland Rats or random skeletons, infested the tombs. We wiped them out and Sealed the Summon points, save for one being. Garaena the Emissary was still there. --- The undead servant of Lady Aerefalle was almost as tall as Briggs, but far thinner, especially with his withered blue flesh clinging so tightly to bones that should have crumbled thousands of years ago. Yet his darkly burning eyes looked about with arrogant confidence, sure in his own status as a diplomatic envoy, although anyone could tell that his inspection of the vivic fires on so many Weapons around him did make him a bit nervous. ¡°Ho, Emissary, long time no see,¡± the Mick said, stepping forward to talk with the undead ambassador. ¡°I recognize you, Isparian,¡± the undead said in only a slightly hollow, sneering voice. ¡°You paid to use my Portal to the island of my Lady many times in the past, until you learned how to go there yourself by stolen means!¡± ¡°Aye, ye¡¯ve totally the right o¡¯ it. Did yer Lady forget about ye an¡¯ just leave ye standing around out here in the desert?¡± the Mick had to ask, scratching the side of his head in confusion. ¡°I mean, if she wants a real envoy, she¡¯d be speaking t¡¯ the Sand Kings out o¡¯ Chalicmere, not here. We all know ye only chose this spot afore it¡¯s so close t¡¯ Candeth Keep there, an¡¯ ye were taking bribes ye¡¯d turn over t¡¯ the mu-miyah.¡± ¡°My lady has not forgotten about me!¡± the revenant replied stiffly. I wasn¡¯t the only one who made a show of looking up and down his sun-beaten, extremely weathered clothing. He was a noble of the Dericost, and should have had much better attire on. ¡°Uh-huh. Curious as to whether that Portal t¡¯ Aerlinthe Island ye used t¡¯ bring up is still working?¡± the Mick asked casually. The undead glowered at him. ¡°The traditional Portal Magic has not worked properly since the surge of magic blasted through the island¡¯s ley lines. If you seek passage to my Lady¡¯s Island, Isparian, you must needs find another path!¡± the undead declared firmly. ¡°I see. Do ye know that yer kin were exterminated from the keep by Candeth Martine?¡± the Mick continued cheerfully, earning a quick glance in that direction by the ancient undead. ¡°I see he didn¡¯t bother t¡¯ come out here an¡¯ wipe the area of the tombs, so he must have had at least some pity on ye for yer thankless job. ¡°Given all the other undead who were there are dead, ye might want to wander over there an¡¯ announce yerself as a proper emissary an¡¯ everything, an¡¯ be available fer any dialogue between your mistress an¡¯ Martine.¡± The Mick made a show of looking around. ¡°He ain¡¯t comin¡¯ out here ta talk t¡¯ ye, an¡¯ there¡¯s no other undead here or there to tell ye t¡¯ stick around here. Quite a coup t¡¯ dare open diplomatic relations with the virindi-altered Prodigal Isparian that wiped so many o¡¯ yer peers away, aye?¡± ¡°That¡­ is an intriguing idea, Isparian,¡± the Emissary admitted thoughtfully. ¡°Do I have a guarantee of safe passage?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Candeth is a law unto himself, but he likes t¡¯ play at kingly things, so he¡¯ll likely respect yer position.¡± The Mick did lean forwards and whisper, ¡°Although you might want t¡¯ get some more courtly attire, Emissary¡­¡± AF Chapter 300 – The Final Rest of the Keep Rather hilariously acting as an informal escort to the undead ambassador, we headed for Candeth Keep. The arrogant revenant seemed to think it was only appropriate, but whatever. When it went up, Candeth Keep was the most modernized and easy-to-defend fortress on Dereth. There was an effective dry moat completely around the place, too steep to climb, with mana-reinforced stone that couldn¡¯t be dug through by the multiple Summons that had soon popped up with all the active mana flowing in the area. It was big, sizable, and had once held master craftsmen eager to be the first to gain the fruits of the ores, hides, and treasures that had soon started flowing in from the miners and adventurers happy to find someone willing to take their treasures and convert loot drops into something they could spend. The Mick¡¯s eyes were definitely a little wistful as we walked in the open gates, looking about at the changes that had been made. The guards there were Simulacrums, clad in the blue-gray and purple of Martine¡¯s colors. Other Sims were hard at work on the walls, either standing watch or actively repainting or maintain the construction, energetically removing carvings and ornamentation of Dericostan style and design that had adorned the buildings and walls here. The undead had not been very careful with the place, casually abusing the Isparian, Lugian, and Aun-designed buildings, so there was obviously a lot of work to do. Likewise, Martine had definitely managed to gather up some artisans interested in restoring the work of their peers and comrades from back then. ¡°Greetings, fellow humans!¡± the Sim on guard duty greeted us with something approaching cheer in his voice. ¡°Welcome to Candeth Keep! Is there anything I can help you with?¡± The Mick had the most experience here out of the lead elements, and replied easily, ¡°Guardsman, I¡¯m Lord Mick, Warden of the Royal Scouts of Freehold. Got an envoy from the Wind who needs quarters an¡¯ an introduction t¡¯ the big man, when he has time.¡± He chucked a thumb at the cleaned-up and aloof blue-skinned revenant walking with us. ¡°No hard feelings, I been told, but a person of Martine¡¯s status has earned an ambassador, it seems.¡± ¡°I will inform Lord Martine immediately, fellow human Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Also inform him that the Royal Family of Freehold has arrived, an¡¯ he may want t¡¯ receive them appropriately. Has he managed t¡¯ put up a Court yet, guardsman?¡± ¡°My lord has been more concerned with getting the civilian quarters and buildings up first, and has not moved his Court to the Keep as yet, fellow human Lord Mick,¡± the guard answered calmly. ¡°I will inform him of the arrival of the Strathelar family as well,¡± he bowed. ¡°All are welcome to enter. An escort will come shortly.¡± The internal area of the Keep was immense, big enough for a small city, plenty of areas available for the forces with us to pitch tents, although some of the barracks buildings were being restored for just this purpose, as well as apartment buildings of various sorts. The craftsmen who¡¯d come were sleeping in their own work buildings, as was traditional. --- The Mick was happy enough to play tour guide with our people, taking us around and pointing out all the changes, while runners came to deal. The Markspace had his memories of the place in the Visual Files for this, so we could definitely see the before and after. Perhaps the big thing missing was the great tree that had once grown here. A product of Aun magic, it had held the elite traders, a gift accessible only by people who had donated greatly to the town and its people. The undead had hewed the thing down and made a throne out of it for the commander of the Keep after they chased out or slaughtered everyone left within. That throne had itself been burned down to dust and ash in turn, and a new sapling planted in the circle by an Aun Shaman. The second thing was the Deathstone pit. It wasn¡¯t the biggest we¡¯d seen in terms of numbers, but¡­ it had been LOUD. Soooo many of those spirits screaming out in anger and pain at being killed like that were Paramounts, once the most powerful of their peoples alive! The wailing and screaming was clearly audible a hundred feet away, over twice as loud as any other Deathstone Pit I¡¯d seen, and even the simulacra gave the place a wary berth. ¡°Hush, now.¡± His voice was soft but firm as he strode forward, vivus streaming off Bunita, and amazingly, the crying of the spirits dimmed sharply, shadows at the edge of the eye seeming to round on him. ¡°Aye, ye know me, an¡¯ doubtless I knew a lot o¡¯ ye. Me apologies it took me so long t¡¯ get here, but I be here now, an¡¯ it be time t¡¯ set ye free. Lass, a requiem, if you will.¡± I was a bit surprised to be called on for that, but from the moment the first sad note of The Final Call of the Valiant, an old, widely-known, and deeply moving Roulean song often played at military funerals in the heartlands of Ispar, hit the Sublime Chords, the wails of the spirits stopped¡­ and then slowly, they began to sing hauntingly along with me in sepulchral echoes of memory and the Hope that was threaded throughout every note. The vivus was streaming from the Mick¡¯s Claymore as if in a stiff wind as it approached the Deathstone Pit. There he paused on the edge as the Lost Light, every mote trailing a thread of misty vivus, Burned like a fiery rainbow about Bunita. He was singing softly too, and so were the Knights who rapidly gathered. Even the Simulacra came from their tasks, singing softly along to the old song as he stood there for a long moment in the face of the spirits¡¯ pain. Bunita lowered her point, and the first motes hit a jagged blue crystal jutting out of six impaled faces, half of them not Isparian. The mistfires ignited as if touched to an oil-filled candle. Azure crystals resonating with energies of death and the psychic pain of chained spirits Burned like torches, and the skulls beneath them like oil-soaked wood. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. The Mick didn¡¯t actually move. The motes of Lost Light, empowered by Heartsong and Spirits, zipped away from Bunita as if they were alive, the spirals of motes raining down in a rapidly growing circle in the pit. With unerring accuracy, the motes of the Lost Light found every crystal, every screaming bone, every sputtering and hissing font of sputtering arcane energy, and set them en vivus. Fiery rainbow points of light splashed into and across everything, and the vivic mists ignited and swallowed everything. The ghostly singing grew fainter, yet clearer, and those watching from without could see ghostly faces swirling in the shadows of the vivus, smiling for a long, last moment before vanishing. The silence grew even as our own voices rose in the final stanzas, sending them off in style and in grace, their pain over with, their cares put to rest. We had returned to Candeth Keep, and their job was done. We would avenge them! The crowd parted as a pale, dark-haired man with glowing purple eyes and wearing a blue-gray robe with a freshly designed, non-skull-like white mask drifted forward to watch this show. Not by accident, he ended up right next to King Borelean, as well as the King¡¯s daughter and mother. If he sent me a very curious gaze at all of this, he was also singing along in a raspy tenor with everyone else, caught up in the moment and ceremony of it all. When the last faint echo of the song fell silent, and the air was at sad, quiet peace, Candeth Martine turned to the three Royals and said simply, ¡°Let us talk.¡± ------ If that was the high point of the tour, everyone slowly breaking up, it was not the end of it. There was a lot of painting and brick-laying going on, along with removal of buildings blasted apart, craters being filled in the ground, along with combat scarring on the walls. ¡°I have the impression some pretty nasty magic got thrown around here,¡± I commented, looking around at the destruction. ¡°One o¡¯ the bigwigs in the Gellids set himself up in here, aye, like he were a conquering hero or somewhat thing,¡± the Mick sniffed as we walked up the ramp to the ramparts of the place and looked north. Briggs and Kris were getting their men settled in or resupplied, while the Royal Family had been led off to one of the Aun-style huts where Candeth was speaking with them. ¡°Not exactly the right environment for lording it over something, but seems typical of them,¡± Rogar huffed, looking out over everything with us. ¡°Martine didn¡¯t bother to wipe the nearby spawns,¡± he pointed out, everyone¡¯s eyes fixed on the literally dozens of Summons points visible across the dry moat from us. ¡°Aye, though he¡¯s cleaned up the moat. Probably didn¡¯t want rats digging out stuff down low,¡± the Mick confirmed with a nod. ¡°The ones on the landscape, them¡¯s the reason why people is here, in the end. That be a whole lot of Karma waiting for us on exposed, open ground, an¡¯ they be all sorts, not coming t¡¯ one another¡¯s rescue were they all the same type¡­¡± He caught me shaking my head. ¡°Aye, lass?¡± ¡°Scorch marks under every Summons point, if a little wind-burned. Standard practice for your terrritory: kill the Summons off until they pop up a virtual army for you.¡± I swept my hand over the entire view. ¡°This entire area was probably a solid undead spawn for at least a good mile from the walls, and Martine had to go out and clear every single one of them to reset their spawns. It probably didn¡¯t take that long overall, but likely he had to kill them twice; once when he first came here and they surged in to fight him, and then again when they respawned later.¡± ¡°Ah, so likely a very busy man for a time there, and that¡¯s why there¡¯s still so much damage. If all those spawns kept sending undead into here, over and over again¡­,¡± Hundig pointed out for all of us. ¡°Indeed, an¡¯ exactly why you spent so much effort plotting spawn points in the Linvaks,¡± the Mick reaffirmed. ¡°Damn armies o¡¯ Summons makin¡¯ the bastards feel braver than they actually are, because they can command doomed spirits to fight fer ¡®em.¡± He spit eloquently over the ramparts in front of us, and we all glanced back in the direction of the Deathstone Pit. ¡°Will people really come here just to kill powerful creatures? Without the legendary loot drops?¡± Selena had to ask. I just looked at the Mick, who shrugged. ¡°The Direlands have the greatest an¡¯ most varied amount of mineral wealth in all of Dereth, an¡¯ the biggest and most powerful creatures. Ye don¡¯t make paramount by hiding back an¡¯ being a fragile flower with yer nose stuck in a Dungeon grinding away all the time, an¡¯ that¡¯s especially true with the new Matrix Classes giving us hope o¡¯ greater things. ¡°Ye¡¯ll try Dungeons until ye can get through them, and then there¡¯s going to be next to no benefit on the Matrix side in them at all,¡± I confirmed the Mick¡¯s words. ¡°This is actually ideal terrain for Matrix-feeding combat. Highly variable foes fought with different means and tactics, threats and opponents from all directions, randomized and absolutely not under your control. ¡°You¡¯d Level up out here faster than, say, Baishi, at least on the Matrix side. Both places have something to teach you, in different ways.¡± ¡°The lack o¡¯ loot is a turn-off, sure enough. But if ye¡¯re a Support Mage an¡¯ ye want to hit Nine in the Healing Magic so ye can Cast those V¡¯s the Lady Magos has, where ye going? Baishi or here?¡± the Mick pointed out grandly, his dark eyes studying the range of undead, tumerok, lugians, wisps, golums, gromnies, massive crimson reedsharks, towering Malus Shreth, and other creatures visible ambling around their spawn points, clearly waiting for something to get within proc range, earn their attention, and start a fight. ¡°We definitely wouldn¡¯t be bored!¡± Milee piped up cheerfully, also studying the variety of opponents there. ¡°Also, Lord Mick, are we going to the Halls of Lost Light with Warlord Kris and the others?¡± ¡°My answer be: are ye?¡± he fobbed right back, giving her a steady gaze. ¡°If ye go, mind, it ain¡¯t t¡¯ see the sights. Kris an¡¯ the Magos be going t¡¯ get a Lived-Line ta it so they can reach it on demand, an¡¯ t¡¯ find out the secrets o¡¯ the Lost Light the Order left behind. ¡°If ye¡¯re going, it¡¯s because you want t¡¯ be weighed an¡¯ found if ye can wield the Lost Light. No more, no less. No need t¡¯ go there otherwise.¡± ¡°It IS rather isolated, by all reports,¡± Selena pointed out carefully. ¡°Although we don¡¯t know if it was in a more relevant position in the ancient past, or they were simply testing applicants...¡± ¡°Given how hard it was to perma-die to the spawns, likely a test,¡± I inclined my head at her. ¡°Which didn¡¯t help when the shades and undead came to finally kill them all.¡± The Hall was about ten miles due northwest of here, in the circle of hills that were spaced around the blast crater that was the Obsidian Plains at the heart of the Direlands. There was no real path there among the badland mesas and canyons, other than running in the general direction and trying to find a way up into the hills when you got closer. What changes the Fall had made on the Halls nobody knew, but we were going to find out soon. ¡°How¡¯s Her Highness planning t¡¯ get through the doors? Did she find someone with a set o¡¯ keys?¡± the Mick asked me. ¡°The King and Queen Mother actually both had sets in their personal armories, gathering dust,¡± I confirmed for him. ¡°If not, I¡¯m pretty sure I could have gotten us through. There¡¯s Matrix magic that is excellent at getting through or around locks and doors.¡± ¡°Oh, really?¡± His leading smile was unrestrained. ¡°Might be having t¡¯ learn some o¡¯ that.¡± ¡°Plenty of Matrix magic to foil those things, too,¡± I added with a slight smile. ¡°Which only makes it more fun!¡± AF Chapter 301 – From Keep to Hall The trip overland from the Keep took place the next day, giving everyone time to rest and recuperate from the landbridge drive and clearing the trail to Candeth Keep. There were no complaints from those involved, and those who needed to stay busy just pitched in with the rebuilding to some extant, or made deals and left news of the trade goods they were looking for. Old mines were waiting to be reopened, creatures and their hides to be harvested and trapped, and generally a hum of positive attitude pervaded the Keep. About a hundred people came with Kris and Briggs early the next morning, dominated by the Royal Guards of Freehold. Swords of Lost Light had been popular weapons among them once, and many wanted to bear them once again, especially now that they were something more than they had been¡­ and not necessarily restricted to Swords. The Essences that would grow them and make them powerful were a different problem that had to be faced, and we couldn¡¯t do much about it for the moment. However, the key thing was to get the Swords themselves and the Lost Light they put forth, then grow them over time with a Name. There were a great many Summons in the way of our trip to the Halls, and we killed them all. Didn¡¯t Seal them, however, as this was just as much a rite of passage as anything else at this point. Still, open spaces, clear targets, and ranged attacks able to soften things up while also letting us know exactly what we were facing was fairly easy to overcome¡­ and anyone who got stupid and dared the sheer amount of magic some of the creatures could put out was mocked incessantly and chided for using up the mana of the Healers. -------- As the pace wasn¡¯t too punishing, it was late afternoon by the time we reached the Halls of Lost Light. From the outside, it didn¡¯t look like anything special. It was just another Empyrean cross-building, with a single entryway leading to the Portal that had waited inside of it. That was different now, with all the Dungeons manifesting. Now there was a set of stairs going down into the ground, as most of the Halls had been located well underground. The Lost Light had been hidden away below, instead of standing proud as a keep or fortress of its own here. It had made the Halls very easy to defend, naturally enough, but that hadn¡¯t been enough to save them when all their enemies came for them at the same time. The exterior of the building showed none of the expected damage we¡¯d seen, based on the final conflict of the visions. Likely it had simply rebuilt itself over the millennia since the fall of the order, and nothing in the area really bothered to mess with it. There were no immediate Summons at the top. Inside was another story. The Halls didn¡¯t have stairs. It was another of those pit-Dungeons, where you opened up locked doors and jumped down to the next lower level, with no way back up. At the bottom would be a Portal that would take you back to the top and drop you outside. Naturally, I wasn¡¯t going to let that pass. I Shaped out the ladders down, complete with handholds, so nobody had to jump down if they didn¡¯t want to, although almost everyone did, testing out their lightfoot or Featherweights or something similar. There were numerous undead here, liches and lich lords dressed in the rotting armor of Dericost infantry, Summons trapped here and respawning indefinitely to harass whoever came by. I noted privately that the colors and style of their armor did not match their power. These undead should have been revenants and revenant lords, the standard elite soldiers of Dericost, if they were meant to reflect the forces that had taken the Halls so long ago. I assumed they were eroded by the Lost Light of the Halls itself over time, reducing their power greatly. Given nobody wanted to go on a key-collecting hunt, I Shaped the locks right out of the doors once they were opened, ensuring we¡¯d never have to unlock them again. The liches and lich lords were put down and their Summons Sealed as we made it to the bottom level. In the final room awaited several of these undead, the so-called Guardian of the Lost Light, and a Granite Golum. The Guardian wielded a very basic Sword of Lost Light, and a magical kite Shield bearing the sword symbol of the Order. It also died with frankly breath-taking speed, no threat at all to the likes of the people who were in here. As the warriors slowly dispersed into the room from the hallways outside, I Sealed all the Summons positions, and looked to Kris. She slowly toured the rooms to each side, then made sure the hallways outside led nowhere. She went up to the stone chair now stained white where the Guardian had been sitting, and looked at it in amusement, her eyes going past it to the wall behind it. ¡°Magos, take that down,¡± she pointed at the wall with its two torches burning merrily. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. I promptly Shaped the stone out of the way, and it melted and flowed out of our path, revealing a fairly sizable passageway beyond. A murmur went through all those assembled here, as they¡¯d naturally never known the passage was there. ¡°Wipe that throne. It¡¯s just a distraction.¡± I obligingly reduced it to a block of stone which Briggs idly kicked off to the side. ¡°Now, I think, we finally enter the Halls of Lost Light.¡± The soft light that pervaded the hallways outside this room seemed to emanate gently from the stone as we moved ahead. The air was oddly fresh, yet at the same time had a stillness that indicated that nothing living had been here for a very, very long time. The passageway opened up into a great round auditorium, while suddenly lights began to come on, triggered by our presence, illuminating the whole of the walkways, benches, and chairs¡­ and the great dais with the altar-fountain in the middle of it. A fountain spewing up a ghostly, spiraling light of familiar hue and style. It was bright enough to illuminate the whole chamber and the doorways leading out of here, doubtless to the true barracks and administration and storage areas of the Order of Lost Light. Kris solemnly drew Quaver, and mounted the stairs to the fountain. The starry spirals around her Sword grew brighter and brighter as she closed in on it, until she simply let go and Quaver floated up and into the bubbling fountain of Lost Light playing before us. There were crackles and swirls of reaction when the Blackfire Stones and Prismatic Stone set in Quaver met the Lost Light, little silvery and prismatic explosions of color popping off of them as the pure Lost Light touched them. The spiral around Quaver itself grew stronger and deeper, weaving itself into the adamantine of the blue-black metal, seemingly making the Lost Light itself purer and more refined as it swirled over a Sword likely better than anything it had ever made in the past. Most importantly, the ghostly Light changed its own hue to the shining Gold of her Soulbound Weapon, clearly celebrating a worthy supplicant to the Lost Light. Regally, her Sword was returned to her, and Kris accepted it with a quiet bow before stepping away. --- The Mick was the next one to step up, proffering Bunita to the Fountain and seeing it lifted away as the Light turned the Orange and Rainbow of his Soulbound Weapon. He waited patiently as the Light swirled into and through it, not knowing quite what it was doing, but it was clearly enhancing the lesser Light in his Claymore regardless, the edge dancing with fractals of Light as it returned to his grasp. With him done, it was time for the others to present their Weapons to the Fountain, and not just artful Swords. Briggs gave it Endure, who was imbued with the Lost Light in a flurry of great Golden spirals about, the Fountain giving the impression it was impressed with the great Hammer and the man who wielded it. When he was done, everyone else lined up patiently to take their turns. There were nigh a hundred of them, with an array of Swords, Axes, Spears, Bows, and even Casting Implements like mine. One by one they stepped up to the Fountain and offered up their Weapons, while the Lost Light judged them and determined them worthy or not. Three of the men caused the Light to run sharp Blue in hue, fairly startling almost everyone. Kris hadn¡¯t commented on them because she wanted to see if they were accepted¡­ and they were not. The Lost Light refused to take up their Weapons, and the crestfallen Royal Guards could only step away, wondering why their faithfulness and loyalty was not enough to qualify for the touch of the Lost Light. ------ The mirror-like projection was clearly based atop the central tower of the Empyrean Cross building up above. It displayed the area about the Halls with great detail¡­ and that was good, because what was outside had changed significantly in the last couple of hours. There were at least a thousand elite undead assembled around the Hall, clearly waiting for us to come outside and be annihilated. Oddly enough, none of them seemed to be inclined to enter the building and head down the stairs, bringing the fight to us. ¡°Those are elite troops of the Wind. I have the impression Ambassador Garena may have sent word ahead of what we were planning here, and the Dericost decided to move to eliminate us out here in the wilds,¡± Queen Mother Elysa said, studying the disposition of the troops. ¡°Why are they not flooding into the building? With their numbers, it would be the ideal way to confront us, wrapping us up in melee combat while the rear ranks pummel us with magic. We would have little chance here,¡± she admitted. ¡°For the same reason the undead in the Halls were so pitifully weak. The Lost Light here acts adversely upon them, sapping their strength quickly. They don¡¯t want to be trapped and de-powered like those who invaded the place before us¡­ and they don¡¯t know if we¡¯ve actually found the Lost Light," Kris sniffed derisively. ¡°Can we escape?¡± Borelean asked quickly, also studying the disposition of forces. ¡°They will be tireless on the pursuit, and it is a long way back to Candeth Keep.¡± ¡°You think we¡¯re going to run?¡± Briggs¡¯ voice held a ton of schadenfreude. ¡°To answer your question¡­ yes, we can get out of here easily. The Lady Magos can easily make a tunnel exiting from these Halls at some distance from the surface building, and we could slip away. However, you do remember the tales of what she did to the undead up north, right?¡± ¡°Oh? OH¡­¡± the king trailed off, a smile rising on his face. He blinked several times at the gathered and ready undead. ¡°They are so dead, aren¡¯t they.¡± ¡°They are!¡± Kris said cheerfully. ¡°Let¡¯s finish exploring the place and see what is here that can be liberated for our use, and then go up top and get ready to charge and finish off that company up above.¡± She picked up an old, brittle piece of parchment there, glancing at it once. ¡°Is that the Dericostan 2947th, the Judgment of Aerefalle?¡± she asked simply. Queen Elysa looked closer at the ornamentation of the undead up there. ¡°I¡­ think it might be?¡± It was hard to differentiate among the companies of the undead at the best of times. ¡°They were among the companies who were dispatched to end the Order back then.¡± Kris¡¯ pale violet eyes were shining almost amethyst at the words. ¡°They are deploying divinations to try and track us, but the Lost Light is disrupting all such things in this section of the Halls. I¡¯m not sure about the external Halls. If not, then they know we¡¯ve found something,¡± I told them. ¡°Also, this does not mean they are the only forces out there. The Sand Kings and skeletons of Chalicmere were also involved in the original attack.¡± AF Chapter 302 – Decking the Halls with Lost Lighting ¡°I believe the shades under Bael¡¯Zharon were, too,¡± Princess Kristie said thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯m sure they noticed any forces of that size moving in the Direlands, and probably have sent someone to observe¡­ especially if it concerns the Halls.¡± I just nodded. ¡°I will make a passage to the surface from here, exiting at a safe distance, and scan the area before making any moves.¡± I could almost feel the Rose of Celdon on my finger itching to display its power. ¡°At your discretion,¡± Briggs nodded, completely confident in my ability to handle the undead or a group of non-Tou Tou shades. ------- I came out on the side of the peak to the north of the Halls, about fifty feet above the ground and so well beyond mundane abilities to reach me, if not from spells. Kris was right. There were more than the Dericost undead here. I didn¡¯t see any shades, but they could have been watching from the distance, around the ridgelines, and I was fairly sure they were. Still, a thousand each Undead, Skeletons, and Mu-miyahs had gathered around the Halls, the latter two backing up the first one, which I found kind of interesting. Normally, both types were considered lesser creatures to the Dericostan Undead, and should have been spearheading the assault while they waited behind to assist with magic. Yet there was not a mu-miyah or skeleton within fifty yards of the Halls proper, which was passing strange. An Illusionary Wall covered the passage I¡¯d made, while Improved Invisibility and Flight did their things for me. I didn¡¯t expect them to cover me too much while the fighting went on, but for getting into position for a surprise attack, it was fine. I reflected that if Gareana was the source for this attack, there was a small problem in that he didn¡¯t know who we were, or what we were actually capable of. In particular, I hadn¡¯t shown anything but the most bog standard support mage magic anywhere he could see me. So, these undead had been sent out without knowing that I was present. The fighting men of our forces knew better than to talk wildly about what we were capable of magically, but there was equally no doubt that the Undead had spies among us who passed on tidbits of who and what was happening, and stories had a way of spreading. The Undead leadership might know how utterly devastating I was against undead, but more likely they would consider what I had done just outgrowths of the company I¡¯d been keeping, and that Kris and Briggs, two very unknown factors, were incredibly dangerous against their kind. That was true, and the men had been instructed not to boast about me and what I could do, taking the credit for themselves and their comrades to puff up their reps against the undead. The fact that with the Lost Light in their Weapons they could Infuse in Undead, Shade, and Skeleton Slayers also meant they were indeed going to be very dangerous against the undead. Briggs and Kris were waiting behind a very thin stone facade at ground level, ready to charge out once I got rid of the chaff. Eighty percent Summons again, predominantly the weaker sorts. Well enough, they wouldn¡¯t be coming back to serve, any more than the real walking corpses would. Vivus was going to take them all. I led off with the Interdiction, snapping out a big sphere of No-Dimensional-Hijinks-You-Rotters. The Undead and their minions couldn¡¯t Teleport around willy-nilly nor erect Portals anymore, but they were definitely still capable of tying to a position of magical significance and Recalling to it and away from us in an emergency. No, I wasn¡¯t letting any of them get away today. I opened my Masspack, and with Minor TK lifted out a bag of vials of Holy Water, ready to use them to power all of my spells. Contrary to normal Summons, these undead had all engaged in some protective Buffing, particularly against fire. I doubted they had anything to protect against Sanctified Acid, i.e. Holy Water damage. My Arakne Arms folded out from my hips, grabbed the first two vials, and I let fly. I was coming in behind a regiment of skeletons, who had divided up into four sections, inter-spaced with the mu-miyah. So, 250 of them. Paired Shards + Fastcast Shards, 13 each, Chaining to an additional 25, was just under one thousand different targets. The Shards went out, blew into the rear of the motionlessly, endlessly patient undead there, and sliced through them like water through dust. The skeletons and two regiments of mu-miyah basically sloughed off into Burning, misting goo as the Kickers did their things. Then all the Shards converged on the one unit of undead and repeated the fun for their bosses before petering out, leaving only a bare handful of stunned and surprised Undead unaffected. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I shifted sideways as the whole ambushing force turned in shock, seeing their comrades Burning, dissolving, eaten away by energies they had no resistance against whatsoever. Then the second salvo came out, these ones Paired Admixtured and Fastcast Paired, i.e. six sets of Shards. Briggs burst through the stone covering and led the charge of the new Knights of the Lost Light down into the flank of the undead, who were all looking the wrong way as over half of their numbers had been obliterated. There was one regiment of each type that still was untouched, shocked and uncertain of what to do as their comrades screamed and melted away in Burning goo all around them. My last salvo reached them just ahead of Briggs and the others, clearing away all the chaff and leaving the most powerful of them, who hadn¡¯t died to the magic, for the tender mercies of the Lost Light. Of which there was none, of course. ------- ¡°''Ware magic!¡± a startled voice called out, a spot rapidly clearing in the numbers of the Knights who were playing clean-up. There were a lot of Elemental Weapons and moderately enchanted Armor to be claimed from the silty ooze and dusted remains of the ¡®real¡¯ members of this fighting force, and the men had been energetically heaping them onto Disks to start the process of breaking them down. Now they were backing away from a swirling phantom that was gathering together in their midst, their newly blessed Blades out and pointed as the image resolved into that of a well-preserved female corpse, even having rather shockingly red hair and fairly smooth skin, although her eyes were still the black orbs and chilling white lights of the Undead. Before she could speak, the Mick piped up, ¡°Bless my soul an¡¯ call me a shreth, if it ain¡¯t the dear Lady Aerefalle herself, come t¡¯ check up on her minions an¡¯ see how they are doing. How¡¯re ye been doing, yer luvverly undeadness? I think ye¡¯ve added a couple furrows since the last time I saw ye down there under yer palace.¡± Naturally she spun around on him, her placid face showing the beginnings of irritation as she stared at him. ¡°One of the rats who came scavenging into my home so many times. A wonder that you¡¯ve not been eaten by a passing reedshark,¡± she sniffed regally. ¡°Aw, Yer Highnessness, yer hurtin¡¯ me tender an¡¯ delicate feelings now,¡± the Mick replied jovially, hefting a certain head and its ornate helm. ¡°Ye be looking fer this fine fellow, among others? He¡¯s passed on permanent-like now, but he be leaving his head behind for us mortals to make use of as we needs. Generous soul, he was, loyal an¡¯ faithful t¡¯ the very end. Only tried to Recall away two or three times in total panic, I be happy t¡¯ report true t¡¯ ye.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Her image turned to survey all the swirling Swords and other Weapons held in her direction, although none of them were making to attack what was clearly an illusion. ¡°Your newest recruits to that order of fools seem to have acquitted themselves well, perhaps even better than their forebears. My congratulations on your accomplishments,¡± she said dryly, although the rage deep in her eyes belied her polite words. ¡°Aw, now yer making me blush, Yer Top-Windiness. Ye can gift us some rewards fer our performance by sending a few more thousand o¡¯ these fellows on over t¡¯ meet their comrades in the fine hereafter. We be looking for ¡®em now!¡± ¡°You seem confident of your power and abilities, little rat.¡± Her eyes seemed to darken and draw back as power began to gather in the area. ¡°One wonders if-¡± Poof! Briggs negligently backhanded Endure through the Projected Image, and it went away instantly, disrupted by the foundation purity of a Source. With it went the gathering spell, dissipating even more rapidly than it had gathered. ¡°I could have Spellflared her and really pissed her off,¡± I sniffed, but it had no force to it. I didn¡¯t need her knowing I could do that to her, yet. ¡°She was nice enough to let us know she was watching and doesn¡¯t think well of the fact we¡¯re bringing the Order back,¡± Princess Kristie said grimly. ¡°I think that¡¯s by far the finest endorsement that we¡¯re doing the right thing that I could think of here.¡± ¡°The leader of the Dericost faction of the undead is indeed a powerful and worthy enemy for any order of knighthood,¡± King Borelean smiled, earning hard smiles and nods from the surrounding warriors. ¡°As she said, we shall simply have to become more dangerous than our predecessors to deal with them!¡± ¡°There were no greater foes of the undead or the Shaded than the Order of the Lost Light. Their actions here today only prove that is true,¡± Kristie went on. ¡°We are indeed going to have to organize and institute a training regimen specifically geared at being able to fight both of them. ¡°I will take charge of this regimen. The first order of business is simple: we are going to wipe and vivisize every single undead creature on the landscape we see on the way back to Candeth Keep. We need not Seal their Summons points as yet, so pull them away from such, but that will be your mandate: kill the undead and the Shaded when you see them. ¡°We know that their numbers are vast, as Tou-Tou proved to us, and the sheer weight of time to accrue numbers has been on their side. ¡°We also know that those numbers are finite, and that sooner or later, the well of souls slaved to the System will run dry, and they will have no more Summoned armies to call upon. ¡°To do this, all we need to is relentlessly and continually kill the undead and shades upon the landscape, until they simply do not appear any more. ¡°The numbers involved may well enter into the millions. The Dericost undead spanned entire worlds at one time, their culture wide-flung and dispersed across many worlds¡­ and then, they returned here. Not to wherever their long-lost homeworld was, but to here. Dereth. This island, this world. ¡°I expect all of you to rapidly accrue kill counts of undead and shades in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. You will know how to fight them and learn as no other force has in history, and I will be showing you ways to kill them further, faster, and harder.¡± Kristie pointed back towards Candeth Keep. ¡°First lesson: they¡¯re going to be coming at you in the dark and at night, so we have to learn how to confront them there. We¡¯re heading home, we¡¯re not camping overnight here. ¡°Remember, every undead and shade we see. Anything else is as you like.¡± ¡°Yes, sir!¡± the knights a-borning shouted out. ¡°Five minutes!¡± Briggs bellowed in counterpoint. ¡°Get the looting done, we¡¯re not staying here to be ambushed by some other hidden force!¡± Weapons were sheathed, and the eager men returned to their looting of Armor and Weapons, all to be Burned down and reduced to mana crystals they could use to improve their own Gear. The wealth of the ¡®real¡¯ Dericostans was not small in goldweight, at least¡­ AF Chapter 303 – Law and Goodness Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Bunita¡¯s Armor Cleaving In the Linvaks near the Tukal crater¡­ AF Chapter 304 – The Serac Vault The Mick wasn¡¯t expecting much in the way of danger, so we hadn¡¯t brought anyone else along. It was also the first and easiest of the Elemental Vaults to reach, and would sort of be a test for the others. Being able to just equip the right Element for attacking was also convenient. As normal, I let him take lead, even though we both knew I could one-shot the undead we ran across without much effort. They were merely Revenants, Great Revenants, and Dark Revenants of the Gelidite Faction¡­ and most of them were Summons. It actually was kind of surprising to come across a couple of them in newer armor that weren¡¯t just mindlessly charging to the attack. These actually shouted, ¡°Passing snowflakes and melt ice! You dare trespass here!¡± and similarly witty commentary in Isparian as they opened up with spells. The Mick was totally able to tank their spells and had them joining their compatriots on the floor in Burning misting chunks after less than twenty seconds each, leisurely parrying everything they threw his way before relieving them of their arms and then heads in turn. Unlike the Summons, they went en vivus, not going to report their news back to their masters. ¡°A useful little base o¡¯ operations,¡± the Mick admitted as we moved through the zigzag tunnels and bridged arches of the Vault. The design was annoying, and there was another silly lever-pulling combination of doors and things we were supposed to use to get things open, but all-in-all it wasn¡¯t proving too annoying. The local Revenants respawned fairly quickly, but only in ones or twos, making them manageable and easy to compensate for, which was good for a Dungeon. ¡°For them or us?¡± I asked, while he bowed me ahead. I hopped across a ten-foot gap, pushed the lever there, curtsied to him flamboyantly, and he just grinned as he immediately began hurrying back the way we came, and I had to skim quickly after him. There were four Revenants on the way. The first two he manhandled backwards and were not allowed to slow him down as he brutally forced them back off their spawn points, and then took them apart as we hurried to get to the door that the lever had opened before it closed. He just pointed at the second pair, and I Sharded them into flaming chunks that fell to black ash before they could discorporate. We made it with a few seconds to spare, the door closing literally at our heels as we stepped through. He hopped across the thirty-foot gap to the room in front of us and I followed easily. ¡°Both,¡± he finally replied, picking up the conversation without missing a beat. ¡°The lugians never came up here, an¡¯ they loathed the undead. The undead¡¯s only other holding hereabouts were a mine they updated with lugian miners they turned inta undead, thinking they were doing the big blokes a great favor, allowing them t¡¯ mine forever in the service o¡¯ truly superior beings. ¡°All those are dead now, but the lugians have never forgiven them fer doin¡¯ that t¡¯ their own, even the Gotrok. Should be a trio of them up here.¡± There were, all Dark Revenants and so not much of a challenge. ¡°Taking away their miners and cutting out the middleman, how dare they!¡± I nodded along. ¡°Can¡¯t extort gold out of trade partners if they grab all our labor and mines, right?¡± --- ¡°If I remember aright, that letter tells o¡¯ the disaster that created the shades on Dereth here, an¡¯ the death o¡¯ Atlan an¡¯ his army. That journal there details his creation o¡¯ the Atlan Weapons and the Gems and Sockets they use an¡¯ his hopes of spreading them through the armies of the empire. ¡°That, o¡¯ course, be the Major Shivering Stone.¡± ¡°Which reminds me that we need to be checking out and harvesting the Minor Stones, for free goldweight if nothing else.¡± ¡°Oh, aye, I¡¯ll get Scout teams on that right away. They be fairly easy to reach. We need t¡¯ see what the results fer them are in the new Warfang Weapons. They were nigh useless in the old Atlan Weapons. ¡°If we¡¯re lucky, they¡¯ll stack and there¡¯ll be synergy effects.¡± His eyes opened in interest. ¡°A minor benefit would be something like Icy, giving an extra burst of cold damage to the Weapon it was mounted in, but not changing the whole Weapon like Icephasing does. A synergy benefit if, say, you had both Elemental Stones mounted, would be like Icy Burst, which does a nice amount of bonus damage on a crit.¡± ¡°They never had multiple Sockets t¡¯ work with!¡± he agreed with me, tapping his temple and looking away. I waited politely while he issued orders to some of the Scout teams, and sent out inquiries and alerts for staffing this place permanently to harvest the Elemental Stones. I picked up the glittering, icy jewel from the floor there, feeling my blood singing in sync with the jewel, which rapidly picked up the resonance of my Ceremony of the Frozen Soul and began to pulse in time with my heartbeat. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. There was a hiss and clink, and another Stone materialized right where the last one had, on the floor in front of an empty Empyrean stone chair (were they all undead with iron butts?), but a hum and feeling of power was also instantly missing from the room. ¡°Inneresting.¡± The Mick instantly stepped forward to pick up the next Stone, picking it up with the air of someone who¡¯d held them before and inspecting it. We both waited, but there was definitely no instant respawn coming for this Stone. ¡°Will there be another, or be it broken?¡± the Mick asked reasonably. ¡°The whole system is designed not to need anyone looking after it. I¡¯m guessing this had a very fast respawn system in the past?¡± I asked him. ¡°Aye. A minute or two at most. Why? Be that important?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need the Minor Stones for lesser effects if you can totally produce enough Major Stones, and a respawn rate that fast is totally enough to supply an army. You¡¯d be making in the neighborhood of a thousand Stones a day.¡± His mouth opened, then closed, going over his memories again, and then slowly shaking his head. ¡°That¡¯s another o¡¯ those damn inconsistent things that we looked right past before, aye?¡± ¡°Yes. Now, we just need to stick around until the next one pops up. Which will probably be at Natural Renewal, if the changes to the world remain somewhat consistent.¡± ¡°That be a few hours,¡± he pointed out. ¡°Like as not we should stay busy and see if there are any changes to the place. Also¡­ what be the chances the undead weren¡¯t harvesting the stones themselves?¡± I glanced at him, then stepped over the Disk we¡¯d dropped the Weapons from the two Gelidite undead upon. One of them was Icephasing. I picked it up, and compared the magic within it to the Shivering Stone in my hand. ¡°The empowerment magic is identical,¡± I nodded to him. ¡°This Sword was turned to Icephasing using a Stone from here.¡± I picked up the Acidphasing Weapon next to it. ¡°This¡­ does not have a primal resonance to it that the other Weapon does.¡± ¡°The Incunabula Vault be dominated by olthoi spawns with a wee powerful Matron inside. Trying to harvest that full time would not work too well for undead, especially given the speed o¡¯ the Summons,¡± he judged professionally. ¡°And we know the Crater where the Jahannan Vault is located is hostile to them, and the Virindi moved in on the Ampherelion Vault for some reason. If they¡¯ve been collecting the Stones, what did they use them for?¡± ¡°Were I be guessing? T¡¯ equip their lot up in the Frozen Valley, the gurogs there, an¡¯ mayhap t¡¯ congeal the Bloodstones they be tryin¡¯ t¡¯ inflict on the rest o¡¯ us.¡± ¡°I¡¯m unfamiliar with the area,¡± I had to admit. ¡°Coldphasing Weapons were common?¡± ¡°On all the gurogs, and on all the undead, too. And, come t¡¯ think o¡¯ it, it be the only place ye can find Gelidite undead so powerful, as well as the Frozen Dreads, and the Frost Golums, among other things.¡± ¡°Harnessing the Elemental Cold to upgrade themselves and the creatures tied to the Summons there? Not a bad idea if they¡¯ve a clear affinity for the place. This place has now become a priority to maintain control of, as a strategic asset the undead might want to reclaim in the future¡­¡± The Mick grinned as he tapped his temple again. ¡°Aye, and I¡¯ll relay that on. While we wait t¡¯ confirm the respawn, I suggest a few trips through this place, see if we can locate their stash near where we encountered the two talkative ones, an¡¯ get a very precise breakdown o¡¯ the Summons an¡¯ Spawn Points for those who¡¯ll be working it hard in the near future, aye?¡± ¡°At the very least, they¡¯re going to need basic Resist Cold to stay warm,¡± I had to agree. Not an issue among the undead, and a relatively minor item to make, even for us. It was just more goldweight, and we needed infinite amounts of goldweight to re-equip so many people. All the mines in the Linvaks could be open and working full time, and they wouldn¡¯t be producing enough goldweight to supply the crafters making things to satisfy the need for goldweight to Burn. The Isparian systems of enchantment weren¡¯t nearly as resource-intensive as the Matrix side of things, but absolutely nobody was going to mess with mana charges on their Gear anymore. It was the mental equivalent of running around with a dagger to your throat, just waiting for some mysterious shit to yank it across your jugular and kill you. Just one of these Stones was ten goldweight. That was damn good daily production just about anywhere, even if the Stones were going to be allocated to Weapons and not Burned for mana. ¡°Her Highness already be making out lists on who should get the Stones, an¡¯ is keen t¡¯ be tryin¡¯ out the Minor Stones,¡± Lord Mick reported after a minute, most unnecessary as Kris could simply inform me. ¡°If it be true they only spawn once a day, that be annoying, but workable. They be not a mandatory thing if ye be an Artificer, just handy. Now, if there¡¯s a synergy effect between the Stones, well, that be a different story, an¡¯ they just became very hot items, indeed.¡± ¡°How close is the Minor Shivering Stone Spawn Point?¡± He gave me a considerate look, flicked up a Holo of the area, squinted at it, matched memories, and updated the Map. ¡°There.¡± About twenty miles northeast. ¡°And you have a lived-line to there?¡± I asked him, knowing I did not. ¡°Aye. Visited it two, three times in the past,¡± he confirmed. ¡°I¡¯m thinking that as soon as we find their stash, we go grab a Stone from there, and perhaps not be surprised to find some undead sitting there waiting for Stones themselves.¡± His dark eyes lit up. ¡°That do sound more fun than grinding an easy Dungeon just t¡¯ stay not bored. I be countering it with doing one full clear in detail, an¡¯ then ye can Jump us right over there. I imagine we¡¯ll be able t¡¯ see the peak if we but go outside an¡¯ the sky is clear!¡± I thought that over, and nodded. ¡°Makes sense. Let¡¯s get the updated Dungeon Map, find their stash, and then zip over to confirm this as fast as possible, and not risk a Scout team stumbling on something they might not be able to handle.¡± He tossed his Stone up in the air, snatched it and tucked it away in his own Masspack, and we headed on out of the room. Wasting our time by sitting in one spot was silly. We should be able to get a lugian team up here inside an hour or three to do the sitting around, and they would happily grind the undead for Karma. Foiling one of their undead¡¯s plans by grabbing an important resource and upgrading our own Weapons at the same time? Win-win! AF Chapter 305 – Stacking the Stones Detect UndeadChained Shardrays Bunita Bunita years Quaver Natural SwordsmanNatural Smith Biting Strike, Crushing BlowArmor Cleaving Bunita Icy Bunita Armor CleavingElemental Slayer Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Bunita Bunita¡¯s Bunita¡¯s ¡°Base Icephasing, Fire Elemental Slayer, Armor Cleaving. The obverse of the Fire Elemental Stone, and the same as the Prismatic Stone, except only the opposite Element,¡± I nodded to him as I placed my hand on the solid frost energy of the Blade, which still retained all its properties of adamantine, too. ¡°Protections from Fire and ColdIcy Sharding Icy Bunita Icy BurstBiting StrikeCrushing Blow Quenching!Bane Darts Dart DartBunitaDart Icy Burst Bunita¡¯s AF Chapter 306 – A Return to Holtburg The next day¡­ Bunita Bunita Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°Isparian! What an Isparian doing, daring to challenge the Bugspearing Tribe!¡± ¡°I come with proper challenge, and you come bearing weapons?¡± ¡°Is there anyone else who wants to approach a proper challenger with their weapons out?¡± ¡°Challenge rules for tribe! Not for Isparians!¡±¡°You-¡± Whud, crunch, aieeeee¡­ ¡°Is there anyone else who wants to approach a proper challenger with their weapons out?¡± ¡°What Isparian want?¡± ¡°This be our cave, our lair, our territory!¡±¡°Do you think we allow outsider to tramp all over our place?¡± ¡°Have the wounded males lined up by the entry when we emerge, and I will heal them before we leave,¡± AF Chapter 307 – The Fires of Mount Esper ¡°Ye actually Healed them. Were a nice gesture,¡± the Mick acknowledged, as we headed off over the surface of the River Esper and its headwaters, which would basically lead us directly to the Crater. The banderlings had gaped at the display as we ran off. ¡°Carrot and fist,¡± I agreed, trotting along with him. His lightfoot was more advanced, but that just meant he wasn¡¯t running full out. Nothing we were passing was dangerous, but they did indicate what might be found in the area. I Darted the stuff down in passing just to keep in practice, while he casually swept through Bunita through most of the stuff on the charge. Lesser olthoi, drudges, banderlings, golums, noogas, mosswarts, minor wisps, and niffis. Nothing to get excited about at all, although their levels began to rise soon after passing the five-mile mark from Holtburg. ¡°Truth. Her Highness be more prone t¡¯ letting them limp a bit so the memory sticks in an¡¯ spreads.¡± ¡°I expect they are using the buildings as hunter¡¯s blinds, or something. They should have taken the Dungeons outside the town if they were looking for space.¡± ¡°Ye didn¡¯t clear them back then?¡± the Mick asked, a bit startled. ¡°Starter Dungeons are useful in many ways, and we didn¡¯t feel like making that judgment call on behalf of everyone else,¡± I admitted. ¡°They can be cleared easily enough¡­ that¡¯s a lot of excavated storage space down there.¡± ¡°Aye, some o¡¯ those old Dungeons sprawled fer a good long ways, lots o¡¯ room t¡¯ make use of in them,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Some were easy the size of a small town or more.¡± Most of the Dungeons in the south had already been explored by the Scouts, posted, rated, and work was underway to either clear them and use them as barracks or garrisons, or to start cycling troops through them on training runs. Lower-level Dungeons meant training programs could move off of the crowded Dungeons in the Vesayans to some new locations, which also meant more people could shift away. However, the civilian population was still completely restricted to the Sho areas south of the Blackmire Swamp. Main reason? Bonecruncher was probably never going to run that far just to hunt Isparians, and would have to go through too many other tribal territories who might put up a fuss. We had military presences in a wider swath of territories than that, but all the civilians coming in to resettle abandoned Isparian territories were staying in the south. ¡°Eh, visible already.¡± He¡¯d popped his shaded Mask of Clarity down, and I followed his gaze ahead of us. On the horizon there, tiny little lights burned on a dark mountain. ------ ¡°I¡¯m still going to think of something so getting those Stones aren¡¯t so tedious,¡± I told him, as we both looked up at the rounded wall of the mountain above us. Unlike all the other surrounding mounts of similar size or taller, it no longer had any ice along its top reaches. The black stone was revealed, the ice and snow had melted off and away, and it looked like a great black blot among the cold white and gray of the Esper range around it. There were Fire Elementals all over the bloody place up there, from the lambent reds of dim little Sparks all the way up to the hottest blue-white Hellfires. Some of the damn things were twice the size of any Elementals we¡¯d seen before, and that included the ones on Asheron¡¯s island that the Harbinger had released, save for the Essences themselves. The place was also a churning mass of pyromancy, eating and burning at the Veil. Pure aeromancy was being completely disrupted here, meaning flight magic was eaten away within moments and plopped you back to the ground. The dimensions were also in chaos here, meaning Teleporting here was going to be at best wild and uncontrolled, and at worst try to turn you inside out and warp you to some incredibly bad positions relative to the Fire Elementals there. ¡°Multiple Elder Elementals, and at least two Elder Monoliths visible. Just¡­ sitting there.¡± I whistled softly. ¡°That is a LOT of literal Fire power, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, I be seein¡¯ that. Chances o¡¯ getting through peaceable-like?¡± ¡°Stronger than you think.¡± ¡°Aye? The Lady Magos pulling another surprise out o¡¯ her hat?¡± ¡°Aeromancy isn¡¯t the only way to fly, and blasting isn¡¯t the only way to get through things.¡± I smiled slightly. ¡°However, you¡¯re going to have to keep that famous tongue of yours silent and just watch.¡± I flicked up a Disk for him to sit back on, which he did with a flamboyant jump, completely unperturbed that he wasn¡¯t taking lead. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I Shaped up my Phoenix Cloak and added it to my Void Phoenix Bloodline Wings. A pair of very showy flaming wings replete with celeste stars extended up behind me as I took off, while my skin reddened slightly and golden flames began to peel back from my eyes and the ends of my hair. It was a couple thousand feet to the lip of the crater, most of the way nominally unclimbable. The ferocious pyromana buoyed me up instead of eating away my flight magic, and we climbed even faster on the magical updraft. I shot up over the edge and past the startled attention of dozens of Fire Elementals sitting around and basking in the pyromana. They instantly flared to alertness, heads of man-like and beastial forms not normally found in the Elementals of Dereth all turning to look after us. ¡°Gor, those look like big wolves an¡¯ cats an¡¯ ursines!¡± the Mick exclaimed in disbelief. Indeed, the larger Elder Elementals all looked nothing like the typical Elementals that wandered Dereth, which was little surprise to me. Fire Elementals were the only rote Elementals that the classical set shared with Dereth. On Dereth, the Elementals were forms of magical energy, not the classic states of matter. I flew right by a great stag, flaming horns reaching nearly thirty feet high, its fiery Aura reaching an effortless twenty feet away. It totally could have bounded at me, taken a swipe, or otherwise reacted to us passing. Instead, it just waited aloofly as I clasped my hands and bowed to an Elder of Fire, and I flew right on past and towards the inner part of the crater. It watched me pass and didn¡¯t otherwise react. The watching Elementals, ready to bury me in a fusillade of flaming magic, all just turned away when the Elder didn¡¯t react to me at all. Ritual of the Burning Heart, become a Creature of Fire. Normally, this had no effect on anything beyond an immunity to fire and vulnerability to cold, as it granted the Fire creature Template. It was the equivalent here of making me into a natural creature of Fire, and not some random mortal, the equivalent of a local friendly dog or bird or something. I also knew Pyric, the Fire Elemental language, if needed, but for now, I was just perfectly happy that they weren¡¯t bothering to shoot at me¡­ or at the cool mortal I was obviously dragging along behind me. Below me, the inside of Mount Esper, the Crater, the most famous volcano of Dereth, sprawled out before us. The first thing noticeable from up here was the molten secondary crater in the heart of the lake that dominated the middle of the caldera, with active lava showing there and scores of Elementals of all sizes lounging about it. It was dominated by what looked like a great blazing halo of pure flames that would have been difficult to look at without Devasight, white-hot as the thing was. On one end of the lake was a small town of sorts, with several stone buildings obviously built as entry points and extending down and sideways into the floor and walls of the crater. It was dominated by a large standing tower whose design I¡¯d seen in almost every town on Dereth. Some distance off to the east was the progression of columns and sparking stones that signified a Festival Stone. Such things indicated that this place had been a major population center for the Empyreans at some point. The town was the only area not being occupied by Elementals to some extent or another. Most amusingly, there was a whole lot of green grass growing inside the crater, and the Fire Elementals moving across it didn¡¯t do anything to it at all, which was kind of surreal to see. At the northern end of the lake stood a sole Empyrean-style block building, with the bulging and distorted terrain around it of a Dungeon that had erupted back into reality beneath and around it. I could pick out the two torches that framed the pass leading up and out of the Crater on the far side of the caldera, ostensibly leading down the other side of the mountain. Likewise, where once had only existed a Portal, now an obelisk marked a yawning hole in the ground where the Jahannan Vault was located over on the rim to the north of us. I wasn¡¯t trying to hide, and for some reason a person flying up in the air with great flaming wings is visible from quite some ways off. The lake itself was nearly two miles across in a great circle, and there were docks extending out from the town a short way into it. ¡°I thought you said the lake was pretty shallow, Lord Mick?¡± I asked cautiously. ¡°Never more than waist-high anywhere, lass,¡± he confirmed, looking down over the edge of his Disk behind me. ¡°Looks like only two shallows now, t¡¯ the east an¡¯ west o¡¯ the inner crater now, aye?¡± ¡°How do the inner numbers of Fire Elementals compare to what you remember?¡± ¡°Ye remember me telling ye how running the Aerefalle Quest would set off the volcanoes, aye?¡± I nodded once. The Fire Essences from the three volcanoes were key to upgrading the Swords of Lost Light. ¡°Well, when that happened, scores o¡¯ Elementals would spawn on the lake an¡¯ the center crater there. It were not too different from what ye see now. But it didn¡¯t extend t¡¯ the rest o¡¯ the Crater, an¡¯ certainly not up t¡¯ the lips o¡¯ the place. Ye¡¯ve The Sight¡­ how many o¡¯ the gas golums be standing about?¡± Not surprisingly, so much fire and water together made for a lot of mist and steam floating about. I paid more attention to them and the magic interacting with them, and slowly nodded. ¡°About one group for every five points of Fire Elementals, all with Summons markings.¡± I spun about slowly. ¡°Ninety percent Summons down in the caldera. There¡¯s a much more even spread on the rim, where you can tell the Summons by their standardized forms. The Called versions are much more variable.¡± ¡°Aye, belikes the other Elementals of Earth, Air, an¡¯ Water that ye Summoned in the past,¡± the Mick nodded along. ¡°Shall we go down fer a visit? They might be a bit surprised to get a visitor like ye, I be thinking.¡± ¡°Well, Elder Oswald¡¯s been a regular visitor, so they aren¡¯t too uninformed on things, but, yes.¡± I began to glide that way at a sedate pace, giving them plenty of time to notice me and take whatever actions they were going to. The sharp-eyed sentries had noticed me coming over the rim, and a horn was ringing out in the distance, rolling over the inner hills of the crater, carried and amplified as it echoed off the stone walls. Dark dots resolving into people gathered in the center of the town as I swept toward them. Lord Mick stood up on the Disk, and I adjusted the height of it appropriately as I glided down to the crystalline blue waters, noting that there seemed to be a rather inordinate number of fish in them as I headed for the docks there. This should promise to be interesting¡­ AF Chapter 308 – Summons and Eidolons Disk With Elysa?!¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. is not an extension of theirs!¡± Teleport Teleport Disks Mass Disks AF Chapter 309 – Caves and Essences ¡°There is a whole storeroom of pyreal ingots for making the Atlan and Isparian Weapons, but of course no one has been capable of working the forges for years. Silencia perished in the Fall, and her Golem crumbled to pieces," Lady Tallia informed me. I considered that. ¡°Pyreal in weapons¡­ is not what it was, and the fatal weakness of the Atlan Weapons as Capacity-bearing Tools that can be overloaded was made lethally apparent. None will use them unless they are daft. ¡°We can bring some along for the base metal, they will have value you can use to trade for better goods for your people wherever you settle. At least a couple of the ingots and glyphs I will return to the Academy as study materials. Is there anything else?¡± Her hesitation proved that there was. ¡°Some of the children are adventurous, and those with Eidolons are able to avoid the attention of the Elementals. While the Crater Caves have golems-¡± ¡°Golums,¡± I corrected her mildly. The newer term was actually more accurate. ¡°True Golems are very different things.¡± She nodded slowly, taking me at my word. ¡°Golums,¡± she repeated, ¡°fill the Crater Caves, and will attack the Eidolons and their masters. So, the children took to, uh, exploring the Jahannan Vault. ¡°We have scores of the Major Smoldering Stones in the armory, although we¡¯ve found no use for them.¡± I could not help smiling broadly. ¡°Oh, that is going to be SO useful for you! The gems do actually have a considerable value now, if specialized. The more you have, the better! I am assuming that they are like the Shivering Stones and only pop up at dawn?¡± ¡°Yes, the Vault condenses a new one every morning,¡± she confirmed eagerly, wincing. ¡°Had we known, we would have made sure to gather one every single day!¡± I waved it off. ¡°Regrets are for later. Let¡¯s see your armory, and what we can take along to help. You¡¯ll receive full value for the Stones, although I¡¯m sure if you bid them off you¡¯d receive considerably more from the paramounts who don¡¯t want to go traipsing through the Vault themselves.¡± ¡°Hmmph!¡± She looked towards a certain section of the crater wall, then back at me. ¡°What are they used for now?¡± ¡°Princess Rantha and Commander Briggs figured out how to Socket other Weapons to receive gems of power. If you bear one of their Weapons, you can set the Elemental Stones Major and Minor in them to make a devastating Weapon of that Element!¡± ¡°And who do they make their Weapons for? The highest bidders?¡± Lady Tallia asked archly. ¡°Right now, the Stone Guard of Stonehold, the Royal Scouts and Guards of King Borelean, and the Knights of the Lost Light,¡± I informed her. ¡°Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the favor of the Commander, the Princess, and the king would be worth far more than the coins of some random paramounts who want children to do their work for them,¡± she said archly. ¡°I¡¯m of a similar opinion,¡± I had to agree. ¡°Then as a loyally repatriated subject of King Borelean, I will remand the Stones that we bear into your hands.¡± She considered the point. ¡°I imagine that it will be an easy way for the children to earn a fine income, if they can go into the Vault and easily retrieve more Stones.¡± ¡°They are important enough and valuable enough that I would love to scribe a Teleport Seal there for exactly that purpose, but it would have to be specifically attuned to this place, which would take me some time to study.¡± ¡°Or, for those who have been here years, might come quite naturally?¡± Lady Tallia dared to ask. ¡°You¡¯ll need to hit Nine in Summoner to test that out and see,¡± I warned her. ¡°Then that is exactly what I will do!¡± she swore to me. ------ ¡°Ye sure on this?¡± the Mick asked, lifting up his hands and eyeing the flames licking over them. The packing up of the Crater Lake Village was proceeding apace behind us. I¡¯d brought up hundreds of Mass Disks for them to use, and all of them were being hurriedly piled up with stuff. ¡°I still think we should tour the Jahannan Vault on our own, as I¡¯d like to study the ley lines filled with so much pyromana there, but I imagine I can do the same by going to the bottom of the Crater Caves instead¡­ and we will need to return here to do so.¡± ¡°The Bellows.¡± The automated systems inside the Forges down there automatically produced a Bellows that was integral for the function of Aerlinthe Island¡¯s own pumping systems. That long chain of events was necessary to acquire more Blackfire Stones¡­ and to reach Lady Aerefalle in her Sanctum. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The leader of the Wind Faction of the Falatacot was at least ten thousand years late to her own funeral, and for all that she¡¯d never taken direct action against Isparians or anyone else, her orders were responsible for a considerable amount of the machinations against us. Perhaps only the unseen Prince Geraine was a more hidden and malevolent influence than she. Rytheran at least at moved openly when he¡¯d chosen to take a hand in things, and was acknowledged as a teacher and sage by even the Haebran Empyreans like Asheron and Harlune, as he¡¯d been headmaster at the Mage Academy here on the islands. A side effect of the Aerlinthe quest had been the ignition of all three major volcanoes concerned with Dereth: Esper here, Tenkarrdun on Aerlinthe Island, and Mount Lethe in the Direlands. That was important, as a Hellfire with Essences of the Elemental Flames for each volcano would spawn at each location. However, the Crater here was already active, and it looked to me like an Elemental Lord of some kind was holding court in the center of the newly-deepened Crater Lake. I¡¯d been pretty sure that I¡¯d seen a towering blue-white Hellfire Elemental lounging around the huge floating halo-thing there. If so, we could pay our respects to the Lord, we might be able to do something with that. For that purpose, I¡¯d Exemplar Surged for Aspect of Fire, a spell I¡¯d never really expected to use, and Cast it on the Mick. He now had bright red skin, glowing hot eyes, and was venting flames with every step, looking totally like a creature of Fire. Fire Resistance and the ability to survive fiery-hot environments without difficulty were included in the Buff, although the ability to add Flaming to one¡¯s attacks was less then effective against Fire Elementals. ¡°It costs us nothing but time and verification that we don¡¯t have to run around killing a bunch of Hellfire Elementals repeatedly to upgrade the Weapons of Lost Light.¡± ¡°And ye can actually talk to the things?¡± he asked warily. ¡°If you listen, you¡¯ll realize that you can understand them right now, too.¡± He blinked, turning his head as I skimmed along the surface of the lake, and he paced along the surface with the Waveskating Step, the steam a little bit thicker underneath his soles. The Elementals along the shoreline were avoiding the water religiously, as it would quickly extinguish the ¡®real¡¯ Elementals, and cool down the local variants. He realized that the snaps and crackles of their flames, and the sight of the flames ebbing and flowing all constituted a language both visual and audible¡­ and the Elementals were remarking about how powerful we must be, to so easily dare the waters that would snuff us out! I was in Fire Mode, wings out and skin not quite as red as the Mick, but clearly broadcasting that I was also a Being of Fire. ¡°Well, damn,¡± he murmured in astonishment, realizing that the pulsing lights and flames all around the Crater were actually gossiping about events in a very disjointed and simple manner. ¡°They be talking about us¡­¡± ¡°Yes, they are very curious. We¡¯d be thronged by them to test us and see if we are real if we were on the shore by now.¡± Our straight progress across the waters towards the Inner Crater was also marked, and the Elementals had realized we were heading for their boss. A few had even run off the slopes of the Crater and across the landbridge of cooled magma to the Inner Crater to see the fun! ¡°So, Elementals do actually have some brains?¡± he asked slowly. ¡°The native ones tied to the System are, eh, stupid. You can tell by what they are saying. The true Elementals can be as intelligent as any normal person, although they range from animal intelligence up to genius-level for the more powerful ones,¡± I informed him. ¡°They be liking yer wings,¡± he noticed, grinning slightly. ¡°Even Fire Elementals are envious of the ability to fly,¡± I nodded as we closed on the outer slopes of the Inner Crater. I held out my hand, and zipped up the slope as he grabbed on. He held on, kicking off the sheer and sharp obsidian lightly and easily, leaning on me just enough to maintain his balance and otherwise make the ascent look effortless. Jumping twenty feet into the air between parkour kick-ups as he zipped up the slope of the Inner Crater was impressive enough to get a lot of enthusiastic comments from the Elementals watching from above and around us. On top of the rim, we paused for only a moment in the looming presence of a great serpent of Fire looking down at us in great interest. Down in the center of the place was a great Halo of some molten metal, studded at various points with glittering points of hot white light that I realized were eyes. A vortex of flame played around the ten-foot hoop of solidified flame, the ground beneath it completely molten in a way no other Elemental was managing to do. And naturally it was looking at us, the merest flicker of its flames an open invitation to approach. ¡°A Primal Elemental Lord. Be respectful.¡± Unique and not pigeon-holed as a uniform type, much like Demon Princes and the like in that regard. He looked over the towering Elder Elementals, two massive Primal Elementals in the forms of a massive bear and bull respectively, and replied quietly, ¡°Nae problems from me on that score, lass!¡± he muttered back with feeling, even as he skipped easily down the sharp rocks of the slope with carefree confidence in the power of his lightfoot. Soon enough we were standing at the bottom of the crater there, about sixty feet away from the great floating molten ring of the Primal Elemental. I knelt, and the Mick followed only a heartbeat later. He could feel the heat of the Primal Lord like it was baking his soul, and submission to a truly greater being was the proper way here. He could tell by the flames of every other Elemental about that submitting to him was only proper. -I am Zyszaeszi,- the Lord /stated in burning telepathic words that seared the thoughts with the absoluteness and power of existence. -What come mortals of fire to my court?- he /asked in open curiosity. ¡°Molten Zyszaeszi, I am Devra al-Ryinth, Magos of the Lost Light. My companion is the Lord Mick, Warden of the Royal Scouts of the mortal kingdom of Freehold and Knight of the Lost Light. We heard of your presence upon this island and have naturally come to pay our respects to a Lord of Fire. ¡°We have also come to see if the ancient Oaths are still binding upon the Flames of Esper.¡± AF Chapter 310 – Of Lost Light and Hellfire Crown Fabrications Bunita -Promises and oaths to the Lost Light,- ¡°Old oaths sworn with the Lost Light to empower its mortal servants who came to empower their Weapons against the creatures of Darkness and Shadow,¡± -The Dark ones wielding Cold are enemies of the Lost Light as well? -That is true. The Lost Light will not live in the grasp of the false,--A Gold, and a Rainbow Aspirant. The Lost Light continues to choose the foolhardy and the defiant as ever, I see.- -Render unto them what was promised.- ZeksDisk -So it was promised,- Radiant or Fire damage boostCrown -Display for me your mastery of the Fire and the Light,- This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Bunita FirephasingBunita Sharding Maelstrom Bunita -A fine display of the power and glory of Fire!- -And you, Magos? What have you to show us?- Crown CrownCrown Greater Shards Crown -Using the horror of Ice to take the Fire and feed your Flames.--Truly a child of the Void Phoenix.- -The Lost Light has gained worthy servants. You may depart.- AF Chapter 311 – Trains and Craters The people of the Crater Lake Village were jubilant as they climbed aboard their own Disks, parents hugging their children tight. Everything started off with a demonstration that they would not fall off if they did not let go, namely by tilting everything sideways and people gasping and flailing as they and their belongings didn¡¯t go tumbling. That little bit of fun done, we just headed southeast for the Crater¡¯s slopes. I flew up parallel to the cliffs as the Disks followed behind me, heading up to the rim of the Crater, and I waited there as the Mick came running in from the distance. He flashed a new Major Smoldering Stone at me before tucking it away, and we leapt over the edge of Mount Esper¡¯s scorched black rim as the neighboring Elementals, having backed politely away at my warnings, watched all the cold mortals stream past and go over the edge after me. The roller-coaster was mild, as these were civilians, not adventurers or soldiers, but I still had a bit of fun with them as we descended a couple thousand feet over the miles towards the headwaters of the River Esper, eventually settling down above its surface and streaking down the length of it, just above the waters, to many cheers and gasps of relief from behind me. Everyone was looking and pointing at all the trees and things to see outside the crater, even the rocks in the waters and small waterfalls and streams gaining attention as new and wonderful. It was a world without Fire Elementals everywhere, and if strange and alien to some of the children, no doubt they¡¯d get used to it quickly. Of course, there were many other kinds of monster spawns around, which, like a good tour bus operator, I went around, pointing them out and identifying them for the people, noting that they were all uniformly hostile, and that one of the things they¡¯d be learning to do as they grew up was Seal those Summon points so people didn¡¯t have to worry about such things anymore. Veering east off the river to go overland allowed us to show more of the local hostile creatures, especially the olthoi, which utterly terrified many of the children and made the adults grit their teeth to see them once again. The undead who¡¯d attacked the Crater were the boogeymen of the children, and now they finally got to see the boogeymen of their parents, too! They had never moved overland with the speed we were traveling at. The Mick was pacing me as, Wings spread, I skimmed over the surface of the ground in a relaxed and composed manner. He could have played the donkey, but I let him run about and show off to them what a true paramount could accomplish now. He did a lot of one-hitting the landscape Summons who were in the way, too, making the kids whoop and impressing the wide-eyed adults who had a much better idea how hard it was to chop a Hunter Shreth fully in half with one sweep of a Sword. Of course, the Lady Magos with the wings full of stars and moons was impressive enough on her own, but they hadn¡¯t seen me put out much magic that was showy¡­ although the beam of fire that had thrown the sun into shadow and chewed through a section of the Inner Crater before blazing a thousand paces through the air had been pretty spectacular¡­ --- We rolled through Eastham, taking only an hour¡¯s rest as the villagers got to speak and mix with the others living there. The few Aun with the villagers elected to leave at this point, taking up with the Hea and Aun there and leaving to be escorted to surviving relatives by them, giving them time to re-familiarize themselves and their children with the old ways as they made the overland journey by themselves. Then it was on to the south, past the crater and memorial that was all that was left of the virindi treachery at Dryreach. We continued on down the coastal trails to Hebian-to, where they were first exposed to the Freeholder undead who had risen up to buy enough time for the living survivors of the south to retreat up the peninsula to freedom. From there it was south along the road to the new trade city of Nanto that was slowly rising into importance, and thence to the major settlements and farms that were building up around Mayoi and the local hills of the bay and valley. We¡¯d naturally Messaged ahead, and so there were already potential homes and settlements being arranged. Specifically, I ran them to an area to the west of Mayoi after introducing all of them to Master Ben Ten and his skeletal Legion of the Sun, reimpressing on them that the south in many ways owed the undead more than their lives here. Of course, those who demonstrated desires to take up arms and magic had to be assigned to the right places, but places were cleared and set for them even as they helped their friends and neighbors settle into new homes, buildings that hadn¡¯t even existed until I got there shortly ahead of them and built them. But that was something for another time. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ----- As we didn¡¯t want the undead to have any chance of infiltrating the Halls of Lost Light and finding or destroying the Fountain, it necessitated having at least a small garrison present who could seal the way to it. I had closed most of the tunnel from the lower level off from outside access, but I could certainly open it from the outside myself and seal it behind me, so entering the Halls, even with Interdictions up to foil dimensional shenanigans, was not difficult. Word had already spread about the Major and Minor Elemental Stones, and we¡¯d delivered the news of the availability of the Esper Essences to followers of the Lost Light. Thus, there was a bit of a crowd as we brought the burning white flames of Mount Esper to the Font of the Lost Light, and there deposited them one by one into the ghostly white tendrils and whorls coming out of the Font. The effect of the mystical Flames was instantly visible. The seals were dissolved away from the Infusions, and flows of hot white energy shot through the Font repeatedly. Ghostly energies solidified into brighter and more solid displays, and the whole room visibly brightened to a considerable degree. ¡°Imbuing the Weapons drains the Font, and it needs to be replenished,¡± Princess Kristie nodded, staring at the display with a pleased smile on her face. ¡°You dropped a Seal for easy Teleporting?¡± she asked, as we turned and headed down the stairs to the altar. ¡°Three. One at the village, one at the Jahannan Vault, an¡¯ one outside o¡¯ the magical shenanigans goin¡¯ on,¡± the Mick assured her. The Major Smoldering Stones were already being distributed among the Knights of the Lost Light and Royal Guards, and had earned the villagers a whole lot of trading capital and favors for themselves from them, who Kristie would make damn sure repaid them in full. ¡°We still have to get into the Crater Caves to get a Bellows or two, so we¡¯ll be going back shortly. You want us t¡¯ be bringing some men who can occupy the place an¡¯ harvest Stones, serve as a jumping-off point t¡¯ get Essences for ¡®em?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to tie getting the Essences to getting Aspects of Fire to make things easier all around. Since they give ten at a time, we will send men in groups of five or more, with any extra being used to help the Font. They will also have to get a Smoldering Stone from the Vault to pass onto their juniors or replace that given them by the villagers there, as appropriate. Taking the Stones gained by children is just not appropriate. ¡°They aren¡¯t allowed to equip a Major without first gaining the Minor Stone, either. So there¡¯s going to be time delays as we accumulate the Minor Stones.¡± Us three, Briggs, and the royals were on the short lists for the first Minor Stones. Borelean didn¡¯t technically need them, but not having them would have looked bad, even if most of his Karmic gains were coming from Dungeons and not active landscape reclamation. All three Royals were urgently trying to make Nine in Matrix Casting and gain the ability to Teleport, however! ¡°Also,¡± Kris looked to me, ¡°am I correct in saying that a Linejump should be able to bypass the dimensional uncertainty there? So, a group could Linejump from the base or a nearby mount to the Vault without having to make the climb or try some pyric method of flight?¡± ¡°Might be easier to just make stairs from the base to the top,¡± I shook my head. ¡°Just conceal it with an illusion that only opens to the Lost Light.¡± ¡°Better,¡± she agreed with a nod. ¡°Can you commit to a weekly trip to get more Essence with a group?¡± ¡°Certainly.¡± Just an hour of my time and getting the mana back for the spells. A Mass Aspect of Fire wouldn¡¯t be all that much to get back. ¡°We¡¯ll get a post set up by the Vault there, they can rotate in and out on a weekly basis. You cleared a route in and out by foot, so they have a way to retreat without magic.¡± ¡°Might want t¡¯ include another, if the stairs do be compromised,¡± the Mick suggested. ¡°Feather Fall and jump?¡± I asked archly. ¡°Or just ropes and rappelling, or a one-way drop tube?¡± Kris reasoned. ¡°All three?¡± was the Mick¡¯s contribution. I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Making work for me¡­¡± ¡°Well, of course. After you secure a couple Bellows, what are your plans?¡± ¡°For personal purposes, Ulgrim¡¯s Island. Yourself?¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to Xik Minru and securing the Deru Tree there. The moarsmen Summons before the ingress point is a superb mass combat practice arena. It is going to become a regular training point for the army.¡± I sighed. ¡°And you want me to set up a Long Jump for it from Ithaenc.¡± Kris beamed. ¡°She does think ahead so much, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°Aye, one o¡¯ those troublin¡¯ traits o¡¯ hers, gettin¡¯ away from so much fun spontaneity an¡¯ foolhardiness, I know, I know,¡± he sighed dramatically. ¡°How¡¯re me Roaches doing?¡± ¡°Moaning and complaining that they don¡¯t measure up to the specializing Knights, who moan and complain about the versatility and group coordination of your Roaches. It¡¯s rather fun listening to them think they don¡¯t measure up to one another.¡± ¡°And Briggs?¡± I asked. ¡°He wants to secure access to the other two Vaults.¡± Kris pointed at the Mick. ¡°Guess who gets that mission?¡± ¡°I be only at Seven in the Magery. I can Linejump out o¡¯ danger, but not Teleport,¡± he said. ¡°An¡¯ that be not workin¡¯ all that well from inside a Dungeon. I be not going in without a team.¡± ¡°Wouldn¡¯t expect it. We want a Teleport Seal placed close by for the teams who will go in. Are you confident in working overland and getting such things in place solo?¡± He looked north, towards the unseen Direlands past the walls. ¡°Aye. Aye, I can do that. I can run away with a Linejump easy enough if wounded, an¡¯ recover fast enough on me own with the Wands and the like.¡± ¡°We fully expect certain areas of the Direlands are going to be completely impassable to normal dimensional magic, including pretty much all of the Obsidian Plains. So, we¡¯d like reports on the status of several areas you can shuffle through with speed, not needing to kill anything. The Shadow Mines, the ruins of Ayan Baquar, the Lightning and Acid Vaults, and the Gotrok Chorozite and Aetherium Mines.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t the biggest o¡¯ the latter o¡¯ those up by the Plateau?¡± he asked with a frown. ¡°Yes, so lower on the priority. Actually, Elder Oswald and his students should be taking that one, as he considers the North his private turf. Clearing it would be a good test for his people.¡± AF Chapter 312 – Of Pyramids and Revelations ¡°An¡¯ potentially stir up the virindi, but that were going t¡¯ happen sooner or later. What about the Gear Knight invasion area?¡± Lord Mick asked professionally. ¡°They are still putting the Gold Primus back together, an exacting job. We need to know if there¡¯s still active aetherium usable there, or if it¡¯s too unstable to use after the Fall. If the virindi can still tap it, that doesn¡¯t bode well, especially if they are messing around in the Amperehelion Vault.¡± ¡°As a matter o¡¯ self-preservation, belikes better to do the Incunabula first, as the Acid Stone be useful against the Lightning Elementals in the other, an¡¯ we¡¯re already fair equipped for olthoi,¡± he reasoned out. ¡°We don¡¯t need the Dungeon infiltration until you have a team, just get the Seal in place so Ryin can drop that team in without having to go overland. If we have to do relays, then get access points around the interdicted zones we can jump between, if we have to.¡± ¡°Places where people couldn¡¯t access without flying before might be good for that, if there¡¯s room,¡± I noted. ¡°Hah! There¡¯s mountaintops I¡¯ve not been atop all across Dereth. I can change that now¡­¡± He glanced over at me. ¡°Yer Pyramid will be close to done. What about the Viridian Rise Deru Tree an¡¯ the A¡®nekshay?¡± ¡°Plans get revised on the fly?¡± I just sighed. ¡°Mmm. Securin¡¯ this side be more important than a few gems, but aye, we want access to the Vaults. If ye kin give me a heading t¡¯ the Incanabula, I¡¯ll try me best to drop in atop it, then head west for the swamp about the Obsidian Plains and just run it at speed to the Amperehelion. Once I drop there, I¡¯ll head further west to Ayan and see what be there. Ye shouldn¡¯t have the Pyramid done afore I get done, an¡¯ if it¡¯s close, wait for me, or come fetch me first,¡± he told me firmly. ¡°I will come get you if it is warranted,¡± I just inclined my head in agreement. ¡°How be Briggs deploying forces if the Viridian Deru Tree be materializing, an¡¯ the A¡¯nekshay?¡± the Mick asked. ¡°Adventurers only, until we can arrange a diplomatic meeting. We don¡¯t know how many things are slaved to Summons in Neftet, and if nothing else, we know that the Viridian Rise itself has a huge Phyntos problem. If the Tree is still amenable, and the gromnatrosses are still friendly overall, then we¡¯ll secure another ally. If not, well¡­¡± Kris shrugged fatalistically. ¡°We need the Pyramids to stop a pop-and-slaughter invasion cold, and to stop them from bringing in some Mythos Entity atop a settlement like it did to Tou-Tou. We¡¯ll live with their hostility if we have to.¡± It was an imperfect world, and we did what we could. Always so much to do¡­ --------- The altar stone fit itself fully into place, capping what they were calling the Pyramid of the Moon. Given it glowed a soft white Light between the blocks it was made of as it floated there off the ground, I just let the name slide. It wasn¡¯t the Lost Light, but it WAS Holy Light, a side-effect of Holy Magic being involved in every facet of Shaping the rock and putting it all together. I didn¡¯t want any undead or Shadows or anything else thinking they could waltz up and take control of it, bending it to their will. The levitation effect was geomagnetic, a side effect of the high QL of construction, so it floating there didn¡¯t even use any ambient magical power. Just the Holiness and Vivus worked into it required nothing either, a side-effect of the energies. Anything Undead or Shadowed touching it was going to take 3-18 points of damage of Burn every six seconds, which would probably motivate them to go away rather quickly. Not only was it mana-reinforced, being placed directly atop a ley line crossroads, but it was mana-absorbent. Using spells against it to destroy it was a non-starter. The stones were getting harder and tougher the longer they floated here and soaked in the mana, until they reached the limit of what I could Temper stones to, which was in excess of 30 Hardness right now. Add on the mana-reinforcement, and nothing was going to hack this thing down. The main effect of the ley line tap was the Pyramid¡¯s Domain, of course. It effectively robbed any pre-Sealed Summons point of all excess mana entirely, redirecting it up and out into an Interdiction effect nothing was going to be able to surpass with active magic. The System¡¯s intrinsic Summons, if not Sealed, would still work normally, as the magic was ¡®under¡¯ the Interdiction. That said, nobody was going to be using magic to Summon in anything, and nobody would be using magic to Teleport, Portal, Recall, or other iterations of popping around, unless they were attuned to the Pyramid. The spell I imbued as a carrier into the Domain was The Blessing of the Fields, a generic spell that would accelerate and increase the yields of all agriculture in the area affected by the Pyramid. The crops here already grew fast and high, so this would ensure a quick and full bumper crop for the new settlers returning to the main island. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Lots of food meant easier to support armed people running around making violent nuisances of themselves to our enemies. I stood atop the altar as the Domain slowly bubbled out, mana pouring in from the ley line network, stripping Sealed Summons points of their pressure from below, building, building¡­ And there it was, a wavering that was already uncertain, powerful and living magic used to conceal and displace, being forced to even out as the Veil suddenly quadrupled in strength and didn¡¯t allow the mass spatial magic to do what it wanted to do. It could either pop outside the Veil and be completely isolated, vulnerable to what waited Beyond, or be forced back into continuity with everything else. -I have positive affirmation of the reappearance of Neftet!- Scout Lieutenant Jaimieson /reported from the distance. -Positive confirmation that the Viridian Rise and its Deru Tree is back!- Scout Lieutenant Vilidiani also /reported excitedly. -Two gromnatrosses in the air!- he /added over the Marks. -The forest is there, exactly as reported in the old stories!- -You are clear to probe the edge of the forest and verify inhabitants. Engage on your own cognizance, you are to retreat if you are in danger. We will hold off on all Sealing until we have a better idea of the diplomatic situation,- Princess Kristie /said firmly. -I will inform the king and ask how he wants to proceed. I expect an Aun delegation to the Deru Tree, and him to personally go to Neftet.- The defenders of Neftet were powerful and skilled in Elemental magic. Engaging them could be very dangerous, so it was a job best suited for paramounts and others over Level 200¡­ a status that was finally becoming more and more common as energetic Leveling on the Isparian side continued non-stop. ---------- ¡°There¡¯s no way this place wasn¡¯t designed. Just look at the damn place!¡± I sniffed in some disbelief, staring at the orbital survey I¡¯d just completed of the island, and actually of the whole planet. The whole Hazesight array to look through dust, clouds, sand, and rain; Devasight to not be tricked by lights or refraction and to see ALL the colors; and Devilsight to see through darkness as if it were not there. The Elemental Adaptation to survive up a thousand miles above the planet while zipping around it at speed, Radiance resistance to put up with exposure to cosmic radiation, my Cold immunity laughing at the chill, all the while maxed-out Eagle Eyes working at x100 magnification roved over the sights of the world below, painting them into Visual File for reference. In terms of detail, I¡¯d spent a lot more time staring at Dereth, because that was where we were based. However, the world was big, and that meant huge amounts of potential. There were definitely massive clouds of olthoi spores scattered in various clusters on the continents around, too, and I¡¯d easily been able to see the ruins of many, many points of civilization from up in the sky. Notably, on the opposite side of the world, I¡¯d also been able to see boats. While the olthoi may have swarmed over the world at one point, they were all concentrated on the coasts nearest to Dereth, despite there being a thousand miles or more of ocean in all directions from this place. They were called to their Queen, and it likely had allowed some people to flee out into the waters and survive them. As the Empyreans had supposedly been saved from them by Asheron, that meant slave or servant races. I could only assume that any aquatic varieties of the olthoi got themselves eaten quickly. But when descending upon Dereth, it became totally apparent this place was intelligent design, and whimsical and non-disciplined at that. There were five stretches of hills that had been rendered to actually spell out names, including the entirety of the Valleys of Death area, a stretch of hills north of Qalaba¡¯r in southern Osteth, and one stretch of water/swamps between other hills that formed another name. Non-impact zones had been rendered into geomantic circles or other formations that definitely weren¡¯t natural. In the middle of this whimsical and erratic world-building, the Obsidian Plains was a big round blast circle of destruction that had obviously disrupted everything there. It had either burned down whatever was in the middle or shoved matter to the fringe hills that encircled it, a black spot from above that was hard to miss. Somehow or another, the floating sky citadel of the virindi rebel Aerbax still floated in the air above the center of the Obsidian Plains, making it the only known flying device that hadn¡¯t been reported as crashed that we knew of. However, it did seem to be a lot lower to the ground than it had been reported as. Even the famous Hieromancer Halls that had trained war mages for the Empyreans seemed fairly intact, although one had to wonder at what might be found within its abandoned chambers now. Intelligent design, someone making a place for entertainment, training up warriors, and endless combat, with biomes far too close to one another that yet endured because magic said this will grow here and this will be the temperature of this place, and that was that. The one huge hole was quite literally the Inner Sea. It was completely empty. Literally. A great big expanse of water sixty miles wide and a hundred miles long, and there were no islands beyond two hundred yards of the shoreline. Not a one. From above, it looked like an open expanse of water with absolutely nothing there. All my hackles were rising as I looked at it, knowing without a doubt that what I was seeing was not real, even if everything visual matched up perfectly inside it. Where it didn¡¯t match up was on the waves past the Shoreward. What should have been even, sweeping waves rolling across unbroken stretches of water and foaming up on the shores turned into cross-waves and side currents instead¡­ exactly like waves that were deflected by unseen islands might act as they spread out and into one another at irregular angles. It was an effect easily missed at the ground level, doubtless interpreted as both coming into shallower water and/or the influence of the Shoreward disturbing the waves. There were unseen islands out in the water, hidden by a grand illusion of at least Legendary power, and based on the everything I¡¯d read, the Empyreans had no clue anything was out there, either. Even records of sailing from one side to the other mentioned nothing, meaning the sailors were guided by the illusions between whatever was out there and never sensed a thing was out of place. It was not something I was going to utter aloud, of course, and the designers of the effect were certainly going to be confident it would hold up to aerial surveys, too. In the meantime, quiet words in Markspace when line-of-sight contact was available would have to do. AF Chapter 313 – A Run through the Dires Mikal McMikal had thought the map of Dereth in the Markspace was great before, continually being updated in real time, slowly pushing into the new territories here and there as Marked poked at the unknown edges and filled things in. This aerial survey from above was utterly surreal, and the biggest proof imaginable that Dereth wasn¡¯t a natural place, but put together by beings moving earth on a colossal scale. Geomancers, the Lady Magos called them. Beings capable of shaping terrain on a geographic scale. Legendary abilities and spells. What it did do was make precision Linejump insertions totally possible. While the view from above was not the same as from the ground, it was still possible to work out what was where by positions and the sheer detail of her survey. Thus, a jump from the hills of Yaraq south-southeast across the waters, coming in a mile over the swamps that the Incunabula Vault was located in, was totally possible. With the right heading and distance, he¡¯d been less than a quarter-mile off target, seeing the clearing from above and easily sliding down the air towards it while Invisible. Cloudstepping Sandals misted a ski-course for him, but he didn¡¯t do anything fancy. His job was to get there, plant a Seal Focus for teams to lock on and use to arrive here in a safe place, and then head on out to the Amperehelion Vault on the other side of the Obsidian Ring. It were a bit of overland running to the southeast, aye, but nothing that he hadn¡¯t done in his youth, and more than once at that. Because he could, he whispered the words to the Detect Lived-Line as he slowly descended unseen from the sky. Below him, streaks of motion covered the ground and flitted off in all directions. If he stared at them, he could see faint after-images of himself, shadows from long ago, clad in different armor and attire. They were centered on two points in space, coming out of one and into another: the entrance and exit to the Vault way back then, from a good twenty years past and more, when he¡¯d spent a lot of time in here. He¡¯d done his share of exploring the area around the Vault, run back and forth from the small outpost of Wai Jhou more than once, and even headed north to Fort Tethana. One of the important things about Lived-Lines was their continuity, as you couldn¡¯t Teleport along them if there were breaks between where you were and where you¡¯d been. He¡¯d used Portals to get around a lot back then, but even so, he¡¯d done some exploring on foot, actually run the roads and routes between those Portals at one time or another, and crossed paths with himself in so doing, linking old Lived-Lines together by actually hoofing it instead of just popping around on the winds of magic. The lines below had the silvery edge that said they were connected to his greater lived-line. Places like Freebooter¡¯s Island or the like, cut off from the mainland and only accessible by magic, would have shown darker, shadowed lines that would only light up if he were to cross them and make them ¡®current¡¯. Standard Teleports wouldn¡¯t work across the water without the Lines, either. You had to Linejump them, which meant aiming and praying¡­ or using a fantastically accurate Markspace Map to drop yourself from altitude in on a target. It was why Princess Kristie ran across the waters to new places, establishing that Lived-line connection over the sea. He¡¯d done the same alongside her, so when it was time, he¡¯d be able to Teleport to the Vesayan islands and away, as needed. There were a lot of people hoofing it to places they¡¯d only visited by Portals in the past, looking to establish that Lived-Line connection so they could Teleport there unerringly when it was time. The Mick let the affirmation of his past travels fade away, noting the surrounding Summons with professional interest. Oddly enough, there were no olthoi outside the Incunabula Vault, which was hardly surprising. There were no Acid Elementals inside it, after all, merely a whole bunch of rapidly-spawning olthoi fit to temper young warriors with fair to poor weapons, feeding them Levels and giving them experience against the bugs. At least, that¡¯s what it had been back then, at the start of his career. No, the surrounding Spawns were sclavi, burun, guruk, various golums dominated by trios of diamonds, and some wisps of various kinds, all of them more powerful than what were encountered in Osteth. More unnatural shite. Why did all the powerful things gather to the Direlands? Aye, there might be some powerful magic here that allowed them to evolve tougher and stronger, and the fact only certain areas in Osteth could support high-Level opponents did make that logical. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. But it didn¡¯t change the fact that such creatures should press into Osteth and its weaker creatures, forcing them out or killing them over time. The olthoi here were prime examples. Landscape spawns of Olthoi in the Dires here were common, despite the fact that the olthoi ecological invasion was found absolutely nowhere, and the grievvers that preyed on them had spread here as well. Those spawns were, by and large, stronger and more powerful than the Summons that popped up in the Olthoi North. It was like the Hives had sent all their toughest stuff out here with the other nasty shite to test out the strong, which had been a plenty fine explanation back when he couldn¡¯t tell a PC from an NPC, and running a Quest fifty times in a row made perfect sense in the world. Now, it made no damn sense at all, and the rapidly increasing strength of the true olthoi and their Summons in the Olthoi North showed the bugs had stopped drinking that particular brand of ale, as well. Yet, somehow, there were still plenty of olthoi spawns in the South Dires, and he doubted they¡¯d be much different when he moved out of these swamps. If he remembered correctly, the sclavi and burun spawns had changed when the Burun Temple link in these swamps popped up. The sclavi were ostensibly rivals of the burun and so there should have been conflict between them¡­ except Summons were stupid and didn¡¯t inherit living biases, and so they ignored one another instead of fighting one another madly like the real ones would. His brain had filled in the details of them skirmishing and killing one another when he couldn¡¯t see them, but no, that wasn¡¯t really the case, even if was implied. Summons killing one another meant nothing. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure that the Direlands were even more bereft of real life than Osteth was. Certainly normal creatures were few and far between, and the only ¡®real¡¯ creatures were the scattered tribal elites of drudges and banderlings and the like, and the competing powers of the Shades and the Virindi, with the Gotrok lugians and Hea tumeroks as minions of the latter. The undead, while holding the areas of Chalicmere and the Graveyard, had less presence overall in the Direlands than either of their major rivals, at least as far as Summons went. As for actual military forces, the undead probably exceeded everyone, although those numbers would have received a distinct burn in recent weeks. He braced himself slightly as the ground came up, and as he slid down to the ground, he transitioned to the Waveskating Step and drifted to a halt right in front of the ramp that led down into the Incunabula Vault. The acrid smell drifting up out of the place brought back a lot of memories. He checked the allocation of Summons around, finding none within triggering distance of this ramp, then he slid off and down the mound it was built on to another clear area nearby. Getting caught in an olthoi rush from below would not be appreciated by a team having to Portal in. The carved granite disk with the singular Seal carved into it was placed onto a larger stone jutting up out of the swamp, and energy hissed over it for a moment as it melded into the larger stone. ¡°Now, then, Bunita me girl, how¡¯s about we earn ye some Naming Karma afore we start the hoofing of it overland.¡± A spiral of Lost Light wrapped up and around his arm in anticipation as he Cast the Acid, Pierce, and Slashing Banes on his Armor, followed it with Defiant to Vermin, and repeated the process on his Buckler Clan. He Infused Olthoi Slayer into the gleaming blue-black of Bunita¡¯s adamantine steel, turning it a deep and rather poisonous green in anticipation of what was about to happen. If it were only as tough as it had been long ago, he could solo the entire place with ease, up and down. If instead it was upgraded, he might be able to solo his way down, but he¡¯d have to Dimension Door up and out to extract himself after gaining his prize. If it were now at the level of the Baishi Hive, he¡¯d not be able to make it alone, the spawn would be too fast and catch him from behind. Any way you looked at it, he¡¯d find out how tough the place was for those coming after him, and the kind of fighting they¡¯d have to endure to get their prize. Fighting down the urge to whistle, the long blade of Bunita spiraling motes of orange and polychromatic Lost Light up and along his arm, he headed down into the darkness, the familiar bio-luminescence of the alien olthoi ecology starting to rise in front of him. He turned on his Mask of Clarity, the dim light leapt into full view, and he heard the first skittering of rubbing pincers as the olthoi registered a new scent coming down into their abode. When the first Swarm Workers and Soldiers came for him, he came for them as well, feeling almost like coming home as he smashed into them and Bunita¡¯s plunging point began to reap. ----- Mikal McMikal took long and deep breaths as he retreated from the narrow doorway he¡¯d held against the rush of the Olthoi Matron and her guards, stepping back to the Major Stinging Stone laying on the floor there. As the bodies of the olthoi Burned away, far enough away from their Seals to respawn, he bent down to pick up the glowing green Crystal, retreating to the far end of the corridor. ¡°A wee bit tougher than Uziz now,¡± he mentioned aloud, really talking to the Markspace. ¡°The Matron has definitely evolved an¡¯ is definitely tougher here,¡± he added. She had outlasted all her spawn and guards, and they had even respawned before the Mick had finally worked Bunita through her guard and impaled her through the skull. ¡°I dinnae see any sign o¡¯ anything working the area an¡¯ tryin¡¯ t¡¯ harvest the Stone. While it might be useful as a grinding place now, ¡®tis a mite pain t¡¯ have to work yer way down through the place an¡¯ deal with the respawns. ¡°However, the upper areas probably be keeping out the riffraff, an¡¯ weren¡¯t no real olthoi here at all. I be recommending wiping the final room clean an¡¯ setting up a base t¡¯ harvest here, an¡¯ have the Lady Magos put in one o¡¯ her coy access tunnels so that we can sneak in clever an¡¯ clean, an¡¯ just camp the bottom o¡¯ the Dungeon. If we only Teleport from the surface in an¡¯ out t¡¯ get around the Dungeon¡¯s Wards, an¡¯ never go exploring t¡¯ be tracked without coming out the main entry, we should be able to hold this place an¡¯ harvest the Stones with nobody being the wiser.¡± There was only a short amount of debate out there before that plan of action was approved. The Lady Magos would have no problem making an alternate entry point into the depths. With the Markspace Map as a perfect guide, coming out into this very room would be simplicity. AF Chapter 314 – He’s got the Stones Indeed, the Mick considered, if all they wanted to do, instead of claiming the room beyond, was sit down here and defend this tunnel constantly, that would be good regular Karma for decent soldiers, and easy to control by simply retreating. They¡¯d just have to be sure they could take down the Matron, which would be a fine incentive to work on Wolfpack tactics. Whatever, easy enough for them to figure out the particulars, now that they knew what to do. Another half-hour, and Natural Renewal would come, and he could pick up a third Major Stinging Stone. The second had materialized within five minutes of taking the first, the energy to coalesce it plainly having built up long ago. He didn¡¯t have the Minor Stone for all the bells and whistles, but just having the Major Stone was going to be useful against the Lightning Elementals of the Amperehelion Vault, as acidic energies really tore into the magic that allowed the things to manifest. He heard the fwzash of the Matron respawning up top faintly, and just ignored it as the corpses of the previous olthoi dropped away and the membrane at the end of the tunnel cut off his scent. He¡¯d grab his third Stone shortly, then see if he could run his way out of this place. He grinned in anticipation, letting his Vigor run through and restore his Soak as he rested. Healing Edge had taken care of almost all of his physical injuries, so he¡¯d be good to go shortly¡­ ------ ¡°Hoo ha!¡± He came shooting up out of the ramp in the ground, a bunch of olthoi Swarm Soldiers and Workers pounding after him. But they had no chance of catching him, and he was off and heading south at speed on the Waveskating Step, uncaring of who might see for the moment, and pointedly not slowed by mud or sand while running right across the water¡¯s placid surface. The following bugs rapidly stopped, turned, and returned to the hole in the ground that was the Incunabula Vault, unaware they were being set up as a grinding and harvest point for Isparians eager to gain more Levels, and earn some decent money doing so. He didn¡¯t bother to recast his Invisibility for now, saving that if he needed to run away from something. He¡¯d be challenging some things as he made his way overland, fighting things he¡¯d not met in years to see how fighting now compared to back then. Aye, he could be clever and be sneaky if it were required, and he¡¯d be testing that out, too. A full attack Flurry from behind was like as not going to kill almost everything he encountered here, with the most dangerous threat to him being the War Magic things could Cast, as ever. With the Augmentations he¡¯d taken so long in the past, his natural Resistances to magic were at V, Gold Level, or -50% of damage, and his resistance to Bludgeoning damage, the most universal kind, stood at 70%, basically Incantor-grade. It was a shame natural defenses didn¡¯t stack with basic Protections, only the less-powerful Wards, and Gor, weren¡¯t getting those things back a pain in the arse. The only Ward he¡¯d been able to replace after all these years was the Flame Ward from the Rose of Celdon on his finger. Odds were that the Artificers out there could make Mana Capacity items once again. He knew he could, if he were of a mind to, although they¡¯d not be that powerful. But after the Fall, the number of people who¡¯d touch the work on such things were slim to none, and the number who¡¯d buy them even less. The knowledge that someone, something, out there could twitch a finger and slaughter you with the very Artifice you were wearing? Nobody would wield such things, even if the methods were tried, true, and easy to make. None had been made by the smiths in a full generation now, and while the art was comprehensive and preserved in the archives in full, nobody made such things anymore. They were only points of reference. It was the main motivating reason behind the explosive demand for learning Artificer Levels, and the Matrix methods of magical items. The only things the smiths had been able to make were finer and finer non-magical Weapons, and putting in the basic Runes of Biting Strike, Crushing Blow, and Armor Cleaving, along with the various Slayer Runes they¡¯d managed to work out. The addition of Sockets and adding powerful Gemstones for further magic had allowed all those smiths to craft items with their previous skills, proving that they still had value. Four-Methods Artificing, the new pinnacle of magical craftsmanship for Arms and Armor. He could only wait to see what they would be doing with Jewelry and other supplemental items. Magical Shirts and Trousers would be fine things to be wearing again. Ho, here was a big honking Behemoth Guruk, all alone. Scales, blubber, muscle, and bone made it a big, clumsy-looking thing that nevertheless moved with great strength, power, and nigh-universal hostility, and it could soak or ignore a tremendous amount of punishment. Deft hands swapped in his Major and Minor Shivering Stones, and Bunita became a cold diamond of frozen death as he paced towards the hulking toad-man from another world entire. The guruk saw him coming, raising its tree trunk of a club and pounding on its chest, daring him to come in and challenge its mass and bulk. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He was more than happy to oblige it. ------ It was a good fifty miles overland to the Amperehelion Vault, running first through the hills and swamps of the Cratered Hills with all their little circular valleys within, then along the rims and dealing with the Spawns as they came. He didn¡¯t head directly there, being the sort of fellow that he was. He had a job to do and sights to see, and if he was going to run around and find places, then that was what he was going to do! Using the new Markspace Map as a reference for points of interest, the Mick verified the continued existence of four burun temples and two other Dungeons in the Cratered Swamps area. There was one Gotrok base operating out of a cave at the southern end of the Cratered Hills, and the Knath Lair still existed near that as a new Dungeon extending off into the base of one of the ridges there between the Black Hills and the Cratered Hills. The Black Hills, tall and conical mounts, were more like capped pillars than anything natural, and possibly the original terrain of the entire area now occupied by the Obsidian Plains, it was hard to know. They broke up the terrain into little mazes of valleys and abrupt slopes between them, which would have been a mite harder to navigate if he didn¡¯t have his lightfoot and the Sandals to take him over such obstacles. He also looked up and promised to himself that he was going to reach the top of each and every one of the damn things, just to see what was on top of them, unnaturally straight and capped as they were. Surely there had to be some purpose to them, right? There weren¡¯t too many spawns there, dominated by clusters of virindi and their minions, packs of shades, and some clusters of undead of various sorts, all a bit too numerous for him to want to deal with. They forced him to detour around them, or race by too quickly for them to do anything to him. If it was a solo Diamond Golum, now, well, he was happy to take care of that, and he offed four of them. He also saw two Diamond Lords surrounded by trios of Diamond Golums, similar clusters of which were being warmly received by the Knights of the Lost Light working down in the south. It appeared the Direlands ¡®Boss¡¯ creatures were alive and active, as were the Champions that appeared if you killed too many of any one type of creature too quickly. The Knights had reported engaging said Champions repeatedly, sometimes solo to test themselves, often Wolfpacking them to see how fast they could bring them down. Diamond Sovereigns, Magma Exarchs, and Coral Viceroys were particularly sought after, as they dropped a LOT of gemstones when they fell. If they dropped a Heart, there were some powerful alchemicals that could be made off from them, too, for which the pent-up demand was massive. Then the Mick was out of the Black Hills and facing the great near-solid fused black ridgeline of the Obsidian Rim, a literal wall of black rock shoved out from the center of the plains, fused together, and only open in cracks at a few scattered locations around the Rim. The Obsidian Rim Swamp ran completely around the circle of the thing, having no discernible release, yet never overflowing, presumably being drained off underwater somewhere near Wai Jhou had stood. That was his next goal, to find out if anything remained of the Sho outpost in the Direlands. He wasn¡¯t ever sure why the Sho had bothered to build their town in such a dangerous place. There had been Summons points right inside the town at times, and only the mana-reinforcement of the buildings kept the strange folk who lived there alive. Still, there was no denying they were tough, and if you wanted to explore the Obsidian Plains, it was the place to go, with a Lifest- er, Deathstone at the edge of the town, and a way up into the Plains literally across the water from it. There were also a couple Dungeons nearby he could check up on, and, importantly, he now was less than ten miles away from the extensive area that was the Mhoire Graveyard. Long, long ago, the Dericost noble family of the Mhoire had rebelled against their Empire, and fled to Dereth. After a thousand years or more, they had been discovered by Lord Rytheran, who had unleashed upon them a great Curse from the infamous and dreaded Book of Eibhil, slaughtering the whole clan and transporting their holdings to a shadowy realm, removing them from this world entirely. Reverberations from other machinations had brought the Mhoire back into reality, millennia later, except they were now all spectral or skeletal undead. They really had a hate on for the undead forces of Dericost, who in turn were ceaselessly trying to suppress and dominate them using the residual magic of the Curse that had been used to punish them. The Town Crier of Zaikhal had mentioned that the Undead had been kicked out of the Graveyard, which was one of the big high-Level playgrounds to fight in before the Fall. He¡¯d spent a lot of time at the Graveyard back then, killing the toughest rats and their boss on the whole island, skeletons of Mhoire, undead under Rytheran, those damn Dreads and the most dangerous Wisps known. The Mhoire could finally be put to rest now¡­ but that was something for the future. For now, just Wai Jou. ------- There was the Deathstone pit, just like all the others, fritzing in the center of the bright blue crystals, which were jutting out of a watery pit that was free of the slime and muck that was part and parcel of the Rim Swamp. Not as many dead as most of the others. Probably less than threescore, he judged, looking the fused, gaping remains over, before touching Bunita¡¯s Blade to them and letting the Lost Light spiral out and set everything there to vivus. He looked down towards the town and the tents and buildings that had once been there, and saw nothing intact, with a dozen Summons groups visible around the place. All the Summons groups were virindi, which told him all he needed to know about who and what controlled this place. He didn¡¯t know if any of them were real and controlling the Summons, but it was obvious nothing human was going to be left here for him to worry about. There was only to run quickly to the other areas close by, confirm they were still there, and then take off. --- The Disaster Maze was now a Dungeon, but he didn¡¯t bother going in. If he was right, there was a virindi presence he didn¡¯t want to stir up, and if there wasn¡¯t, it didn¡¯t matter. The Black Hill Portal was gone. It had been the only way to get up on top of the Black Hill right next to it, which was also the site of the Direlands Lighthouse, situated most oddly on top of it. He wasn¡¯t sure how anyone was meant to get atop to climb the thing, or what purpose it had ever served being where it was. Airships or something, maybe? Still, it was time to run around the Obsidian Rim atop the swamp¡¯s waters, avoiding most of the things on the way, and make it to the Amperehelion Vault. AF Chapter 315 – Shocking Discoveries I rose up off of the Seal Focus under the amused gaze of the Mick. My Caster Level was totally high enough to reach the Seal Focus and bend the extra distance around the Obsidian Plains to follow his Lived-line to get here, as my own Line didn¡¯t extend into the Direlands at all. Something I should definitely fix more with more than trips along the beaches, which had been my sole extension here recently, taking Invisible trips along the shorelines to at least get ¡®around¡¯ the place, as opposed to within it. ¡°I see ye got done with the Pyramid faster than I expected,¡± he admitted, straightening from his crouch there in the sands near the base of the strange windmill that formed the top of the Amperehelion Vault. The vanes of the mill still circled slowly, even ragged as they were, and there were sparks of purple light flaring from up in the gear exchange at the top of the thing. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was turning in the flow of mana currents, or was being turned to vent off excess voltage from below. Certainly there was no way the virindi would not be aware of it here, unique construction that it was. The virindi were incredibly sensitive to magical use, and being good with the Sublime Chord didn¡¯t do much to protect me from that awareness, even with an Astral Ward. At the same time, getting up that Pyramid and bringing in the two magical Zones had popped me to Eleven in Sorcerer, so there was that. I wasn¡¯t sure what was needed to make Twelve, but I was sure explorations instead of mass military action were involved. Too many magical secrets in this place. Karma was easy to come by, the place was made to generate it. Getting Levels past Ten in the Matrix system, that required something a bit more epic as pre-reqs. The Isparian System, you just needed to slaughter wholesale. That wasn¡¯t hard to do at all, and even do so productively. Of course, mass destruction of thousands of undead, olthoi, Elementals, and wisps was probably not what the System designers had considered as a possibility with their limitations on magic and powers in the system, but given how utterly imbalancing that was as regards ¡®normal¡¯ people, that was entirely sensible. That was why I was here. We knew the virindi were messing with the Amperehelion Vault here. That meant we had to go in, find out why, and disrupt it. It probably had something to do with the way the aetherium they had been tapping and using had blown apart, probably messing up a lot of experiments and artifice, and they wanted to get a substitute. Enslaving a lot of Lightning Elementals would make for a lot of power. ¡°Greetings to you, too, Lord Mick,¡± I said calmly, holding out my hand and opening it up. Minor Stinging and Shocking Stones gleamed faint green and purple respectively on my palm. I had picked up the remaining full set for each of us, just in time to go through a Vault where an Acidphasing Weapon was going to be hugely valuable. His dark eyes gleamed as he plucked it up, then calmly slotted both the Minor and Major Stinging Stones into Bunita. The adamantine blade of the Claymore instantly turned emerald green, bubbling with acidic, corrosive power, while the twin lights of powerful Lightning and Acid Protection spells shimmered into place over him. ¡°Secondary effect?¡± he asked, interested as he looked over the swirling emerald Lost Lights that seemed to be hissing at the very air. ¡°Grounding. Does damage to lightning-endowed creatures, can touch electrified systems without harm, grounds electrical traps of sorts. Acid and Lightning are opposed in the Isparian system. It would work against air creatures in the Matrix system.¡± ¡°This be going t¡¯ be useful, then. I expect the Vault t¡¯ be a lot more lively than it were, with the virindi in there.¡± He flipped Bunita over and sheathed her for the moment. ¡°Are we shutting down the Summons points?¡± I looked up at the stony tower, then slowly pivoted to take in the area. The looming black walls of the cracked mesa or crater that made up the Obsidian Plains loomed to the east of us, hundreds of feet high. At its base ran the swamp of the Obsidian Rim, shallow waters that never dried up or flooded, circling endlessly around the most dangerous heart of the Direlands. Beyond them, the black-capped unnaturally steep and round pillars of the Black Hills circled the OP, letting you know you were getting closer, perhaps signifying something that we had no awareness of. I could see a dozen spawn points with Summons in and on the shores of the swamp waters just from where we were standing, throngs of powerful creatures brought in together to create real messes if we chose to engage them. Clusters of golums, pairs and more of darkly agitated wisps, groups of shadows of multiple types, virindi combat groups, assemblies of powerful members of the drudges and banderlings, as well as combat squads of undead, Hea, and Gotrok lugians. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. There were several Elemental groups among them, too, clusters of Acid and Frost Elementals that I could see¡­ and one mixed-Element Tsuric, showing the Elemental instability here. ¡°This is a dangerous place,¡± I admitted. There was a lot of leashed spell power ready to be set loose among the creatures I could see. ¡°Aye, one thing the Dires never were be boring,¡± he agreed, looking over it all. ¡°Lucky most are concentrated on the shorelines, an¡¯ lightfooting it Invisible across the water were enough to avoid them. I didnae try t¡¯ stir up any trouble, although I did wipe a virindi party here.¡± He pointed back behind him, to white smears on the ground where vivus had done its thing on a Spawn Point there. ¡°Didn¡¯t want to deal with a respawn?¡± I asked, eyeing it. ¡°Nae particularly, especially given how many different things could Spawn up, an¡¯ didnae want t¡¯ plant the Seal out there in the water. Best to just claim a Spawn Point where none o¡¯ the other Summons could trigger off arrivals.¡± Good enough thinking, and right on the doorstep of the Vault, as it were. ¡°We can try to Seal the Elementals that spawn inside with vivus. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll hold any longer than the dawn, if there¡¯s truly a lot of energy flowing through the place¡­ but if any of them are virindi Summons, they should also be purged from the default defenders at that time.¡± ¡°Killing things only once today appeals t¡¯ me,¡± he grunted in exchange. ¡°Can ye make a path at the end t¡¯ shortcut the trip?¡± ¡°I doubt it. The ground will probably be swimming with mana flows utterly opposed to Earth Magic at that point. I will try, but don¡¯t expect much.¡± ¡°How are we playing this?¡± he asked calmly. ¡°I¡¯m here mostly for case of emergency. Any magic I do will be slow and subtle, to avoid alerting any virindi, so you¡¯re going to do most of everything. Take your damage on your Health, and I¡¯ll Reserve it away quickly enough, and I¡¯ll carry Darts on standby to accelerate any kills.¡± ¡°So, play it as ye¡¯re next to useless, as Casting will announce to all an¡¯ sundry we be here an¡¯ turn the place into a beehive o¡¯ spells.¡± He smiled brightly, and winked at me. ¡°I do love treating Casters so shamelessly, ye know.¡± ¡°A little humility goes a long way in such circumstances,¡± I replied diplomatically. ¡°Shall we?¡± The door to the interior of the place was still intact, mana-reinforced as the structure was. I could feel the voltage the instant I stepped inside the windmill, as could the Mick, and we both looked down at the stone stairs leading into the ground, lit up in the faint sparking light of purple arcs of electricity dancing and discharging up above us off arcane equipment that was not a normal windmill¡¯s gears and shafts. ¡°Down we go!¡± he murmured, pulling Bunita out again, Clan on his arm with a full array of Armor Banes on it, and he led the way down into the bowels of the earth. ------ There were Lightning Elementals all over the place inside, dominated by Enhanced Astyrrians, who were definitely far more powerful than their random cousins found on the landscape. A combination of melee with fists of pure electricity, throwing javelins of sizzling voltage, or unleashing Lightning Vulns followed by Bolts of the same were all potential approaches by the things, something that wouldn¡¯t be that dangerous if the Virindi Masters that were stationed about the place weren¡¯t obviously in control of the creatures and helping them coordinate and bring in reinforcements. Happily, Bunita was an Acidphasing Lightning Elemental Slayer with enhanced crit chance, boosted criticals, and Armor Cleaving to hew through the force structure that defined the Elementals with ease, while Clan was Baned properly and non-conductive to lightning entirely, meaning the Shield didn¡¯t pass on any voltage that splattered against its dark surface. Really, the main thing I had to do was shut down the virindi. If I took the time to bring up a Shard array, that was absolutely simple to do, as the virindi were very much glass cannons if you could pierce their substantial magic resistance. I just had to wind the spell up over the course of a good thirty seconds ahead of time not to alarm anything with the mana I was drawing, and take down the Masters the second they wanted to start Casting on the Mick and really send in the War Magic. ¡°Real one,¡± I told him quietly, as we stood over the Burning remnants of a Virindi Director with three destroyed Elementals around it. I Sifted up the gemstones that resulted from the latter crystallizing into being, a good reason to not Seal up an Elemental-generating spawn point. They actually still dropped minor gems worth real goldweight! A Virindi Amulet came up out of the disintegrating armored shell and fracturing Mask of the thing as the vivus ate the virindi away and ensured it wasn¡¯t going back to the Singularity, just like the Masters slaved to the System in here. It sparked a tiny bit before our eyes, and the Mick whistled. ¡°They be using the Vault to make their little Amulets now, be they?¡± he asked shrewdly. ¡°If we assume one a day from a Shocking Stone¡­¡± ¡°That could be thousands o¡¯ them, depending on how long they¡¯ve held the Vault,¡± he nodded once, while I stashed the Amulet away. A +1 Valence to Isparian War Magic was a whole lot better than nothing, and more importantly, Matrix magic could be built in on top of it with very little work, given the nature of virindi craftsmanship working easily with magical energies. The interior of the Vault was a square pit surrounded by levels of interconnected walkways around it and the ramps and stairs that connected said levels. The Mick had pointed out that the fastest way to the Stone was simply to jump the railing and plummet down alongside the central shaft that rose up to the windmill above, with the Stone being found underneath the main arcane machinery down below. Of course, doing so would involve going through the proc range of basically every single Lightning Elemental and virindi in the place, so that wasn¡¯t going to happen. We were taking it easy and slow, and if it meant fighting a lot of Lightning Elementals and their newly-installed virindi bosses, well, we got minor gems and now a Virindi Amulet out of it. ¡°They may or may not be aware if their lessers start vanishing from magical awareness of one another,¡± I warned him. ¡°Aye, ¡®tis why I¡¯m working from corner to corner, so I dinnae have t¡¯ worry about multiple War Spells coming in t¡¯ test me magic defense,¡± he agreed, moving ahead towards the next stairway down, another Astyrrian crackling and snapping in place there as it adjusted slightly to face us. AF Chapter 316 – A Charged Vault Before the Astyrrian Lightning Elemental could charge to the attack, the Mick accelerated to slam into it, stopping its run and holding it in place atop its Spawn Point. Arcs of emerald energy hewed through the structure of the Elemental with great speed, electricity bleeding out of the wounds as the acidic energy cut through the powers that held it together, spattering and cracking like leaking electrified blood to the ground. The Mick met its bashing fists of solid voltage with Clan, or forced them into the walls with a tap of Bunita so that they lashed across the patient stone and did not mark it at all. The enhanced Elemental was down in under twenty seconds, its amorphous form unable to dodge him or bend its internal currents away from the attacks of his Claymore. It collapsed, discorporated, and vivus whooshed up to claim it and stain the stone below it white. We both heard the humming, and retreated around the corner as the virindi came up the stairs inside the tunnel behind the Elemental. It caught just enough of a glimpse of the Mick to charge after him in pursuit. Consequently, it turned the corner just fast enough to nearly have its head chopped off by Bunita instantly, then three Darts seething with powers it had no resistance to drove through its shell and detonated inside it, dropping it crumbling to the ground as vivus devoured the dancing energies confined within its armored shell. The Mick glanced at me, and I just shook my head as I Sifted a couple glittering crystals of zircon and quartz up from the powdered coalesced remains of the Astyrrian, letting the Summoned virindi Burn en vivus. There was a lot of background popping, snapping, and crackling, along with the hum of arcane machinery and occasional ripping snarl of a major line of voltage going up or down the primary shaft. It made listening for Elementals or virindi interesting, but also more reliable than my Detects, which were running into large amounts of static. Forget sensing stuff through the stone, I was having trouble verifying that a snarling mass of living voltage standing right over there with clear line of sight was actually present. Happily, the virindi geomagnetic hum as they levitated was slightly off and discordant to the energies flowing through this place, so a good ear could make out the break in the pattern and hear them coming. This one had come off its Spawn Point, however, which meant we had to wait for its respawn to find where it came from and shut that down. The Mick ghosted ahead, Bunita shrunken and held low so as not to impede movement in the tighter quarters. I glided after him, making sure nothing was coming in behind us, while slowly bringing up Darts again. He halted abruptly at the corner, not turning it. If the design were right, we were down another level, and this would run out into yet another square level, although we were getting close to the bottom. They were usually guard points for the Directors and attendant guards. I attuned to the Sublime Chord, which was nearly overwhelmed by the Note of Lightning here, looking for a disharmonic addition to its chaotic dance. Yeah, there were¡­ at least two around the bend there, and who knew what else. Looked like the Master had been dispatched up the stairs by the boss to see what was going on. We¡¯d kept low and out of sight behind the railing as we made our way down, so the virindi could see the light of the Elementals above winking out, but not what was doing the job. Also, they might have noticed the fact the Lightning Elementals weren¡¯t respawning, and it was rather quiet and still above and behind us. There was no way their attention was anything but focused on the way down here by now, anticipating trouble. 2? 3?, the Mick¡¯s fingers came up, a questioning look on his face. I tilted my head slightly, but there was too much static. I could only shake my head, and hold up three fingers to be safe. Three virindi meant I had to shoot them down, or a triple salvo of War Magic was likely coming in, or a double with a Vuln laid down right in front of it. I brought up the Paired Shards slowly, slapping the Split on there so all of them would get the attention they needed. Crown had two sets of hand-long Shards revolving around him as I nodded, and we stepped around the corner in tandem, the Mick in front of me with Clan in full kite mode. A purple-hide Hollow Minion covered in metal mesh with lightning dancing over it jerked its slender head around and fixated on us. It snapped into alert status as the gazes of three virindi¡ªa Master, a Director, and one with an ornate Rune on its mask and worked into its armored robe¡ªalso fixed their gazes on us. ¡°Ah, fuck,¡± the Mick muttered. ¡°Charge the Fulguris!¡± Crown lowered, his Soul Blade snapped out in a foot-long Soulspear, and I blew the two Split Shardrays, one to each Master and Director, and two to the Fulguris. The Mick didn¡¯t even hesitate, even as the Minion raised blunt arms swirling with the magic-ignoring energies of chorozite AND the purple energies of lightning, and charged in with awkward, jerking steps no living being could possibly have. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I did have the three Spear-line Feats of Hold the Line, the Archer Stands Thrust, and Steadfast. Despite me Casting a spell, Crown snapped instantly into line, the Way of the Sun at x3 lining me up perfectly despite its herky-jerky erratic movements, and the glowing Electrum Spear point drove right into the center of its chest. The Mick flowed right around the Minion, up the wall and past the two lesser virindi in front, coming down with an emerald Claymore trailing the Lost Light as the Fulguris reeled back, two holes driven through the thick metal draped over its energy form, while its two servants writhed, popped, and collapsed en vivus almost instantly as the Shardrays bored into them. I stomped down on Crown¡¯s heel as the Hollow Minion impaled itself completely, hardly an impediment to the Construct, and I heaved back and let go, backing off as a crackling blur of arm-swipes burned past my nose with skull-crushing force and trails of thick purple lightning. The force-quillons extending out of the Orb on Crown prevented it from advancing, and now Crown was angled up and through the thing completely, meaning it couldn¡¯t back itself up and off from the shaft, either. Crown hung there in the air, Inertia-Locked, as the Mick descended on the Fulguris with Cuts the Waterfall, ripping the front of its shell open completely, then crisscrossing the near-vertical stroke in less than a second without conscious thought. The Virindi Fulguris shuddered and imploded, collapsing as the acidic Lost Light ripped through it, and vivus rose to devour it completely. The Mick whirled about, paused for a second as he saw the purple Hollow Minion trying to force its way through to get at me, impaled and blunted feet scrabbling stumpily from above the ground on an unmoving glowing Spearpoint of Soul energy. It was lashing out at incredible speed as it tried to reach me and batter at Crown, who took the impacts with casual Hardened disdain. The Mick came in behind the Minion, and before it could rotate its head and arms around to strike at him, it had already lost both arms to swirling green arcs of acidic energy. Then the Mick removed its legs and finally severed its head, avoiding the torso covered in metal mesh and clearly the source of the lightning pulsing out into its limbs. Crackling bolts of electricity that leapt up along Bunita grounded out against emerald whorls uselessly instead of lashing at his hand and arm. As the brittle conduits of power destabilized and shattered, its limbs jerked, bent in on themselves, and its torso literally snapped itself in half at the waist from the tension of its binding cables before our eyes. Vivus ignited on it, chasing the virindi magic empowering it, but not with the speed of something discorporating. Only the Master was falling apart with that much speed, while we waited there for something to happen and I carefully materialized another set of Shards and began to Pair it. ¡°Nae a good sign, is it?¡± he asked, bending down to the two Burning real virindi and rummaging through their split open and rapidly crumbling armor shells. He came up with two more of the Amulets, which I waved off and he dropped inside a pocket of his vest. ¡°Did you clock the speed of that thing?¡± I asked the Mick warily, letting Crown¡¯s Spear snap off and returning him to a Staff. ¡°Aye. Arms were just a blur o¡¯ motion.¡± He tamped out the vivus on the limbs and torso so he could inspect them more closely, especially the metal mesh. Bunita cut through the links of the mesh slowly, drawing more sparks she neutralized as she did so, peeling the mail away from the crystallized wooden fibers of its body. ¡°Copper wiring.¡± I showed him the wire wound about the dull and heavy crystal that formed the crude skeleton of its right arm. He turned the torso over and found the matching wire where its arm had been severed. Opportunistic, he first verified the same wiring was present on the other limbs, including the neck stump, before Bunita started carving into the tough body of the thing, following that wire to a sparkling purple Jewel bound up in coppery Runework. He tore the Core of the thing out, dragging out the useful copper wire by expediently shattering the frameworks they were attached to. I just nodded at his unspoken exclamation, certain he recognized it. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s definitely a Major Shocking Stone by the energy signature.¡± He tossed it to me, Runework and wires and all. I caught it to examine as I asked, ¡°Did you happen to Assess that thing?¡± ¡°Aye. A Hollow Lightning Servant,¡± he confirmed. ¡°Two-twenty, one o¡¯ the most elite levels o¡¯ the Hollow Minions. Ain¡¯t seen anything like it in fifteen years. Bodyguards and servants of the most elite among the virindi, like the Fulguris there.¡± He gave me a look. ¡°Ye¡¯ve seen Fulguris afore?¡± ¡°No, but I memorized every known type of virindi as a matter of course, and they are ideal for working here with their focus on lightning and mental power effects. I was expecting them.¡± ¡°Hah! Anything special about that?¡± He nodded at the thing in my hand. ¡°It¡¯s like giving the minion Lightningphasing, Weapon Buffs, and enhanced Speed, almost like Haste,¡± I informed him. ¡°Use an Item Dispel on it.¡± I presented it back to him. Intrigued, the Mick ruminated for a moment as he recalled a spell he had almost never used outside a teaching chamber, and had learned just for sake of being a completionist. ¡°Never used this in combat,¡± he remarked, as the magic swirled up around his hand, clear and disjointed, disruptive influences meant to be Infused into a target and eliminate Enchantments upon it. He touched the Shocking Stone, and the whole thing immediately dimmed down, a barely-noticeable hum from the thing dying away as the purple glow receded to a spark in the center of the Stone. ¡°Ho. I imagine it would work on the Stones in me Bunita too, then.¡± A thoughtful expression crossed his face for a moment in consideration of the potential of this move. ¡°It would indeed, and any magical Weapon in general. Like the Quiddity and other virindi Weapons used by the Lugians and the Hea, if you¡¯ve the need for neutralizing them.¡± We¡¯d obtained samples of the new versions of those Weapons after the disaster at Dryreach, as the Hea had thrown them away in droves after the event. Unfortunately, the Virindi Slayer effect attached to the upgraded versions of the Singularity Weapons had so far eluded us, and we¡¯d not found an intact version of one of the older Weapons as yet. Extremely specialized as they were, that was not unanticipated, but it was still annoying. On the other hand, Candeth Martine was free, so directly questioning him about how they were made was completely viable now. I¡¯d have to be doing that soon. ¡°I be wanting t¡¯ see how well this thing fights straight up, but I be thinking having the Dispel ready to go would be quite the good idea.¡± I couldn¡¯t hide my smile. Typical melee mindset, seeing who was better in a fight¡­ AF Chapter 317 – Drinking that Purple Juice ¡°Lord Mick, opinion.¡± I was standing in the corner of a square, carefully out of sight of anything below, peeking around a support column at what was on the level below us. He ghosted up next to me as I yielded the spot, looking down at the contraption below with hard, dark eyes. Purple arcs of lightning reflected in his gaze as he studied the device below us attentively. His gaze darted here and there, head tilting back as he considered the long spinning shaft connected to the windmill far above, and other gears and shafts extending through the stone and out of the room. ¡°Virindi make,¡± he stated firmly under his breath. ¡°I dinnae recognize the metal, but the style be unmistakable. I cannae tell if the lightning be coming in or out from above, but it definitely be coming in from the cardinal shafts. I be seeing nae outlet or focus for the energies, an¡¯ were nothing special going on up above.¡± He looked up thoughtfully. ¡°Weather were clear, but the Obsidian Plains have lightning storms blow up in moments, rage fer short times, then die just as suddenly. I seem t¡¯ recall the windmill pulling down lightning when the storms went by, but it never seemed t¡¯ do anything.¡± ¡°Coalescing extra Stones?¡± I offered. He thought about that, nodding slowly. ¡°It were not a problem back then, the recharge rate on the Stones were ridiculous. Five minute wait, no longer, get yerself a new Stone, easy as ye please. If the extra energy t¡¯ do so came from the storms passing, we¡¯d not have known it, especially when the Stones lost all importance an¡¯ nobody bothered t¡¯ come t¡¯ these places anymore.¡± ¡°Is the coalescing point underneath us?¡± The Map of the place was hazy and unclear, typical of a maze-like Dungeon nobody had visited in years, but quite sharp where he and I had just passed and cleared stuff away. ¡°Nay, it be off to one side, but I dinnae recall which way,¡± he admitted. ¡°Place was annoying at the best o¡¯ times. Northeast, belike?¡± His shrug said not to trust his memory. ¡°Been twenty years, lass.¡± ¡°Could they have moved the coalescing point?¡± I asked archly, and that got him thinking. ¡°Well now¡­¡± He screwed up his face, considering. ¡°It were a long narrow room, an¡¯ the Stone spawned on the floor like it were nothing important, just like all the others. Elementals were guarding it, aye, nothing too dangerous. I dinnae ken anything important about the room at all, other than the number o¡¯ shockers messing around. I dinnae know the rules about the materializing point there, nae, but I dinnae put it beyond the virindi t¡¯ change it to something more efficient for ¡®em¡­ or, mayhap, adding a second point?¡± he offered brightly. I put a hand on the wall, feeling the current running through the place, matching it to what I could see in the thaumaspectrum down below. ¡°That sounds much more logical,¡± I admitted. ¡°Messing around with the existing flow of lightning mana here would be both surpassingly dangerous and very unstable, and might break the entire Vault rather badly. Tapping it and drawing off extra mana using the existing array formations seems a much better way of doing things.¡± He gestured at my back. ¡°Ye kin track objects, right? Might tracking a Shocking Stone using a Shocking Stone cut through the interference here?¡± ¡°Interesting bastardization of the Similarity Rule. Let¡¯s see!¡± I pulled out the Enruned Shocking Stone that had been the Hollow Servant¡¯s Core, and slowly and carefully invoked a Locate Object over it. It sparked instantly, and little purple sparks danced over the nearby walls in resonance with the spell. The prevailing interference dropped away as like called to like, and suddenly the spell was hopping between points in my head, dancing erratically from place to place as it latched onto harmonic equivalents within a very extended range. I painted everything into our rough Map as they happened, points of contact blooming here, there, and everywhere below and around us. There was a nice cluster of them just ahead and below the engine we were looking at, stored inside something floating above the ground just out of sight there. The Mick was watching the results in the Markspace Map coolly. ¡°There be the natural one,¡± he declared firmly, pointing to the northeast. ¡°The others¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s a repository of Stones, probably held inside one of the virindi floating flower-chests,¡± I judged of the most intense point, where the spell was bouncing around over a score of Stones in one place. ¡°Likely with a guardian or three, including two Lightning Servants,¡± he nodded grimly, eyeing the two nearby points of contact my spell was still jumping erratically between. ¡°The other points likely be more o¡¯ the Lightning Servants, then¡­¡± ¡°Are there tougher ones than the Hollow Servants?¡± I asked. He ruminated on that. ¡°Aye, in the Virindi Edifice, there were Hollow Reavers, and a single Hollow Servitor. The last was a right bastard t¡¯ kill. Three hundred or somethin¡¯ in Level.¡± ¡°Might have two of them, plus their boss.¡± Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°The boss o¡¯ the Fulguris were a Virindi Signat, as I recall,¡± he said with a wince. ¡°Seven thousand Health or some ungodly number.¡± I eyed the prize. ¡°Twenty Shocking Stones, plus all those in those real Servants there, and likely at least one Virindi Amulet per Virindi.¡± He eyed the map carefully. ¡°As long as we can avoid a swarm o¡¯ them an¡¯ being surrounded, we should be able t¡¯ clean up the place,¡± he agreed slowly. ¡°Especially if the Hollows be stupid an¡¯ we kill the controllers first.¡± ¡°From there, it¡¯s a case of picking our ground and making sure they can¡¯t double or triple-team us.¡± I reached over and tapped Clan. ¡°They also don¡¯t know you¡¯ve Stealthslaked Clan and your Armor, and they are non-conductive, so beating on you with Lightningphasing isn¡¯t going to do jack or squat. It might even be to your advantage to not Dispel their Cores, just because they aren¡¯t going to do much to you.¡± He¡¯d been taking full advantage of that property against the Lightning Elementals on the way down, letting them bash on his Shield while nothing conducted through. Bunita Grounding out the voltage that wanted to twist and thrash up to his arm was also very useful. ¡°We be having to keep a clear line o¡¯ retreat, might even have to fly back up the central shaft t¡¯ run away if they start bringing things in. Can they do so?¡± I shifted my Vatic Sight to the Veil, studied the ripping and rending chaos of it, and pursed my lips. ¡°If they have a Gate set up to be powered by Lightning Mana, it is possible they could drive something through the interference. The Veil is otherwise a mess here, equal to any Interdiction effect you care to name.¡± ¡°Aye, the Portals here were nae something you could Tie to, in the past. Chaos in the Veil, that be a good reason for it. But, ye didn¡¯t rule it out,¡± he noticed. ¡°Magic is annoying that way,¡± I admitted. ¡°There¡¯s always a chance someone discovers how to do something previously thought impossible. Like, boosting the respawn rate of a Vault so it pops up more Stones?¡± ¡°Clever little buggers that they be,¡± he agreed with a nod. ¡°So, we take this careful an¡¯ slow, see if we can do this, an¡¯ if shite goes south, we take what we earned an¡¯ we leave.¡± ¡°With wings on our heels, because they¡¯ll probably be chasing!¡± I agreed. ------ Slow and careful it was. The Locate Object proved to be very useful in verifying where virindi spawns were and warning us when to pull away the nearby Lightning Elementals so as not to draw in other enthusiastic combatants. The Mick could rip the Elementals apart with no problem, and, as it turned out, there were a lot of zigzag corridors which made problems for virindi trying to hang back and blast, interfering with line of sight and effect. They allowed us to cut down the Hollow Servants that came racing up to melee range fairly easily, then deal with the Masters and Directors more simply if they closed as well. Bunita¡¯s Sound Bubble also held in any screeches of alarm or garbled technobabble from dying virindi, so they didn¡¯t warn their compatriots. They could sometimes call in Lightning Elementals from behind them for reinforcements, but again, such things were rarely a threat. Unlike the virindi, I had access to Seeking Shards, which could totally bend around corners to hit their targets, I just couldn¡¯t Cast them quickly¡­ until I took the Major and Minor Sparking Stones I had and mounted them in Crown. Suddenly my Shards were in resonance with the pervasive Lightning Mana running through the place, no more out of place than a random discharge of mana, and did not warn all the virindi of someone Casting wildly in the area. It looked like the incredible amount of static in the air was messing with their own perceptions, too, as even the Casting of their compatriots just bled its mana echoes into the pervading field and dissipated into the greater flow of Lightning Mana all around, alarming nobody. That naturally allowed me to contribute faster and more smoothly, especially against the Hollows. With an Imperil to reduce armor and a Vuln IV+1 to double the acid damage, the Mick could rip through any of the things with astonishing speed as Bunita Crit for massive amounts of damage with astonishing regularity. The Fulguris were the hardest to deal with, having over 5,000 Health and being capable of launching Incantor War spells, VIII¡¯s, with their +1/+1 War/Life Magic Amulets equipped. I had to make sure we had no Vulns on us, Dispels inside Arcane Fusions ready to go as I shut the enruned bastards down repeatedly, their powerful War Magic popping and sizzling ineffectively as Silver Magic countered and unraveled them as firmly as they were being Cast. Dispel + Vuln to Acid, Dispel + Imperil, and watch the Mick go to town on them. If Elementals came racing up from behind to help, unload some Acid Shards on them and blow them away as needed. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean we got away scot-free. --- ¡°I see that wasn¡¯t Lightningphasing,¡± I noted to him. His ulna and radius were jutting out his elbow, and I could see his humerus there through the rupture. ¡°Valus and his bear, that fucker hit hard,¡± the Mick swore, looking at the arm that had been shattered right through his Shield. ¡°Aye, perhaps half and half. It were hitting at least as hard as a souped-up Minion, the lightning were added on top. I fergot how damn hard the damn things pounded on ye, an¡¯ the speed only made it worse!¡± At least until he chopped one of its arms off, then one of its legs. It had found it difficult to hit him while laying on the ground and flailing about wildly. He¡¯d jumped over it and engaged the Fulguris, his arm still broken, while I cleaned up the Hollow Servant with Fastcast Shards and put it to sizzling, oozing rest. My Heals on the Mick had gone to restoring his Soak after the frustrated Fulguris resorted to melee. Its hand-scythes screeched across Clan repeatedly, trying to reach him from a multitude of angles, or catch the Shield and rip it away from him, something that also proved hard to do. The Mick was quite good at getting those hand-sickles to slide right off the silent metal, while the virindi¡¯s Health Qi and then Health ruptured out of it from blurs of crosscutting and stabbing emerald plunging in seeking the play of energy inside its armored robe. My Fastcast Shards driving into it repeatedly, residual damage crackling over and eating at it, helped with the expenditure of its Health, and finally its robe ruptured open, vivus blew through the psychoactive energy it was made of, and it crumpled to the ground as its minions had. ¡°That¡¯s almost like a Vuln or Slayer effect then,¡± I said warily, my hands on his arm as Healing Reserve kicked in at 12 points of Healing every six seconds. He grit his teeth as silver and red lights wrapped the jutting bones, slowly pushed them back inside his flesh, and fit them back together as the tears in his muscle and skin rapidly closed. AF Chapter 318 – Getting Stoned ¡°It¡¯s nae the first time me arm were broken behind me Shield, but the first time since I learned the Matrix forms,¡± he admitted, clenching and unclenching his hand as muscles and bone moved visibly inside his forearm, straightening up and solidifying. ¡°It were like the force of it were conducted right through the metal. If it were nae stealthslaked, I be thinking the lightning would have done the same.¡± I blinked. ¡°Like your Shield didn¡¯t exist?¡± I asked warily. ¡°Aye,¡± he nodded, remaining silent until I removed my hand, then testing out his shield arm. ¡°It be not the first time I¡¯ve run into things that ignore a shield. The undead have some magical effect their elites know that blasts the force of a hit right through a shield, and some o¡¯ the bigger creatures just slam the entire shield back with impossible mass, ye can¡¯t stop it.¡± ¡°You got cap room to spend Karma and grab a Feat?¡± I asked him sharply. ¡°Aye, I keep a few Slots open in case there be an emergency. This be something I can Inspire for, instead?¡± he asked. ¡°You could, but it¡¯s so obvious and universally useful I¡¯m sure you¡¯re going to take it regardless. How many of the Shield Mastery Chain of Feats have you taken?¡± ¡°The Mitharn stuff? I took Shield Focus, was saving on the rest, waiting for Storm Dragon Mastery?¡± ¡°Take Shield Ward for your Mastery for today. Ignoring the protection of a shield is equivalent to a touch attack against them, and Shield Ward uses full shield benefits against touch attacks and Reflex save spells. ¡°At Renewal, take Improved Shield Bash. You¡¯ll get one free Bash for free once a round. You might want to Inspire for it right now, too.¡± ¡°Huh. The other Shield Masteries, too?¡± he asked, thinking that over. I eyed Clan. ¡°Hardened and Impervious Adamantine, but you¡¯ve only gotten it to +III. I don¡¯t know if you want to use it to intercept Bolts at the Incantor level, but it can¡¯t hurt. If you get Reflecting Shield, you can turn them back on their source, once a round. ¡°I think the big thing now is getting that Ward up so the Servants don¡¯t break your arm through your own damn Shield. If you take the Bash¡­ then counter-smash their damn fists and try to sunder them. ¡°Also, next one, you Dispel their Stone and cut down their speed. ¡°In addition¡­ if you had Weaponized Clan, you could keep its defensive prowess up with Shield Master, and then convert the entire magical bonus on the Weapon side to Defender¡­ which those chorozite fists couldn¡¯t ignore. ¡°Lastly, and I admit this is the first time I have ever recommended it, you may want to use Jadesmithing on your Shield, and get its Enhancement bonus up on the non-magical side. Chorozite only ignores the magical Buffs to your Shield. ¡°The problem is that it¡¯s pricey and it takes a long time, and it takes a smith of superlative skill.¡± I tapped Clan. ¡°QL 40 for Jade +IV, as high as it goes, 32k of goldweight equivalent in pure crafting effort. Probably need another three adamantine bosses fixed to it.¡± He eyed me strangely, then flicked up Bunita between us. ¡°This¡­ be this Jadework?¡± he asked oddly. ¡°Yes. Kris only makes the utterly best with her Swords. Jadework on Armor and Shields is purely elective, but she won¡¯t stint on a Blade.¡± I nodded at Clan. ¡°That would be 32k of work. Even for her, that is five, six days of work, and you know how valuable that crafting time of hers is. ¡°But if you¡¯re going to be fighting Hollows like this, you need it¡­ and so does every Vanguard with a Shield.¡± -FUCK!- Briggs and Kris /said together in Markspace, listening in on all this. The Mick couldn¡¯t help but grin at their chagrin. ¡°It seems Mithar an¡¯ His focus on shields be makin¡¯ itself known again as something ye can¡¯t ignore.¡± He eyed the emerald/orange-rainbow swirls of the Lost Light on his Sword narrowly. ¡°The Lost Light didn¡¯t seem t¡¯ be workin¡¯, either.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a deflection bonus. It can¡¯t push aside a chorozite weapon, either.¡± The Mick¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°I can Infuse me Shield for now to a +III Weapon, and add Defender to it, aye?¡± ¡°That seems like a very wise thing to do, along with Bane to Constructs.¡± ¡°And Enmity to the Unnatural?¡± he added thoughtfully. ¡°But of course. I¡¯d add Bane of Legends, but I don¡¯t think you can stack more until you hit Artificer/16 effective Caster Level.¡± ¡°Fuck!¡± he barked shortly, and then laughed at himself with ironic chuckles. ¡°So much more stuff t¡¯ gain an¡¯ learn!¡± ¡°And it never bloody ends, Lord Mick.¡± Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°Inspiring for the Shield Masteries,¡± he muttered, his eyes focusing. ¡°Kris showed ¡®em to me, so I know what they were supposed t¡¯ do. Let¡¯s see just what kind o¡¯ difference they make in the next fight.¡± --- ¡°Well, you didn¡¯t break your arm this time,¡± I noted, as I fixed his collarbone and carefully placed my hand on his shattered jaw. He didn¡¯t say anything with his jaw hanging there, just standing resolutely as Healing Reserve began its gentle effects. He did focus and swirl magic through his shoulder Pauldron and Helm, and the crunchy indents in both popped and crinkled as the magic repaired them, one after another. The bones of his jaw knit up, torn muscles came back together, and missing teeth reappeared and regrew in place. He slowly tilted his head and popped his neck, saying nothing until he nodded at me and I pulled my hand away. ¡°Aye. Never seen an overhand chop like that afore,¡± he admitted. ¡°It were like trying t¡¯ block a flail.¡± Able to bend in ways no living limb could do, the Servant had crashed its elbow down on his shield, its glimmering fist whipping over to pound on the Mick¡¯s shoulder one time, then sideways around the Shield and into his jawline another. And that was after the Mick had discharged his Dispel Item into its chest and shut down the lightning charging it up with magical speed. On the other hand, he¡¯d shattered its left fist against the boss on Clan, throwing off its balance and breaking the chorozite effect there, robbing its left arm of force and the magic of Clan, the Lost Light, and his Armor once again applying to stop it. The Fulguris actually hadn¡¯t been nearly as dangerous. It could have been, were his Armor not as hard as it was, because the thing¡¯s sickle-blades were effectively adamantine, as we¡¯d discovered off the first one (and claimed as salvage!). If you didn¡¯t have Armor and Shield rated at 20 hardness, it would cleave through your protection like cheese. The Mick did, so the virindi couldn¡¯t, which seemed to throw off its style of ripping and tearing somewhat, as if not quite believing that we could have such fine metal. Then, between crits of his own and it being double-tapped with Imperil/Vuln, the Fulguris had gone down with commendable speed while my residual damage from stopping its spells and attacking with Shards from Arcane Fusion did their things. ¡°How¡¯s your Mana?¡± he asked shortly. ¡°Pool is down half. I¡¯m good on Matrix.¡± Continually throwing Gold-tier spells, even with my Mana Conversion, was sucking a lot of juice. I could step down to Coppers for the Dispels and perhaps save juice, but would give up doing any damage to do so. ¡°If you feel up to it, I can stop the Arcane Fusions for double duty on Dispels and damage, and just neutralize its Casting.¡± ¡°Taking most o¡¯ the hits on me Health an¡¯ letting Combat Focus an¡¯ Healing Edge deal with the Soak overload is keeping me about 300 fer now, but ye¡¯re taking the lesser virindi out, an¡¯ the Fulguris isn¡¯t the threat in melee that its Minion is. Without magic, it actually be Healing me as I cut it down.¡± The Lightning Elementals were serving the same purpose now, just getting him his Soak back at 1-8 points per hit. ¡°Try a fight with Combat Expertise active. Bunita is powerful enough to overcome almost any penalty you have, and if you can cut the Hollow Servants¡¯ hit rate in half or more, even if the fight takes longer, it won¡¯t matter.¡± Shield Ward and Defender had made a very noticeable difference in the amount of damage the Hollow Servant was able to inflict, as had Dispelling its Sparking Stone Core. It was only a six-point swing in AC, but now his Shield was taking hits, and giving them back! -It¡¯s using a form of Power Attack based on flailing and leveraged motion, anticipating that an armored opponent¡¯s armor and shield are going to be less useful against it. Use Elusive Target to shut that down, and its threat level should drop tremendously,- Kris /chimed in, taking time to watch this fight narrowly, even while out in the field training her Knights of the Lost Light. The Hollow Servants were by far the most dangerous martial combatants she¡¯d seen here, a point echoed by Briggs. -As a Construct, it won¡¯t change its fighting style from what it is programmed as, even if it keeps missing.- The fact the Forsaken considered a creature that ignored magical defenses extremely dangerous was an irony lost on none of us. They liked their enchanted Armor and Shields too, after all. On the other hand, she was now burning to fight one! The Mick was starting to bounce eagerly, pumping himself up for the next one. ¡°Gots me a good feeling now!¡± --- The Director¡¯s Whirling Blade hit Clan and bounced off like it had hit a mirror. The Master who had already seen its own Piercing Bolt put a hole into itself froze in astonishment as its own boss¡¯s attack tore into it and ripped it open. The Mick stepped in, and Clan smashed into it and tore open the ragged gashes, spilling out whorls of virindi energy to be expended and consumed en vivus. The Director stopped Casting and spun in on the attack, hand-scythes flipping out to reap. Both of its arms promptly went flying, flick-flick, the hissing appendages ending up sticking into the wall above the Mick¡¯s head harmlessly, and then Bunita¡¯s third flicker-strike opened it in a devouring, metal-eating slash vertically. The Fulguris bowed its head to Cast, but Silver sparkles ripped apart its magic as the Acid Vuln flashed emerald around it, and the Mick was on top of it. I used only two Arcane Fusions, the second when the Fulguris tried to get another spell off, dropping the Imperil down on it. The Mick chained three crits in a row to devastating effect right afterwards, and the Fulguris dropped with a humming whine of disbelief and astonishment, which ascended into desperate denial as vivus roared up and consumed it. The Mick leaned against the wall of the jigsaw corridor there, breathing deeply. ¡°Well, fuck me, that were easy,¡± he got out with a big grin, shaking Clan. ¡°I think I love me that Reflecting Shield, lass!¡± ¡°Can¡¯t imagine why, Lord Mick!¡± I returned, already Sifting for goodies. Adamantine hand-sickles, Virindi Amulets, Virindi Masks, and Sparking Stones for all. It turned out that jacking his AC to the moon also made it easier to parry and reflect spells, to the point he¡¯d told me to only Dispel the Fulguris, and he¡¯d see if he could handle the Master and the Director¡¯s War spells, all that while fighting the Hollow Servant. The Servant was still dangerous, but Kris¡¯ advice had been spot on. The Servant¡¯s wild and powerful flailing was just that, wild, sacrificing accuracy for power. When the Mick adjusted his fighting style and focused on evading the creature appropriately, the entire pattern of his dodging changed, flowing with the motions of the creature and robbing it of the angles and resistance it needed to complete its attacks. Combined with a higher Armor Class and its own penalty to its attack for using such powerful blows, it had started bouncing impotently off his Shield, and when it hit, it was for much less force than previously, only able to overcome the Mick¡¯s substantial Damage Reduction and inflict bruises, instead of breaking bones and denting Armor! AF Chapter 319 – Stones Charged It did take the Mick longer to kill the Hollow Servant, since I wasn¡¯t Debuffing it and he was paying more attention to parrying and dodging than exploiting openings, meaning he reverted to One Strikes instead of multiple attacks. But that had the amusing effect of the Hollow Servant ending up with both of its chorozite fists sundered and shattered against the boss of the Mick¡¯s Shield as he counter-punched it with shield bashes, which really destroyed its ability to do him any harm once it couldn¡¯t ignore the magic of his Armor and Shield. Adamantine beat chorozite, natch! Once both its fists were broken, the Mick went on the offensive and wrapped up the lot of them fairly quickly with Flurries driving multiple crits and explosive attack sequences. ¡°Maybe we¡¯ve found the solution to them, maybe not,¡± I said calmly. ¡°I still needed a double Dispel on the opening War Magic volley to shut down the two real ones, and they are still being stupid and not moving into melee with me. All they have to do is have the Hollow Servant charge for me and ignore you, and the whole dynamic changes instantly.¡± He shot me a concerned look, his eyes rapidly shifting down and around as he imagined the course the fight would take if I couldn¡¯t lock down the magic of the Fulguris¡­ and I¡¯d have a devil of a time surviving the attacks of the Hollow Servant. ¡°That would be bad,¡± he admitted quickly. ¡°How would ye deal with it?¡± ¡°Trip it.¡± He blinked. ¡°Its feet never clear three inches off the ground when it moves, it just shuffles and slides around. If it sees there¡¯s an impediment there, like stairs, sure. But if it doesn¡¯t, it doesn¡¯t high-step at all, and it will fall flat on its face. ¡°Valence I. Once it¡¯s on the ground, you can either deal with it really fast with Death from Above, or I can pin it there via other means. A spell of Black Tentacles, Entangle, or just forming a Wall of Ice or something atop it would all do the job.¡± ¡°And the Wall would provide instant cover against spells, even if it were blasted through with one volley.¡± ¡°Precisely.¡± He looked over the dead again. ¡°So simple, but aye. I dinnae think I could truly solo this lot without being really lucky.¡± ¡°Do you think you could Spellcut one of the Fulguris¡¯s spells?¡± He tilted his head slightly, considering that. ¡°Huh. What do I need to hit?¡± ¡°Probably a 48 or so?¡± He winced. ¡°Gor! I¡¯m sitting at about +44 or something¡­¡± ¡°Favored Enemy bonus?¡± I inquired. ¡°So +46. I¡¯d miss on a crit failure, right?¡± he said thoughtfully. ¡°The only time you¡¯d miss, and it would be horrible,¡± I agreed. ¡°You should be able to handle the Director and Master without too much problem. But keeping the Hollow Servant at bay while having to press the Fulguris and kill it while Spellcutting every spell¡­ it if had any tactical sense at all it would simply retreat from you continuously and pound you from a distance if it can, or go run for an alarm and send a dozen Servants after you. Us.¡± My eyes flickered in the direction of the next Sparking Stone my Locate Object was sensing. ¡°They have no tactical sense at all. The Fulguris should be retreating as soon as I Dispel its magic to go get reinforcements, leaving its minions here to delay us. It should return with more Hollow Servants, send them in, and while we try to survive them, pound us dead with magic. ¡°Coming up on us from behind with a second front would only make sense, too. These things have the battle-sense of rocks. It¡¯s more like fighting a whole bunch of people who won¡¯t help one another, rather than a collective hivemind operating intelligently.¡± The Mick began waving his hands urgently. ¡°Shush! Quiet! Quit talking! They might hear ye an¡¯ realize they been acting like idiots!¡± he berated me urgently. ¡°Do ye WANT t¡¯ make our lives more difficult?!¡± he moaned theatrically. I had to smile. ¡°They are Axiomatic Aberrants. Innovation is not in their nature. They can observe, they can imitate, they can recall¡­ but to do so requires personal agency on behalf of the virindi involved, and that commodity seems to be something they dole out in very small and precious lots, probably because those virindi afflicted with it tend to develop very non-Axiomatic tendencies rather quickly.¡± ¡°Realizin¡¯ their limitations because o¡¯ the collective will, an¡¯ seein¡¯ what might be possible goin¡¯ outside the rules. Can¡¯t imagine anyone else might be thinking the same way, nopers, not Mother McMikal¡¯s favorite son, I say!¡± he swore fervently. ¡°They are probably very intelligent, but they¡¯ve the willpower of rocks. Start in motion, finish the motion, ignore anything else. Don¡¯t do what is not part of the motion. Obey orders. Don¡¯t take individual initiative.¡± We watched the last of them finish Burning away, leaving only scraps of their armored robes and scattered clumps of broken ash behind that had been the Hollow Servant. ¡°How do ye reckon they are on a battlefield?¡± he asked me. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Utterly devastating,¡± I replied, which made him wince. ¡°Kris and Briggs both realize it, too. Mass combat is the bread and butter of Law. Chaos typically only wins large fights with sheer numbers and overpowered soldiers. Law¡­ well, you know. Just look at what we did against the Hea. Soldiers against warriors and hunters? Soldiers clean their clock. ¡°Virindi are highly mobile, tough as such things go, capable of Buffing themselves, perfectly obedient, totally willing to fight to the death, and possessed of tons of mana for spellcasting. ¡°I imagine their leaders have witnessed dozens of wars, thousands of battles, and can call upon those memories to emulate them and put winning strategies and formations into play on a battlefield. They can probably maneuver around with lightning speed and coordination, unleash massive spell volleys in absolute tandem to ruinous effect, and have no morale, discipline, or supply issues. ¡°They probably won¡¯t respond well to irregular or guerrilla tactics, or methods which pull them apart and don¡¯t allow a unified front and strategy, but on a straight-up battlefield? You¡¯d best duck and cover, because it would be Hell to fight them there.¡± The Mick looked into the distance thoughtfully. ¡°Huh. All me years here, an¡¯ I¡¯ve not ever seen the virindi do a mass battle, nor heard of them moving together like that. There be stories of them making war against the Rynthid in whatever home realm the two species share, but naught on Dereth.¡± I nodded agreement, Briggs having noticed the same thing long ago. ¡°That is pretty stupid of them, and the virindi aren¡¯t that stupid.¡± He caught the underlying meaning. ¡°They¡¯ve some manner o¡¯ restrictions on ¡®em, then.¡± I nodded confirmation. ¡°That is what we¡¯ve deduced. They have to wear their robes just to move around in the material world. All of their Dungeons tend to be covered in Runework designed to make the place more comfortable to them, or are places of incredible mana intensity, like here.¡± I narrowed my eyes, made a gesture and Hummed a Note that was low and deep on the scale. The air lit up with wavering purple fluctuations, faint but visible. ¡°Virindi magic. A Domain that lets them endure the Vault. Powered by that engine?¡± the Mick asked, following the flow of energies sweeping slowly past us. ¡°Yes. We believe that if enough of them materialized in one place to form an army, they¡¯d immediately be rejected by reality and thrown right back outside it to wherever their Quiddity hangs at.¡± ¡°So, what we are seein¡¯ here are the Virindi at their absolute weakest,¡± he deduced. ¡°That¡¯s probably fairly close to it, yes,¡± I agreed. ¡°I dinnae know if that be makin¡¯ me feel better or not,¡± he remarked thoughtfully, taking a deep breath and shaking out his arm. ¡°Well, they obviously started figuring out how to allow more and more powerful members of the species to manifest here, which is not encouraging, and the creatures they have created here are almost apocalyptic in their capacity for destruction, if you recall all the Prodigals of the species they created.¡± He looked sharply west. ¡°Ho. That¡¯s why they want me checking on Ayan Baquar! I bet she¡¯s thinking that the Banderling Prodigal, Harraag, took it, an¡¯ she¡¯s wondering if the virindi still control ¡®im.¡± ¡°If Bonecrusher, a drudge, can wrest itself free of the virindi, I have to believe that a banderling can, especially when the Fall overloaded so many control magicks like it did.¡± ¡°Ain¡¯t gonna argue that point, an¡¯ it makes a quick trip west when we get outta here,¡± he said, looking around. ¡°Oi, only got five more o¡¯ these little guard groups afore we graduate t¡¯ the big ones, lass.¡± I tossed a thumb at the Disk trailing behind me with our spoils. A lot of copper wire and minor glittering gemstones were piled haphazardly up and around the Shocking Stones, adamantine sickles, Virindi Masks, and Virindi Amulets. ¡°If we had to run now, I still think we did pretty good on spoils.¡± He beamed. ¡°I be agreeing with ye there. Goldweight throwin¡¯ itself at me be hard t¡¯ turn down, ye know?¡± ¡°Golums and Elementals, still paying for Gear upgrades, if only the slow and ugly way!¡± I pointed ahead. ¡°Go find more!¡± ¡°Yes, m¡¯lady!¡± Bunita swirled through an ornate flourish and he bowed flamboyantly to me, leading the way towards the next guard point. ------- ¡°Ye sure ye¡¯ve the mana?¡± the Mick repeated one last time. He was at full Health and Soak, and even boosted past it by some preemptive False Life and a Bear¡¯s Toughness, just to be careful. ¡°I¡¯ve got plenty of Slots even if I run out of mana,¡± I assured him. ¡°The minimal amount of spells being Cast has helped. Trust me to neutralize the spells, just focus on those two Servitors one after another.¡± I flexed my fingers in anticipation. The room with the floating chest full of Shocking Stones was right ahead of us, as was the ominous hum of the Virindi Signat, which was drifting around in clear agitation, doubtless wondering why it couldn¡¯t feel any of its subordinates. We both reviewed the way out if we had to run, and we both took deep breaths. Time to do this! Haste crawled silver lightning over both of us. The attack speed Buff was going to be very necessary. The hum around us seemed to fade a bit and deepen as our perceptions sped up. Together we glided past the corner, giving us a clear view of most of the room beyond. The arcane device the virindi had cooked up took up much of the ceiling, a column of ornate crystal warped in non-linear ways extending down from it, with a clear aperture condensing something within it in a riotous little ball of purple mana-plasma. The two motionless purple and red Servitors there jerked their sack-on-sticks heads around at us, and snapped loudly into attack mode. But not before three things happened. Triadspell +1, for Imperil IV+1 times two. Sudden Fastcast Triadspell +1, Acid Vuln IV+1 times two! Shades of shattering metallic gray flashed over the two extremely powerful scarecrow-like Hollows, followed an instant later by the flaring green of the Acid Vulns going off on both of them. The Mick¡¯s Valorous Spirited Charge drove home for x4 damage, a quadruple-damage One Strike, and the crit and sneak attack damage exploded into a shaft of emerald boring right through the skinny chest of the nearer one. At the same time, the purple sparks emanating from the mail mesh under its ragged clothes sputtered and faded away. The Item Dispel imbued into Clan as it reached out and swiped the second one was discharged, and the lightning effects and snapping speed about it abruptly dimmed. With a kick of his heels, the Mick was sliding forty feet backwards and out of the room before the two Servitors could even get into motion. AF Chapter 320 – Servitors and Signat I raised my hand, and the Bulwark of Stone rose out of the ground I couldn¡¯t Shape, turning into a three-foot thick, five-foot wide wall of granite blocking off half the corridor, allowing only one of the creatures within to get to the Mick at a time. The enruned Signat there put its sleeves together and bowed its head, magic converged powerfully¡­ and my Fastcast Dispel shattered it to multicolored sparks. The Hollow Lightning Servitor with a big gaping hole in its chest did its strings-cut, puppet-like dance of movement, the Mick¡¯s eyes never leaving it as he braced for its erratic charge. It raced up on him, flailing with two glittering chorozite stumps moving in joint-less ways living creatures could not, yet Clan rose to smash into the blow coming from overhead, and he actually flashed forward two feet, inside the arc of the fist smashing in from the side. Archer Stands Thrust. Steadfast. Hold the Line. The braced crit went off with devastating impact and explosively acidic fury yet again, blowing off the top of the Servitor¡¯s head instantly. Its powerful fist cracked deafeningly against Clan¡¯s boss and nearly broke, and the Mick merely grunted at the force of the other blow slamming its forearm, not its fist, against his Armor. Then the Mick stepped back and executed the smoothest Flurry I¡¯d seen out of him yet, six intersecting arcs of swordwork that bubbled and burned as they hacked through crystalline flesh and bone, as well as metal mesh. Abruptly that Servitor didn¡¯t have any limbs remaining intact as it tumbled to the ground. There was literally no let up. The second Servitor moved in murderously to the attack from behind the first, while the Signat sat back there and tried to get off another spell, which I Dispelled. Chorozite fists caromed off adamantine deafeningly, and there was a crack and shearing squeal of protest as the right fist of the second Servitor broke apart, spraying glittering fragments of Null Aluminum all over the floor and walls rather explosively, notably sticking into my Bulwark there as if it were made of rotten cheese. The Signat kept trying to Cast spells from well behind the Mick, and I kept Dispelling them, keeping my Fastcast spell on reserve just in case¡­ There it was, a lashing and mana-intensive attempt to Counter my Dispel, which actually worked, tons of mana doing what it was not precisely matched up for¡­ except my Fastcast Dispel in reserve finished the job, anyway. The Mick devolved to defensive fighting, a whirl of precise One Strikes and the free attack from Clan his primary attacks, except that Defensive Sweep triggered when it didn¡¯t move, Deft Opportunist added +4 to his Attacks of Opportunity, and Expert Tactician added +2 to hit and damage for a round after he landed an AoO¡­ and even if it only missed one attack in five, that one was enough for Riposte to trigger into the opening. Its naturally tough Damage Reduction already rendered brittle and taking +75% damage from the Acid Vuln IV, the Hollow Servitor was cut apart with amazing speed, despite the Mick not making any full attacks at all. Clan was there to meet the surviving Hollow pummeling attacks, and while he didn¡¯t manage to break it, the threat it posed was minimized as he proceeded to hack and stab back into it for incredible damage, the explosive Bursts of the crits blowing right through it as Bunita did what she was meant to do. The Signat was trying to outlast me with mana, but I could Dispel over twenty times from III Slots, let alone my Mana Pool or higher Slots. It tried to Counter me twice more as the Mick dueled the Servitor, gained the upper hand, and finally stabbed completely through its arm as it delivered an uppercut that rang off Clan, sending its own arm tearing free of its shoulder. His feet flowed and shifted, and there was a blur of swordstrokes, three arcs culminating in a plunging thrust that broke its Core and nailed it to the floor, shrieking once in alarm and failure, and then it went still. The Signat paused in its Casting as the Mick pulled out Bunita¡¯s glowing green length and glided towards it, sparks of Silver lightning crackling about him as he accelerated before it could say anything. Well, it finally spoke anyway! ¡°Barbaric things of meat! Do you think that your actions here will go unanswered?¡± its stereo two-tone voice thrummed, flicking adamantine sickles sparking with thick and nasty purple lightning out of its sleeves as the Mick¡¯s charge slammed into and through it, Bunita going fully into its chest and Clan interfering with the strike of its right arm. It lashed across and down, and he spun just right to let the blow go by, wrenching Bunita sideways to half-spin it, open its wound, and send its sickle out just wide enough to gouge his Armor instead of crashing down on his breastplate, lightning dancing up and down his arm. The Triadspell Dispel Item Magic flashed across both adamantine sickles, and the gleam on them dimmed and faded somewhat, while the hissing purple lightning went out completely. Stolen novel; please report. The Mick gave me a mental thumbs-up for the move as he began to Flurry the absolute fuck out of this virindi at Hasted speed. It did try to Dispel the Haste, and I straight up Countered that with my own Dispel, amused it would even try. Once it realized it wasn¡¯t going to get a spell off, however, it really got serious with the melee. There was basically almost no break in its attack sequences. There was nothing new, nothing I and the Mick hadn¡¯t seen before from virindi, but there was less than a second between those different attack patterns, which meant the Mick had to be fast and on the ball. He was a full Paramount Melee under Haste. He was definitely both of those things, and buying up Favored Enemy bonuses against the virindi and their servants had definitely been something he¡¯d been doing a great deal of. His feet flowed back and forth with fantastic speed and ease, whirling around the virindi as it tried to spin around him and find an angle he couldn¡¯t block sufficiently or attack from. It definitely had some telekinetic version of strength to help try to force him around, but the Mick had some very impressive heavyfoot, and it simply couldn¡¯t budge him when it tried to press him back. Clan cracked and clashed against sickles, and if they hadn¡¯t been Dispelled, likely would have soon been covered with gouges and scrapes from the things. As it was, the Shield was still being scored by the tremendous force of the sickle-hands of the Signat, but that wasn¡¯t enough to stop it from crashing back against that very force, destabilizing the virindi and threatening to break the sickles from its grip entirely. It might have been waiting for me to try something, seize an opportune moment to cast a spell, but it didn¡¯t seem to get the idea that trying to evade the Mick and go for me might be a viable strategy. It certainly didn¡¯t think about retreating, despite the unwhite fire that was rapidly breaking apart the reinforced crystal of its minions¡¯ bodies and turning them into sparkling, sparking powder on the ground. The Mick grinned fiercely, enjoying the enhanced reflexes, anticipating its moves and moving with and through them with deft speed, emerald arcs seeming to manifest out of nowhere, beginning and ending in eyeblinks with Bunita back on point. Melted and corroded metal soon crisscrossed the front of the Enruned armored robe of the Signat, bright purple virindi light leaking through the openings, and I watched its movements become looser and more erratic as it lost structural integrity. Acidic energy tore at the metal of its armor, lashed across the energies inside, and it recoiled as the vivus riding the Lost Light¡¯s motes flared and ate of the energies within it. ¡°What power is this? What energy do you wield? Where did it come from? This is unnatural, this is an abomination!¡± it shrieked as it felt the vivic energy eating away at its very essence, not just disrupting its shell. ¡°It is the fire of the Mortal World, virindi, and it feeds the Land. The Land¡­ is hungry!¡± I replied to it, holding back, trusting the Mick to finish the job. I was immediately rewarded as one of its sickles was sheered off at the sleeve, whipping past the Mick¡¯s ear and plunging six inches into the stone floor. The Signat¡¯s attack sequences were now sending it wildly off-balance, which interrupted its movement and made it simple for the Mick to keep it in place, which triggered Stand Still, Thorned Hedge, Defensive Sweep, Riposte, and Combat Tactician all over again, Attacks of Opportunity accelerating the kill speed magnificently as his cutting and Flurries only grew faster, faster¡­ The Signat¡¯s scream of despair and fear echoed forth as it was disrupted entirely. Rather than escaping to its Quiddity, vivic flame blew completely through and devoured it. It was louder than even the Fulgurists had been as it exploded across the floor of the room, instantly covering it in calf-high mist and painting everything in the room pure white, even the arcane device. The Haste spell lapsed, and the Mick promptly sat down back against the Disk I had moved up behind him, breathing hard and even blowing a Vigor use to regain his stamina faster to recover from the exhaustion battling at him. I hadn¡¯t physically exerted myself, so the effects on me were much less. I just continued breathing and standing mostly still there. ¡°Ho, that were a lot of Stamina gone quick there,¡± he noted after a couple minutes of just sitting there and breathing. ¡°It was eating it away from you at probably two per second,¡± I confirmed. ¡°Good thing you¡¯ve got so much of it.¡± ¡°Gor, I didnae think there¡¯d ever be a time I actually needed five hundred Stamina to get through a single fight.¡± He took another deep breath, shaking his head. ¡°Right, what¡¯s the haul?¡± I lifted up a glittering Virindi Amulet that was plainly a degree above those of the Fulguris, rainbow lights playing inside a large diamond. ¡°Level Four version. +4 in some fashion¡­¡± I reached out to touch it, letting my Bloodline awareness spread through it. ¡°+2 War, +2 Life Magic.¡± ¡°Yours.¡± I opened my mouth to refuse, and he just waved it away. ¡°We both know ye¡¯ve the chops to cast Sevens, and ye can¡¯t because of how yer magic combines. Well, now ye can, once ye figure the way.¡± I considered that very relevant point, and then brought the Amulet down over my head. It rested on top of the Tat-Mark that was my Arcane Focus, halted there, and was bonded to the Charka point immediately. I could immediately feel the enhancement of some limit, pushed back by the virindi magic. It did make me reliant on the Amulet, but I couldn¡¯t find it in myself to complain once I got it working properly. I¡¯d still have to pay the full mana cost to unleash a Platinum-tier spell, but at least I¡¯d be able to DO it. Wow, bad guys had better look out when that happened. The Platinum Debuffs were MURDER. The Vulns were a whopping +185% increased damage by Element¡­ for a base 70 Mana, modified by Mana Conversion. Ouch. I really wanted to find my path forward for the Isparian magic system now. As it was, it was useless to me now. Still, a good problem to have, as it were. ¡°Everyone an¡¯ their mother is now goin¡¯ t¡¯ be wantin¡¯ to kill a Signat fer a little toy like that,¡± he remarked from experience. ¡°We only need one more, and I can break it down and learn how to replicate it¡­ or we could potentially ask Martine to do the same.¡± ¡°Rather not be relying on the Prodigal Human as the only source o¡¯ something so useful,¡± the Mick commented, as the Enruned mask of the Signat rose from its remains and floated past him to the Disk behind him. Its Sickles soon followed, already starting to spark again faintly. AF Chapter 321 – Floating Wealth ¡°I agree with you. So, be on the lookout for another Signat to pop. In the meantime, they¡¯ll just have to be content with the +2 War, +1 Life limits of the Fulguris we have extras of,¡± I shrugged extravagantly to Lord Mick. ¡°An¡¯ the Shocking Stones,¡± he smiled back, just as an ornate dealybop rose from the dust of the Signat¡¯s crumbling armor robe. He snatched up the Virindi Key and walked over to the white and purple flower-like spatial vault floating in the corner. With the ease of long experience, he inserted the key into the center of the floating safe and the petals unfolded outwards, revealing a space inside bigger than the flower was. Neatly arranged within were over a score more gleaming Shocking Stones. They were resting on beds made up of hundreds, if not thousands, of glittering minor gemstones. He whistled at the display, prompting me to drift up and look inside with him. ¡°They were harvesting Lightning Elementals, too!¡± he deduced with glee at our windfall. I made a swirling motion with my hand, and a glittering stream of the contents began to move from the Signat Vault to my Disk there. ¡°For what?¡± I asked him grimly, and he pursed his lips in thought as he glanced at me, and all kinds of bad things came to mind¡­ ¡°Ye¡¯re raining on me happy moment again, lass!¡± he warned me with a wagging finger. ¡°You¡¯re such an ebullient, happy person, somebody has to be the black lining in the white cloud for you.¡± ¡°Aye, that be truth. Terribly joyful an¡¯ effervescent sot that I be, bubbly an¡¯ happy-skippy-dancy I am,¡± he agreed shamelessly. ¡°Now break out that Healing Reserve, get rid o¡¯ me little knee-bumps an¡¯ elbow-scrapes, an¡¯ lets get out o¡¯ here.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to leave a little something here while we do that¡­¡± ------ ¡°Heads up.¡± I broke out of mana-Renewing Meditation, and we both watched as the virindi came for the Amperehelion Vault. The virindi hit squad came streaming in over the shallow waters from the south, lighting the way up with a whole lot of violent magic that cleared out every single damn spawn in their way with absolute dismissive impunity. ¡°They be using proper Elemental damage types on ¡®em. Living vir,¡± he noted professionally, dark eyes measuring everything. Summons would use random energy types which might not hurt shades at all, for instance, and that wasn¡¯t happening here. ¡°Hundred of them, with another hundred tuskers and Minions.¡± I nodded in agreement. ¡°The tuskers and Minions are mostly Summons picked up on the way. Center of the pack. Two Minions with crimson hides.¡± He noted them. ¡°And right between ¡®em, another Signat.¡± The wind blew stiffly as the sky boiled, building towards a storm for the last hour from the direction of the Obsidian Plains. Distant booms and claps of thunder rolled by after weird colors danced inside the clouds there. Nothing special to see there, and the virindi ignored it. Isparians didn¡¯t have weather control magic, after all. The horde steamrolled every hostile Summons in the way, and instantly took control of the two sets of Summoned virindi packs we could see. The whole mob of them rumbled up to the ancient stone windmill that was the cap of the Amperehelion Vault, and quickly established a security perimeter around the place, while a straight stream of virindi and the most powerful Minions there plunged inside and down the steps inside in hyper-coordinated fashion, no hesitation and no gaps. The clouds overhead rumbled, and the Minions, tuskers, and lesser virindi left outside ignored them. The Mick sat there, waiting patiently as minutes crawled by, waiting patiently as the virindi raced through the complex maze of the inside of the Vault, waiting patiently as they flowed towards the machine at the bottom, waiting patiently as they looked for signs of who and what had cut off all the virindi there. His Alarm spell went off and vanished before they could register the magical signature, alerting him that something had entered the edge of its sensory radius. Such a nice little minor spell, he mused, fucking patience done with. ¡°Bring it down,¡± he told me, flipping up Bunita''s Sound Bubble. I reached out into the roiling elemental hellstorm waiting up above, seething with all sorts of raw magical fury from the unstable magic on the Obsidian Plains, and brought down five Topped Call Lightnings at one time, each accented with a separate energy type that joined them into something bigger, greater¡­ and more disruptive. Lightning accented with Fire, Acid, Cold, Holy, and Force Magic, fed with Silver Magic and both Primal and Divine Fury, fell down upon the steadily pumping windmill that was the Amperehelion Vault.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. This was no Thunderbolt being delivered. This was me drawing a conduit between all the potential energy of a thunderstorm down to a major nexus of lightning energy to ground it. Even with Devasight, the Mick and I had to look away as the storm above discharged down into the Vault. The night became day, and the slamming impact of the thunder sent rocks tumbling down from the sides of the hills all around us, spontaneously bringing down a couple cliff-faces as the stone broke from the slamming impact. The Bubble from Bunita wobbled from the volume of that much sound, but held. The air was full of debris kicked up by the force of the displaced air shattering everything, and we waited patiently as it began to drop and clear. The shadow of the windmill was visible first. It looked a bit different at the moment, because each of its four Vanes was limned in a different Elemental flame. Purple, crimson, cerulean, and verdant green flames burned serenely as they turned slowly through the air. Scattered around the windmill were the corpses of the slaughtered virindi horde, all of them slowly burning vivic as they were destroyed. ¡°Ye think it¡¯s safe t¡¯ go in?¡± the Mick asked warily. ¡°Only one way to find out!¡± I said cheerfully, dropping Resist Lightning, Gold Lightning Protection +1, and Protection from Lightning on both of us, just to be on the safe side. Grinning as widely as I did, he vaulted the edge of the elevated ledge we¡¯d been waiting behind a couple hundred yards away, masked by a Circle of Non-Detection. --- There were no living virindi left inside. The disruptive nature of the lightning coming down had been both absorbed and ejected by the Amperehelion Vault, venting into the interior of the place in a violent dance of Elemental energies that had vented all the impure powers riding the lightning, bouncing the energy of the Called lightning back and forth until all such elements were completely expended. Anything inside was naturally slagged as they acted as leaping conduits for the energies writhing through them. The walls were alive and crackling with constant flickers and flashes of lightning, things the Mick made sure to disrupt with a touch of Bunita¡¯s point, Grounding them out before they could cross and catch us between them. Sparks danced from the floor we were gliding just above as we skated back down through the place once more. A few more Virindi Amulets. A few more Virindi Masks. Lots of dead virindi set on vivic fire and feeding into the Vault. Lightning crawled over them eagerly and devoured their alien energies in rapture. The Signat was down right underneath the arcane machine they¡¯d built, which was now showing an intact Shocking Stone inside it. The Mick yoinked it as I pulled the second +4 Virindi Amulet of the day out of the Signat¡¯s sparking, crumbling remains, and dropped its Enruned Mask on top of its compatriot¡¯s. ¡°¡¯Tis been a fine day today!¡± the Mick grinned happily, as we started quickly back up, this time doing it parkour style as he bounced between the railed levels of the central shaft, much faster than taking the ramps down. ¡°So it has, so it has!¡± ----------- With a Mask of Clarity, night and day had little meaning to us. There was a single pause at midnight for Sylune¡¯s Salute, as Aethra had heralded the dusk, and then the Mick was skating along while I Meditated, regaining Mana once again as the Mana Boosts I¡¯d used were soothed and washed away by my Silver Renewal at midnight. We left the four blazing vanes of the Vault behind, both of us wondering how long it would be before the virindi investigated again after the loss of at least forty of them, including some extremely strong ones, fed forever to the appetite of the Land. The Black Hills on the way weren¡¯t too populated by Summons, but the more natural hills past it certainly were. Invisibility helped a lot, except against the virindi Summons dotted among the extremely varied and powerful Spawn points. I saw my first Diamond Golum Sovereign, towering to twice the height of a normal such Golum and surrounded by a cohort of powerful Astyrrian Lightning Elementals. Powerful senior Tukora lugians, noble-ranked Hea Tumeroks, clusters of Swarm Olthoi exploration teams, Wisps twice as strong as those vented off vivic points in the east, at least a dozen each advanced Drudges and Banderlings along different paths, groups of powerful Undead and shades, blood-red horse-sized reedsharks vying with elephant-sized shreth for attention¡­ There was a mighty Crystal Lord, too, surrounded by a swarm of zefir-like Crystal Minions. The Mick¡¯s face as he looked at the horde of them was of incredible loathing. Nothing had less than five hundred Health, and the vast majority were a thousand and higher. I could see the Mick was itching to test himself against the creatures, especially any solo spawns that we saw, but he held off. The job first. ------- ¡°Too many virindi,¡± I judged from the edge of the hill near Harraag¡¯s former den, staying very low. There were a lot of powerful virindi Summons up, particularly Quiddox and Paradox¡­ and all of them were Shadow-touched, which might indicate something about splits in the Quiddity, or just how susceptible the things were to infection by outside forces. ¡°It might mean Aerbax be still alive,¡± the Mick agreed, pushing back and sliding below the lip. I followed suit. ¡°I have no idea if that is good or bad for us, but it¡¯s certainly not good for the virindi,¡± I agreed, hopping on my Invisible Disk as he turned west yet again. ¡°Well, it means he¡¯s out o¡¯ his den, an¡¯ that means among the other banderlings. Likely there¡¯s nothing good for us in this matter.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t argue that,¡± I answered as he turned west. ¡°You think Harraag set his sights on Ayan?¡± ¡°Isparians and others out o¡¯ Ayan probably killed the bastard a thousand times or more. If he didn¡¯t have a vengeful streak as big as Bonecrusher, I¡¯m a mosswart.¡± He started on his way, and my Detects ranged out ahead, complementing eyes that ignored the darkness warily looking for signs of intruders. Amusingly enough, the Elemental-phasing Weapons wielded by a lot of the creatures here were enough to give many of them away at some distance, as was the casual use of magic or venting of power. The number of native real life forms wasn¡¯t that high, however. I literally didn¡¯t sense anything real bigger than a mouse or lizard. Possibly the Summons were used to cull any species which might break the paradigm, and the subtle control of the Primal magic here held the environment to a certain level of development and no higher. Certainly the forest should have been a lot more overgrown than it was at the ground level, and while the trees seemed old, they weren¡¯t BIG¡­ which was pretty strange and put hackles on my neck at the creepiness of the restrained growth. It was also possible the natural vitality was being drained away for some other purpose¡­ I sighed and shook my head, banishing such thoughts for now. It was a problem for the future. AF Chapter 322 – A Return to old Stomping Grounds In normal circumstances, the Mick could have made a beeline for Ayan and reached it in less than twenty miles, just running past or around anything in the way. They wanted to disturb absolutely no virindi on this run, nor leave any witnesses whose memories might be plumbed to indicate their presence. So, he was moving more carefully and circumspectly, detouring around all the spawns unless he was totally sure he was ghosting them, being patient and careful as he closed in on his old stomping grounds. Let the virindi wonder. Hunting outside Ayan Baquar back in the old days had been the equivalent of idle fun. The foes were tough, varied, and one didn¡¯t have to go far at all to get into a good brawl. Back then it had been wonderful and convenient, a way to alleviate the boredom of grinding a Dungeon, still earning decent loot and Karma, and getting a chance to test himself against a wide variety of enemies, including the occasional Bosses or Champions with their unique rewards. Now, he saw the unmoving Summons sitting on their spawn points, and didn¡¯t see enemy forces and fighters just begging for a sword in the guts so they could cough up some valuables. But there was a lot of magic at work and creatures tied to the Summons system, unnatural things that were sapping at the magic and land as they existed, sitting around and literally good for nothing but fighting. But he still wanted to fight them, to dance with death and prove himself the master and victor. He grimaced at knowing how thoroughly he¡¯d been programmed to slaughter the things, and just kill and kill and kill like it meant nothing. The Fall had brought truth and reality back to him as to the value of the lives of those he cared for, including his own, but he could still look at any non-human and value its life as less than the dirt on his soles without effort. He had killed far too many of them, bathed in gore that dissipated and cleared itself off of him as a reward for his victory, and seen more treasure go through his hands than the treasuries of a hundred noble houses for doing so. Down south, the spawns were higher with the skeletons and mu-miyahs, but here, in the trees and hills and forests around Ayan Baquar, truly this had been where he¡¯d had some of the best times of his life. Before the Fall, aye. There it was, the saddleback of the two hills to either side of it, the town nestled up on the low point between the two of them, still above the forests below and the western beach to the ocean nearby. Gor, the damn town didn¡¯t even have any walls, despite being surrounded by so much hostile shite. The Mick actually glided to a stop at the edge of the treeline, staring at it in disbelief at the simple fact staring him in the face after so many years. So much deadly, hostile stuff, and they¡¯d not even bothered to put up a wall¡­ because it was almost all Summons and they couldn¡¯t wander away from where they Spawned. ¡°So fucking ridiculous,¡± he said aloud, staring at the town. His Mask of Clarity responded to his will, magnifying the forward view of the hill still a good mile away, and the details leapt forwards with piercing clarity, even in the night, false dawn barely starting in the east. Banderlings. Banderlings everywhere. The catlike species hunted at all hours, and he wondered what in the heck the things could eat out here, if they were indeed real. He knew that the strong warriors of the wild tribes made the trek to the Direlands to find a champion and teacher to instruct them in the greater paths of power of their people, a rite of passage for so many species here. Something drew them to the Direlands, where they could grow powerful, beyond the restrictions and limits of their homelands and homeworlds. And it was the place the Undead, Virindi, and Shades all operated from. Something big, nasty, and important was in the Direlands, and there was no doubt whatsoever that it fed on conflict and death. ¡°Banderlings all over the place,¡± he said aloud, totally unneeded since the Lady Magos had reclaimed her feet and was studying it through her own jet and silver Mask. ¡°I can verify if he¡¯s there if we get within three hundred paces. He¡¯ll likely sense the Divination, but I¡¯ll just crash it and we can run away.¡± She glanced at him with eyes that always saw too much. ¡°Strange to see it? It looks largely intact. By the stories and amount of virindi involvement here, I expected it to be a virindi encampment.¡± ¡°Harraag tryin¡¯ t¡¯ take after Bobo, perhaps.¡± He pointed at the base around the town. ¡°Those used t¡¯ all be random Spawns.¡± Hundreds of banderlings in bright armors, color-coded for convenience of the watchers, occupied all the spawn points for at least half a mile around the hills of Ayan.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Banderling Champions, Paragons, Crushers, and Hierophants. Not a single Enforcer, Thrasher, Mangler, Mauler, Aggressor, Predator, Savage, Scalper, or the other, lesser types of Banderlings. Only the apex banderlings of their paths. ¡°Standard tactics we¡¯ve seen many times. Ridiculous how?¡± she asked him. ¡°Nae walls in the middle of such dangerous shite.¡± He sighed deeply as she glanced back at the town, raising an eyebrow in acknowledgment of his point. ¡°This be not Osteth. How could¡­ it makes no sense at all. Like we knew the shite couldn¡¯t threaten us, even as we thought of them putting us under siege¡­ and then our attention slipped away from Ayan, and without hundreds o¡¯ us killing everything around it all the time, it continued on without any problems¡­¡± How hard and subtle did that shite have to be, fucking with his head so easily and for so long? ¡°Cover your scent and circle the base of the hill once.¡± Her gaze drifted to the northern hill, where crystalline glitters in a specific shade of blue still sparkled erratically, even at this distance. ¡°There doesn¡¯t look to be much motion on the north side. Do you think we might drop a Focus there, or be better off toward the beach?¡± ¡°The spawns are light over there, so I¡¯ll do an approach from that side, an¡¯ we¡¯ll see. Can ye conceal a Seal Focus?¡± he asked archly. ¡°Was thinking of Shaping out a room, putting it on the floor, and then closing the room back up behind a stone veneer. Even if they discover it, it¡¯ll just be a hidden chamber, and they won¡¯t know what it¡¯s really for. That way I can put some basic Runes in the walls so that virindi or Harraag won¡¯t sense someone ¡®porting in, too.¡± ¡°The virindi do love their dimensional shite.¡± ¡°They do, probably because they aren¡¯t really physical themselves.¡± Her silvered eyes narrowed sharply. ¡°Also, I¡¯d like to Burn that Deathstone pit clean, if possible, banderlings be damned.¡± The Mick straightened slightly. ¡°Aye, that sounds like a fine thing t¡¯ do, even if Harraag ends up chasing us until the morning a-growling in outrage!¡± he agreed promptly. The wailing of tortured spirits just went right to his heart now. Not doing something about it was nigh-impossible, if he could. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± Her Disk lotused up and fed itself into her Masspack. Their loot was already Itemized and would be broken out when they returned to civilization to be processed. Their Masks allowed them to see one another clearly, even when Invisible, so there were no problems with her following him, murmuring a spell to repress their scents, as they headed straight for the town. He wanted to confirm if the Whispering Blade Chapterhouse was still in existence, too, the secret society¡¯s base of operations formerly being a Portal down the hill east of Ayan. She said nothing, following smoothly and quietly, not a ripple of cloth, her steps more precise than gliding like his own, a combination of magic and a different lightfoot style that somehow gave her a more purposeful, domineering air she likely wasn¡¯t aware of, a subtle and direct display that indicated that she knew things you didn¡¯t. It was not the pure danger that Princess Kristie had when she got to moving, beauty and dance-with-a-dragon dangerous just radiating threat to anything with any common sense whatsoever. But the Princess was a killer born, aye, no doubts as to that, and the Lady Magos was a Caster, so seeing that hint of martial danger about her was always a bit surprising. --- He didn¡¯t remember quite so many Spawn Points, but Ryin assured him that all were Summons, no real things about her. Such banderlings would have indicated their status by wandering around or just collapsing in place to sleep, regardless. The entry point of the Whispering Blade had been located at the edge of a marshy area, and was completely obvious as a long and incredibly blatant stone formation ripped up out of the ground, with a long tunnel leading down and into the underground. There were banderlings of lesser types around the entry point, and a well-worn trail leading directly up the side of the hill to Ayan, as well as to the left around the base of the hill. ¡°Those are all real banderlings. Large enough for extra living quarters and a lair?¡± Ryin asked him from within the safety of Bunita¡¯s Sound Bubble. ¡°More than large enough,¡± he confirmed. ¡°The inside was nae as large as the town itself in some ways. Could easily have fit every one o¡¯ the people inside it.¡± Question of its status answered, he headed down the trail to the left, wary of banderlings he might meet, but not so much at this early hour, the Sound Bubble coming down so he could hear any activity. The trail ran around the southern end, past three more Spawns who didn¡¯t hear, see, or smell them sidling past, and all the way around to the other side of the hill, where it intersected a similar trail coming down out of the town and led down towards the beach. He didn¡¯t stop until he was well past the intersection, proceeding towards the northern end, only stopping for a moment. ¡°Fishing?¡± he murmured to her quietly. It had been a pastime for some of the people of Ayan, not a vocation. Smart people were wisely concerned about the potential dangers of what might be dwelling in those shadows, and there were plenty of Spawn Points out in the waves, some damn random in when they popped up with creatures. ¡°Looks like it.¡± She pointed off to the side. ¡°That looks like a bone pile they are charring down with magic. If I were to hazard a guess, we¡¯d see a bunch of them come down in the wee hours as the tide is coming in, and they¡¯ll unleash on something big that comes in just past the shoreward together. They¡¯ll kill it, and then the waters will push it past the Shoreward to eat. ¡°That, or Harraag can break the Shoreward long enough for them to grab it for meals. Flaring his Aura might even be enough to draw some prey in.¡± ¡°Ayan always bought its supplies with the loot from the Summons in trade. Self-sufficiency were never its thing. Gor, what would old Ulgrim do if they couldn¡¯t bring in the beer?¡± He shook his head and resumed his course, angling them to bring up the side of the larger hill that buttressed the town to the north. ¡°Ye familiar with how it were laid out?¡± ¡°I scanned an old map of the town, yes,¡± she confirmed, as he was sure she would. ¡°A line of Portals that led to the old gambling houses. A race track for carenzi. A tent occupied by, eh, ¡®independent¡¯ virindi, and the Deathstone.¡± ¡°Were an old Portal to Baishi, too, but they managed to shut it down when they set up the Portal Network, shifting it down inta the town proper an¡¯ changing the destination. Used t¡¯ be pretty difficult t¡¯ get here, closest way was ta come down the coast after Portaling inta Mount Lethe t¡¯ the north, an¡¯ then ye used a Deathstone Tie t¡¯ come back here when ye wanted. ¡°Banderlings bein¡¯ what they are, I expect they be shunnin¡¯ the place, what with the Deathstone pit up here¡­¡± AF Chapter 323 – Checking Things out on the Beach No banderlings were posted on the high northern hill, which wasn¡¯t all that surprising. After all, wasn¡¯t there a half-mile ring of them about the place, who¡¯d be bellowing alarms as soon as an enemy was sighted? Who needed sentries when you had hundreds of them all around your home? Which didn¡¯t mean I was going to drop the Invisibility and Scentless, nopers. The Deathstone pit was right where the Mick had indicated. I looked over at what had been a carenzi race course, now torn all apart and most of the wood likely hauled off to be burned. There were old and weathered craters where planar implosions had closed the row of Portals that had once existed there, the gambling halls they¡¯d once been set up to go to now abandoned rubble. I thought about gambling halls having the power to put something as strategically important as a Portal in place from the Direlands directly into the civilian areas for newbies in Osteth, closed my eyes, and shook my head. No-no, my bad, making a set of Portals available for virindi raids into all three major heartlands of the Isparians was a good idea, sure, sure. It wasn¡¯t sheer unmitigated insanity at all, nopers... There was also a tent standing near the Deathstone Pit, ragged, empty, but somehow still standing despite the years of weathering and being abandoned. The Mick walked up to it, glanced inside, and then just shrugged and stepped back out. Virindi-empowered, holding up despite the years, and the superstitious banderlings likely kept it around as a sign of the virindi who had rebelled against the Quiddity, just like their boss. We walked up to the Deathstone, and the quiet, unnerving wails caressing ear and spirit as the dead here let us know their disquiet. Hundreds of them. This had been a popular Deathstone, despite its location¡­ or perhaps because of its location. Not the same size as the one in Candeth Keep before it was Burned away, which definitely had been popular, but still greater in number than the residents of the small town had numbered. Bunita slid out silently, and orange-rainbow motes of Lost Light stole out to set blue crystals on vivic fire in swirls and spirals. Every single blue crystal was set to mistfire, and the intermingled skulls of Isparians, tumeroks, gearknights, and Empyreans alike began to Burn and crumple. It didn¡¯t take him more than a couple minutes to set it all alight, but we respectfully waited and listened as the faint cries faded gently, gratefully away. It didn¡¯t take that long before there was only the silence of the morning wind and a pit thick with mistfire staining the stone white, paleness that would fade shortly with the first touch of the sun¡¯s rays and Natural Renewal. A roar rang out in the town below, and we both tensed. The Mick looked at me, but I just shook my head. I hadn¡¯t gone sensing for anything, and hadn¡¯t Cast anything, either. Answering calls began to ring back and forth, and I straightened up. ¡°Rise and shine call.¡± I began to walk towards the slope, just enough of an angle to see the town below. Ayan Baquar was shaped like a C, the open area facing us to the north, with a line of stucco buildings along the east and south, and several too-durable tents to the west. The buildings had held a couple of families each, making it a true small town, with wealth in excess of its size, even with some remarkably skilled crafters who had once lived here, drawn by the wealth flowing through the place. It was a flow that had never truly stopped, even when drawn off by Candeth Keep¡¯s establishment to the south-east. Banderlings began to stumble out of those buildings, stretching out on verandas and balconies with great gaping yawns, their colorful armors oddly bright in the rather plain Gharun¡¯dim style buildings. The call was centered on the famous tavern of the Smoking Axe, home of the biggest drinking competition in all of Dereth. It was the place where the famous Ulgrim had held court as enforced Mayor of the town, elected after passing out dead drunk. Now striding out of the tavern was a great dark banderling, a head taller than almost any of the others around, hulking and muscular¡­ and with eyes burning like red-hot rubies, trailing hot red-purple energies as he strode out to rouse his people. ¡°Never had quite the ear for banderling,¡± the Mick admitted quietly, watching the ruling banderling get his vassals into motion towards the beach. ¡°But that definitely be Harraag. Killed him enough, never forget that face.¡± He waved to the east, where other banderlings in different colors of armor were spilling out of the Factionhouse Dungeon in a long stream. ¡°Note all the ones in town be having the same colors as those standing guard about the town, an¡¯ the ones below are more like the random spawns out in the wild areas. Powerful ones get t¡¯ stay closer ta the boss.¡± ¡°Nothing new about that.¡± The lower banderlings broke into runs to catch up to their elders, splitting around the base and straight up to the town as they followed the elders down towards the shore. ¡°Remarkably mundane for all the pure muscle showing here.¡± ¡°Everybody¡¯s gotta eat, if¡¯n they ain¡¯t got one o¡¯ your Rings,¡± he agreed. ¡°We gonna stick around t¡¯ watch them go fishing?¡± I shook my hand slowly, pointing south. ¡°There¡¯s a mine of metal over there of what they called Shade Ore.¡± ¡°I remember it. Raided it scores o¡¯ times for samples¡­¡± His face went long as he sighed again. ¡°Never found out what it was for.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°And unsurprisingly, somehow we have no samples of it, and nobody knows what the Whispering Blades did with the metal.¡± Which was damn hilarious, because Prince Borelean back then had been the head of the Order! The Mick reached up to massage the bridge of his nose. ¡°Mindfuckery shite again.¡± He looked that direction, then glanced west. ¡°Moarsman temple was out there near the Festival Stone. Swing by and see the status of it?¡± ¡°If the banderlings left it intact, I overestimated them, even if they aren¡¯t the brightest,¡± I agreed shortly. ¡°Let¡¯s get to the mine before the Salute to Aru.¡± ¡°Easy enough,¡± he agreed, watching as the stream of banderlings hurrying to the shoreline began to thin out. ¡°Note the absence o¡¯ kits. Either in the Dungeon, or they ain¡¯t having any here.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t feel like checking, they can have the place.¡± No nose off my skin. ¡°Aye, bander reek in tight quarters be one o¡¯ those things ye don¡¯t want t¡¯ remember,¡± he nodded. ¡°Shall we?¡± Invisible, scentless, and silent as we ghosted along an inch above the ground, we headed down the hill, cutting behind the last of the banderlings and heading south of them along the shoreline. I could just see the fires on the columns leading to the Darktide Festival Stone out there. The moarsman temple, a twin to one that had been thrown up by Mayoi both long ago and more recently, wouldn¡¯t be too much farther away. ------ ¡°Well, I thought they were goin¡¯ down t¡¯ the shore,¡± the Mick mumbled defensively. Banderlings were coming and going from the depths of the mine we wanted samples from. The force that had split off had come this way, instead of staying down by the beach. It was pretty obvious, now that we were here, that there was a permanent work force living here, with additional miners coming in to haul out their prizes. ¡°That actually makes it easy.¡± I pointed down the trail they were using. ¡°All the samples we want will have fallen along the trail from those crude sacks they are using. I can just Sift up what we want.¡± ¡°Nah.¡± The Mick flexed his fingers. ¡°Can ye make one of the sacks Invisible with me?¡± I had to quirk a smile, having a good idea as to what was coming. ¡°Of course, Lord Mick.¡± --- The selected Aggressor Banderling was proficient in Bludgeoning and Fire Magic, wearing bright red armor. It came up out of the mine with a shreth-hide sack bulging with ore, hefting several hundred pounds of the stuff with patient strength. Then an Isparian in black armor popped out of nowhere and slugged him in the jaw. With a wail and a roar of surprise that attracted a lot of eyes, the Aggressor was literally sent flying. Maybe one of the Tukora lugian spawns had smacked it further, it was hard to tell. The red-armored banderling actually cleared the heads of a couple of the guards by the mine entrance there, hit the ground, bounced, and tumbled over several times before stopping. Shaking his head, he got to his feet unsteadily. ¡°Isparian!¡± he roared, pointing, and the startled guards immediately raced in that direction. They found nothing. There was no scent, no trail¡­ and no sign of the heavy bag of ore the Aggressor went looking around for, despite a dozen banderlings joining the search. The swelling bruise over the cheek and eye of the Aggressor was proof enough of the mighty blow the others had witnessed, but there was no sign of the Isparian he had seen. --- ¡°Ah, just like the old days¡­ ¡®cept the Ocean Palms push things a wee bit further than back then,¡± the Mick informed me happily. I just shook my head, the sack of ¡®Shade Ore¡¯ already reduced to Itemized size and stowed away. ¡°Any particular places you want to check out, or do we head back to Candeth now?¡± The moarsman temple had been leveled to rubble, as expected, lots of big banderling claw marks on the brittle coral. ¡°I want a Lived-Line running all ¡®round these shores, if¡¯n ye don¡¯t mind the mileage,¡± he replied drolly. ¡°Ahead o¡¯ us a couple miles be the home o¡¯ a scholar o¡¯, eh, dubious authenticity. His cellar were full o¡¯ some inordinately tough Rats an¡¯ Nefanes fer some damn reason.¡± At my look, he explained. ¡°Why, it made perfect sense. Ye had to run all the way to the bottom o¡¯ the place, pick up a magic key he dropped from the floor, come back ta the top o¡¯ the place, get into his chest, retrieve his notes as t¡¯ his most recent papers, an¡¯ return them to ¡®im in Fort Teth¡¯s bar. Or ta the fellow he plagiarized in the Smokey Axe in Ayan there.¡± ¡°And¡­ that was worth your time?¡± ¡°Aye, sure. Combine it with a trip ta that shattered moars temple back there, a run through the Shade Ore mine, an¡¯ ye were making a fair bit o¡¯ Karma fer maybe an hour o¡¯ work all told, just running through most of it an¡¯ only having t¡¯ butcher a handful o¡¯ shite at the end of the runs. ¡°Fightin¡¯ them things in that cellar were a true pain in the arse, however. They were damn tough, and spawned fast¡­¡± ¡°And would be worth a lot of Karma.¡± ¡°Thought might have crossed my mind a wee bit,¡± he admitted. ¡°You noticed we were on a trail leading that way, right?¡± ¡°Odd, that.¡± ¡°So the odds the banderlings are using the place for the same reason are pretty high.¡± ¡°Surely the lead-brained things wouldnae be so intelligent as t¡¯ deny us our fun?¡± he moaned theatrically. ¡°They can obviously Level, and it¡¯s a good place to do so. Any other Dungeons in the area they can exploit?¡± ¡°Aye, but north. There¡¯s a Hall o¡¯ Metos an¡¯ a Black Spawn Den there.¡± I made a ¡®keep talking¡¯ gesture. ¡°Fast spawn golums o¡¯ various sorts, an¡¯ tons o¡¯ fast spawn tuskers. Ostensibly, the latter were ¡®breeding grounds¡¯ for the virindi¡¯s favorite muscle. There are three Halls and three BSD¡¯s spread out about the Direlands. ¡°They be wonderful places t¡¯ power-Level fer the 100 to 150¡¯s,¡± he recalled with some nostalgia. ¡°Fast-spawn golums, huh?¡± They and Elementals were about the only things which actually dropped useful things anymore, which implications he promptly caught. ¡°And some Revenants an¡¯ Dark Revenants. Dropping mnemosynes, which ye could turn in fer more Karma¡­¡± He took another long breath. ¡°Those were memory storage things, like magical pyramids o¡¯ preserving orders an¡¯ conversations the Undead use in place o¡¯ notes an¡¯ missives. We were rewarded for delivering them t¡¯ a collection site¡­¡± I just shook my head. ¡°Well, they certainly knew how to keep you and your fellows busy and distracted by bling,¡± I had to say, and he held up his hand, his skating stride turning into a long sliding pause I mimicked automatically. There was indeed a cottage in startlingly good condition ahead of us, except it was now ten feet above the surrounding ground, the dirt ruptured upwards in a broad area underneath, like its own stony motte. Rough stones were piled up to form a crude path up to the cabin, and outside the front of it, about a score of the lower-tier banderlings, led by a quartet of the tougher, higher-Level ones, were sitting around, eating some fresh fish they¡¯d obviously caught out of the ocean nearby. ¡°Well, that answers that,¡± the Mick murmured, and turned south. ¡°No Dungeons that I be remembering until we can see the Caul, but that may well have changed, too.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s go see!¡± AF Chapter 324 – A Withered Region The big surprise as we headed south wasn¡¯t the absence of Dungeons and thickness of the land spawns. It was the fact we could see a whole lot of Dungeons that Lord Mick swore up and down were not there before the Fall. Caves in the sides of hills, extruded entry chambers, eruptions of stone with gaping holes in them out of nowhere, and even fortified lairs of one kind or another, occupied by undead or shades patrolling them. Some of the secret lairs of the undead and shades, forced out into the open. There was at least one stronghold of the virindi, red and black crystals about its entry hole, while the top was thick with scarecrow-like Minions and a horde of vermilion-hued tuskers. We painted everything into the Markspace, the Mick in only a little disbelief. ¡°Just like up in the north, when we were running from Stonehold, except those were all undead up there,¡± he had to say, surveying a small keep on a hilltop that hadn¡¯t been there before. I just held a hand up to my head. ¡°We¡¯re both total doofuses, you realize.¡± ¡°Well, that were a given, but how so?¡± he asked, unfazed. ¡°We should have at least gone to the top of one of the Black Hills, or run up the side of one of the ringing mountains, and seen what was on top of them. Can you imagine anything NOT being on top of them? I could even have cast Eagle¡¯s Vantage or Wizard Eye to do it for us¡­¡± ¡°Ye couldn¡¯t see it from way up in the sky?¡± He sort of /gestured in Markspace to my orbital map. ¡°No. Look how much fuzz and interference is spilling off the Obsidian Plains. I could barely track the ¡®cracks¡¯ in it. No details to speak of, save for Aerbax¡¯s Platform.¡± I drew a rough circle around the Black Hills, then extended it north around another area he knew well. ¡°If you look closely at these areas, there¡¯s no close-up except shades of color. I couldn¡¯t see any fine details there, or at the Valley of Death.¡± I could see enough to see someone¡¯s damn initials there, however, almost taunting with how clear it was, wanting to be seen and recognized. He zoomed in on the view, and realized it was true. I could and had easily made out castles and fortifications on Marae Lassel, the Hlaetians, and in the Direlands and Osteth without difficulty. The Obsidian Plains, the Valley of Death, the Frozen Valley, Moarsman Island, the Singularity Caul, Aerlinthe, Vissidal, and the Dark Island were all only generally visible. He could follow the rough terrain, but couldn¡¯t see any details or indications of individuals on it, whereas the other places had dots of various colors and sizes indicating the presence of Summons or other beings. Cities and fortifications were visible and readily apparent, but not in detail, and small things like Dungeon entrances weren¡¯t visible at all. ¡°Well, it not be hard to go back there, although that be a LOT of hilltops to look over,¡± he admitted. ¡°One thousand one hundred and fourteen,¡± I informed him calmly. ¡°Ye could fit a whole damn lot o¡¯ secret hideyholes atop that many hills,¡± he remarked. ¡°Especially if ye could just Recall up or down from them, aye.¡± ¡°Without the proper Focus or Portal Tie, almost impossible to get to,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°Ideal for a summer home, vacation cottage, or garrisons of things to whom time doesn¡¯t mean anything.¡± ¡°Bloody lot of scouting,¡± he sighed. ¡°And we probably can¡¯t even fly between them, can we?¡± ¡°Likely not, with the restrictions on magical flight here. Could always build a dirigible or something, however.¡± ¡°Like the drudges did, back then?¡± He didn¡¯t hide his interest. ¡°Ye know how to make such a thing?¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s not actually that hard from a design standpoint. More about getting the right materials than anything else.¡± ¡°Huh! Non-magical flying would be even sweeter than the magical stuff in some ways¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s probably limited because they don¡¯t want us going out over the Inner Sea.¡± He glanced at me and started to say something, and I made a zipping motion across my lips. He raised an eyebrow, but clammed up regardless. ¡°Well, naught fer this but t¡¯ do some exploring and scouting when we¡¯ve the time. Shall we keep wanderin¡¯ south?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve a question to ask you first, since you¡¯re the most well-traveled person I know on the island, and I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve some thoughts on the matter.¡± I waggled Crown at him. ¡°You know I¡¯m restricted to Gold spells. I can add some things to them if I¡¯m standing on the ground with the Earth Spell Metamagic, but I can¡¯t get above Gold, even with a Virindi Amulet. ¡°Do you have some thoughts on what might be used to get me past the limit? It¡¯s probably a material component of some kind I don¡¯t know of.¡± He crossed his arms, frowning as he thought on the matter, looking between me and my Staff. After a minute, he snapped his fingers. ¡°When next ye meet the Princess, ask t¡¯ borrow her Blackfire Stones.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°Blackfire¡­¡± I repeated, running down the list of alchemical components. ¡°I know obsidian doesn¡¯t work. But there are¡­ Orbs of Blackfire, and Wands of Blackfire, as I recall¡­ ¡°Those be dropped by Magma, Obsidian, and Plasma Golums,¡± he informed me. ¡°The Black Boulders fer the Blackfire Stones, now, they be dropped by the Behemoth golum in the Crater o¡¯ Tenkarrdun on Aerlinthe Island. Ye gave the thing t¡¯ a Stone Collector, an¡¯ lo, ye did get a Blackfire Stone back from ¡®im.¡± ¡°Implying the latter is made from the former, and he did it instantaneously because magic.¡± A gemcrafting check, then. ¡°Are there any of them left?¡± I asked. ¡°Aye, at Candeth Keep. The ones in Zaikhal and Qalab¡¯r we put t¡¯ rest. Martine be keeping the one in the Keep alive. He were a lugian worker o¡¯ the stone, now undead.¡± ¡°So, the first thing to do is get ahold of some of those rocks and stones they drop?¡± I considered that. ¡°I think we have a bunch of them from salvaging the apartments, as I recall?¡± ¡°Aye. They be not strong in power, but they should be able to tell ye if there¡¯s some affinity there for the magic, I be thinking.¡± He looked off, considering other points. ¡°Also, ye might be considering some other weird scarab possibilities, like. Wave and Water Golum Hearts, there be no known use for ¡®em. Likewise, Vapor Golum Hearts, no known use, although maybe the Aun use them for something with the wind spirits. Burning Sands Golums be back, if the A¡¯nekshay be returned. They be powerful, and no use for their Hearts other than carving keyrings out of them be known, either. ¡°Likewise, the Coral Golum Hearts an¡¯ their Black version have no known uses other than bein¡¯ carved inta¡¯ keyrings.¡± He gave me an odd look. ¡°Aye, and Magma Golums never be droppin¡¯ a Heart, only the black rocks. Makes me wonder if¡¯n the scarabs ye could carve out o¡¯ them might be special, too.¡± ¡°So, you could assemble the four classic Elemental affinities of Fire, Earth, Water, and Air, if they could be carved into scarabs. And since Isparian Magic doesn¡¯t use the four classics, nobody bothered to try¡­¡± ¡°There should be some stores o¡¯ the lesser golum Hearts about, but the Burning Sands, ye belikes have t¡¯ be killin¡¯ yerself. I doubt there¡¯ll be much problem getting some to practice on.¡± I could only smile. ¡°Well, I have some work ahead of me, then.¡± And I was already sending out the requests for Golum Hearts to practice some scarab-carving on¡­ ------ ¡°My personal Lived-Line ends right here.¡± I could feel the link-up as my Lived-Lines crossed on the little sandbar of an island off the Withered Beaches of the southeastern Direlands. The beaches were still absolutely packed with powerful drudge, banderling, Hea, and Gotrok Summons, all of them looking rather gaunt and lean, as if something vital had been sucked out of them. The enervated appearance completely belied their vitality and toughness. The creatures were incredibly tough and resilient, far more powerful than any other Spawns of their kind to be found throughout the Direlands. Moreover, they were completely immune to Life Magic, meaning the vast majority of Debuffs. That didn¡¯t prevent the non-lugians from heaping such Debuffs on you while letting go with spells, however. The Withered forces were allied to no other faction known, and it was surmised that they had Sworn Allegiance to yet another of the myriad Mythos Entities the Falatacot loved so damn much, which sucked at their souls even as it enhanced their flesh. ¡°This were one of the greatest Karma harvesting places out o¡¯ doors on the whole island,¡± the Mick stated, looking over the companies of the four species there. They had doubtless noticed us, but like any Summons, ignored us until we got into range or attacked them. ¡°It were first fer Melees, then the War Mages moved in an¡¯ started blasting everything within sight, an¡¯ it became their playground with their unlimited mana. Since the Withered be immune ta Life Magic, there were no playin¡¯ support mage, so the mages just blasted the crap out o¡¯ everything, which really drove the point home on how powerful they had become. It were the start o¡¯ the end fer Melees as a profession back then.¡± ¡°Then reality came crashing back in, and they would be next to useless here now. Throw a few big War spells against things with thousands of Health, get totally depleted, and have to go home.¡± ¡°Aye.¡± He was almost bouncing on his feet, his eagerness to start some fighting shining in his dark eyes. ¡°Can this old fart impose on ye fer some Healing if needed, while I test me Bunita against these critters?¡± ¡°Anything to watch out for in particular?¡± As long as I didn¡¯t Cast on them, I didn¡¯t expect much reaction from them while they had a Mick to beat on in their faces. ¡°They be using Plat spells, which be not fun t¡¯ eat. The lugians an¡¯ banders are both best killed with lightning, the Hea have the best armor an¡¯ are the toughest t¡¯ bring down with blades, an¡¯ the Drudge Seraphs are best killed with fire, while the Mystics ye bring down with acid if ye be fightin¡¯ em. Just use fire on the Hea an¡¯ other drudges if ye be using magic on ¡®em. ¡°The lugians might be tossing chorozite, so be watchin¡¯ for that.¡± ¡°You going to Healing Edge or Brilliant?¡± I asked him neutrally as his eyes danced with eagerness. ¡°Me Ways o¡¯ Water and Armor Cleaving be shearing their armor fine enough t¡¯ not need Umbral nor Brilliant, methinks. Healing Edge is going t¡¯ be working just fine, as the lugians be the only ones who might be using Weapons, other than tossing stuff our way.¡± Which meant Sword beats Fist procs, among the other Attacks of Opportunity he¡¯d be getting off. ¡°You want me countering or Darting?¡± I asked him. ¡°Let me see if me magic defense an¡¯ Healing Edge lets me keep up with the spells. I ain¡¯t worried about them in melee.¡± ¡°You probably should be.¡± He shot me a startled look. ¡°If they are moving to Attack Bonus from using One Strikes, they could be unleashing a blizzard of strikes at you, and some of them are going to connect. Sure, some will miss, but if they go to One Strikes, that¡¯s double, triple damage coming in at you¡­¡± ¡°Huh.¡± The idea that the Summons could be benefiting from some of the magical changes in combat happening plainly discomfited him a moment, but his eyes regained their gleam quickly. ¡°Someone has t¡¯ find out, an¡¯ I¡¯ve got great back-up here. Shame not t¡¯ investigate properly!¡± ¡°Indeed it would be,¡± I went along with him easily, flicking my hand and bringing up a trio of Darts, my own endless firepower, each of them as long as my palm and bristling with multiple energies, Elemental and otherwise. ¡°What are we trying out first?¡± ¡°Banderlings,¡± he stated, pointing at the company of them near us on the island there with Bunita, now sparking and hissing with the constrained power of Lightningphasing from the two Sparking Stones, Major and Minor, mounted upon her. ¡°Let¡¯s go to it, then.¡± AF Chapter 325 – Withering and Dying Lord Mick led the attack on a trio of the creatures, Withered Banderling Paragons, the tall blood-armored leaders and brutes, and Withered Banderling Hierophants, the bare-chested, armorless Casters, who used Fire and Cold magic with Platinum-grade Bolts and Vulns. Shardings hissed in sizzling arcs above the sands as he approached in range and started cutting at them from a hundred feet away, spitting purple crescents slamming into the Summons and drawing yowls of pain. The Hierophant there promptly started Casting a Fire Vuln, while the two armored Paragons charged into melee. There were two more Shardings, and then the Mick braced, impaling one of them through the throat and drawing a massive gout of Health Qi via the Archer Stand Thrust as he did so. The two Paragons began to lash out at him with kicks, claws, and fists, trying to drive him back with superior weight, but they didn¡¯t have Shields, and they certainly didn¡¯t have reach on him. I plowed my Split Dartrays into the Hierophant, not disrupting the Vuln it was Casting, but the spell fizzled and failed against the Mick¡¯s Spell Resistance, and Bunita began to dance with speed and verve. Riposte, Defensive Sweep, and Sword beats Fist were all triggering on both of the banderlings pounding at him, adding three brutal strikes to each of them as he focused his primary attention on one of them and filled the air in front of them with sweeps, thrusts, and flicker-cuts of lightning that erupted into blazing crits way too frequently to be comfortable. I hadn¡¯t Hasted the Mick for reasons of stamina. The banderlings were certainly unleashing a torrent of blows at him, trying to overwhelm him with attacks, and instead were just helping him kill them faster. It was still a lot of attacks to be taking, driving his Stamina down, and nickel and diming his Health¡­ which he was promptly buying back up with Healing Edge giving him back 1-8 Health with every successful hit. The Hierophant over there started just unleashing Bolts of fire and cold consecutively, pounding at the Mick as he fought, and suddenly Bunita was in and out of a scarlet-armored chest, purple voltage blasting through its heart and making its entire body light up with amethyst lightning as it quivered, dropping stiffly as he pulled the thrust back as quickly as it had gone out. The incoming Firebolt smashed into him, and didn¡¯t break against his Spell Resistance. His current Protection and Ward against Fire damage was at 60+25%, courtesy of his Rose of Celdon, so the 160ish damage smashing into him was instantly cut down to about 50, still a searing monster of a hit that would have driven him explosively backwards without his Crystal heavyfoot to anchor him. He just grinned, swallowed the blood that came out his mouth and nose, and lit into the second Paragon. Healing Edge flashed and flared, and his internal injuries mended with terrific speed. The second Paragon went down with an incarnate lightning Claymore impaling his brain, and the Mick bowled him over and was charging the Hierophant instantly. Spirited Charge, Death from Above, Cut the Waterfall, Reckless Charge, a Valorous Weapon¡­ The Banderling Hierophant Casting so confidently was blasted right off his feet by the impaling Blade driving into him, then Clan smashing directly into his chest. Wolf takes Rat went off as he hit the ground, Breaks the Shield gave me an opening, and Spell of Opportunity meant I could use magic to take advantage of the opening, while Touch of the Wasp triggered after the two Dartrays drove into the sprawled Hierophant that was already on fire with triple Elemental Damage Over Time effects boosted by Banefire. The Hierophant convulsed as the Mick spit it up under the throat, and vivus virtually exploded over it from the ongoing damage effects as it died. The Mick patted himself patiently. ¡°Seem t¡¯ be fine!¡± he told me as I glided up behind him. ¡°And you could have dodged or Shield Parried the Firebolt,¡± I let him know I¡¯d seen, and he beamed. ¡°Again, and pretend I¡¯m not there to pull you out or anything, and I won¡¯t even Dart the Caster to speed things up.¡± I pointed at another trio nearby, watching us but taking no action. ¡°Repeat tactics with the Sharding to proc them for this trio. Next trio after that, charge the Casters and kill them first.¡± ¡°Reasonable,¡± he nodded, hefting Bunita confidently. ¡°Here we go¡­¡± ----- ¡°Ten thousand health,¡± the Mick muttered, shaking his head and leaning back against the Disk I¡¯d scooted up behind him. ¡°It is a damn good thing they aren¡¯t as strong and skilled as they are tough, lass!¡± He had massive amounts of Stamina and an extremely vital physiology, but taking on four Withered Raider Prefects and Raider Justicars at once was a strain when they took so damn long to kill, and were pretty damn skilled, too. Thankfully, their chorozite Weapons hadn¡¯t done them much good. He used the same tactics against them as he had against the Hollow Minions, especially with Clan deflecting and soaking their blows stoically and skillfully. His footwork kept him moving around them, even as their shocked misses and thumping pursuits triggered his Thorned Hedge Stance and Riposte, enabling him to spread out tons of damage even as he focused primary attacks on just one target, shifting around him and cutting him down with vicious attacks and a lot of Biting Strike crits going on with Crushing Blows and Armor Cleaving for that little edge of joy.Stolen novel; please report. They¡¯d also been hitting him with more than ponderous, powerful energy, alternating between brutally powerful One Strikes and rains of faster blows that had him ducking and dodging with great energy to stay ahead of them. I hadn¡¯t helped kill any of them. He wanted to see what it took to kill them solo, be it in a duel or in a group. Given they were usually in foursomes out there, fighting them one at a time was difficult, unless one stayed back to throw chorozite rocks at him¡­ rocks he was deflecting into the lugians around around with Clan, doing more damage to the other Withered lugians than he was taking himself. He had a lot of Melees watching him in the Markspace right now, looking out my eyes and analyzing everything he was doing, measuring it against their own Gear and skills. Most of them, even the Paramounts, swore as they found themselves coming up short against what he was pulling off. ¡°Any more comments from the audience?¡± he asked, while we watched from a safe distance as the rock-tosser, the last to be killed, slowly discorporated atop its spawn point. The very first spawn point had respawned less than ten minutes after being killed, and we weren¡¯t using vivus because we didn¡¯t want to block the points as of yet. ¡°They are quietly impressed at what you managed to pull off here, and trying hard not to say anything. Talking about optimized Gear and whatnot, especially with the Stones.¡± ¡°No Blackfire Stones, lass.¡± He concentrated on his breathing, Bunita thrust into the sandy soil of the beach in front of him. ¡°And no Jade Armor, as it were. I cannae help but think how much easier ¡®twould be t¡¯ take on the hollow shites if me Armor an¡¯ Shield had those upgrades.¡± Another +8 to AC would mean not needing to dodge and parry so much, and his offense would accelerate instantly. ¡°Getting a +IV effect for Armor only takes two Slots with Soul Essence, cheaper and faster than going Jade by a huge margin, and it can be built up further. Jade effects do not stack with straight magical Enhancements, you know.¡± ¡°Aye, I know, I know. Question, though. I know that ye have t¡¯ devote the first Slot on a Weapon or Armor or Shield in the Artificer methodology to an Enhancement, either straight or fed with Soul. Now, if ye¡¯re willing to limit yerself to the +II effect¡­ could all nine of the other Slots be used fer other purposes?¡± ¡°Yes¡­ which would save you exactly one Slot, net. And you¡¯ll never be able to take advantage of Defiant properly if you don¡¯t build the foundation up.¡± I paused thoughtfully. ¡°But, +IV is pretty damn nice by itself, and if it keeps it against Hollow and null-magic crap like it, that¡¯s probably worth it.¡± Clan had been fed enough to be Greater Soulbound, meaning it was indeed +IV when defending, and could be +VI with Defiant. If he added another +I and got it to +V, the top before Eternal, that would be incredible. +VII against the foe it was Defiant to was a LOT of protection! ¡°And someone has to take the time to make the Jade Shield ¡®r Armor. Which we have a fantastic shortage of right now.¡± He threw up his hands in mock dismay. ¡°What, you don¡¯t get to turn in a doohickey and instantly get a +IV top-off-the-line Jade Shield for yourself, skip all that dreadful crafting time, hard work, skill checks, and raw materials? Reality really must bite for you old fogies, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°It do, it surely do,¡± he agreed seriously, then caught my amused and exasperated shift in expression. ¡°What now?¡± ¡°They want to see some teamwork at play. Flanking tactics and Opportunist going off with Cunning damage.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve seen yer Spearwork. Ye¡¯re not a Fire Dancer,¡± he pointed out. ¡°Utterly true. I¡¯ll still be triggering Opportunist for you, and allowing all the flanking bonuses. An extra +4 on the stack¡­ and are you teaching Bunita Subtlety yet?¡± His dark eyes opened slightly, and he slapped himself on the head. ¡°So much damn Naming Karma t¡¯ apply, an¡¯ I totally fergot about that one!¡± he admitted. ¡°I¡¯ll be starting right on it, sure¡¯n I will. And it be Slotless, too!¡± He looked up at the sky, berating himself. ¡°Gor, I think Rogar an¡¯ Hundig have it on their Weapons, an¡¯ I don¡¯t! Some Wolfpack optimist I be¡­¡± ¡°Probably shouldn¡¯t surprise you that Kris does, and she can effectively flank with herself so it¡¯s always active, right?¡± ¡°That lass be terrifying, an¡¯ no lie,¡± he nodded with a sigh, tilting his head as Kris /chortled in the Markspace. ¡°Aye, aye, I know, always more tricks out there,¡± he nodded along. ¡°P¡¯raps I be showin¡¯ off a tad, Highness, aye, but I also be wanting to know iff¡¯n I can kill these things straight up once more, without all the power an¡¯ magic o¡¯ the past. And if I can, that be meaning that others can learn t¡¯ do the same.¡± -The Knights are getting thirsty thinking about getting out there and trying everything you are doing,- Kristie /assured him calmly. -They totally want to see how teamwork changes things up, even if Ryin¡¯s not the best melee partner you could want. She can still do the job well enough to upgrade your offense.- ---- We got rid of the rock-throwing Prefect in the green-limned blue armor first. The other three lugians charged out for the Mick, who zipped around them and charged the lugian who¡¯d opted to somehow conjure Hollow rocks out of nowhere and chuck them his way. He had no problem dodging the things, and his opening charge was a brutal thing of exploding crits of purple lightning ravaging the sucker¡­ and every time it tried to throw at him in melee range, it triggered another Attack of Opportunity. When I slid in behind it and started poking with the Electrum Spearpoint of Soulfire extending off of Crown, the Mick¡¯s offense really did get a definite spike. Distracting, bleeding from Cunning cuts, hampered and harried, the wounded rock-tosser basically contributed rapidly to killing itself as the Mick sidled around it, chased by its compatriots as I circled opposite him¡­ and every time it tossed a rock, it left itself open for another attack from me, which was actually a good way of approximating what a master Wolfpacker could do bouncing Opportunities off one another. Crown was a good Weapon, and if I wasn¡¯t the strongest or greatest master of Sun Spear or Oak and Willow stick techniques, well, that was fine. I was still very good at using it lethally, and only the fact this thing had so much damn Health Qi meant it wasn¡¯t hamstrung, impaled through the groin, or had its arm cut off very quickly. It went down easily twice as fast as before, the extra Cunning damage more than making up for the fact I wasn¡¯t as good or as fast as the Mick was, he was heaping enough damage on top to make it seem that way! AF Chapter 326 – Keeping Candeth Magical It was nearing evening before we quit the area, verifying that the four Dungeons that had existed there still did, and any true living Withered were clustered around and inside them. We were absolutely sure there were living eyes watching us test ourselves against their warriors, looking down at us from the two hills buttressing the inlet that the Withered had claimed for themselves. We were in no mood to provoke anything that could lead a whole bunch of creatures with such monumental amounts of Health Qi down to attack us, and instead opted to just withdraw from the areas they claimed. Once out of sight of prying eyes, I Teleported us back to Candeth Keep. The Mick¡¯s Lived-line extended past and through this area several times, so there was no issue with him needing to complete a run or anything. With mine intact, I could have extended it with a run inland, but that was something I could do at a later time. The new Seal Focus for Candeth Keep was located right next to the pit where the Deathstone Pit and its victims had been. Martine didn¡¯t remove the pit, so the first thing you really saw arriving at the Keep was the burned-clear stone glistening next to you, a lingering feeling of lost souls about the place. It was there so that you never forgot the danger of depending on Dimensional Magic and tying your soul to shit that was going to get you killed. Rather wise of him, really. There was also one of his Simulacra waiting there, who stepped forward as soon as we popped up. ¡°Fellow human Lady Magos Ryin, the Master would like to speak with you.¡± I looked over at Lord Mick, who just smiled wryly. ¡°Well, it were coming,¡± was all he said. ¡°True enough. Take care of yourself, Lord Mick, and we shall be bouncing along hills in the future!¡± I said as I turned to follow the messenger to Martine¡¯s hall. ------ The Mick headed off for the night and immediate future, having been tasked to help the Royal Family and their Guards with hunting the immediate area and forging a way down to the Withered Area to test everyone out in combat. Soldiers using the Wolfpack Tactics could be incredibly dangerous, and of course everyone wanted to keep earning Naming Karma. Predictable foes you could hone your skills against were most appreciated, even if the spawns around Candeth Keep were more exciting and interesting overall. Warriors always liked taking on tough foes, as it were! Martine had basically moved his entire complex in Rithwic here via his power, an impressive magical feat probably related to its prior status as a dimensional space accessed by a Portal. Returning it to that state, even for a short time, and then having it come back into reality here rather than there, had probably done the job. His bright blue-purple eyes were still glowing with virindi energy, indicating that the Prodigal Human really wasn¡¯t human anymore. At least he¡¯d ditched the rough mask for a more elegant one for me, even if his stare was unnerving, and his dark robes were plain, if well cared-for. His seneschal and attendant were both present in his throne room, and actually took the time to thank me and Princess Kristie for locating their master and sending him back home. Clearly they hadn¡¯t expected much of us, and yet we¡¯d delivered swiftly, with Martine actually energized and more motivated than he¡¯d been in years. Martine himself simply invited me to sit down at one of the tables outside his courtroom, while refreshments and drinks were brought for me to peruse. ¡°My Lord Martine has questions. How may I be of service to him?¡± I inquired after drinking down half a glass of chilled wine and some buttered hot bread. He knew his hospitality, and Simulacra servants didn¡¯t sleep nor get tired. ¡°I have been informed by several parties that you are at the center of the magical innovation that is sweeping through the Freehold Alliance, changes taking place among lugians, tumeroks, and Isparians alike.¡± His voice still had an odd reverb to it, a sign of internal powers, and likely he wasn¡¯t actually making words with vocal cords anymore. I imagined his internal organs were pretty damn weird now, too. ¡°If you are referring to Matrix magic and alchemy, that is mostly true, although both Commander Briggs and Princess Kristie have extreme depth in matters of Artifice, especially as regards Arms and Armor of all sorts.¡± I took another sip to let him digest that. ¡°I admit to being rather surprised at your interest. I would have thought the magic I know to be somewhat below your regard.¡± ¡°That¡­ is not unreasonable. I have been exposed to greater and higher concepts of magic than you can likely comprehend,¡± he began, and I held up a finger. ¡°You are likely very, very wrong about that,¡± I informed him calmly, and his glowing eyes blinked. ¡°While I may not have the breadth of knowledge and experience of the Quiddity, you have no idea of the limits of my ability to comprehend, Lord Martine. If your Virindi-attuned, energy-spiked brain can understand it, it is most likely that I can, as well.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. He was silent for a moment, staring at me expressionlessly. ¡°You are actually serious about that, aren¡¯t you?¡± he ventured, both impressed and amused. ¡°Do you have any idea whatsoever of the gravity of what you are saying?¡± ¡°Lord Martine, if you will allow me to speak freely.¡± He waved his hand after only the briefest hesitation. ¡°You were not an overly intelligent man before the Virindi took you, and you were not a scholar. You were a tradesman, I believe a rope-maker by trade?¡± He nodded slowly at that knowledge of his history. ¡°You suddenly had your mind opened to ways and means of thinking that were wholly unnatural and extremely powerful, life-altering and mind-twisting in many ways. They sent you careening down the path of magic and manipulation of energies that the virindi opened you up to. Is that a reasonable summary of your current condition, simply further along that road?¡± ¡°It is not¡­ incorrect?¡± he answered after a moment. ¡°Merely¡­ incomplete?¡± ¡°The learning of every other Tradition of magic involves exactly the same growth of mind and manipulation of energies, altered and changed to reflect those very energies. And, of course, wise teachers teach a proper way to go about learning that path. ¡°In short, Lord Martine, I am an extremely smart person who was educated in the proper manner to open my mind to magic and pursue the extra pathways required to build up my mastery of it and sense those energies, but I did so in the Isparian Tradition foisted off on us by the Empyreans, and the Matrix system made more for humans. ¡°Now, I may not be your equal in knowledge, as I assume your contact with the Quiddity unloaded amounts of lore directly into your brain that I¡¯ve not had time to gain or gather myself, providing you the information and lessons needed to take advantage of the power they unleashed in you. ¡°But nothing in the powers you have displayed leads me to believe that your intellect, your knowledge, and your powers exceeds that which the Empyreans gained through time and instruction, as opposed to having brain surgery done on you by Aberrant Hiveminds from another plane of existence. ¡°In short, Lord Martine, underestimating other Casters because they haven¡¯t gone through the same experiences that you have is very unwise, as Gaerlan proved to you, and I¡¯m sure you deduced after meeting with Asheron. I¡¯m sure Harlune, Rytheran, and Lady Aerefalle could also school you on such facts of life.¡± He was silent a long minute as I took another drink and he digested what I had to tell him that way. ¡°You believe you could understand what I have looked upon, despite how grim and terrible so much of it is? So utterly¡­ inhuman?¡± he basically rasped at me. ¡°Lord Martine, I mean this in the nicest way, but do you actually understand Empyrean Magic? You have seen it close up and experienced it. I imagine you can identify it instantly, but do you actually understand WHY it works, as opposed to the Virindi magic?¡± I asked him quietly. He paused again, and then his eyes began to dart left and right, as if he was scrolling through something in his head, looking at events in the past. This went on for a good three minutes or so, and he looked both confused and intrigued. ¡°I will admit that I am not clear on many of the concepts they used, as to why they did the things the way they did, and how they worked. I could potentially do the same, however¡­¡± I just held up my hand. ¡°That makes you a sorcerer, not a wizard or magos, Lord Martine. How much of the magic you do know, the Virindi Tradition, is actually about knowing what buttons to push, how to push them, in what manner and style and timing to push them¡­ and not about knowing WHY they work? ¡°Would I be correct in saying that you wielding magic is more akin to knowing what effects you want, the strings to pull to get them, and having the power and will to do so?¡± ¡°That is¡­ not far off the mark,¡± he admitted readily. ¡°You do realize that the entirety of the Isparian system falls within the purview of Virindi Magic, correct?¡± ¡°But not the Empyrean system. The Isparian system is basically a magic system for commoners and low-born Empyreans, with all the important stuff removed so as not to threaten the true powers.¡± I reached over to Crown, touched his head, and popped off the Prismatic Stone there, holding it up for him to look at. ¡°Gaerlan designed these. Compare to the Elemental Stones, which are a lower order, and have Elemental Slayer. You can clearly see the gap in concepts and power between the two of them, the main effect only targeting one kind of Elemental.¡± I held up one of the new Shocking Stones, and deposited both gems into his hands, which were rather cold, and hummed with alien magic to my touch. He lifted them up before his glowing eyes, studying each of them intently. ¡°You are making a specific example of these?¡± he asked after a moment. ¡°We are making headway and have almost broken the Slayer effects for Undead, Skeletons, Shadows, Tumeroks, Mukkir, and Olthoi, with Isparians and Ghosts trailing only slightly. We are aware of Burun Slaying from Regal Weapons and Tusker Slaying from specific old quest Weapons nobody has been able to find yet, and supposedly there are Slayer effects on some truly rare legendary Weapon drops we have no familiarity with. ¡°We are also aware that you know the secret to Virindi Slaying, as you made available the first Singularity Weapons. We are hoping you might share the secret of it with us, but we will have to translate it into true Isparian-style knowledge so that it will work inside our own Tradition.¡± He slowly set the Stones back down on the table between us, pushing them in my direction smoothly. ¡°That information is not secret, and I would be more than willing to share it with you. Virindi Slaying Weapons are at least as valuable as Elemental Slaying, I would imagine¡­¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not really to make the Weapons,¡± I smiled at him, startling him. ¡°It¡¯s to design proper Artificer Infusions and spells that can Imbue the effect, so that we don¡¯t have to have whole bags of Weapons carried around and trotted out for specific purposes.¡± A Skull, formed from a Dark Revenant and lined with gold Runes sealed around it, floated up out of shrunken inner storage on Crown and floated down between us, Burning with cool black flames. He stared at the Baneskull with great interest and intensity, trying to suss out what had been done to it, and why. ¡°This¡­ is Curse Magic of a type,¡± he finally judged warily. ¡°What is it?¡± AF Chapter 327 – Prodigal Children ¡°This is a Baneskull displaying Banefire of the creature type it is made of, in this case being any and all forms of the undead, including skeletons, ghosts, and mu-miyah. Banefire is always the color of the blood of the things it is anathema to,¡± I informed Candeth Martine across from me. ¡°It is a spell that can be Cast upon a Weapon, yet take form in multiple manners. It is not quite as powerful as the Slayer effects are, but it is still potent in its own way. ¡°We seek to bring the Slayer effects down to the same common origin, and we are very close to doing so¡­ for Matrix Magic. Isparian Magic simply does not work the same way. There is a possibility that Void Magic might actually allow something like this, but we aren¡¯t going to feed the Shadow in the Void any more of that nonsense.¡± ¡°Matrix Magic¡­¡± he repeated in fascination, although he did not pick up the Baneskull, eventually flicking his fingers and indicating I could put it away. ¡°I have heard tales of the sheer variety and breadth of the magic you have displayed to others and allowed them to learn. Indeed, your establishment of the Seal Focus, the ability to Teleport, and things as mundane as both the Disks that seem to be replacing wagons, and the strange white mistfire that consumed the dead¡­¡± ¡°Unwhite mistfire, Lord Martine. I am aware that it is not ¡®white¡¯.¡± He blinked, and actually smiled slightly with his scarred lips. ¡°Indeed? I doubt most people realize it¡­ but of course you do. The Virindi have no true knowledge of it, although I admit to feelings of great wariness looking upon it.¡± ¡°Any virindi who has died in the presence of it has been consumed, and their minds do not return to the Quiddity, nor their power to the Singularity. They are dead and Feeding the Land. The same fate awaits Summon Burned up by it, and undead slain by it. ¡°Deathstones, the Summoning of the System here, and whatever custom revivification method used by the undead or others, it is all the same. If they die, they are destroyed, and their spirits move to the hereafter. They are not coming back, at all.¡± ¡°So that is a form of True Death. Things like that are truly strange to the virindi,¡± his stereo voice rasped cautiously. ¡°Even unclean virindi, corrupted by emotion or outside sources, return to them, although they are cleansed and purified away, their experiences erased and all that they were purged so that the Quiddity remains pure. The virindi do not die, and consider it a weakness of lesser creatures.¡± ¡°Well, the virindi I¡¯ve killed are gone forever. If they thought they were above death, they simply weren¡¯t confronting the endless appetite of the Mortal Plane for things that think they are special snowflakes. The Land has a stomach that has never been filled, in my experience. It will always eat more.¡± ¡°It sounds like this style of magic would be dangerous for me to use,¡± Candeth Martine muttered, somewhat discontent. ¡°With virindi energies, that is true. It will also be something you would have to actually learn on your own with mortal teachers, not simply be given. You will actually have to understand and comprehend the magic and what it does, as humans do.¡± I half-closed my eyes under his stare. ¡°That is an incredibly precious thing to someone like you, Lord Martine. Your mind is expanding in directions dictated by the virindi and later by trauma. It is time to take the step of learning magic in the direction of a human mind and soul, bringing you back to us and away from the aestral realms tempting you all the time.¡± For a long moment, he just regarded me silently, the blue-purple of his power spilling out a little brighter from his eyes, roiling and curling in reaction to his inner thoughts. ¡°You truly are very insightful,¡± he complimented me with a trace of ruefulness. ¡°I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing in regards to me¡­¡± ¡°I am not sure how you regard turning into something that has more in common with the virindi than with humanity, but the chance to become something the virindi could not imagine should be worth learning such minor tricks¡­ which can grow to become quite major tricks.¡± ¡°That¡­ seems like an extremely useful alternate use of my time. Learning magic like a normal human instead of¡­ the Prodigal Human the virindi turned me into,¡± he admitted after considering it solemnly. ¡°Another use of your time also beckons. The Prodigal Banderling has also broken free of the virindi, claimed a kingship over the banderlings, and is ruling over the remains of Ayan Baquar and its surroundings. Moreover, the banderlings have accepted him, and he is actually looking out for them. ¡°His path is doubtless going to lead to conflict with us in the future, and although he might well be the toughest of you Prodigals, he will die if that conflict should come to pass.¡± Martine nodded slowly. ¡°Yes, he died many times to the blades of Isparians before the Fall. Perhaps he has realized his mortality with his freedom¡­¡± ¡°As Harraag is the Toughest and has come into his place, so has Hea Rheaga. The Prodigal Tumerok forsook all the violence and combat and has instead opted to explore the potential of universe the virindi opened to him. I would certainly name him the Wisest of the Prodigals, even if he is not anywhere so gifted in pure power as you, Lord Martine.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Interesting. What exactly are you proposing, Lady Magos?¡± he asked, interested in where this was going. ¡°I also believe the Tusker King might be amenable to discourse, and I am not sure about the Prodigal Mosswart, or if such still exists. I believe the Mosswart Cynics may well be students of his, and the mosswarts¡¯ enduring presence in the Blackmire Swamp is because he is working with them against the superior strength of the burun.¡± He smiled thinly. ¡°I trust this is not a thing you want shared with Bonecrusher, then.¡± ¡°He only developed a ferocity that drudges do not have. Bonecrusher is already dead, it is simply a matter of when Princess Kristie and Lord Mick go up there and collect his head.¡± ¡°That woman is¡­ quite intimidating. I did not think I would ever have said those words about a non-Empyrean after what was done to me, and especially a non-Caster like herself. Her and that towering man of hers make a distinct impression, especially when they are together¡­¡± he remarked to me. ¡°She is the rock, and he is the sun. You are feeling the edges of destiny moving about him, a force that the virindi like to imagine does not exist, or that they may manipulate as they please from their higher state. They are wrong. Attempting to manipulate Fate and Luck to your advantage will always, always rebound on you in the end. Neither force can be manipulated easily by the finite.¡± ¡°The finite.¡± He seemed to chew on the word. ¡°You have started new religions and even churches among the Isparians, and even the Aun and lugians acknowledge their power. It¡­ is very unexpected. The descriptions of the gods as non-finite, and the furthest thing from racial deities¡­¡± ¡°Racial deities, in the end, cause racial conflict, even if they are goodhearted, by their very nature of favoring their patronized species. If you want to have some form of interracial harmony, you must have gods that embody a concept, rather than racial powers that endorse a viewpoint. ¡°They also tend to be far more limited in their scope, power, and capabilities, because the scope of what they can draw on is far less than gods who are not so limited. Their focus may help them or hinder them, but it is definitely a hindrance when working with gods of other races, as they seek advantage regardless of how well their aims converge. These are weaknesses that are easy to exploit, and the virindi, among others, exploited that racial pride very, very well.¡± ¡°For all their inability to understand emotion, they understand desires and benefits very well, indeed, and their measures of value are not what ours are,¡± Lord Martine agreed slowly. ¡°They understand fully that a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, have seen the effect of knowledge on mortals before, and are very good at manipulating them through releases of knowledge that are, in the end, of only minor importance to them.¡± ¡°Like the treatment of Null Aluminum into chorozite,¡± I nodded calmly, while he lifted a wispy eyebrow. ¡°Virindi are energy beings who do not dwell in a material plane, so chorozite is ultimately useless and unimportant to them. However, to warriors who want to battle back against magic, it is a precious thing. Virindi won¡¯t take it with them, so the knowledge became leverage and a tool¡­ plus the Gotrok couldn¡¯t enchant crap themselves, so making basic weapons and armor for them also put them in debt, even if only in terms of trading.¡± ¡°Null Aluminum?¡± Martine repeated. ¡°Oh, right, you don¡¯t have formal alchemical training.¡± He blinked at me. ¡°Did the virindi have a periodic table of elements among their information stores?¡± I flicked up a Holo of the basic periodic table for him, and he leaned forward in fascination to study it and likely commit it to memory. ¡°No, I cannot recall such a thing being arranged this way. The virindi tend to categorize things based on elemental structure and characteristics, and then cross-compare such things between realms with different physical laws where their properties can change. Quicksilver, for example, becomes nearly as hard as steel in aestral space if brought there, for some odd reason concerning interaction with time.¡± ¡°Interesting!¡± I filed that away as something to store in addendums for characteristics of base materials on other planes. ¡°They have no high-end physics background is the reason why here. What you are looking at is what happens when you take the objects of the material world, like a coin,¡± I flipped up a standard pyreal coin, ¡°and you go way, way, waaaaaay down on it.¡± A Holo screen of magnification started on the coin, quickly zooming past the level of carvings equaling canyons, down to levels of crystal, and then lower and lower yet, as molecules and the atoms that made them were lined up, and then we went into the atoms themselves. He held up a hand. ¡°The virindi see these things as bands of energy that are highly mobile and never still, and are extremely difficult to study and measure with magic at that level. Simply looking at them with magic is often enough to disrupt and dissipate them.¡± ¡°Quantum destabilization is a hallmark of magic.¡± He looked shocked and impressed that not only did I know of this, I was confirming it for him! ¡°It is why magic works. You are messing with reality, and something as small as an atom naturally isn¡¯t going to survive the process of reality¡¯s laws getting bent around it just so a living energy field can take a gander at it.¡± I pointed at the image of the atom as it blew up and was rendered into the model of an atom outside a quantum state, the classic electrons, neutrons, and protons. ¡°Welcome to science, the non-magical side of alchemy, the study and learning of the universe as it is, not how it can be bent. ¡°This is gold, chemical element number 79. Although there is some variation, it has 79 protons, 79 electrons to counterbalance them, and the most stable form of it has 119 neutrons. Its neighbors on the periodic table are platinum and quicksilver to either side, silver above it, and the very unstable, basically artificial Roentgenium below it. ¡°All of the endless numbers of materials that the virindi know are made up of atoms found on this table¡­ and then, alternate energies are applied to them and infuse the quantum state of the atom, turning gold which has been infused with the essence of air, into what we call pyreal.¡± He saw the pale blueish energy swirl into the atoms, and suddenly the base color of the metal displayed in the Holo altered from metallic orange-yellow to the familiar green of pyreal. AF Chapter 328 – Knowledge is Power ¡°Every single material they know is based on the Periodic Table, energies applied or not to the chemical elements upon them, and then those materials combining with one another or remaining relatively pure. I would imagine they have incredibly hard times discerning individual differences in the composite wave-form of most materials, and so basically consider such elements individuals on their own merits. ¡°For instance, I imagine they regard water as a single substance, given its commonality, rather than being made up of hydrogen and oxygen.¡± His glowing eyes blazed in disbelief. ¡°Water¡­ is made up of gasses?¡± Candeth Martine blurted out in astonishment. No formal alchemy training, indeed. ¡°Correct. Do the virindi not know this?¡± I inquired of him. ¡°They¡­ have records of cleaving water apart, but the results were mixed and often very explosive,¡± he related quickly. ¡°That is because hydrogen and oxygen are both extremely combustible. Amusingly, burning them both tends to create water as they bind together again. An extremely basic alchemical reaction, which can get very, very energetic if we start using Energized examples of water or the gasses in the process.¡± I waved my hand absently. ¡°Alchemical studies, the knowledge of how the processes of the materials and energies of the world we live in function. The virindi likely know a lot of this simply from observing and recording, but their energy states also mean they have a biased and incomplete view of the whole subject, much like we with our more physical senses do not have a complete picture.¡± ¡°Yet you learned something the virindi did not. How?¡± he had to ask. ¡°Mortals build tools to help them understand the world. Scientific tools are not dependent on altering energy states and manipulating reality to be stable, and can show us measures of what we cannot sense ourselves.¡± ¡°Of course!¡± he blurted out, slapping down his hand. ¡°Of course¡­¡± he repeated in a quieter voice, excited as his mind got to boot up and start heading down roads he had not traveled down in years, too focused on his dump of virindi knowledge. ¡°We may not have the raw accumulation that the virindi do, but ours will be particular and focused on ourselves and our way of life, and could be far, far more pertinent than what they have to say on the subject...¡± ¡°I would love to see a treatise from you comparing the virindi style of Casting versus the Isparian style we know they emulate widely, and then how it compares to the Empyrean level that Asheron and a few of his peers could wield. Then I would like to see how that compares to increasingly more complex Matrix system magic of the higher Valences.¡± ¡°That¡­ sounds like it could be something extremely interesting. Mutual insights from completely different styles of magic uniting to form a greater whole¡­¡± Martine mused softly. ¡°It is something that would be of little to no worth to the virindi at all, as they tend to optimize their magic to their energy structures quickly to fit into the world they are on.¡± ¡°They have not managed to pass on the sight and analysis of Matrix magic, or I imagine the spells they would have access to would grow by an order of magnitude or more very quickly. Then again, materiality might be required for Matrix magic, and they might be unable to interact with magic sufficiently to wield it the same way, or at least not without incredible difficulty.¡± I slowly shrugged my shoulders. ¡°I¡¯m not going to be the one to teach them such things to find out.¡± ¡°You¡¯d rather someone like I learn the Matrix magic to find out the truth of the situation, and possibly expose a weakness in the virindi while they are in the mortal realm,¡± he quickly deduced. ¡°Would I be so opportunistic and savage about such uncaring extraplanar axiomatic hivemind aberrants?¡± I put a hand to my breast in shock. ¡°Such ruthlessness you ascribe to me, Lord Martine.¡± ¡°Given the tales I have heard of you, Lady Magos, a terrifying level of ruthlessness that you keep very much under control seems to be entirely appropriate, and a wise man should be wary of it, even while understanding that you do not want to use it. You merely will when it is the proper course of action and the alternative is not feasible.¡± I inclined my head slightly. ¡°And thus politeness, propriety, and a civilized mind is born, Lord Martine, while not being restricted or tied-down by one¡¯s level of control. Because sometimes all you can do is just slaughter them all, and let the gods pass judgment upon you.¡± ¡°Cold comfort to the thousands of undead you have already slain forever. An impressive achievement I am not certain they fully understand as yet,¡± he pointed out. ¡°Their years and timelessness work against them. Waiting for me to die of old age is a viable tactic to things that are millennia old, why be bothered by some of their own who are taking rather long to return to them? Perhaps they were just old and tired and their souls couldn¡¯t take the strain, or their minds finally gave way, and they just failed to restore themselves, truly a sign of the weak and feeble they are so much better than.¡± He could not help but smile thinly. ¡°It seems you are familiar with the mindset of the old and powerful¡­¡± ¡°It is not unique to them, and they don¡¯t realize that many of the Entities that they deal with consider them the same way.¡± I just shook my head slightly, keeping his gaze. ¡°Of course, the problem is those many, many millennia that they¡¯ve been around, and just how many undead are out there, especially those caught in the System, being continually recycled over the eons. ¡°There could well be millions of those undead Empyrean souls rotating endlessly through the System, being eventually killed and put back into the queue as others rotate in to take their places.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°It¡¯s why the undead aren¡¯t particularly worried when someone doesn¡¯t pop up. They¡¯ll be back eventually, even if it¡¯s just bound to the System somewhere. No need to get worked up about it, there¡¯s plenty more reserves to call upon.¡± I lowered my eyes slightly. ¡°Which, since there are no more Empyreans contributing undead, is rather more important than they like to think. I doubt they have considered the implications of their race going fully extinct.¡± ¡°They believe they can leave and go elsewhere. The Empyreans have settled many worlds across the dimensions, and Auberean is not their homeworld. There are certainly Empyreans elsewhere. Even the virindi are certain of this. They have met other groups of the Empyreans before, in other times and places,¡± Martine confirmed. ¡°True. But they will have to be ABLE to leave. And that might not be their choice at all.¡± He caught the schadenfreude in my voice. ¡°There is something that would prevent such?¡± he inquired sharply. ¡°The same effect, I believe, which brought you back here, instead of returning you to Ispar, which you most certainly could have ventured to when you regathered yourself. The Portals were there in the aether, you could have followed them back and returned to our own homeworld. ¡°Yet, instead, you came back HERE.¡± I tapped my forefinger¡¯s nail on the tabletop directly. ¡°Here, Lord Martine. Probably the last place you truly want to be.¡± He froze again, that unnatural stiffness coming with inhuman control over a rebuilt body. I waited politely as he processed that, his glowing blue eyes shifting slightly, as if looking around, while consternation fluttered across his expression, fighting against¡­ something. ¡°I don¡¯t believe the virindi can leave, either,¡± I went on before he spoke again. ¡°Even after the Fall, the disruption of magic¡­ they are still HERE. This island, on this world, on the mortal plane. ¡°They are a hivemind of aetherial investigators and voyagers, explorers in their own way, following a racial imperative to grow their combined mentality and power. ¡°And yet, they are still right damn HERE, just like you, Lord Martine.¡± Seeing the edges of comprehension worry about the edges of his face was interesting. He didn¡¯t want to believe it, but¡­ he also couldn¡¯t say that I was wrong. It was indeed an unnatural and strange thing, looking at it objectively. ¡°You are positing that there is a¡­ force, or something, keeping us here?¡± he asked softly, hard disbelief in his voice. ¡°I¡­ sense nothing like that at work, Lady Magos,¡± he stated carefully. ¡°To be utterly truthful, Lord Martine, neither do I,¡± I smiled ever-so-slightly at him, and he was not reassured. ¡°And then Lord Mick tells me tales of Quests he ran a dozen times and more. Like how many times King Kresovus was kidnapped and replaced and he went to go save him, over and over again, for the same rewards¡­ and yet the King never took more precautions, and it happened over and over and over again. ¡°Even now, if you were to go ask the King, he will have difficulty remembering being kidnapped more than once¡­ and most tellingly, none of that stuff happened after the Fall at all. As if something was disrupted, something broken, and the crazy way the world worked wavered and broke. ¡°And yet, the undead are still here, on this island. The shades are still here, on this island. The virindi are still here, on this island. And,¡± my voice dropped lower, ¡°at least nine Mythos Entities have displayed repeated interest in whatever is going on, on this bloody island.¡± He wasn¡¯t a whistler, but I could tell he wanted to let go with one right now as he sat back, considering that information in a new light. ¡°The virindi believe that their own presence may have attracted some of those forces. Certainly the arrival of the Rynthid here could only be related to them, as there was a great war between the two races. Someone¡­ unleashed the Rynthid upon them for some reason. For some reason, here.¡± His knuckles tapped the table softly, as I had. ¡°And you are right. I would actually have to question the Quiddity in depth, but... the virindi should have long since learned what they wished to from this place and moved on, judging by all past experience...¡± ¡°Consider all the problems they have had, and are having. Virindi corrupted by Shadow. Virindi corrupted by contact with mortals. Virindi falling to Chaos. Virindi falling to the Rynthid. Wholly unacceptable tensions within and between the Quiddity and the Singularity. ¡°For their own protection, the virindi should have weighed their matters and departed long ago. ¡°They are still here.¡± I repeated his soft knocking. ¡°On this island.¡± He stared at me for a long moment. ¡°You know something. Something dangerous,¡± he said softly, guessing, willing it to be true. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ¡°Do not go investigating what is under this island, Lord Martine, or you will not be Lord Martine very long.¡± He stared at me, then looked away. ¡°Say the Word,¡± he murmured unwillingly. I nodded slowly. ¡°I have spoken Truth.¡± He twitched from head to toe, and the azure energies forming his eyes sputtered and flared as the Word impacted what he was thinking and remembering, but he recovered forcibly. ¡°I will endeavor not to do so,¡± he replied quickly. ¡°Studies of the ley lines in particular¡­¡± ¡°I think it would be better for you to reclaim some of your humanity, build some ties with your Prodigal brothers, and learn the Matrix Magic. They are all extraordinarily good uses of your time, and will keep you very busy and encouraged.¡± ¡°I would like to stay informed of things relating to this that you discover,¡± he said softly, a grim undertone to his voice. ¡°There is a feeling here I do not like¡­¡± ¡°It is the feeling of being manipulated, of having your heart and mind and soul messed with,¡± I informed him gently, but firmly, noting his long frown of comprehension and dislike of that very thing. ¡°Lord Mick gets the exact same expression on his face that you have on yours now when he realizes just how much his head was messed with for years and years.¡± I narrowed my eyes again. ¡°Now consider that the same force has been doing it to the virindi, a hivemind of incredible power, AND it has been doing it to the shades, and particularly the undead, for tens of thousands of years. ¡°They are slaves to the System and whatever is behind it, and are simply incapable of realizing it. Asheron himself likely was suborned by it and didn¡¯t have a clue.¡± ¡°Do you know how disturbing this news is to someone like me, Lady Magos?¡± Martine asked, his face twisting. I just nodded slowly. ¡°You think you are powerful, in charge of your own destiny, with few peers in the world, few things that can threaten you¡­ ¡°And then you realize you are once again a bug in a jar, and you aren¡¯t in control of anything. You¡¯re just like the rest of us, just a bigger, shinier bug than the rest of us¡­ and the big bugs are the bugs things happen to and who get screwed up the most.¡± ¡°The Quiddity not being strong enough to defy them. That¡­ is a level of power I did not believe could exist,¡± he admitted very softly. ¡°It is power at the level of a true god, Lord Martine.¡± I favored him with a slight smile. His eyes slowly, slowly dipped down at the floor. ¡°A true god,¡± he repeated hollowly. My own eyes went up in counterpoint. ¡°A true god, yes¡­¡± And so our conversation mostly ended, save for arranging for a tutor to come to the Keep and begin teaching him and his servants of the new Matrix magic, and what it could do¡­ AF Chapter 329 – Island-Hopping My next personal missions involved making Long Jumps to the islands neighboring the Vesayans: Xi Ru¡¯s island and Freebooter Island. Both were desired for purposes of Karmic gain. Of the two, Xi Ru¡¯s Island was also potentially able to be settled to an extent, and was far more controllable as far as Karmic gain went. The main creatures on the island were moarsmen, who were ostensibly guardians of the Deru Tree and the homes of the Falatacot priestesses of the Light who had dwelled there. Sclavi also guarded the temple there, and were considerably more dangerous than the moarsmen because of their spellcasting. The discourse of what to do there had been rather intense, as Xi Ru was a sister of Lady Adja in spirit, and disrespecting her grave and home was not something I was going to be party to. On the other hand, the moarsmen there were Summons and out of control. They were a melee-only creature, with no magic or ranged attacks, which made them ideal opponents to a wide variety of foes since the circumstances of engagement were easy to control. Not desiring to take control of the Deru Tree without making a commitment to it, King Borelean readily agreed to leave the Moarsmen Spawn Points at the base of the way up to the Deru Tree intact and to not disturb the Deru Tree without good reason. If the Deep was infiltrating those Moarsmen onto the island, we needed to know. Likewise, if the Dark Falatacot were exerting influence there, we also needed to stop it. Previously, the only way known to get there was through the services of a devoted ghost in Ayan Baquar tasked to open a Portal that had sent people there. With no such ghost remaining there now, that meant going over the waters. Likewise, the Portal Devices that sent people to Freebooter¡¯s Island had overloaded and/or been lost during the Fall. All of the Faction Headquarters had once had them, but not even the most senior members who remained, including Master Ben Ten himself, had the slightest idea how they¡¯d been constructed, or any idea of how to replicate them. I was not so foolish as to go alone, so Lord Mick came along¡­ along with a bunch of Royal Guards eager to test out the moarsmen on Xi Ru¡¯s shores for additional training. It was a great place for Wolfpack training, now widely acknowledged as the most lethal of the Mastery Chains for soldiers. The Mick towed us across the four miles to Xi Ru¡¯s island in front of the Wagon, and remarkably there was no interference from the Aquatics in the waters. I did scan for them, and there were definitely a few schools of the remorans around, but they stayed underwater and did not emerge to mess with us as the Mick skated past atop the waves at silent speed, making no real noise to range out ahead of us and alert them or spur their curiosity. If they popped up behind us, it was irrelevant, as we were out of spell range of the shark-rays before they could get something off. Of the nautiloids of various kinds, all of them stayed down deep and were either unaware of us or did not care to bestir themselves as yet. We¡¯d see what would happen when we reached the shore and they noticed we were there. ----- The area we landed on after breaching the Shoreward had indeed changed. The Mick skated slowly across the breach as everyone stood up. ¡°Lord Mick, there seems to be rather more moarsmen than the old stories tell us,¡± the commanding officer, Sir Darvis, mentioned dryly. The crew of soldiers sent on this mission were aspirants to the Royal Guard, and he¡¯d been placed in charge of their safety and command during this trip. ¡°Aye, an¡¯ that be truth. Shouldnae be a single Spawn active until we reach halfway about the island. The northern side of the island is supposed to have nary a Spawn. Lass?¡± I panned my Detect Magic back and forth, pointed ahead. ¡°There are real moarsmen up there on that hill, the rest are indeed Summons.¡± I held up a hand, conjured up the globe of an Eagle¡¯s Vantage, and tossed it skywards. It shot up to a thousand feet up, giving me an excellent sight of everything for two miles around. I replicated the view in Holo up in front of me. Hills led up from the beaches along ridgelines to the major mount where the Deru Tree waited in a pool up there. There was an Empyrean Lighthouse and two crashed Empyrean Battle Platforms near it, which the Mick had mentioned had once floated nearby them, as well as a secondary tower near a pool with four Empyrean Heads about it, near the point where once people had been Portaled in¡­ and now was the visible center of a bunch of gathered moarsmen not moving like Summons. ¡°Well, ain¡¯t they clever little buggers,¡± the Mick murmured, Bunita already out and in hand as it was plain that we were going to need to fight just to bring the Wagon ashore. The Guard Aspirants were already cocking back their Autobows and drawing down on their targets, while Sir Darvis held two Rods that would send out the limning Faerie Fires in blue and purple hues to determine the targets of their shots.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Clearly visible just around the turn of the island at the edge of the Vantage were two moarsmen coral beach temples, much like we¡¯d seen before in other places. ¡°They bred real spawn in the temples and used them to take over the island spawns?¡± Sir Darvis asked for his troops. ¡°¡¯Twould be my guess,¡± the Mick agreed ¡°Lass, we may be paying the Deru Tree a visit after all.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± I replied without qualification. ¡°The Tree should have been able to keep control of the Spawns directly around its pool up there, but it may have lost control of everything else.¡± ¡°Sir Darvis, ye an¡¯ the lads are about t¡¯ have a very busy day,¡± the Mick said cheerfully. ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯re here, Lord Mick!¡± the knight answered, raising his Rods and getting an instant shout of affirmation from the Aspirants there. ¡°I have your backs. You will not die while I am here,¡± I promised them all. ¡°Kill them all, Seal these points, and make our way to those Temples.¡± ¡°Combat squads, you will disembark as soon as we hit the shores. Lord Mick, take us in,¡± Sir Darvis stated, and his first two targets lit up with phantasmal flames of pale blue and violet the moarsmen stared at with their dark eyes in confusion. Autobows, made according to Kris¡¯s designs and purchased as preferred weapons for the Royal Guard, thrummed and kicked. The copper-scaled Putrid and Viscous Moarsmen jerked over and fell, vivus sparking up on them with the vigor reserved for consuming Summoned creatures as their flailings quickly stopped. The Mick glided ahead as the men with long Blades and Shields tensed, Sir Darvis picked out two new targets, and I made sure there were no surprises in the waters immediately around us. The blaring hunting cry from the hill ahead of us was not something we wanted to hear, however. The Mick stopped five yards short of the beach, ignoring the next two moarsmen who dropped as he turned his attention in the direction of that hill. With eerie synchronicity, all the moarsmen who we could see had turned their attention to the hill. ¡°Take care, Lord Mick. Keep shooting, gentlemen. I will be supplementing you.¡± Three Darts spun up around my arm in jet and silver. ¡°I believe we are about to get bum-rushed.¡± Bunita hissed out to her full length, Orange-Rainbow spirals swirling around the length of blue-black adamant edged in the same color, metal which swirled and transformed into a bar of solid soul-chilling frost as two Stones clicked into place. ¡°A bit more fun than we expected, lass,¡± the Mick said jovially as the heads of the moarsmen all turned in our direction under further roaring instruction to them. ¡°Pity them. Gentlemen, get those Shields over and drawing up a wall, no Wolfpacking for the moment. You stand and impale when they come, and the Archers shoot them down from above.¡± Sir Darvis just grunted, ¡°Go!¡± as the Mick pulled up on the sands, and the sixteen men of the melee teams disembarked from inside, rapidly putting up a shield wall around the Wagon, Lord Mick front and center as Clan popped up to full size on his arm. With savage roars, the moarsmen around us charged, with more coming from further down the beach and inland where it rose quickly into hills leading up to the abrupt towering mount ahead of us. That was where the unseen Deru Tree, invisible from a distance, waited in a magical pool of purest water drawn from the heart of the island and pouring down the slopes in a waterfall located at about four o¡¯clock on the island. The closest ones rushed in, and learned what the Archer Stand Thrust, Steadfast, and Hold the Line did for a shield line in impaling violence as they drove themselves onto ready swordpoints, while Shields suddenly sprouted six-inch spikes and were slammed back into the charging, rancid-smelling creatures, stopping them with grunts of effort as claws ripped at them and jaws snapped in front of them. Autobows thrummed from point-blank range above as targets were painted, shifted, and actions clacked as volleys began to pump out in groups of two, killing anything impaled on the swords of the shield wall and still moving afterwards. Lord Mick notably was not affected at all, Bunita slicing in flickers of motion, and every moarsmen who charged him died instantly and abruptly at his feet, blazing full open in vivus ate them away. If they managed to reach him, it was only to run right into the new Spikes on Clan burning cheerfully away in Main-Gauche love, the same hues and power as Bunita without the Stones, and killed themselves in doing so. He was heaping them up faster than the archers and swordsmen were doing in any particular area, which enabled him to hold the front of the Wagon all by himself without any problem. Naturally his very showy Weapon attracted the attention of the simple-minded Summons and drew them to attack him. I just stood up top and thinned them out with Chained Dartrays, Kickers softening them up and eating away at them with Silver Fire. Any braced blow or archer volley could then drop them instantly, and so made sure the incoming pressure of moarsmen Summons was manageable. More importantly, I hit every single Summons point painted in my Eagle¡¯s Vantage after the Summons attached to it died, making sure they weren¡¯t going to be respawning and turning this into an endurance contest. Echoing calls from afar made it plain that this alarm was going off all over the island, and more reinforcements were going to be coming from the distance. ¡°I think we be taking that hill there,¡± the Mick said laconically, taking a step forward, a moarsman skull exploding into white dust under his boot. I was busy Sealing Spawn points, Darts zipping out from around my arm and impacting specific tracts of sand and soil as matching lights winked out in my Vantage viewpoint. ¡°As you wish, Lord Mick. There are more moarsmen coming in from the south of the island in a veritable flood. We are going to be in a mass Summons fight soon enough!¡± I called back. ¡°Nae worried with ye here, lass,¡± he answered, two slices dropping three moarsmen with flash-frozen heads exploding into white dust as they hit the ground on either side of him and were casually batted away by Clan. Plunging points from the shield wall and thrums of Autobows above backed up his words. Sir Darvis pointed at a red dot who had come down off the hill on my Holo and was blending into the general mass of the Summons coming after us. Four Autobows thrummed, slammed into the green-scaled real moarsman, and dropped it in a twitching heap. There were a bunch of those to kill off, and they might well choose to run rather than fight, but that was what Detects for. Just hiding underwater wasn¡¯t going to save them from us. Taking shelter in the known Dungeons on the island, well, that might be another problem¡­ AF Chapter 330 – Taking the Beaches It was basically a martial slaughter, as the numbers and simple tactics of the moarsmen simply weren¡¯t prepared to deal with a shield wall and experienced phalanx tactics, nor the gut-punching point-blank fire of the Autobows patiently pumping and releasing overhead. Bodies going vivic sprawled behind us as the Mick slowly advanced towards the hill where more real moarsmen were watching¡­ and those moarsmen were considerably tougher than the ones we were facing. Not that the Mick was worried much. When the spawn points nearby were basically blazing vivic, I focused fully on weakening the incoming spawns, Darts zizagging through two dozen targets each and setting them on Silver Fire mixed with holy flames, vivus, and Banefire for all the fun and jollies. The arbalesters quickly found that one shot, two tops was enough to take anything wounded and Burning for more than six seconds, and fire at will began to reap them ever more quickly. Their target-picking in such a rich environment was steady and concise, headshots proliferating at close-range on the wounded moarsmen. The only break in their killing volleys was when Sir Darvis pointed with a Rod, and a real moarsman who¡¯d snuck into the mass was pointed out by Faerie Fire. Four Autobows oriented on the targets with the pale blue or violet flames around them and took them down before they could take any real command of the Summons and tell them to use some tactic other than ¡®charge in and be killed violently¡¯. Bunita was picking up speed as Cleaves proliferated between the moarsmen in front of them, the Warden Lord of the Royal Scouts shifting back and forth slightly to shear down more targets with the arcs of deadly glittering cold that were his Claymore. The Wagon advanced steadily as the Guard Aspirants stepped with it, careful and measured, not allowing a break in their formation and the wall of their shields staying intact. As the Summons were stupid and went after the first viable target they could lock on, they didn¡¯t go after the Wagon itself, and the elevated Autobowers above and out of their reach were ignored in favor of the Isparians below swinging about shiny Swords and glowing Shields. Without intelligent direction, the moarsmen came and they died. ¡°Reaper blades coming out!¡± I announced, not willing to let this come down to an endurance fight if we wanted to make real progress. ¡°Bring it in tight! Lord Mick, pick up the pace!¡± The Aspirants stepped back against the wall of the Wagon as the Blades on the front wedge of the Wagon snapped out, gleaming arcs of death backed up by the whole mass of the Wagon. The Mick picked up his pace considerably as I focused all three Darts ahead of us, and six dozen moarsmen burst into Silver Fire over nearly a hundred paces of area. The archers were picking off the moarsmen trying to crowd in and pursue from the sides as the Mick kept picking up the pace. The melees were trotting faster, and any moarsmen who made it past the Mick were running into the razored edges of the big Blades that had snapped out of the side of the Wagon, or were bouncing off the Shields of the men while casual stabs thrust in at necks and bellies. I turned my attention back to the clusters to left and right as we started up the hill, the Autobowmen kept headshotting moarsmen if they were on fire, and the Mick kept moving forward. ¡°Lass, spend me a Mass Imperil on these blighters, will ya?¡± the Mick asked, as the red dots of the real moarsmen finally started to move this way. They were taller and broader than the Summons, that much was obvious, but I didn¡¯t much care. They were also fewer in number, and I blew the Mass Imperil IV through the lot of them with speed and prejudice as they charged down towards the Mick. Rather than holding his position, he charged to meet them. The first one exploded from the charge going off with x7 or so multiples, and the Cleaves went off, Attacks of Opportunity triggering at the claw and bites at the Mick. The moarsmen, their hides reduced to scarcely better than leather armor, exploded apart as the razored cold cut and shattered their blood and flesh at the same time, hurtling corpses bouncing off the front of the Wagon as the Mick ripped into and through them without stopping his hacking and slashing. Their furious clawing and biting at him became excuses to die and their bodies shattered apart on the front of the Wagon wildly as he slaughtered them. The stuff coming in behind us was clustering up again as the Mick reached the hill, nothing left up there. Without the slightest hesitation, he started down the left side of the Wagon, right into the teeth of the moarsmen still coming up from our flanks, and really began to tear them up. The shieldmen peeled off the Wagon and reformed the shield wall, pressing back against the Burning moarsmen and hurrying them along to their fates as the quarrels from above hammered home and more moarsmen were dropped. The Mick¡¯s murderous, frozen-corpse advance didn¡¯t stop until the moarsmen began to thin. He stepped back to let the Aspirants finish them off, pushing back, crowding the pungent-smelling creatures together and backwards, vivus taking the smell out of the air as they died rapidly to thrusts coming in fast and clean from the left and right, not just straight ahead.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The Mick went back, reassumed control of the Wagon, and turned it around in the direction of the three o¡¯clock moarsman Temple. Twoscore moarsmen were brought down inside thirty seconds to the combined punch of the Autobows up above and the thrusting swords, everyone involved gasping and breathing hard as suddenly everything around them was dead and Burning en vivus. ¡°More coming. Respawns kicked in, but they¡¯ve a distance to run, and no guidance. They are just following the beach and straggling in, looking for something to fight,¡± I reported, my Detect Aquatics VI+1 scanning the area completely. ¡°Nearest real ones are probably a mile to the west, and don¡¯t have line of sight to us anymore. The spawn points within my range have all been Sealed, as far as I can discern.¡± If anything else had respawned on them, I hadn¡¯t seen it in the general flow, but nothing close by was directing them, either. The Mick was taking careful breaths and flexing his arms, but he hadn¡¯t stopped walking in the direction of the beach temple. ¡°If they be straggling in at the speed they respawned, we can handle ¡®em fair easy, I be thinking. The smart play would be sending them in a huge mass again, but they dinnae strike me as too bright.¡± ¡°If they suddenly start playing it smart, it probably means there¡¯s undead here,¡± Sir Darvis noted with professional cynicism. ¡°I¡¯ve not seen such, but you are likely correct, Sir Darvis,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°Can we take out the beach temple, or would it be wiser t¡¯ Seal the Summons points?¡± the Mick asked genially as he walked along. The Autobowers were gathered to shoot ahead of us now, Sir Darvis pointing out the moarsmen getting too close with his Rods and the Faerie Fires they tossed out. ¡°How¡¯s the practice been down there?¡± I asked the Aspirants, and received a general reply of tired enthusiasm. ¡°We want some of those spawn points open, Lord Mick, but that will eventually kill us if we can¡¯t get rid of the real moarsmen controlling the Summons. So the living ones are the real targets, and the temples with the spawning pools breeding them are how they established themselves here. Those are what we have to get rid of.¡± ¡°So, we kill off the temples, then retreat back to the Vesayans, come back all sneaky-like an¡¯ off the real ones after we find out where they are?¡± he asked me. ¡°There¡¯s good training, and then there¡¯s an endless grind of Summons to butcher repeatedly. Unless you want to make the summary judgment of Sealing all the Spawn Points, that¡¯s basically what we¡¯re going to have to do,¡± I agreed. ¡°An¡¯ that won¡¯t even get us up the back slope t¡¯ see the Deru Tree,¡± the Mick shook his head. ¡°Were hopin¡¯ this trip would nae be such the bother, lass. Me apologies, Sir Darvis.¡± ¡°We needed the exercise, Lord Mick,¡± the Royal Guard officer stated grimly. ¡°No need to apologize for what you¡¯re not responsible for.¡± ¡°Chances there¡¯s undead here?¡± I inquired of the Mick. ¡°Pretty damn high,¡± was his guess. ¡°The Deep came in here an¡¯ established its minions. The undead aren¡¯t going t¡¯ be liking that, especially it using the moarsmen they bred into existence as the tools t¡¯ do so. I don¡¯t think they be in control o¡¯ the invading moarsmen, but they might be controlling the sclavi at their own Temple there, an¡¯ aiding the moars up by the Tree.¡± ¡°I do not see us getting this all done in but one day, Lord Mick,¡± Sir Darvis confessed. ¡°There are simply too many moarsmen, and they are respawning.¡± ¡°Gor-damned Summons, always a pain in the arse in numbers,¡± the Mick agreed with a long-suffering grumbling. ¡°How many did we kill here, lass?¡± ¡°Five hundred and ninety-two so far, Lord Mick.¡± THRUM! ¡°Five hundred and ninety-four.¡± ¡°And just starting on the respawns. How many points ye Seal?¡± ¡°Two hundred and twelve, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Ye were busy, lass.¡± ¡°Echoing Darts, got me to twelve a cycle,¡± I replied honestly. ¡°Alright, going to do a Mass Vitality for Stamina for you lads. You¡¯ll regain more quickly, and it¡¯s more effective over time than a Revitalize.¡± I wound the spell up, golden sparkles circling around everyone as the stamina-replenishing Life Magic swirled over them, boosting their recovery rate by more than a hundred percent and sending precious ¡®yellow¡¯ stuff flowing back into them on the expanded Fellowship Status I also had up and working. ¡°Gor, that be the good stuff,¡± the Mick said cheerfully, working his shoulders. ¡°How¡¯s the ammunition situation up top?¡± Sir Darvis quickly got the numbers from his Autobowmen, and frowned. ¡°We¡¯ve gone through over five hundred bolts, Lord Mick. We¡¯ve got perhaps another thousand in the magazines.¡± ¡°The lass can feed ye ammo in an emergency, but it won¡¯t last long. Let up on the sniping for the moment, let us walk over an¡¯ cut the bastards down w¡¯out spending the king¡¯s coin, aye.¡± ¡°Bows up! Shields, they are yours!¡± Sir Darvis agreed. ¡°Blue team, stand down, Violet on overwatch just in case!¡± I could also Dart down the incoming moarsmen, and was happy to set them to Burning and dying before they ran into the sharp or cold pointy bits eager to send them to their final end. ¡°Lass, ye got a fast way to take out the temples, or do we gotta pound the damn things down again, like back at Mayoi?¡± the Mick asked up at me. ¡°No worries, Lord Mick. You¡¯re talking to the Stone Shaper, right? I can drop it into a pit in the seawater with about ten minutes of work,¡± I assured him. ¡°Right, then! We¡¯ll keep them off ye while ye do that, and make the judgment o¡¯ tryin¡¯ for the other temple once we be done.¡± ¡°You can certainly run over there faster than the spawns they send after us can run back there,¡± I pointed out to him. ¡°Och, aye, but draggin¡¯ the whole lot o¡¯ them after us as I do so. Mmm, will be fine shootin¡¯ for the lads up top, though, an¡¯ for ye as well.¡± ¡°It¡¯s also going to bring us in range of Sealing off the Summons for more than the northern half of the island, which should really help if we need to leave and return.¡± ¡°Sounds like a sound strategic plan fer the moment,¡± he agreed, as the first moarsman ran at him with a couple partners. He slid right, left, swish, swish, swish, and all three moarsman hurtled on past him, missing their strikes or bouncing off Clan, and their frozen heads tumbled free as their corpses hit the ground, falling under the Wagon as they did so. ¡°Aye, be a waste for me to kill these, lads. Teams of two per moars, now. Set yer Swords to the point, alternate high and low, an¡¯ kill them as they come, now.¡± ¡°Sir!¡± the Aspirants called out, getting into the basic double-team Wolfpack formations. As the moarsmen came running in, they were cut down from each side with precise blows and pressure, impaled if they ran straight in heedlessly, hamstrung or disemboweled from the side or flank otherwise as we continued across the hills toward the temple on the east side of Xi Ru¡¯s island. AF Chapter 331 – Moar and Moar Hunting Practice Rock to Mud is normally a pretty impressive spell in area, with basically two thousand cubic feet per Caster Level, which was often Shaped with Metas into forms more flexible than the default 20x10x10 foot cubes the spell defaulted to. When you Widen that, that volume increases eightfold, and the area gets pretty freaking immense. The spell had a lot of key uses. Among other things, ¡®Rock¡¯ was a misnomer, because you could totally use it on sand or dirt, not just rock. It made instant pits, for instance, and could bring down buildings and walls, breach dams and earthworks, open up underground chambers, collapse mountainsides, and a bunch of other uses. Amusingly, the ¡®mud¡¯ it made, if Dispelled, did indeed revert to solid stone, so you can use the spell to generate rock out of normal earth just about everywhere. If you let the Mud dry out, you actually got viable normal dirt as the magic faded. It was a great spell in many ways. Aelryinth used it to create raw material for Pyramids or building projects if there was no viable source of stone around, and it was very, very good at breaking cavalry charges. I always had demands for my V Slots, but getting VI Slots was helping that somewhat. Popping this from Mana and supplying the Widen from Valence gave me a lot of room to work with. I first popped the ley line link the Deep had somehow managed to finagle for this temple, which removed the mana-reinforcement on the sand and coral construction of the thing. Staggered strips of shoreline went straight to mud, and the weight of the building and its walls tore apart under its own weight, breaking apart and sinking into the mud and disrupted brine of the spawning pool. That drowned the young moarsmen in the pool and precipitated the fall of the whole complex down into the sand, sea, and muck I brought up underneath it. ¡°Nice,¡± the Mick said, before promptly tossing me into the front of the Wagon and booking it counter-clockwise around the shore. The Aspirants had already re-boarded the Wagon and popped out the windows around the thing to watch the show as the Autobowers up top resumed picking off the moarsmen who were chasing after us, perhaps a little outraged after we¡¯d taken out their spawn-temple. The Blades of the Wagon were still out, and the Mick was anything but reluctant to use them, the Waveskating Steps sliding smoothly between whole groups of the moarsmen come to bug us and promptly butchering them on the razored vanes on the front and sides of the Wagon. We didn¡¯t have much problems with the stuff in front of us turning around to chase as the Mick refused to just evade them when he had a multi-ton engine of death almost twenty feet wide totally capable of scything them down like bloody, stinking wheat. Still left a trail of vivus behind us as he raced around to the other side of the island. I kept busy ID¡¯ing all the moarsmen around us, giving everyone plenty of targets to pick from and letting us know what was ahead of us. Pointedly, that meant the real moarsmen who came into range, and if they were in the way, the Mick unabashedly altered course directly for them. A charge, impalement, Shield-slamming with Clan¡¯s burning Spikes, and then levering them aside as he kept right on going while multiple levels of razored Blades finished the corpses he made of them made it quite a viable tactic. I knew Kris was taking notes. She¡¯d put the Blades on the Wagon as a lark and a threat, the main purpose of the Wagon being to transport stuff around, not be an engine of war. Well, I could have told her about multi-use applications of levitating battlewagons, but it really hadn¡¯t occurred to me. Engines of war in magical universes could be brutally dangerous things on low-tech battlefields not prepared for them. It was something these moarsmen with no common sense and no ability to adapt were finding out in particularly gory fashion. --- We blew through easily a dozen living moarsmen, which stopped a whole bunch of the shouted orders to the Summons. Without such orders, they ran about blindly as the rote programming they were imbued with at creation reasserted itself¡­ and then they turned around and ran back to their points of origin. If the moarsmen at the back of the island wanted them to hunt us down here, they¡¯d have to step up and start giving orders. I was totally ready to snipe them down when they did so. We ended up in another pitched scrum with incoming moarsmen by the second temple, but amusingly enough, the walls of the temple were convenient for keeping us from being surrounded, allowing the melee Aspirants to keep a tighter shield wall and bring the moarsmen down much more easily. Point-blank headshots, Darts swooping through whole clusters of them with Kickers, and of course Lord Mick blatantly slaughtering everything that threw itself at him piled up the dead as fast as vivus as could Burn them down.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Then I collapsed the temple behind us, and devastated calls sounded from the distance as watching real moars bellowed out their dismay at having their spawning pool destroyed. Amusingly enough, it didn¡¯t inspire them to come charging down and add themselves to the slaughter of their Summons taking place on the beach. The Mick watched the whole thing collapse, Bunita building frozen arcs of death in front of him as he asked, ¡°Any reason to stick around?¡± ¡°We¡¯re done here,¡± Sir Darvis confirmed, the incoming numbers of moarsmen having thinned out considerably. ¡°Everyone aboard, then get us back home, Lord Mick!¡± The Aspirants hustled back aboard as I covered them with Darts, the Autobows thrummed and stragglers pitched over dead. In an impressively short time, the Mick went down the beach, out over the waters, and headed for the Shoreward. Silver Magic shattered open a short-term path for us out of the Shoreward. Very interestingly, there were still a lot of Aquatics in the radius of my Detect as the Mick accelerated north across the open waters towards Ithaenc in the distance. -We might have attracted some attention,- the Mick /observed as he lengthened his stride and really began to pick up the pace. The Aspirant Guards whooped at the speed he was moving at, the wind beginning to pluck at their eyes inside their helms. ¡°Most of them are real moarsmen,¡± I informed everyone with Magevoice, snapping up a full flight of Shards, Pairing them, and unleashing two strobing Shardrays out into the waters at the two biggest packs of things converging on us. There was about a one-second delay, and those packs disappeared from the Detect, as I wasn¡¯t scanning for dead things out there. A couple of the non-moarsmen packs altered course in the direction of the suddenly and violently dead moarsmen, too. Two more volleys of Shards, Echoes popping up, and eight more packs of moarsmen vanished, thinning out the screen tremendously. The opportunistic remorans who made up most of the other dots suddenly found many convenient targets for their appetites to focus on. The watching sleeches kept a wary distance, a couple breaking the surface to watch us race past, but they didn¡¯t even take a potshot or anything. Poking the bear got the bear to eat you, after all. -That be the first time I¡¯ve seen moars out in the sea,- the Mick /confessed to me, a fact seconded by Kris. -O¡¯ course, we ain¡¯t run out t¡¯ Moarsman Island yet an¡¯ made our displeasure known t¡¯ them. What do it mean here?- -Active support of the temples? We may have a horde of them try to stop us from returning, although that would admittedly be difficult¡­ unless they can breach the Shoreward and flood inside. But if that were easy, the creatures of the Deep would have used it pretty frequently to assault the places on land,- I /pointed out. -Unless they can fly or walk on water suddenly, I be massively unimpressed with their chances, as long as we know they be there. Although they might try t¡¯ get lucky an¡¯ drag me under while I be running do come to mind.- -The moarsmen aren¡¯t too bright and probably have not realized how I can sense them at a distance. The sleeches know my Detects are pinging them, and that¡¯s why they didn¡¯t engage. It doesn¡¯t mean they can¡¯t move more of their kind into position for another run, if you remember how things went in the Channel.- -Right enough. Do ye think there¡¯s another one of the big bastards around waiting t¡¯ be eaten by its own?- he /asked thoughtfully. -I be wanting a kill o¡¯ me own, not one I be sharing with the remorans.- Said sentiment was silently /agreed to in the distance by Kris, we both noticed. -Something is in charge around here, but there was a reason I announced I was here, with this very recognizable ride. I don¡¯t want to worry about a boss creature getting in our way. If they want to take a risk of becoming part of today¡¯s nutritious menu by coming up and bugging us, hey, let them take their lumps. If they want to sit down there where it¡¯s nice and cool, live and let live, I say.- -Fair enough. I be still wondering what those tentacles pickled fer six months in Old Grory¡¯s brine would taste like, tho.- I /heard Kris smack her lips from all the way in the Direlands, and I had to admit that was a tempting thought. Old Grory had a pretty nice pickling brine. -Maybe we¡¯ll get lucky and pop a naut at the beach,- I could only /console him, and he just grinned and kept up his run. ------ We came streaking into the Ithaenc Beach settlement of the Aun, breaching the Shoreward and coming into safe waters without further incidents. We did get lucky with a flight of three remorans not being smart enough to realize that we weren¡¯t really viable prey, and they tried to make a stab at taking out the Mick. Bunita burned through one of them, one was impaled on the prow, and the third was chopped open by the extruded Blades. That left us two to throw on a Disk easily and tow into the holding of the Aun as catches for dinner, paying for our presence at the communal feast that evening. --- ¡°Yes, we have seen the moarsmen out beyond the Shoreward, swimming by sometimes,¡± Aun Lorpesco nodded. The senior Aun fisherman was happy to relate his experiences. ¡°They swim up viciously to attack, run into the Shoreward, and turn away in disgust. I do not recall ever seeing more than one at a time, however.¡± He called out to his fellows to verify that detail, and some called back confirmations, a couple half-jokingly commenting that there was a truly massive moarsmen or two they¡¯d seen that way over the years. They weren¡¯t pleased to find out the moarsmen had a Beach Temple on Xi Ru¡¯s island, and were delighted that we¡¯d destroyed it. A shaman spoke up and said that over the years the fishermen and Aun hunters scouring the beaches had prevented at least a dozen attempts to build such Spawn Temples just on Ithaenc, with somewhat fewer attempts on all of the other islands that had moarsmen inhabitants. The Mick had to wince. ¡°So, Freebooter Island will have them. It were crawling with moarsmen, even if they were nominally held t¡¯ the Deru Tree. If they could be corrupted by living moarsmen¡­¡± ¡°One problem at a time, Lord Mick.¡± Freebooter Island was far more dangerous than Xi Ru¡¯s, which now had a huge swathe of its Summon Points inert and was much lower-Level, to boot. ¡°Also, I believe the slithyr tendrils were the biggest threat to the tree, and that Entity was no friend of the Deep. I daresay that any moarsmen on the island are going to be ripping the tentacles out of there by tooth and nail if they show up. What the Deep will do about the Tree proper we don¡¯t know.¡± AF Chapter 332 – Moaring to the Island ¡°Well, it cannae stop the slithyr from returning without vivus t¡¯ reinforce the Veil, but aye, a good point. Did wonder me how it lasted so long with the things around. The Blessed Moarsmen over there fighting the tendrils at its direction do make some strange sense now¡­¡± the Mick admitted, taking a long drink of the local rum. The Aun weren¡¯t big on booze, knowing what it could do to a warrior¡¯s drive and mentality, but they definitely could brew some stuff with a kick for the right occasions. ¡°And don¡¯t forget the sclavi. They serve the Falatacot, be they the living or the undead, they make little difference between them.¡± ¡°A fact we¡¯ll see on the morrow, aye, if they still hold the waterfall temple,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°I expect the undead found a way onto the place an¡¯ took it over, but the Deep beat them to control o¡¯ the moarsmen.¡± ¡°Shameless Elder Entity that it is, taking advantage of a species the Falatacot created for itself. It¡¯s like it doesn¡¯t have standards of only recruiting naturally-born creatures or something.¡± ¡°Aye, I be giving it a long tongue-thrashing over its recruiting standards, I be,¡± he nodded wisely. ¡°When do ye think we should be going back, lass?¡± ¡°Before dawn.¡± He looked at me, at the rum he was downing, then turned his dark eyes on the Guard Aspirants who were talking with the Aun and sharing stories of the fighting to be had there. ¡°Ye might have wanted t¡¯ warn the wee lads a bit before now, aye?¡± he asked lightly, clearly amused at the implications. ¡°Sir Darvis has been approached by some of the hunters over there, who doubtless would like to contribute to the archery for some excitement. If we get a Long Jump set up here, the island will likely become their new practice ground, and they¡¯ll take the final step of getting rid of the slithyr tentacles across all of Ithaenc.¡± The Mick turned his eyes to the nearby waterfall and the locked slithyr spawns underneath it that were the daily practice targets of basically every Aun in the settlement, and not a few humans who¡¯d moved into the outskirts of the area, too. Ithaenc City, once the home of virtually all the paramounts of the island, had lost over half of its population already, and that number was steadily going down. The young had much better examples to follow on Dereth proper, and far better choices to make grinding for Levels, while the paramounts themselves had left to either alleviate their boredom or to get more variety in their own activities as their courage started to return to them. Also, farming the Elemental Fields up in the Olthoi North brought in new wealth, the chance to return from the dead was finally back, and there were new toys, Gear, and tricks they wanted to learn, none of which came while sitting back on their arses and coasting along on irrelevant prior achievements. The Mick considered all that, then nodded. ¡°Lass, I know it don¡¯t take ye long t¡¯ do the primary work, an¡¯ the Infusing can be done by others. Why don¡¯t ye take the morrow t¡¯ speak with the Aun, ask ¡®em where they want the Long Jump set up, an¡¯ get the form o¡¯ it in place. ¡°They can send a team o¡¯ the best hunters with us on the next run, who can work out the spawns to keep an¡¯ where at, an¡¯ help us run down the real moars giving the Spawn orders. They can also take over the protection o¡¯ the Deru Tree up there, mayhap even changing the spawns to fellow Tonk instead o¡¯ moarsmen as a sacred duty.¡± I considered that viewpoint. ¡°The settlement here will have to give up its slithyr spawns, they basically anchor its intrusion for the whole island,¡± I told him firmly. ¡°Aye, and they be aware.¡± He tossed a thumb in the direction of Ithaenc. ¡°The Dungeons up there are dying in importance, which makes ¡®em prime for being taken over by the Aun and the lugians as training for them and their kids. No goddamn need for paramounts to be lounging around up there.¡± That¡­ actually wasn¡¯t too bad, although the Seed Dungeon was much too tough for the younger Aun and lugians. ¡°It¡¯s already well-established, so keep the Seed Dungeon as a competitive place to the side?¡± I hazarded. He waved that off. ¡°Feh. The place was basically forgotten before the Fall as being o¡¯ low interest an¡¯ not much challenge, odd tho¡¯ it be. The measure o¡¯ a basic tough Dungeon be the Baishi Hive, and it be even more accessible than the Seed¡­ and it be more relevant, too.¡± That was true. Being able to get experience against olthoi in controlled circumstances was hugely valuable as we stood off the Olthoi of the north and farmed the Elemental Fields. ¡°Any Dungeon can be designated as competitive an¡¯ farmed. They do it with all the mosswart Dungeons on the other islands, fer instance. The Aun be a nomadic people at heart, ye¡¯ve seen how easily they move an¡¯ adapt to a new land. They be perfectly happy t¡¯ move themselves an¡¯ their families to new locations t¡¯ benefit from things.¡±This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It was true. The Aun had been picking up and moving to ¡®starter towns¡¯ on Dereth with easy Dungeons for their children, and much, much more land to wander across. This gave both the kids and adults more room to grow, without their elders having to hold back so the kids could get experience and kills. It allowed them all to work harder to improve themselves, both on the easy variety of the landscape spawns and the intense grind of clearing a Dungeon. There were no Starter Dungeons on the Vesayans to speak of, and there was a whole new generation born after the Fall coming of age to start working on the things. Plenty of young and enthusiastic teens were being sent to Dereth to start their real grindy combat training in the Dungeons there, as opposed to very careful oversight by their elders hunting much tougher creatures to practice on. ¡°That¡¯s fine, I can certainly start the whole process going,¡± I agreed, making a list of what elders needed to be gathered to judge the location and looking for them. Getting a shaman would be easiest, he¡¯d drum the rest over from wherever they were. ¡°What about you?¡± ¡°Ach, I be havin¡¯ t¡¯ work?¡± His outrage was well-feigned. ¡°I be talkin¡¯ with the hunters an'' like as we start changin¡¯ shite around. Have t¡¯ inform Borelean an¡¯ Kresovus, too. Like as not Kresovus be takin¡¯ Ithaenc Tukal as capital of the whole island in the future formally, with the Aun playin¡¯ scouts for them as they clean off all the spawns save in specific areas ¡®t hunt.¡± ¡°Or change the spawns to protect their cities, instead of threaten them,¡± I nodded along. ¡°Okay, you get the ball rolling on the formal stuff on that end. It¡¯s good the Aun are nomadic, it makes this easy, and Kresovus doesn¡¯t have the overwhelming urge to reclaim a hole in the ground now.¡± ¡°Aye, building Ithaenc up an¡¯ surpassing gone Linvak Tukal be the new call, although there again be some clans what sided with the Gotrok muttering that their clan holding or mine or somesuch should be the basis for a new city¡­¡± He spat eloquently off to the side. ¡°They¡¯re going to get an entire island to fortify and turn into an unassailable home for their families, and for every other species, if need be. If they don¡¯t get to look at snow-capped peaks every day, they¡¯ll get used to it,¡± I sniffed. It wasn¡¯t like they were being denied going back to the mainland. ¡°Aye, that be truth, as be the fact that getting away from the Gotrok shite an¡¯ rediscovering the true honor o¡¯ the Tukora be not something easily done in the current day around the older clans an¡¯ places,¡± the Mick said with grim satisfaction. ¡°The lugian elders be hard t¡¯ move as stone at times, an¡¯ only an avalanche be changin¡¯ their minds.¡± ¡°Or the destruction of a mountain entire,¡± I agreed with him somberly. I caught the eye of Aun Hlossa, a female shaman of standing, and waved her over with my chin. She quickly excused herself and headed my way. The Mick noticed it, glanced about once as he rose to his feet, and winked, ¡°Ah, these late hours. I need t¡¯ ask fer a raise, I be thinkin¡¯.¡± ¡°Nobody can pay us what we¡¯re worth, Lord Mick,¡± I replied easily, and he barked a short and knowing laugh as he walked away. There was work to do before morning, and then the next day, too. ------- Two mornings later¡­ The sun wasn¡¯t up yet, but that wasn¡¯t discomfiting anyone. A full score of senior Aun hunters were with us this time, on their own Disks or up on the Wagon, supplementing the Guard Aspirants heading back with Sir Darvis in charge. I was up on top at the front, Detects ranging out, the Aun staying close to the sides of the Wagon on their Disks as the Mick raced across the dark waters under the starlight. I was /tellepathically broadcasting the Detect results, as not everyone was Marked or in Allegiance, or even close to it. Multiple Fellowships in Alliance, however, could power a Heavens-Up Display to the eyes of everyone, and so everyone was watching the X¡¯s and O¡¯s up in the sky, their colors, and what they corresponded to by my best guess. The Aquatics weren¡¯t really watching for us, and we weren¡¯t making a flashy display or making noise. The Waveskating Step didn¡¯t really make any sound, although the slight ripple of its passing would attract attention from the tremblesense of the fish and remorans as something slicing across the top of the water with great speed¡­ and great speed was a threat, not a meal. With all lights off and nothing else touching the water, the Wagon and its Disks were effectively ghosts that would only be seen visually if we passed right over something¡­ which the HUD made sure didn¡¯t happen. Getting close to the island was somewhat more difficult, as the number of moarsmen surrounding the place from the sea was quite impressive, as well as the fact they were at least twice the level of most of the moarsmen Summons we¡¯d seen on the island. None of which I heeded overmuch as the singing tones of Shards turning into Shardrays lanced out brilliantly in the night, and remorans further out in the sea who had learned to associate the Sublime Chord with food about to be created came winging in to see what there was to eat quickly. I sliced us a path through a dozen packs of Moarsmen, the Mick Spellcut the Shoreward as he¡¯d been practicing for some time, and we were inside the field of force as the sea behind us became a frothing mess of remoran schools coming in and starting a feeding frenzy, right in the middle of a lot of moarsmen shrieking alarms and being caught up in what rapidly became an extremely bloody and chaotic fun time in the sea. The calls of alarm from the sea rapidly became something more ferocious and panicked as moarsmen and remorans started ripping into one another. Further away from the shore, the sleeches just kind of sat back and watched, probably grabbing nibbles torn off the dead as they did so. More dead meant more blood, which meant more hungry remorans coming in. The moarsmen weren¡¯t smart, but they were smart enough to realize they weren¡¯t going to win against an ocean full of shark-rays, and they rapidly scattered to get out of range of the blood-mad things. We came onto the shore as silently as the wind, no lights up, the HUD invisible to anyone not in it. The HUD also showing several yellow X¡¯s scattered about the shoreline as we came up, X¡¯s who could not be Summons! AF Chapter 333 – Moar Stuff Deeply Surprising Silent teams of Aun hunters pulled away from the Wagon, hopping off their Disks and heading for their targets in the dead of night. They¡¯d rejoin us as the Mick headed counter-clockwise around the island. The Wagon headed overland, Detects ranging out ahead and spotlighting the Summons who¡¯d managed to avoid being targeted by my Darts two days before. If there were real ones, Aun teams dismounted to track and eliminate them, as they were the priority. The hunters could also bring down Summons and vivisize the spawn points as needed. The Aun intended to settle the northern side of the island, which meant clearing it of Spawn Points entirely. I had most of the points Mapped out and could later mark each location as needed with a Shaped stone post, but they¡¯d be putting down Totem markers on any they killed here and vivisized. Really, the only locations anyone was concerned about preserving were the major spawn point on the south side of the island leading up to the Deru Tree, and perhaps the Dungeons. Nothing else was of much import, and it was long noted by now that stuff simply grew better around vivisized spawn points. Human gardeners were going to be brought in to establish crops around such places, particularly fruit trees and vines and the like, as the Aun didn¡¯t really like formal gardens overmuch, preferring patchwork and naturalistic approaches to such things. It was all fine by us. By the time the Wagon rounded the curve, a hundred scattered moarsmen were dead, nineteen of them ¡®real¡¯, and a bunch more Summons points were vivified and Sealed. The alarms from the sea had long faded out, the source lost in the bloody rampage of the feeding frenzy, and the moarsmen still had no idea we were here. The southwest side of the island had the cove where the major forces of moarsmen Summons had been in the past, and was actually the default goal before we¡¯d stumbled in and found so, so many more active on the northern side of the island. It covered one of the two approaches up to the Deru Tree that stood atop the pool at the top of the island. We came zipping around the edge of the cove on the Wagon, my Detects ranging out, and everyone watched a whole lot of X¡¯s start painting themselves into the HUD. The Shield Aspirants leapt out of the Wagon, drew up their shield wall, and the Mick marched us forward as Sir Darvis marked the living from the Summons and made them his special priority to get dead. I announced our presence with a full salvo of Chained Shards, unleashing on everything and zipping in all directions, setting the moarsmen on Silver Fire with all kinds of Kickers. The Summons yowled and shouted and ran in our direction as the false dawn was rising behind the mountain, a tide of Burning figures wreathed in multiple hues of magical flames, and the killing began. We weren¡¯t even half done before the Aun hunters had rejoined us, and the slaughter proceeded quickly thereafter. ------- ¡°Ye smell that?¡± the Mick asked. ¡°Kind of hard not to,¡± I muttered, and the senior Aun following us huffed in amusement, also wrinkling their noses. ¡°Specifically, that be rotting moarsmen, what laid out in the sun too long,¡± the Mick went on incorrigibly. ¡°That means real ones, an¡¯ really dead.¡± We were moving up the steep hillside that was the route up to the Deru Tree. The other route involved going to the Empyrean Lighthouse via a back route, and then jumping from it to the hill overlooking it nearby. ¡°This path has seen much traffic,¡± Aun Rualtus pointed out. At times we were almost on all fours as we advanced up the steep path. He pointed gravely at the marks of many claws scratching the stone, or pressed into the dirt. ¡°Aye, leading the Summons below up this route to do battle with the Deru Tree,¡± the Mick agreed. There was a MEEP up above, and a whisper of motion. The bisected bright orange remains of a zefir tumbled past us, away and down. The Aun made faces and warding gestures against the damn pest in complete tandem, not liking the wicked little faeries any more than we did. The path veered left, clearly visible with the amount of recent traffic, but there still didn¡¯t seem to be any guards or anything around. ¡°Well, looks like they pulled everything back t¡¯ deal with the small problem that looks back in me mirror,¡± the Mick commented, also noting the lack of guards and sentries. The Aun huffed and grinned toothily as he led the way up the last stretch of steep hill trail, scrambling over it until he could surmount the edge above us, then step aside so we could follow him up. The Deru Tree¡¯s Distant Invisibility Field didn¡¯t work this close, and it towered up before us, over three hundred feet high, a massive leafy tree in the oaken style, shading acres of ground as it spread out.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. A great clear pool surrounded the tree proper, almost like a fountain, and another lower shallow pool that was nonetheless seething with a lot of hydromantic power surrounded it, dotted with torn pond lilies, frogs, colorful bugs¡­ and about twoscore moarsmen, who all turned in our direction the second they noticed us. None came charging our way, staying instead around the fountain pool of the Deru Tree, or right up next to it. At the far left side of the lower pool, water poured off the side of the mountain in an unending stream, and by my reckoning, multiplied itself in free fall. By the time it hit the bottom of the mountain a thousand feet below us, it had gained a hundred times its volume as it fell on the massive Falatacot Temple of Xik Ru below us. ¡°Shelled,¡± huffed Aun Genkutua, pointing, and our eyes were drawn to the far side of the pool, where a pod of the larger but less powerful niffis and nefanes was floating at the edge of the pool, ignored by and ignoring the moarsmen as they hovered there. A half-dozen moarsman corpses were scattered in the water and in the mud near them, along with perhaps the same number scattered elsewhere, rotting in the sun and the bugs clustered upon them merrily. ¡°Lord Mick¡­¡± I murmured, staring at the nauts. ¡°Ah, fuck me,¡± he replied softly. ¡°Lass, I totally fergot that one little detail.¡± He chopped his hand at the spawn of shelled tentacled Aquatics. ¡°That spawn o¡¯ nauts has always been there, near as I kin tell.¡± ¡°So, the Deep has always had servants up right next to this Deru Tree?¡± I asked, looking right and left. ¡°The Deep ignores the Deru Trees?¡± Aun Rualtus asked curiously. ¡°Their relationship is not adversarial?¡± His surprise was evident. ¡°We may have read their relationship entirely wrong, Isparian friends!¡± ¡°It sure is looking that way, Hunters,¡± the Mick agreed with a slow nod. ¡°But, we do know it be no friend to us, even if it be not an active enemy. It do mean that the moarsmen below be not obeying the Deep if they be attacking here. If that be true, only one other force be capable o¡¯ commanding them.¡± ¡°There are Dark Falatacot here,¡± I agreed with him, eyes narrowed. ¡°They co-opted the Beach Temples, took over the landscape spawn, and exerted control over all the real moarsmen, too. Maybe.¡± Electrum Soul Essence sparked on my face, drawing a set of ornate whiskers and dabbing my nose, all in white. The Aun could not stop themselves from smiling when they saw my Whiskers of the Wild, although the fact I had them was not a great secret or anything, I just didn¡¯t bring them out very much. ¡°Elder Tree of the Deru!¡± I called out in Magevoice. ¡°I am the Lady Magos Ryin! I and my companions have finally managed to reach this island, and have come to succor you! We ask your guidance in what to do and how to proceed with the moarsman, sclavi, and other creatures upon the island of your Domain!¡± The great green leaves of the Deru Tree actually rustled as one, and for a second glowed with the light of the dawn, an awesome sight to see. The Aun went right down on their knees at the sight of such a powerful spirit responding to me. Its powerful response broke across me, and I radiated it out to the others. The moarsmen are alien creatures brought back by the Priestesses of Light long ago. They serve me well in this place, but they are not born of nature, and their lives are not missed. They disrupt the natural cycle, they are not part of it. The sclavi are also servants of the Priestesses, and also unnatural, reproducing only by magic. They will also not be missed, and none will serve me, only the Priestesses. The rivals of the Priestesses who once tended to me have claimed their Temple and exerted their control over the sclavi and moarsmen which they created from lesser creatures long ago. They are attempting to control me, but dare not enter the area of my pool to do so. I glanced at what I¡¯d just been told was effectively a whole pond of Holy Water. I imagined it plummeting down behind the Temple the Dark Falatacot had stolen was also very undesirable! ¡°What of the niffis, the nefane, and the other servants of the Deep, Elder?¡± I asked it immediately. The Deep is of the deeps of the waters, and we are of the land and sky. There is no conflict between us. The Deep has its concerns, and we have our own. We do not meddle in one another¡¯s business, although establishing our boundaries may create short moments of conflict. ¡°Well, isn¡¯t that a kick in me nethers,¡± Lord Mick sighed. ¡°Ye learn something new every day, aye?¡± I bowed to the ancient Tree. ¡°Elder, we will attempt to deal with the invading Falatacot of the Dark and drive them from your shores once more. The shamans of the Aun will visit when we are done with that task, and see if you wish them to take up the role of caretakers in honor. While their ancestors were born on a far world, they are close to the land, and you will find them at least as respectful of you as the Empyreans, who also came from a far world.¡± The Tree sent back a pulse of quiet anticipation, and I saw the short tails of the two Aun tonks with us quivering in delight and awe. There was talking about gods, and then speaking with what was truly a great and powerful spirit! Hehvun had sent its magic, but had not spoken where they could hear¡­ --- The Mick held onto Crown as I walked out past the edge of the waterfall. Flight Magic was weighed down heavily here, and without the physical contact, I¡¯d immediately start falling towards the ground below until I reached a point the magic could sustain me, which would be less than a hundred feet off the ground. It was fine, I only wanted an angle to survey the ground below. The Mick and the two Aun watched the Holo rise up, painting into existence a whole bunch more sclavi than the Mick remembered, at least as many moarsmen as was present in the inlet we¡¯d already fought in¡­ and at least two dozen undead commanding them. The Falatacot were naturally sensitive to Divination magic, spying on one another all the time as they did, and quickly sent out their own magicks to learn who was scying on them. Their spells fizzled as mine faded and was withdrawn, finding no target to claim. I was just looking for their presences, not details like exactly who was holding this place. The negative Aura of Dark Falatacot priestesses was confirmed, however. We did not have friends there. AF Chapter 334 – Moar and Moar Fighting Message The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Recalling Interdiction Shardrays Shaped ChainedChained DartsShards AF Chapter 335 – Moar Religion The slaughter of the moarsmen was fast and pretty brutal, especially when the wall un-Shaped and the shield wall of the phalanx drove into them, stabbing and pressing as the moarsmen impaled themselves upon the spiked Shields in mindless savagery. I had rows of Darts ripping through the whole mass of them endlessly, keeping them Burning, Kickers riding them and helping everything die faster¡­ and I also had all their Spawn Points mapped out in my Visual File, bombarding each and every location with a Dart or Shard to make sure nothing respawned there. The sclavi were quite tough, not so much when lit on Silver Fire with Kickers, and they were outranged by the strength-amped Bows of the Aun and the Autobows countersniping them. A solid mound of moarsmen was Burning down en vivus and disintegrating as I un-Shaped all the stone walls I¡¯d put out, and the Wagon came for the sclavi. The moarsmen weren¡¯t prepared to deal with the Mick¡¯s frozen Bunita ripping through them, or getting impaled or chopped down by the Wagon behind him tearing through their positions as the Mick zipped past them. Spells rang against the walls of the Wagon, but did basically no damage to the very tough walls enhanced with a layer of chorozite just to stop spell attack shenanigans, and the missile troops up above were plenty happy to pick off the sclavi from behind the mantlets on the top of the Wagon, while they were trying to run to or from the Mick and dying haplessly. The fight to claim and clear the temple itself was a bit tougher, but the undead who¡¯d found they couldn¡¯t flee did try to make a fight of it, coordinating the last of the sclavi and some tougher moarsmen to defend them as they tried to launch spells at us. My Shardrays didn¡¯t care about their cover, and Disruption didn¡¯t care about their 2000 Health, either. They were hit, they took a lot of damage and Kickers, and they Burned and died. As for the others, I dropped the silver lightnings of the Haste spell on the Guards, and watched them swarm up on the shocked sclavi and moarsmen with incredible speed and vigor. They basically knocked them over, stuck them while they were down, and went rampaging through the three floors of the open-air temple with speed and energy the serpent and fish-men anthros couldn¡¯t match. It took less than five minutes to clear out the temple, and less than an hour to wipe the entire cove of any opposition. Vivus covered everything with white mist, and the Dark aura hanging over the temple was slowly eaten away and removed by the vivus after the Falatacot Dark Priestesses were wiped away. Had they gotten a message out to their superiors? I had no way of knowing, and really didn¡¯t care at this point. They obviously had an alternate way to get here, but that was something that I could fix with a Pyramid dropped on this place, something I was more than capable of doing. Once it happened, the only way to get here would be for them to cross the water like everyone else, and nobody here had ever seen the undead take to any boats. Perhaps they might ride one of their Battle Platforms here, but if they did that, we¡¯d see them coming from a long ways away¡­ and a Stillflight Field with sufficient power out over the ocean could be disastrous. Xi Ru¡¯s Island was ours, and I could put up a Long Jump and a Pyramid here to secure it as our own. ----------- A few weeks later... ¡°Shaping twenty levels of terraces into the valley walls and rerouting the water outflow through them was more than a little help to the mosswarts,¡± Kris congratulated me as we watched the first Aun settlers depart through the Long Jump to Xi Ru. Four-fingered hands paid the mana cost, and they and their children flashed across the miles to the island on the horizon. The first rotating companies being trained in mass combat against savage combatants were also rotating in. Tactics learned and practiced against the eager moarsmen Summons would be revised and used against olthoi and other unorganized foes, refined in Dungeons as the soldiers Leveled up. ¡°It was easy enough to do. They¡¯d been very careful to keep to their territory, and weren¡¯t inclined to break out with the stealing and everything. I gave them an easy but hidden way down from their valley, and expanded one of the inlets into a cave for them. They¡¯ll be able to do some sea fishing too, and trade with the Aun for other things to eat.¡± I tapped my forehead. ¡°You know eight hours is all I really want to do on the Pyramid stuff a day. Terraforming some infrastructure is a LOT easier, and more fun.¡± ¡°Do they actually produce anything unique or worthwhile?¡± Kris asked, shaking her head. ¡°Not really, but they do have gods, and those gods sometimes reply to them¡­¡± Kris grimaced. ¡°Call me crazy, but a very Brown-oriented species is not something I¡¯m overeager to teach the Cleric Class to. They just don¡¯t civilize well.¡± ¡°Plenty of use for barbarians in a magical world, but I hear you. The Aun are treating it as an example of old agreements on territory, so it¡¯s not unprecedented. If things go poorly, we can always move them off to the Blackmire with the clans there, if they¡¯ll take them.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Flora is a goddess of aquaculture too, you know.¡± Kris snarled at me. ¡°Dammit, you¡¯re supposed to be on my side!¡± ¡°The fact they have gods who respond to them means they have natural piety and are believers in things beyond themselves. The problem is the gods they follow, as much as anything.¡± ¡°Primitive peoples call out to primitive gods. Ahg!¡± The Aun themselves had been most drawn to Aru and Sylune, as the Sun and Moon made powerful totemic symbols for the Sun of Suns and the Queen of the Heavens. ¡°Florans, is it? Do we have any farmers to send to them to teach them about terrace-farming?¡± ¡°Asking around, there were a couple who volunteered to help them out. Funnily enough, they also are assigned as Healer duty to the Xi Ru fighters there. So, a little something they can do in their down time.¡± ¡°Florans are Divinely inspired on farming techniques, even weird ones, right?¡± she asked for confirmation. ¡°If they take the Community or Plant Domains, yes.¡± ¡°Building up mosswarts. Well, the gods take all kinds.¡± The fact it was bound to go sideways in the future as other gods made overtures to the mosswarts was certainly not on both of our minds, nope, nope. Still, the Good thing to do. The gods we¡¯d picked to follow didn¡¯t discriminate on basis of species, although they weren¡¯t idiots about such matters, either. ¡°Almost a little surprised that you¡¯re up for Freebooter.¡± It was our next stop on the ground-claiming/clearing enterprise that we¡¯d found ourselves on. ¡°Everything I was hearing was that everyone involved was having a blast throwing their weight around in the Direlands.¡± ¡°That Withered area is like Valhalla¡¯s killing fields, a Divine blessing for melee fighters, and the rest of the Dires is like limitless opportunities for actual strategies and tactics against all sorts of enemies. Not as good as thinking, living opponents, of course, but enough to get a lot of practice on. ¡°Still, you know the Matrix system doesn¡¯t like mono-focusing for Karma. Become a specialist fighting something, you have to kill more and more stuff than a normal person for the same Karma, or get less and less help, or fight tougher and tougher things. Starting the Favored Enemy Slayer progression is nice, but advancing it takes a LOT of killing.¡± That standing +5 Morale Bonus to-hit and damage enemies was indeed a great boost to the confidence of being able to take something down. ¡°Fifty kills gets you the Achievement Feat and allows you to start the Mastery. I wasn¡¯t tracking the kills closely on much of anything. What is the total to get the +5?¡± ¡°A thousand.¡± ¡°Eww.¡± That was a LOT of slaughter of just about anything. ¡°Because Summons, right? Real ones are less?¡± ¡°Real ones might count as five, but if they are too low of Level, five times a fraction that is much too low is still low. Happily, most of the stuff we¡¯re fighting is either focused on a specialty, or skilled enough with magic to still represent a viable threat if the new knights are stupid.¡± ¡°But not to you?¡± I asked knowingly. ¡°Not really, unless I jump into a whole swarm of them and dare Chaos to bring them all into alignment and get a whole bunch of good Spell Penetration rolls.¡± ¡°The RNG is never your friend in the long-term,¡± I acknowledged. ¡°Those coincidences WILL happen if you keep tempting them,¡± I chided her. ¡°Which is a wonderful pressure to test just how thin I can make those odds and how fast I can recover in between them.¡± Which generally meant how many attacks she could get off within a few seconds with Healing Edge returning Health to her at 1-8 per hit. ¡°Got Greater Vampiric in Arsenal now, just in case.¡± Quaver popped out from behind her waist. ¡°It¡¯s not enough when she needs it!¡± the Sword piped up woefully. ¡°It maxes out at a hundred Health per Renewal. Just, blah.¡± ¡°Enough for her to run out of danger, however, right?¡± ¡°Yes, but still annoying,¡± the Sword huffed. ¡°Bodyfeeder would probably be ideal, then,¡± I mused. ¡°Bodyfeeder, Bodyfeeder¡­¡± Kris murmured, furrowing her brow. ¡°Sounds like old school Vampiric, where you got half the damage you did in Healing?¡± she asked hopefully. ¡°No. Psionic effect.¡± She tilted her head, thinking, then shook her head. Obviously there wasn¡¯t perfect carryover of alternate advancement paths outside Power of Ten through her Hag Curse. ¡°You might be able to replicate it with a Ki or Soul-based energy sustaining it. Grants temporary Health equal to the damage you do on a crit for ten minutes.¡± A dark eyebrow raised itself up slowly. ¡°You are not bloody serious?¡± she asked me very emphatically. ¡°I don¡¯t imagine it would stack with Crushing Blow, but it should with Biting Strike,¡± I wagged my finger at her. ¡°But, yes. And although it does not stack with itself, it does renew on every crit.¡± She just stared at me. ¡°You do realize that if that works here I¡¯d probably never receive a significant injury from just about anything that isn¡¯t simply goddamn overwhelming¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know the pattern for it. We know it exists because of the Mentos who snuck into Terra-Luna some years back, and we took a look at their Weapons and other Gear before we sent them back to where they¡¯d come from. However, Terrans don¡¯t have the gene for psionics, so it was more for the children they left behind than for us, and we couldn¡¯t replicate them with other energies. Psionics was viable and locked in as a potential avenue of power, so we couldn¡¯t sneak in sideways on it like we might be able to do here, where the rules are different.¡± ¡°Would Psychic Weapons be possible?¡± she asked with a dangerous calm. ¡°Oh, remember those, did you?¡± I had to smile. ¡°Can you confirm they stack with magical Enhancements?¡± she asked me. ¡°Yes. The Mentos tested it out, even though they didn¡¯t trust magical powers. Magical Enhancements in Slots did stack with the non-Slotted Psychic bonuses, where similar psionic bonuses did not.¡± ¡°Without an Artificing basis to go on, I can¡¯t add it by Smithing or Naming Karma,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°Send me over the Infusion or anything they might have had, and I¡¯ll see if it can be adapted.¡± I complied promptly, and she shuffled it off to her Crafting thoughtstream as something to eagerly work on. Finding an alternate method to replicate psionic Crafting would be a truly wonderful avenue of further experimentation. Just another way magic could be totally cheesy if different systems intersected¡­ AF Chapter 336 – Moar Booting The Mick and Kris led the run across the sea to Freebooter, right out in the open. Kris hummed the Trembling Song and Quaver set the beat. I watched the sea empty out ahead of us and raptor packs poking their heads up at a safe distance, hoping to catch sight of some magic going out and making lunch for them. Alas, not a damn thing tried anything for anyone. ¡°That be a pretty cool effect,¡± the Mick commented enviously. ¡°Ye¡¯ve taught ¡®em so well, so quickly.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like they are smarter than most Isparians, or something!¡± Kris snarked back with a grin, Quaver chiming steadily and confidently. ¡°Aye, but we not be getting the chance t¡¯ eat one o¡¯ the big ones. ¡®Tis a double-edged blade, I say!¡± he protested. ¡°You need to add a couple accompanying notes,¡± Kris cajoled him. ¡°Me Bunita not be talking yet, lass.¡± ¡°Then you know what you should be working on after your current project.¡± ¡°Aye, then,¡± he said softly. ¡°Won¡¯t really be me Bunita coming back, would it?¡± ¡°No,¡± she replied quietly. ¡°But it will probably be based on how you remember her. Names are powerful things, after all.¡± ¡°She¡¯s goin¡¯ t¡¯ be givin¡¯ me shite all the time, then.¡± He sighed in fond expectation. ¡°You are the kind of person who earns all kinds of shite, Lord Mick,¡± Kris informed him loftily. ¡°I be as pure as driven snow!¡± he countered haughtily. ¡°Snow melted off an active volcano into the mud, yes,¡± Kris nodded along with him, and he just chuckled as we closed in on the beach of the island ahead of us. -------- The fighting started pretty much as we came into the shore areas. There were four main spawns here. The first were some very, very dangerous moarsmen, with thick scales, good reflexes, and dangerous attacks, primary melee combatants that could take on anyone and everyone there. Their claws dripped acid, their breath was flammable, and of course they all had over 1200 Health. They were also charged with Luminance, the extra energy source for post-Paramount status used by the Empyreans and introduced to Isparians before the Fall. The ability to grant Luminance had been totally lost at the Fall. Even the few surviving Isparians who¡¯d once been able to grant it as an aspect of Quests and the like found themselves completely unable to do so, although those who had earned boons and benefits from it had still managed to retain them. Just one more of the ways newcomers couldn¡¯t compete with the old-timers, but we¡¯d see how long that held up. The second major spawn was that of some dangerously strong sclavi. They were powerful archers, dangerous in melee, and had historically cast Platinum-grade spells. The third common spawn was actually young moars. The Mick had said he¡¯d never seen any true source of the creatures, but the young moars were ostensibly the creatures the moarsmen had once been, and becoming moarsmen seemed like an extra life cycle to the vicious things. The last common spawn was Wasps. Lots and lots of large and dangerous Phyntos Wasps, spewing lightning up to Platinum grade. Freebooter was the biggest source of the wasps in all of Dereth. The wasps that came to the Vesayans all came winging in from the north from Freebooter Island, and the lesser colors that swept in to Dereth always seemed to come from the sea. It was one of the reasons why the seas around here were active. Remorans were plenty happy to jump out of the water and snatch any and all kinds of phyntos out of the air as a great snack, and didn¡¯t have much fear of their lightning-based attacks. We had absolutely zero incentive to keep the phyntos alive, and they supposedly had an utterly massive hive on the island, something worthy of the olthoi in size, if tales were true. If you weren¡¯t immune to Lightning, probably not a very good place to go, however. Also, having to confront a buzzing storm of destruction the size of an eagle in your face tended to be really unnerving to the average Isparian. In all honesty, I was the answer to the swarms of the phyntos. Swarmbane was a devastating effect to put on a Weapon against most Swarms, but when combined with actual Banefire against Vermin, it really doubled down. Swarmbane¡¯s main power was to inflict full damage against Swarms with weapons, transferring the damage to all the creatures and forcing the Swarm to eat the entire damage, instead of expending all of the damage against a few inconsequential creatures.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Banefire would then blow itself through the Swarm, and following it would be all the Kicker damages, carried to each and every target. If that Kicker damage was enough to kill the individual creatures, then an entire Swarm would be popped, just like that. No damage was wasted, either. If the primary Shardray dropped five hundred points of damage into one creature and overkilled it, all that damage was conducted to other creatures in the swarm. Banefire always gave that damage the most lethal path, and the Kicker damage always applied from the first point of damage. So a swarm of six smaller phyntos in a tight, lethal cluster of wasps could eat a Split Dartray, and each of the six phyntos would take roughly eighty points of Kickers¡­ twice. They flamed out and popped like firecrackers. Everyone cheered when I blew through the clusters of them, even if the archers with us were all very, very experienced at tracking and picking the blighters off. The tougher individual phyntos were left to the archers. They didn¡¯t seem as good at eluding missile fire as I might have expected of magical bugs, but they didn¡¯t seem to be as agile in the air as most magical insects I remembered via Aelryinth¡¯s experiences. The place¡¯s hostility to aerial magic probably had a great deal to do with that little fact. Stillflight Fields had always been the best way to handle giant dragonflies and a lot of the bigger bugs when they Swarmed. Put ¡®em on the ground and wipe them. Pyroclasms with Swarmbane, too. ---- ¡°Those are still here?¡± the Mick swore, looking north along the beach, instantly joined by Kris skating up next to him. ¡°Isparians?¡± she swore. ¡°Summons or real?¡± ¡°Summons,¡± the Mick said, glancing back to where I was Healing up both Knights and the Roaches who¡¯d been fighting, all of them cursing with feeling at just how difficult a foe the sclavi and moarsmen here were proving to be. None of the archers wanted to be fighting them up close after seeing how long it took even a proper Wolfpack team to divide up a group and cut them down from all sides¡­ and likewise how difficult they were to shoot accurately. The Mick pointed out another Summons of Isparians even further down the beach. ¡°Aye, look at the placement of them. One in ten, an¡¯ only right along the ridgeline. None o¡¯ them further out an¡¯ away on the beach.¡± Kris¡¯ expression was not friendly in the slightest. ¡°Freebooters on Freebooter Island?¡± ¡°Well, nae proper freebooters as it were.¡± He pointed north. ¡°The story were that they were part o¡¯ a big bandit gang, working on harvesting the flowers that grow here an¡¯ the crystals that dropped off the critters here. Residual effects o¡¯ the Deru Tree being here, it were said.¡± He spat off to the side. ¡°One o¡¯ the Society Quests were t¡¯ find the bandit lair on the north side o¡¯ the island an¡¯ send ¡®em a message. Turns out most o¡¯ em were Simulacrums, an¡¯ the virindi were takin¡¯ the spoils.¡± ¡°There¡¯s absolutely no chance the Freebooter Council wasn¡¯t getting their slice under the table, one way or the other,¡± Kris sniffed at the opportunism. ¡°The virindi had that whole Empyrean Mana stabilization ¡®r summat going on at the same time. Minions o¡¯ Aerbax or some other random virindi faction. So there were a tie-in, although why the virindi be wanting flowers be a mystery. Virindi were a freaking pain t¡¯ be killing, too.¡± ¡°As Summons, we know they aren¡¯t our friends. I¡¯m guessing tri-spec and all?¡± Kris asked shortly. ¡°Aye, annoying twats an¡¯ all.¡± The Mick twiddled with his belt as he studied the spawns. ¡°Cannae remember any ¡®real¡¯ Isparians on the place, save me fellows, but the NPC¡¯s were known to me uncle as real folks.¡± Both he and Kris looked up and to the northeast, where the peaks of the mountain cut off most of the view there, and the castle that was supposed to be up there. ¡°You don¡¯t expect them to be there, do you?¡± she asked him critically. He spat off to the side again. ¡°Nae t¡¯ that. Place was just stupidity, flaunting their money an¡¯ giving fools something t¡¯ fight over. Uncle called it the biggest foolishness he¡¯d ever heard out o¡¯ the council. I be expectin¡¯ they had a secret bailout Portal to Northwatch Castle, the other one they built, like as not their smuggling connection t¡¯ me other uncle¡¯s keep an¡¯ such. I think Master Oswald commented they got out o¡¯ here an¡¯ were imposin¡¯ on MacNaill, an¡¯ he dinnae liked it too much, but couldnae do much about it.¡± ¡°So they¡¯ll be wanting this back.¡± ¡°¡¯Tis such a high-demand vacation spot, with quite the view an¡¯ atmosphere, perfect for the raisin¡¯ o¡¯ brats an¡¯ gardens, it be.¡± ¡°If it was popping up mana-infused flowers and is breeding phyntos non-stop, there¡¯s a major ley line under it.¡± ¡°Ye know the Deru Tree here be dead? An¡¯ the tentacled thing be responsible for it?¡± he asked her, just to be sure. ¡°Yes. The Aun are making a final sweep of Ithaenc now, and there¡¯s a commitment by the Guard to find any T¡¯Thuun extensions on the lesser islands now. If we can wipe the phyntos off Freebooter, we open up both northern Vesayan islands to farming.¡± ¡°Tch. Less phyntos honey for me mornin¡¯ biscuits. How be I surviving?¡± he whined theatrically. ¡°There¡¯ll still be lesser hives all over, you know.¡± ¡°Let me pretend I¡¯ll be missing ¡®em fer a scant two seconds, ye Hag.¡± ¡°Two seconds too long, Lord McMikal.¡± ¡°Well, aye. Damn things. What did ye think o¡¯ the snakes an¡¯ moars?¡± ¡°More dangerous than the Withered, as my valiant Knights are finding out. Your Roaches have the head start on them with Named Weapons, and better group tactics, but I see they are not too happy, either.¡± ¡°Aye, were considered the toughest moarsmen on all Dereth here. Stronger sclavi on the temple island, however. Terrain weren¡¯t kind here to work the spawns so much, island o¡¯ the moars were much more popular.¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t that place devoted to T¡¯Thuun, too?¡± ¡°If it weren¡¯t, it had too damn many tentacles coming up out o¡¯ the ground for it not to have some kind o¡¯ interest there.¡± ¡°Well, this place is all kinds of useless and because of the Phyntos and tentacles, an ongoing problem we have to fix, and only the best of us can do the job.¡± ¡°Are they retaining any o¡¯ the Luminance?¡± he asked quietly, tossing his jaw back at the teams behind them. ¡°Ryin says its coming in with the Karma, but it won¡¯t stick without a Feat or a Mastery. So, the key is earning enough Karma to unlock that Feat, without some ancient Empyrean Spirit as an intermediary, or by doing something grand enough to earn a boon from an ancient spirit that can do the job.¡± He lifted an eyebrow, both of them looking down the beach. About two miles away and inland, a towering tree, withered and brown as it loomed over the trees about it, waited lonely and forlorn at the heart of the island here. ¡°Well, then how about we go save a dead tree from a fat tentacled godless shite what killed it?¡± the Mick stated. ¡°How about we go do that,¡± Kris asked, pale violet eyes flashing grimly, and two Swords of Lost Light swirled in ready tandem. AF Chapter 337 – Treed and Stoned The path down that beach was brutal and cold, and took more Healing than I¡¯d had to ladle out since Tou-Tou. Everything was throwing Platinum spells, and had Armor Classes above 30, just utter pains for most of the warriors here to fight. Without Wolfpack tactics enabling them to surround and gain some substantial bonuses and extra attacks, it would have been an extremely precarious advance. The only easy spawns were the ¡®true¡¯ moars, because they weren¡¯t much bigger than a small dog. They were netted and held in place while they were killed readily enough, although if they evaded the net and got free they were as ferocious as honey badgers and even harder to hurt, damn things. The teams got pretty good at charging up on the other spawns or letting the archers pull them in, blocking them, surrounding them, and whaling away until they died. Our goal was the Deru tree, and we stuck to open ground and not the very overgrown forest waiting for us, heading down the beach, killing everything on the way, Sealing every spawn point so they wouldn¡¯t recur, and continuing on. Kris and the Mick could take out a spawn of any of the things solo, which they demonstrated as much to prove it to themselves as to everyone else. Sure, they had everyone green with envy watching how they moved, with Kris¡¯ Master of Ways easily matching the Mick¡¯s paramount-topped melee maxed capabilities as far as hitting them, then outdoing him with transcendental Weapon Sagedom that just had all the melee men and women staring at her in awe and envy of her ability. They could all tell she had room to improve yet, and actually wasn¡¯t any better at the fundamentals than the most skilled of her new knights. She just knew sooo much more weird stuff than they did... ------ The ancient pyramidal temple complex set up by the Sisters of Light millennia ago was in good shape still, Empyrean regenerative construction keeping it in good repair and the plant growth that should have built up around it away, just like their roads. The great Deru Tree that had once been lovingly maintained by the priestesses who lived here was a great corpse looming over a ghost town or graveyard, it was hard to know which. We stared at the bulbs of the powerful slithis tentacles sticking up out of the ground around the ancient roots of the Deru Tree, so powerful that even now, at least forty years after being known to Isparians, it still hadn¡¯t fallen over. It might even have been dead for centuries, but situated above the ley line and being such a natural siphon of natural energies, it was dead but simply not allowed to decay. The tentacles might even be using its roots to siphon the ley line energy. Well, that meant it was basically a quasi-undead plant creature. There was no hiding the fact T¡¯Thuun was involved with this. The Eyestalks, Tendrils, and primary Tentacles all Assayed as of T¡¯Thuun. Well, it wasn¡¯t going to like what we were going to do to it. The Bane for everyone¡¯s Weapons was against the Aberrant, a pure blue and queasy yellow-green sappy light here, the latter as if responding to the presence of the tendrils. Vivus was added on top of it, as the energies it put out and used were exciting snacks to vivus. Mass Protection from Curses was ladled on top of all of them, followed by Mass Death Ward. ¡°Tremble.¡± Even for Kris, the word seemed to hang in the air for a disturbingly long time. Probably because it was said in Aklo. All the eyestalks in the area swiveled to look at her. - Ding! ¡°Tremble, oh, you Damned Thing! Tremble, we come! Across the ages, across Time and space, vengeance and thirst have come to this place! The Land will FEED on the maggot who thinks to drink Her blood! The ire of Creation carved on steel and wood!¡± - With a hiss, the Cerulean Sign painted on all those Shields ignited in sky blue rejection of the Aberrant, and the eyes on all those tendrils flinched closed at the azure, leaflike symbol of life and rejection of the unnaturalness of the Aberrant. - ¡°Tremble and twist! Tremble and writhe! Fire and light, to take your life!Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ¡°Your hungers, your dooms! Your pain now looms Before you, time to pay the price of mortal souls and the final knife As you feed the Land! ¡°TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Ting! - Then the vengeance of the Land charged to the attack, while I started bombarding the upper reaches of the Deru Tree with Vivic Flaming Darts. According to the Mick, the tentacles here were bloody infuriating to deal with, because they used Plat and Mana-grade Drains and Harm Other effects, as well as some crippling short-term Curses that could reduce Stats down to 1. Generally that was Strength, which could instantly immobilize someone under the weight of their own body, let alone their gear. Hitting Focus made people idiots, Self drained them of mana and ability to use magic, Coordination would lock up their muscles disobediently, Quickness would reduce them to the speed of frozen molasses, and Endurance¡­ well, that hit Health, and one follow-up hit or spell could instantly kill someone who got hit with that particular one. With the correct Protections up, they only had to deal with its melee attacks and extruded whipping sporeballs that hit like sling bullets when flung at targets. The Curses and negative-energy effects just bounced when hitting the Protections, and when all the tentacles erupted from the ground in writhing clusters to throw things, try to impale them, or slap down on them with crushing damage, the fighting was on. Happily, the clusters were almost ideally set up for two or more people to work on them at one time, and the Aun archers setting up behind had a great deal of experience at shooting down slithis tentacles. These particular ones might have been tougher, with stronger hides, but that didn¡¯t stop the broadheads from coming in with explosive force to chop into their bases, while the Melees covered one another as they surrounded each knot, and other teams with Shields deflected the incoming spore-shots from neighboring clusters. I watched them, and any who were slammed hard, nearly spit, or otherwise injured got quick Healing Cold Darts to them to get them back to normal. The tentacles did attempt to grab and constrict them, a tactic that startled the Mick, as he couldn¡¯t remember any slithis ever doing anything like that. However, Close-Quarters Fighting was a Feat that he and Kris had agreed should be a standard part of the new world, as getting into a wrestling match with an extraplanar acidic tentacle, Elementals, or acid-dripping, flame-spitting moarsman was not in any way a good idea. A tentacle that attempted to grab them immediately triggered an Attack of Opportunity, usually shearing through the tentacle with speed and force, allowing the person to get away from the grasping attack. Niche feat, only useful against things attempting to Grab or Grapple, but when it happened, offense and defense all in one. The two of them were participating in the hacking simply because there were too many goddamn tentacle extrusion clusters all over the place, and killing them faster meant not having to put up with the flung spore-balls coming in and caroming off everyone¡¯s Armor with lethal force or acidic splatters. When they chopped off a tendril, someone with Blooding on a Weapon made sure to hit the base, even as vivus and Banefire continued to eat away at the stump hungrily. These things were not going to be regenerating any time before the dawn, and by the dawn it was going to be too late. The tendrils were the only ¡®real¡¯ creatures we¡¯d seen so far on the island. The fact all the nominal defenders of the temple were all Summons only, and basically suborned by the Tentacles, was a pretty good indicator that the originals had been long slain. Up above, the Deru Tree was on unwhite fire. It had caught fire reluctantly, preserved status defying the vivus on the one hand, and the fire on the other. Both of them together, however, it wasn¡¯t so good at, especially Primal Heavenly Fire. Once the branches started to ignite, I simply expanded the centers of the flames, truly powerful Primal fires reaching past the mana-reinforcement to use that mana as fuel. The flames really started to take off, while vivus ate away at the influence of T¡¯thuun preserving it and trying to defy the whole process. Flaming leaves weren¡¯t coming down, but a vivic rain of misty droplets soon pattered around those fighting and onto the scattered clusters of T¡¯Thuun tentacles, spattering the latter like acidic rain. The fibrous green skins of the tentacles began to pit and corrode in the accumulating vivic mists visibly, while up above the flames Burned up towards the crown of the Deru Tree with ever more flames and fury and vigor, the Banefires and Kickers in every blast I sent up there guiding the mounting inferno above us to all the weakest places to increase the speed of what was going on. The tentacles and eye-stalks could see me and what I was doing, but I was out of range of the spells and spores of the things, and they were getting chopped down with a great deal of speed and vigor. More and more of the clusters were erupting out of the ground as the vivic mists around slowly poured down around the ancient dry roots of the Deru Tree, its withered bark beginning to molder and wither¡­ and then ignite as I blasted it with Fiery Darts, and started a blaze at the roots as well as the crown of the tree. The edges of branches were falling, but when the Burning lengths hit anything, they simply exploded into white dust and mist, harming nothing and scattering more vivic mists everywhere explosively. The mists seemed to be forcing any hidden tentacles up out of the ground, giving the Knights and Roaches ever more to do even as they hacked through the last of the inner ring of tentacle clusters with their own Burning Weapons. ¡°Sweep them,¡± Kris ordered remorselessly, pointing at the end of the arc of the tentacles, swapping shielding members out as hacking Melee combatants went to work and the stoic Aun archers kept up their target shooting. Everyone converged on the tentacles, not splitting forces this time. I left off my igniting of the Deru Tree when the whole trunk was fully on fire, the only smoke rising from it devoured by vivus and falling back to the mist-covered ground heavily. I focused on the tentacle clusters and proceeded to Chain each circle of tentacles with a Split Dartray. Kickers blazed up with Aberrant Banefire in pale blue and Holy energies, eating the stalks away as a team instantly pounced on the blazing tentacles to finish them off. The Kickers Burned with Silver Fire for twelve seconds, enough time to set a second cluster on fire, and the primary team leapfrogged the second team to start on that cluster as well. I didn¡¯t even have to move off my position on the side of the pyramid-temple to get at the clusters behind the Deru Tree, courtesy of Seeking and my Detects. The Rays bent around the blazing trunk of the Deru Tree and lit into the cluster of tentacles, letting them writhe and Burn as they were chopped into with speed and energy, freezing and Burning and electrocuted all at once, vulnerable and twisting in spasmodic pain as they were eaten away and chopped down with vengeful speed. AF Chapter 338 – Dare You Kill this Tree?! Something pinged just at the edge of my Detect Aberrants V+1. My eyes widened, glancing at the last sets of tentacles going up like candles and blazing away, the thing-choppers swarming to get the last of them. No telepathy around Aberrants. ¡°Kill the last of those things and then RUN DIRECTLY AWAY FROM THE DERU TREE!¡± I ordered all of them urgently, and crackling Silver lightning materialized over them as my Haste spell caught them up. Kris didn¡¯t even question it, simply taking up the order as the Trembling Song hung in the air with a ghostly sound and their Weapons became a staccato, energetic rhythm. ¡°You heard her! CHOP AND RUN, AND NOBODY BETTER BE SLOW!¡± The ground quivered from deep down below, while I blew a flight of Fastcast Shards up the side of the Deru Tree, drawing a long line of multi-hued Flames up the side of it with ever-increasing speed, the fires seemingly drawn by the literal rain of vivus coming down from above, waiting to connect and complete a circuit¡­ Like swarming locusts, the melee teams fell upon the last two clusters of tentacles, hewing them down with a frenzied speed as Silver crackles followed them and every motion of them. The stalks were hacked through in seconds, all told, and Kris simply ordered, ¡°RUN!¡± Everyone streamed down the side of the hill and away from the Deru Tree, lurching as the ground started to heave and rumble underneath them, and they realized why she had so insisted that they learn their damn heavyfoot and lightfoot. Kris and the Mick rudely threw six men who were going to fall down onto the Disks they¡¯d brought up, stacking them on top of one another as they followed the teams down and off the hill and away as it began to tear and rip open. Gouts and fumaroles of foul gases, chased by fires and vivus, spewed out of the ground, tearing open new gashes in stone and dirt. The sides of the hill around the Deru Tree were ripping open as something rippled and twisted underneath it. The ripping, popping sound as that long line of Flame I¡¯d ripped up the side of the Deru Tree split open was far too wet, way too organic. Dry wood deprived of all strength and power cracked and shattered as something swelled within it, the whole crown of the tree split open and fell down at the same moment as the strongest and thickest of branches shattered like twigs, and the bark of the Deru Tree ripped free and fell away in a great shed Burning husk, revealing what was beneath it. It wasn¡¯t a Deru Tree. The tentacle was two hundred feet high, engorged with massive amounts of ley line energy, dotted with dozens of alien, multi-hued eyes like corrupted boils that were all looking at me in what could only be called hatred at being revealed. The Flaming wood stacked around it like a custom-made campfire, blazing up higher as the Fires both seemed to reach for the revealed tentacle and pour down heavily into the fissures torn open in the ground all around. ¡°GIVE ME YOUR SHIELDS!¡± Zeks reached out and tore the Cerulean Sign-painted Shields off the arms of their wearers with Telekinesis, sending them skimming towards the massive revealed T¡¯Thuunic Arm that had been growing inside the corpse of the Deru Tree. All those eyeballs needed something more to look at than just me. The oversized orbs got eyes-full of the anti-Aberrant Sign at close range as the Shields zipped up in front of them, forcing them to close at the purity and anathema each such Sign represented, which caused the whole Arm to shudder and tremble in revulsion and antipathy. A bright yellow-green beam of power stabbed out across the distance for me. My first mirror-bright Hexar Shield flipped out of my Masspack and reflected the Ray off to the right. A four-hundred old jungle giant was cut through like air, the whole section of its trunk for ten feet around the beam just vanishing into grit as it was Reflected away. ¡°Yeah, fuck you, too,¡± I said, and promptly unloaded a double heaping of Shards upon it as the Sublime Chord blossomed with purity of magic and mana and weighed down on this thing in the distance, letting it know the Land was with one of the two of us, and it wasn¡¯t the one. Radiant Force pulses with Banefire, Divine and Primal energies, and a whole lot of Kickers and Silver Fire Smote the Arm with full Heavenly antipathy. Dozens of eyeballs exploded into gore as the Banefire guided the Shards into them, blowing out chunks of its length and letting it know what I thought of its attempt to Disintegrate me. That also meant it was hugely distracted as Kris was somehow at its base and climbing towards its top. Bulging eyeballs exploded around her as crits blew out in Bursts of Lost Light and Aberrant Banefire. The hide of the Arm twisted and shifted under the clouds trailing her feet, but it had precious little time to react as it attempted to bend over to get a look at her, and she simply spiraled opposite it, her Tremblesense clearly telling her which way it was moving, and it simply didn¡¯t have time to react to her as a winding trail of light and fire wound up its full length at incredible speed. Ding! ¡°TREMBLE!¡± she announced to it as she reached the massive three-foot eyeball at the very tip of its length, following the trunk as it writhed and bent underneath her, and hacked down with glee.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! +IV, Bane to Aberrants, Bane of Legends, Enmity to Evil, Brilliant. +X of natural-armor ignoring Sword swirling with massively enraged Lost Light tore at the thing as she plunged Quaver into that eyeball and the opening in its body behind it. Stacked Banefires blew apart that massive eyeball, Quaver drove in, and Kris slammed her heavyfoot backwards and down. A Weapon sharp enough to wound gods bit in, and she began to slide down the whole length of the fucker as Lost Light moved around the edge of a Blade of solid Light as it sliced through that hide and spiraling motes of the Lost Light forced it back and aside. A massive gash over three feet deep split open in the side of the Arm as Kris slid back down its length, and even picked up speed as she fell. She was hanging onto Quaver with one hand, using her Tremblesense to twist out of the course of any jutting eyeballs while Stand plowed a path behind her, the edge gleaming with the same magic as Quaver was via Main-Gauche, ripping away smaller eyeballs or slicing through larger ones she was sweeping past. All the while, Quaver plowed a path of vertical disembowelment down the length of the massive thing. Perhaps it could have pounded her flat if it could have flexed enough, but any bending sent her shooting to the side and around in curves and spirals that took her out of the path of any attempts to bring the tip down on her or the Arm to slam her into the ground. Indeed, it was trying to whip itself back and forth to do one or both things, and simply couldn¡¯t get her to stay on a predictable course with the speed she was moving at! ¡°Just fucking BURN!¡± I thundered at it, triggering a Silver Smite, and brought a Wall of Fire down it, right on that monstrous cut into its heart. Holy Banefire¡¯d energies blazed up in singing joy, finding much to grow on there. Electrum Flames blazing with mistfire raced down the Arm along that monstrous cut, closing in on Kris as she fell down it backwards. She just grinned as she saw it coming, taking her slide all the way down into the inferno raging all the way around the base of the thing, momentarily lost from sight as the Wall of Fire followed her down. The writhing tip of the thing whipped down into the area where she¡¯d fallen like a whip driven by a god. TING! She arced out to the side of the impact zone, perfectly timing it as the tip coiled back up, shearing off the top three feet of the tip as it passed her by, and a plume of something that wasn¡¯t sap or blood spewed forth, igniting in Wrathfire as it did so. A keening that was more in the mind than reality shook the air as she hit the ground, darted to one side, and the Arm lunged after her, effectively blinded and trying to see her with whatever remained of its roots. It smashed right through another jungle giant, twenty feet of trunk smashed through with supernatural strength and force, and Kris just hopped over it, six eyeballs spraying apart in Lost Light as she did so. I detonated a hundred more Shards around it into its eyeballs, and then Kris was well out of its range. The Disintegration beam lashed out at her from an eyeball I hadn¡¯t popped. She leapt up, spun around, and Quaver flashed through a glittering arc, Spellcutting that deadly Ray into a thousand ineffectual sprays that were little more than streaks of light as her Null neutralized the shattered magic. I noted the teams had very wisely gotten behind mana-reinforced walls so as not to be the target of that beam. The Mick wasn¡¯t even going to attempt to cut that beam, either. I unloaded more Shards, going for quantity as the entire length of the thing was now on fire. More eyeballs blew apart, Banefire powered by the Silver Smite digging deep and hard for a feast of siphoned mana that was now becoming fuel to an ever-increasing inferno as Flames not natural in the slightest, powered by Primal and Holy fury, ate at the thing and powered up a vivic feast for the Land. The base of the hill there rumbled and collapsed in on itself, something down below settling, probably the last of the massive root system of the Deru Tree. The raging inferno out of sight underground blossomed up through the rents and crevasses there, and continued to build. I whipped up a Burning Mire around the base of the thing, increasing all fire-type damage in the area, and watched the Flames blaze up even faster and harder. --- Kris Skated up next to me, the Mick following cautiously. I moved my Hexar Shield to guard him, which he acknowledged with a silent thankful glance. A half-dozen more Shard volleys had basically cleaned out the rest of the eyes that I could see, the others already popped by flames. I was basically just sniping it with constant Dartrays to add more Silver Smiting Kickers to its base. ¡°Did ye suspect this?¡± the Mick demanded of the two of us. ¡°It came up as a possibility as to why the damn thing didn¡¯t fall down when all those tentacles were growing all around it, and not much else.¡± Kris wrinkled her nose in distaste. ¡°Kind of were hoping there was another explanation, but when the vivus lit up on it, welp, that was a sign of Aberrant influence. Dead vegetation doesn¡¯t trip up vivus without negative or other unnatural energies going through it.¡± ¡°Good disguise, eh?¡± I asked him, as we watched the burning thing twisting and spasming in frantic pain. The Fires at its base were extended for over two hundred feet around it in all directions through rents in the ground that had blasted through the stone and earth to release their fury. ¡°Too damn good,¡± he agreed, watching as I kept sending a Split Dartray boring into the base of the thing, my other hand raised up in a warding gesture if it decided to unleash something, not that I expected any such thing to happen. ¡°Everyone always hated fighting those damn tentacles, an¡¯ we had no idea how much real danger we were in¡­¡± ¡°The Blight T¡¯Thuun brings is nice food for the Land if Burned en vivus, but a horrible corruption if allowed to grow. Aberrants are not kind to mortal reality,¡± Kris stated calmly, her gaze as focused and ready as mine was. ¡°How much Karma be it worth?¡± he asked, almost rhetorically. ¡°Better. It unlocked the Luminance advance for the teams when they finished the tentacle spawns,¡± I informed him, which earned me a startled look. ¡°Aye, the Land is paying some sort of attention here.¡± I smiled hard at the crumbling Arm in front of us, its writhing struggles growing slower and more uncontrolled. ¡°There¡¯s a fair to excellent chance that the death of this Arm will also allow the Land to grow a new Deru Tree here.¡± ¡°The same way it boosts the green an¡¯ flowers where things be dying t¡¯ vivus, aye,¡± he nodded in understanding, his voice grim and satisfied. ¡°Could nae happen t¡¯ a better foul an¡¯ corrupt Mythos thing, aye?¡± ¡°I think we are all agreed on that,¡± Kris nodded. We stayed there and watched all night as it fell, Burned, and a great devouring fog was lit within it by underground flames going in and eating up the last of it¡­ AF Chapter 339 – Homes of Wasps and Men You could hear the droning all the way from the Pyramid Temples of Degar¡¯Alesh. You could also see the inhabitants thereof zipping around through the trees, although they¡¯d kept a healthy distance from the dead Tree and the slithys stuff around it. There weren¡¯t very many living things on the island larger than a rat for a very simple reason: the Phyntos Wasps here ate all of them. One blast of lightning, and goodbye to any land animal and flying thing that wasn¡¯t a Summons. The Wasps had long gotten familiar with the Summoned creatures and didn¡¯t bother them in the slightest. Killing them didn¡¯t get them any prey to drag back to their Hive, after all, so it was completely stupid to attack them. Thus, there were a remarkable number of Summons on the way to and from the great Phyntos Hive of Freebooter Island. ¡°Aye, the only dead things ye ever saw in the cave were the corpses o¡¯ Society agents¡­ though that were strange, too,¡± the Mick assured us all, getting that ¡®mindfuckery recognized¡¯ look on his face again. ¡°Aye, the corpses should have faded away, too¡­¡± ¡°What interest did the Societies have in the things? Just population control?¡± I had to ask him. ¡°Phyntos honey, stingers, queen¡¯s body, and numbers,¡± he recited dutifully, his tone curt. ¡°Fuck just wiping the things out completely as would make sense, we be just killin¡¯ Summons repeatedly for some Karma and Luminance, aye, smart thing t¡¯ be wastin¡¯ time on¡­¡± One hundred and three different Spawn Points had been neutralized behind us in a path leading back to the Pyramids. Nineteen real Killer Phyntos Wasps or Giant Jungle Phyntos Wasps were dead among the many Summons of moarsmen, moars, sclavi, Mana Hunter Bandits, and buzzily hovering Phyntos spawns going nowhere. Luminance was definitely accumulating among everyone, on top of the major award of it gained for taking down the Arm of T¡¯Thuun. What to spend such stuff on was another story. The Phyntos Hive sat right at the bottom of the ridgeline that led up to Freebooter Keep. There were hundreds of the wasps hovering in static Summons all around it, with dozens visible flying in and out of the place every minute. The entry to it was huge enough to qualify as a Dungeon entrance all by itself, standing five feet above the surrounding ground. ¡°Productive,¡± Kris noted sarcastically, and the Mick just shrugged in irritation. Another pointless series of Quests he hadn¡¯t realized until now. ¡°Now, we¡¯re going to kill them all if we can. Without destroying all that goddamn honey, because that would be just plain stupid.¡± She had everyone¡¯s immediate interest. ¡°That be a lot o¡¯ mead we could make out o¡¯ that,¡± the Mick pointed out, smacking his lips for emphasis. ¡°Good honey butter on good bread,¡± I rebutted him. ¡°And I know some candies and cream dishes that would make you cry to taste them.¡± ¡°I like Ryin¡¯s ideas better!¡± Selena spoke up, and the Mick gave her an affronted look. ¡°Sorry, Lord Mick. Wine before mead!¡± she said cheerfully. ¡°Barbarian southerner!¡± he accused her, wagging a finger scoldingly. ¡°Her ancestral family¡¯s holdings are actually further north than the McMikal stomping grounds,¡± Kris informed him sweetly, earning a beaming smile from Selena at the score. ¡°Salted honey almonds¡­¡± She licked very attractive lips enticingly, and he didn¡¯t miss that, either. ¡°Put ten pounds on you in a week. Hard to stop eating them.¡± The solidly-built Aluvian patted his solid belly. ¡°I not be needing more o¡¯ that. Mead, I at least know when t¡¯ quit, Highness!¡± ¡°True enough. Ryin, what do you think?¡± ¡°Open a tunnel into the bottom of the hive. Put a smoker in it on full. Block the entryway in and out, and all the ventilation holes, and suffocate the bastards. They shouldn¡¯t be able to blast their way out before they all either suffocate or are forced unconscious, and then you and I can go in there and kill everything. ¡°The other part of the team stays up top and kills all the returning wasps, which should take at least twelve hours to get all of them.¡± ¡°How to make enough smoke?¡± the Mick asked after a moment¡¯s consideration, nodding. ¡°This is a jungle with heavy ferns, palm leaves, and the like all over the place. I can bring in some Summoned Phantom Servants to do all the brute work, and just set up an Eternal Flame below they keep feeding,¡± I told him. ¡°You said the wasps fly around everywhere inside, except for the grubs. They are really maintaining air circulation, so they¡¯ll actually be spreading the smoke as they do. ¡°It won¡¯t be fast, as such things go, unless we can generate a whole lot of smoke and I Gust of Wind it all in fast, but it shouldn¡¯t take forever.¡± ¡°Aye, but can ye pack up all that honey?¡± the Mick asked with a grin. I slugged him on the shoulder, and we all got to work.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. --- A Wizard Eye with the illusion of a smaller Wasp about it was sent into the Hive. Not having any scent, it didn¡¯t set off any alarms olfactory or visual, and it had the same droning sound as all the traveling wasps as it zipped around the hive, quickly charting out the six levels of the thing, the massive honeycombed walls dripping with liquid gold, and the thousands of wasps who lived there. The hive actually went down to nearly sea level, so I had to start over two hundred paces away when I started driving in my smoker¡¯s tunnel underneath the bottom level where the nursery and Hive Queen were. Kris actually went up the trees and started cutting down branches and leaves with Quaver, hewing through the palms and hardwood branches and sending them down to a forest floor that was also being rapidly cleared of ferns and ground growth by the Scouts, who also had to be wary of stumbling across new Summons or wandering Phyntos, which the Mick was basically tasked with clearing out and guarding against. The vent I worked through the stone under the bottom level took a couple spirals, as I didn¡¯t want anything shooting lightning down it and destroying the Fire below, while I set up a constant Gust of Wind through it to ensure rapid air flow. The first palm fronds and ferns were thrown on the flames and crackled away, venting thick black smoke from the oily secretions on them, which were quickly sucked into the vent above and sent on up into the hive. The Phantom Servants I Summoned up were a small horde of ghostly fellows in blank white masks and formal Gharu¡¯n servant uniforms. They silently got to work gathering more fronds, leaves, and branches, feeding the Flames dutifully, while everyone applauded them as they took over the routine labor. Notably, as Summons without the ability to fight, they shouldn¡¯t trigger anything to attack them, so they could keep gathering vegetation, building up a supply, and keeping the thick smoke venting up into the hive. Then it was time to seal the top of the place. To be fair, we didn¡¯t want to totally seal it, just make sure no wasps could get out of it, while leaving the ventilation intact. That first involved killing all the Wasp Summons in the area, and then having to park there and kill all the Wasps coming back after I blocked off the entry with multiple stone vents spiraling with small holes I could Gust through for more venting. I smacked the Swarms for everyone, and they took out the Wasps with arrows if they could, Weapons if they could not. Kris and the Mick could dispatch them without much trouble, although there was a lot of Lightning flying I¡¯d had to Protect and Resist against. Vivifying wasps were soon spread all over the place around the entry to the Hive, which now had a plug of stone twenty feet thick in it, well below the wax level so they couldn¡¯t dig around it readily, while a Gust of Wind on the top of it drew out the air of the Hive, and drew up the smoke from below. From there, there was casual elimination of Wasp Summons in the area, and the killing of any coming droning in with their loads of nectar to return to the hive. Kris was the one who tracked the progress of the killing of the hive below us, her Tremblesense measuring the slow decline of vibrations from below as the flying wasps ceased beating their wings and hit the ground, and then began to lose the ability to move at all. It took about two hours before the first wisps of smoke started coming up out of the surface venting, meaning smoke had completely pervaded the hive itself. I immediately stepped down the Gusts completely, letting the carbon dioxide and monoxide build up in the hive and kill them. Kris just waved to me, and I opened up the plug in series as she brought down her Mask of Clarity and the edge of her Phoenix Cloak. The one would protect her eyes from any tearing, the other would enable her to breathe without effort. She¡¯d be seeing with her Tremblesense, so actual vision wasn¡¯t important down there. Also, the place wasn¡¯t glowing golden anymore. No more suncatching when soot covered so many things, and the floors were carpeted with dead or dying wasps. Quaver hummed quietly as it plunged down precisely in repeated coup de grace thrusts and accompanying Hews and Cleaves into the Wasps, remorseless and steady as Kris got to work inside, making sure no bugs were going to survive to continue and rebuild the hive elsewhere. Outside, my Detects kept watch for incoming wasps as I meditated, the Roaches and the Mick rising to confront any that arrived. ----- ¡°Wow. That Karma award was nearly as nice as the Arm of T¡¯Thuun,¡± Kris murmured when I reported the size of the Glory Award we¡¯d received, along with a big dollop of Luminance, which Roaches and Knights of the Lost Light alike were eager to invest. That all necessitated getting familiar with what Luminance had done in the past, which wasn¡¯t necessarily what it was going to do now. Regardless, the Mick was laying out the benefits of the Path of Light he¡¯d chosen, and the Enhancements that had formed a foundation underneath it. An almost barrel-like container of stone had been erected on the first floor of the hive, which was currently drawing out streams of the honey from combs over the entire floor. It was all quite golden, because vivified wasps had nicely cleaned up the smoke and soot. ¡°Yes. Going to earn a lot of money for all this honey, too.¡± I still had five more floors to do, although the top and bottom floors had the greatest amounts of actual honey. ¡°Six forty-gallon barrels of Royal Honey, however.¡± Kris shook her head in some disbelief. I¡¯d been quick to join her down on the bottom level as she sniffed out the extremely valuable stuff. ¡°How valuable is the wax?¡± ¡°To an alchemist? There¡¯s nothing better out there for practically any use,¡± I told her. ¡°It¡¯s a QL jump to include it in anything that can use it, especially in candles, soaps, perfumes, and pills.¡± ¡°There¡¯s thousands of tons of the stuff, Ryin,¡± she told me, looking around coolly. ¡°More the volume, but I¡¯m guessing fifty Widened Tapestries to get everything out of here, given the stuff is at least two feet thick on all the stone surfaces.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ quite a few days of Valences.¡± ¡°Tell nobody to die while I¡¯m gathering wax and honey, please,¡± I muttered to her. ¡°This is literally years of alchemical goodies, especially for Healing Potions.¡± She smiled happily. ¡°And no more goddamn major Phyntos hive.¡± ¡°There are literally hundreds of tree-hives all over the goddamn island, you know.¡± ¡°I can dream, right?¡± ¡°And this is not a place for anyone under 180 and bearing really good Gear. They¡¯ll just die¡­ and it¡¯s a Luminance place. We have to preserve at least some of it for hunting for Luminance seekers.¡± AF Chapter 340 – Following the Light Princess Kristie put her hand to her forehead. ¡°Ugh, right. Only, what? Four places the Mick knew of to hunt Luminance in. This is arguably the tamest of them¡­¡± ¡°Pretty sure the Temple Island of the Moarsmen is, really, and that is a place we have to wipe clean. It really is devoted to T¡¯Thuun.¡± She looked at me. ¡°Oh. Crap. No one bothered to tell me that¡­¡± ¡°Same slithis tentacle crap as was around the Deru Tree, but scattered randomly all around the island. Corrupted and Blighted creatures, even including Golums. We¡¯re lucky there¡¯s no undead on it, but there were active Isparian converts to T¡¯Thuun at some point.¡± ¡°The influence of the Blight on this island should be gone now, although I understand the Mick said it routinely reached up to Freebooter Keep and chased away the garrisoning forces, having to be purged again regularly.¡± Kris shook her head away again, having exactly NO tolerance for Blight or Corruption. It all had to go. ¡°If that means excitement tomorrow when we go up there, so be it.¡± ¡°Ah, fuck. You can¡¯t fill this place in until you strip it down, can you?¡± she abruptly realized. ¡°She gets it in one. The tree hives are naturally going to seize this place if they can.¡± ¡°How many Tapestries a day?¡± ¡°Figure twelve tops. I can close off each level as I strip them, of course, and I should be able to get all the honey today if it¡¯s all I do.¡± Left unsaid was that I was leaving more Slots for emergencies, including Teleports off of here to anyplace I was needed. Rapid Leveling of the Support Healers was already taking much of the load off. ¡°How are you going to round up the wax?¡± Kris inquired curiously. ¡°Earth Elemental. Amorphous, stronger than the wax. Can fold it all up and clean any dirt out of it at the same time.¡± Kris looked around at the dead hive, the golden light muted and dim as some of the magical nature of it decayed with the death of all the wasps. ¡°Damn, this place is big.¡± ¡°Gonna be making candles out of this thing for decades,¡± I agreed with a sigh, watching the golden honey streaming past as I emptied out the cells with dead grubs and eggs all around. ¡°We want to take on the Keep and whatever is holding it, more for peace of mind than anything else. The Roaches already took off to scout it out for us.¡± ¡°If you need me to take it, I can get up there quickly enough, but you¡¯ve got backup Casters, and just use smart targets. Everything has to be Summons, which means they are stupid.¡± ¡°Shouldn¡¯t be an issue. I¡¯ll keep you informed.¡± ------- ¡°A few more sclavi and moarsmen than I be remembering,¡± the Mick admitted, as the two teams of Scouts and Knights linked back up. It looked like a more recently-made Aluvian design, but was rather overgrown with black ivy growing thickly upon the blued granite and even up the narrow tops of the showy and ornamental towers. It was certainly stolid and strong enough for a basic assault, but the main gates were standing wide open, and the Sclavi forming the guards there were sitting in their formations silently, as they might have been doing for the last fifteen years or something. Somehow, the grass hadn¡¯t grown any taller, either. ¡°We want to keep the wounds to a minimum,¡± Kris said. ¡°I see six archers among those sixteen sclavi out there, and another twenty archers on the walls to either side.¡± ¡°Aye, weren¡¯t so many in support before.¡± The Mick sniffed slightly. ¡°Smell that?¡± ¡°Yes, they¡¯ve got moarsmen inside as reinforcements,¡± she nodded. ¡°Immaterial without a living leader to give them orders. The key is to pull the guards over and out of range of spell support on the walls. We don¡¯t need to be bombarded on the approach.¡± ¡°And they don¡¯t have shields. Easy enough. Ye want the central line?¡± he asked rhetorically. ¡°I¡¯ll have the kids break out the Bows.¡± Kris smiled slightly. ¡°Ten on each side, lined up so nicely on the walls. Ryin would just set them all on fire from out of range.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll have to be content with Imperils and Cold Vulns,¡± the Mick sniffed. ¡°The big problem is that there be no battlements on the inside. The entire length of the walls be exposed to the inner courtyard.¡± Kris just shook her head, raven locks fluttering. ¡°Show castle indeed.¡± She pointed ahead to the Mick. ¡°Go snap the bowstrings of those archers and pull the guards up. We¡¯ll get in position.¡± ¡°¡¯Tis done!¡± he agreed happily, Bunita slapping into his hands. He quickly ordered the Roaches to take up their Bows and Autobows and line up on the bridges to support the Knights who would be coming up the middle behind a shield wall of Energized Shields that could slough off War Magic and take the direct fire of the archers without flinching.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Then he gestured, murmured a few words, and turned Invisible as he raced for the opposite side of the bridge. The tactic was simple, because Summons weren¡¯t smart. The six archers among the guards were standing there with their bows, the weapons exactly as real and unaffected by time and weather as they were, all in the same position. An opportunistic sot running along that back line could cut those bowstrings without any difficulty when suddenly coming out of surprise and make a Sundering Cleave Train along the back of their formation. Tautly-drawn strings that had magically held their strength for who knows how long snapped wickedly, startling the sclavi even as the black blur ran along behind them, hewing through bow and strings with equal opportunity, while reflexes dulled by the passage of time just watched him in astonishment for a moment as their weapons were destroyed. Then programming kicked in and hisses of alarm rose, turning the heads of the melee contingent of the gate guards. Laughing and hissing out something particularly insulting in Falatacot he¡¯d had Kris inform him of, the Mick turned the corner of the formation and ran up the orderly side, bumping the sclavi warriors there and breaking their formation up, spurring their fighting instincts up, and happily bolted for the centermost of the three long bridges that led up to the gates of Freebooter Keep. The archers on the walls woke up too, and Phased missiles with Elemental attacks peppered around him as he casually zigged and zagged, not incidentally evading hurled Bolts of magic missing as his erratic course threw off their aim, and his Magic Defense dealt with the remainder. A hissing swarm of long-legged, slender serpentine forms in armor belatedly pounded after him with strides half again as long as him and superhuman quickness¡­ but they weren¡¯t quite able to catch him as he raced for that Shield Wall of kneeling and layered Shields that were already bouncing a bunch of War Magic. Without breaking stride, his lightfoot took him ten feet into the air and over the wall of metal, and the angry sclavi nipping at his heels ran into a whole lot of braced Swords, Spears, and Shields shining with icy perfection and spirals of glittering icy Motes around them. From the side bridges, the Roaches lined up and ruthlessly shot into the sides of the sclavi mess with Coldphasing arrows, picking them off with skill and speed. Tossing them off the sides of the bridge was nominally a viable tactic, but nobody expected the six-hundred-foot fall to kill them, and they¡¯d just pop up on their spawn points again. The Knights advanced steadily, impaling the frenzied sclavi ruthlessly as the arrow fire drove into their sides. In a remarkably short time, their killing was done, and the way was open. Contrary to expectations, the Knights immediately withdrew, then instead trotted down the left bridge, the Roaches trailing after them. The archers on the wall on that side, out of range of the fight on the bridge, had gone into waiting mode, but snapped readily back up into fighting stances as the Knights crossed onto the open space between the bridges and the gates. Their attention fixated on the men and women with Shields locked and raised, they weren¡¯t prepared for Kris and the Mick to pop up behind them and smoothly toss them off right over the battlements. Although supremely coordinated and fast, the sclavi still hit the ground awkwardly, the bows in their hands sprawling and snapping as they landed, or spinning away. Smoothly, Wolfpack teams drove into them, pinning them up against the walls as the next pair of sclavi archers came hurtling over the edge. Whatever was waiting for them inside the castle finally woke up to the fighting on the walls, but that didn¡¯t stop all ten archers from doing headers over the battlements into the hungry blades waiting for them below. The two leaders promptly followed the last sclavi over, landing just outside the trios and foursomes swiftly and ruthlessly cutting down the scalvi before they could truly gather themselves. A sip of a Potion by one and another whispered spell by the other, and they vanished from sight. Sixty seconds passed while the Knights and Roaches rotated over to the other wall, and sclavi began to fall from above with hisses of surprise, spells hissing and crackling up above. Two minutes after that, Kris and the Mick ducked inside the central gatehouse, and then Kris ran along the north wall towards the east, while the Mick headed back west for the west wall. The archers on those walls naturally picked up on them, and the corner towers for some silly reason had no doors on them at all, while those outside swiftly plied vivic flames to the very visible Spawn Points of the gate guards, Sealing them from what would probably be a rapid respawn. Shields raised, Mick and Kris separately charged directly ahead and crashed into archer after archer, slamming them sideways off the walls and down into the courtyard, whose entire contingent of multi-colored moarsmen and sclavi were now focused on the two of them. Archers came in from the sides, magic thundered and lashed for them, and moarsmen below paced them along the walls as the two charged down the length of the east and west walls opposite one another, and batted all those slender sclavi archers off the walls. The sclavi archers on the south wall naturally oriented on them as they drew closer. The Knights and Roaches spun into the inner courtyard about then, smashing right into the flank of the sclavi and archers trying to snapshoot their leaders, while the entire moarsmen contingent was now pacing the duo up on the walls from the ground, along with the displaced archers. Mick and Kris had their attention, and as Summons, said attention would not shift from them unless they were attacked from another quarter. The Keep¡¯s entire melee contingent from the inner courtyard was following them from below, occasionally trying to leap up and attack them, not bright enough to find the nearest set of stairs and head for them as long as they could see their hated enemies. The Roaches and Knights took full advantage of that, charging into the backsides of their selected targets and taking down a full dozen of them almost instantly, before duos paired up and viciously cut down the Summons down from behind. Kris went up on the southern tower to take out the sclavi there, while the Mick peeked over the edge of the tower and proceeded to start sending Sharding arcs of cold scything down into the heads of the sclavi, as they were the ones Casting at him. The Knights and Roaches reciprocated by chopping at the arms of any sclavi Casting, interrupting their spells and spoiling the attacks, sometimes earning the attention of the snake-men, sometimes not. If they did, it didn¡¯t matter, as the Mick happily chopped into them from up on the wall if they turned away, and the Wolfpacks took them down. Two more sclavi came hurtling down from above, their bows cracking loudly as they hit the ground, shook their heads, and stood up, just in time for Kris for come down on top of them, driving them both to the ground again, one impaled fully through its skull with Quaver¡¯s icy length. AF Chapter 341 – Down in Freebooter Keep Quaver StandTallArakne Arms Quaver FallMain-GaucheFall A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Tall¡¯s Sharding ClanBunita Fwzap!¡­ fwzaps AF Chapter 342 – Another Blighted Hole in the Ground Thirty seconds later, the two shining Knights were back-pedaling with control and poise as five moarsmen bellowed and flailed at them with hissing acidic claws and flaming jaws. Arrows thrummed, and one moarsman dropped, half-frozen, including its entire head. The moarsmen trying to get around the sides of the shoulder-to-shoulder Knights just presented themselves to the archers, and another volley dropped another as the two parrying, defending Knights pulled quickly back to the line of their fellows. Like the jaws of a trap, the whole shield line stood up and snapped shut around the three remaining moarsmen, led by a lot of bright freezing points. Fifteen seconds later, the Summons were down. ¡°Wipe the floor!¡± Kris ordered, and the Knights raced out to finish their sweeps, poking at the floor, walls, and ceilings if they could reach them, spreading vivus everywhere. The Scouts remained where they were calmly, listening to ice-steel striking stone and spreading cold and vivus through the place. Hissing strands of Blight in the stone ignited, and five strong poofs of vivus indicated they¡¯d found the Summons points. That done, the two teams quickly circled around the ramp down, and converged on where Princess Kristie and Lord Mick were waiting patiently. The two split to the sides, and Knights warding the Scouts with the bows, certain there was nothing behind them, they started down. The chamber below was dark and dripping with Blighted mold and fungi, things that instantly erupted in vivus when touched by diamond-like motes of cold and misting Lost Light. It also had no less than four different ways out. ¡°The proper way on were to take the left wall until the Portal. If the Black Market were brought into the Dungeon, that¡¯s like t¡¯ be the strong point,¡± the Mick informed everyone, pointing in the direction those going to the Black Market in the past would take. ¡°Two knights with me, watching the rear. If they want to clog us up in one of the side passages and try to wear us down, that¡¯s fine. I want these side passages cleared up. Lord Mick, oversee the sweep.¡± That meant not to get involved if they didn¡¯t need it, and be on watch for any nasty surprises. Kris went over in front of the tunnel that Mick had pointed out, and planted herself, her two Shields, her Autobow, her arcing Tail, and her Sword of the Lost Light right in the middle of it, the two knights she¡¯d picked moving up behind her. Idly, she began shooting off Bursting Spikes all over the chamber, bringing frozen vivic flame to the Blight, and quickly started to cover the whole chamber in circles of ice and white mist. The Mick led the sweep through the other tunnels and chambers smoothly, taking no chances with combat if he didn¡¯t have to, including bringing up the Scouts to feather a dozen Summons and pull them back into the ambush of the Knights without an ounce of shame. It took them half an hour to cleanly sweep the tunnels and the chambers off them, spreading vivus everywhere with sweeping spirals of Lost Light igniting Blight everywhere. When they came back into the main chamber, there were six moarsmen Burning down with the slower speed of real creatures, and pretty much the whole place was coated in whiteness. ¡°Four real ones spread among Summons, enough ta charge out an¡¯ take the ramp if we didn¡¯t bother t¡¯ check on ¡®em,¡± the Mick informed her unnecessarily. ¡°Ten here, in addition to these,¡± Kris told him back, letting everyone else know. ¡°We can expect them to try and envelop us from all angles at some point as we go through this place.¡± ¡°Probably in the lower level,¡± the Mick agreed easily. ¡°Plenty o¡¯ chambers an¡¯ tunnels running willy-nilly in all directions down there. Every chamber like to have three or more ways in and out.¡± ¡°Since the left wall is probably the faster way down, we go along the right wall. I¡¯ll lead the sweep, the Mick will secure the rear. Our danger points will be intersecting tunnels as we move along, and them trying to cut us apart by attacking the middle of our formation. Stay tight and trust in the soldier next to you.¡± Fists clapped to breastplates, no other words spoken, and they went down the ramp to the next lower level. ------ The moarsmen didn¡¯t actually realize that Kris didn¡¯t need any kind of lights or illumination to see, unlike most Isparians. The Knights had plenty of light sources, not limited to their Swords, so fighting visibility wasn¡¯t an issue for the teams, but it did clearly mark exactly where they were from some distance. Kris¡¯ Devilsight, not so much. The moarsmen were in a side tunnel and around a corner, waiting to charge out when the team was engaged from the front. They didn¡¯t notice Kris ghost past the entry, dip her head around the corner, see them, then head to the interconnecting tunnel behind them. Instead of charging into the middle of the line of Isparians, they instead found Knights charging into both the front and back of them, pushing them together and backwards behind blindingly bright Shields while poking them all in close-quarters rather nastily.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The moarsmen belatedly running up to attack them instead ran into the Mick, two braced Knights, and all the arrow fire the Scouts could send down the tunnel to forestall the rush coming at them. Before the agitated moarsmen could force the three fighters back, Kris disengaged from the other fight and flitted up to relieve them, promptly turning the tide viciously in a whirlwind explosion of icy death. ------ Kris watched the two support mages among her students using Healing Reserve on the knights wounded by the last action for a moment before walking up to the Mick, who was studying yet another long downwards ramp with a thoughtful expression. It occupied a section of wall where once the Portal to the Black Market had existed, transformed into a long downsloping Dungeon ramp down into stinking darkness. Kris¡¯ Tail never stopped sending out frozen Spikes trailing vivus and other energies until the area was covered in Burning Blight. Likewise, every floor and the walls were traced by vivic Weapons to do the same thing. She popped all four walls of the ramp close to them with the Spikes as she walked up, generating a huff of laughter from the Mick for her casual efficiency at the task. ¡°Yeah, that smells really bad,¡± she said before he spoke. ¡°We¡¯re going to be slowed down just having to clear the area ahead of us of the stench.¡± ¡°Or be putting on Masks, aye,¡± the Mick agreed, such things being among the kit Scouts had, given some of the stuff they had to crawl through or under, including water. A little water-breathing through the new alchemical Masks was pretty damn useful, as was the way it filtered out gasses and rancid smells. ¡°Ye¡¯ve a fair nose. Worse for ye?¡± he had to ask, glancing at her wrinkled nose curiously. ¡°Yes, but I can also tolerate more, and it actually tells me more stuff. Breeding chambers and young below, for instance, as well as a Spawning Pool.¡± The Mick blinked. ¡°We¡¯ve not gone near that far¡­¡± he said slowly. ¡°Just need water and salt to make Brine, Mick. Season with Blight, and you¡¯re all good to go, I guess.¡± ¡°Huh. Bleh. Anything else?¡± He stuck out his tongue with feeling. ¡°More Blight in everything. We¡¯re likely to see a lot of mutants down here. Bigger, stronger¡­¡± ¡°Smellier?¡± ¡°Definitely.¡± ¡°The area below be three, four times the area up here, if not larger. Mmm, nae, lets go five or six if ye include the area o¡¯ the Black Market itself, which were fairly sizable.¡± A good chunk of the ramp-tunnel going down was now rimed in ice and vivus, and the mist was flowing down the slope, igniting more Blight as it did so. ¡°Eww, slick shit,¡± he observed. ¡°They be using them claws fer traction here. Slip, and ye might slide all the way to the bottom.¡± ¡°I guess someone is going to have to go down there and engage the shit certain to be waiting there,¡± Kris said fatalistically, but there was a nasty wild gleam in her pale violet eyes that promised Hell for whatever was waiting for her below. The Mick considered that. ¡°Well, then, best to use it to our advantage, aye? Disks, now, they not be sliding around,¡± he said thoughtfully. ¡°Funny how goddamn useful what essentially a cart with no wheels is, right?¡± the princess grinned. ¡°Especially fer the quick-footed an¡¯ light-fingered sorts, I be not hearin¡¯, not I,¡± he said piously. ¡°Think ye can do a fast entry and distract the heck out o¡¯ them while I trot the rest down an¡¯ get ¡®em off the Disks?¡± ¡°And here I was thinking you¡¯d have them sliding down on their shields or something,¡± she grinned. ¡°Aye, that do sound fun, but only for the first two or three. The rest would run into them an¡¯ bollox everything all up, right?¡± ¡°Yes, that is true. Also, they probably will have shamans waiting there, and there¡¯s going to be some nasty concentrated spells coming in.¡± ¡°Full Null out should take care o¡¯ that, if they aren¡¯t too ridiculous. If we can push ¡®em away from the entry, well, the kids will be up on the Disks, and their spell-flingers will be popsicles quickly enough, right?¡± ¡°Sounds like a suitably horrible plan.¡± The ramp went down for at least two hundred feet, with a slope of nearly forty degrees, Blighted moss and lichen growing over it for nastily unsure footing. ¡°They are probably planning to charge up midway and use the footing to their benefit.¡± The Mick cocked an ear at the ramp, listening to the sounds echoing up it. ¡°They be muttering in that shite they call a language. Mayhap about how the mist is setting the Blight on fire?¡± he grinned. ¡°If they get nervous and decide to charge us up here while I blast the Blight out of this tunnel, I¡¯ll be happy to let them!¡± Kristie grinned, but there was no action down below. ¡°Let¡¯s get everyone set up for the descent.¡± Kris tapped her temple. ¡°Ryin is almost done and can join us if we need it.¡± The Mick looked back at everyone. The introduction of the Matrix system had changed a lot of things among melee combatants. In particular, it had introduced the Healing Reserve, and the Combat Focus Mastery Line. Healing Reserve only healed Health, but it had an unlimited ability to do so. Thus, if you took damage on Health, it could be Healed up speedily with the Reserve, without needing Potions or spells, all you had to do was last until combat ended. Combat Vigor was the third Combat Focus Feat, and healed 4 Soak a round for at least thirteen rounds during combat. That was 52 Soak minimum going to be returned to you if you got into combat, which was a nice cushion of Soak that also didn¡¯t need to be Healed by exterior magic. Every single person here had Wands of Cure Light Wounds now, usually in a Wand Chamber on their Weapons so they could use them in combat without having to lose their Weapons to do so. The Lost Light would even swirl up around them when the magic went off, reacting to the Healing energy. The Wands were for emergencies, as they didn¡¯t Cure all that much at one time, a measly 1-8+1 damage, but they still allowed a Melee to Heal themselves up without needing a spellcaster¡¯s attention, or even a Healing Kit, the formerly magical effect which the Wands basically subbed for. More Powerful Wands, get more Healing, and the Healing Skill could also boost the amount you got from a spell or Wand. The Healing Skill combined with a Healing Kit could also treat fresh injuries fast and well, further reducing the need for Healing magic. The Combination of the two effects meant there was a decent cushion of how much punishment people could take before needing mana spent to cure them, which helped greatly extend the longevity of a fighting team. ¡°Only if we need to. She¡¯s too damn good at her job,¡± he finally said. ¡°They won¡¯t learn nuthin¡¯ if she¡¯s savin¡¯ their arses all the time.¡± Kris chuckled, but didn¡¯t deny it. AF Chapter 343 – Down another Moarsman Hole They were indeed waiting in the cavern at the bottom of the ramp, with shamans standing higher on the walls to see over their warriors, hulking and bloated moarsmen bent over with writhing black veins working over them and not a few bloated pustules extending from their tarnished scales. The light coming from above, unnatural and bright in the dim luminescence that radiated formlessly from the very air was finally wavering, and the sounds of metal in motion echoed off the stone coming from above. The warm-blooded infidels were coming¡­ Which was about when a coldly burning blur of motion shot out of the mouth of that tunnel, turning an impossible angle and running right up the side of the Blight-streaked, leaving a swath of ice behind her that hissed and spit at the Blight, bursting into pale white mistfire. Ding! Ting! ¡°Tremble, WE COME!¡± her words rang out, Whiskers of the Wild making sure it was totally understandable to them, echoing and building like knives of Thunder biting into the souls of the Moarsmen with the sudden insight that they had failed their makers and their masters in all ways. She was up the wall, then over on the ceiling, running upside down with a scuttling speed, the brightest thing in the whole room, and all the moarsmen turned to follow her as her Tail, a thing of burning frozen energy, flicked and hurled great misting frozen spikes of solid ice forth, exploding and shattering against her targets, even as arcs of frost and bolts of needled ice descended on the gaping moarsmen from the Sword and Autobow she held in her hands. ¡°Blaspheme against The Deep, betrayal of the Land...¡± Just a streak of motion, crossing the whole ceiling of the room, turning and coming down the wall¡­ Right among their shamans, all of whom were stumbling back as the Spikes detonated against them, coating them in rime and ice. The Mick slammed into the nearest moarsman to the ramp entry, driving Bunita in deep to the brute¡¯s spine and blowing frozen death through its torso as Lost Light caressed its Blighted flesh and erupted in little explosions as it did so. ¡°Steel rise in Light, to take you where you stand!¡± A dozen armored Knights of the Lost Light were behind him. Some of them leapt off the Disks they were riding, also slamming into the flanks of the moarsmen and getting in deadly first blows. Others hopped from one Disk to another to back them up with long Spears, while the last set spread out to the sides with brightly-lit Shields up and formed the cordon holding back all the rest of the moarsmen as they reeled from the blinding brilliance in their faces. ¡°Shine in ice, freeze your very souls in mist and rime!¡± The Scouts who came down last stayed on their Disks as the Disks in front of them fell to the ground, Bows and Autobows up and aiming at their targets, all thoughtfully limned in frost and mist back there and being savaged by a merciless woman Cloaked in a nimbus of blue-white freezing flames. Her Sword was moving with speed that mortal muscle shouldn¡¯t have been able to power through, took down the first of the shamans before distracted, half-blinded, and none-too-bright bodyguards could react. The Mick lashed out in all directions, his Crazy Flame swordwork the thing he¡¯d been working on the most intently for the past few months. The wild and crazy style, drawing on inner passion, was not truly natural to him, being more enamored of the powerful and sneaky underhanded style of combat himself. But he¡¯d seen the ability of the Fire Dragon swordwork and techniques to generate just impossible levels of savage speed and attacks. Coupled with the Flowing Waters swordwork finding ways through armor man-made and natural and delivering greater force with every blow, carrying those blows through to the next attack with Cleaves and Rends, and it allowed him to chase after Princess Kristie in viciousness and sword speed. ¡°To the dust, fed to the rust of sea and time ¡°And the Land feeds well today! ¡°TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Chase, but not catch. She was a Sage of the Sword, and he wasn¡¯t sure what exactly was involved in that, but it was a level of skill and understanding of Swords and swordplay at a level he just didn¡¯t have, and was pretty sure that he never would. In the meantime, the wretched, twisted moarsmen, already unnatural creatures, now twisted by Blight into things truly rejected by the world, would have to serve as the anvils he was beating his understanding of the Sword into final shape on. They needed a good and bloody beating, after all. Frozen missiles thrummed overhead, and one of the shamans kicked back against the wall, impaled and frozen to it , beginning to Burn from its Blighted sores almost instantly.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Lifted you from the darkness, but to it you¡¯ve returned Grace and glory you¡¯ve let die, with Blight and Corruption you¡¯ve spurned The Light that once embraced you! And now the price of treachery comes due! No time to regret, no time to rue, The Burning of the Blight you¡¯ve earned! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Some of the moarsmen surged back to attack Kris on her rampage among their spellcasters, some turned around to try and engage the bearers of the very painful Light hammering at their bulging eyes dripping rancid black tears at the brightness. Rogar was the only Scout not shooting, plying his Glaive Accent over the head of a younger Knight named Shao Tai, who was holding back a much larger moarsman trying to drive her back and tear aside her Shield. The arcing Glaive coming down and chopping into its head and shoulders with terrific force made a great distraction, and her short Katana Diaya was thrusting up energetically underneath her Shield into its belly repeatedly and deeply. It was a little surprised when its midsection and right arm broke off, frozen solid, and it fell in a misting pile to begin burning en vivus. Kris had simply gone up the wall a few feet to avoid the bum rush of moarsmen closing on her, scampering up out of their easy reach and sideways to her next victim. The shaman was hammered by Spikes, Bolts, and then finished with a sweep of Quaver that erupted into a blur of killing diamond lights slashing through all the moarsmen around it as it died. ¡°Tighten it up!¡± the Mick ordered between the beats of Kris¡¯ Heartsong pumping in their blood, and the line of Shields and Knights pulled back in good order. Just a step, but now they were shoulder-to-shoulder, the Spear-users were plying their Weapons over the shoulders of their fellow Knights. The last Shaman dropped to a concentrated volley from the archers, who promptly began to target the heads of the moarsmen visible over the Shields and stabbing Swords of the Knights at point-blank range. Kris was scuttling sideways along the wall, harvesting heads and flailing arms as she distributed plenty of Spikes and Bolts among her ardent pursuers, keeping them focused on her¡­ right up until the moarsmen lines attacking the Mick had thinned out, and suddenly she could drive Spikes into the backsides of moarsmen trying to claw at him and the Knights to either side of him. The moarsmen in front of and to either side of the Mick fairly fell apart into icy chunks, and now the moarsmen formation was broken and open. Mick went one way, the other two knights went the other, and the wolfpack began to rip down the length of the writhing, scaly line of moarsmen fixated on getting through the Shields with their maddening light in front of them. Efficiently coordinated attacks cut down the moarsmen with speed and ruthlessness, Kris continuing to contribute from the wall at the back of the room, triggering the Mick¡¯s Sting of the Wasp, while his Break the Shield opened up each moarsmen for extra Bolts from her Autobow, feeding into one another despite the distance between them. The Blighted moarsmen were cut down with speed and energy, actually keeping pace with Kris as she thinned down her own crowd of rabid fans trying to rip her apart and tear her off the wall in their fury and shame, raging and uncontrolled as her Song beat down on them. Her Arakne Arms keeping her Shields in their faces didn¡¯t make that any easier, happily bashing into them with icy Spikes on their surfaces at the same time as Quaver was happily tolling their doom with ding! ting! echoing forth with the syllables of a dual Heartsong. Aye, he¡¯d had the Lady Magos tell him how it worked, how that melody of Kristie¡¯s got the blood to boiling and hearts to hammering. It was a gloriously savage and unrepentantly ferocious Song that could pick up and carry whole armies on a tide of emotion and unrestrained fury, one so very different from the Sublime Chord of the Lady Magos that lit up magic as if it were alive and made it dance to the tune of spellcasters beneath it. Both of them were masters of what they called the Bardic Magic, the Heartsong, and furthermore, could Dual Sing. He¡¯d seen the way the Lady Magos¡¯ song could worry and tear at the edge of enemy spellcasters, sapping the power of their magic even as it boosted her own and those of her allies. In the same way, Princess Kristie¡¯s Trembling Song was bearing down on the Moarsmen with the power of Thunder, sapping power from their attacks and demoralizing them with fear, shame, regrets, and just plain overwhelming intimidation that ate right into their bones. There was no thinking their way out of this fight, that was sure, the moarsmen overwhelmed by their emotions and not thinking clearly, not that they had much in the way of brains to begin with. The heart-ripping condemnation of the Heartsong meant they didn¡¯t swing as hard or as accurately, more wild flailings than anything else, unable to think under the weight of the words beating down at them. It were an incredible weapon for a Warlord leading troops, and they all knew they were damn lucky to have it here, working for them. ------- The whole chamber was being hosed down, vivus chasing the Blight across the walls and ceilings as it did, the temperature dropping from the chill of the dead and the ice upon the stones. The two Knights working Healer support duty were at it again, fixing up the physical energies, and maybe topping off Soak if the Knight involved was really hard hit. The Trembling Song taking the fire out of the moarsmen really did soften the impact of the fighting. Despite them being bigger and stronger than the moarsmen upstairs, their people had actually taken less damage, and nothing truly lethal. The shamans hadn¡¯t gotten off a single spell successfully, dying along the back wall to the archers and Kris¡¯ attacks. ¡°Didn¡¯t see any warrior chief or anything. Pretty much all these places have ¡®em. Waiting for us down below, perhaps?¡± the Mick conjectured. Kris, her cold Phoenix Cloak down for the moment, looked around at the tunnels leading out of the chamber. ¡°We¡¯re in no hurry, and we aren¡¯t going to get gang-rushed from behind. We take it by the numbers, purge this place of Blight and Blighted creatures, and we¡¯ll get to the big one when it is time.¡± ¡°Ye want it alone?¡± he asked her. ¡°Do you?¡± she asked in return. ¡°O¡¯ course I do, but me ego is a shiny thing I leave in me pack for cold nights, when I can warm meself on thinking what a grand an¡¯ glorious warrior I be, all shining an¡¯ upright fancypants fer the throne now, that¡¯s me.¡± She had the grace to be amused at his description of himself. ¡°He¡¯s probably going to have some nasty guards, too, so we¡¯ll be having a time of things one way or another. If you think you can call him out, you can have him.¡± AF Chapter 344 – Moar Thrones ¡°Eh.¡± He didn¡¯t have the Whiskers of the Wild Tat, although it was something he had plans on acquiring, as why not be able to talk to dogs and fishes and whatnot? ¡°Ye¡¯ll make a better show of it, all in leathers instead of proper steel and the like.¡± She just shrugged. ¡°My smithing time is pretty damn full, and it is NOT easy making some skinplate, and I won¡¯t be satisfied with anything lesser.¡± ¡°Not blaming ye, Highness. Don¡¯t mind the view when fighting either way now, right?¡± He didn¡¯t really look back at the Knights waiting there, but there was a burst of coughing and creaking as heads turned away behind him. She just took it with an eight-canine smile that looked deadly enough on its own. ¡°Enjoy it while it lasts! Of course, skinplate has its own form of sex appeal.¡± She sidled her hips just so, the Mick clapped his gauntlet over his eyes, and a whole bunch more coughs sounded behind him. ¡°That¡¯s really unfair, Highness!¡± Milee piped up from the back. ¡°Imperial privilege!¡± Kris shot back promptly, pointing. ¡°We clear this place clean and true. I¡¯m Vanguard, Lord Mick is Rearguard! Form it up and let¡¯s start clearing this place!¡± ----------- There was a lot of Blight to send Burning in misty iceflame, but their progress was fairly quick and by the numbers. There were two attempts to box them in with numbers and sandwich them between larger numbers, attempts that ran into the Mick, Kris, and Shield walls that stopped them cold and violently, while driving spears and icy missiles tore them steadily apart as the Blighted moarsmen fought to the bitter end. Down two more sub-levels, clearing out two Spawning pools with Sweet Water Potions that destroyed all the spawn and eggs within them immediately, even if vivus didn¡¯t go shooting them through removing the magic and Blight in them at the same time. Breeding females, moars, young moars; all were cut down without exception, all of them Blighted and infected with the otherworldly black corruption of T¡¯Thuun. The final flight down brought them in a cave system carved out with modern methods and lined with bricks, more a subterranean dwelling than a cave system. Obviously built by Isparian hands, it also had been infiltrated by the Blight in great thick veins and patches of slime and mold stained an oozing black. There were a couple attacks by more heavily built moarsmen with thicker scales, and desperate priests tossing Lightning and other spells behind them. All were dealt with as the teams rolled through the corridors, clearing them out and living nothing intact behind, making sure nothing was infiltrating behind them as they slowly moved in on the final chamber, where once the Black Market had held its gathering of cheap illicit goods to tempt the most powerful of the warriors on Dereth to part with their money. The remnants of the moarsmen were gathered in that final chamber. What remained of their breeders, and the fighting population, along with at least a score of moarsmen head and shoulders taller than their compatriots. The king was almost completely black of scale, standing before a crude throne of cut ivory from one of the gigantic niffi shells, also infected with veins of black. He was also a full eight feet tall, and had four massively clawed arms. The stench was incredible, and everyone had Masks on just so they could breathe freely, even if the vivus on their Weapons was burning heartily and attempting to clear the air. Kris stood out in front of the line of Shields, all of them set with Vivic Eternal Lights and lighting up the whole room. She noted moarsmen heading out the other opening, intending to circle around them and cut them off, and Quaver dinged once to tell everyone to watch out behind. The Mick was back there with four knights and the archers. The flank attack wasn¡¯t going to go anywhere. That said, such things should be done properly. She raised Quaver, the Lost Light sparkling diamonds of cold, clear Light across the enlarged eyes of the moarsmen, and held him out, pointing at the king on his throne. The shamans to either side of the King leveled their staves at her and sent out, not lightning, but the purple-black of Void magic! Kris was offended, but not surprised in the slightest, that they¡¯d be using the most corrupted magic known to the natives of Dereth. Elemental resistances naturally meant nothing to such necroic magic, but magic was still magic, and it still had to pierce her Null, and get past her Shields and Sword. The first one hit her Null and faded into nothing. The second punched into it and maintained its cohesion, like feeling a sick, slimy force intruding on her soul. Quaver sliced across with a flick of her wrist as Kris Spellcut it, shattering the spell into useless fragments that dissipated into her Null. The contempt in the gesture was complete, and the two, obviously the strongest of the six shamans she could see, clearly hesitated to unleash another spell volley at her.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. They didn¡¯t know the spells would just bounce off her Shields Stand and Tall, either, but they¡¯d find that out, too. The king growled, black tears dripping from eyes that burned with corrupt dark fires inside. He made a dismissive gesture to the shamans, spreading his massive claws and thick arms and roaring in a voice loud enough and deep enough to shake the stones about them. A Hag¡¯s Cackle cut through the roar like a nerve-jangling knife, and ding! ting! rang out like bells riding ki. Princess Kristie spread all four of her arms wide, showcasing two Shields with Burning icy Spikes on them, her Autobow Drop gleaming a fresh icy Quarrel ready to launch, and her Tail arched overhead, its four Spikes rotating slowly about it, Burning with flames identical to those on Drop. With a rush, her Phoenix Cloak manifested as an icy shroud around her, guaranteeing that hitting her was going to be painful, but it didn¡¯t deter the King at all. With another roar that spewed black flames in a cone for ten feet in front of him, his claws dripping something noxious and black, he charged at her. Her Shield locked in front of her, her Autobow leveled over them, and Spikes began to cycle on her Tail. ¡°Tremble, I come.¡± Just the slightest flicker of the eyes that the source of the melody and Song that had been chasing the moarsmen through the stones of their cave was right in front of them, and she had as many arms as the King! Hissing autobolts went out to greet the King as he charged, shattering against his bulk as Health Qi vaporized in the rain of chillingly accurate fire. Her counter-charge only covered ten feet, and she didn¡¯t have a quarter of his mass, but her heavyfoot was incredible, and she was far, far stronger than she had any right to be. Her Shields weren¡¯t battered aside, and she wasn¡¯t swatted aside or run over like she should have been. The surprise on the King¡¯s face was completely evident when she stopped him cold, and he even forgot to breathe in her face. Maybe because Quaver was sticking right through his throat and out the back of his neck from the Archer Stand Thrust. ¡°Oaths to the Light, Oaths to the Deep, their prices must have been too steep. Fools and Beasts fallen to T¡¯Thuun, your traitor¡¯s ends come none too soon. Tremble, I come! Ohhhh, Tremble, Tremble, Tremble¡­¡± Her blade dance erupted into motion as he heaved himself off her Blade and began to hammer and claw at her, lunging at her with flames made more of poison than fire. They spattered against her Phoenix Cloak, were deflected by her Shield, and smacked into motes of Lost Light that beat them and the hissing droplets of acid from his claws away one on one. Frost erupted upon the massive claws hammering and ripping for her repeatedly, blew apart with Health Qi, and returned in the next second as his rain of blows continued with untiring stamina and tremendous force. He could not, however, compete with her speed, nor the Tail and Autobows that could attack from any angle and punch in deep, opening him up for lightning-quick stabbing thrusts or slicing cuts that sheared into his steel-hard scales and the muscle beneath like they were a thin veneer. Her Sword was replying to every blow, and amazingly out-trading him in pure speed. Wasp Stings drove in to take advantage of arrow fire, Breaks the Shield exploited the openings to drive another Quarrel in deep, Sword beats Fist triggered off his using natural Weapons, Riposte triggered when he missed a clawing attack, and Supernatural Opportunist triggered when he tried to breathe at her over her Shields. If he tried to move, Thorned Hedge triggered Stand Still, and a cut of frozen energy locked him into place, unable to do more than try to spin around and keep her in sight, while Defensive Sweep triggered when he remained in place, and Rending Cleave triggered when she landed successive attacks, promptly escalating into Seven Rending Dragons as she continued to land chains of attacks with incredible speed and vicious. Ranged Flanker triggered Flanking Opportunist and all her Sneak Attack damage added on top of the stack. Pretty much nobody watching her could believe she was moving as fast as she was, her Shields counter-bashing against all its blows, and she was never thrown off her feet by the impact of the blows. If he actually tried to grab at her, the grasping claws were sheared through and he had to release her in numbing paralysis as she twisted out of his grip. The Thunder in her Heartsong was bearing down on the King, and the penalties of her Sneak Attacks were slowing it down even further, making it even more awkward and flailing as its Health Qi dropped like a rock and it kept swinging wildly at her. ¡°You sought the Blight, now feel the Light, You fled The Deep, now go to sleep Forever and gone, there is no dawn Where you go to T¡¯Thuun, Blighted Pawn, You¡¯re going to feed the Land! Die where you stand! Tremble, I Come!¡± The Blood Rose ignited as a strike sliced across both goggling eyes for a moment, and then she was standing still and executing a full Flurry at eye-blurring speed. Crits detonated in blasts of frost one after another, swallowing the King in dozens of overlapping Bursts as he fought to clear his vision, building, building¡­ His Health Qi ran out, and true blood sprayed in every direction, freezing in the air, black blood crystallizing and flaming vivic white, misting as one, two, three, seven petals formed in the air. The moarsman king fell over heavily, right through the misting white flower in the air, and was ablaze with vivus before he hit the ground, scales already starting to corrode away as the Blight on him flared up and was devoured. Princess Kristie stopped for a moment, although Quaver¡¯s ringing two-tones did not stop their rhythm for a moment. Slowly, she turned around, black wounds on her skin steaming as they ignited with cold vivic fire from where the Moarsman King had landed several blows and ripped at her, finding her curiously hard to tear apart. ¡°TREMBLE!¡± she declared to them, leveling her Sword, and the moarsmen screamed and charged at her. She slid backwards without moving her feet at all, drawing them in towards the Shield wall waiting for them, and as combat erupted at the back of the invaders, the final battle commenced at the front. AF Chapter 345 – A Miner Secret ¡°Hey, Mick, look at this.¡± Princess Kristie was standing in front of an unremarkable section of wall at the back of the throne room, the room itself now completely covered in vivic mist from dead Blighted moarsmen and the amount of Blight being Burned off the floor, walls, and ceiling. The remains of tables and shelves could be seen scattered on the floor by the walls, evidence of the merchants and their presence here at one point, but nothing was intact, it all broken and rotted by the acidic touch of the moarsmen and the corruption of the Blight. Indeed, those remnants were burning away as thoroughly as the Blight itself. The Mick wandered over. Physically he was fine, Healing Edge having kept him in the fight and the game, but his Soak was down by over half, so he was wary of getting into another big fight. Princess Kristie was all healed up from her fight with the king and then its bodyguards thereafter, despite having been severely mauled from all the moarsmen trying to get to her¡­ and that was with Healing Edge feeding her Health, too. It was just that she had far more than any normal human did from her Rantha Racial Class. ¡°What an inneresting section o¡¯ wall ye¡¯ve discovered?¡± he asked her, staring at the brickwork with a raised eyebrow, his hand on Bunita just in case of something surprising. ¡°Yes.¡± She reached out, stuck her finger in the decayed stub of a torch holder there, and pulled down. With frankly startling quiet and smoothness, the bricks slid open on counterweights, grinding a little with dust and growth in the way, the top of it uneven and blending artfully into age cracks in the mortar. The Mick stared at the new opening in some surprise. ¡°Well now, that were never something they had open back when I used t¡¯ visit here. An¡¯ not something they wanted their guests t¡¯ know about either, I be takin¡¯ it¡­¡± ¡°They were lowlifes. Can you picture them NOT having a secret way out of this place if the Societies got fed up with them and decided to just storm the place?¡± Kris purred knowingly. The door started to close, and there was a blur of motion as Quaver was stabbed into the brick and stone like it was soft cheese. There was a distinct clank of something being severed, and the closing door stopped instantly as the cable of its counterweight was cut through. ¡°The moarsmen obviously didn¡¯t know of it, either, so let¡¯s go see what was in here, shall we?¡± The Mick waved over the Roaches, keeping them on guard, and the two officers stepped into the quiet of the hallway beyond. It was bricked for the forward part of it, and they found lines of old storerooms, still holding crates of old supplies, both weapons and mundane. Most of them were shot through with accelerated rust, with anything magical or unstable either corroded to rot or having burned out rather explosively at one point. Alchemical arrowheads, for example, had reduced the entire inventory of archery supplies to char and ash. There was an office with a tightly locked door, which actually still had a working magical trap on it of dangerous strength. Kristie cut through the mechanical and magical portions of the trap, then stuck her black nail in the lock, manifested her soulclaw, and opened it with a turn of her hand. It looked like an office of some kind, complete with a fairly intact table, magical lighting source, and cabinets holding what looked to be bottles of booze. Papers were scattered all over the place, clearly abandoned in haste, and the place looked to have been spared most of the decay that had taken over the storerooms. The Mick had a wry smile as he picked up a stack of brightly lettered bills on the ground. ¡°Ever seen these, lass?¡± he asked, picking them up and waving them to her. ¡°Paper money?¡± she asked, picking up one of the wine bottles, still in its rack and stored on its side. She blew the bottle fairly clean of dust and pulled out the cork with her fingertips somehow, not even breaking it, and gave it a sniff. ¡°Wine¡¯s still good.¡± She took a long draw of it, then held it out for him, and they swapped handfuls. ¡°Och, this be the old Monkner Red, done by his vineyards near Cragstone. One of the best wines they be growing here,¡± the Mick said after a long and satisfied draw himself. ¡°Those be the infamous MMD¡¯s of yore, lass. Each bill equal to two hundred and fifty thousand pyreal coins.¡± She thumbed through the thick stack once, raising a dark eyebrow at him. ¡°There¡¯s two hundred and fifty bills here, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°A full stack, aye. I knew it as soon as I picked them up.¡± He pointed at a couple others bundles tumbled in the corner, dust on them. ¡°These were the standard trading instruments towards the end here. Some o¡¯ the things in the Black Market here would cost ye half a stack or more o¡¯ the bills, an¡¯ even the cheap stuff were often ten or more.¡±Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. She still held up the stack, looking back and forth from him to it. ¡°Do you realize how much pyreal this represents, Lord Mick?¡± she asked in some disbelief. ¡°Sixty-two million pyreal coins,¡± he nodded immediately. ¡°Lord Mick, that¡¯s like three HUNDRED tons of pyreal coins,¡± she uttered in disbelief. ¡°Just how much precious metal did you people have sitting around?¡± ¡°The vendors were NPC¡¯s. They just had enough o¡¯ it. Mind you that those bills weren¡¯t just printed off. Ye actually had t¡¯ have pyreal coin t¡¯ gain them, which generally were earned by selling loot from monster drops an¡¯ the like. Towards the end, we¡¯d salvage the loot all down for raw materials an¡¯ sell the bags o¡¯ salvage instead, unless it were a really pricey item. They¡¯d charge us 275k for the MMD bill there, making a nice profit for themselves, but the MMD¡¯s took up a lot less room.¡± ¡°And now they are tinder for the fires. I want the metal that they are worth!¡± Her eyes lit up strangely. ¡°Are there any places you know of that might have NPC¡¯s who survived the Fall and can cash these in?¡± The Mick blinked. ¡°Merchant NPC¡¯s who survived the Fall? I don¡¯t¡­¡± he frowned, trailing off. ¡°There were Dungeons where NPC¡¯s existed, just like here, but out o¡¯ the way, in addition to those wandering around in the wilds. I dinnae think there are any in the wild what survived the Fall without coming t¡¯ town, but NPC¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°Not just NPC¡¯s, but NPC¡¯s who never updated to the changing times. The merchants in Stonehold don¡¯t accept MMD¡¯s anymore, they¡¯ve shifted to the new paradigm and are mostly free of NPC status, likely because Briggs was there so long. But if there are some who are still plugged into the old iteration of the system, and haven¡¯t had any meaningful visitors¡­¡± she trailed off. ¡°Me first thought is the Underground City, aye, but that be near Cragstone, an¡¯ I be sure that Bonecrusher cleared that out o¡¯ anything Isparian, an¡¯ drudges infest it now.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the island in the center of the lake where they buried Thorsten, right?¡± she asked to confirm her memory of it. ¡°I do seem to remember drudges on the beaches of the place in the morning when Ryin and I ran by it, back when we first arrived.¡± ¡°Aye. So, there were faction headquarters, and society headquarters, but all o¡¯ those were destroyed or overrun, naught remained behind that didn¡¯t die. The only one I be thinking that might still be intact be the Mountain Sewers by Mayoi.¡± ¡°And why would it be intact?¡± she asked reasonably. ¡°Because Mayoi be the territory o¡¯ the master¡¯s undead, an¡¯ they be having no reason to go in an¡¯ explore it all these years. The place were infested with zefir spawns, an¡¯ nothing ever tried to infiltrate it without causing a ruckus an¡¯ bringing shite down on them. We can ask the Old Master, but I¡¯m pretty sure he never checked out the bottom o¡¯ the place, even though it had a lifestone in it. Sure¡¯n nobody ever considered it a place to hide in, despite all that was happening.¡± ¡°Sure, it would just be dying in a hole in the ground.¡± She waved the stack of old bills at him. ¡°But if it¡¯s just them, it may not have reset the system. Three HUNDRED TONS of pyreal, Lord Mick, right here.¡± He looked at her, then bent down and picked up the other stacks of old bills on the floor, carefully tucking them into his Masspack. ¡°Ye know, most o¡¯ the older sorts wanted to hold onto the bills for novelty sake, but they degraded and moldered away over time. I don¡¯t know anyone who actually has any o¡¯ the old bills,¡± he said thoughtfully, and looked around, his dark eyes narrowing suddenly. ¡°That much metal, it would do a lot fer payin¡¯ fer new Artifice, would it not?¡± ¡°Three hundred tons translates to sixty thousand man-days of goldweight, twice that if used for air or lightning-type magic. That could be most of a year¡¯s supply of the stuff.¡± ¡°Then we should be looking for more worthless paper,¡± he said urgently. ¡°Bottom drawer,¡± she said to him, kicking the desk. ¡°They didn¡¯t have time to clean it out, I gather.¡± The Mick moved around the side and carefully eased open the bottom drawer, pulling it all the way out and setting it on the random papers on the desk there¡­ papers drifting off it and the ground now, as Quaver was gathering them all up while floating about on its own, using Prestidigitation magic. He eyeballed it expertly. ¡°Twenty-four stacks. Same size as what one of the old backpack compartments would hold.¡± He slid open the other drawers, just to be sure, and there was only one more stack in the back of one of them. Kris was looking through the paperwork discarded randomly about them, while the Mick dropped the stacks of old MMD notes into his Masspack. ¡°More fine reading?¡± he asked, watching her expression as she thumbed through the goods there. ¡°Names of who the Freebooters were buying and selling their goods from, crafters who were making some of them. Basically contracts and invoices. Freebooting my arse, this is decent accounting.¡± ¡°I might know some o¡¯ those names,¡± he offered. ¡°You might, indeed, although I¡¯m not sure what good it will do us now.¡± The thick stack of those went with the bundle of MMD¡¯s she held into her own pack. ¡°I think we need to search the rest of the rooms, right?¡± ¡°Aye, I be thinking they might have left some money behind, thinkin¡¯ t¡¯ come back for it, or, belikes, not giving a shit for pocket change bein¡¯ lost, aye?¡± He watched her take the booze off the wall for her backpack with approval, taking another slug of the wine as she did so, and they laughed as they swapped the bottle back and forth until it was gone as they headed out to explore the rest of the place. ------ ¡°Valus be praised an¡¯ Aru bring His light o¡¯ discovery to us,¡± the Mick breathed out, putting his hand on the roughly-hewn wall of the corridor that had wound down and around from the rooms of the Freebooters above. A vein of bright green pyreal ore, interspersed with odd milky white crystals, spread out wider than his hand as it extended through the stone. The two of them walked quietly through the open mine, looking at the thick veins and quality of the pyreal. ¡°This was the stuff they didn¡¯t mine,¡± Princess Kristie pointed out in a low voice, and the Mick nodded slowly. Five minutes and two levels down later, they stared at the end of a rough corridor, rocks still scattered about it, the mining tracks leading up to it and stopping here. The wall had a display of pyreal ore at least five feet across in all dimensions. AF Chapter 346 – Is This for Pyreal? Tapestry Geas Shaping Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. DuplicatingFabricating MendingReconstructionReformation Tapestry AF Chapter 347 – A Note for Posterity Teleport TapestriesTeleported This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Endure Crushing Blow Geases Darts AF Chapter 348 – Heavy Notes Finding the area with the undead and the glowing Stones and old Crossbow sitting around wasn¡¯t that difficult, and Master Ben Ten was pleased to deal with all of the revenants there with a misting Blade of Firephased flame. Everyone knew I could have waved my hand and exterminated them, but both of the men with me considered it a point of pride that I not have to in a place like this. Master Ben Ten actually took temporary leave of us as we found the forked area; one branch leading to the underground town, the other to where more undead existed. Briggs led the way down, dealing with any minor annoyances on the way. The first affirmation that we were truly in the right place was the Deathstone Crater. This had been one of the very rare places that had one of the great blue Crystals and wasn¡¯t outdoors, making it pretty unique as such things went. It was also why it was called an underground city, even though only three NPC¡¯s had dwelled down here. Resupply questions were actually simple, as at one point people had been able to Recall to their Lifestones, so the natives could have used a Lifestone Tie to go to a city, buy up things, then Recall back here. But still, nobody came here. There was no reason to use this as a base of operations at all. The shattered blue crystal fragments were still embedded in the floors, walls, and ceiling, unworn at all by the lack of weather, humming with uncontrolled mana and power fresh and unconstrained. Briggs held out Endure. Lost Light spirals rode up around the Greathammer, reaching out aggressively for those blue crystals, quietly setting them on vivic fire in sparkling Motes of electrum Light. ¡°Up there,¡± I gestured to him, his eyes roving the pit. Only two skeletons, fused in the crater around where the crystal¡¯s stand had once been, both Isparians. Truly a Deathstone that hadn¡¯t seen much active use. I imagined it might have been a supplier or a smuggler converting coin in a place away from other eyes¡­ or someone who was simply being hunted by others and wanted a Deathstone nobody was going to bother camping. There were stairs going up to the higher level in one of the nearby rooms, but Briggs just hopped up to the second floor with barely a flexing of his knees, and I followed him up. The people there were NPC¡¯s for certain. Despite being sealed away from resupply and human contact, their clothes were in perfect shape, they were waiting at their positions for us, and they weren¡¯t even dusty or anything. The smith there hadn¡¯t fired his forge up for years, that was certain, yet there wasn¡¯t a trace of dust on his anvil, forge, or tools. He was of southern blood, skin even darker than mine and hair just as white. He looked quite stern and stolid, waiting patiently in silence as we came into view. I looked at Briggs, who shook his head, keeping his Source Aura tight. The peddler was Aluvian. Briggs had a thoughtful eye as he scanned the wares the blond, brown-eyed man had ready. ¡°Welcome! What¡¯s your pleasure today?¡± the man asked forthrightly, as if we weren¡¯t the first other souls he¡¯d seen in over fifteen years. I noted he had bread and cheese on display. If he had extra-dimensional storage, which I was sure he did, that was a monotonous food source, and flasks of water were available, too¡­ ¡°That is a lot of clothing and leather goods, Ryin,¡± he murmured under his breath. ¡°Doesn¡¯t convert the higher notes,¡± I said to him, and he nodded, having seen the same thing. ¡°We¡¯ll be back, sir,¡± Briggs promised, and was there just the tiniest flicker of light in those eyes, as if something had suddenly woken up after so long a period of isolation? The last person here was an Archmage, the title given to those who made and sold magical components around here, ranked silver by the Scarabs she had setting out. All her herbs were still fresh. I shook my head in some disbelief, although it wasn¡¯t impossible if preservation spells were applied repeatedly. Briggs eyed the racks of spell components and alchemical supplies. ¡°Anything the alchemists might want in bulk?¡± he asked me quietly. ¡°Plenty. There¡¯s no unlimited reserve of the raw materials around like there used to be, amazingly enough. Even basic Scarabs are harder to make than before.¡± ¡°We might be able to purchase all you might want for some time,¡± he pointed out softly. ¡°The Mick specifically said that he doesn¡¯t ever remember a true vendor ever selling out of anything.¡± ¡°I¡¯m aware, and while this isn¡¯t unlimited funds, it is a lot of them¡­ and she takes all Note sizes.¡± ¡°Make the cube.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I eyed the stone floor, and the wall that opened out to the larger cavern that these rooms had been built up in. At the touch of Shaping Stone, the stone turned into a circle in front of the short, prim woman in Sho archmage robes waiting patiently for us to come to her, as if that was the only reason we would be here. She glanced at the empty basin curiously, and then actually raised an eyebrow as the wall of her room flowed away and the floor poured down, forming a sluice down to a twenty-foot cube that actually had to empty out of the floor below. I tossed an Itemized square of cloth out of my Vest, and it settled smoothly and snugly on the floor of the cube down there. Briggs waited until everything was ready, then turned back to the archmage waiting there with eternal patience. ¡°Good afternoon! My name is Briggs, Commander of the free military forces of Osteth here.¡± ¡°Hello! How may I be of service to you today?¡± she replied mechanically. He didn¡¯t ask for her name, and he kept his Source Aura leashed for the moment. Instead, he flipped out the first thick stack of MMD notes. ¡°We¡¯d like to cash these in please, prior to making some purchases.¡± She reached out and took the bundle, pausing for a moment. ¡°You do not have enough room to carry all these coins,¡± she reported after a moment, eyeing him strangely. He simply gestured at the sloping stone basin waiting there. ¡°If you could deposit the funds there, I am sure that you will find that I have plenty of room.¡± Just the tiniest pulse of Source Aura, changing the parameters. ¡°Very well. Here are your funds.¡± And an absolute flood of pyreal coins materialized out of nowhere, pouring in a tinkling stream down that flowing ramp and into the cube formed outside the room, while I hastily set up a Prestidigitation going at VI+1 to perform the simple task of stacking those coins neatly as fast as they came down. In no time at all, a third of the cube was covered in neat rows of pale green coins, stacked perfectly tight in the constrained space. ¡°How are we doing?¡± Briggs asked me, while I looked down at nearly three thousand cubic feet of pyreal, almost three hundred tons of goldweight. It was a completely nonsensical display of wealth. A literal dragon¡¯s hoard, stacked nice and tight in a stone cube. Despite weighing less than half what true gold did, it was just an obscene amount of money. ¡°Give her another one,¡± I said softly, and the floor warped and the wall faded away as I made up another pit to handle the overflow of what was coming. Briggs politely pulled out another stack of MMD¡¯s and handed them over to be cashed in. Another clattering deluge of pyreal streamed into existence with magical speed and filled up the new cube to over two-thirds full. I calmly siphoned off the required amount for the third flow of coins to fit in the cube, about twenty million coins draining sideways into the second cube. ¡°Again.¡± A third flow clinked its way down the flow, and magic rippled and stacked them perfectly solid in the first cube there, right to the limits of the spell which was coming. Briggs had to come over to look at it. ¡°Damn,¡± he said, not sure he was really seeing what he was. ¡°That is a LOT of goldweight,¡± he murmured, rather stunned at the sight. ¡°Three hundred and fifty-two thousand goldweight,¡± I said softly. His hands creaked inside his gauntlets. ¡°And you can Tapestry all of that¡­¡± I reached down to the cloth underneath all of that coinage, and applied the spell. There was just a shimmer, and then the coins were suddenly gone, as was the containing cube. Down in the pit of the floor below, the white cloth of the tapestry now displayed a woven picture of a tall cube brimming with gleaming pale green coins. ¡°Burn a thousand goldweight a day for a whole year¡­¡± he murmured, as the cloth below folded into eighths, then rolled up into a long roll and was tugged up to my hand by Zeks. He stepped over to where like a mere four million or so pyreal coins were stacked in the second pit. ¡°I was wondering about making some buys, but I¡¯ve reconsidered my position on the matter,¡± he announced quietly. ¡°If this is a windfall, best to use it all. Did I or did I not recall hearing from the scour teams about finding MMD notes in some of the housing chests they went into, dismissed as just paper at the time?¡± I asked. Briggs reached up to the bridge of his nose, and in the Markspace a blizzard of Utterly Top Priority orders went out to people all over Osteth, interrupting a whole lot of plans and standing orders with absolute urgency, based on reports from the Scour teams. The MMD¡¯s used to start fires were now going to be sorely missed¡­ sort of. ¡°Twenty-two more to go for now,¡± Briggs said. ¡°Why don¡¯t you look at her stuff and make a shopping list.¡± ¡°Already done.¡± Something in my voice made him look at me sharply. ¡°What is it?¡± he said, almost afraid to ask. ¡°She¡¯s selling component Peas.¡± I lifted my hand up, thumb and forefinger rubbing together. ¡°Those are¡­ lightweight, compressed spell components, you need a special tool to break open?¡± he recalled, frowning slightly. ¡°All of which broke at the Fall, scattered tons of flaming components all over the place, by the reports,¡± I confirmed. ¡°So, I never got a close look at them. The archmage in Martine¡¯s Chamber didn¡¯t sell them anymore, presumably because Martine updated them. This woman was never updated, presumably because no Isparians ever interacted with her to update her.¡± ¡°There¡¯s something special about them?¡± ¡°The reason you need a special tool to break them open is because they used goddamn Quintessence to make a Pea, Briggs.¡± Briggs blinked. ¡°Quin...tessence?¡± He slowly turned around and stared at the neat rows of Scarabs, herbs, talismans, powders, and candles sealed up in their little green marble-sized spheres, either twenty Scarabs or fifty each of the other components visible there compressed into a little sphere weighing maybe an ounce. ¡°Spatial AND temporal collapse without a resonance field effect?¡± he mumbled, seeing no distortion around the rows of neat green components. ¡°Uruth and his philtres, isn¡¯t that like¡­ Legendary Alchemy?¡± ¡°Uh huh. A verifiable Seventh Circle Alchemical effect,¡± I confirmed for him. Briggs rocked back on his heels. ¡°What Valence to duplicate?¡± he asked calmly. ¡°At least a IX, but I¡¯m guessing X.¡± ¡°Do you know the spells there?¡± I had a huge list of spells backloaded from Aelryinth, after all. ¡°No, it has to be highest-end Empyrean Alchemy to do that. There¡¯s not a single mage or alchemist in Dereth who recalls how to make peas. ¡®Someone was making them¡¯ is all they remember when they suddenly became available.¡± ¡°So, they¡¯re a look into the Empyrean System.¡± ¡°And some pretty freaking complex interactions into temporal and spatial magic.¡± ¡°How much do you need?¡± AF Chapter 349 – Time, Space, and Money Charging Up ¡°We need the Quintessence for the research, not the stuff it¡¯s wrapped around. The cheapest pea she has is Lead Scarabs there. Buy ten thousand of them,¡± I told Briggs calmly. ¡°Done. What else?¡± he asked. ¡°We can get aqua incanta and neutral balms from her for a quarter of the current production cost. She also has alembics for a song and dance. If we want to start up serious Potion production, another thousand alembics will save us about six months of work and delays. ¡°Ten million prismatic tapers. A hundred thousand of each Scarab she has, other than Lead. Ten of each other Pea. Ten thousand prismatic taper Peas as a combat reserve for battle mages.¡± That was going to cost tens of millions of pyreal, but Briggs didn¡¯t bat an eye. We were going to walk away with like eighty Tapestries of pyreal. Eighty years of a thousand people spending a goldweight a day. Losing a decade meant nothing. It was free money, and if he Burned it all away making stuff that they needed, so be it. ¡°And here I was thinking ten thousand pairs of shoes and sets of clothing from the peddler might be a little excessive.¡± ¡°Magical clothing that auto-sizes to whoever puts it on.¡± He blinked again. ¡°Damn!¡± he muttered. ¡°Fifty thousand, then¡­¡± Enough to give every male, female, and child in the Freehold Alliance at least two sets. ¡°Missed the things on the top left there?¡± Helplessly, Briggs looked back again, even as he took out three more stacks of MMD notes. Four vaguely egg-shaped stone-like objects with lines crossing them waited on the racks there. ¡°Never seen them before,¡± he admitted. ¡°Be surprised if you had. Those are reusable mana stones, Briggs.¡± His breath hissed out. ¡°Capacitors for mana for the old Artifice system¡­¡± Which naturally had blown the fuck up during the Fall and made a mess of many archmages selling them¡­ or adventurers who had them in their packs or in storage, just like their fully charged counterparts. ¡°And something nobody remembers how to make now, once again. We can make mana charges, even back in Ispar, but we couldn¡¯t make potentially reusable ones.¡± ¡°How important are those?¡± ¡°Recharging charged magic items is always one of the trickiest things to do with Artificing. You ever hear of someone recharging a Wand? None of the Isparian Artifice could be recharged personally at all. You had to use Mana Charges or the Stones.¡± ¡°Figuring out how to recharge the Stones means potentially figuring out the rest of the Isparian Artifice with your own power, and a potential leap to figuring out Wand recharging with your own power, too?¡± He let his unique single-note whistle simmer out carefully. ¡°If it can be done without goldweight, that¡¯s huge, Ryin¡­¡± ¡°I know. I don¡¯t know metal and prices. Is it worth the pyreal to buy maces as just raw metal? I know we¡¯ve got the lugians pulling out metal for us now that the Gotrok are gone, but I still wonder.¡± He glanced back in the direction of the smith, calculating. ¡°It would take care of backed-up demand by weight. The weapons themselves are basically beginner Weapons at best, only good for¡­ training¡­¡± ¡°Like the leather and armor that fits to whoever wears it?¡± He sighed and made mental notes that he was going to be some making armories with training sets. Probably have to paint them bright yellow or something, too. ¡°Okay, so at least a couple thousand sets of everything there, too.¡± ¡°That cheese looks like a good solid cheddar wheel, and the peddler¡¯s got unlimited milk, if you care to grab some of that, too, as well as flasks for a basic kit.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to be spending a lot of money here,¡± Briggs remarked thoughtfully. ¡°I¡¯ll have to make custom pits so the components don¡¯t crush one another and such, and use TK to stack everything, but that¡¯s nothing,¡± I agreed. ¡°That milk looks to be almost half-gallon jugs, so fifteen or so to a cubic foot, eight thousand cubic feet. A hundred and twenty thousand milk jugs to fill a cube.¡± ¡°What are you going to make with that much milk?¡± he wondered. ¡°A lot of butter, cream, and cheeses.¡± ¡°How many Tapestries do you have available?¡± ¡°If I set here and regain mana, all that we need.¡± His hairy ear twitched. ¡°One of the Scour teams said they found another few thousand MMD notes they had ignored earlier in the chests¡­ damn, they were finding some under the rubbish stacked up in the Apartment drops, too. They¡¯re scrambling for them now.¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Just one of those notes is 500 goldweight.¡± There was almost nothing more valuable that the men could find now. ¡°Which means we¡¯re racing the Freeholders to all the cabin and chest sites across Dereth, and they don¡¯t even know why.¡± There¡¯s no way the news could be kept secret. ¡°Assuming that they haven¡¯t been looted already, at least once we start making purchases,¡± I pointed out. ¡°The only way that we¡¯d be looking for the notes is if we found a place we could spend them at. So, they¡¯ll instantly be looking for the place¡­ and if they find it, they¡¯ll spur a System purge and reset all that much faster.¡± ¡°Mmmm. So, you¡¯re saying we can convert and buy as much as we like as fast as we like, but as soon as this starts becoming widely-known, the change will happen faster.¡± ¡°Just like spurring things with your Source Aura. If we buy things and just stick them somewhere nobody knows about, they probably won¡¯t notice anything, or take no action. If we start opening up the food and repressed economy suddenly, the reaction from the System will likely be very quick.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to pull both Kris and the Mick off Freebooter Island and onto wild runs to the housing settlements that we know of. Elysa and her people, too." ¡°Hire Oswald and all his people, too.¡± He shot me a look. ¡°They won¡¯t blab to the Freebooters, it¡¯s not good business. We¡¯ve got enough Scouts and Scour teams to hit every settlement in Osteth, but the North is big and there¡¯s a LOT of ground to cover.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re going to stay here until all our initial purchases are completed, Tapestry everything, and bring it all¡­ where?¡± he asked specifically. ¡°I could drop all the military supplies in Freehold itself without any problem, just put up warehouses that aren¡¯t as empty as they seem to be. Ditto the soft goods. ¡°I was thinking of putting the pyreal reserve and smeltery under Fort Candeth.¡± Briggs considered that, then grinned in admiration. ¡°That¡¯s a good plan. Martine is beyond bribing with material goods, I¡¯m pretty sure, but sitting on the national reserves will appeal to his sense of pride. But I¡¯m pretty sure we should at least allocate some to general coinage.¡± ¡°We can do that, but just be aware it will constantly be Burned away to make magical stuff by anyone who picks up basic Artificing in the Matrix system. So at some point you¡¯re going to need alternate coinage, regardless,¡± I pointed out. He waved it away. ¡°That was going to happen in the future, regardless.¡± He paused at the idea. ¡°What did they do on Terra-Luna?¡± ¡°The Archmage left them a Crystal Converter that could monetize Loyalty.¡± ¡°Monetize?¡­¡± He blinked again, then smiled ruefully. ¡°I¡¯m guessing nobody knows how to make something like that yet¡­¡± ¡°Not yet, no,¡± I had to admit. ¡°Weekly or daily trips to Ael¡¯s base of operations to cash in that Loyalty, too. Gotta collect them Death Coins and stuff.¡± ¡°Oh, damn, that¡¯s where those come from?¡± He sighed in realization. ¡°Okay, secrecy paramount as long as we can. That means Master Ben Ten and myself can¡¯t be seen coming out from here. I¡¯m pretty sure we weren¡¯t seen coming here at all¡­¡± ¡°I can create a fake rockfall that blocks off the main entry entirely. We were idiots and Sealed all the spawns, basically broadcasting that we were here.¡± I swatted my own head. ¡°Nice. That will make it obvious if someone wants to get in, too,¡± Briggs grinned nastily. ¡°And you¡¯re the only one with a working Teleport lock coming in to here¡­¡± ¡°And Endure,¡± I pointed out with a roll of my eyes, pointing at his Greathammer. ¡°You think I don¡¯t know that?¡± ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to notice the big, dumb Hammer is alert and aware,¡± the Hammer visible on his shoulder rumbled in a metallic voice. I just laughed. ¡°Actually, Briggs did a good job concealing that. But you forget I have an intelligent item, and you guys can sense one another of you close by.¡± I held up my hand and waggled Zeks his way. ¡°Oh, right. Sorry, boss,¡± the Hammer apologized, and his wielder just chuckled. ¡°No need, Endure. We weren¡¯t trying to fool the Magos, just everyone else who wanted to underestimate you.¡± ¡°Special Purpose Power kick in yet, Endure?¡± I asked the Hammer politely. ¡°We are debating options, Magos,¡± the Hammer said unhappily. ¡°Defend Briggs, his friends, and allies,¡± I said simply. ¡°Start with Mass Cure Light Wounds, upgrade to Mass Cure Serious Wounds over time and take the Caster Level all the way to Twenty. ¡°Your name is Endure. Nothing says that like going on far past when others would drop, and restoring a Warlord¡¯s army to him even more quickly¡­ and keeping him in the fight constantly.¡± Briggs just glanced at his Hammer. ¡°That does simplify things. The classic Defeat Evil or Defend Humanity just seemed to have too many holes in them, and Defend Good didn¡¯t leave much open for Neutrals who are also allies.¡± ¡°And if I were to lose Briggs?¡± the Hammer asked unhappily. ¡°Then you get to pick one of his friends, family, or allies to extend your Purpose too.¡± I turned to Briggs and pointed at him. ¡°And no, you do not get to do a Special Purpose Power with Naming Karma. Goldweight and make it permanent. If you do it with goldweight, Endure should be able to Invest itself with time, not needing you to do so.¡± The Hammer perked up a full inch in great interest. ¡°That would take care of the Naming Karma weakness, Master!¡± the Hammer said brightly. ¡°And we seem to have come into the funds necessary to do just that suddenly,¡± Briggs nodded agreement. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s start getting this stuff done, Ryin.¡± He turned fully back on the Sho woman in the archmage robes waiting with eternal patience for them to resume their business or depart, unmoved by the passing of the world. I pulled out another Itemized sheet of cloth, broke the paper, and Zeks sent it spinning down perfectly into place in the empty pit. Scant seconds later, tons of pyreal were sluicing down into the pit, magically being stacked perfectly atop one another to maximize the room within, and a fortune which totally did not belong in Dereth was being generated as monumental amounts of System imbalance and ignorance of economics came back to sync really badly with the new change in magic that was prevalent now. Someone was manipulating the System, and that someone had gotten lazy with their updates when nobody was dealing with things. Everything that had interacted commonly or uncommonly with people seemed to have been hit, but that didn¡¯t seem to have applied uniformly to things that weren¡¯t reacting with people at all. We¡¯d just have to see just how much we could exploit the ever-loving Hell out of the loophole left behind by whoever wasn¡¯t watching as closely as they should have, and get everything we really wanted done as fast as we could. Whether or not we could get the rest done at all was more a function of time then secrecy, as someone was going to notice the bug in the System and close it. As long as we didn¡¯t overdo it on our end, who knew how far we were going to be able to take this? AF Chapter 350 – Running for the Gold, er, Pyreal ¡°Outta me way!¡± The Mick swatted the banderlings out of his path, caring nothing for their cries and roars of alarm at invading their den. His bare hand cracked and whacked, and the two biggest males were slapped off their feet as he strode right through the middle of their camp. It looked like they were lairing the kids in one of the houses. This was a Villa settlement, meaning an extra-dimensional Dungeon had been attached to the place to store stuff, unlike the smaller Houses. The banderlings he was barreling through were protecting their den and territory, and he really didn¡¯t give a damn. He really hadn¡¯t thought through the implications if their damn trick with the MMD notes actually worked. Now, all the Freehold forces that could busy themselves were crawling all over the landscape, looking for more MMD notes. Sometimes they were scattered as junk. Sometimes they were stacked nicely in aging chests. Sometimes they were part of rats nests (but, they¡¯d been told, those could be restored, too!), and sometimes they were ashes in old campfires, and those who burned them, like himself, could only feel a little green with regrets. Ah, well. He was on his fifth settlement of the day, heading up past Holtburg and west of Colier. This was the old New Colier Villa settlement, once a fairly picturesque and desirable location to set up a transitional base and place to lay your head. Now, it was overgrown, abandoned by everything except nesting shreth, reedsharks, rats, and wild tribes looking for easy shelter. The Villas generally had flooded basements, but that didn¡¯t mean no Notes¡­ and it was only a Cantrip to dry them out rapidly, stuff them into his Masspack, and move onto the next. He had about six hundred of them on him now, the rest too shredded, decayed, or dispersed to retrieve. Six hundred. Once that would have been a medium-size purchase to him. Now it was an amount to beggar kings! He leapt up the motte the Villa was on, formed when the Dungeon below it burst into reality, and without stopping vaulted the wall, then just rolled in through the shattered window there, completely ignoring the banderling kits who leapt away from his sudden presence. Gharu design, he thought, meaning the stairs down were there, turn here, turn here. The stairs extended down, sure enough, but the floor below them was shattered and mostly fallen into the greater Dungeon below, which took up much more area than the Villa above it proper ever had. The chests should be over there, he thought, skimming down the stairs with lightfoot so weightless it didn¡¯t even sway under his weight, and ignoring the alarmed yowls above, he dropped into the darkness, Devilsight from his Mask of Clarity giving him all the sight he needed. A deft use of Detect Precious Materials assured him that there was salvage scattered about, something found in almost all of the Dungeons come back into reality. There was also about two feet of slimy, sludgy water, but Protection from Water, while not preventing him from getting wet when immersed, would dry him off almost instantly when he got out of there, and he bounced immediately to the top of the water as his Waveskating Steps lightfoot supported him. Damn, he did so love lightfoot. Two chests in Villa Dungeons. One was completely broken, contents spilled out into the water when the dimensional expansion of the chest was broken and things too large to actually fit within burst forth. No papers in his sight, or stirred up by his hand as he crouched. The other chest was still intact, although opening it up would likely crumble it immediately, so he¡¯d have to be quick. A Waterproofing spell ready to go, he grabbed the lid and yanked it up, ignoring the creak and feel of rust. Paper! The spell went off and covered the contents instantly, even as the chest fell apart and the surrounding waters promptly flooded in. Ignoring the water, the Mick promptly fished out all the contents that had value¡­ was that an uncharged Virindi Amulet, still glowing with faint magic? Yoink, he thought, putting that into his Vest. A single stack of MMD¡¯s. Only a ransom to shame emperors, he thought. People had gambled away fortunes towards the end of the Fall, although having servants toting around bags of MMD¡¯s no thief could break into or steal under Asheron¡¯s Ward was the most popular way to store huge volumes of notes among the people who wanted their money easily accessible.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Dozens of those people had died when their MMD stacks ignited and turned them into walking bonfires. They either died and went to the Deathstones, there to die when the damn things blew up, or they simply died horribly, burned alive by pieces of paper worth no man¡¯s life. He knew plenty of folks who would judge just one of these pieces of paper worth more than most anyone¡¯s life now. Worthless scrip suddenly become insanely valuable because there still existed an NPC who would cash them in. The other papers might include things from quests, personal notes and observations, or histories. He¡¯d had a Book of his own at one time, in which he¡¯d noted down things of importance, a common thing by many adventurers. The scholars would get them all, and it cost him nothing to grab them. He sent the mental note into the Markspace that this Villa had viable salvage for a later Scour team to collect, and turned to leave the building. Running up the wall and springing off to the stairs that shouldn¡¯t have held his weight as they rocked in the air over nothing was not hard. The banderlings that had gathered at the top of the place, Berserkers and Bandits forming the elite of this northern tribe, bellowed to see him, and then just blinked as he was up the stairs and coming right at them at a full run. He took three of the brutal wilders right off their feet with a Tidal Palm, the Ocean style being the best at pure force of all the styles, as well as the most flexible. He drove them back into the hall, a good half-ton of banderling warriors crashing through the wall there. He had no time to waste on things like this. Striding away from the warriors who scattered from his path on instinct, he flowed through the open window, glass long shattered, at the end of the hallway, as if was an open road, the smoothness itself a dangerous display to the banderlings starting warily after him. Next Villa, over there¡­ The banderlings watched him run on to the next Villa, their outraged calls sounding rather like they were trying to puff themselves up for chasing him out, and that special note basically told the other banderlings outside not to chase after him. Which was a good idea. He didn¡¯t have the time to waste on them, but if they wanted to press the issue, he would rip through them and let their blood speak for him... --- Whose idea was it to build housing settlements in the Olthoi North?, Princess Kristie Rantha wondered, sticking a Lacerator between the large eyeballs with Quaver ringing two-tones that were visibly unsettling the olthoi who¡¯d been stupid enough to follow her into this Villa¡¯s basement. The winged olthoi shrieked, death pheromones filled the air, and a Warrior who¡¯d jumped from above surged through the waist-high water awkwardly in response, its pedipalps raised high. She was standing atop that water, and slid aside from its slowed rush, Quaver dipping in and out of the seam between head and thorax, acidic blood chased with vivic spurted forth. The weighty mass of the big crashed against the wall with a shriek and fell over, dead before it hit the water. A dozen olthoi were Burning in the waters down here, clearing them up, although actually the olthoi ecology of the air had taken most of the nutrients out of the water and underlaid everything with jarringly wrong moss and mold, much of it glowing in ultraviolet colors. Whatever. She wasn¡¯t here to grab everything, just the papers, and her Tremblesense would rapidly tell her if there was anything useful here, as it had the other Villas. Soul Magic wrapped her hand and made it over twice as big as it was, also wrapping around the stack of MMD¡¯s floating in the water inside the chest all at the same time, not letting them fall apart. The Prestidigitation Cantrip from Quaver was perfectly capable of drying out the stack of paper perfectly and thoroughly, although it would probably still need a Mending to return to its best state, a fact she noted as she pulled up a second stack, noted the salvage on the ground for the future, and waited for her Sword to treat the paper before sticking it in her Masspack. There were a bunch of olthoi up above, but she didn¡¯t have to fight them all, just lead them to the next house and let them stew and chase her. Grinning to herself at excitement mixed with the need for urgency, she headed up the wall and to a hole in the floor away from where she¡¯d come down. There should be a window in that room she could exit through. ---- A bit of preplanning I was not even aware was so, Oswald the Green Hunter thought, reaching into the chest and pulling out three stacks of MMD notes left there years ago by Naerbus the Clever, long dead and mostly forgot even before then. The message to him had been delivered in person by Briggs, crossing the entire island to do so, something that indicated the very, very busy man who¡¯d became the most powerful and influential person among all Isparians considered this very important. If you were not a fool who could do some basic math, it had quickly become apparent why it was important. An NPC who would cash in MMD¡¯s for pyreal coins. Pyreal coins that could be Burned to make magic items. He stared at the three stacks of MMD¡¯s. He¡¯d known they¡¯d been here for years, because one of the ways he trained his apprentices was charging them to keep all the settlements of Cottages, Villas, and Mansions in the vicinity of Stonehold and the Plateau free of nesting or settling creatures. Many of them had taken that to the next level, wiping or chasing off any creatures from any settlement they moved through on their regular scouting missions. They were charged to take anything useful, but leave the rest¡­ which normally meant leaving almost everything, since most of the contents were spoiled, exploded, decayed, or weathered. So, if the chest was still intact, there might well be stacks of worthless MMD¡¯s in them, untouched by his operatives or anything else that had gone through. Like here in Naerbus¡¯ Cottage. Time-sensitive, Briggs had said. Meaning hoarding these things was useless. He would have to trust the towering brute to treat him and his people fairly¡­ Briggs had always impressed and somewhat annoyed him with just how fairly he treated people, and how immune he was to greed or temptations of power. Unlike so many leaders and politicians of his acquaintance, so eager for power and for none of the responsibilities of it. This wasn¡¯t even the amount of a decent bribe before the Fall. The gambling houses had cleared more than this in a day, each! Now, one stack could potentially make Stonehold something truly great, and satisfy his own needs for cash for years. The Freebooter League was scrambling to react to this sudden shift from their artifact-grabbing missions, wondering what was going on. He wasn¡¯t about to tell them, chuckling to himself as he knew whatever they recovered likely was going to be just more paper without access to that NPC... Laughing under his breath, he moved on to the next Cottage in this Thyrinn Cant settlement he recalled having some MMD¡¯s in it, skipping the others for now. They could be, ah, Scoured at a later date, now that such salvage was more than pretty rocks once again... AF Chapter 351 – It comes with a Side of Peas Briggs looked over the workroom with approval. It had been some of his fastest work, getting a Forge up and working with only a couple days of labor, while soldiers, adventurers, Scour teams, scouts, and mercenaries were running all over Osteth and the North looking for scraps of paper that represented money that had vanished from existence long ago¡­ cash that was being brought back now, when those slips of paper had long ceased to have any real meaning. Well, they¡¯d located at least two more backpacks (24 stacks) of them now, with at least three-quarters of all the housing settlements accounted for. The rest were either more remote in the North or in dangerous territories, and hopes weren¡¯t high for them, regardless. It didn¡¯t matter. They already had enough money for decades without using the new Notes¡­ and he had already turned in ten more stacks. Just unreal. The Forge he¡¯d made wasn¡¯t a Floating Forge, because it needed to be bigger. It had to melt tons of pyreal, something normally accomplished with blast furnaces, and it needed to do it fast and effectively. Ryin had carved out the Cooling Formation around the molds with eye-searing clarity and incredible speed, and then put in place the small army of ghostly Phantasmal Servants in overalls and construction hats now standing around to tirelessly haul away the molten pyreal ingots cooled by Chill Metal effects to accelerate the process. Each of precisely one goldweight in mass. The Forge he¡¯d made had a Heat Metal effect that was basically always on. It was also up-Valenced for area, affecting a greater and greater volume of metal with great speed, and it was self-Investing off the very metal it was processing, upping the effective Caster Level and Valence bit by bit with every day that it existed. In half a year, it would be able to handle hundreds of cubic feet, tons of pyreal at a time, melting it down to bright orange metal. Then the basin would Filter it, a simple enough spell, and the dross would sink to the bottom of the lighter Air Gold. The valve would open, and the other metals alloyed into the coins, representing less than 10% of the mass of the coins, would flow out, already pre-seperated and feeding into their own ingot locations. Then the crucible would tilt over, and orange-hot liquid pyreal would pour down the sluice into the ingot molds waiting for it, grates in the floor of chariron hastily Energized to Fire, and the molten pyreal would wash over them and be flattened by rakes attended to by the tireless Phantasmal Servants. When everything was perfect, the Chill Metal would activate, and the molten metal would cool down to below room temperature in merely thirty seconds, taking on its trademark pale green hue as it did so. The grating would withdraw from the ingot bars and the Servants would pry up the ingots quickly, setting them on Mass Disks floating there ready for use. The current cube of pyreal coins was being siphoned by two Flow Hoops, circles of metal with a low-level but constant telekinetic effect between them, shovelfuls of coins fed through them constantly into a hopper of coins for the next load for the Forge. Emptied of molten metal, with Prestidigitation chasing out the very last scrap of any molten metals, the Crucible set itself back down, and the hopper was pulled over on its ceiling rig, its replacement sliding into place underneath the flow of coins. Coins clinked and clattered in a dance of pale green metal, flowing down into the Crucible. The instant the first one hit, the Forge began its massive Heat Metal effect to melt them down with furious speed, and a Permanent Topped Wall of Fire ignited inside the crucible, too. It took eighteen seconds to melt down four cubic feet of pyreal, the Wall of Fire taking the Isotopic metal up to the edge but not over by itself into a molten state, as normal gold had a pretty high melting point. It went a little bit faster after the first set went molten, as the heat of the first mass started to work on the later ones, and the coins naturally fell into the more molten metal to melt faster, while the Wall kept the whole thing plenty hot. They were only doing forty cubic feet of coins at a time, three minutes a run. In another two weeks, they¡¯d be up to eighty cubic feet at a time, and it would only go up from there. It was a lot of work, getting the magitech into place, the spells needed activated, Formations carved¡­ but paying for the Permanency spells was literally no sacrifice at all. Eighty ingots per cycle, approximately every six minutes. 40K of goldweight per six minutes, 400k per hour. 9600 per day, and it didn¡¯t even need an overseer with the Phantasmal Servants having enough intelligence to do the whole process. It would only get faster with time, and the side ingots of copper, tin, and zinc also had value and use to smiths, effectively becoming minor mining production.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Ten thousand ingots had already been sent off to Freehold, where almost all of the Wizards and Artificers and other Matrix students of Ryin were located and eager to get them. The next batch was going to be spread to all the soldiers who¡¯d learned how to use Naming Karma, to start the process of upgrading their Armor and the protective Amulets that were being made for them even now. One MMD Note was 500 goldweight/ingots. They had enough money to make it happen, they just needed to start the Investing and keep it going. Production was going to be a bottleneck if everyone who could Invested pyreal, as they still had to get master¡¯s-work Craft produced to improve for everyone as stuff to upgrade. Eight hours of time, get yourself a simple magical item that could use Prestidgitation at will. Who would not spend eight hours for that? Just needed the batons crafted to QL 20 to Infuse. Suddenly all the rote tasks around the house would take almost no time at all, leaving time for doing other things. Like Investing full time and being paid for it, if you so desired. How much of this windfall was going to be allocated to the population in general was a subject of much discussion, but the big thing determining a lot of that was just how much pyreal they actually ended up with. Ten cubes so far¡­ and potentially a lot more on the way, the Notes being hurried to gathering points so Ryin could Teleport over and pick them up. Huh. -Lord Mick, Kris, Ryin,- he /murmured in the Markspace. -Lord Mick, back of the hand calculation. Given how much pyreal your people went through, could it potentially have paid for the Infusing of all the magical structures of this island?- The Mick, on the way to his very last settlement, a distant Villa cluster called Celdiseth¡¯s Beach, mentally jerked at the thought. The image they saw was actually of potentially millions of stacks of those Notes, pyreal flowing in a river over the years of adventuring, and all that loot salvaged or sold converted to coins that vanished into volumes of stacks of MMD notes. -With that rate of pyreal conjured out of nothing, no force that could generate that much raw goldweight would have had any trouble paying for everything that has been done to this island. A Spawn Point varies from fifteen to two hundred goldweight in cost, approximately. That¡¯s less than one MMD note.- Ryin /told them coolly after seeing that. -One stack of MMD¡¯s would probably pay for a mile of the Shoreward. There¡¯s less than two thousand miles of Shoreward in place. I don¡¯ t know how many Spawn Points are in place, or dimensional extensions made for Dungeons. Let¡¯s say a hundred thousand of the former, and a thousand or two of the latter, with a spell effect to set up a Demiplane and making it Permanent costing 50 goldweight per Casting and 35 goldweight for Permanency.- -So one stack of MMD¡¯s could have paid for up to eight Dungeons?- Princess Kristie almost /spluttered. -Damn, no wonder every damn Villa and Mansion had its own Dungeon! With that kind of money flowing through...- -A Wish-effect to create a magic item worth up to 25k costs 50 goldweight. If you¡¯re going for more powerful things, it goes up¡­ but who cares? Even if costs 500 goldweight, that¡¯s one MMD note. You could do that all day and all night with the amount of pyreal moving through the system,- I /pointed out. ¡°That is so much goddamn money moving through the System,¡± Briggs said aloud, shaking his head, watching another pouring of the Crucible begin. ¡°Now we know where all those Quest items nobody remembers how to make are coming from. Just minor expenditures of sacrificed pyreal from something with no goldweight limits¡­¡± -A minor note,- the Mick /interjected, everyone listening to him intently. -Ye¡¯ve told us that Life Diamonds an¡¯ similar crystals an¡¯ jewels be needed as components fer some o¡¯ the greater spells.- All three of them /nodded back to him. -We used t¡¯ be able t¡¯ buy gemstones from the jewelers in the various towns, an¡¯ weren¡¯t no limits t¡¯ how many we could buy, then. Also, jewels that fell as drop loot often had spells imbued into ¡®em, an¡¯ could be salvaged, but gems sold t¡¯ us could nae be, just like any other purchased good.- -Did they ever drop coins, Lord Mick?- Kris /asked intently, and they all felt the mental jerk of something else in Lord Mick¡¯s head breaking softly. -More fuckery,- he /grumbled in resignation. -Aye, once. An¡¯ then they introduced salvaging, an¡¯ suddenly the monsters no longer dropped coins, an¡¯ the coins only came from the merchants, an¡¯ didn¡¯t weigh anything in our packs anymore, only took up space.- -You lived in a damn weird world, Lord Mick,- his Hag /grinned at the black Aluvian paramount. -Seemed normal as all fuck at the time, Highness,- the Mick /replied, a note of self-annoyance in his /voice still. ¡°And that¡¯s why the Fall was so damn hard, because all of that shit was so damn reliant on magic,¡± Briggs nodded gruffly to them all. -Ho, there¡¯s a point t¡¯ this, too,- the Mick /spoke up with sudden urgency. -The great Pyreal Pea Sale.- Briggs blinked at the table with everyone else. ¡°What?¡± he had to ask. -There were a time all the sellers shifted their prices based on popularity an¡¯ amount of traffic they or their towns had. Well, the archmage out by Castle Tethana made an error, an¡¯ he priced his wares to sell below what the three High Archmages were buying things for.- We all blinked. That was a world with basically instant Teleportation, if not precisely point to point. -So¡­ buy low, sell high? What was the spread?- Ryin /asked sharply. -About ten percent?- he /answered uncertainly. -Well, everyone an¡¯ their mother piled in to buy pyreal Peas fer cash, run them out to the Mayoi Archmage there in her tower, convert as much to MMD¡¯s as they could, an¡¯ then Recalled back to Teth with as much gold as they could carry t¡¯ do it all over again. -If ye were strong enough, ye could make a few MMD¡¯s a trip or more. People were buying Peas an¡¯ selling them fast as they could, pocketing the difference. The man must¡¯ve sold tens o¡¯ thousands o¡¯ pyreal Peas in just a few hours, an¡¯ those were not cheap, either. -Well, we all went t¡¯ bed, an¡¯ woke up in the morning with hazy memories o¡¯ what happened the day afore, an¡¯ none o¡¯ the MMD¡¯s, with prices rather hastily adjusted for the inventories of everyone concerned. Weren¡¯t nowhere you could find a place t¡¯ buy things cheaper than another merchant would buy ¡®em off from you.- ¡°So, someone was watching and noticed the idiocy and pyreal cycling through the System without inputs,¡± Briggs grunted. -First three words. Someone was watching,- Ryin /repeated softly. -Second point: they can reverse this if done fast enough.- AF Chapter 352 – Thirteen is the Lucky Number Apparently, securing unlimited funding for thousands of people was worth a lot of Karma. I ticked over the lever to Thirteen Sorcerer with it, with room to spare and a whole long ways towards Fourteen, at which point I¡¯d be stuck for quite some time, just as I¡¯d been with Twelve, upgrading my Secondary and Advanced Classes. Sorcerers had to take fixed spells, but with Mystic Theurgy and the Healing Domain to go with it, I could take Resurrection as my Clerical Domain spell through the Healing Domain, and I could now start bringing back the Cursed Dead. The undead soldiers of Mayoi and Hebian-To had not been idle. Although they didn¡¯t work as much with the living, they were also energetic about going out there and earning Naming Karma for the Weapons that accompanied them in death, and specifically, looking to earn their own Diamond Golum Hearts. Amusingly enough, the best way to do that was to go hunting for Diamond Lords, the hot pink boss-golums found in the Direlands, which were anything but uncommon. It was convenient for them that landscape spawns couldn¡¯t tell the difference between undead warriors and undead spawns, and so the Cursed Dead could rove the landbridge, north, and south Direlands almost with impunity, as long as they didn¡¯t run across any living enemies. The south Direlands were big enough and broad enough for them to work large areas of Summons, generating new random spawns that sooner or later generated Diamond Golums, and occasionally the pink-hued Diamond Lords. The Diamond Sovereigns and their Synnast lightning Elemental cohorts, now, that was a different thing entirely, and only the elites went in and harvested them for their Hearts. Those things were big and dangerous, and a lot of undead took trips back to their graves during all those hunts, which didn¡¯t deter them from returning in the slightest, although it was a long way to travel to get back there. Kris was perfectly able to carve a Heart down into the required diamond needed to power the Ritual, and it was a V Valence for me to Energize it properly. I was the limiting factor here, as my alternate Scarabs research to use Gold or Pyreal Scarab-level spells wasn¡¯t going well, meaning I couldn¡¯t tap my Mana Pool for them, which limited how many Valences a day I could spend on the spell. But, in the end, it didn¡¯t matter much. Yeah, I was spending V¡¯s down to nothing every day, but I¡¯d crack whatever it took to get the higher Scarabs at some point and open up my Mana Pool for this. In the meantime, I would spend the Valences as I needed to. If that meant only six a day, so be it. I didn¡¯t care, I was going to do them. ------ Master Ben Ten was not the first to be quickened, despite all the calls from his students. Instead, those with living family were given first priority, with those few with surviving spouses going first, then any with children, then any with siblings, parents, and so forth. Once that was done, a lottery was set up for the remaining undead who had their Diamond Hearts, spurring them to acquire them and get really good at golum-killing, among other things. The first of them was a Shosuan Po, whose wife, son, and daughter had all survived the massacres near Hebian-To. They had not been able to visit him until his son joined the Scouts and was able to reach his father in Hebian-To to inform them that they were all alive still, and he had regularly visited his father there. Po doffed the armor he had died in, which wouldn¡¯t fall apart no matter how mangled it was, and laid his bare bones down on a stone altar there in the grotto chapel in Hebian-To, sitting there among the final remains of the undead who had chosen to end matters. A cloth was thrown over him, and his family was in attendance, along with with Master Ben Ten and hundreds of undead, watching this impossible feat taking place. It had been proven many times that I could Raise the recently dead, and Cure Mortal Wounds could heal the just-deceased if it got to them fast enough. This, however, was going back years! The ground was consecrated, the Life Diamond made from a Diamond Golum Heart was in my hand, and the sun was shining down upon the cracked and weathered bare bones lying silently on the altar before me. The first thing I had to do was kill him. The spell would not work on an active undead. I calmly severed his head from his neck, and the white spark faded from the sockets of his skull. Actually, if I left him there, his bones would shimmer and rebuild themselves, his armor with him and Sword in hand, and he¡¯d basically get up off the altar. But the first words of the spell stayed his spirit from fleeing to the purgatory haze that the undead endured before rising at the dusk if slain, arresting him there as I raised the Life Diamond up to catch the rays of the sun, and began to invoke Resurrection.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Positive energy and life energy. He had been gone from life for sixteen years, but my Caster Level was already post-20 at the very least, and there was no difficulty for me recalling his spirit. His bones were right in front of me, completely intact, but the spell would have restored them regardless. It was ten minutes to Cast the spell, building up the power until The Light of Life and Hope throbbed and glimmered in my hand as if alive. I brought it down over the silent bones of a man whose duty had bid him rise up from death and save the living, and as I swept it the full length of him, the Diamond in my hand slowly shattered and sparkled its magic down on him, bestowing life. The last of it fell from my hands, gathering in the emptiness of his ribcage among sparkling bones, and began to pulse. The light turned ruby, the color of fresh living blood, and redness stole across all the bones, flesh reforming out of nothing, blood vessels rising and filling with crimson, while a pulse everyone there could actually feel hung in the air. It grew with breathtaking speed, the spell not slow once it took effect, rebuilding the bones and their connections, layering on them with muscle and organs, rapidly hiding everything under a tightly-drawn mask of drawn and tanned Sho skin. That skin was at first like parchment, but rapidly swelled in depth and volume as the flesh underneath was rebuilt and restored. There was a swirl in the air, and I knew all the undead could see it by the way they shifted as a spirit was drawn out of the aether, down in a spiral of motes of light the living mostly couldn¡¯t witness, riding the first infusion of air to inflate renewed and restored lungs once more. Dark eyes snapped open, and there was a long, half-panicked breath as the young man who¡¯d died nearly two decades ago arched his back in shock and sudden, painful remembrance of how he had died back then, recalled for perhaps the thousandth time. There was rustling from the watching undead as he blinked at me, recognizing me, and slowly he lifted up his hands before his eyes. Hands with firm and healthy living skin, muscle, and blood, the sure weight of the living. He burst into tears as I clasped his hand and he sat up, unable to hold them back. The undead around weren¡¯t the loudest things, and their cheers were hollow and sepulchral as they rose, but they were there and they were sincere, a bright spot of joy as they saluted the first of those who had given their life and their deaths to their people. Now the Sun of Suns had brought His magic here to finally bring them home. If they could have cried, this place would have been awash in tears. I swirled the covering around him into a simple robe as his family charged him and swept him into a group hug. If his young wife of all those years ago looked more like his mother now, he looked on her with the eyes of a man who had seen only bones and souls for years, and could read the devotion in her eyes far more now than back then. His embrace was all the fiercer for walking through death and coming out the far side. I let them help him off the altar there, where he paused for a moment, and then, before everyone¡¯s eyes, he fell to his knees and prostrated himself before all those many, many alcoves, where rested either dust or scattered bones with remnants of armor and weapons of those who had fallen forever before him. He bowed, and he gave thanks to those who had died and not been given this gift, would never be able to receive it, and all the surrounding undead went to one knee with a clatter with him. Thousands were dead, some of them here, others unknown and reduced to dust in Deathstone Craters and elsewhere. They had made the true sacrifice, and now, some of them would be able to live again because of it. Sergeant Shousan turned to the decaying armor that had clad him all these years, now finally crumbled to parts and shards¡­ but the reforged Named Katana, Eryu, that had rode with him gleamed ready and new for use. He gathered up the pieces of that armor, and brought it slowly and carefully to an alcove on the wall. He placed them carefully within, stepping back and bowing once again as the raiments of his death joined those who had fallen before him. ¡°When I die, the rest of me will join you,¡± he whispered, but how could the dead not hear a promise sworn on one¡¯s own grave? I watched heads nod solemnly all around as they knew and understood. One day, he would die again, and his bones return here for the final, true time. As would those of all of them. ------ I watched he and his family walk off, arm-in-arm, still crying, heading towards the true sun and open sky above, and waited until they were out of sight before turning to the next. ¡°Wilford Cuprishire,¡± I called him forth, while his daughter looked on eagerly from the side. She was one of my promising Clerical candidates, and while she wanted to bring her father back herself, she had realized that might be some time away, and had said absolutely nothing when he drew the lot to become the second to return. ¡°Come, sergeant. Aru is bidding you return to the light of the living!¡± His jaw almost gaping off of him, the former scoffalong and probably bandit clattered toward me. I helped him remove his moldering mail and greaves, set his cloven helm aside, and his naked bones and half-chopped skull clambered into place atop the altar before I tossed a new cloth over him. The Life Diamond from the Golum Heart he¡¯d hunted down himself came into my grasp, proof of his valor and determination before the eyes of the gods. Whatever he¡¯d been before in life, he¡¯d proven himself something more at the time of his death, and then during his death. As the sun continued to shine down overhead, I began the chanting invocation of my second Resurrection of the day, and so brought about the return of yet another worthy soul back to life. It might only be six a day, but eventually I would get to all of them. Master Ben Ten had sworn that he would be the last of those to take the step, helping all of the others with their hunts as needed, and had brooked no calls otherwise. He was there to see the first of them return to life, and he would be there each and every day going forward as I did my task. AF Chapter 353 – Northwatch Keep goes Cauling Relative to the great uproar of the Resurrections, introducing a bunch of beeswax and superb honey to the population was pretty mild, but it and a whole lot of cheese and milk hit the storehouses with a show of plenty that hadn¡¯t been seen in years. Pyreal coins came into circulation again, although they didn¡¯t truly replace those of base metal since they tended to be accumulated and disappear after a short time. It was all good, as we had plenty of the base metals, too. We were sending out the majority of the daily production every day for people to Infuse or Invest into objects, and the crafters and tinkers found themselves with all the work they could handle making the grade of weapons, Implements, armor, rings, bracelets, amulets, belts, boots, gloves, and even clothing needed to take Enchantments and make the world a better place to live in. Indeed, so many Disks were being poured and polished for Enchantment it just wasn¡¯t funny, as they were proving to be ubiquitous for cargo-hauling by and for everyone, with the only limit to how much they could carry being how much magic was Invested into them. If we were giving away so many pyreal bars to power it all up, why not spend it on some creature comforts, too? Oddly enough, it didn¡¯t stop the mining of the Elemental Fields, as the jewels picked up still had value on their own¡­ and the Life Gems for being raised from the dead had to come from somewhere. There was exactly one person alive who could meld a bunch of lower-value gemstones into a larger, purified gemstone that could be used to Raise someone from the dead right now. There were even people claiming that I was a national treasure and I should be kept safe and guarded around the clock so my services would be available to any who needed them. My statement that none such services would be available to anyone who supported such restrictions on my activities meant those words dried up quickly, and the men who¡¯d whispered them paled to find their names on a blacklist that meant there was no coming back for them at my hands. Divination magic, Rumortracing, was such a nasty spell when it could track words back to those who voiced them. ---- Our materialization was quiet and very stealthy. We came in silent, and everyone promptly froze, looking about with Masks down and Devilsight up. The Roaches were loving their first tastes of Soul Magic and what it could do, and that was no lie, even if they were dependent on Tats to manifest the stuff. Kris pointed at the Blight visible at the edge of our vision, but the air here was still and dry, and didn¡¯t seem to have encouraged or allowed the expansion of the growth. The stuff was psycho-active, however, and so not even Mark usage was allowed here. Lightfoot was used to skim carefully above the ground, giving them no vibrations or sounds of footfalls to orient on with their own senses, especially the primitive moars still present among them. All their gear close-stashed and Stealthslaked so that even if they knocked into something it was silent, the Roaches split off into pairs. The amount of dust on the floor was encouraging, showing no tracks and basically undisturbed by the years. I stayed put while the Mick, Kris, and the Roaches glided off into the darkness in total silence. Kris went straight up the hallway that led to the throne room, if the layout was similar to Freebooter Keep. I¡¯d sussed out the former connections to the Portal Room on Freebooter Isle, the more frequent one obviously connected to here. I gathered that the crew that operated out of Northwatch Keep was also the crew that was smuggling out the results of the mining on Freebooter¡¯s Isle. The second destination was a bit more obfuscated, and might have been a totally private Dungeon of one sort or another, shunted violently in reality, much like the Faction Headquarters had been and all other Dungeons. But now I had a second vector to work from, and that meant triangulation and glorious math telling me precisely where a Portal coming to and from this place and Freebooter had once been centered. Unfortunately, I couldn¡¯t infer real-world coordinates from what I was seeing, so where exactly it was leading I wouldn¡¯t know until we got there, and I couldn¡¯t even send through a Divination to see what was on the other side. Suck. But I could reach it, and I had the stealthiest kill-team active on Dereth working with me, although Master Oswald might beg otherwise. Oh, well, there was just to wait and see what they found. ----- The haul actually wasn¡¯t bad, a couple boxes of MMD notes which the odds were long on actually getting converted in full, but we were going to try. The NPC archmage in the Mountain Sewers had just started to display signs of glitching out as she doled out dragon¡¯s hoards of pyreal to us, and someone might have noticed the way we were spreading out so many ingots to so many people.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. We¡¯d see when I checked in on her later with these last deliveries of MMD¡¯s to her, and see just how effectively they¡¯d shut us down. It truly didn¡¯t matter, as long as our existing coinage wasn¡¯t eliminated¡­ and most of it was currently held in Tapestry form and Itemized on top of that, ¡®nothing to see here¡¯, even as countless tons of pyreal vanished from the System. After all, it wasn¡¯t doing anything that the System hadn¡¯t been doing for itself, it was just now being done by mortals instead of whatever arbitrary standards were set by the System. Such hubris, taking matters into our hands instead of waiting for the whims of the System and its controllers here. I shuffled the boxes into Item form and put the scrolls into my Masspack. One Mass Item could basically handle all the stuff I had Itemized and was holding onto, with the spell lasting for several weeks if I cared to let it ride, and otherwise easily re-applied. The Tapestries wouldn¡¯t wear out until they came out of Item form, either. Quaver¡¯s Sound Bubble swallowed all of our voices right now, so there was no chance we were going to be overhead here. ¡°That is definitely another Market Chamber on the other side of the main door back there, and occupied by a lot of real Blighted Sclavi and undead who¡¯ve given themselves over to T¡¯Thuun.¡± She glanced at the Roaches, and Rogar spoke up first. ¡°We found platinum veins below, although nothing as pretty as that pyreal vein below Freebooter. Still, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised to learn they were the major supplier of plat Scarabs to the magecrafters and archmages back before the Fall with what I saw below,¡± the King Roach reported, then blinked. ¡°If the NPC¡¯s weren¡¯t pulling all of that shit out of nowhere,¡± he amended carefully. ¡°No, they were definitely making Plats,¡± the Mick assured us all wryly. ¡°But in the quantities they were being used? Not a chance. The vast majority were just like dropped loot off the creatures we slaughtered so endlessly. And I don¡¯t know any active platinum mines out there fer making more o¡¯ the things, so yer likely right?¡± ¡°We can¡¯t even use the spells properly without one of those new Virindi Talismans, but King Borelean¡¯s been looking for the original mine for years. Oddly enough, nobody knew where it was located,¡± Princess Kristie sniffed, looking around. ¡°This likely were kept pretty hush-hush, though you have to wonder where they dumped all the tailings and the like. Some dead valley in the middle of nowhere?¡± I hazarded. ¡°Think we¡¯ll find out on our next jump?¡± the Mick asked, facing the wall with the vestigial scorched marks and Runework indicating a former Portal had once been active there. ¡°Likely. The rails lead right up to the Portal, so they were definitely using it as their smeltery and dumping ground,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°Got enough for a ¡®port, Ryin?¡± ¡°Definitely, Highness,¡± I answered her, grasping Crown and preparing to sweep up the whole team. ¡°Everyone ready?¡± ¡°Weapons out or in?¡± the Mick asked professionally. ¡°Be prepared to draw, but stealth until we know what we are facing,¡± Kris stated firmly. Everyone crowded, hands touching the person to their left, all of them reaching to touch me or my Staff as I brought up the Teleport, focused on the proper direction, and shunted us out of there smoothly and across space in That Direction. -------- It was a bit more twisty and turny than my normal ¡®porting, as it wasn¡¯t along Lived-Lines, but following a connection that had once existed along a different dimensional setting, and was only fixed relative to the surface of the planet. Still, nausea and dizziness aside, I got us there with minimal problem, and everyone was experienced enough to fight aside the side-effects of a non-Line dimensional shunt and be instantly ready to fight. We were in a wide room with a rail system in the floor, leading left, while another set of tunnels led right and straight away from the Portal. ¡°I smell the sea,¡± the Mick whispered instantly, everyone¡¯s Masks down, scanning right and left. ¡°Nothing on Detects,¡± I murmured, feeling no Auras other than our own close by, although the stone in the way limited the range considerably. ¡°Follow the rails outside first.¡± Kris led the way in a silent prowl towards the fresh air, but she didn¡¯t have far to go, just down a gradual slope and to a stop block designed to halt and empty an oncoming mine cart. Beyond was a gaping cliffside, and the dashing waters of the sea beating against it, with nothing else in sight to either side. ¡°Location?¡± Kris asked shortly, looking over everything below. I stepped outside, cast the Cantrip, and turned around sharply. A Holo flicked up, since we were still keeping the Markspace neutral in case of Blight nearby. ¡°Oh, fuck me running. We¡¯re on the Singularity Caul,¡± the Mick murmured, seeing the location on the outer rim of an island off the southwestern coast of Dereth. ¡°Nobody went here for much o¡¯ anything towards the end, leaving it to the shadows, the cultists, an¡¯ the critters what spawned here. Ye might have hunted some o¡¯ the unique spawns for their drops, but it were pretty much abandoned to the shite living here otherwise.¡± ¡°Perfect place to put a smeltery you don¡¯t want anyone checking up on, especially if it can¡¯t be accessed conventionally,¡± Kris pointed out. ¡°Everyone noticed the dust, I trust.¡± There was almost none, and what was present had definitely been swept to the side by traffic, occasional or otherwise. ¡°They had people living here, aye, as well as the Cult of the Raven Hand, which fell in with Bael¡¯Zharon and the Shades here on Dereth,¡± the Mick nodded along. ¡°The Raven Hand is active on Dereth?¡± Kris rolled her eyes. ¡°Fucktards always find the darkest and most twisted arseholes to follow. Where are the Knights of the Golden Flame, then?¡± ¡°Ye do know of them?¡± The Mick was rather startled. ¡°Never did hear anything o¡¯ them back home, but nae surprise. Couldnae even read back then,¡± he admitted without shame. ¡°They¡¯re a cult, as you said, always following dark powers, which might or might not also be affiliated with the darker members of the undead, just as the Knights of the Golden Flame might have been inspired by visits from the Falatacot of the Light back home from long ago visits. Not so surprising, right? Only they just had a creed and faith, nothing really unique to them,¡± Kris informed him. ¡°Well here, they an¡¯ the Ravens had Aegis Shields for the symbols o¡¯ their Orders, an¡¯ they definitely kept their grudge going nice an¡¯ hard, they did. Aren¡¯t aware o¡¯ any surviving the Fall, however¡­ an¡¯ who knows how well the Raven Hand did, although they had large numbers serving as Summons on this place,¡± Lord Mick shrugged. ¡°It is more likely that they¡¯ve been recruited by Nuhmudira,¡± I interrupted them calmly, getting everyone¡¯s attention. AF Chapter 354 – A Caul to Arms ¡°What, now?¡± the Mick asked dangerously, focused on me, and his eyes slid back towards the two unexplored tunnels behind us. ¡°Oswald has no knowledge of Nuhmudira¡¯s location on Dereth, the Hlaetians, Marae Lassel, or the Vesayans. We know she¡¯s not on the Olthoi Island, Vissidal, Aerlinthe, or the Dark Isle, and pretty sure Bobo would rip her apart on the Tusker Island. That doesn¡¯t leave much. He¡¯s not explored the Singularity Caul overmuch¡­ and if his, eh, peers among the Freebooters asked him not to, there is no better place for her than among some severely-disappointed ex-Shadow worshipers with fanatic mindsets, and some opportunistic people who couldn¡¯t leave the place and needed a leader.¡± I nodded back away from the sea. ¡°I think she¡¯s on this island somewhere¡­ and if not, she¡¯s close by.¡± I pointed off to the east. ¡°There¡¯s supposedly an abandoned lugian fortress out there in the water on its own little island, with basically nothing on it, for example. Nothing there to stop her from moving in and making it her own.¡± ¡°An¡¯ if she¡¯s using the Blood Magic, with access to the Empyrean System, she willnae ha¡¯ lost her power a¡¯tall,¡± the Mick murmured excitedly, his dark eyes gleaming. ¡°But she dinnae know we be here, either, an¡¯ be closin¡¯ in on her!¡± ¡°So this is pure stealth and exploration,¡± Princess Kristie cut in coldly, her voice like ice, stilling everyone¡¯s rising emotions. ¡°We¡¯ll try to keep this quiet with no kills if we can, see if the lay of the land has changed, and who is working together now, if possible.¡± ¡°We can go up and over the mountain if we have to.¡± I turned my gaze to the edge of the tunnel, and a walkway suddenly flowed almost invisibly out of the stone. If you weren¡¯t looking for it, you wouldn¡¯t even see it, it blended into the rest of the stone so naturally. ¡°Highness, take Lord Mick and scout what you can of the complex. We¡¯ll wait around the edge there, and I can take them up and over if required. If you think it¡¯s safe for Markchat, initiate and we¡¯ll accompany you that way.¡± Nobody disagreed with me. Kris was a freaking ghost in stealth mode, and the Mick was by far the quietest and deadliest of the Royal Scouts, having earned his Royal Warden status with blood. She probably didn¡¯t need him along, but if it came to fighting, there was no way anybody was going to be able to deal with the two of them. ¡°Full stealth, Lord Mick. The mice will be envious of us,¡± Kristie smiled, but there was nothing mousy about those eight canines. The Mick actually shrugged off his greaves and his mail, then handed them to Rogar, who deposited them on his Disk. We all watched the pair of them flit up the slope like shadows in total silence, and they were gone. ¡°Around the walkway, I¡¯ll make a cave for us to sit and wait in. No Casting, I don¡¯t want some Empyrean to feel the draw, but,¡± a pale green ingot floated out of my Masspack, ¡°that doesn¡¯t mean you can¡¯t work on your Amulets while we wait.¡± All of them smiled. There was no doubt whatsoever they had enough pyreal ingots waiting to empower the Protection Amulets that were so vital right now against magic. Now it was just a question of time to get them all powered up to the proper level. ------ As expected, the rail lines the other way led into a smeltery for ore, with a dozen slaved Magma Golums standing around the furnaces and carts, waiting to push them around, bend crucibles, work the chains, and pour out heaps of rocks containing valuable metal, then pour out the slag into other carts, wheel them out to the side of the mountain, and dump them into the sea. Golums weren¡¯t particularly aware, and these ones had obviously been standing around a while with nothing to do. Even a basic timeless Elemental intellect, like those animating a golum, could get stunted and bored, and the creature had basically lapsed into a standby mode that wouldn¡¯t react until some external stimuli went off right in front of it. The place was incredibly dark, lit only by the glowing skins of the magma golums standing about, making it easy for the pair to slip past them, inspecting the ventilation of the facility, the forgeworks where the raw metals were formed into bars and ingots, and the stations where overseers had obviously guided the process. All now cold, but with a tunnel leading off to what would have to be some kind of inhabitable areas. The Mick was impressed, as the Princess was never more then ten steps from him, he could see in the Dark as if it was the day, and he still lost sight of her half the time. Shadows just seemed to flow and stretch around her, and she melted into the scenery right before his eyes. Wasn¡¯t even invisibility, she just meshed into everything and he really had to concentrate to see her. Higher aspects of Stealth, he knew, still impressed at her predatory grace and skill. He¡¯d been hugely focused on bringing up his Fire Dragon techniques, and she¡¯d been happy to teach him, enabling his offensive power to reach another level in speed and ferocity, the like of which he¡¯d never imagined he¡¯d be able to rise to.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. His Ocean and Shadow stuff had suffered for the focus, although he didn¡¯t regret the choices, giving how much incredible violence had been part of his recent life. But he was also lagging behind because he lacked any of the Moon Dragon serenity and harmony shite, which was required for Crossing Way Masteries, where you could use more than one Way of the sword at a time. That was why Princess Kristie¡¯s swordplay was still above him. He could switch between Ocean and Fire in the blink of an eye, sure enough, but the Princess, she didn¡¯t have to switch. She somehow balanced the mindsets of all Seven Dragons at the same time, all seven Ways active at one time on her Blade. It were no surprise at all the Old Master fell for her, he thought to himself. The Princess was born to the sword, a natural martial artist of terrifying potential and lethality, and that was before the prodigious natural gifts of her Hag¡¯s Bloodline. She could hold the Ways of seven different, even opposed styles of swordplay together in a seamless whole. Forget how thrilling it was to see, it was deadly in the extreme. Without Moon, he couldn¡¯t even do two. It made him feel frustrated like few things had been able to do in all of his life. Ah, well. Time to see who was doing what here. The section of the caves they were moving into had doors set into the stone, the lines of the halls sharp and clear, evidence of strong magic used to work the stone, and there were now magical torches lighting up everything with steady false flames. The Princess went and sniffed at each and every door, memorizing the scent of whoever used the room as the Whiskers of the Wild materialized across her nose and cheeks and faded each time. There was nobody in these rooms at this time of day, happily. Following the admirable view from behind (he was absolutely sure she was adding more hipswing than was at all necessary to sneak around just for him), he kept an eye and ear out, knowing that she didn¡¯t need him here for the scouting, but for surprises¡­ so surprises were what he watched for. There were sounds of motion and faint conversations ahead as they moved through the halls and tunnels, passing by the tunnel they were sure led to the former Portal chamber that had brought them here, by the layout of the map in their Visual Files. They were midway down a long hall when Kris waved him to the side, and he flattened himself against the wall like a patch of mold in the shadow of a supporting timber. A shadow flitted across the end of the hall, but his eyes were on her hand as she raised it and pointed at her temple and made a fluttering motion. Something in the mind-? The mystic training with ki included some exposure to pretty esoteric senses¡­ and some of them were just plain goddamn common sense done large. Humans were thinking creatures, and shite messing around at the psychic levels were things he had plenty of exposure to. Learning how to sense that shite before running into the center of it was an important skill, and something he had to cobble together from all three disciplines he was exposed to, because the Moon Dragon it was central to didn¡¯t come so naturally to him. He concentrated and felt for the things making his inner flames twitch, the waters tremble, and the shadows grow and change. Fire and light and dark shadows flowing, dancing, changing under outside pressure... Aye, and there it was. A distinct pressure coming from ahead and to the right, said direction he conveyed with a pointing of his forefinger and thumb. He stayed right in Shadow mindset thereafter, immersing himself in sneak-sneak and quiet-quiet instead of slit-slit and stab-stab. The Shadow mindset was elusive and slippery, sliding about this kind of pressure and not mounting any resistance which might be felt. He especially knew that not even the slightest magic was going to be used now without alerting something¡­ and that something didn¡¯t feel like some alien shite come to the mortal world, as it almost always had before. Well, except when he¡¯d been in the presence of old Asheron. The old Empyrean had always felt like he was paying attention to everything around him, and carried his power like a quiet cloak concealing great and hidden depths right in front of you¡­ Come to think of it, Martine¡¯s Aura wasn¡¯t all that much different, although it had that uncomfortable virindi buzz to it that always indicated when the things were around. This¡­ felt more like dying, or death, or pain, like it wanted to make his blood tingle. He¡¯d never met Nuhmudira. The woman had only liked to show herself to her students and her most fanatic followers. Still, this didn¡¯t feel like how he remembered Gaerlan or Harlune or other Empyreans. Not strong enough¡­ Wait, did she have a daughter? Aye, and she might¡¯ve come through at the same time as the Princess and Lady Magos, just at a different place. The undead had controlled the Beginner Dungeon in Samsur, and there were signs that the place had been receiving some Isparians when they went into it to clear it out and close it down, as they had Holtburg. He didn¡¯t know if the Princess had made the leap or could sense the flavor of such things like he could, but he also knew that regardless of how much she wanted to kill them, she wouldn¡¯t let it endanger the mission. Flitting from door to door of what she Signed to him were storage rooms, or the shadow of carved supports in a style that looked Isparian, but of a style he wasn¡¯t familiar with, they closed in on the main room¡­ before the Princess silently opened a door and flitted through it. Not questioning her selection of routes, he slid through it after her and closed it silently, noting the doors were well-oiled. Someone didn¡¯t like squeaky doors. There were stairs leading up behind the door. Grinning at this display of her Tremblesense looking behind the doors, he followed the long legs up the stairs three at a time, and they were rapidly at the top of doorway leading into a walkway around a large open room. Workrooms led off from the hallway encircling the hall below, some of them with lights on, and even people visible to them in the rooms across the cavern. AF Chapter 355 – A Caul to Harms Men and women were visible working below, surrounded by the sputtering, bubbling, and sparkling paraphernalia of alchemists and artificers. The crackle and flare of spells being cast, subtle and overt, accompanied the work below, which seemed to be centered around various objects of magical nature and fairly unique appearances. A poof of fire drew both their eyes over to where two large rubies were set up on tripods. A crackle of lightning to the second ruby followed a moment later, and the two men in red and brown armored robes conferred before writing notes down. ¡°The missing Crimson Stars,¡± the Mick verified under his breath to Princess Kristi. ¡°That be a Sword of Soduku, a Crystal Sword, an¡¯ some o¡¯ the Weapons o¡¯ the Fallen an¡¯ the Bosses o¡¯ Caul Island. I ain¡¯t seen a Plaguefang Robe in near twenty years, nor a Staff of Gikar, or Atakir¡¯s Dagger,¡± he murmured, pointing out each of the devices. ¡°I think that be Lilitha¡¯s Bow there, too. Hunter¡¯s Leap were up around Cragstone and Holtburg...¡± ¡°They¡¯ve been busy,¡± Princess Kristie Rantha purred in a voice which carried absolutely no further than his ear. ¡°What say we steal all their hard-earned labor for ourselves?¡± ¡°Och, Highness, ye be so grimly ironic,¡± he replied, then directed her attention to a doorway which had just opened. A tall woman with dark skin and tightly braided hair, on the surface a Gharu¡¯ndim maga, had walked out of a room on the opposite side of the chamber, looking out over the work being done below with an expression of satisfaction on her face. Lord Mick didn¡¯t recognize her at all, but the very soft hiss from the Princess basically confirmed his guess. ¡°Oh, Ryin would walk in and just waste this place to kill her, I think, but¡­¡± her finger pointed further off to the right. The Mick shifted his dark gaze, and saw there was a flicker of motion from the light behind the woman. A voice called out, and she turned back to re-enter the room. The Mick saw two guards shift positions from where they¡¯d stood unmoving against the stone walls, almost invisible themselves. Zharalim, the scholar-assassins of the Gharu¡¯ndim, and Nuhmudira¡¯s favorite servants. ¡°They are undead,¡± the Princess stated in whispered confidence. ¡°She¡¯s been Animating her favorite servants.¡± The Mick stared at them and their absolute motionless. Not even a sign of chests rising and falling to breathe, or the faintest stirring of cloth. Guards could be motionless, but they¡¯d show some sign of life, even if it was the minutest shifts of position from blood pumping through their veins. Undead scholar-assassins. Wonderful. ¡°There¡¯s another set of stairs over in that direction, it¡¯s why we went this way.¡± Kris flowed backwards. ¡°We¡¯re going to sit in that empty office there, which has the smell of absolutely nobody having gone into it for at least three days.¡± ¡°Those guards be in Raven colors, wearing dyed Shadow Amuli there.¡± Just a tilt of his head to point them out. ¡°Aye, they be working with her. Ye think those doors lead t¡¯ the inner island?¡± ¡°Would not be surprised. Let¡¯s go and sink into the shadows for a few hours, until they decide to head out for the night, and then do some pilfering.¡± Getting into the empty workroom was the work of seconds. The two simply ensconced themselves out of sight of anyone entering the doorway or glancing inside, sitting curled up and falling into quasi-meditative states. The Mick was aware the Princess and Magos shared a strange bond of their own, so the Roaches were in fine hands and would find some way to keep busy. He stepped into the shadows of his mind, a place easy to return to and a mindset he¡¯d known all of his life, and settled down to wait. ------ ¡°Up.¡± There was no more sounds of conversation or motion outside. The Mick raised his head, exhaling softly, and let out all the stiffness from the hours of not moving drain out with it. He pushed himself to his feet with just a whisper of motion and effort, Princess Kristie already moving for the doorway. Nothing living was moving in any of the chambers about, or the main room. Of course, the four undead guards, two by that door on the opposite wall and two down at the presumed exit to the surface, hadn''t moved at all. However, the psychic pressure from the magic he''d sensed was also no longer present. ¡°We need illusions of the room remaining undisturbed around those two sets of guards. Any problems with that?¡± Kris asked the Mick softly. ¡°None at all, lass,¡± he said with a small smile. He didn¡¯t employ much of the combat magicks of the Matrix side, preferring the versatile and subtle stuff, letting Bunita take care of the violent side of things. Illusions and dimension-hopping stuff were his particular favorites, along with Cantrips to clean up his armor and clothes with a snap of his fingers.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°Do it.¡± The spell he needed was a simple one, Illusionary Wall. It did nothing more than sit there and look like a wall¡­ or in this case, like an image of the space behind it at the moment it was set up. Used smartly it was an easy way to set up an ambush, as it could totally conceal anything on the other side of the Wall. If you had a motionless sentry, it could also fuck around with the shite-heads who just sat at their posts. It would only last a few minutes, but how much time did the two of them need? Kris was already sprinting downstairs as he wove the spell around the two sentries down by the exit. She was in the room below the vision of the two higher-posted guards before he got to the second spell, grabbing the objects all the alchemists and artificers down here had been working on, all their research notes, and maybe a few other objects of value or interest as applicable. He raced after her in the quiet after he finished the second spell, down the stairs, around, and into the room like a streak of blackness. He swept his eyes over the nearest table, picking up the Aun-designed, Totem-powered Palenqual Tewhate there, an Axe of the Living Weapon Tradition which should only have been available on Marae Lassel with access to the old Shrine there. So, they had access to Marae Lassel. Which was not unexpected at all. The Axe and array of Totems vanished into his backpack. There were also a couple Explorer Weapons, as well as the old Assault Weapons supplied by the Virindi to the Hea. Many of the new versions were thrown before the Shrine to the Betrayed at Dryreach, but these were the old ones, with different methods used to make and empower them. Gems, jewelry, special rewards... Gor, that were a Skeletonbane Infusion or he were an olthoi grub¡­ The two of them swept through the tables with speed and sure skill, making sure to grab all the paperwork. No need to replicate all the work already done for them, right? He passed by Princess Kristie as she was opening up cupboards in the work tables and emptying them of some expensive reagents with aplomb, sweeping past her to make sure she hadn¡¯t missed anything important. He only needed to grab a Barbed Fletching Tool that had been discarded to the side and looked unimportant, as well as some scattered rock and stone chunks. There was still a minute left as they slid past the two undead Zharalim guarding the door out, sliding between the illusions in silence and shadowy ki reducing the air motion to virtually nil. Then they were heading down the corridor at a smoothly confident clip, not bothering to investigate the halls to the right of the complex. The tunnel changed as they saw the faint light of stars ahead, looking more volcanic and not carved by hands or tools, although there were still signs of travel along it with armored shoes if you weren¡¯t blind. Also, four quietly seething Magma Golums ahead of them, guarding the corridor and making it look like something other than what it was. The Mick flicked up a horizontal Illusionary Wall, rather than a vertical one, effectively removing the bottom of the corridor from the view of the golums. The two of them simply crouched down and skated right between the four golums, completely unnoticed by them. They glided right out the exit and around the side, out of sight of the Constructs standing patiently there. The place beyond looked like lava had gone flowing in too many streams and directions, completely defying gravity as it crept up the hills and along the valleys there, slick and black and touched with Shadow. Weird crystalline protrusions erupted here and there where the blackness terminated, glowing virindi purple and pulsing with inner lights in an unclean beat. What vegetation was visible on the scarred landscape was all scrub and grasses before them, tortured rock swept by winds and fire dominating most of their vision. Behind and above them rose the outer ring of the Singularity Caul, higher than all of the hills and mounts within it, save the very central ring of what had to have been a volcano to the north in the center of the island ahead of them. All the tracks of power and winding hills visible to them seemed to bend and twist in that direction. -OUTSIDE AND MOVING WEST ALONG THE HILLSIDE,- Kris /tapped out along her Magebond, and received two taps back instantly. ¡°Always hated this place,¡± the Mick murmured, following along behind her as they easily lightfooted it over terrain normal climbers would have had to clamber awkwardly over. ¡°Everything spawns in damn clusters o¡¯ five an¡¯ more, an¡¯ were way too tough t¡¯ kill in a reasonable amount o¡¯ time. Not worth the time spent t¡¯ fight here, an¡¯ the pleasant scenery didn¡¯t change that.¡± Kris looked down at the hillside and valley below them, populated with scores of spawns visible to her, each with at least five creatures, reaching up to a dozen, and often situated very closely together. It was a very weird mix of mutated creatures, such as mites over seven feet tall and twisted zefir, virindi Marionettes, Dolls, and Rifts, and creatures born of Shadow, such as powerful shades and at least three varieties of marguls. Carenzi sporting either disease or mutations, more massive slate-gray reedsharks of the Doomshark type, and even pus-dripping Rats in clusters all seemed more than capable of holding their own against the other spawns. ¡°Shadow and virindi infestation everywhere,¡± Kristie observed acerbically as they came to a sheer wall. Opting not to use magic, her nails drove into the basalt and she clawed for height with little physical effort, scrambling up the sheer stone like a spider. The Mick stuck to his Shadow mindset, and flowed up after her at a more controlled pace, using the handholds she was making for himself, exactly as intended. A hundred feet above, Kris flipped effortlessly over the edge, and they were well and truly out of the line of sight of anything below, sitting on the rim of Caul Island. The Mick came up a moment later, reaching up a hand to grab hers and was hauled right over the edge and to his feet in one effortless heave, spinning once to survey the top of the island once. ¡°Here they come,¡± he pointed out, and Princess Kristie turned around, seeing Ryin come over the outer rim with the Roaches on Disks in tow. It didn¡¯t take long for them all to link back up, touch contact dumping Visual Files and Markspace maps for everyone to update with and report what had happened. ¡°Magos, look at these.¡± Kristie pulled out four items only the Mick had seen outside of illustrations. Ryin accepted them with glittering silver eyes. ¡°Impressive. A Wand and an Orb of Black Fire¡­ and with intact matrices, no less.¡± She lifted up the smooth pair of Casting Implements. ¡°And a Crown and Ring, and Potion and Gem of Black Fire, as well. Looks like the full set. They really are resourceful if they dug out a full set of them¡­¡± AF Chapter 356 – Blackfire Scarab ¡°Or they¡¯ve got an Obsidian Enchanter squirreled away somewhere,¡± Lord Mick grunted knowingly. ¡°I dinnae know if they were supposed t¡¯ be NPC¡¯s, but they had very selective skills, an¡¯ not much business. The woman by Hebian-To had a reputation fer bein¡¯ involved in the black market, me uncle told me, but he dinnae say what she was making. Although¡­,¡± he trailed off thoughtfully, looking at the Wand in Ryin¡¯s grasp, then blinking. ¡°Damn me. That¡¯s the original Wand o¡¯ Black Fire, lass!¡± Eyebrows rose all around. ¡°There was a bit of a dust-up at some point over the original Wands. They dinnae take any magical skill to use, just Arcane Lore. Shot off a Pyreal-tier Flame Bolt, too. Were the single most popular item of all the Enchanters! ¡°And then one day, there were a new Wand that required ye t¡¯ know War Magic t¡¯ use, an¡¯ they be no longer making the old ones¡­¡± ¡°Someone leaned on someone and got a very useful product all for themselves,¡± Princess Kristie sniffed, crossing her leanly muscled arms. ¡°Think you can replicate that, Ryin?¡± ¡°It is actually very similar to Matrix-style Wands.¡± Mira was ecstatic as she went through the Formations woven into the different items. ¡°Earthfire Obsidian and Firestone Obsidian, different properties, different methods to use them, despite their similarities. Obsidian is a weird thing to work with at the best of times because of all the impurities inside it. The golums purifying away the impurities are basically the only way you could get something to work with like this.¡± I picked up the old Wand. ¡°This is perfect. It¡¯s got a hexagonal Formation in it that results in a Pyreal Spell. It¡¯s almost perfect for adaptation into a Blackfire Scarab.¡± ¡°That gets ye t¡¯ Pyreal spells then?¡± ¡°Pretty sure of it, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°The new Wand tossed out a Fire Volley at Gold,¡± he reminded me. ¡°Pentagonal, like this Orb.¡± I lifted it to him. ¡°And all the other devices here, which use a pentagonal Formation instead, and so are inherently less powerful. The things made from the Obsidian Jewels are more delicate in make, from Firestone Obsidian refined by the Obsidian and Basalt Golums. The Black Rocks are Earthfire Obsidian, and can handle greater energy with more resilience.¡± ¡°Well, it just remains to be seen if ye can carve them, then,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°How¡¯s the stores o¡¯ them? The Stoneholders had a good supply of them, I understand, an¡¯ the teams working the Golum Bridge off Avallele Island harvested quite a few, too, but couldn¡¯t find much use for them without a Stone Collector or an Obsidian Enchanter. I think I got a trunk full o¡¯ em somewhere in the Scout Compound, just from training.¡± I smiled at him. ¡°You know this Potion here is a VERY powerful Healing Potion, and it¡¯s made from those things?¡± ¡°Aye, but none of the Alchemists could figure it out¡­¡± ¡°Under the Matrix system, this isn¡¯t a true Potion, it¡¯s an Elixir and has to be enchanted more like a Wondrous Item. True Potions only go to IV, and this is at V, a Gold-equivalent item.¡± The Mick blinked in shock, staring at the bright blue bottle. ¡°Aye, this is more akin to enchanting an item, as opposed to mixing components and working in some magic. You have to enchant the jewel used to form the basis of it with the Healing effect and then powder and dissolve it into this liquid. ¡°I¡¯ll let this method out, and we should be able to get a lot more of these stocking the reserves for the troops. Those Obsidian Golums should be harvested regularly for them, too.¡± ¡°Ye kin bet yer Staff that will be going on now!¡± he confirmed with feeling. None of the Healing Potions available out there were anywhere close to the Healing power of a Blackfire Potion, which equaled that of the very best Healing Philters from before the Fall. ¡°Fire and Earth Obsidian making a Healing Potion.¡± He had to roll his eyes at the very idea. ¡°That¡¯s why the damn things were so damn janky when ye drank ¡®em. Like getting a hot rush at the same time as all yer blood went ice cold, wounds steamed as they closed.¡± ¡°You got a Scarab design for me?¡± Kris interjected expectantly, pulling out one of each of the Obsidian Spheres and Jewels used to make the Blackfire items. ¡°Those are totally unsuitable for Scarabs. We need the original Stones and Rocks.¡± ¡°Ho. Wasn¡¯t sure they were useful, but didn¡¯t see any reason t¡¯ leave ¡®em behind.¡± The Mick pulled out the rocks and stones he¡¯d cleared off one of the tables, skipped by Kris, who had just given them a glance and now shook her head at not recognizing what they were. He dropped them on Rogar¡¯s Disk at the same time he reclaimed his Armor, then shoved the Disk over to the princess. ¡°Go to it, Highness.¡± ¡°You should be able to carve three Scarabs out of a proper source. Oddly enough, I¡¯ve got three potential patterns to try out,¡± I smiled. Kris held up her hand, and hard Gold claws manifested around her left hand expectantly, gleaming with edges far, far too sharp for something material. ¡°Give me the pattern,¡± she stated firmly. I reached over to touch her arm, establishing a Marklink, and gave her the designs.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. She sliced into the stone like it was tofu, the volcanic glass of Firestone Obsidian giving way smoothly, not even fracturing like it should have. Clawed fingers sliced and peeled away the glassy substance, exposing a red heart inside the stone that she quickly carved around and through with little difficulty. It was fascinating to watch the process, basically gemcutting at the highest order and requiring no more tools than her Soulclaws and Tremblesense to execute perfectly. It took only two minutes for the first Scarab, glossy black with a warm red center, cut into the inch-wide hexagon, which she handed over to me, promptly starting on the second design. My own Disk came spinning out of its folded state from my Masspack, along with a satchel of original spell components, not the prismatic tapers that folded them all into one component. I needed to establish my third taper for a Gold-level spell, as I¡¯d failed horrendously last time. The students there only saw spell component formations when doing the test for a new Scarab themselves. They were especially interested in the unique taper I had in mine, which nobody had ever used. Most importantly, if this worked, then perhaps anyone could Cast Pyreal-grade spells once more under the new magic system! Well, after one simple test. I simply pumped the full mana needed for Impenetrability V, the baseline spell, through the faceted Scarab on my palm. It exploded violently, although I vented it skywards rather than in all directions. The snap and crack of it made everyone flinch, except Kris, who ignored it completely. ¡°One design down,¡± the Mick judged with a small smile. ¡°Aye, the least likely one to work,¡± I agreed, waiting as Kris finished up the second Scarab, which had significantly more minor faceting on the edges. She handed it over, and I repeated the process. The Firestone Scarab cracked internally as the mana moved through it and fell apart into a dozen brittle pieces in my hand. I closed my hand, crushed them to inert black sand, and let them fall. ¡°Naturally,¡± Kris half-laughed, shaking her head. Her fingers flew again, sure and measured, and fiery obsidian bits fell to the ground, carving out the hexagon and faces rapidly, then swiftly and surely faceting it, then inscribing a simple yet precise set of geometric lines on one face of it. The lines gleamed fiery red against the black of the obsidian, absorbing all the fire within the Scarab. I accepted it from her, and repeated the process of channeling mana through the Scarab. It took the flow, glowing brighter and slices of ruby light manifesting in the glow, before fading back down as the mana failed to actually go through a Casting to manifest a spell. Success! Kris grabbed the other three stones and promptly began carving them up for me. I set the Firestone Scarab at the beginning of the simple array, next to the Gold Scarab. Blue taper, hyssop for the herb, White second taper, onyx powder, cobalt potion, Twilight taper, Diamond Scarab, Ashwood Talisman. Technically I needed the Twilight taper OR the Diamond Scarab, but having both wouldn¡¯t hurt. I closed my eyes and began to move the mana through the components, building the spell calmly. The mana acquired both rigidity and energy as it moved through the Earthfire Scarab, giving it more strength against the resistance to the spell as it was constructed. It attuned to my Aura as it moved through the tapers, the Twilight Taper crystallizing that attunement, and moved through the Diamond Scarab and ashwood talisman with no problems. Gold-grade Impenetrability V manifested on Rogar¡¯s breastplate with a crinkle of power. There was quiet applause. There wasn¡¯t even any component burn as I impressed the spell into my internal memory, just like a Sorcery spell. Kris handed me six Scarabs: three of the Firestone, and three of the most complex pattern of the Earthfire Scarabs, which not only had a different pattern of red lines etched onto them, but all the facets gleamed ruby red, clearly holding more power than the simpler Scarabs. One flow of sixty mana flowed through the Scarab, which actually reflected the mana all about it, as if constructing a single Scarab about itself to contain and control the manifesting mana. It handled the load without a problem. Impenetrability VI required a pale green Pyreal Scarab, and advancing the tapers. The first taper advanced from Blue to Indigo, the second advanced from White to Gray, and my Twilight Taper in the third slot. The Earthfire Scarab went in front, and it was time to test the spell. A full mana expenditure was siphoning a lot of my mana, and I was going to need some time to get it all back. But I spent it without hesitation, watching and feeling it build through the spell, hit the Twilight Taper and hardlock to my Aura, filter and purify its way through the Diamond Scarab, hit the talisman and finally pulse out in a completed spell, with a definite crystalline red tinge to it as I Cast it on Selena¡¯s Mail. Impenetrability VI crinkled into existence across her Armor. ¡°Ye¡¯ve found the key to Pyreal spells for us,¡± the Mick breathed out, impressed. ¡°Yer sweet goddess Sylune be goin¡¯ t¡¯ find a whole lot more interest in her after this, lass!¡± ¡°The main problem is going to be the supply of Earthfire Scarabs, Lord Mick. I expect that room full of them up in Stonehold is going to empty out VERY quickly.¡± Not to mention they¡¯d all have to be carved up by someone sufficiently skilled to do so. I held up one of the jet and ruby Scarabs for him. ¡°QL 34!¡± Everyone grimaced at that news. Anything over 30 really required a former adventurer to make, as typical jewelers rarely got their skill to the required height, and using an imperfect Scarab could easily result in the spell exploding in your face! ¡°I presume you can make them quickly with Fabricates, but that¡¯s more V Slots out the door.¡± And it wasn¡¯t like I didn¡¯t have constant demand for those, especially with the pyreal lottery we were exploiting. ¡°Speaking of which¡­¡± ¡°Right.¡± Kris stepped over to the edge, gazing down at the creatures in the valleys and on the hillside below. ¡°Okay, we¡¯re going to take the time to do a complete circuit of the island from atop this rim. It looks different from the topography the paramounts remember.¡± She glanced at Lord Mick as he stepped up beside her, and nodded agreement. "Twelve miles across, about forty miles. We shouldn¡¯t have any problems making it in twelve hours. Let¡¯s get some distance from this holding below us so we aren¡¯t detected at range, make a Seal Focus, and then off with you. Meet you back here in twelve hours.¡± A Lived-line around the place would get everyone within six miles of anything happening, meaning a single trip to the middle area would get it down to three miles. It was a good idea. ¡°That¡¯s the smart way to do things.¡± AF Chapter 357 – End of the Pyreal Lottery Winnings Briggs and I shimmered into place at the end of the Mountain Sewers, offset back to the branch of the hallway that led to both the underground town and the undead section of the labyrinth here. He immediately paused, as did I. ¡°There¡¯s a spiritual pressure that wasn¡¯t here before,¡± he informed me immediately. ¡°They¡¯ve noticed and changed something, and might be watching and waiting for us,¡± I agreed, then smiled slightly. ¡°Shall we see how closely?¡± Briggs had been doing everything he could to strengthen his Source Aura, and he had to be maddeningly hard to follow by the System at the best of times. I kept my hand on his girdle as we headed down, my Astral Ward also making it hard to follow me unless they really put some attention to it. A VII+1 meant an X-Valence equivalent was needed to overcome it¡­ and I had more than enough magical awareness to see any scrying sensor or feel a clairvoyant eye looking at me now. The combo of an Astral Ward + Source Field meant I¡¯d totally vanished from any attempt to find me without breaking my Caster Level, and I¡¯d REALLY feel that. The feeling of a watching presence grew as we came down into the area of the underground city, the few lesser undead here long since killed and their Spawn Points Sealed away. Nobody had found the NPC¡¯s here yet, Alarm spells at IV in the area scattered to make sure of that, so it had always been just us. That was good. Instead of jumping up, we quietly took the stairs this time, coming into the room where the peddler was located. The attention was definitely centered in the next room. The smith and the peddler in this room didn¡¯t seem changed at all. ¡°Get the new pits dug,¡± Briggs smiled wolvishly, and I got to work. This time, I made ten pits, because we were going to fill them and Tapestry them FAST. The cloth squares were premade, dozens of weavers working tirelessly to make them from linen, or patched together from the fabric of the tens of thousands of shirts and pants we¡¯d brought from the peddler here. All of our cashing-in of MMD stacks had been done at the archmage in the next room. Endure¡¯s Sound Bubble was up, so if someone was listening through her ears, they weren¡¯t going to hear anything from here, and I put a separate Sound Bubble up over the pits to hide the clinking of the metal that was going to be flowing rapidly. ¡°Ready!¡± I said to him, as the sluice in the main room melted and rose into position. Briggs nodded, and stepped up to the peddler as his full Source Aura swelled and basically filled the room. ¡°Good afternoon. Who am I speaking to?¡± he said in that magnificent commanding baritone of his, just radiating awesome strength and stature. The man¡¯s eyes widened, and something instantly glitched in his eyes. ¡°To, Tobin MacErskine, my lord! Peddler and merchant of fine wares!¡± he blurted out, almost a meep as he stared up at Briggs in shock. A huge hand reached out and clamped firmly and easily on the man¡¯s head, thumb and little finger past his ears. Briggs could clench his fist and pop the man¡¯s head like an apple, but that wasn¡¯t why he did it, even as the man froze in shock. ¡°Listen very closely to me, Tobin MacErskine,¡± Briggs rumbled sternly. ¡°I am going to take you out of here, with the other two of you who have been chained here for so long. I am going to bring you back to life and the living, back to open air and green grass and wandering the world of your own free will. ¡°This is going to happen. In return, I am wondering if you might not want to help me with some revenge.¡± I watched that spark jump in the guy¡¯s eye, four different glitches going on in his expression. ¡°LoRd BrIgGs?¡± he repeated in a voice that broke in two octaves between sounds. ¡°Don¡¯t let them know we are doing business. Suppress the relay to the System that lets them know you are drawing goods until after we are done.¡± ¡°I-I do not know¡­¡± he began, and Briggs waved him to quiet with his other hand. ¡°My hand is upon you. You can DO this. For all the stolen years and theft of your life, you WILL do this. ¡°They owe you, and you are calling in the debt.¡± He was a dark-haired Black Aluvian, and most of those people were clanfolk, born rogues with tempers and long memories for being crossed. Dark blue eyes smoldered under the power of Source passion, remembering¡­ ¡°What of my fine goods can I sell you today, my lord?¡± Tobin asked, and if the words were repetitive and somewhat flat, those blue eyes were glitching in and out furiously.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Briggs nodded and pulled out a stack of MMD¡¯s from his Masspack, handing it over to the trader. ¡°I would like to cash that in. Please put the money right there.¡± He indicated the basin and sluice right next to him. Just because he couldn¡¯t SELL MMD¡¯s didn¡¯t mean the peddler couldn¡¯t CASH them¡­ or two hundred and fifty of them! A minor fact we¡¯d verified with the Mick some time ago, preparing for this eventuality. ¡°Of course, my lord. One moment while I get your money¡­¡± His eyes were twitching back and forth as they stared into the pale green eyes of Briggs, who was full of absolute confidence, and he finally waved his hand. Pyreal poured out of nowhere into the basin, and promptly washed down the sluice to the first twenty-foot cube I¡¯d erected outside, rapidly filling it almost a third full. Briggs paused only long enough for the clinking, clattering pale green metal to empty out of the basin before pulling out another stack of MMD¡¯s and handing it over. A ghost of a smile was at the edge of the lips of the peddler as he accepted it. ¡°Of course, my lord. One moment while I get your money,¡± he repeated, but there was a note of schadenfreude in his voice that wasn¡¯t there before as he said it. Briggs smiled coolly back at him and nodded as another goddamn fortune of pyreal descended from the air. If this was a day ago, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do this. But with the Firestone Scarabs Kris had carved up for me, I could advance my Pool Theurgy to /5, and now I could pay for V Slots out of my Mana Pool at fifty mana per Slot. Since I had over six hundred mana, that was effectively +12 Slots, and I could Mana Boost to gain my mana back for at least four more, and even convert Health or Stamina from those Pools to my Mana Pool for even more. I had this! ------ Briggs looked around perfunctorily. There was no sign of any pits or sluices or anything, and Ryin was already gone, even the trace of her Teleporting out swiftly eroded away by his Source Aura. Tobin MacErskine and Hadim Qashir followed him into the room with the archmage there, the bony and artificial hands of Arakne Arms from Briggs¡¯ hips on their shoulders, gentle but irresistible as they followed him, glitches of reality trying to compensate for going off-script flickering up and down them. Her dark eyes fixed on him, something different in them than before. He didn¡¯t care as he approached, and unlike all the other times, his full Source Aura swept over her. Her jaw dropped as she stared way up at him, given she barely came to his chest. ¡°I am Commander Briggs,¡± he introduced himself solemnly. ¡°What master of the magical arts do I have the pleasure of addressing today?¡± he rumbled with all the domineering authority ever. The adjusted script prepared for him went very off-script as she replied hastily, ¡°This, this one is Toyama Shisi, C-Commander Briggs!¡± she blurted out in utter shock. Briggs nodded down at her and reached out his hand... --- The Seal Focus on the ground by the city of Freehold flared up, and Commander Briggs and three companions, two held by thick black Arakne Arms extending from the Tats about his hips, Archmage Toyama with a big yet gentle gauntleted hand on her shoulder, appeared on top of it. Something major glitched and cracked and broke, the soldiers around watching in fascination as reality seemed to rewrite somehow, or a restraint on it tremble, break, and wash away in the flow of a Source Aura. All three former NPC¡¯s cried out as they stared at the sky, falling to their knees and beginning to weep at the sight of it. They¡¯d been trapped in a nightmare and a dream for thirty years or more, and only now, now were they free of it¡­ Briggs patted each of them as sympathetic souls rushed in to comfort them, spells of Heart¡¯s Ease and Restoration on the lips of the Healers there. The Divinely-granted spells would ease the crushing weight of years of absolute tedium weighing down on them that they simply were not equipped to deal with. It would not be forgotten, but the weight of it would be a feather, easily dismissed, looked over and past unless they deliberately focused on it. But they knew, and would always know, what had been done to them, and that he had freed them. They were going to be his people forever, and he knew that and knew he¡¯d be responsible for them, in turn. At the very least, they¡¯d never lack for money, but more good minds doing the low, broad jobs was what he needed now, and a trained smith, merchant, and archmage were all things he could use in production of material goods. Screwing over the System that screwed over them? Just a big bonus for a job well done¡­ --- Well, the short-term drain on my V¡¯s was over, but I still had others, namely Raise Dead and Regenerate spells from inevitable battle losses. I had opened up the restoration of Pyreal spells once more with the new Earthfire Scarabs providing the necessary reinforcement and structure to get them off once more. Of course, all that did for now is bring up a colossal need for the Scarabs, as every Caster and their mother wanted at least a hundred of them right off the bat. I looked at the room packed full of black rocks gained from random Magma Golum spawns. There was now a hunt going on for Dungeons with guaranteed magma spawns there to be harvested. Technically, they didn¡¯t need the golums, they just needed a source of Earthfire Obsidian. The golums just did a chunk of the work ahead of time for them. I lifted the adamantine carving tool in my hand, already Buffed up, for the focus for the Fabricate spell. The spell accomplished one day of labor, done in seconds, subject to my own skill check. A roomful of work to do. And me here with a Mana Pool that could now refill V Slots. We¡¯d see how many Scarabs I could get out of these per rock, sure enough, and then I was going to have to go visiting all the volcanoes I could, looking for Earthfire Obsidian. The Firestone stuff wouldn¡¯t be an issue, plenty of black stones stacked up for me to use for the immediate future, although I¡¯d definitely mark any I¡¯d find. More importantly, the Blackfire Stones were the next iteration of power for the E-obsidian progression, so Blackfire Obsidian was probably the Scarab for the Platinum Tier of spells we¡¯d all need. The only place that had a good chance of holding that was Tenkarrdun on Aerlinthe Island, home to Lady Aerefalle, millennia-old head of the undead faction of the Wind of Secrets¡­ AF Chapter 358 – Cauled to the Caulcano It was raining on the Singularity Caul when I reappeared on the rim of the island, fresh from regaining mana after another round of Undead Resurrections. Princess Kristie, Lord Mick, and the Roaches all looked up as Kris¡¯s personal team of Knights of the Lost Light appeared with me. They were all set up under an overhang I¡¯d made out of the landscape just inside, Disks with cloaks breaking the wind coming through as they waited for us. I Shaped up more cover for everyone, and we all went underneath as the deeper expanded overhang turned into basically a longer cave, although I didn¡¯t exactly need the cover, as the rain couldn¡¯t touch me with Primus on the job. Hands were shaken all around between bearers of the Lost Light, the two teams well aware of their differences and how they complemented one another. The Knights were better in a straight-up fight with their heavier Armor and default Shields, the Roaches with mixed-arms and stealth ops. Both were equally vicious in wolfpack situations, and they all knew it, so there¡¯d be no trouble in joint melee operations. Hands linked, and Markspace intel was shared quickly between all participants. The Map, juxtaposed against my orbital survey, was of particular use for everyone. It was still missing the on-site accuracy of actual travel through the areas, but it was more than enough to allow us to make a plan of attack. This island was one of the very few places Fallen Creatures, which had been lured and taken by Shadow energies, could be found. At the same time, the Marionettes of the Virindi were like Simulacra made from undead, proving that even the undead weren¡¯t above being tinkered with by the Aberrants. There were a lot of different creatures here, although the spawns varied depending on where you were on the island to a certain degree. Our goal was to check out the buildings once held by the Raven Hand at the center of the island, basically outside the entrance to the caldera at the heart of the place. There was going to be a lot of fighting involved in making it to there, although getting out was much simpler with me sitting there. Cold seemed to be the most useful option, although slashing damage came in first or second on a bunch of the creatures as well. It meant swapping between Phasing Enhancements on our Weapons, which was annoying, but it could be dealt with, even if it meant splitting active damage types between the fighters. I could easily run Healing and support for all of them with Darts, and they knew it, so this was as much a test for how well adventurers could handle the spawns as anything else. The plan was made, and we moved out immediately. This time I led the course, flying over the broken terrain at the top of the rim as everyone crouched on Disks, Protection from Rain breaking the inclement weather away from everyone, and we headed around to the one o¡¯clock position to the north of us around where we¡¯d descend and start making our way towards the middle of the island to get the Lived-Line locks for everyone. Kris had stated that she was going to make a run through all the main valleys of this place, and the Mick wasn¡¯t going to let her do that alone. That would put her close to every point of interest quickly enough. I had the Caster Level for Teleports to not need to do that now, but having to use items, it was still the proper play for others. They¡¯d also had time to go through all the paperwork and magical items they¡¯d discovered. The crowning achievements were actually two lesser items set aside: a Royal Runed Dagger and Claw. Both of those Weapons could trigger to bestow a Platinum Imperil Other on what was struck by them. The chance was basically about 1/10, independent of the damage the Weapon actually did, and the target still got a magic resistance check¡­ but it was mid-combat Casting of a sort, and another lead-in to effects that Triggered, like the Bloodscorch Sword we¡¯d already sacrificed for the research, which had Triggered a Ring of Fire. Also noteworthy was a Silvaran Red Runed Mace, supposedly the highest level of Isparian craftmanship, combining a Bludgeon Cleaving Rune with a lesser Biting Strike and Crushing Blow effect. It was the first Silvaran Weapon, a very popular line of Weapons from the greatest sword-making nation back on Ispar, that we¡¯d recovered intact. All in all, it was quite a haul, and the intelligence gleaned was also important. Eight agents within our Artificing efforts were identified, four willing, two not, and two were just idiots leaving their assistants free to copy everything they were doing and send it on. Briggs was already making sure their contacts were waylaid in various entertaining ways, conveying how Not Amused he was with their subterfuge, while the spies passing information were exposed and booted from the collective effort with their reputations ruined. It was also plain that they were working with the surviving members of the Corcosi Kingdom on the Hlaetians. Kristie¡¯s pale violet eyes were basically glowing as she related that bit of information, and I knew a trip to the northern islands was not far in the future.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ------ The slog across the Caul was long and involved, with a lot of tough stuff that we had to fight, a lot of them with magic, and so tough that there was no such thing as fast kills, even if I got off Imperils on them with minimal mana expenditure to speed things up. Still, the Wolfpack tactics proved their worth over and over, shredding the things that first Kris and then Lord Mick tanked for everyone. Then multiple knights pulled them apart to try things, and if there were solo spawns, everyone tried solo combats against the creatures to test things out while everyone looked on and analyzed what was going on, making adjustments and memorizing moves and potential counter-moves. The allied Fellowships kept a brisk pace ahead of respawns, not wanting to leave a sign that we were there out on the landscape. Let Nuhmudira send out teams all over the mountainside to look for signs of intruders, as Kris reported they had, they were going to find absolutely nothing on how they¡¯d been so thoroughly ripped off. Let¡¯s see how they enjoyed a taste of their own tactics. The alerts that Nuhmudira and Xunidira were active in sabotaging and racing us to former Quest items that could help us break the Artificing systems now in place were now out and widespread, and the chance that she might interfere personally was always a possibility, although past information noted she was loathe to enter combat situations, preferring powerful Rituals and manipulation from afar. The angle of attack was chosen because it kept us out of sight of the central fortress dominated by the Raven Hand completely. The Mick¡¯s reports indicated that random landscape spawns didn¡¯t approach the building, and at least a substantial chunk of the Raven Hands on guard duty there were Summons, too. We didn¡¯t know how many real ones remained alive, but we didn¡¯t want to be seen by them, or whatever shades were visiting them. The Virindi Paradox looking over their creations and minions, or the Void Lords of the shades doing the same, we didn¡¯t have the same consideration for. If they were real, they Burned en vivus, every one of them, not going to warn anybody that we were here. Let them go missing forever¡­ ---- I joined Kris and Lord Mick up at the front of the line, looking down the sharp ridgeline down into the caldera of the Caulcano, as it was known. No active lava anywhere, but the ground was scorching hot to the contact. Without Resist Fire, we¡¯d be burning our boots away shortly, and flesh shortly thereafter. Lines of hot red light shone between black stone that formed the center of the caldera, clearly indicating molten rock below, but it didn¡¯t seem to have stopped the creatures occupying the place at all. Lots of marguls and shades, some scattered Virindi and their Rift and Marionette minions. All Summons, because they weren¡¯t shooting the shit out of one another in this place. ¡°Lots of nasty spell power down there,¡± the Mick murmured, glancing around. ¡°We don¡¯t need t¡¯ go down into this place, do we?¡± A Lived-Line up to the edge of the place at a safe drop point was totally good enough for insertion uses. ¡°Ideally, I¡¯d like a drop point at each of the four ways out,¡± Princess Kristie pointed out. ¡°But that¡¯s not why we¡¯re really here.¡± She looked back at me. ¡°Go to it, Ryin.¡± I nodded and walked down into the caldera and out of the pass into the place, getting just far enough away from the nearest Summons to not trigger them as I cleared my mind, and I Cast a Detect Elements ramped up to VII+1, humming softly to myself. Six hundred paces ahead of me, the spell swept out and around, analyzing what elements and Isotopes were present in the area. It naturally pinged quickly. This place was a fountain of Pyric Mana, and Shadow was also heavy on the area, with the reverberation of Virindi energies that had blasted open the Caulcano in the first place also lingering around. They began to list out on Holo next to me, as Lord Mick and Kris had followed me down. Most were minor primary endowments of dubious worth ¨C who needed Fire Magma, after all? ¨C but there were pockets and locations where other Elements rang out. Earthfire Obsidian was present close to the center of the Caulcano. As I panned right to the walls of the caldera, Firestone Obsidian sprang up and was present along the walls. I had thought it wasn¡¯t of high demand, but the first loyal and discreet War Mages who tried using it with their Gold Scarabs had enthusiastically reported back that Scarab and taper Burn was cut by three-quarters or more when they were used. They were even wondering if there was an Obsidian Scarab that could be used with Silvers to the same effect, as Component Burn was up at least triple what it was before the Fall on Silver spells. All the Scarabs, actually. ¡°Ah, shite,¡± the Mick said, as I panned left and more Isotopes flickered through the Holo. ¡°Gonna be doing a lot o¡¯ digging in this place, I gather?¡± ¡°I can pull tons of the raw material out of here quickly if we get close enough, probably enough to fill a Tapestry if required.¡± I refocused to the center, and pointed to a line of Fire Corundum on the Holo. ¡°That¡¯s Fire Rubies. There¡¯s a vein of them here.¡± I flicked up a certain Ruby for a certain Silifi they¡¯d given me. ¡°Guess what this Ruby is made from?¡± ¡°What about Blackfire gems?¡± Kris asked urgently. ¡°If they exist, they¡¯ll be at the center of the place, and likely down some distance. We¡¯ll have to get up there for me to check it out.¡± ¡°Fire an¡¯ Shadow an¡¯ Virindi energies,¡± the Mick sighed, looking around. ¡°A nice little bubbling pot o¡¯ strange powers t¡¯ be workin¡¯ with, methinks?¡± ¡°A Tapestry of the Obsidian each should handle all of our short-term needs completely,¡± I informed them. ¡°There¡¯s also Earth and Fire Obsidian along the walls, which I have the feeling would apply to Silver and Copper spells, respectively.¡± ¡°But lower priority, and we can come back for major amounts of those.¡± Quaver warbled quietly as he was drawn from his sheath. ¡°Okay, we¡¯re going for killing, using the lessons we learned. Slaughter them and move on. Our goal is to circle the caldera and get a full Elemental survey of the place, then stab into the center and complete the survey before we bail.¡± The Knights of the Lost Light and the Scouts straightened up from where they were resting, the latter hopping back on the Disks and readying their missile Weapons with a mixture of broadheads and Coldphasing Ammunition. Kris pointed, and followed her own pointing finger at speed. Lord Mick cursed under his breath with a knowing smile, and the Knights and Roaches streamed urgently past me as they closed in on the nearest spawn of marguls, Coldphasing Weapons taking the lead. I trotted after them, sighing at the necessity of it all, but somebody had to do the job, and Mithar had elected me¡­ AF Chapter 359 – Center of the Caulcano The marguls were twisted, shrunken approximations of drakes, imbued with Shadow and Fire. They were mean, vicious things, which could claw, bite, jump and glide long distances with their wings, while still being no bigger than a big dog. Their flaming breath was not appreciated by anyone, and the spells they sent off, a mixture of Life Magic Debuffs and Fire War Magic, didn¡¯t endear them to us, either. Kris could laugh at most anything of that nature, of course, and what her Null couldn¡¯t take she could Spellcut off herself quickly. The Mick wasn¡¯t quite so fortunate, but his Magic Defense was plenty high and hard to land on, so I didn¡¯t have to Dispel him much, saving on mana costs and letting me focus on Healing as needed. With the two of them taking lead, Wolfpacks quickly shattered the clustered, scrabbling spawns of marguls, then the shades that sometimes spawned with them. Virindi clusters of them and the Marionettes were not enjoyed, as they were much heavier and relentless with the spells, as well as annoyingly lethal in personal combat, the Paradoxes in particular being quite well-armored. They were still Summons, no real ones among those present here. I gathered the real ones would be attacked by the spawns of the other side in place, and so didn¡¯t bother coming here to be torn apart by uncaring Summons. An interesting state of affairs. We had almost made it to the southern pass when I stopped everyone, Shaped the ground level, and spread a Tapestry cloth down. The next minute slick dark volcanic glass was pouring out of a nearby stand of it, including an entire boulder with a dull red glow revealing itself as it began to flow over and onto the cloth. I didn¡¯t need to erect a containment box for this, as it was going to be hundreds of tons of solid stone, veined with crystalline patterns of fire scattered in a regular pattern of red dots and lines of red stretching between them to preserve the internal energies of the stuff. It took only a couple minutes to pull up enough Firestone Obsidian to form a full Tapestry. I invoked the spell, and the massive cube of stone, twenty feet on a side, fell into the cloth below it, becoming an illustration of a massive stone cube instead of a real one, woven into the cloth. The cloth was promptly Itemized, reduced to an eighth of its size, and stowed in my Masspack after quick folds. We cleared out of the area about a minute ahead of the rapidly returning respawning Summons, that process hastened along by being the first time anything had died there for some time. ¡°Anything else of interest?¡± Princess Kristie asked me just before the next fight, against two Paradoxes, a Rift, and two Marionettes, was going to start. ¡°There¡¯s a vein of Earth Diamonds directly under those six marguls over there.¡± I pointed to a spawn point down off the wall. Kris noted it and the spawns on the way down to it. ¡°Anything else along the wall to pull out?¡± ¡°Fire Jade and Fire Quartz. Neither are high demand, and we can come back for them.¡± ¡°Fire Jade is mostly for Wondrous Architecture and Sculptures. Fire Quartz?¡± she pressed quickly. ¡°Tips Wands and stuff to get a little more fire damage out of them.¡± ¡°Where¡¯s the Fire Quartz?¡± she asked promptly. ¡°Just popped up at the edge of my Detects, about halfway to the next pass.¡± Kris grinned fiercely. ¡°Good. We¡¯ll pull some of that out for funsies.¡± She pointed ahead. ¡°Archers, take out that Rift first. First team on the first Paradox with me, second team on the second Paradox. Team three and four with the Mick on the Marionettes. If the Rift dies first, clear the Virindi.¡± What it meant was that she was going to be tanking all of the things, because Summons were stupid, and she¡¯d be doling out Sword Beats Fist in all directions in explosions of slashing damage. That was going to drive the Wolfpack engine of furious Opportunist attacks and relentless crits piling on the damage. The Mick, with Bunita in Coldphasing, was going to concentrate on the Marionettes, most vulnerable to that Element, while the Archers picked the big glowing target, a floating mask atop an amorphous blob of filtered virindi-Tainted light, from above, then would start on the hardest things to kill, the Paradox. My main job was to Dispel, Healing if needed¡­ but Kris, having donned her Olthoi Armor, didn¡¯t need much Healing with Healing Edge active on Quaver, all those attacks generating tons of Healing if anything got through her Armor¡¯s defense and Crystal Shield Damage Reduction. Amusingly enough, if they were Casting Pyreal spells, I could Counter them directly now, and I was happy to do so. It was much more mana-conservative than Casting Dispels. Isparian-style Dispels were Tier-based, but auto success against that Tier or lesser on standing spells. The lesser Marguls, like the Hellion and Helcan, as well as the Phantasm Shades, popped out Pyreal spells. The virindi stuff and the Biaka Marguls let loose with Platinum, so I had to use Matrix Dispels at a fixed 30 mana a shot to get rid of those Debuffs if they landed.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. It was much easier to Heal them up when they were wounded, all things told, but if the gods of bad luck unleashed multiple spells at once on a target and they got through, well, that could be bad if I wasn¡¯t on the ball. Hence, Counters at the ready and Dispels ready for double-duty, with normal and Fastcast Healing magic optional, too. Happily, luck was not with the Summons, mere unimportant tools that they were, and the Wolfpacks were working together with marvelous efficiency now, especially if they levered the creatures apart and more people could fit around them for the killing. Focused by all the archers at point-blank range, the amorphous blob of colorful energies that was the Rift collapsed first. The Virindi were getting hacked into with enthusiasm, but their armor was thick and very resistant to damage, with it being proven that Brilliant and Umbral Weapons wouldn¡¯t even damage the energy-beings inside it! So, no ability to bypass it, only Imperil and Vuln the things to bring them down faster. Which I could have done, if I didn¡¯t have to focus on keeping Kris alive. I did Imperil V both of them at once, and then was basically on guard duty in case of catastrophe. The arrow fire moving to the Paradoxes signaled their end, and then all fighters were on the Marionettes. The archers eased up as Quaver flickered over to frost, and incidental Attacks of Opportunity became blizzards of arcing blows that rapidly tore both of the animated floating corpse-puppets apart. ¡°Ye must be one o¡¯ those masochists, soaking up so much punishment like ye do, Highness,¡± the Mick offered on behalf of everyone, watching burns and long cuts start to pull themselves back together as her Fast Healing went to work. She¡¯d had at least fifty spells target her, about half of which had gotten through her Null, of all energy types. Some were Spellcut, some were Reflected, some were Countered or Dispelled, and I still had to Mend her underleathers up again for the punishment they¡¯d taken between spells and physical attacks. It was fair to say that the greatest amount of blood staining her Armor was her own. ¡°Nah, just very high pain tolerances, and a refusal to let a fear of pain slow me down,¡± she answered directly. ¡°Pain is still pain, I don¡¯t mix it up with pleasure like a masochist does. ¡°Now, getting revenge on something that is inflicting pain upon me, that¡¯s something different.¡± Eight canines gleamed in satisfaction. ¡°I get QUITE the rush out of that!¡± ¡°I swear to never enter a torture chamber with ye after a sparring,¡± he uttered with completely sincere conviction, earning laughs from everyone else. ¡°Let¡¯s go. We¡¯ve got some Fire Diamonds and Fire Quartz to get harvested!¡± ------ ¡°Hold up,¡± I told everyone, bringing them to a halt. We had encircled the entire caldera, and had liberated a very good haul of stuff. I had Itemized Fire and Earth Diamonds, Fire Quartz, Fire Jacinths, Earth Peridots, Firesnowflake Obsidian, Fire Zircon, Earth Topaz, and of course Fire Rubies. Heck, I even grabbed some Fire Jade, because it was only two spawn points to clear to do it. But now it was time to address the center of the caldera. There were two, maybe three spawns to clear to make it there, depending on how cautious we were, and all of them were marguls, only one group with shades among them. Fast and easy to kill with Cold, as it were. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Kris asked automatically, all eyes on me. ¡°We¡¯re going to treat this as a dangerous thing to do,¡± I stated firmly. ¡°We can clear the spawns, but I want everyone ready to Teleport out on the instant. That means an empowered Formation, and if anything happens, you¡¯re gone. Instantly. If you don¡¯t go, likely there¡¯s going to be dimensional fuckery going on, and you¡¯re going to be trying to get away from a possibly erupting volcano.¡± ¡°Gor¡­¡± the Mick muttered, eyes towards the level expanse of red-veined black rock at the center of the place. ¡°That be not sounding like fun, lass. What¡¯s spurring this?¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t checked out Mount Lethe, but after the Crater I¡¯m 99% sure there¡¯s an Elemental Boss sitting there in the active caldera. I¡¯m likewise betting there¡¯s one on Tenkarrdun.¡± Everyone there had been to the Crater of Mount Esper to get their White Fire Infusions for their Weapons of Lost Light from the Helion Elemental there. They all looked around slowly. ¡°There¡¯s not a single Fire Elemental in sight anywhere,¡± Selena breathed out in realization. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ probably not natural, right?¡± she murmured. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of Shadow in this area, just like Tou-Tou. And if you remember, the theme of the Patron of Bael¡¯Zharon is Shadow¡­ and Fire.¡± Everyone¡¯s eyes dipped to the lava under our feet. ¡°This did suddenly get more complicated than I be thinkin'',¡± Lord Mick observed ironically. ¡°Gor, I always hated this damn place¡­¡± ¡°So, Lord Mick, you are going to be sitting with everyone in a Formation, and if you get the order, you go. No delay, just go. Aim for the Seal Focus on the rim, and then immediately bail and make tracks for the Withered Beach to the northeast, it should be in range of you.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± And he did. No heroics. His job was to get them out¡­ and make a Lived-Line connection here while he did it. ¡°And ye?¡± ¡°Like last time, I¡¯ll be finding out if something is down there, and Kris will pull me out if needed.¡± If you were watching, the pupils in his eyes got very small. ¡°Right, then,¡± he said roughly, turning cold, dead eyes on those Summons, only death promised for the hapless Summons now. ¡°We¡¯ll get ye there, lass, no worries on that score.¡± --- It was indeed pretty fast and brutal. With only two Shades to worry about and no need to conserve mana, everyone went Coldphasing except for Kris, since Quaver could use his Arsenal to shift back and forth for her. The Marguls were wolfpacked down with great speed by everyone, no arrow fire bothered with this time. Kris triggered AoO¡¯s for everyone, had them triggered in return, and sparkling cold Lost Light motes filled the air with crystalline death as the twisted mini-drakes coughed, froze, and their inner fires stilled and quenched, died. Still no vivus, because nobody was going to make the mistake of feeding vivus to a place where it might wake up something that didn¡¯t like the feel of it. I whipped up the Teleport Formation for everyone, a temporary thing that the heated rock here would rapidly erode away. The Mick made sure everyone was inside it, in position, and had fed mana into it to power their Teleport out. Quaver could Teleport us out of there as well. I took a deep breath, brought up the Detect Elements VI +1, and standing at the center of the Caulcano caldera, took a look down there, hoping to see some Earthfire Obsidian. AF Chapter 360 – The Creature in the Crater Something immediately looked back up at me. I wasn¡¯t Detecting for a creature, even anything living, just Isotopes, and it STILL looked right back up at me. I couldn¡¯t look away from it, my gaze and the spell locked onto it and held tight by magic that was definitely Empyrean-tier in power, if not in feel or style. Fire and Shadow and¡­ Virindi? I tried to pull away, I really did, focusing as colossal amounts of mana rose to grab at me, despite my Caster Level, despite my Concentration¡­ Something smacked me in the face, totally Spellcutting the Detect. I felt my nose flatten, then my face was smashed down on a Disk, and we were in motion as magic rose up. The Veil went screwball crazy as something really, really nasty started coming up from below, and it was dragging a whole lot worse stuff with it! I couldn¡¯t fucking think, trying to unscramble the lock on my perceptions and thoughts that had swarmed in on me, precisely as if waiting for something to come looking at it. I could perceive and input, but I couldn¡¯t actually think to do anything, with any of my thoughtstreams. I did notice the Markspace was totally down right now, a level of overwhelming psychic interference making sure no telepathic warnings were getting out. The ground was flying by underneath me as Kris ran like she¡¯d never run before. The hardened lava was starting to split and reveal the magma beneath, even flumes of it spraying into the air like heavy walls Kris just crashed right through while ignoring the heat. A geyser of white-hot stone with far too much dancing darkness in it was pushing up behind us, and something was coming out of it. Something with way too many jagged arms, no legs, a long armored coat of slick black stuff that might have been Shadow Diamond, and a frowning mask-like face set into a hood that was more like a steely helm. A virindi, a good three times the size of any virindi I¡¯d ever seen, and with a lot more arms, all of them sparking with lightning and fire. It came out of that column of molten rock, the center of the caldera liquefying rapidly, revolved its whole body since it didn¡¯t have a neck to survey the area, and caught sight of our rapidly retreating forms. ¡°Fuck!¡± Kris said, glancing back, pushing me off to the side and in front of her with a yank as Stand came back, and she juked. Three of the Rays of raging black fire and lightning went wide, missing as she dodged them. The fourth one bounced off of Stand, leaving a half-molten scar across the adamantine boss of the Shield, and I could see it carve a path into the wall of the crater fifty yards long and a yard deep as it did so. Concentrate, Concentrate! My mind was psychically scrambled, but pure and utter focus was coming down on all my scattered thoughtstreams, welding them back together. I¡¯d been hit with something with a DC of like 100 or something, losing 1 per round or minute or something, and I had to reach that level to get my own thoughts back. Slow, except I was a goddamn Sage of Focus, I¡¯d taken all the Feats and Masteries and finished them up when I reached Ten during our training period on Vissidal, and I had a fucking Concentration modifier of +82 right now, take 10, and Diamond Heart of the Sun gave me +1 per minute to that check until I was taking 20. Arranging-sliding-forcing-teasing, the residual magic eroding even as my Concentration sharpened with greater need and focus, utterly unable to think as Kris just fucking booked it¡­ The slope up the pass out exposed her, but it didn¡¯t slow her down in the slightest as Hotfoot didn¡¯t slow down when going uphill, and the raging heat coming from below blew her skywards. Those Rays reached out again. I noted they were slightly staggered¡­ the thing was moving, and moving quickly! Too long! Expend Arcane Focus for Take 15 on Concentration Check! Assign Soul Essence to Skilled Soul for +4 bonus to Concentration! My thoughts snapped together with a terrifying rush of clarity, as having to push my Concentration that high was fully and waaaay past into superhuman, totally inhuman levels of focus and thought. I sat up and Cast Arcane Fusion VI: Run II on Princess Kristie and Fire Bane V on Stand. The fourth Ray bounced off Stand again, chewing through a narrow, deep chunk of the wall of the pass we just so happened to be running sideways on at the moment. The adamantine was only a little blackened this time, inky shadow energies playing at the edge of the superheated spot on it. The crack of the landslide coming down above and behind us, no doubt helped by the way the world and the ground was shaking, only seemed par for the course.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Fuck!¡± was all Kris said as her pace picked up, driving down below the lip of the slope to get us out of line of sight. That didn¡¯t actually save us, as the Rays blew past and over us, taking clear inspiration from the avalanche coming down behind us and aiming to cut us off ahead. Thankfully, we were indeed traveling really fast, and the falling stone had to crack and get into motion as Kris grit her teeth and sprinted really, really hard, while Primus bent the air around us to take away any resistance and actually blow behind us, helping us along. I flipped up the Fastcast Ward Wall V atop us as bouncing chunks of canyon wall came down, the force screen clearly fracturing at the impacts of the head and chest-sized chunks of stone. We exploded out of the pass as both an avalanche of stone came out behind us, and the pyroclasm roaring out from the volcano chased us like a hurricane of heat. Kris veered off to the side with no change in momentum or pace, and the molten red-hot wind blew past us, expanding as it did, while she went up the side of the hill there as boiling, blazing heavy gasses and ash chased after us. She hit the top of the hill with the raging inferno nipping at her heels, did a roller-coaster spin and was booking away across the top of the hill towards the rim miles in the distance at all speed, half Cloudstepping, half skipping between the terrain for speed and distance, more distance! The pryoclasm was moving faster than we were, but it had to either spread out from the passes or come over the top of the crater, so it had a lot more ground to cover and area to spread through. The hilltop gave us height, the far side of it would suck down any of the poisonous inferno coming our way, far too much blackness in it to be healthy, and¡­ ¡°Fuck!¡± I spat. Kris looked back as that over-sized virindi rose up over the edge of the hillside as well, completely unharmed, and quickly oriented our way. It began to move in our direction like a magnet being drawn after us, even as its tentacles wove and magic gathered to it. ¡°Juke right,¡± I hissed, and the Mirror Image III, thoughtfully up-Cast just to be more goddamn confusing to something over a quarter-mile behind us, rippled around us with a dozen images to shoot at. Kris slid right, and four Rays of shadowy lightning and fire blew past us, popping four of those Images and heading off into the distance. I noted the range professionally. ¡°That¡¯s a Caster Level of 50 and will punch your Null,¡± I told her, as if she didn¡¯t know. ¡°But you do have speed on the thing. It¡¯s just got a range of over half a mile, maybe a mile if it Reaches the Rays.¡± ¡°Such welcome fucking news!¡± The hill gradually rising towards the rim and the need to stay fairly level didn¡¯t help, of course, so we couldn¡¯t avoid its line of fire. ¡°Tell me about it!¡± She slid just enough to get a jutting rock between us, an Image crossed us and she juked back. That Image and two others winked out as Rays reached out to slice through them, and the interfering rock exploded into oozing black molten goo. Five miles from the rim to the crater. I blew another V Slot for Triadspell, promptly Casting Mirror Image III again, as well as Exemplar Surge. For Ray Reflection. When the next volley came, I flashed the spell up, a silvery mirror interposing between an Image four to our left, while another Image right next to us flashed and popped away. That Ray bounced off the crystalline pane of force there and zipped right back the way it had come. I saw it splatter off the on-charging monolithic virindi, its body in motion but otherwise not moving. Only its barbed and razored tentacles were writhing about as its own magic smashed back into it, and for just a second, checked some of its momentum. More distance was good news for us. ¡°Incoming from on high, fuck!¡± I announced, as the spread of lightning-girt, shadow-hearted Fireballs arced up and started plummeting down on us. I put my hand on her hand pushing us. The Mark link, strengthened by our bond and physical contact against the interference, snapped up, and she could see them coming in through my eyes. I directed the Images to swirl and dance away from the huge spread of the things, too, even as I whipped up a Spellflare for one of them. The Silver Magic hit one of the incoming blasts, the three others detonated all around us as Kris and our Images swerved to avoid them. Five more Images popped away as the fires caught them, but that was fine, they were there to be popped. Kris made her Sun Save Action before Thought, Refocused, made it again, and we were out of the area of two of the blasts, skirting inches beyond their reach as we shot onward at speed. Something detonated in ocher trombones and a dirge of psychedelic ribbons and the smell of complex higher math problems. The incoming virindi was jolted off course once again, but its Health Qi took the feedback and it kept on coming. Kris made the decision to leap the gap through the dividing wall we were running alongside and then shift sideways along the wall, which totally removed us from its line of fire unless it could do the same thing, while we left the Images up top to continue the more traditional retreat. I happily blew III Slots to keep the ones up there multiplying as the incensed virindi behind us kept sending up quartets of Fireballs, and they kept detonating and not killing anything real. III¡¯s cost me less than the V¡¯s of a Spellflare, after all. It tried one more volley of Rays, I flicked the Reflection into place with Reach Spell over one of the targeted Images, and it bounced back to trace a flaming line across that chest of black diamond, Burning and dancing and doing exactly nothing as Health Qi took care of it. It didn¡¯t try that again, as the number of Images now exceeded twenty as more rippled into being and spread out¡­ and we weren¡¯t even in its line of sight at this distance as it coursed across the top of the hill after our Images. We were doing 150 mph or so, running sideways along the side of the dividing wall of blackened stone that had once cut the island almost perfectly in half, the rim rising up in front of us. Kris could see out my eyes, I could see out hers. There was a slope coming, up towards the rim, which would give the virindi a perfect chance to spread out its fireballs and catch us all flat as we climbed up for altitude. ¡°Spreading them out and setting them up,¡± I told her as we closed on it. The Fireballs didn¡¯t come quite yet, not quite, not quite¡­ The Images hit the vertical stone, ramped up smoothly, and drove for altitude. AF Chapter 361 – Out to Sea Less than a second after the Images turned to go vertical and climb the last cliff facing of the Singularity Caul¡¯s rim, the Fireballs hit in perfect spreads of lightning, fire, and shadow that covered acres of area in blasting magic. The whole face of the rim there basically exploded and blew apart. It didn¡¯t matter if you could dodge the direct blast or not, you were still getting blown off the face of it when the entire face was destroyed. Just to the right of the explosions, Princess Kristie shot up from the side of the wall below and zipped past the blasts, heading for the top of the rim and completely avoiding the explosions that had just popped all of our Mirror Images. Before the monolithic virindi could get another volley off, we were up on top of the rim, over the edge, racing for the summit¡­ and this time I sprang for Paired Dispels and a Fastcast Dispel as Kris dodged the only Fireball which might catch her. The other three incoming Fireballs smashed into Silver Magic and detonated harmlessly in warring pyrotechnics in the air behind us. Then we were over the ridge of the rim and totally out of line of sight, driving toward the edge of it a hundred meters away, veering left just in case it had something really, really big- I think it came out of the high sky, hitting the rim behind us so hard and fast that it sheared at least two acres of it violently out into the sea, blowing through the stone and collapsing the whole face of the rim there with a meteoric crater whose components hit the sea below REALLY fast, plumes of water rising up higher than we were! I flipped up a Ward Wall to catch the impact of the shrapnel and seawater spraying itself our way, then watched it fracture and shatter from dozens of rocks smacking into it like catapult loads as tons of water sloughed away around us. We let the shockwave of the deafening impact smash us along and help us on our way out to sea as the Force Magic broke and fell away after doing its job. No stopping, running downhill, out to the sea and away from the virindi, Kris¡¯ Null punching through the Shoreward without slowing down. ¡°Fuuuuuuck!¡± Kris swore, still pumping hard as we ran down the air, unable to stay elevated, but that was only nice, as kindly King Gravity acknowledged our obeisance and helped us with some nice downhill speed, not to mention more wind from Primus. I swirled up an Illusion behind us, an Illusionary Wall at IV hanging in the air, whose only function was to be Really Big and show the sea beyond us, and not us. The massive virindi came looming into view as Kris stayed absolutely on course, the height of the Illusionary Wall extending all the way down to the sea. I watched it levitate forward, tentacles weaving lightning and fire, ready to blast. It came right up to the limit of the rim wall, avoiding the fan-shaped crater it had just blasted out of the side of the island and the dust cloud billowing up from below. It panned right, then panned left, its whole body turning since it had no neck. It extended itself out over the edge and tilted over to look down and around the rim, seeing if we were down below and running along the beach or cliff-face below. It saw nothing, and Illusionary Walls at IV do not radiate magic, too bad, so sad. We weren¡¯t heading towards land, but Kris stayed absolutely on course with the Wall between us and it. It hovered there about thirty seconds, and then turned slowly around, heading back up towards the ridge, and then out of sight of us. I put up another Wall, but kept this one only ten feet square and directly in front of me as I stayed facing the island, Kris¡¯s Disk turned to keep me that way as she arced left and headed north-east just above the surface of the sea at speed, making sure to leave no wake on the waves just below us. We were three-quarters of a mile and moving increasingly away from the barren, impassable shore of the Singularity Caul¡¯s outer side at this point. I took no chances, and was rewarded as the massive virindi popped up further down the ridge-line, heading north at speed to see if it could see us out there, its tentacles waving and pulling at the magic I could only see working because of my Mask of Clarity¡¯s Eagle Eyes magnification at x50. ¡°Double fuck. It¡¯s Summoning something in. Calling something from the Seas of the Aether! Something goddamn big!¡± ¡°Do you know who that was?¡± Kris grunted, not slowing down in the slightest. It was almost ten miles across the sea to the Withered Beach, but she wasn¡¯t going to let up at all. We¡¯d be there in less than five minutes at this pace. I spun my head around, looking across the waters. We should actually be ahead of the Mick if he was looping around the island, too... I¡¯d seen too much of it, without even trying to. I could feel my brain seem to swell as I remembered what I¡¯d seen, and lost our Marklink as I clapped my hand to my head, Crown hovering there and keeping the Illusionary Wall up for me as I did.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. ¡°no,¡± I said in a very small voice. ¡°and you can¡¯t make me go look again.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± I could hear her grimace as I rocked back and forth and held my mind together again. Don¡¯t use Divinations on powerful Aberrants. Don¡¯t use Divinations on powerful Aberrants, you idiot. Don¡¯t use Divinations on powerful Aberrants, you total fucking moronic jackass of an idiot! I tossed a Restoration into my own head, which had the pleasant effect of Restoring my normally very composed and controlled self by washing across the memory of what I¡¯d seen and eroding away about 99% of it. Enough remained for me to know that I¡¯d seen something of fire and shadow and lightning and virindi aetheric mindfuckery, and that was just about it. My eyes snapped open just in time to see something that was part reptile, part fish, and part squid come through a purple and thatsnotacolor hole a hundred feet in diameter in midair, plummeting into the seas a mile away with a big ol¡¯ splash. Some of the many, many eyes on it were looking this way, the angle for the Wall wrong. ¡°Fuck, it noticed us,¡± I told Kris, who had looked back in time to see the same thing. ¡°That was a thousand feet long,¡± she judged with a wince, and then just shut up and ran like fuck, because the long, long line of it was turning and making right for us. ¡°There¡¯s going to be people working the Withered Beach,¡± I hissed, and wove a Sending. The psychic interference radiating out from the Caulcano seemed to be emanating from the nice big black cloud rising over from it like a dreadful mushroom. -Lord Mick! Send out to get anyone and everyone away from the Withered Beach with all speed! Teleport if they can, as far inland as they can make it if not! They¡¯ve got like three minutes to get away from the shore!- There was only a moment of hesitation before the /reply came back, chased with sensation of a man in motion. -You¡¯re what that damn thing is chasing!? I can just fucking see you ahead of us! Elysa is there with her people, they¡¯re pulling out as fast as they can run!- I certainly didn¡¯t have any more faith the Shoreward was going to stop the thing than he did, and he had the Mask of Clarity to get a good look at it, too. ¡°Can you get rid of it? Banish it?¡± Kris grunted between breaths as she churned for speed. The fucking kaiju was goddamn gaining on us, rising up out of the water with its own speed as it did so. I did not particularly want to see more of it and all those lidless black eyes fixated on us. ¡°Not in memory today. Wasn¡¯t expecting a Summoned Kaiju! A Dispel won¡¯t work, it¡¯s been Called here, we¡¯d need a true Banishment!¡± ¡°Or bringing in something equally big?¡± Kris grunted. I blinked, and brought up another Sending. -Great Elder of the Sea! An interloper from the Aether has entered the ocean off the island of Dereth here! We cannot stop it! Can you help?- The words translated to singsong effects and were accompanied with our exact location and the appearance of¡­ whatever was following us. The ringing song of a /reply that came back was surprised¡­ but also in the affirmative! ¡°The leviathans said they can help,¡± I told her, trying not to look too closely at the massive thing that was chasing after and rapidly overtaking us. ¡°It¡¯s an Aetheric Tide Ravager,¡± Kris grunted helpfully, and I gave her a look. ¡°And that virindi? That was Aerbax itself,¡± she added coolly, just to make my day complete. Her Monster ID/Assess Creature Skill technically wasn¡¯t magical, especially from a Null. ¡°It¡¯s going to catch us maybe a quarter-mile offshore,¡± I judged calmly, eyeballing our relative speeds. ¡°We can¡¯t fly out of its reach, the Veil around it cracked bringing the fucker in. You ready to try a Run at VI and see if that will help?¡± ¡°Sure!¡± she grunted, and I Raised the spell and slapped it on her head. Something happened with her feet, because we definitely picked up speed, only the kaiju noticed it, too. The waves it was churning up were massive as it actually picked up speed as well! ¡°About at the Shoreward,¡± I judged fatalistically, noting the grasping tentacles extending out from around its mouth. Easily as long and powerful as those of a kraken. Those I might be able to stop for a moment, but if it just came in jaws wide, well¡­ there were a LOT of those teeth, and they were all longer than I was tall... ¡°Shoreward should slow it down, but won¡¯t stop it, at least not completely. If we can make it inland, though¡­¡± Kris grunted. ¡°The Shoreward on the ocean is much stronger than the lakes, and gets stronger against stronger things. It¡¯s why there¡¯s no giant nefanes floating across the landscape slaughtering everything.¡± I watched the oncoming behemoth with a grimace. ¡°Fifty-fifty chance?¡± ¡°Better than nothing.¡± She closed her eyes slightly and concentrated on speed, golden lights already flaring on her feet getting brighter as she committed everything she could to this, including more layers of Soul Magic. Boots of the Hare Soul Tats and Speedy Soul, on the stack! Maybe a little more than fifty percent chance, if the Shoreward could slow it down¡­ --- The island of Dereth was located in the middle of the sea, out in the center of absolutely nowhere. As is normal for such islands, that meant it was created by volcanic action. That meant that the seas around it were very deep, and they dropped off very quickly close to the shores of the island. The Shoreward was basically at the chest-high cutoff, and the shore dropped off precipitously close to the island. I was not looking into the eyes of the thing once it got within a thousand feet. The Aura of it alone would have had any sane person gibbering in fear, and was certainly the strongest Fear effect I¡¯d ever run into, although probably not so powerful as the Thi- (ugh) was... Huh. Even remembering it, the stutter in my thoughts made this thing¡¯s Aura seem like chump change. It even tossed the Aura back, and I could feel the thing¡¯s utter confusion at the very sudden sense that it had just rammed its Fear into something impossibly beyond it. Was that even possible from something so small? It was still incoming, however. We were simply too small to be threats to it. Jaws opening, not looking in there, just feeling the air as its tentacles spread out- Wall of Force! The massive pane of unbreakable force materialized between us as those tentacles snapped forward. AF Chapter 362 – Jaws to the Walls The tentacles of the Aetheric Tide Ravager crashed into the domelike structure of the Wall of Force that I¡¯d Evoked, slapping against it with titanic cracks and whaps, trying to get around the edges as we kept going towards the Shoreward just ahead. I had fantasies about it bouncing off the dome and being diverted, but no. It just breathed, and something like water, only it was Aether, full of quantum fucktardness and not material at all, washed out and across the Wall and erased it from existence. However, that pretty much ate up the force of the breath weapon, which meant we weren¡¯t erased with it. I called it a win. Kris smashed into the Shoreward in a dive, making a hole as small as possible, and I crouched down to follow suit. Then that otherplanar kaiju smashed full on into the Shoreward. The crack reverberated right through the bones and blood. It felt like all of reality just got slammed, the impact radiating out from behind us as the Shoreward bulged. The whole manafield stretched and distorted, pouring massive amounts of energy into the power needed to stop this thing from coming in. It was basically riding its own wave now, but the back of its body was still out in deep water, propelling it forward, chasing after us as Kris hit the sands and headed in along the inlet. Going up the cliffs was death, we could only go for distance and hope we had slowed it enough. The Withered Summons there had absolutely no chance to react to us, and besides, they were gaping and paralyzed with terror at seeing the incoming Aetheric Tide Ravager coming for them, its head the size of a castle keep and moving like an impossibly fast onrushing mountain. The Withered were tough in relative terms, but were either flung away like chaff by the waves or simply crushed to a pulp under its bulk as it flattened them while lunging for us. Thousand-foot kaiju had a lot of momentum, it seemed¡­ ¡°Straight into the wall!¡± I jabbed Crown into the sands we were streaking past as the jaws loomed above us- And Kris hit the very narrow opening that had suddenly appeared in the stone wall of the cliff overlooking the beach, which hole actually extended over two hundred feet into the rock. The impact of the creature¡¯s head into the stone behind us was devastating, the shockwave unstoppable. It blew through the stone around us, fracturing and splitting it, but I didn¡¯t care, as Kris simply took the impact and rode it on ahead, trusting in me to keep the stone intact enough to move, her Disk no wider than my hips now as I was flat on my back as she pushed us ahead. Crown traced the shattering stone and my Shaping Stone pushed on ahead of us. The roar that came through the rock was absolutely pissed on so many levels, and would have blown out our ears without some Thunder resistance. I knew what was coming next, and in one inhalation diverted our course, sealed the passage behind us, then extended ours out ahead even further and upwards. Tons of stone moved into the way of the Aetheric Breath that filled the tunnel behind us, trying to drown the ants and following the path of least resistance as it turned stone to vapor and really made a mess of things behind us. Kris had slowed down enough by simply coasting that she wasn¡¯t going to run us into a wall. I filled in enough behind us to stop anything from following us, and we gained altitude towards the plateau above the beachline. Massive impacts shook the stone behind us and shattered the cliff-facing, doubtless revealing the holes behind us as the stone collapsed. But could it collapse enough stone to catch us if we moved in another direction as it tried to find us? Impacts of its head made the stone bounce around us, trying to find and bury us, but scores of yards of rock were now in the way. I could feel a psychic sense trying to find us, but her Null and my Astral Ward VII+1 were enough to stop it and render us invisible, no doubt very frustrating. It was a good two hundred feet up to the top of the cliff, and we were inland over a thousand feet, slightly serpentine course, before we suddenly broke into the open surface and shot out. There it was behind us, looming up, as much slug and squid as snake or lizard, mouth-tentacles spread wide and looking around in all directions as lesser tentacles felt the ground and tried to feel where we¡¯d gone. ¡°Breath Weapon incoming!¡± I told her, and she leapt up, spinning through a roller-coaster spiral and turn to the right and above the ground. A stream of quantum irregularity puke twenty feet thick blew by below us and just washed away reality behind us, making a perfectly formed gully twenty feet deep and wide in an arcing path perfectly aimed to intercept us and adjust for a ground-level evasion¡­ but not one in the air above the strike, which it didn¡¯t raise in time to catch us before it expired. Kris snapped back and away from it, and seconds later we were out of its breath range. The shrieking bellow of the thing was not for anyone sane to hear, but it still felt grand, even if we dared not-This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. It was answered. The Sound, the Sound was so loud the whole world went silent. The shriek of the Ravager was swallowed as the pitiful thing it was. Looking back in utter shock as the sheer power of that sound echoed through us, we saw something come out of the deeps like a hundred yards offshore, rising, rising into the air... The back half of the body of the Ravager was between its jaws, jaws that were rising and had to be nearly as long as it was. The Ravager was jerked away from the land so fast it was like a whip snapped, the Shoreward doubtless helping the abrupt rejection. Kris skidded right to a halt, not that she could keep running after that sound had basically paralyzed everything. That Leviathan had to be at least a mile long. Jaws a thousand feet long, it looked like he was holding onto a snake or something as the Aetheric Tide Ravager dangled from it. And then, in horrible, awesome slow motion, another one came up out of the waters opposite it, jaws wide, and clamped onto the front of the Ravager, swallowing it from view. That Sound pounded out again, the whole world going silent in the face of it, our bodies unable to do anything but stand there and let it go through. The leviathans fell down in opposite directions. So did the Ravager. Their impacts should have raised a tsunami. Instead, they fell back into the water as if sliding into it, barely a ripple and gone from sight almost instantly, barely any sign they were there at all¡­ save for the fact that the clouds in the sky above us were basically gone, and that mushroom cloud above the Caulcano had basically collapsed upon itself for some reason, as if the air couldn¡¯t support what was in it any more. I just sat there and blinked, unable to talk, mouth dropping blankly as the Sound thrummed through me. Kris kind of grabbed my wrist awkwardly, her muscles still not working precisely, either. -Magevoice. Let it know the creature that called in the Ravager is on the Caul. Also, we can vivic Burn the Ravager so it doesn¡¯t infect the seas.- I couldn¡¯t work my jaw to Cast. Heck, I couldn¡¯t blink. My whole body was just stunned and unable to work effectively. But then, Silent Spell meant I didn¡¯t need to, and Magevoice was just a projection of the voice. My mind still worked fine. -Great Elders, the one responsible for the Calling of the Aetheric Tide Ravager is on the volcanic island that just erupted out there, draining Fire Mana from the core of it. Also, if you want us to clean up and purge the Ravager instead of having to eat it, please drop it on the shoreline and we will Burn it down to vivus, just as we did the Wisps and Elementals on Asheron¡¯s Island which your Juniors guarded.- The whole world seemed to still for a second, and I could see it coming, a grandoise note that Sang of the great open waters, a simple acknowledgment as it blew through us, and again, we couldn¡¯t move. Except I could, because I could raise my own voice into that Thunder, and ride it out and beyond on the Sublime Chord. ¡°TRUTH! ¡°HOPE! ¡°VALOR!¡± I Sang the Words of Creation back on the Sublime Chord to the Leviathans! If they were bloody awesome and I was an ant, that was fine. They were atoms to the truth and power of Heaven! Three miles out to see, way too fast for physics, two massive forms surfaced at the same time. Eyes larger than I was tall looked across the miles at me, and met my stare. As quietly as they¡¯d risen, they submerged, but a moment later a pair of massive flukes flipped out of the water, and something long and skinny flew into the sky. A long, long way into the sky... And, I noticed, the flukes indicated the leviathans were now pointed directly at the Singularity Caul! ¡°Oh, shit,¡± Kris got out before I could even blink yet. The ripped and torn remains of the Ravager fell from the sky in a long, limp arc, smashing into the water right through the Shoreward, before bouncing and rolling and crashing to a halt right next to the cliff-face it had been pounding on. Kris was really stiff, but I couldn¡¯t move at all, so she just turned us around and started moving awkwardly back the way we¡¯d come. There wasn¡¯t a lot of grace, but ki didn¡¯t require grace, and she got fractionally better with every step she took and every breath she inhaled. I just sat there and watched out to sea. Watched, as the two leviathans surfaced on the northeast side of the island, near the very cliff that Aerbax had blown a chunk out of with its meteor strike. Great jaws and heads rose from the waters, and yes, they extended far above the walls of the rim. I couldn¡¯t feel the Note they made so much as see it. The way the air rippled and basically became a standing wave. It was directed, with power and knowledge, and completely and utterly harmonized. And, I could tell from looking at it, it bore shadows of a Word. Truth. They¡¯d learned something from me with just one Word! The walls of the rim of the Singularity Caul just sort of fell over and collapsed. The sound hit the stone, and it was reduced to sand. They didn¡¯t get blasted inwards or anything, they were just shaken apart and fell down. As they fell down so heavily, not even raising any dust because the pressure in the air was too great, we could see the inner hills and walls of the Singularity Caul within all collapsing and falling down out there in the distance, driving in towards the side of that volcano, dispersing the remnants of the pyroclasm completely and bringing down everything in its path. The wave of sound played over the side of the volcano, and it looked like it¡­ polished the stone clean, wiping it free of imperfections and protrusions, leaving it completely bare and unmarked. What happened as the sound passed into the stone I didn¡¯t know, but I imagined something wasn¡¯t going to like it. Then the massive heads of the Leviathans slowly sank into the waters, and they were gone. Kris slowly cleared her throat, staring across the miles of ocean at the new break in the Caul¡¯s walls, there on the horizon. ¡°Well, I think someone got their message across as to what they thought of bringing the Ravager here,¡± she murmured as she stopped on the edge of the cliff to look down at the five parts of the creature, scales that looked to be harder than steel punched through and flesh compressed as if it had gone through a pressure cutter. The insides, from what we could tell, looked like pulp. That Sound going through it at that range had probably liquefied its innards. Still couldn¡¯t talk. -Scales might be worth something-, I /told her in Markspace. -Gotta vivify the rest.- She gave me a look as I just sat there and could barely move my eyes, trying to shake off the physical effects of that Note. ¡°I¡¯ll go down there and see what might be done. I¡¯d normally say the bones, too, but I think they are dripping.¡± I focused on the winding unnatural configuration of its spine, and the spirals of its ribs. Yeah, they were kind of oozing and falling apart, completely losing cohesion there. ¡°By the way, what are you holding in your hand?¡± AF Chapter 363 – Scaling Conflicts I managed to look down at a fistful of stone clutched in my right hand with a death grip. I hadn¡¯t let go of it, and indeed had completely forgotten it was there. Princess Kristie put her hand on mine, clenched so tight. Her fingers interwove, Golden light flickered hard, and the stone in my hand crumbled, freeing the fingers I had embedded into it. She turned my palm over as she peeled open my totally unresponsive fingers, and the eight uncut Blackfire Obsidian jewels glittered with shimmering, yet fractured inner fires. ¡°Nice..¡± she said, eight canines gleaming in appreciation. Despite having my mind basically blown back into my spinal cortex, I¡¯d still managed to latch onto the stones and somehow pull them up to my hand in the scant seconds I¡¯d had to act! ---------- Briggs was soon on site with a whole team of people, and others were streaming across the open land between the Withered Beach and here along the pathway cleared of Summons and marked with posts indicating the way. Heck, he almost beat the Mick here, who had prudently swung a wee bit wider from the kaiju, and even at that range had barely kept his feet working when the Sound blew past him. Briggs had his Floating Forge with him, and all the adamantine bars I¡¯d made for him. He started making blades and carving tools promptly, because there was a metric arseload of very big and impressive scales to peel off that corpse, and everyone with adamantine Weapons got to work on that job pretty quickly. It would have been really tough if the Aetheric Tide Ravager wasn¡¯t already ripped into multiple pieces and gave us softer fleshy places to start from¡­ places that were also quickly on vivic fire and eating away the dimensionally unstable flesh and bone and helping us carve the scales off the thing. The average scale of the beast was as tall or taller than a person, ranged from four to six inches thick, and was less heavy or light than somehow resistant to movement, simply not wanting to be shifted from place to place without actually resting on something else. Drop it from the corpse, and it fell to the ground in slow motion. Leave it on a Disk, however, and it could be shuffled around fairly quickly. Vivic Weapons were planted in trails of gore and unmentionable fluids leaking out of the thing, Burning them off before they could contaminate anything. Vivic Weapons carved into the meat, setting the slowly liquefying stuff on mistfire, and kept the process going of turning it to white powder and Land-food instead. I mostly contributed by occasionally blasting Darts into the sides of meat chunks, but mostly just sat there in Aurora Stance getting a lot of mana back and gazing out to sea. Those Elder Leviathans hadn¡¯t gone too far. I could tell they were mightily curious about how we were going to dispose of the corpse, and were likely watching us from out in the waters, probably impressed at how quickly we were stripping, disassembling, and Burning down the corpse of the unnatural creature. We¡¯d also found Aerbax still alive, when all the evidence was that he was either dead or reduced to a slave of the System, and had been reduced to that status before the Fall, out on his floating citadel in the heart of the Obsidian Plains. A horn blew up on top of the plateau, and everyone turned to look up at the sentry position up there. ¡°Now what?¡± Kris promptly complained, kicking off yet another massive scale from the four-story central corpse of the thing to slide down its armored hide. I Jaunted up to the top of the plateau next to the spotter, who was pointing to the west. ¡°Ah, Hells,¡± I said in Magevoice to everyone, staring at the incoming forces. ¡°We¡¯ve got a force of undead on the way here. Coming to investigate or coming to take the corpse, I¡¯m kinda thinking?¡± I could see Kris smile from up here. ¡°Dear Lady Magos who loves the undead so, would you care to handle this problem for us?¡± she asked sweetly. ¡°Rest of you, keep working.¡± Even the guard up top laughed softly at that, as I turned my eyes towards the incoming undead. They¡¯d swept up all the random undead spawns on the way, so it was a few thousand of them, at the very least. Looked like another major noble in charge of them, not that I was worried about that, either. Volleys of magic were clearing off hostile spawns in their path relentlessly. I noted that as I started walking their way, putting up some Buffs for myself on the way. I was down on higher Slots, sure, but I had some Mana to spare for the moment, and my Shards, well, that was what I had a Wand in Crown for.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ---- ¡°Go home,¡± I said in Necrus. They were Falatacot Undead, probably expected me to use that language. Maybe it unsettled them that I spoke in Necrus, because their loping progress slowly came to a halt about two hundred paces away from me. That was way too close for them to me, considering the flights of Shards I had up and hovering around me with lots of different undead-killing flames on them, oh so many lethal Colors to them. Looked pretty bloody impressive, they did, especially to the undead, and I¡¯d been informed by our own undead as to the truth of that. It looked like I had the spears of Heaven at my side ready to fly at them. Very intimidating to the undead, because they could feel the threat such Shards presented right down to their souls. ¡°I have had a very bad day, and I am in no mood to slaughter a bunch of undead right now. Just turn around and go home, and I¡¯ll pretend you haven¡¯t offered yourselves up on a platter to Feed the Land.¡± The silence that wafted back to me at my rather exquisite scorn regarding the level of threat they represented was actually rather telling. I just sat there and stared at them, daring them to come any closer and get what was coming to them. The ranks parted and the commander of the core legion there came striding out to see me. He was in a rich red robe, eyes burning brightly, standing at least seven feet tall. I didn¡¯t recognize his accoutrements or appearance, but that wasn¡¯t a surprise, not exactly being widely-informed of undead Empyrean society. ¡°You! You are the Lady Magos of the Isparians!¡± he called out across the distance, rather hollow and raspy, yet deep voice carrying to me easily. ¡°You dare to impede our way?¡± he demanded of me, pointing his finger. ¡°Such effrontery! Such arrogance!¡± ¡°I can kill you all right now if you want me to,¡± I replied tiredly. ¡°If that¡¯s easier to you than dying is, that¡¯s fine. Just keep coming, and I¡¯ll get started on the Land-Feeding, Elder.¡± My casual confidence had to be unnerving him, and for certain by now their spies had related how very, very good I was at killing undead of all kinds. The last major action they¡¯d taken against us had been at the Hall of Lost Light, and an elite legion with its supporting companies had simply ceased to exist, vanishing into nothing and nowhere as if it never was, none of those souls returning back to them. Spirals of the Lost Light were seething around my Staff Crown and the Shards waiting to be released around me, and no, the undead were not happy at all. It meant I had been there, and the undead which had killed the last of the Knights of the Lost Light long ago had utterly failed this time. ¡°We have been sent to take possession of the remains of the great beast slain by the Leviathans!¡± he called out to me. ¡°We will not be permitted to leave empty-handed!¡± ¡°Does that mean I should kill you all now, Elder?¡± I asked with a tired sigh. ¡°Just get to the point, please. It has been a VERY long day.¡± He was gnashing his teeth that I wasn¡¯t rising to his bait and negotiating for one reason or another. I knew it was what he wanted, but he was in the lesser position here. I clearly felt no need to negotiate, so he was going to have to make the first offer. ¡°A Scale!¡± he called out finally, grasping onto a possibility that wouldn¡¯t get him killed. ¡°And one of the teeth!¡± Huh. ¡°Fine. Stay there. I¡¯ll get one delivered.¡± -Kris, pop one of the scales and teeth on a Disk and run it out here, will you? I¡¯m bribing the undead to go away so I don¡¯t have to butcher them all today.- -Huh. You must not be feeling very energetic,- she /said. -Sure, I think we have a few to spare!- she /laughed. -I¡¯ll get one sent out to you.- ¡°It¡¯s on the way. Why don¡¯t you send the Summons back where they came from, and it¡¯ll be here in a few minutes.¡± He actually looked around at his army, and sort of blanched when he realized I could tell how many were Summoned, just by their generic and matching appearances, which did not match the proud armor of his revenant forces. Regardless, there was no reason to keep them around, and I even let the Shards dissipate as I leaned there on Crown. I kept an eye on the undead legion as he waved his hand imperiously, and all the Summoned undead stiffened, then abruptly turned around and started loping back the direction in which they¡¯d come mindlessly. One of Briggs¡¯ soldiers came running up with one of the big silvery-gray scales sitting on a Mass Disk I¡¯d evoked earlier, the almost spear-like tooth sitting on top of it. I sent the Disk floating across the space between us with its load, which the undead commander received eagerly. He also found the Disk spell interesting, but I basically willed it out of existence as it reached him, dropping the scale and tooth at his feet, and so forcing him to command his undead to pick the thing up between them, then turn around and start marching away as we watched them go. ¡°I must say, I wasn¡¯t expecting such a simple solution, Magos,¡± the tall and formal Gharu¡¯n sergeant there admitted, watching them go. ¡°I¡¯d down almost half my Slots and don¡¯t feel like wasting Mana in a slugfest right now. They¡¯ll all get what is coming to them, and now I¡¯ve got ten different unique undead I can potentially track back to who knows what bases in the near future.¡± His dark eyes glittered with appreciation. ¡°It has been a long day, has it not? Certainly too long to engage in anything approaching subterfuge¡­¡± ¡°There you have it.¡± I turned around, and he did the same. ¡°Let¡¯s get back hard to work on reducing an invading Aetheric life form to food for the Land. The Withered who have to keep respawning around the corpse must be getting annoyed with us.¡± Devoted teams had been assigned to handle the respawns, although the vivus on top of some of the spawn points was Sealing them tight for perpetuity. Ah, well. We could pop them open if we wanted to, but it wasn¡¯t like the entire stretch of shoreline was being worked, or we were short of combat zones. Teams usually alternated over a small area, parceling out the Healing and endeavoring to make the fights as short and vicious as possible to reduce the chance of catastrophic injury. The nature of the Summons to always gang up on the first person who aggro¡¯d them meant the tank was truly a perilous position to be in. Three or so Platinum spells going off would reduce even a paramount to the brink of death if Healing weren¡¯t fast and hard. Getting physically beaten on was actually much safer than being chain-spelled to death. AF Chapter 364 – Scales of Activity I cast three separate Mass Phantasmal Servants to help with the brute labor aspect of things, the Servants able to move around with little regard for gravity and just contribute to pushing, pulling, and cutting as they needed to. The knives that Briggs pounded out with his Forge were helping a great deal with the tough flesh and connective tissue, even half-liquefied as it was, and I was basically Energizing up tungsten right now to replace the adamantine expended on this task. Kris or the Mick would have had to do basically all the cutting if Briggs hadn¡¯t done that, so eh, good use of my time. I could just Cast a few Widened Energizes to Earth, do about 300 cubic inches of material each time, regain the mana back in Aurora Stance, and watch this monstrosity getting stripped with great speed and Burned down to dust. The bastard thing had thousands of scales, and they were stacking up with great speed. I Shaped the Assembly areas for them, and containment shells for the stacks, with a layer of linen underneath all of them. Tapestry spells fed from Mana reached up, shrank them down to a woven image, and were bundled up for transport elsewhere. We didn¡¯t know what these things were going to be used for yet, but it was going to be something impressive. I was sure Kris and Briggs had ideas, and I was sure I was going to be part of them. Huh. Could a modified Marrowmeld spell Raised to VII+1 work on these scales? I was going to have to check. Couldn¡¯t be that much different from modifiying Dragonscale, right? If I could mold and meld them, these things could easily become a hull, wall, fuselage, main body, or the like. As for the fangs¡­ they were evolved to prey on Aetheric beings. That specifically would include the virindi. We were going to have to give a couple to Martine to play with to that purpose. And¡­ he might want me to make him a Staff out of those, or something. Something nice and mortal using aetheric virindi magic against them. Sounded like a good deal to me. Lots of work to do, it never went away. I looked at my schedule for Resurrections for tomorrow, shook my head to myself with a half-smile, and kept at my tasks. We all had things to do, and they weren¡¯t going to complete themselves. My eyes turned further out to sea. Our stealth infiltration there had been pretty much exposed, even without the relayed intel to Briggs and shutting down the spies within our researchers. No deaths of anyone, but people playing both ends were thrown out on their ear. When the things Kris and the Mick had relieved of them were made available by anonymous donations, sure, we could say some independent adventurers did the job, and nobody was going to say otherwise, although finding said guilty adventurers was going to be rather difficult by the injured parties. Regardless, this was just too big, and it was plain that Kris and I had been on the island. Nuhmudira had doubtless felt Aerbax awaken, although whether she knew the Corrupted virindi was present on the Caul was a different issue. There were enough loose lips available among those working the Withered population for Karma that they couldn¡¯t fail to mention the Ravager was chasing us. The Mick¡¯s team and the Knights arriving on the scene just as the volcano blew up might be coincidence, but who was going to believe that? More importantly, we¡¯d been seen fleeing the Caul, but not going to it, although everyone knew we could run over the waters now. Perhaps she¡¯d been thinking that we still didn¡¯t dare visit the Caul, what with the high walls around it and all? Also, it meant that we might and probably were going to visit the little islands nearby, one of which was probably her lair, and she had to know it. It meant they might be moving their base of operations. The fact they¡¯d been cleaned out meant someone had located it, so would they dare to stay there? They were probably still unaware we¡¯d found the mines under the two Keeps they¡¯d thrown up. We¡¯d¡­ been a little occupied getting a few small amounts of pyreal from other source, but I could totally show up at those places now and start extracting volumes from both of them. Furthermore, with the Summons points shut down and vivus Burning the Blight away, the other forces now clearing off Freebooter Island were making the Keep there an actual base of operations, as well as the Pyramids down below. The damn thing wasn¡¯t stupidly changing hands every couple of days anymore, and idiotic things like, oh, GATES, were being added to the entryways to stop random things from wandering in to attack. Random adventurers, lower Scouts and Knights, and a few others were moving onto Freebooters to a) make damn sure all the Phyntos Wasp nests were cleared and b) try their skills against some of the most skilled, if not toughest, creatures that we¡¯d run into. Certainly Withered opponents were far tougher and had a ton more Health, but the Moarsmen and Sclavi of Freebooter Island were much harder to hit and hurt, and much more skilled in overall fighting¡­ with Karmic rewards on the upside for doing so, including whatever kind of energy Luminance actually was.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It all required time to come to fruition. ¡°Magos,¡± a voice sounded in my ear. ¡°Elder Oswald,¡± I replied, eyes not moving from the tungsten slowly turning blue-black under my fingers. The silver-blond Green Hunter watched the process in fascination as worldbone became adamantine under a Widened Energize III. ¡°What brings you down out of the north to nice, safe territories like this?¡± He smiled slightly at my utter lack of surprise. ¡°Tales of a unique treasure, magnificent god-beasts fighting it out, and interesting events on the Singularity Caul,¡± he replied lightly, and then his bright green eyes narrowed to a predator¡¯s slits. ¡°Briggs said Nuhmudira was likely there, with her daughter.¡± ¡°We did not actually see her, only felt the Aura of her Blood Magic and the weight of her presence. Oddly enough, we didn¡¯t feel like directly engaging her in her stronghold surrounded by her servants, surprise or no.¡± ¡°The Caul is a hard place to scout. I¡¯ve done some cursory investigations in the place, but I admit I didn¡¯t go into all the Dungeons and caves there. I didn¡¯t see any sign of remnants, except some pitiful survivors of the Raven Hand. I perhaps should have investigated how they hadn¡¯t starved to death there,¡± he murmured, as much to himself for missing an obvious sign as to me. ¡°From the outside, the cave is nondescript, with four magma golums at the entryway, standing around guarding a whole lot of nothing of an empty cave behind them.¡± ¡°Ah!¡± His face lit up. ¡°That place, on the southern rim wall?¡± he recalled precisely. ¡°That¡¯s the one. Your associates among the Freebooters expanded the cave all the way to the back of the rim and used it as their smeltery, breaking down their haul from the mines under their two Keeps using the volcanic mana of the island, and then dumping the slag out a tunnel to the back and into the sea.¡± ¡°Mines under the Keeps,¡± he repeated, staring at me. ¡°Why, that was very clever of them,¡± he added after a moment, in a rather dangerously level voice. ¡°I had no idea that they had such a profitable enterprise underway.¡± ¡°Did they perchance happen to hire the greatest scout in Dereth to map this island for them and point out possible sites for a base in the past?¡± I asked him lightly. ¡°They may have had the wisdom to do that long ago...¡± ¡°And then not say if they managed to build their base of operations anywhere, keeping it secret or non-existent to the Green Hunter, believing such information might be sold to the right party¡­ especially if they were known to be associating with Nuhmudira?¡± ¡°That is also a wise and reasonable course of actions they might well have taken,¡± he agreed evenly. ¡°Commander Briggs has mentioned in the past that there¡¯s some active and enthusiastic miners among the community you built up at Stonehold. What do you think of perhaps clearing out Northwatch Keep and laying claim to the mines below? Platinum, and, if their records are correct, the major source of Platinum Scarab materials before the Fall.¡± His expression was thoughtful at the idea. ¡°I¡¯m no mine manager, and Briggs has made it abundantly clear that the amount of pyreal we have to Burn for magic isn¡¯t going to end for years, and pointedly for me for decades.¡± ¡°Those MMD¡¯s you gathered have made sure of that, Elder. Our only constraint now is how fast they are being converted to goldweight ingots, which is increasing incrementally every day as we enhance the foundry making them.¡± ¡°Briggs has been handing out enough ingots to keep everyone who wants to Infuse magic occupied, which is just about every idiot with any sense at all,¡± Oswald informed me with an odd look in his eye. ¡°He admitted it didn¡¯t leave him much of a reserve to give me to hide away in case of catastrophe as yet, however.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve done the math?¡± I asked him calmly. His green eyes flickered as he nodded sharply. ¡°I have. How many stacks did you end up with?¡± ¡°Eighty-three and change.¡± His laugh was slow and ironic. ¡°I knew people who personally owned thousands of stacks of those notes. To think eighty-three stacks of those could be so unbelievably valuable now¡­¡± ¡°It explains how the original makers were able to afford the massive magical fields and effects that are part and parcel of all of these islands. Do the math on what it cost to replicate the magic of the Summons, the Shorewards, and the Dungeons alone on these islands, elder.¡± He straightened up fractionally, looking around slowly, his thoughts racing through a bunch of zeroes that were only going up and up. ¡°I think,¡± he said at the last, ¡°that we could have paid for everything done to this island ten times over with the amount of loot that poured through the hands of the adventurers back then,¡± he stated after a long moment. ¡°The Mick pretty much agreed with you.¡± His eyes drifted over to where the unarmored and shirtless Warden Lord was slicing through Ravager hide holding massive scales in place with Bunita in long knife form. ¡°Might I have samples for study of my own?¡± he asked quickly. ¡°I¡¯m sure Briggs has already anticipated that and set some aside for you,¡± I replied confidently. ¡°That is true,¡± he had to agree. ¡°A dangerously thoughtful and forward-thinking young man.¡± ¡°Nobody complains about his being the Warlord now, that is for certain,¡± I confirmed. ¡°What prompted this confrontation of sea titans?¡± he asked shortly, studying the size of the creature. ¡°That thing is far larger than any creatures I knew of back on Ispar or had heard of here, and it was killed by Leviathans that were even larger yet?¡± ¡°Princess Kristie Identified it as an Aetheric Tide Ravager. It was Summoned in by Aerbax from the Singularity Caul.¡± He stiffened slightly. ¡°So, that mutant thing survived. Under the Caulcano?¡± he asked quickly, yet unsurprised. ¡°Yes. And he¡¯s more powerful than ever, or at least has broken some restraints on his power.¡± He was obviously weighing that for a moment. ¡°Can you replay your confrontation with him for me?¡± ¡°At Elder¡¯s command,¡± I replied whimsically, and a smile ghosted past his lips before his gaze focused on the Holo that came up and began to replay through the sequence of events on the island from my perspective. I could remember it all, I just had problems thinking during the course of it, until I shook off the psychic attack. His green eyes remained dangerously focused the whole time as he saw the eruption, the chase, the pyroclasm, the shooting, the barrage, and the meteor strike, and then even the Portal bringing in the Ravager from outside. AF Chapter 365 – A Hunter’s Mark ¡°The power he displayed is not permanent,¡± Master Oswald informed me with an expert¡¯s confidence. ¡°Interesting.¡± I let the Holo of Aerbax¡¯s actions on Caul Island fade away, grabbing another bar of worldbone to Energize. ¡°The instability of the fire among his secondary tentacles?¡± I hazarded. ¡°You never saw the original Aerbax, and so have no real basis for comparison on the visual or magical levels,¡± he pointed out to me confidently. ¡°His size was unstable, and he was leaking energy, the fluctuations in his tentacles indicating a temporary and massive infusion of energy. It indicates he had absorbed a tremendous quantity of energy to boost himself for some purpose, but he had not made it all his own. ¡°I rather think you interrupted him in the middle of something important, and once you got away, he probably realized that he isn¡¯t going to achieve his goal.¡± ¡°Especially with the Caulcano erupting, and him pissing off the Elder Leviathans?¡± I guessed. He pointed at the corpse of the Ravager, spread across a half-mile of beach. All five sections of it were breaking down under vivus, all of them being stripped of their scales by Phantasmal Servants and men with adamantine long knives, while their Burning flesh had stained the entire beach white and stopped all Withered Summons in the area. ¡°Give me a mana figure on Summoning a creature like that, and expended on some of the spells thrown after you, given what we know of Virindi and Shadow magicks.¡± ¡°The Summoning is by far the largest. A conservative estimate would be ten thousand mana, and it could be over twenty thousand,¡± I conjectured. ¡°Especially with how fast it came up. If done over days or hours, much less. The War Magic¡­¡± I considered the power, range, and area of the spells he¡¯d thrown at us. ¡°At least a similar amount, if not more. That Tradition of magic is not very mana-efficient compared to Matrix-style magic. You pay for power, and it paid a lot.¡± ¡°Although that looked wild and impressive, it was likely the simple fact that Aerbax was leaking so much power that was contributing to your impression of it. Now that it is out of the Caulcano and not blocking and absorbing the ley lines there, its power is likely falling rapidly down to something closer to its original power. It might be stronger, but since you interrupted a power-up Ritual and it didn¡¯t contain you before resuming in time, most of its time and effort was likely wasted.¡± ¡°Does this mean you think you could go in and Ruby it?¡± I asked lightly. Regrets slid smoothly into his hand, out of sight against his leg, red as crystalline blood. ¡°I¡¯m an assassin, not an idiot. The answer is ¡®fuck, no¡¯,¡± he responded in equally casual tones, making me chuckle softly. ¡°I think I can go in there and survey the situation, but I¡¯m not going to try to kill the bastard. Killing that automaton that spawns in the center of the Obsidian Plains is annoying enough. The shifting immunity to attacks is aggravating.¡± ¡°Almost forces you to have a multi-talented party in order to fight the thing, right? So unfair!¡± I lamented in quite unbelievable fashion. ¡°Indeed,¡± he agreed dryly. ¡°I also have some good and bad news for you, and by extension, almost everyone.¡± I inclined my head at him. ¡°The Temple of Forgetfulness is not as destroyed as I believed it had been.¡± I measured the implications of that. We hadn¡¯t been up there to check as yet, although it was something we needed to verify. The Temple of Enlightenment had been located off the Southern Landbridge, now basically turned into a crater in the ground and filled with the rubble of the cliff that had collapsed into it. ¡°Part of it survived? Did you test it out?¡± ¡°I was extremely foolish and did indeed ask the Guardian for my options. There was only one, and oddly enough it did not match the two choices that were available in the past.¡± I went through that list of options, it being pretty short. ¡°As the Mick told us and has been verified, you could untrain a Skill in the Isparian schema, and be refunded the Karma and Skill Points needed to train another. You could also swap a certain number of your foundational Stats for one another, eventually allowing yourself to completely transform from, say, a skilled warrior with great physical Stats to a skilled and intelligent spellcaster with equally high mental Stats instead.¡± He nodded at my recounting. ¡°Correct. This time, I was only offered the option to train back my last Level of experience.¡± I frowned for a moment. ¡°Restriction?¡± ¡°Once per week.¡± His eyes were neutral, but knowing. ¡°That basically does nothing for you as a Paramount in the Isparian system at all. There¡¯s literally nothing for you to invest in, and your Level is a derivation, not a tool. It might return a nominal amount you invested in a Skill or Stat, but the difference is negligible overall, unless you just invested in a Skill and want to refund the choice. ¡°That means it changed so it could affect the Matrix side of things, too.¡± I saw the beginnings of a smile. ¡°You refunded a level in Magical Rogue...¡±Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. His green eyes gleamed. ¡°And next week, I¡¯ll go back to do it again.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like using Psychic Reformation, without the Karmic hit. You¡¯re peeling back your raw level to¡­ Eight, I¡¯m assuming? So you can pick up a ton of side Levels and go both Wide and Deep¡­¡± I guessed, measuring him. ¡°That is the proper way to play things, isn¡¯t it?¡± he grinned ferociously. ¡°I can rely on my Paramount skills to do things for those weeks. Regrets already has the ability to help me Teleport around, so that most essential part of my skills I¡¯ll still have access to. My selection of spells through the Fourth Valence was solid and I can get by on them until I have what I want.¡± ¡°Well done and well-planned,¡± I complimented him. ¡°A Psychic Reformation would have cost you a full Level of Karma. You¡¯d have gone all the way back to the start of Eleven, and you know how much Karma that involves. You do know you can¡¯t take ANY Class Levels until you peel back all the way to Eight, correct?¡± He nodded shortly, confident of his planning. ¡°A month, and then I start building a new future for myself. I doubt I could change my Primary Class, and oddly enough, I find I do not want to. My abilities are not spells, are much harder to shut down, and I know them well. But my life has been based on my versatility, not my raw power, and I find that the wide open doors of the Matrix system has truly aroused my curiosity after so many years.¡± ¡°Well, take it from one who knows. It is bloody annoying to be restricted to a Level a day, a Mastery a day, a Feat a day, and a hit point a day. The Masteries alone slow you down so much¡­¡± I sighed, shaking my head. ¡°Yes. I will be at Eight for likely months, but I find I do not care. By the time I choose to walk into Nine once more, I will be far more dangerous than I was as a Twelve, and the road before me will be far more open and broad than it was before.¡± He had a look of anticipation on his face that actually looked pretty impressive. ¡°So it will,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°Do you intend to go to the Caul Island, Elder? If so, I should first like you to visit the two islands to the east of it. It should prove enlightening.¡± His keen eyes fixed on them there on the horizon, small and easy to miss when the long black bulk of the Singularity Caul was right there. ¡°Your reason?¡± ¡°I believe one of them has been Nuhmudira¡¯s base for these past many years, probably the fortress island. Still, an island occupied by golems all over it would be extremely suitable for an unseen buried abode.¡± ¡°I will reconnoiter both locations and go over them carefully,¡± he assured me. ¡°I admit to being somewhat startled that you are not at all concerned that I found a way to rectify my mistakes, given my past deeds¡­¡± ¡°You are an Emerald soul, Master Oswald. Those tend to be extremely rare, and do not come about without extreme soul-searching and formulation of a formidable internal philosophy. Green, I would perhaps be worried of a relapse to your prior views on life, when faced with dire choices. Brown, assuredly, you¡¯d be little better than the mindset of a bandit chief. ¡°But Emerald? You¡¯ve decided on things. I¡¯ve even gone and completely removed from you the temptation of wealth. As soon as we get ahead on the pyreal ingot curve, you¡¯re going to be richer than emperors back home as far as material wealth goes. You¡¯re going to be making items of magic and power for yourself you couldn¡¯t even picture a year ago. The planes are going to open up, and you are going to find whole other worlds and realms to wander and explore, and you¡¯re going to be facing the things which made you knuckle down and embrace that Emerald mindset. ¡°You¡¯re the Green Hunter, Master Oswald, and I am not what you are hunting. The things you are hunting, well, I don¡¯t even think they can believe that you are hunting them.¡± ¡°You are as nastily insightful as that hulking ape of a hammer wielder,¡± he informed me with an aggravated sigh. ¡°Aren¡¯t you too-devoted zealots of Good supposed to be converting all the wayward souls like me?¡± I had to laugh at that. ¡°Outright conversion of an Emerald? Well, that would be interesting to attempt, but you¡¯re far too cynical to make it easy, Master Oswald. You¡¯ve just come to the realization on who is good neighbors and friends, and who is shit neighbors and will take advantage of you. Then you got your Human/3 and realized that humanity has enough goddamn problems threatening it from without that you didn¡¯t need to be contributing towards the shit within it, and that those who did weren¡¯t worth your time anymore. ¡°Once you realized that, it was just material wants, and you never really had many of those to begin with. Goldweight for the new system might have been a problem, but we¡¯ve just solved that one for you. ¡°So now it¡¯s just you, free of anyone trying to lean on you, walking the road of an Independent. You know that Briggs, Kris, and I, and most of the Freehold elites, are essentially good people with good intentions and willingness to help others, and that we¡¯re the kind of people who build good places to live and work. ¡°We¡¯re also the kind of people that a lot of fools like to take advantage of and tear down what we¡¯re trying to make. If you judge what we are trying to make is worth your time and effort to support, then you also know you¡¯re the kind of guy to get rid of threats to it that we might not see coming, because we don¡¯t normally work in those gray areas. ¡°You cleaned up the last of the Assassin¡¯s Guild and the Tanakas, didn¡¯t you?¡± He tapped the Ruby Dagger in his hand with a finger. ¡°They are as gone as me and my people could make them,¡± he confirmed softly. ¡°Some of them fled to the Freebooters and likely Nuhmudira, they¡¯ve disappeared. Some of them were wise enough to give it up and retire, such as it is. They¡¯re amoral and will work for anyone.¡± ¡°So, they¡¯re going to need to be locked down with a Geas, or they¡¯ll turn again,¡± I sighed. ¡°Between the Geas and a slit throat, they¡¯ll likely choose the former. All of them are on the Crimson Road, Lady Magos. They¡¯ve earned whatever happens to them¡± he assured me. ¡°I respect freedom of choice, but I lament the waste of talent, Master Oswald. My sympathy died with their choices.¡± ¡°Killing old associates was hard. Killing old friends was harder. They¡¯ve done both, and would do the same back to me. The Crimson Road is paved with blood, after all.¡± He was grimly fatalistic about it all, but the cheerful smile that flashed up for a moment was unfeigned. ¡°Although I admit I were rather happy when her Highness informed me her mother destroyed the Assassin¡¯s Guild back home!¡± AF Chapter 366 – To End a Royal Line A week later¡­ ¡°The Hlaetians? Already?¡± I had to ask, looking back and forth between the two of them, who were looking at me grimly, their minds already made up. ¡°Both our best Warlords, riding out to take revenge for past evils on the wicked Viamontians.¡± I just threw up my hands while Briggs and Princess Kristie both winced. ¡°Fine. Fine! I knew it had to be done, I just thought you¡¯d wait longer.¡± They relaxed a little bit as I sighed. ¡°But no, you aren¡¯t hacking a path directly for the King and his court first.¡± They stiffened up again as I pointed at both of them. ¡°You¡¯re going to act like good Warlords and nobles, and clean up the messes of your past life. ¡°You¡¯re going to start with Silyun and Sir Bellas.¡± Kris¡¯ face was the most confused. ¡°Sir Bellas? Isn¡¯t he dead?¡± she asked quickly, pale amethyst eyes fixed intently on me now. ¡°He¡¯s a cursed NPC in the System. Didn¡¯t you go searching for more information about them?¡± She pursed her lips once. ¡°Right, you¡¯ve been busy, and you lived those lives, what more did you need to know? ¡°Sir Bellas was basically exiled to a prison in the northern reaches of the Hlaetians, one distant, hard to reach, multi-leveled, and dangerous to go through. Just unlocking the Portal to enter the first Dungeon of it back then took a quest, and it¡¯s likely we¡¯ll still need the magic of the Fiuns, if they survived, to get into the place, unless I can dig around it. ¡°Sir Bellas was the one who dropped the Augment Stones for the first cycle of post-Paramount improvements. People had to enter the Dungeon and kill him for the gems, except he always respawned for the next group of people to do the same thing to him.¡± The look on both their faces was extremely ugly. ¡°He was one of the noblest knights of Viamont, as fine a soldier and teacher as I could have wished,¡± Briggs rumbled dangerously. ¡°It was a different life, but we owe him a great deal,¡± Princess Kristie stated flatly. ¡°If he¡¯s still alive in there, releasing him from the System is the first thing we are going to do,¡± she agreed quickly. ¡°What do we have to do?¡± ¡°We need to go see the Fiuns, if they still survive. But first, the survivors of Silyun. I presume you¡¯ve gotten some updates from Master Oswald the Well-Traveled?¡± ¡°We have. The remaining Viamontians of Silyun managed to withdraw to the Fortress of the Knights of Karlun and use it as a strongpoint when the Fall occurred. Many of, if not all, of the Viamontian Knights who had been modified by the command of the Viamontian King went utterly mad during the Fall, killing and hacking away at anyone and everyone around them, while the Viamontians also lost all control over their Eaters.¡± Her smile was utterly merciless. ¡°The funnest part is the Red Bull of Sanamar.¡± I should¡¯ve gotten more updates from Oswald myself. ¡°Oh?¡± I asked blankly, having no idea what that even was. ¡°It turns out the Red Bull of Sanamar was a mutated thing being fed the hearts and glands of Fiuns driven mad by a magical disease. Well, with the Fall, guess what? Almost all of those Fiuns turned out to be already dead, Summons of the System, and didn¡¯t drop hearts and glands any more¡­ and oddly enough, all the insane knights fused into their armor hacking everything around them weren¡¯t going out and fetching any, anymore. ¡°The Red Bull went totally nuts, doubled in size, and went on a rampage killing and eating everything. ¡°More importantly, somehow the Very Mad Cow somehow found it, and now the two of them wander the Hlaetian Islands killing and eating everything they come across as mooo-ving avatars of destruction.¡± The Very Mad Cow had been one of the ¡®boss¡¯ creatures you could fight in the infamous Colosseum, whose Dungeon entrance we¡¯d yet to find, oddly enough, despite knowing right where its Portal had been. That meant, of course, that it was actually tied to another real-world location. ¡°There¡¯s no way the Colosseum is tied to the Hlaetians. Someone thought it would be fun to put them together¡­¡± I shook my head, doubting the System admins even cared about the cruelty of what they were doing, considering the Fall¡¯s effects. ¡°How are the Viamontians actually set on things?¡± ¡°On the martial side, not well. Strangely enough, the Royal Wizards under Varicci II weren¡¯t big users of magical gear, and so remarkably few died during the Surge, and so they weren¡¯t killed by the destruction of the Deathstones. Viamontain adventurers who didn¡¯t work for the king were not so lucky. It turns out being independently wealthy and finely equipped was worse for your health than blind loyalty to a despot,¡± Briggs grunted. I just glanced back and forth between them. ¡°So¡­ he¡¯s protected by a lot of spellcasters who can¡¯t Cast above a Gold spell¡­¡± Their smiles slowly widened. ¡°Am I even going to be needed for that trip, other than for quick healing? I¡¯ve a feeling I¡¯d just be in the way¡­¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°It turns out that the Viamontian Hands have totally unique Armor that didn¡¯t fuse to them, they were awarded it after attaining their status. So, of all the knights to survive, the most elite of them, the Viamontian Hands, are the ones who survived the most fighting, and indeed probably did the lion¡¯s share of the martial work protecting those who survived.¡± ¡°I confess to being surprised Varicci did,¡± I admitted. ¡°All reports of him did not indicate much restraint about him. I thought he would have tons of protective devices upon him which killed him.¡± ¡°He trusted his spellcasters to protect him with spells, instead of Gear,¡± Briggs grumbled. ¡°He lost his favorite Sword or two, but the ornamental plate he wore was enchanted for ease of taking on and off and replacing with actual Armor, not for protective ability. He was wounded and scarred, but survived the Surge entirely, not unlike Borelean and Kresovus did. What civilians survived the majority of the knights and eaters going crazy have little choice but to follow him, and they control Sanamar and the peninsula upon which the Royal Keep is situated, a strong tactical position which has enabled them to withstand any random eater hordes which come surging across the island.¡± ¡°I would say pit the eaters against the olthoi, but I doubt that is wise from the standpoint of anyone,¡± I admitted. ¡°One to transform the world, the other to eat it.¡± ¡°We both have grave doubts that any of the Fiun survive, unless they possibly took shelter among the Ruschk, who have long been neutral and uncaring of them. They were almost extinct on the island as it was, and while the eater hordes may not bother the mad Fiuns¡­ those are likely Summons, and any real, sane Fiuns would be meals like anything else that moves.¡± I reflected on the stories on the Eaters. They were two-legged, huge-jawed eating machines massing about the size of a large boar. True to their name, their only function was to eat and keep eating, never truly being sated. The Fiun had invented them as a new life form to dispose of their garbage¡­ and had destroyed their homeworld in so doing. The insane Fiun were a result of Varicci taking a gland from the brains of the enslaved Fiun, feeding the glands to the Eaters to enslave them as attack dogs. One mad plan birthing another one. The last known Fiun female on Dereth had perished two decades ago. Unless they survived on another world, they were all likely dead at this point. The only thing which likely had saved Dereth is that Eaters couldn¡¯t swim, and when hordes of Eaters driven by hunger ran into the sea, they ended up becoming meals for the creatures of the sea. ¡°You probably can¡¯t wipe the Eaters until you seal all the Summons of the Hlaetians that spawn them,¡± I said calmly. ¡°Summons that eat and drop a Biter drop a real creature made from real matter, probably because they are Aberrants and have the backing of something of Mythos giving them their vitality. The Hlaetians are a shit-show with an infection that can¡¯t be allowed to escape it, as well as a demonstrably Mythos-worshipping savage race, and that isn¡¯t even counting the intelligent and malicious penguins who live there. If they didn¡¯t require icy waters to live, the penguins living there would be a nasty threat, and the Thrungus somehow manage to thrive there outside of a cave system and no known link to the Burun or Olthoi. ¡°You¡¯re jumping us right into a shitshow if you want us to get involved up there, and I don¡¯t think we have the strength to clear the place easily, even though it is something that must be done. ¡°I think it is noteworthy that the undead factions have no real involvement up there. The only reports we have are of Summons made from old Dericostan naval forces who initially made contact with the Ruschk and ended forging the downfall of their own empire. The Gelidites and the Wind do not wish to stir the patrons of the Ruschk again.¡± ¡°That¡¯s all wound up with Vissidal and the Dark Island and Grael,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°I don¡¯t intend to get involved with their messes at this time. I would like to evacuate the remaining Bellenesse survivors from their fortress first, then go after Sir Bellas. We will take our vengeance on Varicci last.¡± I nodded once. ¡°You will need to establish a lived-line link to the islands, which means running there from Stonehold, most likely. Others should also gain the link if possible. Are we taking the same team as on Freebooter?¡± ¡°That would probably work out best. The two extra support mages will likely come in handy, and they are used to working together,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Mick might have to add a couple more Roaches.¡± ¡°Kopf and Gross, perchance?¡± The two lugian Vanguards would definitely be assets. Kris and Briggs just glanced at one another, and both nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll put in the requests for them.¡± ¡°What do you need to consolidate and firm up before we head out?¡± I asked calmly. My obligations weren¡¯t going to stop just because I was on the opposite end of Dereth. My Resurrections of the Cursed Undead would continue every day, as would my Energizing of materials needed to craft high-QL items for Investing and Infusing, although happily I wasn¡¯t needed often for Raise Dead with people reaching Nine and able to take over for that. I could also Fabricate more Scarabs from black rocks and stones from the Obsidian and Magma Golums, as the demand for those was also through the roof. ¡°We¡¯ll bring along enough stuff to keep us occupied in forgework during downtime.¡± Adamantine Jadework Weapons and Armor took even them a long time to hammer out successfully. ¡°Also.¡± Kris slid her black-nailed hand out, rocks clattered, and she lifted it away. Eight Blackfire Stones taken from the heart of the Caulcano, exquisitely cut by those selfsame nails, glittered on the table between us. ¡°Four Lesser, Four Major,¡± I saw at a glance, bending down to stare at the black jewels with the white fires glimmering in the heart of them at them. ¡°The first new Blackfire Stones since the Fall.¡± I reached out to finger two of them. ¡°For me?¡± I asked calmly. ¡°Of course.¡± Briggs reached out to claim two of them as well. ¡°What are these, by the way?¡± ¡°Blackfire Obsidian and Blackfire Diamond, respectively.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the material you expect to need for VIII¡¯s, right?¡± Kris asked, as I bent to the task of Socketing the gems to the cap of Crown¡¯s top end, while Briggs fit them into the broad and heavy head of Endure. AF Chapter 367 – Running around the Point ¡°Perhaps. It might even need to be a fully Enchanted Scarab. The mana demands for Scarabs are pretty hefty for VII¡¯s, let alone VII¡¯s, and there¡¯s ongoing changes and modifications going on with the manafield still, the mages are noticing as they Cast. For instance, VI¡¯s have greater range than V¡¯s, as well as more damage, and seem to have more Spell Penetration power.¡± ¡°And there¡¯d be even more with VIII¡¯s,¡± Princess Kristie nodded understanding. ¡°Enchanting a permanent Scarab? That sounds like a great idea for people who suddenly lucked into an almost unlimited funding. Only need one Scarab for the rest of your life of any particular type sounds like a pretty good deal to me. What do you think the price of such a thing would be?¡± ¡°Wondrous Item, Valance times Caster Level times a thousand, plus fifty times the cost of the Scarab¡¯s base price.¡± ¡°So, ridiculously expensive and taking way too long to make each one.¡± ¡°I believe the Caster Level would also be the limit of the spell you could Cast with it, so if you¡¯ve a Silver Scarab and don¡¯t keep boosting the Caster Level inherent to it, you¡¯re only going to be Casting at the equivalent of a Seven against Magic Defense and the like.¡± Briggs and Kristie both whistled. ¡°That is one HELL of a cash sink,¡± Briggs nodded, running the numbers. Years of Burning Goldweight would be involved to get a full set of them Enchanted! ¡°Hah! You¡¯ve no idea. Platinum Scarabs are formed by alchemically condensing the Essence of platinum. Each Scarab is twenty goldweight!¡± Both of them blinked, not aware of that. ¡°And Mana Scarabs are made from Essence of Aetherium. Thirty goldweight each!¡± Kris actually put her forehead to her hand. ¡°And these were just spell components¡­¡± she murmured in disbelief. ¡°Spell Components costing almost as much as a +III Weapon?¡± Briggs just sighed. ¡°So much goddamn money moving through this place. They must have just designed the components as an additional money sink¡­¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t seem to have worked back then, but fuck, that would totally work nowadays. Even with the two Keep mines working, the cost of those Scarabs would be horrendous¡­¡± Princess Kristie mused. ¡°So, the goal is to Enchant up the Pyreal and Platinum Scarabs to be permanent and totally stop that crap,¡± Briggs stated. ¡°Have we got any sources of Aetherium? We need it to get the Gear Knights moving again, too.¡± Kris and I shook our heads. ¡°The only known deposits of them are in the Direlands. Some of the Gotrok worked in the mines, but they are absolutely controlled by the virindi. All the refined Aetherium known blew out during the Fall, sign of a planar disturbance. It¡¯s what blew the Dungeons back into reality, shattered all the Mana Scarabs, and destroyed the Gear Knights¡¯ Aetherium cores. We can refine new stuff, but we¡¯ve got nothing stockpiled at all,¡± I stated with authority. ¡°We¡¯ve got the Gold Primus almost completely rebuilt, but without a working Core, he¡¯s not animating anytime soon.¡± ¡°Odds he¡¯s going to be a Construct and that Core is actually going to need Empowerment and Enchantment?¡± Briggs asked of me. I could only wince. ¡°Pretty high. Making high-grade Constructs with actual souls has never been cheap. Hells, his body is probably worth thirty goldweight in materials, and that¡¯s with just basic QL stuff. No adamantine except in a couple bearings and joints, certainly not in his armor. Stuff at the level of truesteel and the like. Build one with mithral and adamantine, chassis like that would go for fifty, seventy goldweight easy.¡± ¡°Which we will totally do in the future, because it¡¯s just way too fucking cool NOT to do it,¡± Kris stated emphatically. Briggs and I could only nod along, because yeah, that would indeed be too fucking cool not to do at some point! ¡°Muldaveus has basically pulled back to the mid-Dires and those mines are his only lifeline to any virindi support at all. We can probably raid and wipe the mines, but we don¡¯t have the manpower to secure them. I also believe they¡¯ll be secured at least as securely as the Lightning Elemental Stone Dungeon is,¡± Briggs stated grimly. As securing their own Elemental Stone set was a big driver for everyone coming up with a Named Weapon, replicating my and the Mick¡¯s trip to the Dungeon was one of the goals for any serious adventurer, and the danger level had, if anything, only gone up! ¡°As our people gain Karma and Levels, we¡¯ll be able to do more with what we have, but time and Karma are stopgaps we have to grow past, Fuzzy. They just need more time, exactly like we do,¡± Kris nudged him. ¡°And here we are, going off to add more responsibility to the docket.¡± Briggs shook his head, but didn¡¯t back down. ¡°Okay, a week to get people in place and set up defenses and schedules, Investing priorities, and the like. You¡¯ll be coming back for ingot distribution and the like regardless, and we need Lived-Lines to those islands.¡± I made a circling gesture. ¡°We need Lived-Lines around the entirety of Dereth. The Mick already has them, he just needs to connect to the outer islands over the water. I know you two took a run out to the Caul with Master Oswald, and checked out the other small Islands there. We three need to complete a circuit of Dereth for Lived-Lining.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Roaches and Skeeters leading the way,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°Sure, let¡¯s do that as part of this¡­¡± -------- Another week passes¡­ There were no living Isparians on the Singularity Caul or any of the surrounding islands anymore, everyone having vacated with great speed and energy. The Freebooter Base had been stripped and abandoned, and pointedly the Portal area had been thoroughly obliterated, just in case. The smeltery and furnaces were left untouched, but the uncontrolled golums would have to be mastered to use them, and there was the whole problem that new Shades and Virindi started popping up on the Caul to investigate the presence of Aerbax they¡¯d sensed return there. The fighting that had broken out around the Caulcano indicated that none of the forces were particularly friendly to one another. It also meant we weren¡¯t going down into there any time soon, nor did we care to investigate to see if Aerbax was still there, although we doubted it. Aerbax might have left behind a double like it had in the center of the OP, made by the System for fun times. Despite the Obsidian Plains being the center of power for the virindi, they didn¡¯t even bother trying to get rid of the creature whose fortress had once floated in the air above them. Both of the side islands turned out to have had Cult of the Raven Hand presences, and both had been equally quickly and thoroughly abandoned. Where they¡¯d fled was something we¡¯d doubtless discover in the future. Dereth was big, but not that big. --- Our trip started in Eastham. Everyone was in no more than light armor for running, and at least for the first couple hours, nobody was riding Disks. Even me, but that was fine. I needed the lightfoot practice, too. We headed up the beaches towards the Olthoi North, and while we killed everything we came across, nothing was vivified. The beach Spawns were indicators of what was more prevalent further inland, mixed in with things of the deep like weak nefanes and niffis. They indicated the threat level of the nearby lands and what might be found there. It was a lot of running. Hundreds of miles went by under our heels, racing over the sands there at speeds to rival a horse, speeding along for improbable distances as ki bolstered strength, speed, and endurance to make us nearly weightless, pumping through us with serenity and the joy of pure athletic ability as we zipped along. Hours went by, lost in the zen of the moment as night fell and we continued running through the night, Masks of Clarity lighting up the darkness like day. It took about seven hours to reach Point Tremblant, the northernmost point on Dereth, and we even saw the fallen Exploration Marker that had once marked it for intrepid adventurers who traveled everywhere. Long abandoned farmsteads, Mansions, and collections of Cottages and Villas were visible as we ran on by, occasionally cutting down wandering golums, wisps, banderlings, reedsharks, wasps, and shreth that formed the most common Summons on the beaches. Three more hours brought us to the Desolation Beach Villa settlement, which had a random Deathstone Pit out along the beach nearby, and there we took a rest. I set up a Seal Focus by that Deathstone Pit as the Mick ritually set the thing to vivus, and screaming souls went quiet as they were released from their torment. Nearby was one of Oswald¡¯s old forest bases, one used by the Green Hunters as a local base after the Fall. Also, due west was one of the most infamous and dangerous areas of Dereth, the Hoshino Fortress, raised by Emperor Geraine after he arranged for Hoshino Kei to be possessed by an entity from the Book of Eibhil. The False Hoshino had begun enslaving dead and departed Sho as powerful undead troops, and there had been quite the involved set of mighty deeds to free her from her cursed existence. Those deeds were repeated many times, as yet another reissued Quest put forth by the System. The difficulty was certainly no less to put the replacement False Hoshino down, even after the real one was rescued and restored to King Borealean. Our running wasn¡¯t done, as the trip down the western side of the island was still ahead of us. The creatures gradually grew stronger and tougher as we progressed south down the northlands, passing over the inlet of the Dagger, then down to the Fingers of the unnaturally steep and sculpted fjords where the Northlands and the Direlands met. There were Viamontian and Hea fortresses scattered atop the single severe ridgeline that extended across the waters, cutting the Inner Sea and the ocean off from one another. Master Oswald had reported that the Viamontians once there had long since died or fled their posts, and only the Hea now secured the overland access trail there¡­ not that the beaches weren¡¯t also perfectly viable and the waters there fairly shallow, if not suitable for wagons and supplies. Regardless, we were soon past them and running down the beaches, fully in the Direlands. That meant everyone put on their light armor for the running, as the Beach Spawns spiked very abruptly in their lethality, to the point of dropping Mass Elemental Protections on everyone. There was a lot more running, more hectic hours passing by as we cut our way through the beach spawns instead of just smacking them as we ran on past. We were getting our daily Naming Karma if nothing else, pulling our Lived-Lines along behind us as we got eyes and earfuls of the power and variety of the creatures in the Direlands. It was eight hours to reach Ayan Baquar, where my Lived-Lines finally hooked up and back together. Alas, everyone else still needed to get to the Withered Beach, which meant another two hours of running through the sand, avoiding the banderlings who spilled out of Ayan to chase after us for a few miles until we simply out-distanced them without too much effort. ------ Legs creaking and aching, everyone forced themselves back to their feet to receive the Salute to Aru, watching it rise over the sands and cliffs east of us. The sands where the Aetheric Tide Ravager had died were now Burned permanently white, a glaring contrast to the Summons scattered about the rest of the beach. The collapsed area of cliff was still very obvious¡­ and the tunnel Kris and I had used had been restored, expanded, redirected, and was now a viable means to get from the beach to the top of the cliffs. I led everyone through the Salute, letting the gift of a new day flow through everyone and help dispel some of the lingering fatigue and aches from over six hundred miles of travel on foot in a day. Being able to run this whole thing in one day would have taken some real wheels on your heels back in the day. Happily, everyone here was long since Sustained, so two hours of downtime was equivalent to a full night¡¯s sleep as far as rest and recovery went, and so there was only some stretching out before was fully ready to go to it¡­ and head back north to our Seal Focus for the real trip across the waters. AF Chapter 368 – Another Island Paradise Not We shimmered onto the Seal Focus and found four people waiting for us. One wasn¡¯t much of a surprise, as Oswald had indicated he had a vested interest in the final disposition of King Varicci, and wouldn¡¯t object to slitting the fellow¡¯s throat himself. Likewise, him bringing along his right-hand man Adso wasn¡¯t much surprise. However, the presence of Elysa and Fan Strathelar was certainly unexpected. The Mick looked as confused as anyone else. ¡°Your Highnesses, what are you planning to do here?¡± Kris asked archly, fully capable of and willing to tell them to flark off. ¡°There will be diplomatic contacts with the Viamontians, and that is our area of involvement, particularly with Silyun. The Matriarch of the Bellenesse was a peer and ally of ours back then, and I should be of service in easing them away from Silyun,¡± Elysa replied promptly, backed with a lifetime of confidence from rulership. ¡°I brought my daughter along to gain experience, and it looks to me as if you can use more skilled Archers,¡± she noted, eyeing the number of bowmen to the melee specialists with us. Kris just rolled her eyes at that. ¡°Briggs?¡± ¡°You¡¯re under Lord Mick, Highnesses. He has far more experience in situations like the one we are approaching. If we were fighting olthoi, I might consider otherwise.¡± ¡°Yes, Commander,¡± the Queen Mother replied calmly, saluting with her beautiful new Bow Thorsten. ¡°The Lord Warden wouldn¡¯t have his job if he wasn¡¯t the best man for it.¡± ¡°Princess, stick close to your mother, and watch. It¡¯s what you are here to do. Don¡¯t ask questions unless you really, really need to. Watch, observe, deduce,¡± he went on, and the golden-haired granddaughter of the Queen Mother saluted over the blued length of her Bow Azure. ¡°Alrighty, then. Master Oswald, you¡¯re eager to be the best guide in Dereth, we¡¯ll all oblige. First stop is the Silyun survivors. Our second obligation is to find and free Sir Bellas from the System. Our final obligation is going after Varicci, if possible.¡± The Green Hunter smiled thinly, taking his hand and pointing knife-sharp. ¡°That closest island you see on the horizon is the high point of Corcima Island, one of the primary training grounds of the Viamontians, cut off when Portal Magic failed, but also isolated from the mainland. If Varicci found a way to break the Shoreward, it is possible they¡¯ve fled to that island, or at least made contact with it. The troops inside it had to abandon many of their duties to fish for their next meal, and certainly are not the threats they once were. ¡°Directly past them to the west is the frozen realm of Vanguard Island, where the Viamontians were assembled as a defense against the Ruschk, which will be our second stop. Traitor¡¯s Island, where Silyun was, is to the west of it, and where we¡¯ll be heading. ¡°We won¡¯t be breaking through the Shoreward early, for reasons that you¡¯ll soon see. You youngsters are in for a sight. My peers from before¡­ will probably find that sight extremely unpleasant.¡± --- Princess Kristie and the Mick were the horses for the Mass Disk Train this time, with Briggs standing up on his personal Disk to look over the seas ahead of them. Almost everyone was standing up, everyone was in full Armor, and if their Weapons were not in hand, they were all at hand, and Shields were definitely out and ready in case of surprises. It was only two hundred miles further north than the tropics of Freehold, but the waters here were several degrees colder than those of the southern Direlands, perhaps currents coming down from the north, and as a result the amount of Aquatics traffic was much lower. As we breached the Shoreward and started across the waters, I noted maybe a tenth of the Aquatics that had been present down on the southern shores, and wondered if any of that was related to the Ruschk¡­ or, more amusingly, the presence of the very dangerous intelligent Penguins known to live on the northernmost, Ruschk-controlled Isle of Ruin. Well, we¡¯d find out soon enough. ------ ¡°Smoke, Commander!¡± Rogar sang out, and everyone followed his gaze to the fortress rising cold and lonely atop the plateau that dominated the island we were racing by to the north of us. His words were soon accompanied by horns blowing out over the waters, long and low and definitely attempting to signal us. ¡°Ryin?¡± Briggs gestured offhandedly. I glanced that way. ¡°To the inhabitants of Corcima Castle: We are aware of your presence and will return this way in due time. Wait for our return and consider how you wish to treat with us when we do. We are capable of taking you off of there and to the mainland, so you may wish to begin packing your things for a quick trip. We have no desire to commandeer your facility at this time, although circumstances will change. ¡°We will return in several days, our schedule is flexible. Good day to you.¡± The horn-blowing cut off sharply, and the rising smoke was extinguished. ¡°That is an inordinately useful ability,¡± the Queen Mother whispered from where she was standing next to me, enjoying my company. The combination of my politeness and utter lack of fear of her, probably. Her daughter preferred the company of the women of the Roaches, especially Mizaya and Selena, who she was childhood friends with.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°It is. The Caster Level requirements are annoying, but being able to just talk at people at range is marvelously useful. The Commander and Warlord have a similar ability, but it doesn¡¯t have quite the selectivity or the range, while being better at conveying commands and Heartsong effects. I trust you have some ideas on what you¡¯d like to expect of the Viamontians?¡± The Queen Mother nodded slowly. ¡°Master Oswald briefed me on the Viamontain survivors, with what he knows. He didn¡¯t investigate their situation very carefully, mostly because he doesn¡¯t really give a damn about most of them. However, I think he feels a vague sense of obligation to the Bellenesse for not killing the King of Viamont back on Ispar all those years ago.¡± ¡°Mmm. Well, it is a professional¡¯s mindset. His treatment at the hands of Varicci¡¯s torturers likely didn¡¯t endear him to them, either.¡± ¡°Likely not. Hard to believe they¡¯d be mad at him for attempting to kill their lord¡¯s father.¡± ¡°Some people just hold grudges too long,¡± I agreed dryly, noting the ice in her blue eyes as she glanced his way, which vanished a moment later. Varicci I, father to Varicci II on the island, wasn¡¯t the only person Oswald had tried and failed to assassinate. On the other hand, he had also sought to make amends for the deed, and had turned against Nuhmudira in doing so, which was a good thing to have happened. We were turning southwest to parallel a stretch of frozen shores, the start of the high ice on Vanguard Island. The beach was thick with Summons, rather more than was typical of almost all places I¡¯d ever seen. With the Eagle Eyes from my Mask of Clarity, I could see hundreds, if not thousands of Viamontians in various sorts of full body armor or bright red robes, as well as the occasional shade, lurching mad Fiuns, brightly glittering Wisps of different types than were found in the Dires, large numbers of Eaters, occasional penguins, mushroom people, glittering deep blue ice Golums of larger size, some banderlings, coppery or brazen gromnies, and ¡®naval¡¯ Empyrean undead scattered between them. And then, the spawns stopped. ¡°They¡¯re respawning,¡± Briggs said, as even Kris and the Mick slowed down, wondering what was going on as the many, many Spawns suddenly stopped. Indeed, as we watched, multiple Spawn points were hissing and spitting and coming back to life as new Summons were pulled into existence on them. Naturally everyone¡¯s eyes tracked in the direction of the empty ground, and what was ahead of them. ¡°Oh, bloody hells and demons,¡± the Mick said for all of us, as we saw what was happening. My Detect Aquatics blared at me. ¡°Crap!¡± I muttered, snapping up the Holo in front of them. The waters ahead of us were packed with remorans and other Aquatics, some of huge size! None of whom seemed to be focused on us, however... ¡°Magos, address them and get the Remorans to come out of the water and hold position en masse,¡± Briggs ordered calmly, while Kris veered away from the shore. Ahead of us on the beach was a line of Eaters. Thousands of Eaters. They were falling upon the Summons with the gluttonous, ravaging hunger of the starving. They chomped at every single creature there, including the otherwise motionless Eaters like themselves, and simply tore them all apart, devouring them wholesale and swallowing pieces of ectoplasmic flesh which shouldn¡¯t have done much for them¡­ and yet they were obviously eating everything, and it was doing something for them, because they kept right on doing it! ¡°Remorans of the Deep,¡± I sent out in Hydrus with Magevoice, watching the wave of slaughter from those thousands of eating machines sweeping across the land, ¡°if you want to lure the Eaters this way, they must see you first. Swim out ahead of them, come up out of the water, and launch some spells at the Shoreward to attract their attention.¡± The Water Elemental Command function of Primus gave my words real weight. The area ahead of us suddenly registered a massive movement of all those Aquatics further down the shore, clustering around a slight inlet in anticipation. We swung well wide of the mouth of the place as the remorans came out of the water. They tended to blues and purples up here in the north, with the occasional magenta or green visible. They rose up out of the waters on flapping manta-wings, hundreds of them, covering the water in a riot of color and motion. Then they detonated at least two hundred Firebolts against the Shoreward. The air shook with the thunder of their explosions, the air rush coming out and back in, and the bright blaze of magical pyrotechnics. It wasn¡¯t at all hard to see all those Eaters trundling along the ground with inordinate speed on their two stumpy legs turn to look at the source of the light and sound, and then see all the colors and motion visible there on top of the water. ¡°Shite again¡­¡± the Mick murmured, as my Detect Aquatics saw a constant stream of undersea creatures moving by underneath us as we trotted past above them. The gnashing roars of the Eaters as they turned almost as one and went after the real seafood eat-food over there was horrifying in the absolute hunger it conveyed. The horde of swollen pink, red, brown, and yellowish Eaters came raging for the free meals flapping in front of them, bulbous bodies that were over half mouth slobbering with eagerness as they raced for the food. They hit the waters, plowed through the waves, and smashed right into the Shoreward. That¡­ didn¡¯t seem to stop them, as they promptly started to eat the Shoreward! I could see it, feel it, their teeth scraping against the magic, clawing at it, sucking it in with supernatural power. The Eaters actually piled up on one another, driving a ramp up three Eaters high in all directions in a wall of frenzied, devouring mouths, completely uncaring of the fact that the remorans on the other side of the Shoreward were looking at them the same way they were being looked at. There was a visible crack in the air as a yellow Bloated Eater bit into nothing visible and snapped a piece of the Ward free, swallowing it and worrying at the gap. The crack in the unseen field was abruptly visible and the opening spread quickly and forcefully. In scarcely another breath a whole section of the Shorewards was cracking, shattering, splintering¡­ It collapsed with a roar, and the whole rush of Eaters came raging out into the waters to feed, a slavering line of eating machines rushing out to their doom in waters where they could not swim, and where things were waiting to feed on them. The Mick and Kris had stopped us to watch and look at the gory sight as the feeding frenzy erupted, the Eaters spilling out into the waters, slavering, biting, chomping at anything and everything. Great jaws came from below and tugged them down, tentacles reached up and yanked them underwater, while the remorans actually backed away from the oncoming stream of massive boar and cow-sized bodies and let fly with shredding blades and spears of force, increasing the blood and gore as Eaters were torn apart and propelled forward into the frothing mess by those behind them. AF Chapter 369 – Well-prepared Diners ¡°That be among the more disturbing sights I be seeing, ever,¡± the Mick drawled for everyone¡¯s benefit. That inlet was now crimson in color, and the entire length of it was churning with bodies scaled and slimy feasting on bodies bulbous and bloated. All the blood was naturally drawing in even more of the Aquatics, homing in on the buffet prepared for them. There was more than enough for them to eat, too. Hundreds of tons of Eaters were charging forth into the waters, driven mad by hunger, and if they died, they didn¡¯t care if it meant they had a chance to fill their bellies with something. ¡°If you look out onto the landscape, you can see three young Eaters, little Biters, spawned out there,¡± Master Oswald said dryly for everyone¡¯s benefit. Masks of Clarity turned, swept the littoral regions so covered with snow¡­ and yes, indeed, three young Eaters, only the size of soccer balls, were ambling around randomly¡­ but in the direction of the gory feast on the beach. ¡°From eating Summons?¡± Knight Chum-li protested in disbelief. Everyone knew they just broke apart and vanished soon after death, even less permanent than creatures that still had Deathstone effects working on them. ¡°Aye, they can gain weight and size from eating ectoplasm, and damn fast, too,¡± Master Oswald replied grimly. ¡°Killing a Summons goes directly to growth, it¡¯s like a perfect food¡­ except it never hits what passes for their stomach. They just get bigger, stronger¡­ and their hunger is never satisfied. ¡°It¡¯s totally possible the Eaters dying there have never eaten a real creature in their entire lives, glutting themselves on Summons until they swell in size so much they can barely move, and then they charge out into the sea for one reason or another and die by drowning or being eaten alive. ¡°The cycle won¡¯t stop as long as a single Eater can chew on Summons and put out their spawn. They multiply with breathtaking speed if they have food, and the Summons are endless food. ¡°There¡¯s probably four or five waves of Eaters on this island alone, sweeping across it, eating the spawns, pumping out the young, increasing the size of their horde until they reach a point like this, and go charging into the sea to eat or be eaten.¡± ¡°No wonder the creatures be ignoring us. They¡¯ve been eating their fill on Eaters for all these years?¡± ¡°Yes. And this isn¡¯t all of it.¡± Nobody was looking forward to that news, but there was nothing for it but to resume our progress west. ------- ¡°The green be gone,¡± the Mick said flatly, staring at Traitor¡¯s Island ahead of them as their Waveskating Step slowed once again. The Aquatics nearby were ignoring them, as if they weren¡¯t of interest at all. ¡°That should be trees and meadows, all before us, a green and splendid place to live¡­¡± ¡°And the Eaters ate everything,¡± Kris finished for him, her pale violet eyes scrolling from right to left. ¡°Plenty of Summons visible. That means either some time since the last wave of Eaters, or they are due for it.¡± ¡°You can see the Hall of Karlun from here,¡± Master Oswald pointed out the tall mount in the far distance, Masks of Clarity easily able to make out the Keep atop it. ¡°There¡¯s an inlet that reaches almost up to it, but the entire length of it is fordable and exposed to the Eaters. Our best chance is to come in from the east, across the ridge there. In my experience, there is always an Eater horde close to the Keep. They can smell the living in there, and so they stay in the area, looking for something left alive. Sometimes they go surging through the inlet in a wave, scaring up any fish or frogs or whatever might have come into the water, probably the only time any get real food. ¡°There are two Dungeons on this island that have Eater Summons, too. Even if all they eat is rats and bugs, eventually they spawn Biters, and the cycle starts anew. The only thing slowing it down is the fact Biters aren¡¯t very dangerous, and generally keep to the shallows hunting fish until they can grow big enough to kill Summons. Once they can, however, they multiply quickly, and the Biters can nibble on Summons to increase size far more quickly.¡± ¡°And they ate every bit of grass and tree and shrub and flower,¡± Briggs murmured, looking around. ¡°That is a LOT of Eater meat, and the Aquatics have just been pulling them off the shore, into the sea, and feeding on them, all these years¡­¡± ¡°What about the Mad Cow and the Red Bull?¡± Knight Xena asked. ¡°Why haven¡¯t they been eaten?¡± ¡°Because they blow whole Eater hordes apart piecemeal, and feed on the remains,¡± Hunter Adso spoke up from next to his teacher. ¡°The Eaters can¡¯t hurt them fast enough to bring them down, and the two of them can kill whole swathes of them in return. Then the Eaters start feeding on their own dead, get distracted, and the two aurochs slaughter them all.¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Everyone pictured that happening, but it was Queen Elysa who asked slowly, ¡°So, just how big are those two aurochs?¡± Master Oswald¡¯s smile was thin and cruel. ¡°They were over ten feet at the shoulder when last I saw them, not a year after the Fall. Now? Well, now, that¡¯s a good question.¡± ¡°Ye be sure there¡¯s still living at Karlun¡¯s Hold, then?¡± the Mick asked warily, as he and Kris turned north to parallel the shore here. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve met with them several times. I was unaware of the Lived-Line mechanics, and there were too many water gaps for me to transport them away, so I could do little more than run supplies to them every now and then, and give them advice on gardening. They always had things to trade, however.¡± That earned him more curious glances. ¡°They have an NPC shopkeeper up there, who happens to sell a fairly wide variety of food, and he never runs out of wares, despite never having access to livestock or farmers selling wares. We never tried to feed him Notes, or he might have been long gone, but I¡¯ve been buying packs of oregano from him for years, and selling him basic ironmongery and lockpicks in return to generate the coins needed. ¡°All those blue packs you saw on the people in Stonehold? They came from him.¡± None of the NPC¡¯s in Stonehold or the Plateau had kept that status after Oswald took over the places, and just about every native had owned a blue leather pack, purse, or pouch. ¡°A rare treasure, then,¡± Briggs nodded, ¡°and used wisely. I imagine his prices dropped quite a bit, too¡­¡± Even Oswald was startled at that observation. ¡°You¡¯re right. They came down at least a third after he moved to the Keep. Interesting.¡± A minor detail, but it meant something was watching. ¡°Of course, the man should have tons of pyreal and be spending it in return, but he is an NPC, and doesn¡¯t even need to defecate like a normal person does.¡± That was a given, as well as not needing to sleep and being available at all hours. NPC¡¯s were slaves and had no lives outside their position. That had probably saved the lives of the refugees up there, too. ¡°How many survivors?¡± Princess Fan asked quietly. ¡°Two hundred, which would have been very crowded were not the Keep actually a Dungeon, too. Much of the interior of the mount was empty and could be divided up among the refugees, and they¡¯ve slowly expanded it ever since, leaving the top and outside open for gardens and the like,¡± Master Oswald informed her with a pointed glance. ¡°They¡¯ve children, but not many, and the situation is stable for now. The fighters can isolate individual Eaters and butcher them for leather and ivory from their teeth, which the Shopkeeper will take in exchange. The other Eaters clean up any remains soon enough, but the warriors of that place are truly experts at killing Eaters by now.¡± ¡°Hell of a life,¡± the Mick muttered. ¡°They tried building a wall so they could plant more gardens, but the Eaters are on them before they can get it finished, and knock it down in their frenzy to get at some living meals. They¡¯d have to somehow fight their way through three waves of hordes at the least to get the time needed to put one up successfully, and even if they did, Eaters have been known to chew through stone eventually to get at what they want. ¡°When we get closer, you¡¯ll see quite a few tunnels chewed into the base of the mount by hungry Eaters. They don¡¯t get in far before the ley line reinforcement just fixes the damage, but they look like pig-sized rat tunnels, trying to get to the living inside.¡± ¡°This is a very bad place,¡± Knight Enki murmured, the lightning of his Mask pulsing slowly as his hand rested on his Saber. ¡°I don¡¯t know about Summons, but their unrestrained appetite is what wiped out the Fiuns and destroyed their homeworld. I can only imagine the desolation that their homeworld is, with only the littoral regions having any sign of green, doubtless warred over by starving hordes of Eaters,¡± Master Oswald nodded to nobody in particular. ¡°Call me cruel, but the extinction of the Fiun is not too small a price for them to pay for the disasters they¡¯ve caused.¡± Nobody could gainsay him that belief. Fucking around with artificial life had birthed true monstrosities the Fiun had not had the will or power to exterminate properly when they had their chance. It had gotten away from them, turned on them, and killed them. There was really no defense for their deeds, and a powerful, scholarly, and highly magical race was now extinct on Dereth and their homeworld because of it. ¡°I think this world was very, very fortunate that the Fiuns and their Eaters ended up here, on this isolated set of islands, and not on the continents proper, or even on Dereth,¡± Knight Tia said softly. There were grim nods from Roaches and Knights alike at her observation. The sight of those Eater hordes, and thinking of them tearing across Dereth, eating EVERYTHING in their path, growing more numerous, multiplying with the unlimited food that Summons represented¡­ Yes, that was not something anyone here wanted to experience first-hand. ------ ¡°Well, this is not going as planned,¡± the Mick murmured with a hard smile. ¡°I be gathering we be having to pull them through the Shoreward?¡± Some three thousand Eaters were gathered on the Shoreward, just up off the beach, the short cliff discouraging them from leaping down at us and killing themselves. However, all those unblinking black eyes and little hooked tentacle-sensors were aimed in our direction, and they were all watching us. Shifting position had done nothing. The whole horde had shuffled along to keep us in front of them. They had us in their sights, and they¡¯d pace us as long as we were visible. ¡°Well, at least the people in the Keep noticed our valiant efforts.¡± Everyone glanced at the Keep raised on its hill a good two miles away, just enough angle from its tallest towers to see what was going on here. ¡°Can ye bring them down, lass?¡± the Mick asked shamelessly. ¡°We can be patient.¡± ¡°It rather seems to me to be an excellent opportunity for some Naming Karma. There¡¯s only like a hundred and fifty Eaters each, right?¡± I lobbed back at him. They all blinked. ¡°We will need to vivify the lot of them,¡± Briggs instantly agreed, ¡°no matter what the Aquatics might want. They are still going to get a good meal. Can you create us a battle platform and a bridge for the handy use of the Eaters there, Magos?¡± I smiled widely. ¡°Commander Briggs, it would be my pleasure!¡± AF Chapter 370 – Eat This! I pulled up a battle platform from the stone twenty feet past the Shoreward, forty feet across and deep, plenty of room for the two dozen combatants here. The bridge to the horde was only wide enough for one Eater at a time, and actually rose above and arched down to them so they couldn¡¯t run over one another in a pile-up to get there. The sides were fenced until the bridge reached the Shoreward, at which point it widened out and let them spread out to fight us. A few went tumbling off the shallow cliff as the stone arches of the bridge to them extended towards them. They were pressing forward eagerly for the chance at new fresh meat, the kind they could smell all the time, and now was being delivered to them! The gnashing and chomping of their teeth was quite impressive, and when the bridge reached them, they poured down the middle of it with zealous speed. They died pretty quickly, all things considered. They were big and strong and tough, but they didn¡¯t have much natural armor to speak of, only huge bony mouths and skulls that warded some of their vitals, vitals the fighters had been quickly briefed on how to reach, generally by stabbing deep into those gaping jaws. Slashing attacks could unhinge the jaw and expose the innards to a follow-up strike, or, if you had the power, you could just power an overhand blow and try to split their skulls. The elevated Archers focused on those coming off the bridge, One More Arrow Quivers granting unlimited arrows which plunged deep and sent them tumbling, Burning en vivus, and they were pushed out of the way and over the edge by the pressure of those coming in behind. The short wall we were fighting behind from actually ¡®grew taller¡¯ quickly, in actuality the bridge lowering down so the corpses of the dead Eaters could Burn, the new ones could trample on of them, and constant telekinetic pressure from Zeks pushed vivisizing balls of meat and teeth out the ends at a steady rate. The feeding frenzy that had developed at the other inlet didn¡¯t really happen here, as the Eaters were already dead, and all the remorans and their tentacled masters had to do was grab a dead Eater of their own and haul it away. The Water Elemental I Summoned up kept the currents heading away from the beach, so the corpses of the Eaters bobbed and bounced and headed out into the open water, where they were soon set upon, or were tugged down and out of sight, with much less frothing madness than the other inlet had been home to. That was fine, because we were at it a long time. My time was spent making sure everything was vivisized and any Knights silly enough to leave a limb inside the snapping mouth of an Eater too long after impaling the sucker didn¡¯t lose the arm when it bit the dummy. I could also close off the bridge if needed, raise our own position up and make the Eaters build a pile of corpses to get at us, their stumpy short legs making them dreadfully poor climbers. Gore sprayed, Blades cut and stabbed and slashed, and boar-sized balls of flesh fell constantly over the sides of the fighting area, pressed out of the way by Telekinesis and the constant pressure of new, starving Eaters. The Knights were actually surprised they could keep up with the Eaters. That was mostly because the suckers were so big and impeded one another, so they never had to fight more than one at a time. If the Archers didn¡¯t plant an arrow in the jaws and impale something vital, they could always take out an eye or even punch a shaft into the nostrils and to the brain, so none of the Eaters were making it to the fighters unscathed. Gross and Kopf held the center of the line. The two Vanguards had actually fought against Eaters in the Dungeons here on the island in their youth, and so were enthusiastic about coming to grips with their deadly opponents from back then. Axes cracked and clove bone and brains, blew vivus through their corpulent bodies, and the lugians levered them aside to allow the next Eaters to come into range and be killed. ¡°That be a new one,¡± the Mick mentioned to Master Oswald next to me. Adso was over with the Archers, putting precise shots into gaping jaws wagging his way. ¡°A Tyrant Eater?¡± The creature he was pointing at was almost white, and its swollen girth was at least two feet higher than even the most bloated of the yellow Eaters that otherwise dominated the Engorged, Insatiable, and Ravenous Eaters around it. ¡°I¡¯m going to have to widen the bridge to let it through. Easier to just kill it,¡± I informed them. ¡°Commander! Big one!¡± I pointed. He glanced at the massive Eater, and then suddenly Endure was behind him, just flicked into position like it was weightless. Electrum Light swirled around the edge of what looked like a broad spear around the weighty adamantine head of the Hammer, and then flick! The Hammer was out and moving at the speed of an arrow. The streak of multi-colored Lights and pale blue Aberrant Banefire that was also gracing all the other Weapons of Lost Light here slammed into the massive bulk of the Eater, went right into its gaping, calling jaws, and tore it right back off its feet with the impact. Something exploded inside those jaws and out its backside as it was sent rolling and tumbling backwards and over the other Eaters of its horde. The light of its tentacle was out before it ever came to a halt, and Endure tore free of its jaws to come spinning back to Briggs¡¯ hand with a slap of leather on metal. ¡°Tough bastard, didn¡¯t even punch through it,¡± he commented absently, lowering his Hammer down. Vivic fires were spurting out the gaping mouth of the dead Eater, but the other Eaters around it were already leaping onto it to devour it. ¡°Fendro! Raise that Sword or admit you¡¯re tired and get off the line!¡± The Aluvian knight hastily lifted his Blade, just in time to thrust it between the jaw of a reddish Engorged Eater pressing into the opening as his previous victim rolled away. ¡°Good! Follow the Banefire, it will guide you to the nasty parts! One with your Weapon, people!¡± he called out in Warlord¡¯s Voice, perfectly heard despite all the hacking and jaw-slobbering going on as Eaters came and died. ¡°Three more o¡¯ those big ones out there,¡± Mick went on without batting an eye.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°Queen Elysa! Fan! Kris! White ones!¡± I pointed out the massive Eaters slowly making their way towards us as the press in front of them died. My own contributions were basically going into the Eaters pushed off the cliff from the pressure of the others behind them, applying Kickers and letting them slowly Burn to death in the water as others of their ilk crashed down on top of them. An Autobow and the most famous Bows in Dereth rose up promptly, and the Tyrant Eaters weren¡¯t long for the world. ------ 3,416 Eaters were not a small number of them. Actually, it was a freaking huge hill of them, enough meat to satisfy five times their number of Aquatics come to enjoy the repast. The seas behind us were full of Remorans and their masters, some of whom stole right up to the shore to grab the freshest Eaters, blasted the vivic fires out of them, and dragged them off to sea in a steady stream of fresh meat. Nobody had ever had so many manta-sharks around them, flapping their wings just below the level of the battle platform, and were ignored by us as they ignored us in return, intent on their own meals. The heaped Eaters should have piled up way, way higher than our platform or the bridge to get to us, but the combination of Aquatics hauling them away and vivus Burning them down to dust in white flames that kept the waters directly around the bridge remarkably clear also kept the stacks down completely, and they never reached above floor level before falling back into unwhite ash underwater. It was still a lot of killing. ¡°And that is how ye get the Eat an¡¯ Slay Achievement Feat, is it not?¡± the Mick grinned at everyone. He, Kris, and Briggs had moved in to take over for some knights who were too exhausted to continue. The Mick had triggered the Feat after his very first kill, much like the two lugian Vanguards, all of them having thousands of lifetime kills of the things already. Intent on getting their own Slayer counts up, Kris and Briggs had then charged right up the middle of the bridge and into the Eater horde in an eruption of spherical bodies and gore flying in every direction. Everyone had finished up what they were doing and sat back in relief, watching the two of them hold the head of the bridge and absolutely slaughter everything around them. Briggs just stood there, taking all the Eaters who could charge him without moving. He just sent ripped and cloven corpses flying this way and that with implacable swings of his arm. Just outside his reach, Kris flitted and passed through and over the Eaters there, and they were sliced apart without even really knowing she was there before they died. In any kind of reasonable fight, they would have mounded up the dead and been fighting on a hill of corpses before too long. Alas for the Eaters, Briggs was clearing that hill away with every swing of Endure, and they had no chance to mound up around the two of them. Also not good for the Eaters, their racial bias away from eating their own kind meant that even with the slaughtered right there, having living Isparians in reach was too much to resist, and so they ignored the dead. Not that it mattered. The last two hundred, including the last Tyrant Eater whom Briggs clove the skull of in twain, died with as much speed as if they¡¯d come pouring over the bridge at the line of twelve shields there that had held off their predecessors. ¡°One day I am gonna be that damned strong,¡± Knight Colmus swore, as Warlord Kris kicked the corpse of the Tyrant Eater out of the way like it was a chicken¡¯s corpse, climbed up her equally gory mate and give him a big sinister kiss of glee, while vivic flames stole up them and began to Burn the gore off of them. ¡°Hallelujah an¡¯ Gloria!¡± the Mick agreed flatly. ¡°Lass, anything for us t¡¯ worry about below?¡± I shook my head. ¡°Any who went over the side are dead. At the end there I was racing the Remorans to get to the fresh meat.¡± ¡°Then we¡¯re moving! On the Disks, no time for running!¡± The unexpected roar of his voice sent everyone scrambling for the Disks floating at the back of the platform. ¡°There¡¯s another horde in the area, an¡¯ they be smellin¡¯ the blood soon enough! We be reaching the Keep afore that happens!¡± Thirty seconds later, we were all in motion towards the Keep on the hill two miles away. --- The normal way to get into the Keep of Karlun was to climb up a rope or lowered rope ladder, then climb or be drawn fifty feet up to the cliffside opening that could admit only one person at a time. Fifty feet also happened to be just higher than any mound thousands of Eaters could heap up to reach them, as the back end of the mound would instead fall off the sides of the cliff behind them before it could reach high enough. That was naturally not the slightest problem for us, as Kris and the Mick simply went straight up the side of the outer wall, running two hundred feet up sideways while ignoring gravity. To the utter astonishment of the guards in rusty old armor, they cleared the sides of the walls and came up over and onto the battlements. All the Disks followed smoothly, and suddenly there was a very dangerous armed force of warriors, only one of whom was Viamontian, on the walls of Karlun¡¯s Keep! ¡°At Ease,¡± Briggs¡¯ Warlord¡¯s Voice boomed out, and the panicking guards there flinched at the command in his baritone. ¡°We just slaughtered over three thousand Eaters just to reach this place, and have no intention of fighting you over it. ¡°Is the Grand Mother and Knight-Captain still about? I am Commander Briggs of Stonehold, this is Warlord Kristie Rantha of Freehold, I am sure you know Master Oswald and his First Blade Adso, and we are accompanied by the Queen Mother Elysa Strathelar and her granddaughter, the Royal Princess Fan.¡± There wasn¡¯t any need to pass word, as his Voice could be heard throughout the Keep with great ease. The old soldier standing managed to quit his gaping, and at least tried to recover some of his Viamontian arrogance. ¡°Sir! Your arrival and means was¡­ unexpected!¡± he managed to say. ¡°I am sure the Grand Mother and Knight-Captain will be happy to see you!¡± ¡°I¡¯ve heard the crowding is great down below.¡± Briggs looked around at the many hanging gardens of vegetables and miniature trees planted about them. Only Kris and the Mick were actually standing on the narrow battlements, everyone else was on Disks floating over empty space to the sides. ¡°It would perhaps be easier to meet us up here. Magos, a conference area.¡± I inclined my head obediently, and a whole section of the aged battlements flowed down and away as smoothly as soft clay, extending out over into space and forming into a round circular platform out there, braced and fenced and quite able to hold a diplomatic party who needed to confer with one another. The Mick promptly strolled out onto the platform before anyone else, leaning on the rail. ¡°We brought more friends!¡± he announced to everyone, who craned over to look at what he was seeing. Another horde of Eaters in their squirming mass of bodies was sweeping around the side of the Keep and starting to writhe about the walls of the cliff below. Briggs stepped down from his Disk, still towering over the very impressed soldier there, and walked out to join the Mick, looking down with an unperturbed face. ¡°Magos,¡± he said levelly, ¡°I hate to impose, but burn them all.¡± ¡°Yes, Commander,¡± I replied calmly, moving my Disk over to the edge of the battlement for an unimpeded view below. Three Darts cycled up around my wrist, flaring with Lost Lights and multiple fires, and I began to bombard them. Chained Darts, seventy-eight Eaters at a time. Five rounds of Burn was just enough damage to kill them all after the initial hit. Slicing blades of force dropped from the sky, and the Eaters began to Burn in Chained spiderwebs of magic blasting through them, uncaring and oblivious, only stirred to more excitement by the light and motion of the magic coming down, the cries of their own at the pain, which meant fighting, which meant more food. Powered kill armies, and that included hordes. AF Chapter 371 – Ring that Bellas The aged Bellenesse Matriarch and the aging Knight-Captain of the remaining Viamontian fighters were soon present and engaged with their unexpected and numerous guests. Wines and foods the Viamontians hadn¡¯t seen in years were soon pulled out, and rolls of the sweetest cream pastries were passed out by the dozens to hand off to the nervous inhabitants of the keep, who hadn¡¯t had anything like them for years. ¡°Had to use all that milk for something,¡± I told the Mick, who was listening with half an ear to what was going on, but mostly making sure all the Knights and Roaches didn¡¯t say anything stupid and were maintaining their gear. There were a lot of nicks and scratches, so the two support mages, Thera and Tsu Nippo, were busy with Mending up any mishaps and minor damage to armor and attire anyone had. ¡°Thesh bef rilly gerd,¡± he winked back, stuffing one of them into his mouth for emphasis. QL 30, enough to sit on a Celestial¡¯s table, if not dominate it. Kris and I had quite a bit of fun whipping them up. ¡°They are,¡± I agreed, nibbling at mine. Everyone else had at least two of them, except for the group sitting around a Disk-table and enjoying at least a partial diplomatic feast, with proper meats and fish and salads and all the good stuff there, multiple wines, multiple glasses for those wines, seven pieces of silverware each, and so on. The Viamontians looked nearly ready to cry at the much-missed pageantry. ¡°Whash the plan?¡± the Mick asked around his slow and expressive chewing of the cream pastry. ¡°Evacuate all of the Viamontians who want to get out of here. I think they¡¯ve got them marked for Baishi. It¡¯s forested, hilly, and fairly similar to what Silyun used to be.¡± ¡°What about the NPC shopkeep?¡± the Mick asked reasonably, always with an eye toward freeing those caught by the system. ¡°Well, we¡¯re not stupid, but Master Oswald should have told us first. I would have put up some storerooms with Preservation spells on them so we could make up a huge reserve of food and the like. ¡°We¡¯ll spend a lot of coins with him, just because we can, but this time to build up a food reserve. We should be able to get enough food out of him to feed the entire population of Freeholders for a year without too much problem.¡± ¡°That be a lot of food,¡± the Mick admitted after a slow and careful swallowing, even looking a bit forlorn as he cast about for another of the delectable things, and found some savagely unconcerned rogues had pillaged their way through the last of them! ¡°Not having to worry about the food situation while having so many people under arms is extremely valuable. We¡¯ll release the fellow soon enough, have no fear. We¡¯re going to dump a lot of it on the Hea survivors, too. It should take care of a lot of their worries for the coming year.¡± ¡°Ye¡¯re going to be making a crapton o¡¯ Tapestries, then,¡± he reasoned. ¡°Yes. One stack of MMD¡¯s worth of pyreal, in lots. There¡¯s going to be a lot of cabbages and chickens and eggs getting purchased, among other things. Free new cookpots, frying pans, and baking pans to everyone, too, if what Adso related is true.¡± ¡°More meat than what chickens exist on Dereth today?¡± he reasoned with an arched eyebrow. ¡°And auroch steaks, too.¡± ¡°Tis money wisely spent!¡± the Mick announced enthusiastically. ¡°It¡¯s hideously overpriced in real terms. You don¡¯t pay twenty-two pyreal for a steak, but we don¡¯t care.¡± ¡°To fine dining an¡¯ eatin¡¯!¡± he saluted me, and I laughed with him as we tunked bottles of milk and chugged them down after our pastries. ------- There was a lot of negotiating over the next day or two, and then a lot of spellcasting. All of the families with children were packed up and carried off via Teleports, Mass Reduce Person making them small enough that I could sweep up dozens of them and bring them away to Baishi. If I had to spend some time putting up houses for them once they got there, well that was fine, too. In a short time, all that was left of the refugees from Silyun were the older knights who agreed to maintain the fortress, and the Isparian supply company Briggs brought in to be taught the tasks of doing so. More particularly, those hardened old knights of Silyun expressed great desire to learn Matrix Classes and end the menace of the Eaters once and for all. They had a LOT of experience in slaughtering Eaters and working the landscape around the fortress for the resources needed to trade to their Shopkeeper. I also deduced that Kris and Briggs knew all of them by name the moment they saw them, and indeed, knew pretty much the entire older generation of Viamontians. I knew Kris was boiling with fury inside at seeing the fate of Eleonora¡¯s clan, but Silyun survivors who were part of Freehold¡¯s forces were also moving to Baishi to attempt to rebuild the storied and valiant clan.Stolen story; please report. For their part, the Viamontians were mystified and impressed by how intimately the two Isparians knew their customs, training methods, and styles of combat, and how quickly they adapted the Viamontians to a new paradigm. Also, the potential of the vivic fire... ------ ¡°It¡¯s green¡­¡± Knight-Captain Tyric du Pellonesse stared with the rest of the remaining Viamontians over the ground below the fortress, where I had slowly and methodically slaughtered an entire horde of Eaters, Burning them down ruthlessly and feeding them to the Land the night before. As normal, when the Land was fed, it bloomed. Greenery quite out of the late season had bloomed all around the base of the fortress after thousands of Eaters fed into it there. The same was likely occurring along the shoreline where we¡¯d fought the other horde, but that might also be getting scoured clean again by other Eaters looking for more food. ¡°Do you realize what this means, Highness?¡± Finding out that Kristie Rantha-Briggs was an Imperial Princess whose parents had raged across Viamont and put the Corcosi bloodline to the sword had totally overawed the men, especially when I verified the tales as the last people known to have come from Ispar in years. Very conscious of social status, there was no stopping the appellation, and the fact that it had been the title of her to them in her last life among them meant she didn¡¯t even try to fight it. ¡°Captain?¡± she asked him calmly. ¡°If we can keep killing the Eaters, we can make the island bloom again!¡± he said in a shaky voice, staring at the ravaged stone, sands, and dirt where the toughest shrubs and blooms had been devoured by the insatiable appetites of countless Eaters. ¡°Interesting¡­¡± Kris looked at me with an arched eyebrow. ¡°The Captain is correct. It is not feasible now, but it certainly can be done. The Eaters basically serve as a method to convert the energy invested in Summons into vivus, which can restore the very landscape they¡¯ve eaten alive. ¡°The problem with this is the sheer scale of the devastation and the number of Eater hordes that are out there. We¡¯ll have to actually slaughter Eaters in selective areas to restore the landscape, and then protect that increasingly larger area as the Eaters are attracted to the living expanses. ¡°At the same time, we won¡¯t be able to clear off the landscape spawns, since they¡¯ll be needed to fuel new Eaters. ¡°The three western Hlaetian islands are all accessible to one another, so spillover from the islands is going to make this entire process an organic, intermixed, violent nightmare of strategy as we manage the incoming hordes, constantly adjust the area being protected, section off the living areas from others so the hordes can¡¯t just strip them again¡­ we¡¯ll basically be carving all of the islands up into little battlefields that can bloom behind us.¡± ¡°That is certainly a long-term commitment,¡± Princess Kristie agreed, studying the grounds below. ¡°Think you can get that greenery walled off before another Eater horde munches it down and wastes the work, Magos?¡± ¡°Yes, Your Highness,¡± I obliged calmly. ¡°Captain, how did the fortress survive the Fire and Thunder? I understand the two aurochs can decimate entire hordes of Eaters by themselves.¡± ¡°Very simply, Highness,¡± he assured her. ¡°We hide inside the fortress and reveal no sign of ourselves so that they see no reason to unleash their magic on us, or to attack the base of the fortress. They can be seen from miles off in these barren hills, day or night, so there is no difficulty in going dark in front of their advance.¡± ¡°How big are they now?¡± Kris asked him with professional interest. He had to pause to consider the question. ¡°I believe that they measure over thrice the height of a man at the shoulder now, Highness.¡± I blinked, picturing that. I had no idea what they actually looked like, and even Master Oswald had said that they were mutating and didn¡¯t appear like they once had, especially the Red Bull. ¡°Anything that size will utterly trash any fortifications that aren¡¯t basically small mountains,¡± Kris stated coldly. ¡°We¡¯ll have to kill them before anything can be done about the Eaters.¡± ¡°The Eaters are basically the only thing the two of them have to eat now. The Eaters have even eaten through the shallows, which often leads them to being lured out to sea and becoming food for the things of the sea there. The Aurochs have waded across the waters to the Vanguard Isle and the Isle of Ruin, and the things of the sea don¡¯t dare to attack them.¡± ¡°So the Deep aren¡¯t the only ones keeping the numbers down, but that¡¯s not very reassuring,¡± Kris sighed. There was less a sound than a rippling wave of him putting his foot down and letting everyone know he was coming. Briggs came up onto the roof and battlements, and we all waited as he came walking up with his naturally ominously steady stride. He¡¯d had no difficulties exerting his authority over the very impressed Viamontians. ¡°Purchases all planned out for tomorrow?¡± I asked him. We¡¯d allocated one more day just for foodstuff purchases, and would be repeating them until we had satisfactory amounts of Tapestried or Itemized Purchases built up. He made a show of handing me over the list, although I already had it in Visual File. I scanned it automatically and just nodded. Baishi and the Hea weren¡¯t going to have any food problems for the coming year, and the food purchases for the military were going to be largely satisfied¡­ which wouldn¡¯t please some of the farmers, but would mean more food available for everyone else. ¡°We could probably fly right over the landscape below and avoid the Eaters, but that wouldn¡¯t be any fun,¡± the looming Ancient said. ¡°Instead, we¡¯re going to cut right across the landscape, vivifying Summon points, and if we run into Eater hordes, we¡¯re going to kill them all on the way for some extra Karma and vivus for the land,¡± Briggs stated. ¡°Captain, the Lady Magos here can basically create all the fortifications we need on demand, and keep us alive through the entire process. ¡°You want to start on the Matrix path? We¡¯re going to give you a big shot in the arm to do so.¡± The middle-aged, graying Viamontian looked only pleased at the possibilities. ¡°I would dearly like to make this ¡®Seven¡¯ status in the Matrix as soon as possible, and then go Deep and Wide afterwards, Your Grace!¡± he nodded, Briggs¡¯ status as the ruler of Stonehold being seized upon to give him status equal to a Lord-Mayor. ¡°Not a bad plan, and the Eaters are certainly enough to do the job for us,¡± Briggs assured him. ¡°Morning, two days from now, we¡¯ll be leaving for the Fiun Outpost first, and then the prison of Sir Bellas.¡± AF Chapter 372 – Eating up the Miles Kris and Briggs put in a lot of forge time over the next forty hours. Main reason? Making the old Knights of Silyun new Swords, blades similar to those of her Knights of Lost Light. Viamontians preferred to fight with larger blades and in heavy armor, without shields. The hand-and-a-half blades being forged for them were blue-black adamantine, gleaming and heavy, thrice the weight of a normal steel blade, and only men with inhuman strength could wield them easily. Despite their age, those knights all qualified as such, and if they had not engaged in such incredible grinding in their youth as so many Isparians had, they had seen a great deal of combat against the Eaters since then, and they were indeed no slouches. Their own weapons were carefully maintained, but with the loss of the magical Weapons in the Fall, were clearly old and in bad shape. Their expressions as they were awarded Blades that were superior in foundational form to anything they had wielded from before the Fall were awed and humble at what this terrifying young woman and her awesome mate and commander had made for them. They swore no Oaths at that time. But when she raised Quaver and took them across the ocean, across the land, and away to the Halls of Lost Light to kneel before the remnants of an order of heroes thousands of years reborn, then, then the Oaths came, in tears and solemn understanding that there was a truly great purpose awaiting them, something that their own long-fallen princess would have died happily to undertake. Then it was off to the Crater of Mount Esper, to receive their first Infusion of Fire, and to venture up quickly into the Jahannan Vault to gain their Fire Stones, both new ones and ones from the teams working the Vault to gain a new Stone every day. Then to the Serac Vault, also being worked every day by teams gaining experience in fighting the undead, and then to the depths of the Incunabula Vault, to gain their Cold and Acid Stones respectively. Lightning would have to wait, as the virindi had resecured the place. When that was done, it was Briggs who brought them along to the Olthoi Hunter south of Arwic. The means to craft the Olthoi Armor from olthoi parts was mostly done, the treatment of the shells being experimented with and fine-tuned. However, the Olthoi Hunter was still capable of providing instant armor customized to the recipient on demand. The old and tattered armor of the Silyun knights had withstood as much combat as it could, and it was time for something new. A battle was fought against an olthoi horde that came out of nowhere, the Olthoi Slayer I¡¯d Mass-Infused into their Weapons did its job, and the knights butchered their prizes, brought the shells and carapaces to the Olthoi Hunter, and received their rewards, one by one. Commander Briggs paid her in cream pastries, fine cheeses, and good wine as the new Knights of the Lost Light cast aside their old and failing armor for these new suits of reinforced olthoi shell, grim and splendid in their own way, definitely a new style for a new day. The Olthoi Hunter smiled, her face glitching as she ate and drank, watching but saying nothing as the Viamontian warriors strapped on their new Armor. Briggs quietly assured her that she would be free when the push against the Olthoi began, but until then, to scam every single set of Olthoi Armor and Weapons out of the system that she could. It turned out that she could summon in the horde once a day, but for specific individuals, only once a week. Army groups with full picnic baskets for her came to take that fight every single day, staying with her and making sure she ate and drank with them in celebration of their victories. Then they were gone, Teleported by Endure along Lived-Lines back to Silyun, and it was time for them to start feeding their Matrix Levels, and growing their Weapons into something greater. The Walk across the Hlaetians began with a Salute to Aru by forty-some Weapons of the Lost Light, and without hurry, only purpose and intent, Kris and Briggs led us across the islands, Master Oswald and Adso shaking their heads at how different the land looked, but still staying on track for where we needed to go. ------- We killed everything on the way, without restriction, and Sealed the Summons points with vivus. That we did did not truly matter, given how many thousands there were across the islands, and how densely populated the Summons were. We also slaughtered three hordes of Eaters over the three days of our trek. I Shaped us walled redoubts raised up high enough that the Eaters couldn¡¯t run over them on their dead before the dead burned down, and the Eaters were cut and pierced down, Burned to white ash, and perished with great speed and skill as Slayer counts and Achievement Feats all stacked up nicely to help the killing process.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Weapons grew, Levels gained, and we continued on the trip until the night came. Then a Seal Focus was dropped, we were brought back to the Fortress of Karlunn, and the Knights helped me make them Sustaining Oathrings in formal Ritual. The Rings crystallized the promises they Swore to Warlord and Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha-Briggs, and gave them something else to feed and grow. The first pyreal goldweight bars were awarded them, too, and they Burned them to start the process on the protective Amulets that would shield them from enemy magic. After the Salute to Aru, we Teleported back to the Seal Focus en masse, and the Walk resumed. ------ The Fiun Outpost, where once the last of the Fiuns had set up a place away from the merciless hands of the Corcosi forces, was on the northernmost side of the Vanguard Island, across a channel with interested Aquatics sniffing around but staying away from us, and through a whole lot of landscape spawns, dominated by enslaved Viamontian knights and random Eaters, but with plenty of other creatures for variety, too. Both of the hordes we ran into were on the Vanguard Isle, as the density of the Spawns could support massive numbers and growth of Eaters, and we ran into them fairly quickly as they tore across the landscape on their constant hunt to fill their bellies with something beyond ectoplasm. There wasn¡¯t anything living remaining at the Fiun Outpost when we got there. The closest thing to it was the Deathstone Pit, where the last of the Fiuns looked to have died among dozens of Isparians, and a few lugians, Aun, and Gearknights. The stone buildings had been toppled and scattered all over the place by rooting Eaters desperate for any scrap of food they could find, but of the Fiuns who used to live here, there was naturally no sign left. ¡°They were not an evil people,¡± the Mick assured us all, looking about sadly at the place as we all watched the Deathstone Pit Burn misting flames. Even the Eaters hadn¡¯t bothered the bones crackling and fizzling with power here, as if the silent screams of the trapped spirits were enough to drive them away. ¡°Repentant, aye, an¡¯ depressed, doomed by their own power an¡¯ them thinking they were beyond being able to fail. At least, at least they died fast at the end here, instead of eaten alive by the hordes o¡¯ starving beasts that claimed their world an¡¯ followed them here. ¡°They¡¯ve done left us a scourge, a thing that eats an¡¯ grows without limit or restraint, an¡¯ we¡¯ll have t¡¯ be shutting it down to free the land o¡¯ them, an¡¯ restore it to the green. ¡°They were an old an¡¯ mighty race, an¡¯ they fell. Now, ¡®tis up to us to pick up after them an¡¯ clean up the mess our elders made o¡¯ things. ¡°Rest assured, Elders, an¡¯ be at peace. We¡¯ve found a Banner t¡¯ rally around, something to unite us, an¡¯ we¡¯ll not drop the ball on this. When the last Eater be gone, when the land be clean again, we¡¯ll be back here, an¡¯ raise a monument to ye, to let ye know the task is done. ¡°¡¯Twill be a Great Quest, aye, but the knights of Silyun have already Sworn to see it happen, an¡¯ the Lost Light will stand with them to see it through. ¡°Peace, elders. We¡¯ll do the job, gory an¡¯ dirty an¡¯ bloody an¡¯ true, an¡¯ we¡¯ll be back t¡¯ set ye at ease!¡± he promised, raising the hilt of Bunita and bowing to the mist-filled crater before him, the gesture repeated by all those present, Named Weapons a-glitter with Lost Light in every hand. ------ We purged the northern coastline of Spawn Points completely. In the future, Eaters would find over twenty miles of absolute barren devastation here, save for any penguins who flitted off into the sea as soon as they saw the Eaters coming. The penguins weren¡¯t quite so wary of us, but given our numbers and how quickly we slaughtered any that came zooming up to attack us and chase us away, they soon opted to acknowledge our warnings that we were coming through and would appreciate it if we didn¡¯t have to butcher them when we did so. Then, it was across the shallow waters of the ford to the Island of Ruin. There was actually a single Viamontian outpost here, located on a high hill at the top of a steep slope. They¡¯d not bothered to build a wall around the place, only a single watchtower that hadn¡¯t been enough to keep the Eaters back. I knew this because Kris had me Lightjump across the island to investigate its status, just in case, and there was nothing intact remaining. I eyed the scraps of acid-seared, Eater-chewed armor lying in the scattered stones of the Eastern Watchtower, and the remains of the few knights still screaming in the Deathstone Pit there. Most of the garrison had probably ended up eaten alive or hacking one another to death in mad magical confusion, the fate of many of those who didn¡¯t become Eater food soon enough. From the top of the mountain, I could look down and see plains and islands covered in incredibly dense spawn points¡­ and no less than three different Eater hordes, chewing their way through them mindlessly. I could only imagine how fast eating pure ectoplasm was helping them regenerate from their combat injuries as they made endless cycles of the Summons points. I could even see the routes they took, worn into the ice and snow that covered the cold and barren rock in this place. I could also make out no less than nine separate Dungeons from the top of the mountain as I skirted the edge of the plateau-like top of the former encampment. Three of them were due west of me, due east of the rest of the party, famous mines occupied by the Gotrok clans and considered the strongholds of the Tukora: the Paths of the Blind. I wondered if they still held onto them after all this time, then shook my head. Even if they had Deathstone effects and could respawn, there was no food and no resupplies coming after the Fall. Unless they fell to eating Eaters, the Tukora there would have starved to death¡­ and the Summons points in there had been famous for rapid respawn speeds. Without layered Lightning effects on everyone¡¯s Weapons, we weren¡¯t going to risk the Dungeons there. I set the Deathstone Pit en vivus, gave the souls their final rites and the assurance that we would kill the Eaters in time, did what I was sent there to do, and Lightjumped back in the direction I¡¯d come. Behind me I left a circle of stone standing upright, a Rune-carved double of the Jumpgates we used back south. AF Chapter 373 – Hordes for the Fuel ¡°Three hordes visible from up there, just eating in circles?¡± Kris repeated, a bit amused. ¡°There were no Summons leading up there, so the Eaters didn¡¯t sweep that way often, probably only random little ones stumbling around looking for something, according to the size of the few tracks,¡± I went on. ¡°There were only a dozen dead in the Deathstone Pit. What survivors were there died in the Watchtower, which was probably eaten through by an Eater horde or something, judging by all the gnaw-marks on the stones.¡± ¡°The inlands of the Isle of Ruin were famous for the density of spawns there, the equal of the most crowded parts of the Obsidian Plains,¡± Master Oswald commented. ¡°I imagine there¡¯s at least another two or three hordes working through the respawns just in the high central plains, a couple more rotating along the southern shores, at least four more circling the inner valleys of the mountains, and two or three just following a path around and around the mountains,¡± he went on, looking at the overland Holo I had displayed for us. ¡°At least four circling the inner mountains?¡± Briggs repeated grimly. ¡°The Viamontians had the equivalent of full armies scattered around the area, with opposing bands of Ruschk, forces of Eaters, clusters of Glacial Golums and deranged Fiuns, and even Uber Penguins scattered among them in numbers found nowhere else in the Hlaetians. I¡¯m guessing the System, as you put it, even enslaved some souls from Ispar, as the numbers of Summons there is, in the end, greater in number than the forces Varicci brought here from Ispar,¡± he pronounced, with the cold smile of someone who had solved a vexing inconsistency. ¡°Or they are basically soulless Summons, massively replicated,¡± I told him. He tilted his head, accepting that explanation without contesting it. ¡°That is still incredibly unwelcome news, Master Oswald,¡± Kris said evenly, not blaming him. It was good intelligence, after all. ¡°The distances involved are not that great. Are we not going into the inner mountains?¡± ¡°To the top of the highest peak in the central chain. Paths were forged from either end of the line of mountains, although not paved in any real sense. The entire length was also scattered with more Summons there to prevent the unwanted from passing. We are going to have to fight our way through multiple small armies to gain entry to the prison of Sir Bellas¡­ and I have no idea how the expanses of that Dungeon will be adapted to a Portal sitting on the top of a mountain peak, either.¡± Master Oswald¡¯s finger retraced our proposed path, along the edge of the mountains, up through the only path into the inner ring, to the west and the foothills of the central mountains, then up to the east along the ridgeline towards the peak of the highest mountain. ¡°The Eaters won¡¯t be fooled by scentlessness or invisibility. I imagine you had to lure them away to pass through areas by stealth on your original foray into the place, and rely on flight to bypass them later on,¡± Briggs deduced. ¡°Climb up the side of the mountain?¡± he asked, and received a quick nod in return. ¡°Being able to, ah, Dimension Door directly to the peak solved many problems, once I had it in line of sight,¡± the master assassin explained. ¡°I actually went down to free Sir Bellas after my own imprisonment, as he would have proven a mighty and useful ally. However, he had lost all heart for affairs of the outer world, and only wanted to die in battle. He had been trapped by the System, as you put it, and likely willingly. ¡°Will you truly be able to release such a depressed man?¡± Master Oswald asked directly, a final question about the viability of this effort. ¡°Yes.¡± It was Kris who bit off the word, and at the light in her eyes even the skeptical Master Assassin instantly backed down. ¡°We are going to bring him out of there, and he is going to be there when I gut Varicci and that snake of a Loc, Feed them to the Land, and finally send him after his pig of a father and rutting shitpile of kinfolk!¡± The hiss in her voice was only accentuated by the building pressure in the air of a Source Oath rising against any pressure to contest it. Master Oswald might be able to withdraw from this effort, but there was no way he would be able to stop it. Master Oswald was a very experienced killer, but even he had never experienced such grandiose and awful killing intent as he felt right then. He could feel two towering knife¡¯s-edges of violence building right now, and despite knowing it was not aimed at him, he could only by impressed by what he was seeing and feeling. ¡°Then I pity the Eaters that get into our way. Our greatest enemies will be endurance and exhaustion, then. Once we are into the Dungeon in their many layers, it will not be so difficult. The quality of those fighting here are beyond anything we may face individually, but there will be a great number of them.¡± He spread his open hands, indicating his acquiescence. The killing presence just snapped off. If feeling it looming was impressive, the absolutely instantaneous cessation of it bespoke a level of will and control that a disciplined man like himself could not help but admire even more.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°As long as the area is not Interdicted, we can withdraw with startling speed if required. The key requirement will be Sealing all the Summon Points we cross so that we don¡¯t have to fight them twice, and so no Eaters will be drawn to our back trail. If we have to spin up an Earthfort again, we can vacate it, recover, and return if need be along the same trail we already cleared.¡± ¡°The same hit-and-run tactics used when Portaling magic was more common, although returning to the same point tended to be equally difficult each time, unless there was an intervening Portal that could be tied to,¡± Master Oswald agreed. ¡°Teleportation tends to be more limited than the Portals of before¡­¡± he asked. ¡°Linejumps to prepared sites don¡¯t suffer from the same restrictions,¡± I told him, knowing he was merely looking for a way to save everyone if we needed to leave, and wanted to know our plans to that purpose. ¡°I erected a Jumpgate on Eastwatch, and can spin one up out of the stone in under thirty seconds. You will have to spend forty mana to go through it to the matching gate once I activate the Linejump, but we can evacuate the whole force very quickly.¡± ¡°A Linejump requires line of sight¡­¡± he noted professionally. ¡°Yes, and I will be regularly erecting Jumpgates as we proceed, to relay us through them along lines of sight.¡± His emerald eyes glittered in appreciation at the tactic. ¡°That could be a viable method to cross longer distances than just channels at sea¡­¡± ¡°We also intend to put Seal Foci down at the Paths of the Blind, and the Egg Orchards,¡± Briggs added on grimly. Master Oswald nodded. ¡°And the Eater Dungeons? They were famous places to, ah, grind, back before the Fall.¡± ¡°Our goal is the total extermination of the Eaters. We may keep them intact if we get a plan to reseed the islands going, in order to provide the necessary fuel to do so, but they will never be classified as a willing resource. Every description of them was basically abattoirs, anyway.¡± ¡°Very appropriate. When your enemies just return if you kill them, slaughtering them to use as Eater food was a common Viamontian tactic,¡± Master Oswald acknowledged. ¡°And people wonder why we hate the Corcosi,¡± Kris hissed again, steel across bone. ¡°All right, let¡¯s start clearing a road. We need a path wide enough to be out of the proc range of any Summons for anyone wishing to follow us. If an Eater Horde is going to catch us, Ryin will Fort us up and we will fight it as long as the horde comes at us. ¡°For all their ferocity, they are largely unarmored and die fairly quickly because of it. We have proven we can wipe hordes, and we will do repeatedly if needed. Given the nature of the Island of Ruin, I doubt we have to concern ourselves with needing a deliberate reseeding plan slaughtering the Eaters for vivus. The amount of vivus we will return to the land will likely be enough to start the return of its ecology, due to its frozen nature,¡± Briggs stated firmly. ¡°It is not a concern of ours at the moment.¡± Master Oswald could only agree with that. --------- We had a good forty combatants in our party as we began the overland trip towards the Augmentation Dungeon that was the prison of Sir Bellas. By this time, everyone was level 200 or higher, with four full paramounts tagging along with us, Knight-Captain Tyric also being a peer of Master Oswald, Adso, and the Mick. All of the Silyun Knights had long since passed 200, as were all of Kris¡¯ Sword Students and the Roaches now. In Matrix Levels, the Roaches were all closing on Ten, having the longest training time and going the Widest and Deepest to support their wide array of skills. The Knights of the Lost Light were all at least Six Melees, taking their advances carefully to buttress their combat skills, as were the Lugian Vanguards Kopf and Gross. The Silyun Knights hadn¡¯t had the time as yet, but they were very enthusiastic about the possibilities, conferring frequently with Kris¡¯ Knights as to avenues of growth and how to advance together. As armor enthusiasts, they loved the idea of Crystal durability, while the teamwork of the Fire style was also of great interest to them. They had seen the power and deadliness of the wolfpack tactics of the teams, and were eager to learn them. Learning to Infuse magical effects directly into their new Weapons, and grow their Swords of Lost Light to levels of strength exceeding that of the Fall only appealed more to them. Their biggest problem was their age, as the least of them was over forty years old now. Simply to regain their youthful vitality, they had to grind for Seven, and that would slow the acquisition of other Levels down, and their side training. But the Dungeons of the world promised enough Karma to do the job, and if it meant more time required, reaching Seven would grant them that time. There was no enemy we could have run across on this island, other than the two Aurochs, that could have threatened us, especially in fighting squads committed to covering for one another. Standard lure tactics brought Summons into wolfpacks, all their attacks focused on a single target who turtled up to tank and avoid their attacks while their comrades cut the Summons down. ------ We passed the remains of a grand statue of Empyrean design, a gigantic rendition of some Empyrean notable some of the undead could probably tell us more of, now shattered and spread across the frozen stones of the Isle of Ruin, lost to irrelevancy in the ages. Given the history of the place, it was probably the Emperor who had conquered the Ruschk and brought Grael back to his Empire, and thereby set in motion the events that had destroyed that Empire completely long in the past. Suitable that his statue would be trashed, if that was the case. The three mines and training grounds that were the Paths of the Blind were definitely not occupied by any living Tukora. The remains of a partial walled fort were visible around the three Dungeons clustered together, but they¡¯d been completely knocked down by ravaging Eaters and scattered, not maintained, and there were no sign of lugian tracks coming out of the tunnels at all. There were signs of a lot of Eaters going down into those tunnels, and precious few coming out. It was reasonable to assume that any hordes that were dumb enough to invade the places were eventually slaughtered by the respawns of the Tukora Summons within, and simply died, victims of their own endless hunger driving them on. AF Chapter 374 - Glands From the Paths, we turned north toward the pass we had to enter to get to the inner range of mountains. I didn¡¯t have much to do, nor did Thera or Nippo. We fought enough to get Naming Karma active, but basically us having to Cast meant the Melees and Archers hadn¡¯t done something right, so we were mostly on overwatch to Counter some spells if we had to clear a bunch of Viamontian Casters in their red robes, or a cluster of raving Fiuns. There were injuries, but they were scattered and dealt with, instead of being life-threatening. Coordinated activity by the Melees and the Archers being able to focus fire down everything, everything done without anyone looking for glory, made short work of just about everything. ¡°What is that?¡± Kris asked, pointing to a strange, almost flower-like stone building off to the east as we closed in on the pass. At least two hundred feet high, it was impossible to miss. Master Oswald smiled, waxing to his strength. ¡°That, Your Highness, is likely the ultimate expression of Fiun architecture in Dereth. That is Ayabar¡¯s Tower, home of the foremost magical authority among the Fiun¡­ and just another victim of Varicci, harvested for the gland in his head like so many others, then released to inflict his madness on the world. He returned to his home, holding on to his sanity as long as he could, but eventually succumbed to it.¡± I paused. ¡°A gland in their heads?¡± I repeated carefully, that fact suddenly glaring accusingly at me in a way it hadn¡¯t before. My tone made him blink at me. ¡°Yes. Varicci is the ultimate cause of the maddened Fiuns. The glands from their heads made an alchemical concoction that could be used to enslave Eaters to the will of his knights and turned them into his attack dogs. The entire Fiun population was harvested and then released to wander the islands, all their magical skills intact, but none of their sanity.¡± The expression on my face even had Kris looking askew at me. ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°A missing gland can be Regenerated, Kris.¡± I could almost hear everyone blinking in realization as the other shoe fell. ¡°Gods in Hell,¡± swore the Mick, turning back to where we¡¯d just butchered a knot of crazed Fiun Summons just minutes ago. ¡°They were caught by the System after Varicci did that to them. They could be returned to sanity?¡± he breathed. ¡°And with Briggs here, broken out of the System,¡± Kris agreed softly, said fact making those who didn¡¯t know that fact expressly do another double-take at the very idea. ¡°No vivus on Fiuns anymore. We freed at least some of them from the System, but the rest, we free the real way,¡± Briggs ordered, and nobody gainsaid him at all. ¡°Magos, we¡¯ll trouble you to test this out.¡± He pointed with Endure, and we all fixed on a group of Fiuns between us and the Tower. ¡°Kris, Mercy. With me. Everyone else, clear the other Spawns.¡± He paused significantly. ¡°Do not vivisize the Viamontians. Magos, I want a deeper Assay on Viamontian Spawns going forward. If they are also made from trapped souls, I want their names and clans.¡± The looks on everyone¡¯s faces grew even worse. The default assumption was that these knights were all made from Varicci¡¯s people, or souls loyal to Viamont, as they aped the Viamontian leader¡¯s forces and appeared where he¡¯d once deployed his people, a free extension of his might and power. But what if some of them were trapped souls from neutral families, or worse yet, followers of the Bellenesse? The simple fact forced an instant re-evaluation of their killing of the Viamontian Summons scattered across all of the islands. Briggs¡¯ stride forward ahead of everyone was backed up quickly by the whole team, following urgently as he proceeded directly towards those Fiun, the random Eater and Viamontian Knight spawns in the way barely registering to him. They came in to attack him, and he literally batted them aside and down, while Kris sliced through the Viamontian armor with Quaver drawing no blood whatsoever. The Eaters were butchered without mercy, the series of strikes to take them down by a wolfpack almost autonomic now, so fast were they dropped. Briggs waited as I spent a V on Assay V, pausing over the first Viamontian Knight. He wore no sign or crest, but that was not surprising, being just a rote soldier and not something a random Summons would generate. We weren¡¯t worried about his gear, but his spirit. The Assay probed in deeper, identifying all the characteristics of his Weapon and Armor, including the fact they were actually formed of ectoplasm and not truly ¡®real¡¯, and then probed deeper to find the echo of the soul this knight was based on. If it was just a generic template that had no true soul behind it as I¡¯d told Master Oswald, that was fine, and we could vivic it without conscience. If it was¡­The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°This is Henri di Bronnessen,¡± I stated, staring down at the blank and unthinking face of the young man frozen in the state of a Summons, unconscious and locked into his imprisoned existence. ¡°The Bronnessen are a neutral family who served the Corcosi out of hope for reward. They are not ancestral enemies of the Bellenesse,¡± Knight-Captain Tyric du Pellonesse quickly informed us, his tone neutral as well. ¡°Nor were they friends,¡± Kris remarked, startling Tyric at the cool in her voice. ¡°He likely fell in battle with the Clan¡¯s forces, before the Deathstones were discovered.¡± She glanced at me. ¡°I see no need to free a mercenary from their state as yet. We do this to find souls loyal to Bellenesse. We can consider releasing the neutral clans when we have dealt with the last of the Royalists. ¡°If we find Royalists, we will send them on their way with vivus. Their service will be over, one way or another.¡± I could find no fault with that, but¡­ ¡°How seriously do Viamontians take their oaths?¡± I asked calmly. ¡°Until death?¡± The fighting men around me shuffled uneasily. ¡°Yes,¡± Captain Tyric informed me reluctantly but proudly. ¡°He has died, so his oath is fulfilled. If he is unwilling to swear an oath of service to the man who freed him from his slavery to the System, I will agree that he is honorless and we should pass him on to his reward.¡± I lifted my eyes to look straight at Kris. ¡°Given the Eater hordes, he will probably be dead within two days again, and who knows when he might be incarnated again, if ever.¡± Kris grimaced, and turned away with a snarl, stalking away and clearly leaving the decision to another. ¡°Identify the others,¡± Briggs ordered softly, his own pale green eyes deep and profound. If he had come back from death, could he deny an honorable soul the chance to do the same? --- Two of the knights were Corcosi vassals, and vivified straight off. Captain Tyric gave them the coup de grace without emotion and watched them Burn off, standing at attention as their souls were released from this bondage no warrior of Viamont should have experienced, and they were sent on to whatever their final fate was. The other was of the Fyionon, an opportunistic but sincere northern Viamontian clan nominally under the command of the House of the Furzilli, as the Bronnessen were under the House of Cinghalle. Most of them had taken the opportunity to fight the Bellenesse and perhaps use the chance to become a Great House. The two young men were now standing before a group of warriors who were most certainly not their friends. The Viamontians mostly wore the Silver Stag of the Bellenesse, and almost all of the others wore the Hammer and Bow of the Bloodless Queen of Dereth. That Queen was among those looking at them with cool eyes! But that did not compare to the towering mountain in steel, a Bloodless and more, someone who looked like a primitive savage, staring down at them with pale green eyes that plunged into their souls. Souls that had been freed from death and pointless rebirth, slaves to a magic upon body and soul that threatened to bind them anew even now. A binding that the creaking grip of his great hand upon their helms and his voice ringing their names in their ears had broken upon them! ¡°Henri du Bronnessen. Jimail du Fyionon,¡± Briggs said in his marvelously deep and commanding voice. Even the towering lugians standing next to him, a full head taller than him, somehow looked smaller than he did to their eyes at that moment. ¡°No, you have no noble status. You are dead men, and dead men have no titles. You died in the service of Varicci II. I believe you can recall that moment.¡± The two knights slowly bowed. ¡°Commander Briggs, I¡­ do recall my death. And¡­ the shadows of many, many deaths afterwards,¡± the broad-shouldered and blond Jimail managed to say, only barely wincing. ¡°Might I ask of you how this came to be, sir?¡± ¡°You died, and your souls were enslaved by the System of magic that pervades these islands. Surely you recall the creatures that would be sitting around, waiting to fight you? And when slain, scant moments later another creature would respawn where they died?¡± He waited until they slowly nodded. ¡°You are now two of those creatures. You are not ¡®real¡¯, as such things go. You do not need to eat or sleep, you do not age, you can have no children, and if you die, your bodies will soon dissipate to random ectoplasm and vanish, only to be re-enslaved by the System and reborn as some will-shackled parody of a Viamontian Knight somewhere, eventually killed again, and again, until the System decides not to incarnate you again and simply allocates you to some timeless holding cage for its bound souls.¡± Both young men swallowed at the awfulness of the fate before them. ¡°Sir, Sir Briggs, I do not feel¡­ not mortal,¡± the brown-haired and big-nosed Henri spoke up anxiously. ¡°I am breathing. I can feel my pulse¡­¡± ¡°The ectoplasm of which you are made exactly duplicates the functions of the living, until you die. Then, rather than decaying as flesh and bone do and returning to the land, you dissipate into the substance of magic and are gone,¡± Briggs corrected him firmly. ¡°Naturally, you are not subject to the fates of the living, as you do not age. But neither will you grow. Your skills and powers are forever frozen, limited by the stuff of which are made and which shackle your souls in magic. Hand me your sword.¡± Henri hesitated only a moment, then realized his weapon had been given back to him, and respectfully drew and it handed it over on both palms. Both of them stared as Briggs took the blade in both of his huge hands. With scarcely more effort than it might take to bend a twig, he bent the firm steel of the blade over between his fists until it broke with a sharp twang of protesting metal at about sixty degrees. ¡°Wait for it.¡± Briggs held up the steel, and everyone watched it keenly. It took only seconds before it began to¡­ mist was the word they wanted to say, but it was more like the halves of the weapon grew more and more transparent in Briggs¡¯ grasp, until it vanished entirely, and he opened his massive fists to reveal they were indeed completely bare of any remnant of the weapon. ¡°That is what you are made of: dreams wrought into the form of real flesh and bone. I will ask this of you: do you wish to be free of the shackles that bind you?¡± Their affirmations were quick and sincere to the mighty brute towering over them, their horror at their situation apparent on their faces. ¡°I am Commander Briggs, Warlord of the armies of the Freehold working to reclaim the lands of Dereth after the Fall which devastated the people a generation ago. ¡°I am also an utter and complete enemy of the Corcosi House and all who would claim loyalty to it.¡± AF Chapter 375 – Oaths and Mortality The two knights paled to a much whiter shade of blue at that very unwelcome news. ¡°You have truly died in service to the Corcosi, completing all oaths of loyalty and service and carrying them through. There is no oath that can carry you past death without your own will. In death all debts are paid. ¡°You are not knights of any family, regardless of what you remember. You are newborn dreams walking the world of men, scant days old. If you wish to regain your mortality, to become human, there are two things you must do. Are you ready to hear them?¡± Both former knights swallowed and nodded respectfully, voicing their assent loudly. Briggs nodded solemnly down at them. ¡°First, you must be Sworn to the service of a Source like myself. I will stave off the influence of the System if you are Sworn to me and my service. You will be able to retain your names and sense of self, and remember who you once were. ¡°If you do not wish to swear to me, you will eventually be reclaimed by the System, and return to the mindless state in which we found you.¡± Both young men swallowed deeply. ¡°For the short-term, the second thing you must do is give up your armor and weapons, and go live as normal men, where you must eat. ¡°Your ectoplasmic body will act as a living one, including digesting the food that you take in. Slowly, it will replace the substance of dreams with the substance of the mortal world. You will start producing real blood. Your appetite will return, you will eventually need to sleep, you will tire, and you will slowly begin to age again. ¡°You will know when your return to mortality is complete, because you will suddenly be able to Level again.¡± Both of the young men drew themselves up alertly at that. ¡°At that point, if you wish to take up your arms and armor again, you can once again proceed on the path of knighthood¡­ or you may realize that you care more for rebuilding what was lost than slaughtering a foe designated by others. ¡°In addition to this, there is news. Your Highness, what year was it when you came to Dereth?¡± The pale-eyed, black-haired scar-faced young woman addressed with the inflection of high royalty responded with a voice like a naked sword. ¡°I entered the Portal from the Imperial Capital of Tirethas in Roulea in 1325 RC.¡± The eyes of both men widened in disbelief, as that was over thirty years after they had done so in Viamont! ¡°That was four years after my parents completed the unification of their Empire. That included the complete subjugation of Viamont and the utter extinguishing of the Corcosi bloodline on Ispar, along with the Houses of Lotila, Renari, and Morillo. Eighty percent of the nobles of Viamont were slaughtered in the resistance that the Viamontians put up, and two-thirds of the country and eighty percent of their herds were put to the torch. ¡°The last members of the Corcosi, Lotila, Renari, and Morillo Houses may still exist on Dereth here, and they are all going to die, and with them any vassals who may claim loyalty to their banners. ¡°If you are of the opinion that Varicci II still has your loyalty, then inform me now. I will give you a sword, we will fight, and I will send you off to your final fate, beyond this System that has enslaved you. ¡°That is the mercy my family and I have for the royalist houses of Viamont who face us. ¡°Now, choose your course. The mercy of Commander Briggs, your newborn Oath of Fealty, and the attempt to live a truly new life, or upholding dead Oaths and so joining them in death.¡± Her pale violet eyes narrowed down, but only seemed even larger with the death leaking out of them. Both of the extremely intimidated knights immediately fell to their knees. ¡°Commander Briggs, please accept my Oath of Vassalage and service to you and your banner!¡± they cried more or less together and quite fervently, their heads bowed. His gaze flickered over to me, and I nodded, Kris having paid the cost for the Geases that would back those Oaths. ¡°Accepted.¡± The world seemed to tilt and spin, especially for those two knights, whose heads jerked up and eyes spun as something rotated around them, jerking them back, forth, and then was gone, a dissipating shattering that was felt on the soul, and they fell to the ground with cries of shock and release. It took them long and careful moments to reclaim their senses, and even then they first buried their faces in the ground before Briggs¡¯ even gaze. ¡°Commander, I live to serve!¡± Henri spoke up after a long moment, clapping his fist to his chest loudly, his gaze still averted, Jamail echoing him a moment later. ¡°You are newborn dreams attempting to claim a new life, and become the first of your lines. As such, your bloodlines begin with you,¡± Briggs pronounced, and it was indeed truth, as everyone instantly realized.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°I name you Henri du Nenati, and Jamail du Nenati, of the House of Nenati. When you reclaim your mortality, we will see what you can make of your new House and a Bloodline that began in Dream. ¡°Your first command is to retire to the post of Eastwatch, once located upon that hill there.¡± It had not existed at the time the two young men had died. ¡°We will be returning there soon enough. Do not fight anything you see upon the landscape, and it will not fight you, for they are also dreams made flesh, but they are trapped in the System. ¡°We will return to you shortly, and hie you off to the lands of Baishi, where the last of the Bellenesse seek to rebuild. You will aid them in rebuilding their lands there, but not as knights, merely strong men who are needed to do the work that must be done. ¡°When your mortality is reclaimed by life and by living, your lives begin anew. ¡°Do you understand these orders?¡± he asked them calmly. ¡°We do, Commander Briggs, sir!¡± they answered loudly. ¡°Then go.¡± ---- This was certainly the most interesting set of people he could remember ever having associating with, Master Oswald thought as he watched the two liberated Summons at first walk away, and then break into fully-armored runs, heading for the rising hill atop which the post of Eastwatch had once been established. ¡°MacMikal.¡± The Black Aluvian turned his head at the Green Hunter¡¯s quiet voice. ¡°Something just came to mind, seeing those two. Do you remember the Sword of Bellenesse?¡± The Warden of the Royal Scouts of Freehold (Hah! A MacMikal a Royal Warden! Would the world get much stranger than that?) furrowed his brow. ¡°That were a Quest before the Fall. Some thief o¡¯ no name managed t¡¯ steal the Ducal Sword from the vaults o¡¯ Sanamar. Ye could return it to the bull-kissers, t¡¯ Silyun, or ta a Gharu¡¯n swordsmith t¡¯ replicate it,¡± he recalled, and then he scowled again. ¡°Gor dammit!¡± he spat. ¡°Another damn repeating Quest¡­¡± ¡°It occurs to me that there can really only be one Sword of Bellenesse, you think?¡± Oswald mentioned thoughtfully. ¡°An endlessly replicated toy that becomes the real one when a Null or Source grasps it?¡± a gentle voice broke in on them, and both turned to the Magos standing next to Oswald. ¡°Aye,¡± Oswald decided was all that was needed to be said. ¡°Where is this Quest Sword to be found?¡± the Lady Magos asked calmly. ¡°Not far from where we came across the sea, actually,¡± the Green Hunter answered promptly. ¡°When matters here are done, you will escort Princess Kristie there to claim the Sword,¡± the Lady Magos said, with a soft iron under it that Master Oswald knew he could not refuse. ¡°Not to return it to the House of Bellenesse?¡± Master Oswald asked, interested in her motivations. ¡°Princess Kristie is the reincarnation of Eleonora di Bellenesse.¡± Master Oswald¡¯s bright green eyes grew very large as that news entered his ears, and he smacked his lips as a secret he knew he¡¯d never give voice to without permission came into his grasp. ¡°And Commander Briggs?¡± he dared to ask, knowing instinctively that the ties that bound the two were now something that had to transcend death. ¡°Darren Marden.¡± Oswald¡¯s breath hissed out slowly, staring at the towering warrior who was more of a knight, warrior, and commander of men than any Viamontian Knight could ever dream of being. He glanced at the Mick¡¯s unsurprised face. ¡°He didn¡¯t know until recently, I trust? That little episode with Korvus and the lads standing guard, if I were to venture a guess¡­¡± ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°We¡¯re told that the Ranthas and Briggs are born from souls who died to great evil.¡± Oswald was not slow. ¡°So her Imperial mother and father¡­¡± he trailed off. ¡°I do not know, but I imagine they were killed by Viamontians in some cruel and horrible fashion in Aluvia. Kris never asked who they were, and it does not matter, truly. In the end, all of Viamont paid for what was done to them, and that is enough,¡± the Lady Magos told him. ¡°Ye know there¡¯s plenty o¡¯ bandits an¡¯ killers in some o¡¯ the Dungeons around, aye?¡± the Mick asked, an odd expression on his face. ¡°But good soldiers an¡¯ the like, not so many¡­¡± ¡°Are any of them women?¡± the Lady Magos asked, turning to glance at him. The Mick¡¯s eyes slowly widened. ¡°Aye¡­¡± he said softly. ¡°Would perhaps your Bunita have qualified as a bandit at some time?¡± she went on quietly, and the Mick trembled at her words. ¡°Perhaps¡­¡± he acknowledged. ¡°She didnae speak much o¡¯ her past afore becoming a proper tomb-looter an¡¯ adventuring monster-butcher.¡± ¡°Perhaps you might want to learn Assay at V and go venturing into some of those places and see what souls might actually be bound to Summons there,¡± was the quiet suggestion. The Mick¡¯s fists creaked. ¡°Aye. Aye, lass, that sounds like a strange an¡¯ wonderful use of me time, it do.¡± ¡°I¡¯d start with the Mana Hunters on Freebooter Island,¡± Oswald recommended softly. ¡°They are most accomplished of their sort to be found on Dereth, and your little wife was quite adept with her rapier.¡± The Mick¡¯s black eyes glinted. ¡°That be sounding like an even more worthy use o¡¯ me time.¡± Master Oswald considered the group of Fiuns they were now pacing towards, Princess Kristie Rantha-Briggs and Commander Briggs with the pale light of Mercy showing on their Sword and Hammer respectively. Others might not know it, but the Fiun sexes looked remarkably similar, and basically half of the insane Fiuns were actually female. Oswald¡¯s teeth drew back in a half-crazed smile. It was likely that the Fiun were, in truth, actually extinct right now. But if a healing touch could Regenerate that missing gland in their brains on a Summon and shackled spirit, an Oath to a Source and eating and drinking the matter and material of the mortal world could potentially return to life an entire race the servants of Varicci had heartlessly used and thrown away. His internal laughter at the entire irony of the situation he kept to himself, until another thought intruded upon it. Gods, and the Lady Magos saying they were sent here by gods, maneuvered like pieces on a great chessboard, brought to a place where they were truly needed and could do some Good, all in opposition that had gone on unchecked. The rebirth of an entire race and culture, one wiped from existence by their own hubris and foolishness, given a second chance to achieve greatness, administered the kind of lesson that would change any race¡¯s view on life and death. Returned to life by the grace of the gods and a heart willing to make the sacrifices of time and effort necessary to bring them back. Great Evil, and great Good acting in turn to become something even greater. A cycle of life and death and influences greater than anything even he could truly comprehend, yet laid right out before him. Truly life had become even more interesting than it had ever been before for a certain former knife for hire¡­ AF Chapter 376 – Nobody Complaining Three males, two females¡­ The Fiun were ¡®aliens¡¯. They were humanoids slightly shorter than most Isparians, with more slender bones and bone structure, moving with an eel-like grace once their spasming insanity was fixed with the glands regrown into their brains. Their skin was pale white to off-blue, with no body hair whatsoever, and wide dark eyes with red pupils that faded to black once their insanity was relieved. They had only a blank rounded area for a nose, and large mouths that forcibly brought to sharks with their size, shape, and pointed teeth. They were primarily fish-eaters and enjoyed the water immensely, the old stories of the few survivors of the Viamontian harvesting had said. We watched the five Fiun in their ragged clothing totter off towards the Tower of Ayabar, a good defensive position they could hold against any Eaters. With their harvested gland Regenerated, they were suddenly the preferred prey of the Eaters again, who would go out of their way to kill and eat them to gain it. The other Fiun Summons would still not attack them, and they could shelter in the place away from any Eater attacks without much trouble. The presence of other mad Fiun in the entry was a better way to dissuade the Eaters from entering than a stone gate would be. The Fiun could be brought back. Even now, the least of the adults could Cast Pyreal, and most of them could reach Platinum, and those without components. The amount of magical knowledge they might have, and even that which they only knew was possible, could be extremely valuable. They¡¯d been broken of their pride and hubris, and they were not a violent people, regardless. If Mithar knew of them, He would want them saved¡­ and if they were a normally peaceful magical race, Sylune would be extremely attracted to them as potential followers of Silver Magic. -The System here is interfering with the proper dissemination of souls,- I /mentioned in the Markspace. -Creation itself might have been looking for a solution to this, not just Mithar playing chess.- Princess Kristie favored me with a thoughtful glance. -Now that sounds like proper Divine Quest-pushing,- she /agreed. -Recovering an extinct race brought low by their own arrogance, wiping out an interplanetary biovore, interfering with a planet of interest to multiple Mythos entities, potentially something Huge underneath this place, avenging old evils, making peace among multiple sentient species, introducing a decent pantheon to said sentients...- -Oh, so finally we finally have something worthwhile to do,- Briggs /added in a flat deadpan, and Kris and I both snickered. -Thank you, thank you. I was feeling so bored and underworked.- We turned back to the north, and the pass that beckoned there, only a couple miles away from the Tower. ¡°This just got a whole lot more tedious,¡± Kris announced for everyone¡¯s benefit. ¡°What was it ye said? Good folk do the clean-up the others let lie an¡¯ don¡¯t give a shite for,¡± the Mick appended to that. ¡°Good people have a nasty habit of doing things the hard way and the right way, instead of the heartlessly efficient way,¡± Briggs corrected him sourly. ¡°Sounds terribly exhausting,¡± Master Oswald voiced his opinion, but he didn¡¯t say no. ¡°It doesn¡¯t take just good men to do the job right. It takes Damn Good men,¡± Kris stated with at least as much iron in her voice as when she talked about killing Varicci. ¡°This is the kind of job Knights of the Lost Light were made to do. We bring the Light to those who need it the most, we don¡¯t wave it around like a gods-damned happy magical trophy.¡± Every single knight there promptly grew another inch at her words. Almost magical, it was. ¡°Kris, how are your Resurrection obligations?¡± Briggs asked, everyone knowing of my commitment to the Cursed Undead of Mayoi and Hebian-to. ¡°I head off to do the Ceremonies in an hour. That takes an hour, with another half-hour to fully recharge for the return.¡± Adso, the grim, dark-haired Hunter who was Master Oswald¡¯s right-hand man, suddenly called out, ¡°I can see the edges of an Eater horde coming in from the east close to the mountain there.¡± Everyone turned to look at the motion there in the distance, a couple miles away at this point. ¡°In two hours, they are definitely going to intercept us if we head for the pass.¡± ¡°Good,¡± Briggs stated. ¡°We¡¯re going to reach the middle of their path, the Lady Magos will make us a hardpoint, and we¡¯ll keep ourselves nice and busy while she does her thing. We¡¯ve proven we can kill these things, and we will kill these things. Unlike the western islands, there¡¯s no need to keep them alive. Butcher them, feed them to the Land¡­ and maybe save some Viamontians and Fiuns we want to save.¡±This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°Then you should be clearing a path north from Ayabar¡¯s Tower,¡± Master Oswald pointed out. ¡°The Fiun will wanting to be retreating along it as we free them.¡± ¡°Good enough. Let¡¯s get into position, free who we can as we do so, and Ryin will make us the hardpoint before she leaves.¡± Briggs started forward, reading the ground and pointing. ¡°Up there looks optimal for our purpose¡­¡± ------ It was almost three hours later when I returned, and popped right into the middle of a quietly resting bunch of warriors enjoying warm stew over cooking on Briggs¡¯ Floating Forge. Kris just handed me a bowl of chicken stew I technically didn¡¯t need, but Briggs had made it and the bread, so I just accepted it to enjoy it. The stone of and the ground around the hardpoint I¡¯d made was all white as chalk, the ice washed clean and clear and what churned rock and dirt was visible all cleaned by vivus. The corpses had pretty much all Burned down already. ¡°Impressive. What, a thousand of them in only ninety minutes?¡± I asked her between sips at the wonderful broth. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re getting pretty good at this, and the Silyun knights are improving quickly. They need to have their Weapons Buffed a bit, but that will change.¡± They were already Soulbound, the Lost Light gave them at least some nominal bonuses, and they were forged by Briggs and her. Knights and Blades were only going to improve every single damn day. ¡°How¡¯d the Ceremonies go?¡± ¡°Six more Cursed Dead freed of the System and their Curse,¡± I said quietly. Kris held up her fist, I bopped it without looking. ¡°It¡¯s a long, slow, tedious numbers game, Kris.¡± I could only shake my head. ¡°It¡¯s a lot of Diamond Hearts, but they are very committed to it, and the senior undead are taking out lots of them every day from Candeth Keep.¡± ¡°Cursed Dead, Viamontians, Fiun, and now potentially Isparian bandits¡­ and that doesn¡¯t even count things like the Aun, Hea, Gurogs, and Lugians who might be trapped in the System,¡± Kris shook her head. I could only nod. So many souls caught and captured by the System. The number of undead might even number in the millions, given how long they¡¯d been here. At some point we¡¯d Purify them all clean and any captive souls would be gone, leaving only truly templated and blank Summons, which would require far more energy to create and endow with power than building upon a captive soul. ¡°Can you use Divination magic to locate Bunita if she¡¯s incarnated?¡± she asked me softly. ¡°I was unable to reach her soul with probes to see if I could grasp and return it. While the Fall may have messed up things, the Mick said she died in his arms, not at a Deathstone. Her being incarnated is at least as reasonable an explanation as her soul having escaped the System.¡± I glanced in his direction, joking with a couple of the Viamontians curious about his martial exploits since the Fall, especially with the much less formal attire of himself and his Scouts, for all their very apparent skill. ¡°Her wedding ring is the socket for the Elemental Stones on his guard, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She¡¯d made the Sword, after all. ¡°It¡¯s the perfect connection between two souls.¡± Kris nodded, inclining her head in the other direction, where Queen Mother Elysa and her daughter were speaking with Briggs about something. ¡°Might want to tell her ahead of time that you are going to try that.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll tell him to go to her, but yes,¡± I agreed. ¡°But not until after we get Sir Bellas. That¡¯s too cruel, making him delay.¡± That I also agreed to. --------- The remaining mile to the Pass was slow going once we started. As Master Oswald, there were a LOT of spawns around it, and clustered close together in multiple numbers, with literally hundreds of them filling the Pass proper. ¡°Was it quite this bad before?¡± Princess Kristie had to ask, looking at the scores of heavily armored Viamontian knights of all ranks, the commanding Hands very obvious in their bright coppery armor; Ruschk barbarians with their pale blue skin, veiled faces, and icesteel Weapons, and packs of Eaters interspersed with numbers of nearly man-sized penguins (so far from water, so strange), crowds of lurching Fiuns, and the bright blue icy forms of Glacial Golums. No wisps, undead, skeletons, banderlings, or shades, however. Even Master Oswald hesitated, looking at the forces spread across the snowy and icy land, the crudely spiked short walls for crude fortifications, and the ground we had to cover. ¡°At least half again what I remember,¡± he admitted after a careful moment of analysis and recollection. ¡°Perhaps the real forces of all involved who died during the Fall were added to the, ah, garrison?¡± he theorized. ¡°Logical. Okay, we pull the Eaters, vivisize them, Ryin Seals the Spawn points. Repeat on the penguins, then on the Ruschk. Devoted Fire Weapons for those handling the last two. ¡°We take the Fiuns afterward, then the Viamontians last. If our Casters need to rest to regain mana, we make a hardpoint in case an Eater horde decides to come through.¡± ¡°If there are so many spawns, even a horde must be advancing slowly,¡± Briggs observed grimly. ¡°With respawns, this area could indeed take care of multiple Eater hordes. They¡¯ve just got over ten miles of mountains to circle around ceaselessly¡­¡± ¡°That means we¡¯re never more than five miles away from a horde if there¡¯s at least four of them, and there could be more, extras spilling out into the outer area from the richest hunting area here when they become too numerous and run up on another horde too quickly,¡± Master Oswald contributed pragmatically. ¡°Based on the lines of traffic, I believe they are rotating counter-clockwise.¡± ¡°Dungeon up on the slope there.¡± Heads turned at Kris¡¯ pointing figure, seeing a bulge on the snowy slope high atop the western ridge forming the pass. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± ¡°That is the temple to the Ruschk god Thrusk,¡± Master Oswald stated calmly, eyeing it considerately. ¡°An avatar of it dwells within, there to test the skills of whoever thinks they are worth crossing blades with a god.¡± The Mick blinked. ¡°Him! Aye, ye had t¡¯ kill and collect scalps from a bunch o¡¯ Ruschk t¡¯ earn the right t¡¯ fight the god. Killed ¡®im a bunch of times back then¡­¡± ¡°If he¡¯s a real avatar, he¡¯s going to be much, much more dangerous now then back then,¡± Briggs opined, hefting Endure thoughtfully. ¡°Later,¡± he added, catching Kris¡¯ hungry expression. ¡°Work before play.¡± She pouted extravagantly, but said nothing. There was indeed a lot of work to do¡­ AF Chapter 377 – An Overland Effort Roughly a mile every eight hours. That was how long it took to kill what we needed to kill, to scan who we needed to scan, and to free who needed to be freed. Also, to slaughter yet another horde of incoming Eaters ceaselessly circling the inner ridgeline of mountains and chewing through the constant heavy respawns with vim and vigor. Realistically we could only get in twelve hours of fighting a day, what with our other obligations, the need to rest and eat, and so forth. Sustaining Rings took care of part of that, the Rituals to make them for our followers one of my late night/early morning obligations I also held to. The power of the Rings to replicate the go-go-go energy of adventurers before the Fall was another one of the things that lured people to us. Getting Marks and Soul Tats was another, too. Plus we had Fiuns and freed Viamontians to usher off to places of safety that didn¡¯t involve Eaters coming around to feed on them. The backtrail we cleared was enough to shepherd most of them to safety for the day, although tomorrow could well bring another Eater horde through. The retreat through the Jumpgates didn¡¯t bring us directly back to Eastwatch first. Instead, we went to Ayabar¡¯s Tower, and the Fiun within it. Ayabar himself was among the maddened Fiun who were still stuck in respawns within the place, or perhaps it was a Deathstone return effect, it was actually hard to tell with the condition many of them were in, hovering between life and death and half-animated by the rampant magical energies unleashed by their maddened state. The Regeneration I put each of them through actually had to restore ravaged bodies often stripped to the bone and only kept alive by constant flows of magic. That said, we cleared Ayabar¡¯s Tower completely of Spawn Points, and freed every Fiun within, all of them captive souls with names, from the System. Then we Jumped everyone to Eastwatch. The Fiun were shaken and still recuperating from their ordeal, even if the nature of the System made it all timeless and dreamlike to them, scarce able to remember what had happened to them, only that it had. It really didn¡¯t matter, as the first priority was getting them out of there. The freed knights peeled off their armor and weapons, throwing them into a great pile, and watched numbly as the things slowly faded from sight, disappearing as the ectoplasm they were made of turned unstable as it left them. They were of House Nenati now, with a bloodline that came only from Dream, regardless of who they had once been. That naturally didn¡¯t mean we expected them to not reach out to former family members, ties and memories being all that. But the Oaths and the Geases which bound them made it clear those old ties were not binding, and placing old family over new was betrayal to Briggs and to those Oaths. Betraying that Oath meant fading away like their swords and armor as the Geas ravaged them. He wouldn¡¯t have to do anything, and if they respawned somewhere as a mindless minion, they¡¯d be vivisized without exception in the future. House Nenati was growing in size very rapidly, it was¡­ ------- ¡°The Ducal Sword, eh¡­¡± Princess Kristie was leaning against the new wall I was erecting across the bottom of the long rise atop which Eastwatch had been built. It was twenty feet thick and thirty feet high, big enough that no Eater horde could clamber up enough to come over it, with double walkways, archer slits, and I even built a lever-action ramp and set of stairs that could be cycled up and down to accommodate people coming in and out from the downslope of the other side. ¡°It respawned continually, like a lot of other Quest items. However, that mechanic has to be based on the real Sword, somewhere. I figure when a Null grabs hold of it, that will be the real Sword, and there will be no others,¡± I told her, as more stone flowed up out of the ground. I had about a hundred feet left to go. The whole company was strolling the top of the place, the Silyun knights shaking their head at how rapidly I came up with fortifications like this. A number of Nenati had dutifully stayed behind to man the walls for new arrivals. I¡¯d thrown up barracks and put down Eternal Flames to heat the places, giving them a measure of comforts they¡¯d not had for two decades and more. They weren¡¯t there to fight, just to raise and lower the ramp for new arrivals, and thumb their noses if stray Eaters wandered in this direction, beyond the random Summons visible in the hundreds from atop the wall. ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t want it or need it. I¡¯m not Eleorna, I WAS Eleonora,¡± she said quietly. ¡°She feels like the closest sister I could ever have, not ME,¡± she tried to explain, and I just held up a hand.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°I did not so presume you would want power over a Viamontian House like that. What I did presume is that the Sword was defiled and used to cut out her heart and send it to her father. ¡°I presume you wanted to purify it by doing the same to King Varicci II before returning it to the Bellenesse.¡± There was just a moment of a pause, and then eight canines gleamed in feral appreciation. ¡°That, that I will do!¡± she agreed, her voice all razors. She looked downslope, along the path we¡¯d be carving out today. It had been agreed that clearing a route to Eastwatch from Ayabar¡¯s Tower was the proper way to do things, instead of returning straight to the hardpoint in the pass. That way the Fiun and Viamontians we freed would have a relatively clear route to travel to safety from further Eater hordes. Good people, doing things right. Freeing them only to send them into the jaws of an Eater horde was just stupidity. Black and yellow posts to hammer into and signify Sealed Summons Points were now stacked up. We¡¯d not Marked our previous ones from the day before, an oversight on our part, but we had the points known in Markspace and they could be located with Detect Location. We just had to wipe out the Eater hordes so the Marker Teams could come in and do their jobs, and there were so, so many Summons to either clear or free from servitude. Weeks of work, even by committed teams. Regeneration was V Valence, which was fifty mana to Renew the Slot I spent to use it. Doing ten of them basically wiped my Mana Pool and reduced me to Aurora Stance for twenty minutes to get it all back. Thera and Nippo had to alternate with me, and then there was the matter of the Geases, also V¡¯s, backing the Oaths to Briggs the Viamontians made. Kris had an impressive Mana Pool I could draw on, but she had to buy back the Mana point by point by sacrificing Constitution to do so, then healing back up over several hours or by spending Vigor uses. Thus, there were limits on how many of them we could free every day. Also, every Spawn Point we Sealed was one less cluster of Summons the Eaters could eat, which sped up their rotations and brought them into conflict with us that much faster. Well, it was what it was. ¡°Master Oswald will lead you there. I presume it won¡¯t take very long, and you can just Teleport home once you are done.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do it when you Divine for the Mick. Fuzzy has already said he¡¯d be available for the attempt, if needed.¡± ¡°I do pity anyone who gets in their way,¡± I nodded to that, more stone flowing up out of the ground and closing towards the cliff to the side, which I would Shape mirror-smooth to make sure no silly ideas of going around the wall with mundane means was feasible, and extend the wall down at a tapering able to reinforce that. Not an amateur at making fortifications was I, I was not. ------- Return progress was swift, the patterns already worked out. Wisps were shot down before we even got close. Skeletons were assigned to the two big Lugian Vanguards, who bashed them down with the hammer side of their Axes and their big Shields. Undead, Glacial Golums, Penguins, and Ruschk were sent to Kris¡¯ Knights, who went devoted Firephasing to handle those Spawns. The Silyun Knights took point for all the Eaters, with the Roaches softening them up once they were pulled, although the Knights definitely didn¡¯t need the help to kill them, only to kill them faster. Banderlings and Shades were killed by whoever was closest and convenient to do so. Actually, the first few Summons were allocated to us mages for Naming Karma, cheap Isparian War Magic enough to do the job for Thera and Nippo, Darts for me. For Viamontians and Fiuns, the Mick, Oswald, Kris, and Briggs took point on with Mercied Weapons. If they passed the Assay, and not all of either groups did, Thera and Nippo handled the Regenerates, alternating so one would go into Aurora Stance to regain mana and the other would cover the Melee teams. If not, the Mercied were couped, culled, and set free in the other way. I covered the Geases, to keep the load on Kris down. Having to pop ten or more points of Con damage to regain the mana she spent was a horrendous load on her, and she naturally shared with me what it felt like to tear open the basic vitality of your body to convert it into an internal store of magical energy. I asked before taking her mana, and I shared it with her. Bondmage duty, I wasn¡¯t ever going to take mana from her lightly, and she appreciated it. The reason she poured Karma into her Null Druid and Null Shifter Classes was to have more Mana for me, on top of what the Isparian System allowed her to accumulate in her Null Mana Pool. She was hauling around as much or more mana as any Caster, but had no means to access it or use it, save through our Bond. The biggest downside was that she couldn¡¯t Renew it, she had to sacrifice Constitution points to regain what Mana she expended. But, the fact remained that she could DO it, that she did have basically over two thousand points of Mana squirreled away between Valences, Slots, and Mana Pool, and she could power a whole lot of magic on demand if she needed to. I also accented the Assay V with Detect Non-Good V, which was actually a fairly quick way to rule out a bunch of the Viamontians, and even some of the Fiuns. Soulless Viamontians were a particular hue of Blue-Brown Lawful Neutral unthinking obedience, and similar Fiuns were a counterpart shade of insane Gray-Brown Chaotic Neutrality reflecting their madness. Evil Viamontians we simply weren¡¯t going to bring back, and those numbered at least a third of the royalist clans we discovered, with Red and Ruby particularly strong among the Corcosi¡¯s direct vassals. Such folk were sent off to the fates they¡¯d earned, as we didn¡¯t have the time or inclinations to convert them now. The number of Bellenesse faithful on the Island of Ruin was almost non-existent. The people of Silyun had lost far fewer troops than the royalists, but they¡¯d still lost some. The general agreement was that the Viamontian soldiers scattered around Silyun and its islands would likely number more of the Bellenesse forces, while all these were almost all royalists who¡¯d died in the service of Varicci, with the rare Silyunites those who¡¯d taken up service with the king reluctantly after Eleonora had been killed. There were numbers who considered their oaths of loyalty to still be in effect, and so preferred to die rather than break those promises. Princess Kristie gave them a sword and cut them all down without emotion or exception. They Burned away, nothing left behind of them but a patch of clear ice or white stone on the ground. AF Chapter 378 – A Valiant Advance through the Valley AF Chapter 378 ¨C A Valiant Advance through the Valley Only one Eater horde bothered us as we headed for the pass, and that after we made it back to the first hardpoint I¡¯d put up the day before. We left scores of yellow and black striped posts hammered into the ground behind us as the two-legged bulb-jaws ate their way through multiple Summons, converged on us living things, and we proceeded to hack them down. I did pay more attention to the wake of the Eater hordes, which explained some of the resilience of the hordes. Naturally Eaters died as they swarmed on the Summons, even if it was anywhere from one to six Eaters per target, all the time. They still accrued injuries, and they still died if the enemy got lucky. However, other Eaters immediately devoured them hungrily, the corpses of their fellow dead the only ¡®real¡¯ meals they got. Eaters who got to eat their fellows were actually obvious, because they waddled more than their starving, ectoplasmic-fed fellows. Little Eaters were being popped out almost constantly by the Summons Eaters, as they couldn¡¯t all swell to the largest of sizes quickly, and so their reproductive systems were basically on overdrive. The baby Eaters also mobbed any of their parents who fell, and they grew with almost explosive speed, especially if they managed to get in on some of the Summons, the ectoplasm causing spurts of growth visible to the eye. Corpses, armor, weapons, everything made of ectoplasm went down their gullets and was somehow digested with fantastic speed. The Eaters cleaned up after themselves savagely, and there was obviously a net positive of Eaters dying and then recycled vs Summons eaten, extra mass being created and more Eaters building up over time as they ate more and more Summons faster and faster. At some point a break would happen, the horde getting too large and catching up to another, or respawns happening before the whole horde left an area and the horde split forward and back. Our slaughtering of multiple hordes just basically cleared the field of competitors, which allowed the remaining hordes to spread out a bit more, devour things more constantly and faster, and thus reproduce even more quickly. It had been a fairly static process, with the excess Eaters vented off into the ocean on a regular basis when their numbers became too high and a horde could find nothing to eat. We wouldn¡¯t be able to stop the process without stopping the land Spawns entirely, and then the only things for the Eaters to eat would be one another¡­ or go hunting for the few real things that were left to bug. We were assuming the Ruschk still existed in at least their main encampment on the easternmost island, dug into the ice and simply waiting the Eaters out patiently. It was something we¡¯d find out eventually. Day Two ended, and we hadn¡¯t even made it out of the pass yet. ------ Days Three and Four were about making our way west. We had five miles to go to reach the saddleback up to the ridgeline that would take us back up and over the mountains to the top of the tallest peak, where Sir Bellas¡¯ prison was located. There were literal armies of Summons we had to carve through to get there, nonsensical numbers of creatures that should have been at each other¡¯s throats instead just sitting around and forcing us to kill them to get past them. There were also the Eater hordes which slaughtered them, and which in turn were slaughtered by them continually and relentlessly in an ongoing cycle which had likely been going on for years. The area cleared by an Eater wave was about a quarter-mile wide, with about a mile of Summons between waves. We could see the respawns popping up behind them as the hordes came out of the west at us. It was kind of surreal watching them approach, like a living tide of bouncing balls with jaws. Knots of conflicts bled Eaters that drove over and past them into the next set of spawns, which didn¡¯t react to the Eaters until the first of their numbers were attacked. Then the entire squad of Summons would turn and race into the fight, and the first overeager couple of Eaters would die as they faced multiple attacks and spells. But the other Eaters were coming behind in greater and greater numbers, driving one another towards the fighting, rapidly surrounding the Summons and even bouncing up over one another and into the middle of the Summons in their hunger. The balls of jaws would spread out and around, and then one would catch sight of the neighboring Summons, raging over that way to get a meal, and lead a string of later Eaters after it seeing the same thing and expanding the wave. Behind them baby Eaters devoured fallen Eaters and helped gnaw at Summons and rip them apart before they could dissipate, months of growth happening in minutes, and no doubt contributing to their massive hunger as it did so.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Viamontians, Ruschk, fellow Eaters, Uber Penguins; it didn¡¯t matter, they were all Summons, all designated prey, and the Eaters devoured them all. I noted that the Fiun and Viamontian mages who got spells off tended to take the best toll on the Eaters, as the uncoordinated melee combatants got themselves surrounded and chewed down from all sides, minimizing the harm they did. Casters who happened to chain-Cast from a distance instead of charging up to fight could actually kill quite a few of the Eaters if the melee line was fortunate to stand long enough. But in the end, the melee line of fighters would fall, the Eaters would charge the mages and tear them apart quickly, and the process would keep rolling and repeating. Then, of course, they would run into us, a coordinated melee/archer line between working fortifications, with magical Healing support, fighting shoulder to shoulder and high up enough that the Eaters couldn¡¯t bounce over one another to get at us, while their carcasses Burned down en vivus and refused to make ramps to get at us for those behind them. The Archer Stand Thrust and the spear line of Feats was the first Mastery all the knights learned and used. If the Eaters came charging up, they would impale themselves on the Steadfast Blades in the hands of those waiting for them as they instinctively avoided the spikes on the walls and converged into the attack lanes prepared for them. If the Thrust didn¡¯t kill them, the Weapons were withdrawn, great jaws scraping slickly on enchanted worldbone that was not ectoplasm and would not break, and then it was finished with a thrust through the eye or a hacking full stroke down through the sensor stalk atop it that led it to magic and the living into its brain. Slashes to the edges of the jaws would sever the tendons and cause the massive jaw to sag and crash to the ground, where its own frenzied movements would rip it open, sometimes completely off its body, and drop it writhing in a frenzy of gore and thick red blood as squat legs pumped and sent it in impotent circles as it bled out. It would promptly be knocked aside or trampled by those behind it, killing it even faster, and then its death would send a signal to the baby Eaters, who would worm between their elders still trying to get at the moving prey and start eating the dead. Dead who were Burning en vivus and fell to dust between their jaws, before they could be digested. Even if I was in Aurora Stance, I could contribute Darts to the offense, triple Chains leaping among the Eaters and slashing them with Kickers that helped wear them down more quickly, weakened their flesh, disoriented or blinded them, knocked them over, and set them on fire, among other things. The silvery Flames over the Eaters were quick targets for the archers, who let them burn for at least eighteen seconds before sniping them down, letting the burn damage accumulate and bringing them down into One Arrow range for their kills at point-blank range. If they didn¡¯t kill them, oh well, the Knights only had to fight half-dead Eaters who reached the walls of our hardpoint. The spike-warded walls allowed at least two knights to fight any Eater, and the tactics to impale, chop, thrust, and chop again if needed were almost a dance as the knights swirled through the motions with speed and power. The ectoplasm-fed flesh of the Eaters ignited easily and rapidly on death, and they Burned down nearly as fast as undead did, despite all their bulk. Indeed, on death they began to shrivel and shrink with visible speed as vivus Burned on them, desiccating and folding in on themselves, much to the annoyance of the baby Eaters swarming to feed on them. No efforts were spent beyond my Darts on the baby Eaters. One set of Chains passing through them was enough to set them on fire, and the Kickers could burn them to death every time, without fail. They were the weakest things in my Detect Aberrations, so I¡¯d Chain between clusters of them and kill a couple dozen at a time, rapidly whittling them down and out of the hordes. Through all the gnashing and clashing, Kris Sang as if she didn¡¯t have a care in the world, Quaver rang with notes of coming slaughter, and Endure banged down remorselessly and constantly, splitting skulls and blowing Eaters apart with overpressure from their own brains and blood. There were none of the big pale Eaters leading these hordes, probably because the turnover was too high. A baby Eater expelled from its parent might be able to grow to full size in only another quarter-mile of carnage, but the death toll was just as frightening on the side of the Eaters. Given the intensity of the Spawn Points here, no Eater survived to get large enough to do that. When the Eater waves were finally finished up, everyone just sat down to rest. We weren¡¯t worried about anything attacking us, as we¡¯d Sealed every Spawn Point in the area, and the Summons behind the Eaters were already respawned, forming another wall of bodies for the next Eater wave to work through¡­ except they had to kill the Summons the whole width of the valley, and we were only clearing out sections of it at a time. We had to kill two waves of Eaters each day on Days Three and Four, and then we used the Jumpgates to Linejump out and vacate our hardpoint before the third wave could reach us. Those Eaters were going to find a whole lot of cleared ground ahead of them, with nothing to eat for a few miles as they drove themselves forward, doubtless wondering where all their densely-packed prey was. They¡¯d reach the forces to the east of the pass soon enough, since the pass itself was empty and their attention would be drawn to the existing forces scattered ahead of them. Our estimations were that each Eater wave was chewing through two miles of the densely-packed Summons a day, with nearly a hundred percent fatality rate within the waves, yet the newborn Eaters matured so fast that they were actually staying ahead of the kill rates. It did mean the things were all young and stupid and hadn¡¯t learned anything but incredible blinding hunger for all their lives, but that didn¡¯t garner any sympathy from us. They were Aberrant things, biological accidents made by an obsessed Fiun genius who¡¯d thought himself master of all things, whose idiocy had birthed biovorous eating machines that had doomed a world and its people, and were now here to bedevil the one we were fighting on. The Land was feeding on them, and it was Good. AF Chapter 379 – An Uphill Battle Day Five we reached the saddleback and could head uphill. It turned out that the Eaters didn¡¯t much go up the hills, stumpy legs and all not wanting to climb upwards, and the numbers of Summons was much higher down in the Valley. Except after we¡¯d cleaned them off, of course. That naturally meant we had to clear them off the southern slopes of the saddleback, or the Eaters would head uphill to the closest convenient food. It wasn¡¯t that difficult, except we had to time it after an Eater wave went past the hardpoint we left behind, or we would be caught in the middle of the climb by the next incoming wave¡­ and then, possibly the horde on the northern side of the saddleback responding to all the activity up at the top! So, we had to advance up the saddleback, clear it of anything that might attract the Eaters to investigate up instead of staying along the emptied valley below, make sure there were no Eaters watching on the other side, clear the top of the saddleback, and then head up along the ridgeline before the wave of Eaters on the northern side came munching by. We watched Eater waves run by first on the south, pounding along on their two thick and stubby legs for the distance, facing an open area that they likely were not used to. But there were no distractions and bright colors to the right to guide them up to us, and the Fiuns and the Viamontians we¡¯d freed we¡¯d kept with us, behind us, and they stayed low and quiet as the Eaters thundered past down below on their endless eating circuit. The Eaters to the north soon followed, taking more time because they were eating through things instead of just running by, but I could make up a low wall and a walkway to block their view and keep our advance easier and more certain as we headed up the ridgeline towards the central peak and the Dungeon at the top. There were still more Summons up here of multiple types that should have been fighting one another, but they were lower in number and scattered across the ridgeline, fairly easy to handle, and so we actually made decent progress. The traumatized Fiun with their cranial glands regrown were in absolutely no shape to do any fighting, nor were they at all comfortable with the armored Viamontians around who had herded them up and along to the medics who had torn the things out of their heads and driven them mad. They¡¯d likely never trust blue-skinned people ever again, which basically meant the Roaches were assigned to hold the rear and watch over them, with Thera and Nippo staying with them, their magical Auras reassuring them that these paler-skinned Isparians were not the utter arseholes that the men with blue skin were. It also meant we could not vacate them to the same area, but we¡¯d figured that out yesterday, and it wasn¡¯t an issue. Amusingly enough, I brought them with me to Mayoi. Warm, sunny, and it was by the sea. For now, it was a fine place to leave them, but serious discussions were going on with the idea of leaving Freebooter Island to the Fiun as a homeland. They definitely had the magical chops to do okay there, especially if we could finally clear out the T¡¯Thuun Taint. If not, given how quickly they flocked down to the warm seas, there was little doubt they¡¯d just settle along the Tou-Tou Peninsula and be perfectly happy to stay there. The Cursed Dead were actually totally acceptable to them as magical beings, very interesting in the eyes of those who were quicker to regain their reason, and not competition for any kind of food or shelter. Indeed, the Cursed were quick to help the Fiuns find places to settle in, while I made tons of small, but normal houses they could adapt to their own styles and care, which weren¡¯t too different from most humanoid standards. The Viamontians in Baishi, true to their Oaths, reported to the Great Mother of the Bellenesse and began working on restoring the town and surrounding area for its settlers. Not having to eat as yet, although they started to force themselves to, they were cheap labor that was devoted to the tasks put forward to them¡­ and when they saw how few Viamontians were left, even more determined to reclaim their mortality. Life went on. ------- It was a tunnel going down into the rock. The Eaters might have seen some of the fighting up here, steel being flashy and spells going off from the Viamontian Casters (not a single one of whom had been freed, for multiple reasons), but we were thousands of feet up and so didn¡¯t draw any attention. The entry to the Dungeon was a long slope going down into the mountain. It was slick, ice and snow-covered rock that got absolutely no traffic whatsoever. The Summons around the Dungeon had been particularly intense, and numbered four Hands among them.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Not a single Viamontian Summons around the Dungeon was found worthy of being released. All of them were Corcosi vassals and/or had Red Auras, as if whoever had been guarding this place of banishment were loyalists who would keep it secure from anyone seeking to get to Sir Bellas. ¡°Mick, Highnesses, continue the purging down the ridge, slow and careful. There should be no Eater waves coming up this way,¡± Briggs said, watching me as I pulled a hardpoint up around the hole in the ground. ¡°Ryin, Kris, and I are going down there for Bellas. Ryin can bring us all out without having to retrace all of our steps. We¡¯re going to do a full and fast clear of the Dungeon, Seal all Spawn Points, and Ryin will get us an egress point straight out the side of the mountain. We¡¯ll Seal this top entry behind us, and if we ever want to make use of the place, we¡¯ll have a different way to get to it.¡± The Mick nodded at the hand-off. ¡°Master Oswald, I give ye absolute leave to halt us an¡¯ wait quietly for them to catch up.¡± The Green Hunter acknowledged the gift. ¡°I¡¯ll stop us safely, but not slow us down, MacMikal,¡± he agreed, taking an interested look down the icy ramp within. ¡°That was not here last time I came through. It was a free-standing Portal, naturally enough. Are you clear on the spawns?¡± ¡°Ruschk, Wisps, tiny Magma Golums, Fiuns, Skeletons, Eaters, senior Viamontian warriors, Shades, and Sir Bellas at the very bottom in a firepit of a room,¡± Briggs counted them off, and Oswald nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll be fine, and we won¡¯t waste any time. Keep you posted on the progress.¡± ¡°Woop!¡± Princess Kristie shouted and hopped onto the icy ramp. Instead of walking down it, she just landed on her butt and started to slide as if it was greased. Briggs just grinned a big wide smile and stepped after her. Instead of falling down, his armored feet just kind of started sliding, and like he was skating down a hill, he slid after her in a spray of ice. I just rolled my eyes as I hopped on my Disk, yanked telekinetically on Briggs, and was pulled after him and zipped down the slide after him, rapidly catching up right behind him as we descended. The place was dark, which meant nothing to Devilsight, all ice and stone. Briggs didn¡¯t try to catch up with Kris, as she¡¯d ride the edge of speed she could handle and probably impale anything waiting at the bottom when she got there in a blur of motion. Briggs managed his speed and balance deftly, lightfoot more than enough to ski down the slope under perfect control, and I just stayed in their wake. There were Fiuns in here, and I was going to free them, as I had their kin. That and driving a tunnel sideways out of the bottom of the Dungeon were the main reasons I was coming along. The two of them certainly didn¡¯t need me to handle the fighting! ------ There was nothing in the Dungeon that was as dangerous as the fighting outside had been. We reached the bottom, Kris already having chewed through three Ruschk and working on a fourth to our right with Quaver chiming and all Firephased over there. Briggs went in the other direction, both of them mapping out the Dungeon together and the winding ice tunnels through the stone there, Endure also going Firephased as he made for the nearest Ruschk. The clearing of the top level took only ten minutes or so, and then we ran into the Entropy Wisps which clustered thickly in the lower section of this area, more whirling black balls of negative psychic energy that popped with great speed as the spells they tried to get off kept fizzling in the Null and Sun of the two Forsaken who chewed through them with almost contemptuous ease. Once we were past them, the knee-high Magma Golums who were much too tough and strong for their size necessitated a short-term switch to Coldphasing to beat them down. They and their Spawn Points were noted and cleared out, Sealed en vivus, and where once a Portal had led to another Dungeon, now another ramp led deeper into the mountain, although not as far from the top as the first one had led. Heat was coming up from below, the ice of the top level fading away as it met the upcoming draft, rendering the next level with the Fiuns cool, but not chilling. Kris took the Fiuns who came shambling for us with Mercy, while Briggs returned Endure to physical damage to chop into and hack down the Eaters who shared the same halls. I kept the Fiuns sleeping and unconscious by putting them on Disks and trailing them after us. We leapt down at the bridge area to the lower hallways, Briggs cleared away the Eaters, and after a quick survey to make sure we missed nothing, we made our way to a room with an inner chamber covering a pit heading down, and no way to come back up. If you had Portal magic, why did you need to come back up, after all? Supposedly at one time you could tie to a Portal near the bottom of this place and skip right past all these defenders¡­ I put a Mass Restoration on all the unconscious Fiuns on the Disks, watching over them as Briggs and Kris leapt down first, Cloudstepping Sandals catching them lightly just above the floor, while I floated down after them after they were engaged with some remarkably tough skeleton warriors there. They hacked and pounded their way through the bones, and split their paths through the halls, while I escorted the Fiuns after them. I waited politely as they beat skeletons to rapidly-vivisizing bones, Sealed their Spawn Points, and we wound down and around through the fairly tight but erratically curving place. The final chamber in the middle level had once held nine different Portals, heading to the lowest floors, with one of them delivering you right to the pit you could jump into to reach Sir Bellas¡¯s prison in exile. Now, there were only three tunnels heading down and around, one on each of the walls we hadn¡¯t entered through. ¡°Logical,¡± Kris said. ¡°There¡¯s an area with Eaters, an area with shades, and an area with more Viamontians,¡± Kris said, eyeing the three passages. ¡°By the smell, I¡¯m guessing the Eaters are thataway.¡± She pointed off to the left of us. ¡°Knights are probably through to the right.¡± ¡°I suggest doing the knights first, so I can survey them and we can wrap up any who can be saved¡­ which I doubt will be any. When we reach the central pit, I can stay there and wait for the two of you to clear the other branches and Seal everything while I watch over our Fiun guests here.¡± Briggs and Kris just glanced at one another, nodded, and we went down to the right. AF Chapter 380 – The Prison in Exile There were no Viamontians Kris chose to succor. If anything, they were even more Red than the ones outside, close and loyal followers of Varicci who Kris and Briggs sent off forever without emotion, giving them the coup de grace and releasing them from eternal servitude and off to their promised fates. With Red souls, that fate was not something they were going to look forward to, but hey, life choices, people. Buck up and take responsibility for becoming a lemure in your afterlife and everything. I waited on that side of the pit, which sat right where the hallways came together, with no gaps around it¡­ which was ridiculous, you had to jump the corners of the pit to go into the other passages. I supposed it kept the Eaters from spreading, except Summons didn¡¯t wander, regardless. Well, I put arches in the corners because it was architectural stupidity and it offended me. Briggs headed off to clear out the shades who for some reason had infiltrated this place, while Kris went off to feed Quaver to the Eaters who were left alive in the other wing of this Level. I busied myself making a set of stairs directly from here to the former Portal Room directly above, bypassing the tedium of those long tunnels extending out and back, and having to come through all those hallways just to get back to the middle here. I mean, really. There¡¯s defensive Dungeon designs, and then there¡¯s boring slogging around. Unfortunately most of the Dungeon was organized on a downhill slant, so I couldn¡¯t go straight up through all of them, but ah well. The two of them were back in about fifteen minutes each, Kris flicking off vivisizing Eater gore, and Briggs a little scuffed up from some weapon action that wasn¡¯t from Viamontian knights. Neither was injured at all, any injuries taken on Health and Fast Healed away by now. Still, they looked over the edge of the pit, and made incredulous faces. ¡°That¡¯s a hundred feet down,¡± Kris pointed out in some disbelief. ¡°I mean¡­ there¡¯s no way back up except to run through the whole Dungeon now. This is the height of stupid!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not like they were sending down supplies or relieving the men on duty,¡± I pointed out to her, also shaking my head. ¡°Which begs the question of when the System actually grabbed the man so he didn¡¯t need to eat or piss or anything, I guess.¡± Kris stated simply, ¡°I expect they murdered him as soon as they brought him here, and he just fought to the end because it was all he had left. The System grabbed them all, used it as an excuse to set up that recurring Augmentation Gem Quest he was the end of, and he got to die over and over to people coming through harvesting Gems, just fighting over and over to the death mindlessly like a good Summons should.¡± ¡°The Mick did say he was pretty impressive back in the day,¡± Briggs noted proudly, for Sir Bellas had taught both their preincarnations. ¡°That Broken Right Hand technique of his.¡± I lifted an eyebrow at her words. ¡°Sir Bellas studied a lot of magic, and could even Cast powerful War and Life Magic. Golds back on Ispar, the Mick said he got up to Platinum here.¡± ¡°For a knight, that¡¯s incredibly strange and versatile,¡± I agreed. ¡°Textbook Eldritch Knight.¡± ¡°The Broken Right Hand was his way of messing with people who relied too much on Item Magic. It completely ignored Armor Buffs from Item Magic!¡± I had to blink. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ a pretty impressive technique,¡± I had to admit. ¡°Did he pass it on to anyone?¡± Kris shook her head. ¡°No one else could figure out how he did it, it might have been a unique talent.¡± ¡°All spells and techniques were unique talents at some point. If the two of you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯d like to observe him if he has the technique active. You can draw out his fight for some time, can¡¯t you?¡± The two of them glanced at one another, slightly amused. ¡°I think we can do that, although I doubt he¡¯s going to be so merciful in return,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°Briggs first. Get that Source working on him. He won¡¯t recognize you or your fighting Style, but I think Kris can get him to recognize just who he might be facing¡­¡± Kris just lifted an eyebrow. ¡°I don¡¯t look anything like Eleonora,¡± she said softly. ¡°But fighting like her? I could do that. I am better than she ever was, however, although she was quite good. A full Ten Melee equivalent at nineteen years old.¡± And likely improved a bit once she made it to Dereth, before she was killed, I thought, saying nothing. ¡°Should only be Viamontian knights below, and they should all be former personal favorites of Varicci assigned to dispose of Sir Bellas. You probably will even know their names and faces, Kris,¡± I reminded her. Her pale violet eyes were cold as polished gems. ¡°We¡¯ll be Merciful just long enough for you to tell me their names, so I know they are dead,¡± she hissed slowly. Quaver sparked, and then its blue-black length of metal and glittering Blackfire Stones snapped into full Lightningphasing as the Elemental Stone on his pommel was swapped out.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Endure crackled loudly as the same thing happened. ¡°Ladies first,¡± Briggs grunted, and Kris hopped over the edge with perfect faith in her Sandals to catch her below. Briggs followed, and I followed Briggs on my Disk, the Fiuns coming down after me in a vertical stack at a slow and stately pace. There were three Viamontians posted in the pit below, one in the corridor leading out. Two were already down, crashed against the walls, and the other two were being manhandled with savage skill and fury as I reached the floor. Ignoring the fights that would be over in another second, I went over to the downed Tribune in his brassy full plate armor and peered down at him. ¡°Sir Vambril di Dulce.¡± ¡°Famous for how many unBlooded daughters he raped as part of Varicci¡¯s coterie,¡± Kriss hissed, pulling Quaver out from under the bronzed helm of the Viamontian Lord it was sticking through. No blood came out, Mercy making sure the wound wasn¡¯t fatal, but the Summons still went limp and collapsed. Zeks heaved the unconscious Summons in my direction as I went to the other Tribune. ¡°Sir Francois du Lotila.¡± Endure crashed down right in front of me, still Lightningphased, but no Mercy on it this time. ¡°His favorite past time was riding down peasants on farms,¡± Briggs stated flatly. He¡¯d been a thick Purple, so that fit. Must have started early, if Briggs knew of it. Lord Willem du Corcosi was a cousin of the royal line, twice removed, and gleaming Ruby. Sir Chauncel di Renari was a member of a clan of famous Viamontian armorers, who¡¯d stolen much of their design work from some of Kris¡¯s father¡¯s early work, and also as Red as they came. Both of them were couped without hesitation, and we were off to the last four of them. The next chamber was large and incongruously white and splendid, although suspiciously bereft of furniture at all. There was a Tribune guarding the forward ways to right and left, and two Lords holding court, such as it were, in an audience chamber in the middle of the room, the entrance to it on the far side from us. Briggs and Kris knew all of them. All of them were Ruby, too. There was one final hallway leading north, a rather fierce heated updraft coming from it which was keeping the entire chamber warm, vented out the way we¡¯d come in and sent up that pit to the higher level. Both of them stopped right at the entry and looked down at the same time. Naturally, so did I. The whitely tiled and trimmed floor there, a work of art by devoted craftsmen, again so incongruous to the Dungeon itself, looked like any other section of it. ¡°Three strikes from that four-leaf greatmace of his, the Fist of Bellenesse,¡± Kris said softly, kneeling down and touching the floor, one place with her finger, the other with Quaver¡¯s point, while Briggs shifted and tapped his armored toe nearby at the third. ¡°Broke the ley line reinforcement of the stone with that Broken Right Hand technique of his. It didn¡¯t restore perfectly underneath,¡± Briggs told me softly. ¡°Blood in the cracks there, too,¡± he added. They were seeing it in their tremblesense, the scars of one last valiant fight from probably the greatest warrior of the Viamontian people at the time. ¡°He died right here, and so did they,¡± Kris stated with grim satisfaction, looking up at the audience chamber with the stairs leading up to it behind and above us. ¡°This is where the System took them all. Those two Corcosi scions up there in their little courtroom probably pronounced sentence down at him with their confident sneers, and all six of their lessers probably fell upon him at the same time to kill him.¡± ¡°And the knights failed, and the two had to come down to finish the job. It cost them their lives, too,¡± Briggs agreed proudly. ¡°By the time Varicci sent people down to check to see that the job was complete, they were probably already in the System, and he and everyone else likely forgot what was supposed to happen and accepted it as the prison-in-exile it seemed to be.¡± Their eyes turned to the dark tunnel, flames from the heart of the mountain venting out the floor, impossible for a normal person to endure for too long, it was simply too hot. But if you were in the System, it obviously did not matter. ¡°Ready to give some mercy to the old teacher, Fuzzy?¡± Kris asked softly. ¡°Darren was a horrible student, but that was on me. Sir Bellas was a great man,¡± Briggs agreed quietly. ¡°I¡¯d like nothing better, my Hag.¡± Kris¡¯ cackle was low and slow, and she started down the tunnel. ¡°Leave the Fiuns and just watch, Ryin. We¡¯ll make this a show for you, see what you can see of it.¡± I did just that. Nothing was going to respawn here and threaten them, and hey, knowledge is power. --- There was a superheated grate in the middle of the flow letting up a furnace of heat, for who knew what reason. The air temperature was near to that of boiling water, which meant Sir Bellas had some definite fire resistance unless he died of heat exhaustion regularly and respawned. Down the ramp, across the grate, up the ramp¡­ and there was a whole square room with a cross of more furnace grates over a lava pool below. A massive figure in battered but functional steel armor was brooding against the side wall. ¡°SIR BELLAS OF THE BELLENESSE! The Great Mother of the Bellenesse calls you home!¡± boomed out Briggs¡¯ Warlord voice, easily surpassing the roar of the flames from below. The armored figure, easily a full head taller than Kris, shook his head as if waking from a trance. Since he might have been holding that position over fifteen years, that was hardly surprising. ¡°Another challenger come to kill me in Varicci¡¯s name?!¡± was the only bellowed reply, as the man snatched up a weighty two-handed mace and raced forward to attack Briggs without delay. ¡°That¡¯s a Hollow Mace,¡± I identified it quickly. Such Weapons were common on Dereth, but I¡¯d never heard of one from Ispar before. The Fist of Bellenesse was a famous Weapon in his hands, so there had to be a story there. Briggs met him right over the flames, completely unworried about it, and they crashed together with all the impact of two very big men in heavy armor, and Mace rang out against Hammer. I knew the duel was only going to go one way, but I wanted to discern more of the magic around this Artifice-ignoring technique, a limited form of anti-magic focused tightly around Sir Bellas¡¯s Weapon as he and Briggs began to spar. A duel with massive heavy Weapons by two strong armored men who don¡¯t worry about exhaustion is a wee bit different from all the fancy moves and subtleties of a sword duel. There was a lot of of crashing steel, shoving, very precise angles of attack, pressure and meeting of elbows and fists as the two jockeyed for position, matched strength, and kept at it. AF Chapter 381 – Freeing Sir Bellas Sir Bellas had no choice but to break any automatic attack routines as Briggs manhandled his basic attacks badly, forcing him to actually draw on his experience and skill in order to measure up to the bigger and younger man with such appalling strength. Endure crashed against his armor repeatedly, the echoes of a thousand rending cuts and impacts barely visible on the metal, yet evident as it stove in under the assaults of Endure¡¯s adamantine edge. His Greatmace definitely wasn¡¯t chorozite, lacking the semi-transparent nature of the Null Aluminum. Had he found some sort of Null Iron, or even Null Carbon to alloy with some decent iron to make steel? It was interesting to consider. The duel went on for a good five minutes, mostly because Briggs was enjoying himself parrying the many different angles and methods of attack Sir Bellas was using, countering and riposting when the openings grew too obvious. But it could end in only one way. Endure flicked out, Briggs¡¯s wrists just snapping it out as if the heavy Hammer was a willow wand, and the heavy head crashed against the helm of the famous knight and sent him falling over to the side, out cold but not truly harmed as Mercy claimed him. ¡°Drag him into the other room,¡± Princess Kristie said, grabbing one muscular arm of the fallen man. Briggs grabbed the other, and they easily hauled him upright between them, dragging him down the passageway out with his arms over their shoulders, while I just followed behind. We returned to the previous room, the Fiuns still asleep and recuperating on their Disks. I backed the aliens away to give the two Forsaken space. I¡¯d noticed Briggs had also had his hand on the man¡¯s helm. As they laid him down, he calmly drew it off, revealing a blue-skinned face, broad and heavy-featured as someone so muscularly built was almost bound to be, with a graying beard and salt-and-peppered black hair, a rarity among the Viamontians and considered by many to be a sign of inferior blood. No doubt a great incentive to beat the crap out of arrogant Viamontians. ¡°Heal him up. Just use minor spells with your Kickers, conserve the mana.¡± ¡°He has an arseload of Health Qi I won¡¯t be able to Heal up,¡± I informed her, studying the White Aura of the man as I spent a Mending spell on fixing up the rents and dents in his armor. Health Qi was very similar to temporary hit points, and basically could only be mended by the being itself, i.e., natural healing, Fast Healing, or Regeneration. ¡°Ah, wondered why he was so tough. Definitely tougher than any normal person,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°That¡¯s good. Get him up and moving as much as you can, then. He won¡¯t attack a Healer. And keep Healing him while Kris fights him, too.¡± Okay, that was going to be funny. Princess Kristie, reincarnation of Sir Bellas¡¯ greatest and most beloved student, smiled thinly as Quaver began to ring out softly. Sir Bellas grunted, blinked, and looked about in clear confusion at the change in expected scenery. His eyes focused on me in shock as I sent another wave of very basic Healing magic bolstered by a lot of Holy Kickers and Metas into him, banishing his aches and pains and restoring his focus bit by bit as the friendly and comforting Holy energies of Heaven washed across him. The simple spell literally only cost me a single point of mana, but I was getting at least forty Health with every spell, so a good return for the power I was spending. ¡°You can stop that. There is no need to Heal someone waiting to die, Gharu¡¯n,¡± he told me gruffly. I just flicked my hand and sent another wave into him. ¡°Then it is good that you are not waiting to die anymore. Your Great Mother has called you home. The survivors of your House need all the help they can get, and Varicci does not have the time nor the forces to keep you here in your eternal slavery to the System any longer, great knight.¡± He blinked at me in confusion. ¡°Do you know it has been over fifteen years since you¡¯ve seen another living soul, Sir Bellas?¡± He stared at me in utter shock. ¡°You have been a slave, a spirit kept on a leash and used by the System which has killed many, many of your countrymen. It is time you returned and took up your mantle once again.¡± ¡°I¡­ have no spirit left to fight with,¡± he mumbled, nonetheless sitting up. A massive hand opened in front of him, and he looked above it to find the warrior who had rendered him unconscious standing above him silently. The great knight eyed the hand, considered the victor of the duel between them, and reached up to clasp it. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He was hauled upright as if he were weightless, even while more magic was pouring into him and healing his injuries. ¡°I am afraid you will get no knight¡¯s ransom from me or for me, sir,¡± Sir Bellas said, clearly finding it a new experience to look up at the bigger man and his neanderthalic features, along with startlingly piercing pale green eyes. ¡°I am Commander Briggs, Warlord of the Armies of Freehold and Stonehold, committed to taking back Dereth from the forces who attacked us after the Fall, Sir Bellas. I know you know little to nothing of what has happened over the past nearly thirty years or so, but matters have greatly changed since Varicci exiled you here and attempted to kill you, only for the System to continually bring you and your assassins back.¡± He held up Sir Bellas¡¯ helm. The knight started to raise his hand to grab it, then looked at it in consternation as it began to turn transparent, and then simply dissipated into nothingness in Briggs¡¯ huge hand. ¡°You are a spirit, caught in the System, used and abused for a great many years for the secret of Augmentation Stones.¡± The knight frowned at the statement. ¡°The secrets of Augmentation have been a treasure of the knights of Viamont from our ancestor Karkun, the first Blooded. How did you learn of them?¡± he demanded to know. ¡°Knowledge of them was spread widely after the Great Mother ordered the lore to be spread, and it was found that all the cultures of Ispar had some exposure to different aspects of that kind of lore. You, however, were considered a test to decide the worthiness of those who desired to receive that lore,¡± Princess Kristie broke in with her best Imperial airs, naturally drawing his attention. ¡°In the pouch at your side you will find the trophy gems that were used to signify victory over you and gather the Karma needed to cement the lore into fact with magical speed and surety.¡± He slowly looked down at the purse at his waist, hanging from his girdle, not missing the fact that Princess Kristie was leaning on his Fist. He reached in, scooped out some clattering things, and lifted his hand up, opening it to reveal some bright square-cut stones in brilliant orange and yellow hues, perhaps a variety of topaz or jacinth. ¡°I know nothing of these,¡± he admitted hesitantly. ¡°Of course you do not. You have been a slave of the System, reduced to little more than a waking dream. The shadows of combat have no doubt been tugging on your memories. You have died in combat thousands of times, Sir Bellas, and you will know neither rest nor recourse if we merely kill you again.¡± ¡°An honorable death in battle is the only thing I crave now, woman. Who are you?¡± he demanded sternly. A hard hand knocked him on the chest-plate warningly. ¡°A care, Sir Knight,¡± Briggs said in a very, very deep voice as the knight staggered back a step. ¡°You stand before Her Imperial Highness, Kristie Rantha-Briggs, second princess of the Emperor of Ispar, Ravager of Viamont, Hammer of Aluvia, Enlightened of Gharu¡¯n, and Fist of the Sho.¡± ¡°Ravager of Viamont?¡± Sir Bellas repeated, blinking. ¡°Eighty percent of Viamontian nobility died at the hands of my mother and father, along with half its population, and all of the Houses of Lotila and Corcosi, among others,¡± Kristie stated with the cool confidence of having witnessed that fighting herself. ¡°The enemies of the House of Bellenesse back on Ispar have largely been wiped from the land, Sir Bellas. There remains only Varicci II and whatever demented remnants of his vassals still live after the Fall took place here.¡± The great knight was at an obvious loss at hearing such things. ¡°You, you said it has been thirty years?¡± he asked softly, shaking his head in consternation. ¡°The House of Bellenesse fled through a Portal to the lands of Dereth before I was born,¡± Kris replied calmly. ¡°You died long ago right here.¡± She lifted his own Mace to tap at the floor underneath her heels. ¡°The eight men escorting you here were sent to make sure you didn¡¯t change your mind at some later date. You slew them all as they managed to bring you down, and you were all claimed by the System of magic which exists in this world.¡± Sir Bellas looked down at the floor. ¡°I cannot even rest in peace, can I?¡± he asked bitterly. ¡°You could,¡± Kris interrupted him coolly. ¡°It is a coward¡¯s way out, but if you are subjected to vivus, as were those men of Varicci¡¯s, you will be sent to your final fate, beyond the System¡¯s reach. ¡°But the remnants of House Bellenesse need you alive, Sir Bellas. There are no known blood heirs of the House left alive, but the Great Mother indicated that there would be no issue with your claiming the Duke¡¯s title and taking over the House.¡± She gave him a piercing gaze. ¡°The Duke¡¯s half-brother and Champion of the Bellenesse should have no such problems doing his duty to his people, should he?¡± That was news to me, and it explained a great deal in hindsight. Still, there was something I had to correct. ¡°Kris, Briggs, Sir Bellas is an NPC, not a Summons,¡± I told them quietly, earning a startled look from both of them. ¡°Summons are for souls of no consequence, trapped in their shells of mortality. Sir Bellas is himself. Briggs released an NPC, not a trapped soul.¡± Sir Bellas looked around at us. ¡°I do not know what that means...,¡± he finally said under our thoughtful gazes. ¡°It means you are flesh and blood, but the System had its hooks into you, and you could not die. You did not age, you did not have to eat, and when you died, you would be reborn through the System¡­ but you are Sir Bellas, not a chained soul wrapped in a seeming of ectoplasm to look like him.¡± ¡°You should know what Summons are, Sir Knight. The creatures who stayed there upon the landscape, waiting to do battle, dying and dissipating, only for another creature to appear where they fell? As opposed to the real creatures which wandered about as the living do¡­¡± Briggs prodded his memory. ¡°I¡­ do remember those. Passing strange it was, but soon enough just another strange feature in a strange land. So, if I can free myself of this System, I can find peace¡­¡± He straightened marginally at the thought. ¡°You get one chance to do so,¡± Princess Kristie informed him. Sir Bellas caught the Fist of Bellenesse as it was thrown to him, looking at the very irked face of the Imperial Princess who had hefted the heavy Weapon so casually. ¡°If you can defeat me in a duel, I will agree to allow you to go rushing off to your doom, which exists just outside the unnatural halls of this Dungeon we are in. ¡°If not, you will take up the Sword and mantle of the Duke of the Bellenesse, and return to lead them in your brother¡¯s place, as the man and knight you were raised to be, and who you raised others to be.¡± Quaver rose, blue-black steel, eye-watering perfection of make, by itself enough to make his eyes widen at the quality of her Weapon, and how it was a mate to the Hammer of the younger man next to him. Then the Blackfire Stones and Lost Light woke up in a burning spiral about her Sword, and she swept the ringing Blade through an ornate flourish that had his face flushing in recognition. ¡°I will take that challenge!¡± he shouted, raising the Fist of Bellenesse once again, the four flanges of it gleaming and ready. ¡°Prepare yourself, girl!¡± AF Chapter 382 – It’s all Downhill from Here. ¡°I was born ready, old man!¡± Princess Kristie shot back. She opened with a blurringly-fast thrust that Sir Bellas had to parry desperately to avoid, and the duel was on. The outcome wasn¡¯t in question, and that was without her wrongfooting him through the entire length of it. He recognized her sword style intimately, having been the primary instructor for Eleonora and her most frequent sparring partner. How could he not recognize it? Of course, Viamontian and Roulean fencing looked much deadlier when accented with Seven Dragons. He tried, of course. He supposedly had some reach, weight, and strength on her, and rapidly found out that all three were not true, due to speed, heavyfoot, and goddamn Rantha Hagdom, respectively. Due to him being unhelmed, she did not threaten his face, but Quaver was inhumanly fast, bit into his Armor like it was cheese, and she could take any hammering blows he tried crushing into her defense with only one hand. She never blinked once during the whole long duel, harrying him unmercifully, her footwork a familiar dance that was still executed with more speed and surety than he ever remembered seeing before. Mercy was active on Quaver, not an ability the inert and Hollow Fist had, but it did not mean he was not using his full strength, power, skill, and experience. She had him, and when she drove the adamantine edge of Quaver through the faux steel of his breastplate in a lightning finishing lunge that normally was aimed for the throat, he could only stare at the Blade buried in his chest with shock and awe. And he saw something in her eyes that made him shiver head to toe, just before he closed his eyes and fell down and off Quaver¡¯s length in a loud clattering. ¡°Get that ectoplasm off of him,¡± Kris sniffed, and I complied. Buckles parted, belts were opened, ties and straps parted, and the many parts of the full plate alternately fell off him or were tugged free of his limbs while he was unconscious under the many hands of Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis. From out of Briggs¡¯ Masspack rose a tightly-bundled set of gleaming blue-black Armor, agleam and ready to be donned. I was pretty sure that this suit had been ready for weeks, whenever the two of them made for these islands. It fit him pretty damn perfectly, too. ------ It was his second time waking up under my hands, although I used Healing Reserve initially to save at least some mana. He blinked again, looking up at me, then clasping his hands to his breastplate, finding both no wound there and that he was dressed in a very different suit of Armor than he¡¯d just had on. This time, it was the young woman who had defeated him so decisively who offered him a hand up. Staring at her, remembering what he had seen, he took the smaller hand, and found her absolutely as unyielding as her bigger man as she hauled him up as if she was made of metal, not flesh and bone. He saw his old armor scattered on the ground to the side. He recognized it, about to say something, then just held his tongue and stared at it. Piece by piece, it dissolved away and vanished, just like a passing dream, taking away the suit of armor that he had worn for¡­ how long? Forged for him alone at the request of his Duke, his brother¡­ ¡°Ectoplasm, the stuff of dreams, wrought in the image of metal,¡± Briggs sniffed disparagingly. ¡°Only stable as long as you wore it, and inferior in design, materials, and Enchantment.¡± He cracked his huge hand against Sir Bellas new blue-black, gleaming breastplate, and the knight was startled to find that he barely moved. I flicked up a Mirror so he could look at himself, and he almost did a double-take. Viamontian armor was brutal and practical, rather made to look intimidating. This Armor was made to look inspiring, with gold trim and Runemarks upon it, and the Silver Stag of Bellenesse prominent upon his chest. It did the job well. He looked towering and magnificent, a huge change in image from the dour and frankly cruel-looking armor he had worn before. ¡°I¡­ thank you, Lord Briggs, Your Highness,¡± he bowed slightly to them, knowing the value of this gift. Weapons and armor were hugely valued by any warrior, and he¡¯d never seen any Armor that was the equal of this¡­ save for the suit the great brute towering over him was wearing. ¡°Best smiths in all of Dereth right there,¡± I said on their behalf. ¡°Now, how committed are you to that Broken Right Hand technique you¡¯re using? Because using the Fist is fine against armored knights who might be using Item Magic or wearing magic Armor, but it is useless against basically anyone else you will be fighting. ¡°Also, now that you are free of the System, you will be finding that your skills at magic are hampered. You likely cannot cast above Gold right now.¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. He gave her a startled glance. ¡°I¡­ do not remember ever being able to Cast above Gold¡­¡± he said carefully. I looked at him, then at Briggs. ¡°Those were definitely Platinum spells he was throwing back there when I let him.¡± Briggs threw a thumb back down the very hot hallway there. ¡°Platinum spells?¡­¡± the great knight asked in amazement. ¡°Thirty years,¡± I reminded the big knight. ¡°Magic here in Dereth goes further up the scale than back in Ispar.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± Princess Kristie interrupted coolly, gesturing to the unconscious Fiuns on the Disks. ¡°They are waiting outside for us.¡± ¡°Why are you saving these beings?¡± Sir Bellas asked, frowning. ¡°Varicci murdered them all for the glands in their heads, which he used to tame his Eater hounds. They are all dreams caught in the System now, but with Commander Briggs here, their people can be reborn,¡± Kris informed him as we moved to the side of the room. Sir Bellas almost jumped in place when the stone flowed away in front of me like it was water, forming a narrow but comfortable hallway ahead of us. ¡°What, what kind of magic is this?¡± he asked, wide-eyed, as Briggs came in after me. Kris poked the knight, and he moved in ahead of her, after dutifully accepting the polished blue-black and gold helm she¡¯d prodded him with. His eyes lingered on her and her pale amethyst stare, so similar to another stare he¡¯d known, but he fit it on and hurried after the Imperial Princess who¡¯d passed him, while the Healer followed and dragged the first Fiun Disk after herself, and the rest followed after it. ¡°Matrix magic. Part of a completely different method and style of wielding magic than the Isparian style you grew up with. She took a simple spell to Shape Stone, expanded the duration to twenty-four hours, and then magnified the area that it affects and the range she can use it at immensely. ¡°I trust you can infer some of the applications to siege warfare and fortifications.¡± He could indeed. What stone wall could endure someone who could simply will the stone out of the way like this? It was surreal! She could bring down walls and castles like they were nothing¡­ or put them up with simply unbelievable speed! ¡°Where are we going, Your Highness?¡± ¡°We had to fight our way through some very impressive landscape spawns of Summons to reach your prison here. The company we are fighting with, including Knight-Captain Tyric du Pellonesse and his fellow knights of Silyun, is waiting for us outside. ¡°Rather than retrace the ridiculous path down to here, she is bringing us out onto the side of the mountain near where they are waiting.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Tyric, young, overeager Tyric, was the Knight-Captain of the warriors of the Bellenesse now? Truly he had been gone a very long time, if such a young and unproven warrior had risen to such a position¡­ ¡°What are they fighting?¡± ¡°The enslaved remnants of Varicci¡¯s forces who died in battle and came back as Summons, along with more crazed Fiuns, Eaters, and the Ruschk, all of whom are Summons slaved to the System. This is compounded by waves of very real Eaters who eat them all indiscriminately and continually, chewing through basically small armies of Summons constantly, chowing down on ectoplasm which allows them to grow, but does nothing to sate their hunger. ¡°You¡¯ll see it when we get outside.¡± ------- They actually walked for quite some distance. Sir Bellas vaguely remembered the Portal he¡¯d gone through had been on top of a mountain to the north of the Isle of Ruin, literally as far from the men of the House as Varicci¡¯s scum had been able to take him. They did seem to be moving slightly uphill, it was hard to tell. The Lady Magos Ryin, he¡¯d been informed was the mage¡¯s proper title, a woman of very important standing, finally stopped, the tunnel widening around her into a larger and larger circular room. She looked up, and everyone distinctly heard some tinking of steel on stone that sounded like it was right above them. The Lady Magos turned, and one wall of stone folded down into a perfectly serviceable set of stairs, ending in what looked to be a sheet of ice. Motes of icy light swirled around the Lady Magos¡¯ hand, and the ice also melted out of the way, admitting a rush of icy cold wind and gray sunlight that was still quite bright in the darkness they¡¯d been traveling in. The creak of armor and men afoot was audible outside as the Lady Magos headed up, and they followed. Sir Bellas came out on a mountain ridge, hundreds of feet above the surrounding valleys to either side of the mountain he was on. He didn¡¯t recognize anything he was looking at, it had been too long. What he did recognize was the fighting going on below. He stepped out of the way as he stared at the roiling knots of conflict below. Eaters. He¡¯d see a few of them leashed by the Corcosi before he went inside. Never in numbers like this. A horde of the ball-things with massive jaws balanced precariously on their stubby legs was chewing its way into a battle line of Viamontian Knights, who were giving as good as they could, but they were outnumbered and outflanked by the hundreds of Eaters. He wanted to take his Fist and go down there and join them in battle, but a glance around saw that none of the men around him were making the slightest move to do so, and not from apathy. Indeed, they had revulsion and hatred in their eyes, not directed solely at the Eaters or knights there, but both of them¡­ The Eaters ate the men. Completely. Chewed them into bits, and ate them, armor and all. There was basically nothing left behind of them, and the only blood and gore was the black filth that came from the Eaters themselves, which was eagerly scooped by the smallest of their numbers trailing behind the main horde, ripping up the dead Eaters with even more enthusiasm than the fallen knights, ruschk, penguins?!, Fiuns¡­ There were¡­ hundreds of the Summons just standing around down below, oblivious to the horde coming in on them, not taking up any defensive lines, pre-Casting spells, readying missile weapons, nothing. It was pure stupidity, insanity¡­ and just what the Summons he remembered had done. He looked at the men on the other side of the ridge, also looking down, and slowly strode over to join them. The same thing was happening down below on the other side, although it was further back in the valley there, the Eaters almost through the remnants, and an oddly open area of the valley had no Summons down there at all... AF Chapter 383 - Observations In only a couple minutes, the horde of Eaters was rampaging down the valley, heading for the dense line of Summons in the distance, a rolling tide of death and gluttony, chasing the spawns that had to wrap around the end of the mountains he could see ahead of them¡­ And which they wrapped around, chasing after the other Eater horde. Sir Bellas walked back slowly to the other side, and looked behind them. Behind, where the Summons were reappearing on the ice and snow steadily, as if they hadn¡¯t been massacred and eaten away minutes before. The next wave of Eaters would be coming for them. Again, and again... ¡°How long has this been going on?¡± he asked, his deep voice muted. ¡°We¡¯re not quite sure how long it took the real Eaters to multiply in numbers enough to start the process, once they stopped being killed. However, given the speed they multiply at, we figure the first real horde started the process a dozen years ago, and it¡¯s basically expanded ever since then,¡± Briggs replied, stepping up next to him and looking down at the mess somberly. ¡°Just one Eater can start the whole process rolling. They reproduce by eating. They don¡¯t need anything beyond that, and the Fiun idiot who designed them included enough of a magical nature that they can eat ectoplasm, so they can feed on Summons, here, where there is nothing to eat¡­ except ectoplasm gets absorbed immediately, and so doesn¡¯t sate their hunger in the slightest. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like it, but those Eaters down there are constantly starving, never sated.¡± Sir Bellas looked back at the unhelmed Viamontians in armor identical to the men below, watching the process in horrid fascination. ¡°And the ones you freed?¡± ¡°They are truly Summons, made completely of ectoplasm, slain souls trapped in shells spun of dreams, nothing more. They only way for them to become real is to start eating mortal food and drink, substituting the real for the dream. It is not a swift process, and will likely take them a year or more. But at some point, they will be of flesh and blood and bone once more, can have children, and will age and die. ¡°To be perfectly blunt, they are children of dream. They don¡¯t even recognize their own faces, it was unimportant when they were created. They carry the names they remember, but they are literally the first of their lines, without mother or father. Their only true relatives are one another. ¡°I deem them to be of House Nenati. Where they take their new House will be up to them, but they died in service to others. Living for themselves, that will be something different.¡± Sir Bellas exhaled harshly. ¡°And will you try to rescue more of these Summons?¡± he asked archly. ¡°When we can and it is prudent.¡± Briggs watched more respawns popping up in the same creature types, although locations changed somewhat. ¡°The majority are thralls of the Corcosi and its vassal Houses, and we merely send them on to their final fates, never to be re-Summoned for the amusement of the System. Then we Seal the Spawn Points, too, although that will not free the souls that remain behind. ¡°The ideal is to free all the trapped souls, until the only thing it spawns are facsimiles of what were once men, and not enslaved souls. But that is a thing of time and commitment, and we have a lot of pressure on those right now.¡± ¡°Thirty years¡­¡± the great knight mused, shaking his head. ¡°It¡­ does not seem like it, and yet it does.¡± ¡°You are not alone in your thoughts on this matter. But come, we¡¯re going to start down the mountain, and you¡¯re going to earn your first level in a Matrix Class.¡± Sir Bellas could not help but feel a twinge of excitement at the idea. ¡°Oh? And what is that, and why would I need it?¡± ¡°Because the Fist of Bellenesse is a fine Weapon against things of magic, but against everything else, you need a better weapon. And the Weapons we forge use Soul Essence to make them stronger. You will be wielding the Honor of the Bellenesse.¡± He swept out a hand at Kris, who was standing there leaning on a sword. Leaning on it, because the hilt of the Sword extended higher than her head. She presented the Greatsword to him with both hands, and rather suddenly everyone was in a circle around them, Viamontians and Isparians alike, even the Fiuns peeking in for a look. ¡°You will bear this as the Sword of the new Duke of the Bellenesse, and wield it not as a Fist, but as the knight and man of honor those here know you to be. Kneel and accept your Sword and your Station, Sir Bellas du Bellenesse, Duke of House Bellenesse!¡± Those pale violet eyes burned into his, and he could not deny the spirit he saw blazing behind them. He went down on one knee before her, and only after he did so did he remember that she was an Imperial Princess and it was totally acceptable for him to do so. He¡¯d have done the same were she born a swineherd, he knew. The Sword was presented to him, and although she put it in his hands lightly, he grunted at the weight of it, his eyes widening as he realized it was easily as heavy or heavier than the Fist, which was a Greatmace!Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. He marveled at the length of it, the perfection just of the scabbard, and the way his eyes didn¡¯t want to leave the hilt and sweeping basket hilt of its guard. With slow deliberateness, he pulled the long scabbard off of it silently, revealing a length of blue-black steel, so straight and true it hurt his eyes to see it, with Runes humming upon it, waiting to be awakened, and heavy, heavier than any Sword he¡¯d ever wielded made of steel, a weight that only a superhumanly strong person like himself would be able to wield. Those Runes had a pattern to them, they seemed to rearrange themselves before his eyes, as something written in a script that was older than humanity was nonetheless perfectly obvious to him. Honor. His very soul shook to read the Word, and all around him, fighting men and women were dropping to the ground as the Runes slowly lit up on it in bright White Light. Dreams of the powerful were nebulous. Fighting for and defending your people was virtuous. But what did truly noble men fight for, for themselves, when it was just them and their fellows, facing down a foe? They brought with them true Honor, and not some nebulous code of conduct set by those who thought themselves above such codes. Never had what honor meant to them shone so clearly as it did from the Sword in Sir Bellas¡¯ hands! Sir Bellas knew he would never defame the Sword in his hand, for it would not let him. Were he to fail it, it would fall from his grip forever! ¡°I will wield it well, my Lady,¡± he swore to her solemnly. ¡°Then rise. We go down the hill, to clear away the remnants of the Summons there, and possibly to free more Viamontians and Fiuns from the grip of the System. When the Eaters come again, we will make for the hardpoint there,¡± she pointed to the obvious pass leading out of the place, and a strange fortification in the middle of it, ¡°Linejump out to Eastwatch, and from there remove those we have saved to Mayoi for the Fiuns, and Baishi for the Nenati. ¡°The remnants of the House of Bellenesse await you in Baishi, Duke Bellenesse.¡± He did not know if he would ever feel comfortable with the title on his shoulders, but for now, there was nothing for it. Sir Bellas rose to his feet, turning to face the unhelmed Viamontian men and women who were also kneeling to him. ¡°I declare that any of House Nenati that wish to come to Baishi and reclaim their mortality there will always be welcome. I seek no service at arms from any who wish to do so. Return to the life that was taken from us. Spurn the slavery and the death of honor we were subjected to. ¡°If and when you reclaim your mortality, and can once again know what death is, come to me if you wish to serve as a warrior once more, and we shall see what we can do then.¡± ¡°BELLENESSE!¡± every Viamontian present roared back, and Sir Bellas bowed his head to them. He turned to Commander Briggs, who was still standing and had an approving look on his face. ¡°Commander?¡± he asked, recognizing quite well who was in charge here. Pale green eyes indicated approval. ¡°We¡¯re going to earn you and that Sword some appropriate Karma,¡± Briggs stated, picking up Endure and spinning the heavy Hammer in his fingers as if it were a drilling baton. ¡°Form up on me and Her Highness. We use Mercy to take down the Fiuns and Viamontians, and Wolfpacks to take the rest with speed. Watch and learn the basics, and then you¡¯ll get to play the tank for a team.¡± He turned and started down the ridgeline toward a scattered set of the oversized penguins down there waiting for them. ¡°Follow me.¡± His voice wasn¡¯t loud, but everyone heard it. Only the Viamontians and Fiuns held back, as they were in no way ready to survive multiple combats right now, and it was best for them to just watch and observe. -------- ¡°Master Oswald. I almost did not recognize you with your hair.¡± The new Duke Bellas had recognized him by his knifework, if not the heavy knife he was using. The Aluvian assassin could rip open an Eater with fantastic speed, having it kicking and squirming on the ground in mere seconds if another was distracting it. Knifework was not a skill much lauded in Viamont, but Aluvians were famous for their skill at it. Of course, the green cloak and leathers had been another huge clue. The bright emerald eyes hadn¡¯t changed much, either, although the bright white hair was very different from the short blond cut the man had borne back then. They were on Eastwatch, once a Viamontian outpost, now little more than a high point on a hill with many tumbled and gnawed stones about. The Lady Magos was organizing the Teleportation Ritual that would whisk the Fiuns away to Mayoi, greatly aided by the fact the aliens were competent spellcasters themselves. The Viamontians would be heading to the former Sho town of Baishi, a town surrounded by woodlands, not unlike the Silyun lands settled by the people of Bellenesse who had fled through the Portal. ¡°Duke Bellas,¡± the Aluvian replied, drawing himself up and looking the great knight in the eye. He was a full head shorter than the towering Viamontian, of course. ¡°It¡¯s been thirty years since I accepted that commission from your lord back then. I¡¯m a respected elder of one of the territories that endured the Fall, now. The King here has even offered to make me his Minister of Intelligence,¡± he smiled slightly. Duke Bellas didn¡¯t know what to think of that. He had actually wondered if the people here knew they had a skilled assassin in their midst. With the way Oswald was talking, it was plain he wasn¡¯t afraid of anyone listening in. ¡°That¡­ is indeed a great improvement in your status,¡± Bellas replied neutrally. ¡°I was informed that Varicci has perished at hands other than your own.¡± ¡°I have no personal means to verify that, but I am accepting it based on the character of those who so informed me. They are depressingly honest and straight-forward in many manners.¡± The assassin had lost none of his irreverence for Viamontian ways, that was certain, but Sir Bellas let it pass. ¡°It was a bloody price for cutting the rot out of our home. I am certain I will hear more on current matters, but there seems to be some consensus that you are expert on the politics raging across the islands on which we find ourselves.¡± He didn¡¯t miss the satisfied gleam in the eyes of the man who was now almost twice his age. ¡°Wish to hear more of the local history, good and bad, then? Well, then, this will take some time, but we¡¯ve got nothing but that for at least a little while.¡± A spiral of metal swirled out of the pack on his back, leaves lined up and melted into one of the floating Disks that seemed to be common equipment about now. ¡°Have a seat and start asking away, Your Grace¡­¡± AF Chapter 384 – The Heart of the Innocent There were a great many things everyone could be doing. I could be sitting around all day Energizing Diamond Golum Hearts and Resurrecting the Undead of Mayoi and Hebian-to. There were still people who needed arms, legs, or other dire wounds they¡¯d been living with for years regenerated. I could Energize limitless amounts of precious gems and metals. I could shape up homes, walls, buildings, and the like. I could start on a new Pyramid if I was so inclined. But, no. The very first thing I did was ask the Mick for his Sword, and then do a Divination at VI+1, looking for the soul of the person who had worn the wedding ring around the socket in its pommel. The Mick didn¡¯t know why I asked for his Sword, or why I was performing a Divination over it. However, when the Holo of Dereth popped up and zeroed on the stretch of road between the Obsidian Arches and Cragstone, he had to lift an eyebrow in confusion. Briggs was there. Kris was off with Master Oswald, chasing another short-term objective she¡¯d be back with soon enough, and then they¡¯d be off to scout ahead on Corcosi Island, the Island of the Red Auroch. Briggs took a look at the location, and exhaled softly. ¡°Lord Mick, do you remember what is at that location?¡± Our Black Aluvian Royal Warden frowned as he contemplated it. ¡°A Dungeon were there. I were in it a few times. Had something t¡¯ do with, ahhh, Weeping Weapons, things ye¡¯d call Human-slayers now. It were, it were staffed with¡­ cultists and bandits¡­¡± he trailed off as his eyes went wide, staring at me hard. I offered his Sword back to him. ¡°She¡¯s in there, somewhere.¡± His hand trembled just a touch as he reclaimed his Claymore, touching the ring in the pommel once as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ¡°The Heart o¡¯ the Innocent,¡± he said suddenly. ¡°They sacrificed the first mayor o¡¯ Ayan Baquar t¡¯ somethin¡¯ nasty t¡¯ make a Jewel ye could fit into an Isparian Blade an¡¯ make it into a Weeping Weapon, made t¡¯ kill other humans. Place was full o¡¯ bandits an¡¯ their cultist leaders, an¡¯ some tough bastiches among them there was.¡± ¡°She might be one of them, if they¡¯ve upgraded,¡± I told him. I tossed a thumb at Briggs. ¡°He¡¯s ready to release her with you. You ready to go?¡± His expression wavered a little bit. ¡°I should, I should tell Elysa¡­¡± ¡°I did before I Cast the spell. She said if it came up, go to your bride.¡± He took a really deep breath then, and dropped his head so we wouldn¡¯t see anything unsuitable for his tough, carefree, and manly image. If his nose was a little red, and he sniffed a bit too loud, nobody noticed. ¡°Right then.¡± He got to his feet as his voice and eyes steadied, and went past it to hard as steel. ¡°They were fuckers in life, an¡¯ they¡¯ll be fuckers in death. How close can you get us?¡± ¡°Kris and I ran by it in the river, so half to a quarter-mile.¡± He looked at me, then at Briggs. At the same moment, their boots rose up an inch off the ground. ¡°Then let¡¯s go.¡± --- The Teleport back down my Lived-Line did indeed drop us on the top of the River Esper coming south from the Olthoi North and past Holtburg. I was just using Footsteps of the Mage, while Briggs and the Mick came down on top of the water and stood there on its surface. The Mick looked east. ¡°Know what direction?¡± I was slightly amused. ¡°Put the Lost Light through the ring and follow it.¡± He blinked at me, then laid hand to his hilt and focused for just a moment. Light swirled up and off the Sparking Stone in Bunita¡¯s hilt, currently inactive, and little popping motes extended out past him, pointing west. He was off immediately. My Disk came up for me to step on, Briggs tapped it, and was off after the Mick at a dead run. --- Straight as an arrow, the Lost Light(ning) led us straight to the cliff bank. Neither man slowed down, racing right up the vertical side, doing experienced tuck and rolls at the top, and landed without issue as I simply rode in their wake, kept on my Disk by its attraction power. We could see the stone structure there at the edge of the woods, growing thick and strong up to a precise point, and then not an inch closer to the ancient road, only small shrubs and short grasses between us. That, and a whole bunch of drudges camped about the place. Drudges who bleated the alarm, and two of whom instantly sent spells racing into the sky in alarm.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. There was absolutely no mercy in me as the Shards tore through the entire company, and Briggs and the Mick were charging them with even less mercy in them. I lit up the entire batch of them with crisscrossing Shards, slaughtering half of them outright. The others had just enough time to raise their weapons as the two men came in and executed a Cleave Train completely through them all, wiping them all out in under fifteen seconds and spraying a lot of very real gore around. ¡°Not Summons,¡± the Mick declared, Lost Light incinerating the real gore on Bunita. ¡°Why would they be camping here?¡± ¡°There might be someone or someones inside they followed here, and knowing its a Dungeon with respawns, they don¡¯t want to go in themselves.¡± ¡°Who would¡­ ahhh. Freebooters, recruiting Summons for help or minions, aye?¡± The black death in his eyes only grew deeper. ¡°Our timing is both very good and very bad. There¡¯s a fair chance Bonecrunch is already on the way. At his speed, he¡¯ll be here within fifteen, twenty minutes tops.¡± ¡°Then we be wasting time!¡± Without an ounce of hesitation, he started towards the bunker that led into the earth. ¡°I¡¯m taking lead,¡± Briggs interrupted him, catching his arm. ¡°Traps, remember? Ryin, will she look like herself?¡± he asked me directly. The Mick blinked, not having considered that. ¡°She¡¯ll match genders and probably be Roulean, but none of the Viamontian Summons or the Fiuns have the same face and body that they once did,¡± I answered. ¡°We don¡¯t have enough data to know if they swap between Aluvian, Sho, or Gharu¡¯n, either.¡± ¡°So we need only worry about the women as far as being careful. Got it. What were the traps, Lord Mick? Mechanical or magical?¡± ¡°Mayhap both. Been fifteen years for upgrades, an¡¯ the chances the Freebooters not been using this place as a base be small, I be thinkin¡¯,¡± he replied coldly. ¡°Then in we go.¡± ------ There was immediately a locked door facing us, and it was trapped. Briggs expeditiously crushed the dart mechanism with the spike on Endure, then stood aside as the Mick picked the lock with the deft ease of a master. The first Vulning trap was just beyond. Endure crashed down and shattered the tile and the trap in one blow that nobody heard, because his Sound Bubble was up. Then we were past and heading down some stairs towards a wide open room ahead. There were a dozen human Summons in the room, four of them Casters, four of them Archers, and four Melees. Three of them were female. Bunita had been no Caster, so that reduced matters to two. The Lost Lightning, however, was pointing past this room. ¡°Any worth saving?¡± Briggs rumbled gently, looking at me. Detect Non-Good VI+1 was roving over them, looking deep, informing me of the nature of the souls and the persons within the Summoned. I shook my head. Briggs settled his helm into place, and his Shield grew to full size, an indication that he was taking the Archers and Casters here seriously. He led the way with a throw, bursting out of the darkness of the hallway and Endure a crackling bolt of lightning that hit one archer, blowing him back off his feet, then caromed off into the next archer and sent him flying as well, before streaking back to Briggs¡¯ hand in time to bat away one of the swordsmen with a bone-crunching, armor-crushing blow that hurled the man forty feet through the air into one of the mages, sending them both tumbling across the floor. The Mick split off to the side as the Summons focused on the Source and his nice wall of a shield. Without need to use a Shield, he was employing the Tsunami of Steel, flowing past his targets and leaving a solid wall of liquid lightning behind him in a ferociously dangerous blur of swordwork that exploded through swords, bows, and wands, destroying them before biting into the person wielding them and sending them reeling in literal shock at the speed and power of his assault. He and Briggs crossed paths without slowing, drawing long arcs of violence, and the reeling Summons who were not already dead could only look at what was coming for them with such devastating speed. Three bright green Shards hissed down the middle of the room, and the man in the hallway racing for the door out took all three square in his back. He stiffened instantly, limned in emerald fires, and crashed into the door stiffly before falling uncontrollably to the ground. I entered the chamber, going right down the middle of it without a worry as Briggs and the Mick finished their arcs. At pretty much the same moment, the two of them stopped, pivoted, and a bouncing ping-pong of a Greathammer and two Sword-Shardings lashed out, crackling wildly, and the two men who¡¯d somehow managed to survive the two passing by were blasted open by the impacts of the lightning. The paralyzed man was bleeding from a smashed nose as I put Crown under his chin and telekinetically lifted him off the ground by the contact point. ¡°You¡¯re real,¡± I informed him, but that only made his pupils dilate, because he was still paralyzed. ¡°Konrad Junipril. Ring a bell, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Aye. He¡¯s a toady of that leech MacTavish what headed up the Black Market on Freebooter,¡± the Mick called out coolly from the other room as he and Briggs drove Weapons of the Lost Light down on Spawn Points and made sure they¡¯d not be coughing up more enslaved souls here. ¡°Was a fair hand at ambushing merchants and putting knives into them so he could steal their goods, usually by outnumbering ¡®em three to one or more.¡± ¡°Deathstones back then, brigandry was just theft with a free trip back to freedom, right?¡± I looked into the watery blue eyes of the robber. I ran TK fingers in the convenient places, lifted the key to the door at his waist out of his purse, inserted it in the door behind me, and stepped out of the way. He took the Platinum Piercing Bolt right in the face, and it pretty much wiped away his head rather violently, spraying blood and brains over the hallway behind him. The Black on his soul indicated that he¡¯d done murder that didn¡¯t involve Deathstones, and quite a bit of it. I hadn¡¯t really meant to do that, but I wasn¡¯t too sorry it had happened. Vivus lit up on Crown and set his corpse en vivus as the green fires of the Emerald Shards faded away, having no effect on a dead man. Briggs strode up, Endure still in hand, and took a look at the headless corpse and the vivus eating away stains on the wall. ¡°Oops?¡± he asked fatalistically. ¡°I opened the door with the key. Didn¡¯t disarm the magical trap. Oops,¡± I agreed, shrugging. ¡°And now you know the Freebooters are indeed here.¡± ¡°Be no goods stacked around. They ain¡¯t using this place t¡¯ store shite¡­¡± ¡°The exit Portal is normally at the bottom of the Dungeon, so if they were going to set up a cross-Portal that¡¯s where the connection would be.¡± The Mick grunted, then held up an amulet one of the Casters had been wearing. We looked at the symbol of the Raven Hand. ¡°Never occurred to me it would be them, but another brainfart later¡­¡± he trailed off. AF Chapter 385 – Not-so Innocent Hearts Briggs plucked the Raven Hand symbol from the Mick¡¯s hand and held it to the face of Endure. We all watched the motes of Lost Lightning attack it and reduce it to charred bits quite quickly, reacting to something unclean inside the metal. ¡°No reason to keep those folks alive, either.¡± ¡°I hear that,¡± the Mick said plainly, and we proceeded on. --- Briggs led the way with his Tremblesense. All the mechanical traps were obvious to his Tremblesense because they were part of the walls and floor, and the magical sensors and results didn¡¯t mean much to his Source Sun. He calmly and brutally reduced all of them to scrap with single flicks of Endure which likely would have been audible throughout the Dungeon without his Sound Bubble up. The magical discharges fizzled against his Sun, but shone out enough to see where they were set up. A little tap of Endure, there was a nice crater a meter wide in the stone, and nothing intact was left behind us. We pressed forward, Briggs singularly unimpressed with the bandits and cultists we were running across¡­ and the living brigands who ran at the first sight of him, which was definitely the smart thing to do. They just couldn¡¯t outrun Seeking Emerald Shards, which were perfectly capable of following them around corners and the like. --- ¡°You know the names?¡± Briggs grunted as we looked out into the next room. Five each melee, Casters, archers, plus five people with custom armor and weapons. ¡°Aye, surprisingly enough. They all some reps in the unkind parts o¡¯ Society before they wound up here, an¡¯ they never left. Freebooter Council considered them useful and stupid diversions, them setting up a hideout here and working with the Raven Hand. I dinnae ken they be NPC¡¯s, but it be likely. They Assay with names, not as what. ¡°Torgrym the Magnificent. Blowhard egotistical guy who lives fer dueling others, thinks he¡¯s something great. Androth Salson, grimly practical merc. Itala the Knife, throatcutter an¡¯ assassin, rarely speaks. Li Fanli, the archer an¡¯ sniper of the lot. Den-ru Chang, kind o¡¯ the smartest of them, support Caster.¡± ¡°I gather they don¡¯t work together too well?¡± I asked. ¡°Den-ru will Vuln and Imperil. The rest will go right t¡¯ attacking. But none o¡¯ them are paramounts, like, so I don¡¯t think they be ready for what we be capable o¡¯ doing to ¡®em.¡± ¡°Well, they are best served taken by surprise, especially with all the support.¡± I lifted my hand. ¡°I¡¯m going full double Shardrays. They will all live through it, but you should be able to Cleave Train through them all and clear off the mercs and the like.¡± ¡°Negative on me lass?¡± the Mick asked, checking the direction of the motes coming off his Claymore¡¯s pommel quickly. They pointed sharply off to the right. ¡°Ah, she¡¯s in the sacrificial chamber, where most of the lot were gathered¡­¡± ¡°Go to it, Ryin,¡± Briggs rumbled, setting his feet to take the right side. The Mick set opposite him. I targeted everyone in my Detect Non-Good, no soul out there we wanted to salvage, including the spotter in the room at the back of this large chamber. Arcane Fusion, Shards flickering up, converging into a point of light, racing out, hitting a prism of will in midair and breaking apart into two Rays that diverged onto separate sides of the Formation out there. They hit the two shield-wielding Mercenary Summons there, drilling completely through them and nearly killing them on the spot, and then began to Chain. The Linejump swept past me and deposited me behind the watcher sitting bored at his post, jumping to his feet with a shout when two beams of coruscant light blasted left and right in front of him, connecting every single being in the chamber in front of him with a dancing, crisscrossing web of Light and Fires that had him flinging up his hands to protect his eyes from the sight of them. He turned around to flee, and stopped cold when he saw me there. Three Emerald Shards took him in the chest, and he dropped, stiff as a board. He was Raven Hand, too. There were cracks and crashes and shrieks of metal being cut by adamantine, oaths and curses that became screams cut off by the sound of meat being chopped through and bone cracking as bodies flew wildly. Two blurs crossed one another, and bodies dropped behind them, the NPC¡¯s with names falling in sprays of blood as they tried to recover from the Shardchains. Vivus crawled over them, and even their stoic curses and oaths of disbelief faltered as the vivus did its work. They weren¡¯t coming back from a System Respawn this time.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. They gasped and staggered and shook and bled out, and the vivus popped as whatever resurrection mechanic they were under faltered and lost them. The Mick and Briggs came strolling up, and I levered the guy on the ground up to face them firmly. I tilted him back so he could look up at Briggs, who looked down with those really intimidating pale green eyes of his. ¡°There a reason he¡¯s still alive?¡± he asked me calmly. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. Just had a feeling, based on his age, and the fact he¡¯s Brown.¡± ¡°Brown, huh.¡± He reached out, grabbed the young Sho¡¯s skull with his palm, and dissipated the green glow about the fellow¡¯s head. As the guy started to say something, Briggs clenched his skull lightly in warning, and he could only close his eyes and shut up instantly. ¡°You¡¯re wondering what Brown means. It means you¡¯re an animal. You act on instinct, you don¡¯t think about why you do stuff, you just obey your bosses, do what you¡¯re told, and look out for yourself and your mates. It¡¯s the Color of kids brainwashed all their lives who just ignore the why of what they do and go along because they don¡¯t care, they¡¯re too dumb, or they remain willfully ignorant. ¡°What it means here is you¡¯ve got a chance to do what is totally and completely the right thing, or just die with everyone else here.¡± Bone creaked as Briggs exerted just a touch more pressure on the cultist, his gaze unblinking. ¡°If you answer the questions truthfully, you get to run out of here, and maybe you won¡¯t die to Bonecrunch who is coming outside. If you lie or refuse, well, there¡¯s a Truthspeaker standing right here, and we¡¯ll just kill you, you¡¯ll die forever, no coming back with whatever Deathstone method Nuhmudira gave you,¡± the fellow¡¯s eyes bulged in disbelief at the name, ¡°and then we¡¯re going to go kill a whole lot of people. ¡°So, what¡¯s your answer going to be?¡± He stared at Briggs, then shifted his gaze over to the flat expression of the Mick, who looked exactly like someone about to slit his throat in passing. ¡°What, what do you want to know, sir?¡± he managed to squeak out. ¡°What living people are here, and how many of them,¡± Briggs stated in a voice like iron. ¡°Start talking. We don¡¯t have a lot of time before Bonecrunch shows.¡± He obviously didn¡¯t want to mess with the Butcher of Cragstone. ¡°Proctor Grammelin runs the supply room at the back of the Dungeon. He is assisted by¡­¡± ------ We all watched him shed any sign of his Raven Hand affiliation before taking off for the surface entrance. We¡¯d told him to take a side passage and wait for Bonecrusher to run by, rather than risk running into the slaughtering Prodigal Drudge. Whether he did so or not was up to him, but we¡¯d also told him that taking the road across the Obsidian Span to Arwic was probably a good way to rejoin real society¡­ With that, we headed down the hall to the ceremonial chamber where sacrifices and offerings to the patron of the Shadows by the Raven Hand took place. Sound Bubbles and Illusionary Walls made for great stealth takedowns in the antechamber to the ceremonial hall. I let Briggs and the Mick handle the light stuff while I walked past and out into the chamber while Invisible, gliding past the Summons there who had no reason to suspect I was there or even think Invisibility was possible. There she was, inside a Mercenary on the far side of the chamber, and even bearing a rapier. However, she looked like a southern Aluvian or Roulean now, with curly red-brown hair and hazel eyes, and even bore a shield and heavier armor. All ectoplasm, as it were, so immaterial. I sectioned off another area with Illusionary Wall, and Briggs and the Mick rolled out to bring down the two guards concealed by the image with coldly brutal efficiency. Neither Summons had much of a chance to fight back. ¡°She¡¯s on the far side of the chamber, upper level like us,¡± I told the Mick after entering their Bubbles, pointing her out to him, verified by the Motes from Bunita¡¯s pommel. He took a long and deep breath, while Briggs made sure to memorize her appearance. ¡°What¡¯s the play?¡± the Mick asked after a long and quiet moment. ¡°The only real folk are those two guards playing cards behind the altar. Everything else is programmed Summons. A Wall in front of the slits from that guardroom, and then more sectioning things off as we go. As long as no alarm is sounded and they can¡¯t hear or see combat, we can roll right along this and wipe them as we go. Ryin, I¡¯ll ask one spell to soften them up if there¡¯s more than two,¡± Briggs said instantly. ¡°Got it.¡± Unlike normal people, there were no conversations going on, call outs, shifting positions and patrols, or anything. Only the living did that, and the only living in range were the two men playing cards down there. ¡°Let me start with a Wall around those two twats down there and tie it off for continuity. Then I¡¯ll start sectioning and you can start taking them down. None of the Summons should react if the Walls drop and there¡¯s nothing there, as long as they aren¡¯t attacked themselves.¡± Both men nodded, and Briggs went on, ¡°First priority is getting Bunita out of here. Mick, when we take her, you immediately leave with her, no buts.¡± There was a brief moment of hesitation, but the Mick finally just rapped the breastplate of the bigger man and nodded. Briggs grinned grimly. ¡°Our secondary goal is to Seal the Portal they are no doubt using to get in and out of here, and then leave ourselves. How far away can you feel Bonecrusher coming?¡± I considered that, looking back towards the entryway. ¡°I¡¯ll know the moment he enters the Dungeon, certainly.¡± ¡°He can¡¯t be far away now. Let¡¯s get Bunita quick and clean. If we can run into the Portal room, Seal it, and ¡®port away while leaving an Interdiction behind, I¡¯ll be satisfied with the Drudge killing everything.¡± ¡°We Stealth in, then. I¡¯ll have to treat the room for Final Rest if you actually want them dead.¡± ¡°I totally do. I can smell the blood of drudges coming off that altar there. They¡¯ve been sacrificing them to their Patron.¡± ¡°Everyone concerned deserves what is going to happen to them,¡± I said, lifting my hand. ¡°Ready?¡± Hammer and Claymore rose, posed to take action. I brought up an Illusionary Wall in front of the next set of guards, a two-dimensional snapshot in each direction nigh-impossible to detect visually. The two men zipped on ahead of me, Sound Bubbles concealing all sound as they closed in on the two unaware Summons. There was a flurry of bladework and a single One Strike. The two Bandit Summons fell suddenly, surprise frozen on mostly blank features. Both men pivoted, eyes on the next pair of targets they could see through the Wall. I extended the next Wall along the edge of the walkway overlooking the main sacrificial chamber below, looped it around the next set and across the windows of the guardroom. Briggs and the Mick zipped into motion in perfect sync, the Waveskating Step matching longer strides perfectly as the two flashed in on the attack on the startled Summons who basically saw them appear out of nowhere. AF Chapter 386 – No Way Out for Some I stiffened as I felt all the magic around start to bend in a certain direction, like a spiderweb being pulled by an uncaring hand. ¡°Bonecrunch is here!¡± I whispered urgently. ¡°Mercy on your Sword! Charge and take her now!¡± Briggs ordered. We hadn¡¯t made it quite all the way around the room, but that was fine, we were close enough. The Arcane Fusion went off first, laying down a large Sound Bubble and another Illusionary Wall, making sure the fellows below still saw and heard nothing up here. The Fastcast Shards Spellwarped into Split Rays and flashed through the surviving guards up top here with dangerously powerful Chains, crits flashing and killing a couple of them outright, while they rest were staggered, burned, blinded, freezing, coated in rime, and smashed to the ground. Bunita¡¯s new form was pretty obvious for being untouched in the middle of them, totally shocked as everyone around her went down. Then a blur of darkness clad in crackling Lost Lightning was on her, batting through her rapier, cutting in crackling arcs that basically ignored the armor she was wearing, and overwhelmed any defense she had before it had a chance to come into being. The grimace on the Mick¡¯s face was ferociously pained. He could FEEL her inside there, screaming with every blow, even if she didn¡¯t recognize him yet. But he watched her drop as Mercy made killing blows merely temporary damage, smashing her into sleep so he could hurtle on to the other four guards that Briggs hadn¡¯t quite managed to butcher yet and drop them as well. I set up the Final Rest area over the sacrificial chamber at the bottom of the hall, moving over to stand by Bunita and flick three Darts into the three remaining guards to hurry things along. Ten seconds later, Briggs was back on top of Bunita, bending down to encircle her head in a huge hand and concentrate, his Source Aura pulsing once. Something shuddered and broke under his fist, and he pulled his hand away. The Mick knelt down, murmured two words as he grabbed her limp hand, and an unseen wind rippled and spirited him back along his Lived-Line. Briggs didn¡¯t hesitate, immediately driving for the edge of the walkway, and I followed after. The Summons kind of gawked as he came out of nowhere and arced through the air, then vanished from sight and sound before they could move. I, of course, was still Improved Invisible. They never saw me as I ghosted down after him. The two guards there ended up catching his feet in their faces, and Endure tapped one way, rebounded off as that one¡¯s head was driven into the stone wall with a wet crunch, and his buddy suffered the same fate. Then he was loping towards the back of the place, Sound Bubble keeping all the screams and crunches nice and contained, even the scrapes of his armor on the walls silent with Stealthslake at work. No guards in the hallway, and the ones at the end had absolutely no idea what was happening as a mountain of muscle and armor burst out of the hallway, moving way too fast, and there was no way to stop him. He saw the Portal structure as soon as I did. Instead of a free-standing circle of light, which the old Portals had been, this, like on Caul Island, was a structure of Runes in a complex pattern closer to a Teleportation Circle than anything else, the main difference being that it required mana to charge up, making it not much different from the Long Jumps I¡¯d made to get between islands over the water. I Cast the Analyze Object, and the entire structure of the Portal flashed into my Visual File and froze there. A second later Endure slammed into the thing and blew it apart in shards of stone. The Arcane Fusion for Final Rest and Delayed Interdiction went off. Briggs looked around at everyone as he ground to a halt, and they all stared back at him in alarm and disbelief as Endure roared back to his hand. All other activity stopped as everyone focused on him, and he looked right back, also taking note of the many, many crates, boxes, sacks, barrels, and containers of stuff just sitting around. Then I grabbed his arm and Dim-Doored out of there. Three seconds later the Delayed Interdiction went off, and nobody was using dimension-jumping to get anywhere out of there. Five seconds after that, a moving hole in the manafield burst into the ceremonial hall as all the Illusionary Walls naturally faded, and the Summons down below all turned to face it. ------ Briggs and I were outside and in the forest to the west of the road, leaning against trees and waiting silently, all magic dimmed, as I watched the moving locus of magic down below us. It had only taken about ten minutes for the frantic action below to stop completely. We could see the entry to the Dungeon about a quarter-mile from us, and definitely nobody had made it out of there¡­ although the drudge had chased a couple of people back towards the entry, and they hadn¡¯t made it outside.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°It doesn¡¯t look like he¡¯s randomly destroying the stockpile of stuff down below, which is nice to know. He¡¯s heading for the entryway.¡± We both moved to put trees between us and any visual link to the creature. ¡°You¡¯re going to love this.¡± I inclined my head at him. ¡°Twenty minutes ago, Kris and the full teams, backed by the Royal Guard, ¡®ported into Cragstone.¡± I hadn¡¯t been paying attention to that, held up my hand as the locus of magic moved outside. It paused there, surveying the area, maybe smelling the young man who¡¯d waited until Bonecrunch had passed and run urgently away, down to the river to lose his scent and trail and head upstream to the bridges, sticking to the reeds. There was no doubt the drudge could catch him, but was it worth it? Obviously not. The fact Bonecrunch had been there would get out, and the absolute destruction of everything blamed on him, since I had Geased the deserter to not breathe a word of our presence there. He could lie cheerfully, say he¡¯d been guarding up towards the front and ducked into a side passage as the Prodigal Drudge attacked, and then just ran for his life. Good cover story. Nobody was going to know different. Bonecrunch started loping back in the direction of home, probably satisfied with the day¡¯s events. ¡°Looks like he¡¯s heading home to get some drudges to loot the place, I¡¯d imagine,¡± Briggs half-smiled. ¡°And Cragstone is probably in flames with dead drudges everywhere?¡± ¡°They took out the sentries meant to signal him first, and are just wiping the rest. The burning starts when they mostly clear the town and environs of everything.¡± Running down fleeing squads of drudges or engaging in combat with the hunter teams. ¡°And he just left, and isn¡¯t in a hurry, with almost twenty miles to go. They¡¯ve got at least an hour.¡± A lot of drudges could die in an hour. ¡°I¡¯d like to track him, but he¡¯d probably notice. She brought enough Disks for everyone, and two Wagons. She can pull out of there, out towards the southwest, and get away from him before he gets home without a problem. If he follows, she¡¯ll wait for you to link up and make another Mass Teleport, get everyone out of there.¡± ¡°In the meantime, want to loot everything that¡¯s down there?¡± I asked him. It was a very rhetorical question. I /plugged into Kristie¡¯s link once I felt Bonecrunch was far enough away, and she was happy to /feed me the progress of their payback. Nobody wanted to fight the Drudge yet, including her, but soon! ----- -Hah, funny!- Kristie¡¯s /comment got our attention as she fed us a visual of a drudge in battered armor¡­ battered OLTHOI armor. Several other higher-Leveled drudges were also equipped with the stuff, and even some olthoi Weapons! -The drudges were using the Olthoi Hunter?- Briggs /asked in some disbelief, picking up stacks of boxes from Mass Disks and placing them down delicately. Bags and stuff unwieldy to handle was being handled by Zeks, a small army of Mass Phantasmal Servants was stacking things up on the Disks, and the soon-to-be Widened Tapestry on the ground was filling up nicely. I¡¯d already set up the first level of stone bands about it to reinforce it. -Obviously not very well, and not recently, at least these fellows. I¡¯m betting they had a bunch of stuff left from the olthoi invasion, and Bonecruncher must have stumbled across her when checking out his territory. He probably noted she was an NPC, realized what she did, and got a whole bunch of free armor and weapons that way. The wild tribes never talk about the drudges taking on olthoi deliberately, unless they are trying to expand their territory by claiming Summons.- Bonecrunch had managed to restore a lot of the Summons Points we¡¯d Sealed almost a year ago now, bringing back the big wide ring of Summoned Drudges around his fortress to form a new army. The problem was that he wasn¡¯t in Cragstone to command them, and so thousands of drudges were sitting around the fortress that was still Bonecrusher¡¯s forced home, doing nothing as warbands, hunting teams, and scavenging crews of drudges were being slaughtered within sight of them. The only settlement we had within running range of him was Eastham, and the place had never been claimed as drudge territory, probably because of the existence of Asheron¡¯s Island so close to it. Everywhere else was beyond his running range, with only the scant people in Rithwic potentially at risk¡­ and Rithwic was basically a base for shutting down landscape spawns, not a true settlement, either. Without his power backing him, the drudges didn¡¯t press out any further, but they¡¯d had a big territory to themselves because of him, so they¡¯d been happy. Now, it was all coming back to bite them in the ass, as they found out coordinated military efforts and dimension-hopping could easily coordinate things around the activity of their boss¡­ and their boss didn¡¯t seem to be able to Teleport home. Pity, that. Our stuff was stacking up nicely. ¡°How goes replicating that Portal Formation?¡± Briggs asked, three conversations going on as he nimbly built up stacks of crates already ten feet high. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t be an issue. She used aetherium instead of pyreal in it, however. It¡¯ll take more pyreal to do the same.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure we have enough. I¡¯ll have to look at our reserves,¡± he replied dryly, and I just smiled. ¡°Also, that crate in the corner has aetherium ore in it.¡± ¡°Shock! Horrors! They are dealing with the Gotrok and/or the virindi! Such vile and immoral opportunists! I can¡¯t believe they would do such a thing!¡± I lied very badly indeed, my voice ringing with sincerity a child could tell was utterly false. There was a lot of white spread about the room, and armor and weapons, many of them rent and broken, were scattered here and there. Bonecrunch had not been at all gentle, and had also mashed, crashed, and slashed a whole bunch of the boxes and crates here to see what was inside. I¡¯d had to waste some Mana on Mending them and the contents, but that was all good. It was all going away, and the drudges were going to take the blame for it. ¡°We can finally rebuild the Core of the Gold Primus, if that is true.¡± Pyreal just wasn¡¯t pure enough to channel the dimensional energies which the Gearknights relied on for motive power. ¡°They should still have almost all the research into the stuff in Freehold. I¡¯ll make sure it gets brought over to where we have him stashed. Would you or Kris like to do the forgework?¡± He almost rolled his eyes. ¡°QL 40 req, I take it?¡± ¡°At least,¡± I confirmed. ¡°He¡¯s a Boss-level Gearknight. Think Optimus Prime. Needs the best.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll do it. Just get me the blueprints ahead of time.¡± ¡°Will do!¡± Serendipity is so nice sometimes. AF Chapter 387 – Not a Bride Again, Yet It didn¡¯t take much Healing magic to get her to open her eyes, and that was the joy of Healing Wands, just taking a wee bit of skill with magic to activate, no need to follow all the strictures of Life Magic and whatnot. Her eyes blinked slowly, her system still mostly shocked, if working it off slowly as the temporary damage was eaten away at Level/hour speed. She¡¯d be utterly fine in three or four hours, tops. ¡°What? Where?¡± she started to splutter, sitting up abruptly from the bed she was in. Her eyes turned to the sole person in the room, waiting there silently for her. ¡°Mick?!¡± she blurted out in shock, staring at him, dressed so differently from what she last remembered¡­ and with silver suddenly appearing at his temples and in his beard. It looked quite distinguished, really, and there was an awful sadness and darkness in his eyes that she didn¡¯t remember, which eased only a little bit on seeing her wake up, although the roguish smile was almost exactly as she remembered it. He reached over to the top of the desk next to the bed, took up the mirror, and turned it around so she could look at herself. Her hands flew to her face in utter shock. ¡°My hair! My eyes! My face!¡± she exclaimed in disbelief. She held out her hands in front of her, flexing them in disbelief, then looked down at her chest. ¡°My bosom! Where did it all go?¡± she wailed, on the edge of hysteria. ¡°Ye died, me love,¡± her Mick said quietly, sliding down to his knees, reaching out and taking her hands with very strong hands. Stronger, if anything, then she remembered. They were very reassuring, those hands. Bunita found herself calming down, clutching at those hands for strength and steadiness, staring at the dark eyes looking up at her, eyes full of things she didn¡¯t know or recognize. ¡°I¡­ died? Truly died?¡± she repeated, in some disbelief. Things were a bit hazy after that time on the hill. ¡°What, what happened, my Mickles?¡± she asked, pulling him in, bending down to plunk her new forehead to his. There was no revulsion in his eyes at her face, although she did not think she was anywhere as beautiful as she had been. She did not think she could have borne the pain if her Mick had denied her right now¡­ ¡°Nae fifteen years ago, there were¡­ let¡¯s call it an event. A Fall. The ley lines surged with power, an¡¯ most every item with a mana storage capacity exploded. For ye, that meant that Necklace ye loved so well.¡± Her hands pulled free of his and went to her neck. Her Necklace had three Legendary Cantrips on it, plus two Mana-tier Protections! It was one of the finest magical items in the whole of Dereth! It was no longer around her neck, of course, although she had never taken it off. Her Mick nodded slowly to her. ¡°It killed ye, me love. Blew yer head right t¡¯ blood, brains, and bone shards in me arms. No trip to the Deathstones. Ye just died right there¡­ and so did many, many others.¡± Bunita swallowed at the image that presented. Almost ALL the magic items that were charged with mana stones had been destroyed? That, that was unthinkable! Wait! ¡°F-Fifteen years?¡± she stuttered in shock. ¡°Well, seventeen an¡¯ change, now.¡± She was utterly stunned. No wonder her Mick had silver in his hair now! Still, he did not look so old as that, but¡­ ¡°Deathstones? Not Lifestones?¡± came out despite herself, teasing him. ¡°Deathstones,¡± he corrected her with a bloody iron in his voice that wasn¡¯t aimed at her. ¡°Those folks what died first were recalled to the Deathstones, just as they exploded. Every soul o¡¯ them perished at the same moment, caught in that moment when the Stones be spinning a new body for ¡®em. Naught but bones all melted and melded together remained o¡¯ them for years an¡¯ years, in black pits fizzling with the energy o¡¯ the stones, spirits trapped an¡¯ wailing their fates, an¡¯ we couldnae free them.¡± Bunita took a deep breath into new lungs, picturing how horrifying that much death must have been. ¡°And now? Why am I back now, looking like this?¡± She gestured up and down, almost dismissively. ¡°I am not this woman¡­¡± ¡°Ye are now, because ye¡¯re not precisely a woman right now. Ye¡¯re a Summons,¡± her Mick told her softly. Bunita blinked. ¡°A¡­ Summons?¡± she asked uncertainly. ¡°The monsters that pop up in all those places, an¡¯ ye kill ¡®em, only for more t¡¯ pop up? Stand there through rain or snow, not eating ¡®r pissin¡¯ ¡®r kissin¡¯, attack anything in a stupid manner what comes by? ¡°Aye, the magic took yer soul an¡¯ stuffed it into one o¡¯ those Summons t¡¯ make its life easier. Ye¡¯re in the shell o¡¯ one o¡¯ the Mercenaries what were in the Heart o¡¯ Innocence Dungeon, if ye remember that place. Probably a reflection o¡¯ some o¡¯ the things ye did when younger that, like me, ye don¡¯t talk about.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Bunita found herself flushing slightly, but he didn¡¯t probe deeper, even when she nodded. ¡°Yes, I did things when I was younger and stupider and desperate. I knew Itala back then¡­¡± She looked at her hands again. ¡°What does it mean, being inside a Summons?¡± she asked uneasily. He rose, turned the chair he¡¯d been sitting in around so the back faced her, and sat down, crossing his arms atop it. ¡°It means ye¡¯re not truly made o¡¯ flesh an¡¯ bone right now. Ye¡¯re a Summons, made o¡¯ ectoplasm.¡± She opened her mouth, and he just held up a patient finger for her. ¡°Ye know how the monsters we killed be all fading away in a minute or two once dead. Blood, bones, body, armor, weapons all, save the loot they dropped¡­ which would also fade away if ye didna claim it. Just¡­ gone, like a dream?¡± She nodded slowly, remembering it happening so much, so often, it was just a thing that happened, much like how one¡¯s old body faded away when one was sent to the Life¡­ Deathstones. ¡°That¡¯s what ye are. If ye die now, the System o¡¯ Magic here takes ye again, mayhap sticks ye in another random shell lookin¡¯ like a random Isparian woman, mayhap keeps ye in some limbo until it do. ¡°I dinna know how many times ye¡¯ve been killed an¡¯ reborn as a Summons, me love, nor how long ye¡¯ve been in that one. Truth, no one knew the System was recycling the souls of the dead inside Summon shells until recent-like, or that we could break them from the System¡¯s control. ¡°When we did, we went looking for ye.¡± He reached around and drew a long dirk from a scabbard, the blade a metal she¡¯d never seen before, but wound about with spirals of color she most certainly had. She jumped in shock when the Dirk¡¯s blade suddenly expanded to over three feet long, and buried its point in the floor. Runes glittered along its length. Blackfire Jewels burned in its runnel. Lost Light spiraled about it, and glittering Elemental Stones glowed on its guard and pommel, waiting to be put into place. There was a snap and pop, and something came free from around the Prismatic Stone currently inset into the pommel. She recognized it instantly, how could she not? With a trembling hand she reached out and reclaimed her wedding ring from his fingers. There was no magic in it, no power, and her new ring fingers were too large for it. Still, there was no mistaking it for what it was, and she started to put it on her little finger resolutely. ¡°Dinnae do that,¡± her Mick said softly, and for a moment her heart plummeted. But the roguish smile was in place, the one she knew and could rely on. ¡°Our vows be until death did we part, aye? And ye died, me love, sure an¡¯ true, an¡¯ I buried ye fast on that hill in Mayoi, an¡¯ did visit yer grave every full moon an¡¯ talk with ye all night long fer years on years. I did mourn ye, an¡¯ I did turn that grief into a weapon against all the gods-be-damned things which set upon us an¡¯ tried to kill what the magic goin¡¯ crazy did not. ¡°Ye¡¯re not alive in the true sense right now, me love. Ye don¡¯t age. Ye don¡¯t need t¡¯ eat or drink or even sleep. If ye die, ye¡¯ll fade away like a dream. Ye be not the woman I married¡­ but ye be her soul, an¡¯ I¡¯ll wait for ye to be a woman again, I will.¡± Bunita¡¯s heart was doing flip-flops, thinking her Mick had found another in those long years, and she could hardly have blamed him, if what he said was true. Certainly he¡¯d never hurt for a lack of lovers¡­ but that was not the case here. ¡°What, what do you mean?¡± she asked, trying not to be distracted by the swirling presence of the fantastic Claymore in front of her. She¡¯d never seen the like, not in any Quest Weapon or loot drop! The Sword flipped back to the size of a Dirk and spun around his hand before being sheathed at the back of his belt. He scooted the chair forward so he could take her hands again, strong and reassuring once more. ¡°Me love, ye can become real again. Yer body does all the things a living one should. Ye don¡¯t need t¡¯ eat, but if ye do, it¡¯ll take what ye eat, an¡¯ turn it inta flesh an¡¯ blood an¡¯ bone once more, bit by bit, piece by piece. Ye¡¯ll trade the fruits an¡¯ labors of the land into flesh an¡¯ bone once more. Ye¡¯ll start t¡¯ age, ye¡¯ll need t¡¯ sleep once more¡­ an¡¯ ye kin have children, if ye dare.¡± She flushed deeply at the question. ¡°I¡­ have to eat?¡± she repeated. ¡°Aye. Though ye be not hungry. Every day, eat an¡¯ drink, like a normal person or more, turn the stuff o¡¯ dreams to the stuff o¡¯ the living, an¡¯ become real once more.¡± That didn¡¯t sound so bad. ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean that we can¡¯t enjoy ourselves, does it?¡± His smile turned somber. ¡°Nay, lass. We already know that the Summons got no drive for the bed, either.¡± He began to massage her hands as he had in the past¡­ and her own face began to fall as the excited little thrills at his careful touch and strength and gentleness utterly failed to materialize. She, she didn¡¯t want him like she should. She swallowed. She had few inhibitions about having sex, enjoying it for the sport and pleasure it was, despite knowing that a trip to the Life¡­ Deathstone, aye, so appropriate, would spell the end for any child in a womb, too. But to have no desire at all? She felt¡­ like a thing, not a woman! ¡°So, all Summons are virgins?¡± she managed to ask, with some spirit. His face lit right up at her reply, such a delight to see. ¡°Me love, when ye can sleep in me arms, when ye want to hold me in yer arms, when the monthly bleeding be a pain in the arse again, an¡¯ ye have t¡¯ piss an¡¯ crap an¡¯ stuff yer face or starve as we mere mortals do, I¡¯ll take ye t¡¯ wife again, as be right an¡¯ proper.¡± She didn¡¯t know when she started crying, but the tears were coming down now. ¡°I¡¯m, I¡¯m not as pretty as I was, my Mickles¡­¡± A hand came up to trace the tears on her cheek, sad and sure and gentle in a way she¡¯d never really known him to be. ¡°Me love, I took ye t¡¯ be me bride for yer fire, not fer yer hair an¡¯ hips an¡¯ lips an¡¯ whatnot. Could¡¯ve had me fill o¡¯ lovely ladies these past years, but those what compared to me Bunita? Children an¡¯ fragile things what never crawled through the muck o¡¯ life an¡¯ came through to the other side. ¡°Me love, I waited for ye then, an¡¯ I¡¯ll wait for ye now, have ye no fear.¡± She wanted to want to kiss him so bad it was making her heart race, but there was nothing arousing her at all. She just didn¡¯t want him that way right now. But she could get that back! ¡°Then my first meal is going to be a really good steak!¡± she declared fiercely to him, and her Mickles laughed aloud, and helped her to her new feet. AF Chapter 388 – Bonecrunch Maddening! Maddening! The Prodigal Drudge raced across the landscape as quickly as he could, sparkles of his power swirling in his wake as he drove forward. The air itself seemed more like water at this speed, slowing him down, holding him back from revenge, from vengeance! Black smoke built a pillar into the sky behind him, visible for miles and miles. The entire city of drudges, his kingdom, was burning, blazing, soaked in oil and forming a pyre for every drudge that remained within it, the pillar a beacon for all those slaughtered in the countryside of the return of the Isparians! He didn¡¯t know how many had died, but it was plain that years of work building up his little kingdom, of drawing in wild tribes with a promise of safety, protecting them with his own might and the ring of Summoned spirits around his lands, had been dealt a bloody blow. As he had once treated the Isparians, slaughtering them and driving them from the lands he deemed were his, so they had come back and delivered death to the lesser of his people who believed in him. Cubs, females, males, warriors, shamans¡­ they¡¯d all died, as he¡¯d killed and even allowed to be eaten so many of the Isparians. It had actually been a directed tactic. When Isparians and wild drudges met, the Isparians attacked to kill. There was no hesitation, no mercy, no recognition of other tribes. They were attacked and they were slaughtered because of what Bonecrunch had done. Naturally that had driven those tribes to him for protection, and so he had built his kingdom. Nobody had dared to trespass on his lands without dying, especially after he dealt with the invasion of the olthoi. The bugs had swarmed in their numbers, trying to overcome his army of Summons, dare the walls of his fortress, drive his people forth. His people were not brave, he knew, and so did the olthoi. But Summons obeyed orders, they did not flee. And under his command, they had massed magic enough to tear into the olthoi, had stalwart warriors enough to slow them down, and what mere olthoi, Queen Matron or no, could compare to him? He had killed them all, and the olthoi had never come again in such numbers, running away whenever he inspected the borders of his realm. The one wandering Tremendous Monuga, towering above many of the trees, had been another challenger, but its size meant nothing to the Prodigal Drudge. He had ripped and torn at his far bigger opponent until it wailed and fled, massive legs moving faster than he could chase and bring it down. He had wanted to drag it back and make a great feast for his people of its corpse, mount its skull beside that of the Matron Queen at the gates of his fortress, but no. The giant thing had fled, and had not dared to return. Virindi, shadows, and undead had menaced his realm from time to time. He had killed the masters who had made him without hesitation. The shadows would corrupt and Taint his people, and so he killed them as well. The undead whispered lies and smelled of food gone to cold rot, and he slaughtered them, too. With him here, the drudges needed nobody. Without their precious magic and enchanted items, the Isparians were no match for him, proven when they¡¯d died to their own exploding toys, and had none of their magic or spells or anything available to fight him when he came for them. They¡¯d not been able to truly kill him, but without their big shiny blue rocks, when he killed them, they died forever, and formed a bloody carpet for the ascent of his people! Even when he could go no further from his fortress, still bound there by what magic remained to the Isparians, other forces had appeared to chase them away and continue the killing, further crippling them and leaving his kingdom to grow. To grow, until they had returned. The remembrance of what they had done still gnawed at him, made only worse by this latest catastrophe. Burning his Matron Queen trophy statue. Slaughtering the town on one of the coldest nights of the year as they huddled together, few standing guard. Slaying hundreds of his Summons and Sealing the Spawn Points, things he had to use much time and effort to pry back open and get to working again, restoring his ever-vigilant army to full strength. The entire surviving population should have fled to his fortress by now, now that the Isparians had fled. He had seen them fleeing to the west, and he had given chase with energy and enthusiasm, certain he could kill them all if he could but catch them¡­ Except, he hadn¡¯t been able to catch them. He had been able to close in on them, not noticed in the trees until he was a mere hundred yards away and the smell of them filled his nose. Then the floating Wagons and Disks packed with so many of them had picked up speed, racing him, keeping out of his grip as they tore through the forest with speed and surety, giving up no further ground to him. Whoever or whatever was leading them, pulling them along, had great speed and stamina. Despite his best efforts, he had not been able to close in on them any further.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. And some of them were shooting at him. He actually recognized one of them. Their Queen! Tall and golden-haired, firm and resolute. She had been among the bands that had invaded his fortress back then, come to test him, kill him with their magical items and spells layered on spells, using trickery and temporary Buffs to be able to actually harm him, and numbers to overwhelm him as they sat safe behind that damnable Wall of fiery force and shot him down. When that Wall was lost, they died, but few made that mistake more than once. Aye, he recognized her, and moreso, he acknowledged who she was when the first shining arrow she shot at him sank into his shoulder and almost exploded with the damage it did. Nor did the injury start to automatically heal itself as it should have. There was an annoying magic clinging to the injury, and it wouldn¡¯t regenerate. He could get rid of it easily, but that would mean stopping to do so, and falling behind. So he kept chasing, and the arrows kept coming in. Some he could swerve to avoid. Some he batted aside. But he was running at full speed, there was only so much he could do without falling back, and that meant the arrows kept hitting him, with incredible power behind them. True, they hadn¡¯t managed to weaken his steely skin or make him Vulnerable to any damage, but the arrows were still hitting incredibly hard! The mounting pinpricks only made him angrier, and with a burst of rage, he managed to close within fifty yards. The number of arrows slamming into him doubled at the closer range, launched with such speed and skill were they, and he was unable to react in time to them. --- Half! Half his massive Health pool was gone to these insipid arrows! Bonecrunch finally realized he needed to Dispel the magic on his injuries so he could at least Heal back what he was losing. With three powerful steps, he slid to a halt, creating a furrow in the long grasses of the hills they were streaking through, grinding to a stop. The Isparians continued on ahead, and were rapidly out of shooting range. He stared after them as he worked the magic to Dispel the Curse-like magic clinging to him, washing it away and allowing his immense physical and magical vitality to begin restoring him to full strength. Indeed, without that magic hampering him, he could have chased them all the way to the edge of his range with little issue! An arrow came arcing in with profound accuracy and detonated against his chest, nearly blowing him off his feet. His enhanced vision saw the Queen Isparian smiling as she drew another arrow from her quiver, while those around her cheered the shot. The Isparians had come to a halt a hundred yards away, and were shooting at him while he Cast! Two more arrows hit his leg and shoulder, and the Prodigal Drudge, outraged over their effrontery and the taunting insult to his status and power, charged after them in a fury. Smoothly and quickly, the caravan of floating Disks and Wagons picked up speed and kept their distance from him once again. --- The edge of his range was coming up. He could feel it looming up before him, pulling at his soul, dragging him back towards the Wards in the fortress that he was bound to and still could not escape, despite all these years. He gnashed his teeth in helpless frustration. There they were, still shooting at him, still running away, and he could not catch them! It was obvious they were going to get away. The stamina of whoever was pulling them had not lagged in the slightest. They were going to escape after running so many miles, taunting and teasing him, not daring his claws, and he¡¯d gained nothing on them. So many miles. So many miles away from his people. Bonecrunch the Prodigal Drudge skidded to a halt with one step, clawing at the dirt to stop himself, his large eyes threatening to pop out of his skull. This time, his course took him behind a rock, even as he watched the Isparians rapidly slow down, too. Automatically he Dispelled the Curse effect again, this time following it with the most potent Healing magic that he could, a terrible foreboding rising in his mind. The most recent slaughter of his people had taken place when he was gone for only an hour or so. It had probably not even begun until he was well on his way, and simply had not hurried back, pleased at the slaughter of the arrogant Isparians daring to come so close to his lands. Now, now he was at the end of his range, a full hour¡¯s run away over rough terrain¡­ and they knew where he was the whole time. They had lured him away from his people when he needed to be protecting them the most, and he had fallen for the bait! Taunted, teasing, stinging him, making sure he chased them as long as he could! And now, he needed an entire hour to make it back to his people! A terrible premonition filled him as the caravan of Isparians in front of him shifted aside, and a female of the species, dark-haired, scarred on one side of her face, came gliding through with steps that covered twice the length of her strides and did not touch the ground, the very grass parting in front of her. The one towing them all. Their eyes met across a hundred paces of distance, dark pits of large eyes on a half-transparent body meeting pale violet filled with killing intent. She smiled, and he saw eight canines in a deadly, lethal, cheerfully murderous row of white that made his sparking and energized blood suddenly go cold. She lifted a finger and pointed behind him, then slowly and clearly drew her other finger across her throat. Her meaning could not have been more clear. He knew how incredibly fast and deadly Isparians could slay, back when they had their magic. Clearly they had magic and power again! With a keening cry, the Prodigal Drudge turned and bolted back the way he¡¯d come. Faster even than when he¡¯d been chasing in a rage. His people! His people!¡­ ======== The fortress was burning. The great ring of his Summoned army, the grounds where they had been, was now stained with white. The balloons were gone from the sky. The center of the fortress was a pit, where once had stood buildings and the upper floors of the Dungeon that was his cage and leash. Every building and wall was ablaze. He could smell burning drudge on the wind, and knew nothing living remained behind here. The Prodigal Drudge tilted his head back and shrieked his hatred and vengeance at the skies. Skies where he saw a murderous smile with eight canines looking back at him. She would be coming for him. With friends, with magic, as they¡¯d come long ago. Bonecrunch screamed again in rage and fear, knowing he could do nothing but wait for the Isparians to return, and finish the cycle of what he had begun long ago. AF Chapter 389 – Silent Silyun It had been merciless, it had been cathartic. Return the honor you have been given. There were precious few drudges in the south of Osteth. There hadn¡¯t been that many to begin with, as they were the weakest of the wild tribes. But they were also the only tribe that Isparian scouts would attack without mercy, killing them all, with the survivors fleeing north to Bonecrunch¡¯s protection. The tales of watching drudges feast upon the dead in gory celebration had endured all this time. The Queen Mother had seen such things herself during the withdrawal, the drudges triumphant and flagrant in their displays during their victory. Not a drudge in Cragstone or the fortress nearby was left alive after Princess Kristie lured him away. Briggs and King Borelean had promptly taken the opportunity to hit them with the main force of their armies, especially since the drudges had conveniently gathered themselves in the fortress, making it easy to find them. Oh, the drudges fought, there was no doubt about that. But they were a horde, not an army, and their master and protector was on a wild-goose chase heading off into the distance. They didn¡¯t have the discipline to fight or Cast together the way they needed to in order to present a threat, and a LOT of Isparians got in on this, including virtually all the paramounts of Freehold. Vengeance was best served cold, and so it was delivered to them. The companies swept the scattered ring of drudges in knots and teams, taking them down at near-runs, wiping them off the landscape and making sure they didn¡¯t return. The elites, including me, made for the fortress, which had the most powerful Summons protecting it, and the remainder of the living population. We killed everything. I was busy severing the ley line connections to the wooden walls, rendering them vulnerable to flames, and putting up Walls of Fire to ignite everything. The melee teams went into the Dungeon, came out steaming with vivus and grim expressions on their faces, and told me to collapse the upper levels down. The bottom had to stay intact, because that was the area that Bonecrunch was bound to, and had to return to. So I collapsed the center of the fortress, burying the corpses of the drudges under dirt and stone, and making of this place the wreck and ruin the Isparians had been grinding their teeth to make happen for most of twenty years, now. There were forty-three deaths, most of them mended with Cure Mortal Wounds/Revivify on the spot, some that had to be carried away and brought back the expensive way. We¡¯d killed at least five thousand living drudges today, and at least that number of Summons, too. Captain Burnja, a rare drudge NPC down at the very bottom of the place, wasn¡¯t coming back. Briggs had gone down there and killed every drudge that was a member of Bonecrunch¡¯s personal cohort, making sure they didn¡¯t come back, either. Bonecrunch couldn¡¯t be in all places at once, he was a barbaric idiot, and we¡¯d punished him for it. Now, the Prodigal Drudge was all alone¡­ ============= There was a lot of red on the horizon, and it wasn¡¯t from the dawn or dusk. Corcosi Island, once a verdant and fairly well-developed place populated with the fields and villages of the House Corcosi army¡¯s families and vassals, was now as bleak and barren a place as the lands of Silyun had been, if not worse because there had been little in the way of forests after the Viamontians had scoured it clean of wood for buildings and fences and spear-hafts, shields, wagons, and arrows. Never let a little ecological catastrophe get in the way of making war, after all. The Eaters going wild had consumed everything, and they still did. Any spots of green that managed to rise anywhere became targets for the creatures wobbling around the landscape in their hordes and clusters, moving from Summons to Summons in the wild areas where there was still something to eat, occasionally following their noses south to where the city of Sanamar¡¯s high walls yet loomed. There they could smell living things behind more walls of stone, things raised repeatedly to expand the territory to grow food and deny them¡­ and also repeatedly torn down, if they didn¡¯t have ley line reinforcement, which most of them did not. Not torn down by Eaters, of course. Eaters could gang up to gnaw down a watchtower or the thin wall of a domicile without too much problem, but thick curtain walls would hold them at bay, their only hope of getting past them being stacking up on one another high enough to overrun such things. But there was another force that wandered the Hlaetians, mostly this island, that could take down any wall not reinforced by the ley lines. The Red Bull and the Mad Cow. We had to go overland in force, because Invisibility wasn¡¯t working to avoid them and the Eaters ran around in hordes of at least a hundred, ranging up to a thousand in areas with lots of Summons. The cycling and growth of the Eaters here wasn¡¯t quite as fast as on the Isle of Ruin, but the less-powerful creatures didn¡¯t kill as many of the Eaters, either, resulting in numbers growing too high and eventually heading like lemmings out to the sea¡­ or perhaps being stomped into mush and grazed on by the two massive bovines.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Thus the overland trip from the Keep of Karlun was not without incident, as we still encountered an Eater horde as we made our way to Silyun, creating a path clear of Summons as we did so, but not seeking to wipe them all. The Eaters would have to help us rebuild this place, in the end, but first there were two other problems to take care of: the two titanic bovines and Varicci II, still King in Sanamar. Not in that order, of course. We weren¡¯t going to take down the two bovines and leave him in the clear, no, no. He was going to go down first. Thus we made the overland trek from the Fortress to Silyun. It wasn¡¯t that we expected to find anything intact there, and we didn¡¯t. The wooden buildings were eaten away, anything made of stone had been rooted up and overturned, looking for food¡­ many, many times, by how spread out the stones were, and how broken and gnawed the statues were. No, the reason we did it was that Silyun had a Deathstone, and a Deathstone Pit to clear away. --- Kris was looking around with a strange expression. ¡°Trying to remember what it looked like?¡± I asked her softly. The Silyun Knights, all of them now bearing Swords of Lost Light with Elemental, Prismatic, and Blackfire Stones, as well as new suits of adamantine heavy Armor, were all kneeling and paying homage to the people who¡¯d once dwelled here, the grief on their faces plain to see as they looked around silently and remembered what had been described as a fairly idyllic and lovely sylvan village. We could see the edge of the Keep on the horizon here, but they¡¯d never made it back here in a generation because of the Eaters in the way. The Eaters had swarmed over the landscape, devouring everything, and reproduced so fast that within a month of the Fall it was a death sentence to leave the Keep beyond sprinting range to get back to it. They¡¯d made a couple attempts to build walls to keep out the Eaters and plant some gardens. The two great bovines had casually wandered through, knocked holes in the walls, eaten out the laboriously planted gardens and fields while the distraught Viamontians looked on, exited through new holes, and the Eaters had swarmed in to feed on the rest, right down to the dirt and stone. There had been no more attempts to plant gardens. ¡°It was pretty rough back then, but it was coming around. More like a summer vacation village than a fortified holding, of course, as we couldn¡¯t risk holding much ground they could attack. Concealed in the trees and hard to find was the general idea. I have no recollections of it developed like the survivors remember, although I do remember the Deathstone.¡± Our eyes fell on the pit of melded bones and screaming spirits, now misting away and their mournful cries fading into restful and grateful peace. Tellingly, there were absolutely no non-Isparian remains among those who had died at this stone, and without a doubt the vast majority of them were Viamontian, especially the children. ¡°And without the trees, this is the only point of reference.¡± Actually, the fastest way for us to find the place was for me to Cast Eagle¡¯s Vantage and look for the Deathpit from far above, as there were almost no reference points but the general direction west of the Keep of Karlun. ¡°It was a beautiful land, Ryin. If you ignored the lethal monsters sitting around.¡± ¡°No Eaters around back then, I gather?¡± ¡°No. The Eaters were all on the northern islands, cut off by the sea. Varicci brought them over to be attack dogs, afterwards, and naturally a whole bunch of them got away. The Summons started to change about then, and that¡¯s also when Viamontian knights started popping up on the Summons, too.¡± ¡°Interesting when humans start becoming the monsters, isn¡¯t it.¡± ¡°Fucking magic System here,¡± Kris snorted. ¡°Keeps life interesting, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s one screwed-up way of looking at it. Thanks for coming, by the way. I know you have a dozen things you want to do that are more productive.¡± ¡°It¡¯s fine. But we¡¯re going to Ulgrim¡¯s Island when this is over, and Mount Lethe.¡± Her fingers went to Quaver¡¯s hilt. ¡°The second flame, right. The third flame is on Aerlinthe Island.¡± ¡°And the Radiant Flame on the Dark Isle. Happily we don¡¯t have to jump through all the hoops the Mick talks about and can just run straight to Vissidal and the Dark Isle directly, although the freestanding Portal to them would have been convenient. Speaking of which¡­ It takes two hundred goldweight of pyreal to make a one-way Portal to somewhere, but only a day of Infusing.¡± ¡°That¡¯s insanely expensive and pocket change at the same time. Especially if it only takes one day to whip up,¡± she nodded. ¡°QL 40 or something?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going higher, but that¡¯s about what it was made at.¡± I flicked the plans from Analyze Object over to her, and she surveyed them with a crafter¡¯s experienced eye. ¡°Huh. Change the Rune structure properly, and I could make something like that,¡± she said after a moment of analysis, narrowing her eyes. ¡°Gromnie blood. Huh.¡± ¡°Blood of the local dragons, call it. And Nuhmudira is known to employ Blood Magic.¡± I didn¡¯t keep the chill out of my voice. ¡°Blood-infused aetherium. Woman seriously has no limits to what she¡¯ll try out. Probably believes her own hype, too,¡± Kris sneered. ¡°Where do they want you to make the first Portals from and to?¡± ¡°Actually, the first thing I have to do is go through all of the Vissidal Islands looking for the Portal conduits, now that I know what they look like.¡± She gave me a look, then clicked her tongue. ¡°The undead and the shades have concealed Portals somewhere on the island. It¡¯s how they keep coming back to the places¡­¡± ¡°They definitely aren¡¯t walking across the sea floor,¡± I agreed. ¡°Can¡¯t put Portals somewhere an enemy can easily capture, at least not without auto-destructs built into it.¡± ¡°Right. Highway right into civilian locations. I don¡¯t know how they survived with all the Town Portals leading right into all the settlements in the past. It was a great innovation, binding the whole kingdom together, sure. But one person tying to the Portal meant an army could invade effortlessly.¡± ¡°There¡¯s a reason those spells don¡¯t exist on Ispar.¡± ¡°Damn good thing, or we¡¯d all be speaking Viamontian or something. Plenty of war mages among the royals.¡± ¡°Lived-lines, Teleports, and personal travels, put in your time like everyone else. King Borelean wants an outgoing Portal to Mayoi, and then to Hebian-to, and between them and Fort Overlook. We¡¯ll look at other locations once the security situation is better developed. Might have outgoing for dispatches, but not returns.¡± ¡°Understandable.¡± She looked west. ¡°Ready to move out?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± AF Chapter 390 - The Island of the Red Auroch Lotila Island was completely ignored for now. It was as ravaged and bare as Silyun and Corcosi Island itself, and there was precious little to see there, although we knew there were mines located on the island which had supplied Varicci with iron for his war machine. No, it was basically a straight shot to the southeast, down along the inlet running north up through the island that we¡¯d come up getting to Karkun¡¯s Keep, and then across the shallow waters that led over to the main island settled by the royalist survivors of Viamont. Because it was easier, we didn¡¯t go overland, choosing instead to clear away the shore spawns and stick close to the water. These were generally lightly populated and so didn¡¯t draw the Eaters in quite so much, with the result that we only ran into one group of Eaters we couldn¡¯t avoid, and it was only about two hundred strong, smaller Eaters clearly working less densely Summoned areas. I whipped up a hardpoint to fight from, and they were all slaughtered in about ten minutes of continuous coordinated effort, everyone knowing what to do smoothly at this point. Sanamar proper stood at the end of a high bay, a place that could eventually be developed into a proper shipyard and port if they ever managed to figure out a way for boats to survive the local oceans. The Royal Castle was raised at the end of the long promontory and ridge-line that overlooked and shielded the shallow bay from the worst of stormy weather, the shallow waters there actually supplying most of the surviving fish for the people. It turned out the two titanic cattle didn¡¯t like venturing out into the water, as there was nothing worthwhile for them to eat out there. As a result, the Viamontians had been able to build breakwalls down and out into the water, tall enough to keep away the Eaters who couldn¡¯t swim for beans, covering enough area to allow them to fish. The boatdocks and paths up and down were too narrow for Eaters to navigate, and there was nothing to eat there, anyway. With the Spawns as light as they were, it wasn¡¯t hard to come up the west side of the bay and up the rocky hills west of the city itself, and get our first look at it. ------- Explosions of fire and thunder were echoing across the distance from the walls of the city. The sky was crimson from lingering fire magic staining the sky and clouds red, while thunderous moos echoed across the landscape with expressions of bovine fury. We watched from a very safe distance as two massive aurochs, over twenty feet tall at the shoulder, slammed against the thick stone walls of the city of Sanamar, spells going off and detonating against the thick stones, which were taking them with casual ease. The sound of the impacts of horns and magic against the stone reverberated across the scorched and bare landscape. Amusingly enough, we could see two different Eater hordes in the distance, but neither was attempting to get close to the two enraged aurochs. Everyone who had Masks of Clarity was watching the not-a-fight, safe up on the stone of the hillside where nothing would bother to come up unless they smelled us, and the wind was blowing out to sea to the southwest. ¡°They are like ducks popping up, sniping it and seeing if they can land a spell,¡± Queen Elysa commented, her hawklike Mask turning her eyes golden as she watched the fighting narrowly. ¡°They don¡¯t seem to be doing any damage, however.¡± ¡°That hide of theirs is probably stronger than solid oak, and at least a good six inches and ranging up to a foot thick in some places. Magic Defense too high for any normal Caster to get through at this point, they might as well be throwing spitballs,¡± Briggs judged, studying the scene with professional interest. ¡°They must be smelling the gardens inside, not to mention the humans. After a diet of Eaters, it must smell terribly tempting,¡± Kris judged. ¡°Regardless, we¡¯re not getting any closer until they wander off.¡± ¡°The Cow has looked north at the Eater horde there at least six times now. She must be getting hungry and realizes it¡¯s just as useless now as before.¡± There were scars up and down the wall there from man-height up past thirty feet from horns and hooves, and scorch-marks and dimpled craters up and down the whole length and height of the thing, including shattered battlements and holes blown into the towers. Clearly the wall could take damage, but it was also able to take that damage and mostly get repaired. That hole in the tower looked fresh. ¡°We don¡¯t have to wait for them to leave. We can come right up under the Castle, you know,¡± I noted calmly. ¡°Actually, this is a pretty good diversion, right?¡± Everyone looked at one another. It was late and we¡¯d covered a lot of ground, but that was what Rings of Sustenance were for, taking care of energy needs. Revitalizations all around would deal with any travel fatigue issues, and the amount of fighting we¡¯d had to do had been almost incidental compared to the slogs on the Isle of Ruin, despite the much greater distance.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Would Varicci be overseeing the fight?¡± the Mick asked, also studying the scene. ¡°Eastmost tower?¡± Everyone glanced over that way, where figures with rather more colorful and ornate armor than the plain and battered colors of the knights and mages on the walls were visible. ¡°Commanders, possibly. But Varicci is far too much a coward to dare Incantor-level magic if he doesn¡¯t have to. Those are likely spotters for the officers, but note how they are trying to stay out of the reach of any Arcs the Aurochs might launch.¡± Princess Kristie was coolly certain of her assessment. ¡°He might be behind the walls, but it¡¯ll be located close to whatever they are using for an escape route.¡± ¡°Escape route.¡± Master Oswald¡¯s quiet words drew everyone¡¯s attention. He was stroking his chin thoughtfully. ¡°The Castle itself wasn¡¯t built for defense, it was originally built for showing off. That has no doubt changed, but there¡¯s no doubt Varicci left a back door open for himself. He had a couple of Dungeons attached to his Castle, including the Rossu Mortu Chapterhouse, the main research halls of his wizards, and his torture chambers.¡± He carefully didn¡¯t look at Kristie, whose lip rose in a snarl at that news. ¡°The research areas for the mages were incredibly large. Acres o¡¯ space in that place. It would take a bit o¡¯ research, but if they could duplicate the sunlight o¡¯ the Empyreans, they could raise a fair amount o¡¯ gardens in that place,¡¯ the Mick recalled. ¡°The Chapterhouse had several acres of space as well, and doubtless little use for it, unless perhaps they are using it as a barracks. All of them would take up a significant amount of the ridge under the Castle,¡± Oswald agreed. ¡°You think he¡¯d hide in the torture chambers,¡± Briggs guessed. Both the Mick and the Green Hunter nodded. ¡°It is the most defensible location. Tighter hallways and the like. And the odds he doesn¡¯t have a bolthole at the bottom are slim to none, aye?¡± Master Oswald asked easily. ¡°Coming up from below and taking the Castle from within sounds like a particularly useful strategy,¡± Briggs reasoned, glancing at Kris. Her smile was all eight canines. ¡°Sure, let¡¯s let death come out of the hole in the ground of his own design.¡± ------ The bay was long enough that there was no chance of being seen with even moderate illusions masking us from the besieged city. The Palace-turned-castle was a different story, but for some reason the explosions of fire and lightning and stuff from down the peninsula were more of a priority than looking out over an unchanging expanse of dark seas where nothing of interest was happening. As a result, getting underneath the view of the sentries wasn¡¯t all that hard, and from there it was a matter of looking for concealed escape holes. There was no way to conceal such things from the tremblesense of Briggs or Sama, and I basically only had to verify that such things were in the area using Detect Secret Doors with a greatly extended range. The exits could be in the sides of the stone cliffs or coming up from the base at the ground, so I scanned as Kris zipped around the base of the cliffs the castle above had been built on, and I found something on the eastern side, away from the bay itself. Two of them, actually. It seemed having one secret escape route wasn¡¯t enough. Probably another one for the population? A nice diversion for an Eater horde. If Varicci was serious, he¡¯d have a long tunnel that opened up beyond the wall at Sanamar¡­ or by the docks, with a hidden ship that might be able to dare the waters beyond the Shoreward. It would be the only truly feasible method of survival, so there was probably one there, too, but there were too many fishermen around the area, so we weren¡¯t going to investigate it right then. Kris verified the doorway, I Shaped the sand and stone covering it out of the way, and Briggs hauled aside a door ten men might have a problem levering open without mechanical or magical help, Sound Bubbles containing the noise. The passage beyond was only one man wide, obviously not made for marching large parties through. Kris went right in without hesitation, staying true to being a Tip of the Spear, while I actually went second, and Briggs actually came in last, pulling the lid of the entry shut, while I Shaped another slab of rock atop it to prevent accidental discovery from above. We moved through the tunnel with perhaps undue speed, but Kris¡¯ Trembling Domain meant she was basically seeing everything within thirty feet of her with extreme amounts of precision. That included any pit traps, spike traps, falling ceilings, sliding walls, acid bursts, collapsing stairs, and the occasional spell triggers trying to fill the corridor with death of various kinds. But when you can see the traps and their triggers alike, suddenly the deathtrap-filled corridor doubtless meant to kill any Eaters or anything else chasing a certain royal personage wasn¡¯t all that big an impediment. Quaver was unusually silent and grimly expectant as Kris plunged his adamantine Blade in here and there through the stone like it was wet cheese. Levers were cloven, ropes cut, pistons severed, plungers blocked, gears snipped, chains snapped, and pivots jammed with unerring precision and expertise. Kris had told me that her mom and dad had once amused themselves by building an Assassin¡¯s Run under the Imperial Palace, just as a training area for their agents and prospective agents. It wasn¡¯t even that much of a secret, and people could actually apply to try to get through it. It was an incredibly dangerous place, and it scaled up from beginner rough stuff to elegant rooms full of deathtraps that were nigh-undetectable. Learning how to decipher countless types of traps made by any experts who wanted to show off their skills with speed and aplomb was all part of it, basically a training regimen for improving tremblesense and a Trembling Domain. The faces of those following us were a bit queasy after I silently /pointed out all the shit Varicci had put into defending his bolt hole, and this place wasn¡¯t even that long. He really didn¡¯t want anyone following him¡­ AF Chapter 391 – The Sword of Bellenesse Princess Kristie jammed Quaver straight down into the pressure plate, releasing the spring by shearing through it and depowering the razors that wanted to sweep through the corridor behind a fleeing king. Two stabs into the stone to either side split the chains there, and the taut weights attached to the razors fell and rendered the traps useless. She stepped out into a room, and was immediately nearly overwhelmed by memories. Here?! He dared put his little escape route HERE? She could smell the mildew, the sweat, the urine, the fear, the blood that had seeped into the stone. She knew that crack on the ceiling, and that broken edge to the instrument tray. She knew the tools on the rack. She looked at the table where her previous incarnation had died, and her rage spiked to apocalyptic levels. The room wasn¡¯t that big, but the utter wrath ripping along the Marklink stopped everyone in place. Nobody except Briggs or Ryin was going to take another step forwards in the face of her absolute fury. Her Fuzzy didn¡¯t move forward, content to let her do whatever she was going to do. Ryin just waited with all that focus and serenity she managed to keep up, regardless of whatever Kris was feeling at the moment. Kris put away Quaver silently, reached up to her Masspack, and pulled out the Sword of Bellenesse. It was a finely-made knightly Sword, made more for dueling than for war, with rather more ornamentation than would be found on a Sword for the battlefield. Still, it was famous within the family, and it had claimed the life of the Roulean Emperor, several of his champions, and many enemies of the Bellini family for years uncounted. Her face was an absolute mask, but the killing intent coming out of her eyes was enough to liquefy the legs of anyone who met them. She held out the rather fancy Sword that represented the authority and power of the Bellenesse family, and said, ¡°Umbral.¡± Umbral, the mortal-slaying Enhancement, so-called because it ignored all armor before its edge. If you didn¡¯t have Energized Armor, the finest adamantine Armor in the world might as well be gossamer. ¡°Main-gauche Quaver, you need the Sound Bubble,¡± was all Ryin said as she laid her hand on the ancient Weapon and Infused the Enhancement. Shadows stole across the length of the fine steel¡­ except for right on the tip, where deep crimson stained the magic with an ancient wrong on the honor and purity of the Sword. Kris knew exactly what wrong that was. She emitted just the smallest hiss, Quaver rang a gentle, contained Ding! Ting! sadly, and then Kris was suddenly out of the room, moving really fast, both Blades in her hands. ------ The Mick squeezed past everyone else to enter the room behind me, looking after her. ¡°Is she even going to need the rest o¡¯ us?¡± he asked, dead calm. ¡°Who knows. Let¡¯s go find out,¡± was all I said. That brought a dark gleam to his eye, and he preceded me out of the room as the Markspace built up the map of the Dungeon we were in. King Varicci¡¯s torture chambers. This, this was the chamber where he¡¯d carved out Eleonora¡¯s heart to send to her father, an event which had eventually driven the Duke to an early grave of his own¡­ and perhaps delivered a potent Curse to him that had helped that deed along, too. There were no sounds coming from ahead of us, because someone was moving around ahead of us with a Sound Bubble, cutting off all the shouts and alarms and screams that should have been ringing the grim stones around us that had heard many, many such cries¡­ only not such things coming from the ones who had normally elicited those screams from all the opponents and victims of Varicci¡¯s regime. We started passing corpses, none of them intact, although the only indication for those that weren¡¯t torturers was the immense amounts of blood leaking through perfectly intact knightly armor. No more than a passing plunging point or a single slash through the throat of men already dead marked Quaver¡¯s passage, but the torturers and mages down here had been dismembered savagely by the edge of the Blade. Their expressions were shock and pain, frozen only long enough for the vivus to begin eating at them. Nobody and nothing would be bringing them back, if they had even found some way to get Deathstone protection once more¡­ something I wouldn¡¯t be at all surprised they had, likely embracing the shell of protection of Bael¡¯Zharon¡¯s Patron. It was a being that encouraged mutual slaughter and sacrifice for its entertainment, as had been described to me.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. It probably didn¡¯t work that well against the Eaters who could consume ectoplasm, or they never would have lost the city. Or maybe they didn¡¯t have it at all. Certainly the men here were looking more the Mick¡¯s true age than anything else, and were scarred and weathered, not something you worry about when you get a new body after unfortunate mishaps. Unhurried, the Mick led us steadily up and through the Dungeon, treading past the dead knights, mages, and torturers who were scattered in pieces around and before us. Briggs was the furthest one behind us, as he¡¯d bashed open the cells down there at the bottom and torn the manacles off each and every soul down in the Dungeons. They were almost all Viamontians, withered and stinking with sores and disease from their time down here, and largely incapable of fighting, or even coming out with us. That was fine, he and three of the Roaches helped them onto their Disks, and brought them after us smoothly as we rose towards the top. ------- I knew Kris was already outside, and already tearing a silent and lethal swathe through the Castle before we made it outside. The two sentries on guard at the door had both had their throats opened with prejudice, the crimson pools burning with mistflame as I stepped past them, above the blood and unconcerned. There was only a startling silence around us, and I even tilted an ear. ¡°The Aurochs stopped attacking the city,¡± I judged, and the Mick turned his head, listened, and nodded as Kris¡¯ students filed quickly out behind us. We all waited for Briggs and the half-dozen torture victims to make it up to us. We could smell them before we could see them, and I cleaned them all up with a vigorous head-to-toe Cleaning Cantrip that got rid of the stench and sources of it, and then Prestidigitation supplied them with simple clean clothes. They were still emaciated and not in good shape, but they were suddenly clean, groomed, and looked halfway human. ¡°The Audience Chamber is this way,¡± the Mick pointed out, ¡°though a lot about this place has changed,¡± he admitted. ¡°Lots more walls inside here, for one,¡± he added, and threw a thumb at the ceiling. ¡°Also, I think they added one or two more floors above us.¡± ¡°Aye, the ceilings were forty feet up or more, plenty of room to expand there,¡± Oswald¡¯s man Adso nodded, walking up there with him. ¡°There should be a servant¡¯s entry to the main audience chamber right up here, then.¡± Along with a couple dead guards on the way, neither of whom looked like they¡¯d had time to react to anything. ¡°If you would allow me.¡± Briggs was actually keeping track of where Kristie was, and everyone parted to allow the massive Ancient to stride past, with Gross and Kopf swinging in behind him. Vanguards meant to take the point, as it were. We saw flashes of spells going off on the walls, but there was still no sound. That was because the doors to the audience chamber were open, there was definitely magic being hurled inside, but not a lick of sound was coming out. There was a pitched melee going on inside, at least twenty Viamontian knights trying to get to Princess Kristie, all while a young man was shrieking at them to avenge his father. Stepping forward, the edge of the Sound Bubble passed, and the screams and shouts of the desperate soldiers inside was audible, as was the implacable ding! ting! of the Blades dancing in the hands of the woman they were trying to corral, and who was killing them for it. A Ruby Knife was hurled out like a meteor, and drove into the side of the young man¡¯s ear. His imprecations to his troops stopped abruptly as pure reflex caught his balance, and then the light went out of his eyes. A younger Viamontian woman in bright red robes in the back of the chamber shrieked. The knights trying to hack at the blur of motion and light in their midst looked over, distracted, and three more joined over a dozen already sprawled and bleeding out through the chamber, including at least four Hands. The girl started to Cast something, and an arrow each drove into her right eye and heart, slamming her back against the wall behind her and stopping that cold. The Strathelars coolly shifted to new targets. The war mages trying to land spells saw the new arrivals just about the same time as they were tackled off their feet, by far the best way of stopping any spellcasting. Gauntlets in mouth, right arm pinned, legs scissoring for a pin, and much, much greater strength made sure they couldn¡¯t get away from up to three hundred pounds of man and armor. Briggs just strode forward and swept out Endure at a tall Viamontian Hand in bright coppery orange pyreal alloy armor. The Hammer proceeded to pound that breastplate in with a terrifying crack of impact. The hapless man went soaring away from the hit, clearing the throne at the end of the room and smashing into the wall behind it. He fell down next to a balding, white-haired Viamontian in the robes of an advisor, who was Burning mistily in seven different pieces there. Arrows hissed out, the last of the mages was on the ground, while the Knights of the Lost Light flanked the desperate Viamontians, who were unable to take their eyes away as another fellow in the bronze armor of a Tribune lost his head to a flicker of light and shadow in motion. Crunch! Another knight had his head and helm hammered down into his chest as he was driven irresistibly to the ground. Thirty seconds more was all it took, and then the five surviving knights threw down their blades and cried for quarter. I turned my eyes to that throne, where a startled corpse was still seated. It was split from the top, down through the Viamontian¡¯s skull, throat, and into his chest. His armor had been riven with his bone and flesh, not stopping the strike which had landed on him. A bright red lump was sitting on his lap. ¡°Magos,¡± a hiss that held absolutely no mercy in it carried through the air as the company moved to surround the five knights and the blood-spattered woman with the jet-black length Sword of Bellenesse in her hand, the crimson now gone from its tip, just glared at them for daring to test her restraint. ¡°Crimson or Ruby all. Innocent blood on all their hands,¡± I reported calmly. All five knights looked down at their empty gauntlets, and tensed as they saw the red ichor now dripping from their hands! She was just a blur, a Greater Whirlwind attack of Light and Lightning and adamantine and Umbral darkness swallowing all five of the men. They tried to shout and deny the words, but it was far too late for that. Their bodies were not intact inside their armor as their heads rolled free, and she was on the other side of them and striding away. ¡°Are there any other members of the Corcosi bloodline alive and in range?¡± she asked me directly. I glided across the floor and a bunch of dead knights and mages toward the man on the throne. His brown hair was going white with age and his face was drawn with stress and the trials of his life, but you could see the paranoia and suspicion in the lines around his eyes. Well, he¡¯d been right, in the end. AF Chapter 392 – Blood and Souls It turns out that the blood of the sire of your family line is actually a fairly decent component for divinations to find his descendants. I wasn¡¯t looking for them over a broad area, anyway. I was looking for his children or cousins in the general area. Touching the heart Princess Kristie had carved out of King Varicci II¡¯s chest was enough for the needed blood sample, and the magic ranged out with the Locate Object variant called Locate Bloodline. ¡°There are five Corcosi remaining in the environment of the Castle.¡± I set up the locations in Markspace for everyone, and one that was quite a distance below. ¡°There¡¯s one in the labs,¡± Oswald said. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, Highness?¡± he asked Kris respectfully. ¡°Can you identify them?¡± she asked him coolly. ¡°One thing the Corcosi have never failed at is making it known to everyone around them who is the true boss and how important they are,¡± the master assassin murmured back. She waved him off. He and Adso slipped out the door at the rear of the Hall rapidly, heading for the location on the west side where the entry Portal had once been to the Dungeon, and where it was likely to be again. The rest were on the east side. There was a creak and clatter as the door in that direction opened up, and a man in the black and reds of the Raven Hand stepped inside. ¡°Your Majesty! We have almost finished up¡­¡± he trailed off as he took in the dead man on the throne, a whole lot of dead Viamontians around, and a bunch of very non-Viamontian faces in Freehold colors looking back at them. Zeks calmly pulled the door shut behind him. ¡°Oh, shit,¡± the Cultist murmured, and then the bows came up and twanged almost simultaneously together. --- A minute later the main hall, as opposed to the main audience hall, was hit from three hallways at the same time. Princess Kristie and Briggs led the rush, the Mick and the lugians brought up the second waves, and the Knights of Lost Light, the Silyun Knights, and the Roaches formed the third. My contribution was to knock all the spellcasters off their feet with their own devoted Shards, and the Knights of Lost Light took over taking them down. The Roaches worked the bows, and the Silyun Knights occupied anybody who looked to be drawing a blade until the Knights of Lost Light dispatched their prone targets, which they did with great speed. The big and nasty five waded into the middle of the work going on and just laid waste. While Princess Kristie was by far the most lethal in terms of killing things, Briggs was by far the most disruptive. Endure¡¯s bone-shaking hits sent men flying like ragged dolls. Even if the recepient survived the hits, they generally ended up at the feet of knights or Vanguards who brought their Weapons down in highly experienced killing moves on the stunned and half-dead men. As for their Portal, I expediently Fireballed it. The shocked technicians working on it screamed as they were enveloped by the blast, but I wasn¡¯t nearly as good with such AoE¡¯s as I was with Shards. Still, the explosion was enough to blast apart the carved stone, melt the aetherium they were using into unusable patterns, and blow them off the steps they¡¯d made leading up to the Portal¡¯s placement on the wall. Spellcasters all, their burning bodies became quick targets for the Roaches, who didn¡¯t want them to get ideas about turning their magical talents to more effective uses. This area, however, was not Sound Bubbled, and so the shouts and calls and detonating magic were definitely enough to raise an alarm. That was fine, as the other members of the Corcosi Bloodline were suddenly moving in this direction, heading for the audience chamber. There were a large number of Raven Hand cultists and rather randomly outfitted individuals working at setting up a Portal similar to those we¡¯d seen on Caul Island here. It appeared that after losing their base there, someone had gone looking for some allies, and who could be better than a morally bankrupt king isolated and surrounded by Eaters, always teetering on the edges of starvation, and soooo eager to be out of here and back to his life of conquest, plenty, and reigning over everyone he could raise his sword over? Viamontian knights began to race into the main hall as we pulled back to greet them, armed with their standard two-handed weapons of various sorts, only to find themselves face-to-face with five total powerhouses who happened to have a lot of support behind and around them, and were totally capable of taking on the forces rushing to the support of their king. Of course, the fact the king was dead was visible right there, but they were busy.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Master Oswald was right, however. The Corcosi nobles who survived, all of them knights of at least Tribune status, were very keen in showing off the family crest and had unique armor, letting everyone around know exactly who they were. They were also quick to command those around them into the fray ahead of them, as if their cowardice was going to give them further tactical advantage or something. I limned them all in silver Faerie Fire, just to make sure they couldn¡¯t get away. They momentarily thought they were on fire, then they mocked the magic as ineffectual illusions loudly, and then the Roaches calmly shot them dead, while Kris and Briggs sent their knights flying. The Corcosi blood was all dead before ¡°The King is dead!¡± arose in horror, and the knights there all looked to the throne and saw the bisected corpse and split throne there. Morale immediately faltered as the knights realized they weren¡¯t actually fighting for anything now. They turned to the other members of the bloodline, and belatedly realized the second level of royalty was also quite dead. Then they turned to the surviving Hands, only to see the last two get relieved of their head and get their skull pancaked against a stone wall, respectively. That left a few scattered Tribunes from lesser houses scattered around, none of them with a valid claim to the throne, and all of them the preferred targets of the invaders who had taken out their king. The Viamontians fell back, retreating from the fight, and a simple command from Briggs allowed them to go. ¡°Vivify the dead and wait for Oswald. Then we decide on what to do.¡± ------ King Varicci was Burning merrily on his throne, and with him his heart. His belongings were set aside, especially his Sword, to be taken and melted down and thereby sending the Corcosi bloodline into final and much-deserved extinction. Kris was watching him go with a carefully blank expression as I stepped up to her. ¡°Help much?¡± I asked her, curious, not judgmental. ¡°Did it help her memories? No, I still remember everything he did to her, and I always will. It helped the anger and the fury, and I cleansed the Sword with his blood.¡± It was about what I expected. She wasn¡¯t going to regret offing him or any of his relatives if they had any crimes to their name, and they were all either Red or Purple, just like the Hands he kept close to him. Some of the knights had been Blue, but that just meant unthinkingly loyal without having had to commit some atrocities in the past. ¡°Glad there weren¡¯t any children,¡± I murmured under my breath. She nodded slowly. Even hating the bloodline, she wasn¡¯t going to murder a child for it, although she was perfectly capable of rendering them sterile and unable to pass it on. Viamontians got very enthusiastic about lineage and bloodlines and descending from Karkun and the Empyreans who had given them their blue skin, so any child would naturally be a focus of the opportunistic trying to set up a puppet king. We¡¯d been spared that necessity of action, and likely that because of the population problem and food shortages. Amusingly enough, killing the cream of the nobility and military forces was likely going to help out their food situation immensely, as we¡¯d just taken care of the least-productive sector of their economy. ¡°The last Corcosi died a few minutes ago. Master Oswald should be returning to us shortly, and we can go.¡± The light of his target had been snuffed, indicating he¡¯d found and eliminated his target. I had a suspicion it was a woman, but that was merely gut instinct. ¡°I would like to see them sit here and be left to their own devices, but Nuhmudira is involved. Obviously the Viamontians would be a cheap source of manpower, especially if they could actually vacate the island and live somewhere relatively safe, although where that would be on Dereth is highly suspect. We¡¯ve cleared all of Osteth, even if we aren¡¯t living anywhere, so they couldn¡¯t move into the locations actually meant to shelter people.¡± ¡°Neither the Plateau nor Danby¡¯s Outpost are held by us, and Wai Jhou was shade-held and could be ceded to them, although I consider it unlikely. It¡¯s more likely that they are on the Tou-Tou Spurs now, all other things being equal.¡± Those were the two islands north of the Tou-Tou peninsula. They¡¯d never been settled by Isparians¡­ or at least, were not known to have been settled. We¡¯d be visiting them shortly to find out. ¡°Not Marae Lassel?¡± Kris snorted, knowing the answer to that. ¡°The Aun or Hea would definitely have heard something by now, and Oswald visited there regularly, while his Green Hunters regularly traveled the North and kept abreast of who, what, and where. They won¡¯t be using any of the known bandit holdings as too obvious, except maybe Northwatch Keep, because they built it. Pretty close to the olthoi, all things considered.¡± ¡°That¡¯s true. The best place for the Viamontians would have been Marae Lassel, as they¡¯ve a residual presence there the Hea didn¡¯t bother to drive off, and the Hea didn¡¯t devote any real strength to hold it, mostly because the virindi don¡¯t consider it very important.¡± She weighed the idea, and could only shake her head. ¡°One more place for us to investigate¡­ and likely they might be coming back here, if only to find out what is going on when their Portal doesn¡¯t work.¡± ¡°Which leads to the next obvious question about diplomatic relations. Abandoning the Viamontians here just means they¡¯ll run right into the arms of the Freebooters if it means getting off this island.¡± ¡°I know. And as the ones driving this effort, Briggs and I are the ones most responsible for what happens next. Needless to say, they aren¡¯t going to be too happy dealing with us.¡± ¡°On the other hand, the daughter of the man who butchered half of Viamont and three-quarters of the nobility there is just the person to give someone a diplomatic edge over them.¡± Her Hag¡¯s smile flashed instantly. ¡°That is true, I have to admit. How do you think it should be handled?¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ve got stuff to do, but all the knights in the castle are running away urgently right now. At some point, they¡¯re going to come back and want to know what is going on, who exactly they are fighting, and other formal knightly stuff dealing with the death of kings and the like. ¡°You and Briggs should probably sit out there polishing your Weapons and waiting for them. I imagine knowing that the Corcosi line is dead upon Ispar, Viamont is a crushed dream, and you being perfectly willing to put all of the Viamontians knights, nobles, and volunteers to the sword without hesitation is something they should learn.¡± ¡°That is true, it is,¡± she agreed, drawing herself upright. ¡°Fuzzy will be absolutely cool with it, too. I doubt Elysa minds seeing them get what is coming to them, as Varicci has always been a dangerous rival and a most untrustworthy ally.¡± Her pale violet eyes flickered once. ¡°Sure, let¡¯s he and I sit out there and wait for them to send someone. This should be fun!¡± AF Chapter 393 – Words of the Blood Actually, it didn¡¯t take the Viamontians too long to send a party under flag of truce back to the castle, hoping to find out exactly what was going on and the fate of their king. Princess Kristie and Warlord Briggs were waiting for them at the gatehouse, which was now missing its doors and bars, while the soldiers who¡¯d remained behind to hold it were now circles of white dust around their armor. The tall and muscular Hand who approached bore the white flag of truce, and prudently unhelmed himself as he approached. The war mage in bright blue-trimmed red robes next to him was hard-eyed and arrogant after seeing only two warriors there to greet them. Nevertheless, both knew that the forces they were gathering from the city and which had fled from their castle might well not be enough to defeat those who had taken the castle from within. ¡°I am Count Coranos di Furzi,¡± the Hand introduced himself with curt suspicion, taking his measure of both of these outsiders who had done the unthinkable. ¡°I come under flag of truce to learn the fate of my king.¡± Instead of replying, their eyes turned to the mage, eerily in unison, pale violet and pale green equally unnerving. The killing intent in their stares actually made the arrogant mage take a step back as a sharp pain seemed to shoot through his heart. Their utter confidence that he was nothing in front of them did not sit well with him, and he flushed deeply. ¡°I am Baron Lucius du Lotila,¡± the mage also introduced himself, and even remembered to bow to them. ¡°You stand in the presence of Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha-Briggs, daughter of Emperor Briggs and Empress Sama Rantha, the Butchers of Viamont and Rulers of all of Ispar,¡± Briggs ground out, his voice so ominously deep their toes trembled to hear it. ¡°You will kneel to her, sirs, or we will remove your heads for your rudeness.¡± Both men swallowed at such an outrageous claim. However, the flat and uncaring stares directed at them clearly indicated that these two could play the arrogance game even more firmly than could they, and something told them that a mere white flag wasn¡¯t going to keep them alive if they chose to be proud. Biting back any words and knowing they were hovering on the edge of death, both men reluctantly bent their knees to the towering brute and the scarred Aluvian woman. ¡°Ask your questions. We are not here to negotiate with you,¡± Briggs ground out. ¡°Your Highness, we seek news of our king. Does he still live?¡± the Count immediately inquired, keeping his eyes averted. ¡°There are no Viamontians alive in the castle or the Dungeons beneath it,¡± a voice of silk over steel whispered, but both men flinched as it seemed to cut at their ears with exquisite anathema for everything they were. They were truly balancing on the edge of death here. There were more powerful combatants within the castle than either of them! ¡°What do you seek here in Sanamar?¡± the Count continued after a moment of furious thought. None of the royal family survived then, nor many of the nobles, ANY of the nobles not outside the walls? That was indeed an opportunity for an ambitious nobleman¡­ Briggs and Kristie could see the realization as clear as day. ¡°Only one thing now. If Nuhmudira, the Cult of the Raven Hand, or the Freebooter Council comes to you, and you agree to their terms, you will be exterminated, as were your kin and clans on Ispar.¡± Both men trembled at the news, glancing at one another in disbelief. ¡°I watched the mountain hold of the Furzi topple down the hillside, carrying its cowardly defenders to their doom, crushed under the stones of their own home. I watched the corrals of the Lotila burn the thousand steeds of their stables to screaming Hell, fed by the corpses tossed upon the white flames that devoured man and steed alike. ¡°There are no Lotilas or Furzis left alive on Ispar. If there is the slightest amount of resistance or rebellion from the two of you, there will be none left upon the islands of Dereth of this world, either. My family tolerates no attitude or defiance from the cursed blue-skinned fools who claim descent from that animal Karkun, and I will feed you to the Land as we fed your kinfolk, armies, and cattle on Ispar. ¡°I do not expect you to believe me, and I do not care. We will be watching and waiting. When they come to investigate what happened to the team making a Portal out of these lands for you and you agree to their terms, you will not live to see the dawn, and neither Nuhmudira or her daughter Xunidara is going to save you. Both are under death sentences extending all the way back to Ispar. ¡°Do tell Xunidara the second Imperial Princess followed her to Ispar to enact justice. I imagine she was silent of informing you of the fate of Viamont under the vengeance of my father and mother. Perhaps she will be more forthcoming. Perhaps she will promise vengeance to you in order to protect herself. ¡°Go. We will be watching to see what you accomplish without your treacherous rat of a king.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Both men tensed, but it was the war mage who spoke up, ¡°You cannot expect us to forgo their offer of a new land to settle in! Seventeen years we have endured the siege of Eaters, Aurochs, and depraved Fiuns!¡± ¡°Do you expect us to have empathy for you suffering beneath your own sins coming back to rebound on you?¡± Briggs spat eloquently. ¡°You bred the Red Bull! You fed it on the flesh of the Fiuns who were driven mad by your own hands, and you expect mercy from us when they all come hunting for you?!¡± Both men felt like a great weight was pressing down on them, streaming over them and ripping away the magic they had Cast to protect and enhance themselves, popping and breaking like ice beneath the sun. ¡°If you leave this land, you will be hunted down and slaughtered. They cannot and will not protect you. Take your chances without your leech of a king and knowing you can survive, or glory in the fact you can choose to die with but a few words. ¡°Begone, sirs.¡± The pressure spiked, killing intent leaking out, readiness to pounce and kill building without them even daring to meet her eyes again. Neither Viamontian noble dared to rise to meet her gaze as they got to their feet, bowed deeply once more, and keeping their heads down, retreated ten steps before turning away and hurrying away from the killing pressure bearing down on them. They had a lot of experience knuckling under to higher nobles willing to kill them for poor manners... ---- ¡°Colors?¡± Kris asked coldly as I stepped out of the shadows of the gate. ¡°Red for the knight, Amethyst for the mage. The knight was among those who rounded up Fiuns for the knife. The mage was an Eater breeder and enslaver, and still wants to enslave them once again.¡± I couldn¡¯t miss the way their thoughts immediately went to the despicable things they had done when Briggs mentioned them. Briggs just grunted. ¡°Looks like we might be coming back before too long. Pity.¡± ¡°Corcosi vassals are not something the world will miss,¡± Kris stated icily. ¡°And we¡¯re still going to kill those two cattle, and they¡¯ll profit by it since they¡¯ll be able to build walls that will stand thereafter,¡± Briggs huffed, just shaking his head. ¡°If they get their hands on vivus, they might even realize how to restore the islands¡­ but they have to live long enough to do that, and we¡¯re definitely not going to be starting here,¡± Kris sniffed. ¡°I forgot to ask. Was that courtier in seven pieces du Loc?¡± I asked calmly. Kris only nodded, her jawline a bit too taut to answer at the question. ¡°Well, then, I¡¯m guessing our next stop is Corcima Castle? We can let them know the king is dead at the same time.¡± I glanced east significantly. ¡°I imagine it¡¯s a big move to Baishi, but they¡¯re probably a bit tired of fish now.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll see if their Auras are dark or not first,¡± Kris answered coldly. ¡°Well, of course.¡± That was given. ¡°Maybe we can give them a ride to Sanamar. Just cruel leaving them on the island.¡± ¡°Abandoning it makes it a potential base for the Freebooters. They only need it as a relay point, after all.¡± ¡°It¡¯s made of stone,¡± Briggs pointed out neutrally. Kris blinked, then looked at me knowingly. I shrugged, and she just laughed low. ¡°How long would it take you to reduce it to basically an empty hilltop?¡± ¡°An hour or two?¡± I said after a moment¡¯s thought. ¡°Easy to drop things down into the spaces underneath or beside them, after all.¡± ¡°After we get them off of there, I think that is a great use of your time.¡± ¡°Yes, Your Highness,¡± I smiled, amused. She promptly noogied me for daring to be sarcastic with her, but that¡¯s the risk you take for being snarky. ------- Several days pass¡­ ¡°How¡¯s she taking her resurrection?¡± I asked the Mick as we prepared to head south over the water again. ¡°She¡¯s hating spending the time at home an¡¯ not riskin¡¯ her new skin. Also spendin¡¯ me money buying up good foods an¡¯ learnin¡¯ to cook so¡¯s she dinnae fall o¡¯er dead o¡¯ boredom.¡± ¡°Ohhh, beginner cooks. Have her take lessons in Freehold. There¡¯s a really good training program in the royal household training schedule, assuming she isn¡¯t going to be ripping off the guards right and left.¡± ¡°Ah, she be workin¡¯ in a tavern in Hebian-to now, so I kin come back t¡¯ her easy-like. Got lots o¡¯ friends there, dead and livin¡¯ alike. And oddly enough, nobody be goin¡¯ to bug ¡®er for her attentions with me uncle glowering at ¡®em.¡± ¡°That will prevent a bunch of fresh young soldiers from getting knifed, I imagine.¡± ¡°''Tis true!¡± he beamed. ¡°It be a shame that even a Summons just can¡¯t keep eating an¡¯ eating ¡®til they be real once again.¡± ¡°Speeding up the process by a session of epic gluttony does sound pretty fun, but alas, the body only breaks down food so quickly, and only replaces material so quickly. Otherwise, it wouldn¡¯t take that long at all. The human body is mostly water. You could just drink a lot and a week of food would do the job. Alas, it doesn''t work quite that way.¡± ¡°Well enough. Now we go chasing after the Rose o¡¯ Celdon thing again?¡± His smile was rather sly. ¡°I do remember what happened the last time we ran out onto a southern island now, mind ye!¡± ¡°This isn¡¯t the moarsman island¡­ although that might not mean much. The goal at this time is more to find Harlune than anything else.¡± I lifted up the Rose on my finger. ¡°If there¡¯s another improvement for these, that would be great, but I think finding Harlune is more important at this point.¡± ¡°Aye, having an actual Empyrean who might be willing to share the secrets o¡¯ the greater magic would be a good thing for us, aye¡­ if his knowledge still be valid after the changes o¡¯ the magic.¡± ¡°Nuhmudira figured out how to use Portals and get around somehow. The greatest living master of Item Magic should have no problems doing the same thing,¡± I told him. ¡°I dinnae be tellin¡¯ ye wrong, but these be the southern seas, an¡¯ T¡¯Thuun an¡¯ the Deep be havin¡¯ far too much influence here. With Ulgrim dead, his island be likely unwarded an¡¯ undefended. Can¡¯t see the old master hanging out there waiting for shite t¡¯ come up out o¡¯ the surf an¡¯ have a go at him.¡± There was a pop and snap nearby, as Quaver brought Kris in on top of us, her training session with her swordsmen out on the Caul Island done, which they were slowly clearing of spawns as a special project right now. ¡°All ready to go?¡± she asked, as I sat back on my Disk and the Roaches did the same. ¡°Aye, aye, Cap¡¯n! Ready to shove off fer a good mug of ale!¡± the Mick called out in salute to the famous drunkard, and then we were off and heading out towards the sea towards the small distant dot of Ulgrim¡¯s Island. AF Chapter 394 – A Drunkard’s Home My Detect Aquatics V was scanning as we headed out across the waters, naturally enough. None of us wanted to waltz into an ambush by the creatures of the Deep or T¡¯Thuun, but they seemed to recognize us, be it by my subsonic humming of the Sublime Chord or the constant ding-ting of Quaver letting them know he was totally willing to come out and play with them. Indeed, they were mostly clearing out of our path. I guess we¡¯d made a certain impression on them, as in land dwellers running that fast above the waves should be left alone. Their bosses probably didn¡¯t want to start a feeding frenzy and become meals, so no sleeches or other nautiloids popped up to harass us, either. Couldn¡¯t say I missed them. The Mick¡¯s tales of the things floating around the islands in the north didn¡¯t give me any confidence, but we¡¯d have to see. ------ ¡°Looks like a bunch of moarsmen still got in. Even built one o¡¯ their little spawn pools there. I remember them being some there, but they were always little things, ye could almost punt them around if ye were inclined to.¡± ¡°Assaying at 200, Lord Mick,¡± I noted to him. ¡°Aye, which means this just be getting fun, it do,¡± he agreed cheerfully, unsheathing Bunita¡¯s Kiss. I eyed the additional Name-Runes that had popped up on his Claymore, said nothing. Obviously with his lady returned, his Sword wouldn¡¯t keep her name as it had been. ¡°Highness?¡± ¡°Damage type?¡± Kris replied. ¡°Assay says weakest to cold. Probably descended from Moarsman Island nearby,¡± I responded. ¡°Coldphasing it is. As I recall, high resists, low armor?¡± she asked calmly. ¡°That were the truth,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Imperils to speed things up, then. Keep a watch out for any nautiloids, but I don¡¯t think we¡¯ve got to worry about those.¡± ¡°On yer mark, Highness.¡± Princess Kristie nodded once, and darted off, the Mick following instantly and dragging the rest of us after him. The Disks slid into a line, Kris hit the Shoreward of the small island and her Null punched clean through it, then everyone slid through the opening without any trouble. Split Imperil IV¡¯s began to flash, reducing moarsman armor to nil or negatives, and the frozen arrows punching into them shattered flesh and scales as they bit in. Then the Mick cut us free so he could join her as the moarsmen turned to the new threat, and the slaughter commenced. --- It took less than half an hour to clear the entire island, including the spawn pool edifice. The place simply wasn¡¯t that large, and so the moarsman presence was not that overpowering, even if they were individually much, much stronger than they had been. I guess nearly two decades allowed for a lot of improvement. ¡°They left the cottage alone. Why would they leave the cottage alone?¡± I asked aloud, watching everyone hewing with adamantine weapons at the structure of the shrine and spawn pool building. I¡¯d already brought the sea in under it, so it just remained to chop the thing down, and now everyone had adamantine Weapons capable of hacking through the coral shell of the place. ¡°Maybe that NPC Ulgrim the Unappreciated is defending it?¡± the Mick asked. There was a fwzap next to us, and one of the little golums that spawned all over the second island, this one a sandstone variant, materialized next to us. There was a crack-crack as two blows hammered into it and promptly reduced it to rubble. I turned my eye towards the relatively pristine cottage on the hill in the distance. ¡°The, ah, dwarf?¡± I had to ask skeptically. ¡°Well, he were obviously a bit o¡¯ a nutter, calling himself Ulgrim and thinking he were. Even sorta looked like the drunken sot, but half-sized. About the only thing he did was drink and give ye Ulgrim¡¯s Casting Stein, as it were, if ye could get ahold o¡¯ Ulgrim¡¯s own home brew from down in the cottage Dungeon.¡± ¡°Anything else down there of interest?¡± ¡°Well, he had quite the wand collection, although ye couldn¡¯t take samples back then. Now¡­¡± the Mick trailed off. ¡°Come to think o¡¯ it, he had quite a bit o¡¯ bric-a-brac down there, including a lot o¡¯ books,¡± he remarked thoughtfully. ¡°I think we¡¯re going to go see this little Ulgrim fellow. It sounds like an unsuccessful Clone or Simulacrum. How powerful was he?¡± I asked. ¡°Not very,¡± the Mick replied, clapping as Rogar and Hundig collapsed a whole section of wall with a roar after a series of carefully placed chops into the coral. ¡°Clones are possible here?¡± Kris asked, coming up next to us. ¡°Who knows. Ulgrim were erratic at his spellcraft at the best o¡¯ times, an¡¯ even better when he were sodding-off drunk an¡¯ didnae know what he were doing. Kinda reliable that way. Heard that when he died he were so sloshed near two hundred undead died forever when he collapsed the Portal t¡¯ Freehold.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Chaotics with style,¡± Kris smiled slightly, shaking her head. ¡°One last long draw for the road, as it were.¡± ¡°Aye, the universe upped an¡¯ swallowed ¡®em all. Quite a ways t¡¯ go, it were.¡± ¡°And likely the only place we¡¯re going to find any clues, although I do wonder what a keg sitting out in the middle of nowhere is for¡­¡± ¡°He were a weird bloke. Probably had t¡¯ have a beer handy during his morning constitutional, or whate¡¯er.¡± ¡°That somehow makes perfect sense¡­¡± Kris nodded, and I had to agree. ------ ¡°Intruders! Surrender now or be blasted where you stand!¡± a rather shrill voice demanded of us. He did indeed look like a half-size human, shrunken, not even similar to a hyn in build. Aluvian, brown hair, florid features¡­ and a few scars on him, and rips in his orange robe, while a perfectly functional sapphire Energy Crystal Orb, a pyramidal thing we¡¯d only heard rumors about since the Fall, glittered energetically in his fist. He was also wearing bunny slippers. A set of boots made from the heads of a fish were sitting by the door, too. ¡°We surrender!¡± Princess Kristie said promptly, raising her empty hands above her head. Everyone blinked, then grinned, and we all raised our hands above our heads, too. The little fellow¡¯s Orb wavered, clearly not expecting us to say that so readily. ¡°What? Could you repeat that?¡± he asked, a little shocked. ¡°We surrender to the mighty Ulgrim!¡± Kris repeated more loudly and carefully, and the rest of us nodded along. He puffed himself up quite proudly then. ¡°Well, of course you do! What else could you do when confronted with my magnificence and the danger I present? Those stinking fishmen soon learned to be more respectful when I turned them into more boots, hmmph!¡± ¡°It¡¯s good to see you alive and well, sir,¡± Princess Kristie said calmly, lowering her hands as he did his Energy Crystal. ¡°The years have treated you well,¡± she said diplomatically, giving me a nod. I waved my hand, and Mended his bright orange robe, cleaning it up and fixing the rents in it. ¡°Oh, say, that¡¯s a useful spell!¡± he admitted, polishing the robe that was now free of tears and more than a few beer stains. ¡°Oh, I know what you can do for me! I haven¡¯t been able to get downstairs because of all the fish-men sneaking around, and I¡¯ve a powerful thirst for some of my beer! Go down into the cellar and fetch me a stein of the stuff, will you?¡± ¡°Of course, Mighty Ulgrim,¡± Kristie bowed to him, and he fairly glimmered with self-important expectations. Kris turned away, looked at us, and said, ¡°Well, we¡¯ve been invited. Let¡¯s see what is down below.¡± --- The Mick lifted the Orbs from their placement at the wall, fondling a bright red Energy Crystal that was somehow still intact, just like the one upstairs. ¡°It must have burned out the magic making it hard t¡¯ steal with the eruption, instead o¡¯ being destroyed.¡± He looked at the array of Wands, Orbs, and Staves scattered around the room, at least a couple dozen in number. ¡°Useful, aye?¡± He shook the red Energy Crystal in his hand. ¡°This, this were rare as a celibate sow. I never actually seen one afore.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to take everything that is magical and useful,¡± Kris said, scooping up some Isparian Wands, while the Roaches liberated some odd Wands with miniature heads of monsters from the wall they were mounted on. ¡°This is definitely going to help out with some of the research,¡± I had to agree, staring at a fully intact Staff of the Mind and shaking my head at the completely intact internal Casting Structure. The lugians were going to cheer when I returned it to them. --- Ulgrim seemed to have a lot of trophies in his place, some magical, some not. The Mick waxed poetic about a lot of them, relating Quests that could be undertaken in the past to gain them, although who knew what was happening with them now, likely gone forever from the world. As curios from before the Fall, they might have been worth a lot, but pyreal wasn¡¯t going to pay for them, everyone having more than enough of the former coin-metal now. ¡°What¡¯s the story on the books?¡± Kris asked, pointing at the shelves, which somehow were still free of being chewed on by rodents and unaffected by mildew. I evoked Mass Scholar¡¯s Touch, and brushed my hand down the length of tomes of various sorts, some of them inexpertly bound and basically reams of folded paper tied between two slabs of leather. ¡°These are¡­ histories and letters from Empyreans, of various groups and ages. Three languages, four different dialects.¡± The books shimmered as the magic read them at accelerated rates and dumped the contents into my memory, helping process them all nigh-instantly as the load was split between my thoughtstreams. ¡°Much of this is historical information not covered in any of the archives I¡¯ve had access to on Freehold. Did no one ever bother to catalog the things he¡¯d found?¡± I asked in disbelief. ¡°We couldnae take them off the shelves t¡¯ give them t¡¯ the Translators an¡¯ their teams, lass,¡± the Mick reminded me, while I brought out a Floating Disk and began to stack the books on them rapidly with Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis. ¡°There¡¯s some textbooks from the Halls of the Heiromancers here,¡± I informed here. ¡°Fundamentals of higher-end Empyrean magic. If Ulgrim wasn¡¯t ready to understand the concepts here, they might have blown his mind.¡± Another section of books lower on the end glimmered, and I actually flinched. ¡°Ah, Mithar and Sylune! This is a Summoning Codex and its appendices! The things it mentions in here that they used to call on¡­¡± ¡°No wonder he was a drunkard?¡± Kris asked knowingly. ¡°And why he was a better Caster when he was sauced. Brains that are linked to Mythos entities work better when they aren¡¯t very sane¡­¡± I had to shake my head, understanding where this Ulgrim¡¯s reputation probably came from. ¡°And he concealed the books here behind irrelevancy to hide them from others and save them from the same fate, but at the same time couldn¡¯t bring himself to destroy them.¡± ¡°Doubtless standard reading for the undead, an¡¯ rotten brains aren¡¯t affected so bad?¡± the Mick asked, giving me a careful look. ¡°I¡¯ve got buffering disciplines in place to deal with this stuff, it¡¯s an aspect of Summoner Levels you need to have,¡± I replied to him, understanding his wariness. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. It¡¯s more like I¡¯m getting a description of everything in the books, as opposed to reading them word for word. For instance, I know there¡¯s a dozen True Names of lesser Entities in this book,¡± I held up a slender tome bound in extremely finely scaled green hide, ¡°but not what those Names are.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯d need deeper protections to actually read them,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Yes. Like, being inside a Null or Source Aura. True Names like that draw power just for what they are. I imagine being exposed to this would be a nice way to expand a Heiromancer¡¯s brain in some new and totally unexpected directions.¡± ¡°Corruption among mages. Never happened before, will never happen again,¡± Kris deadpanned, drawing chortles from everyone. AF Chapter 395 – A Stein for your Troubles I put warning markers on the troublesome books, clucking my tongue at the mere idea this shit was in basically advanced students textbooks. How did the mages at that magical academy even manage to stay sane, having to read about such things? Huh. Maybe only the advanced students had to put up with the crap, and they were all using the Empyrean System and could actually withstand the mental trauma involved? That sounded much more logical. ¡°Found the brew!¡± Mizaya called out, standing on a wooden step and reaching up to take a rather plain stein down from atop a keg of ale standing there. She took it down, and looked inside, blinking. ¡°Uh, I think it dried up?¡± she said uncertainly. ¡°Milee, go back and get a stein off the wall there, then fill it at the tap of the keg there,¡± the Mick directed them blithely, watching calmly as his orders were carried out and the stein was filled with ale. ¡°It¡¯s magical. Probably never runs out. Have a taste, if everyone is interested,¡± I told everyone. There were a lot of steins waiting on that wall, and soon a bunch of them were in the hands of handy scouts and Imperial Princesses. ¡°He were a nutter, but he made a fine brew,¡± the Mick admitted, smacking his lips. ¡°About a 32, I¡¯d say,¡± Princess Kristie said after taking a careful draw, running it around her mouth, and swallowing slowly, clearly concentrating on the taste. ¡°More than adequate for Dad¡¯s guests.¡± ¡°Damn.¡± Rogar looked at his own stein of Ulgrim¡¯s Best, considering that. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me, he makes stuff at QL 40? What would that even taste like?¡± ¡°40¡¯s are actually hard to make because the components are hard to find, and the aging process can throw some kinks into the results. He and Mom are usually satisfied with 36¡¯s or so, but they¡¯ve had some 40¡¯s in their brewing. They sometimes give them away as gifts, especially to soldiers serving under them. The demand for them is huge, but he doesn¡¯t sell them, and if you get caught selling them, you¡¯ll never get another.¡± ¡°Do I even want to know what an ale at QL 40 be tastin¡¯?¡± the Mick asked, just before downing the rest of his stein. ¡°I might be able to make some, but you¡¯re going to have to wait at least three months to see the result.¡± Princess Kristie then poured the rest of the stein down her throat without interruption. ¡°Patience be one o¡¯ me strong points, it be!¡± the Mick announced cheerfully, earning quite a few skeptical glances from just about everyone. ¡°We didn¡¯t see any Roses among the trophy jewelry, Magos,¡± Selena announced, having been the one to go through most of those in a carefully-organized set of drawers, with quite a few Quest items among them, unseen since the Fall and ready to bring to the researchers. ¡°Any empty jewelry Slots?¡± I asked, which brought her up short, and made her focus. ¡°There was one. An empty ring slot in the second drawer,¡± she reported after a moment of thought. ¡°Everyone fill up your stein and carry it upstairs. I¡¯m betting the little fellow can drink like a fish.¡± I glanced at the Mick¡¯s expression. ¡°You don¡¯t look much surprised, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°He were Level 50 or so, last I knew o¡¯ him. Strange that he be 225 or somethin¡¯ now. Like he been through Hell an¡¯ back keeping this place safe,¡± the Mick commented. ¡°You think Fuzzy should give this place a visit and bring him away from here?¡± ¡°He be not a Summons. He be havin¡¯ a name already, we ain¡¯t be havin¡¯ to dig it from his shell. Aye, he should be set free¡­ if he be willin¡¯ t¡¯ make it happen.¡± ¡°If he inherited the soul of Ulgrim at death like a proper Clone, he may not even want to move¡­ and I may be able to break him out myself. Let¡¯s go see,¡± Princess Kristie conjectured, enough to get us all interested as we followed her. ------- The Energy Crystal came to bear on us again. ¡°Intruders! Surrender or¡­ oh, it¡¯s you lot again. Hey, did you like my boots?¡± He did a short dance in his fish-headed boots, bunny slippers now sitting in the corner. ¡°Did you bring me my ale?¡± the little man demanded of us, eyes fixing on the steins held in all our hands. Kris nodded to me, and I stepped forward, a brimming stein with a nice head of foam floating above my palm. ¡°I believe this is the drink you were looking for, Mayor Ulgrim.¡± He flinched visibly, something old and cunning in his dark eyes for a moment before being washed away. He snatched the stein out of my hand. "Great! You found my Home Brew!" With deft ease, he drained half the stein. ¡°Ahh!!! If that ain''t the mothers milk to me! I''ve been saving that stout for a special occasion like this one." I lifted an eyebrow at him. "What special occasion? Why, my coming home party of course!" He smirked at me and took another draw. ¡°Let''s see, I think I have a reward for you here¡­¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. His eyes fell to my hand, and he paused. ¡°Oh, hey, I¡¯ve got a Ring like that. Old Harlune, that old codger, gave it to me as payment for letting him stay here a while. I think mine is more complete than yours. Would you like me to fix yours?¡± ¡°Yes, Lord Mayor,¡± I answered without hesitation. He shuddered again as I plucked off Rose and handed it to him. He simply closed his hand around it, and light flashed in his eyes, then sparkled around his small fist. He held the Ring of amarinthine quartz back up to me. ¡°Hah! Every bit as good as that old reprobate could make! You show it to that misanthrope when you see him up on his island up north there!¡± ¡°Thank you, Lord Mayor,¡± I bowed to him, and he trembled slightly as I took it from his small hand. ¡°It¡¯s fine, it¡¯s fine.¡± His dark eyes gleamed as he looked expectantly at the rest of us. --- One by one, Kris waved the others up to get their Rings upgraded. They hadn¡¯t Invested any Karma into their Rings, having other things they wanted to upgrade consistently, so while they got upgraded Beautiful Roses of Celdon, I got something slightly different. === The Lovely Rose of the Lady Magos Burden: 5 Spells: Legendary Combat Medication, Night Voyager, Legendary Healing Prowess, Legendary Flame Ward, Legendary Arcane Lore Prowess, Protection from Fire (Pyreal); Regeneration V Wield Level: 200 (Bonded) Arcane Lore Required: 325 ==== The +25 bonus to Arcane Lore was new, as was the Pyreal Protection from Fire. Night Racer had improved to a +30 Speed boost with Night Voyager. Regeneration V was the result of my own Investments into Rose, the base Healing effect of a Ring of Regeneration, and what I was slowly upgrading. Yes, the voyager by night is speedy indeed, I thought wryly, looking at the name. --- ¡°Lord Mayor, thank you for the Ring,¡± Princess Kristie stated warmly, her Null rising about her as she accepted her Beautiful Rose of Celdon back from the little man. ¡°The System cannot see or hear you for the moment. Would you like to be released from your place here?¡± Some programmed response was arrested in mid-word, and the small clone of Ulgrim slammed his jaw shut and stared at her. ¡°Damn me, you¡¯re right!¡± he said after a minute, his eyes darting back and forth as they looked at nothing. ¡°Sweet trick, girl! Been hiding inside here so long I almost forgot I wasn¡¯t this little fellow at one time!¡± ¡°We¡¯ve had a habit of finding lost souls, Lord Mayor,¡± she replied respectfully, completely unfazed. ¡°I know this is your home, such as it is, but if you stay here you¡¯re going to be forced back into that routine again. The System has its hooks into you and your clone, and we¡¯ve got to get you out of here to break it. ¡°Your insights into magic were unorthodox and rather infamous among the scholarly set, and they¡¯ve got a need for some unique insights into magic as they rebuild the lore with the new magic system in effect now.¡± Her pale violet eyes met his without fear. ¡°I see that you¡¯ve managed to shake off some of the effects of your library down below.¡± ¡°So I did. Having to stay drunk to stay sane wasn¡¯t as hard as you might imagine, given the alternative.¡± He glanced over at me in consideration. ¡°Read them that fast, lass?¡± he asked of me directly. ¡°We¡¯ve taken possession of a great deal of your belongings and trophies below, and that includes the library. I¡¯ve marked the tomes holding extremely dubious contents. I am guessing that they were only allowed to students who were using the high Empyrean System of Magic, and could withstand the stresses of those Names.¡± He grunted, looking away and out the window he could barely see over. ¡°I can barely get out once a week to trim the lawn and keep the weeds down. Had to kill dozens of the moarsmen before they got the idea that I¡¯d kill any that came up here, and they couldn¡¯t get rid of me for more than a few minutes.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll lose that protection of being an NPC if you leave here and we burn the System¡¯s touch off you,¡± Kristie stated firmly. ¡°I don¡¯t know if we can get you back to full size, it may be an effect of the spell which created your Clone going badly.¡± ¡°Then again, there are spells which allow long-term bodymorphing which should do the job, also,¡± I supplied firmly, and had his instant attention. ¡°That much new magic, is there?¡± He stepped forward promptly. ¡°Be happy to leave with the lot of you, even this scalawag here.¡± He looked the Mick up and down. ¡°You¡¯re MacNaill¡¯s nephew, aren¡¯t you?¡± He didn¡¯t wait for an answer as he looked at Kris. ¡°His career matches his taste in liquor, you know.¡± ¡°May I present to you Royal Warden Mikal McMikal, head of His Majesty¡¯s Royal Scouts of Freehold, Lord Mayor. He can actually survive a glass or two of fine wine every now and then, too,¡± Kris introduced the Mick formally. ¡°This scoundrel?¡± Ulgrim sniffed. ¡°Aye, appointed right proper an¡¯ the likes by Borelean himself. Not like being elected Lord Mayor while passed out drunk in the Smoking Axe, ye old codger!¡± ¡°Berkholt must have put something in my ale. I only had ten mugs that night, and I wasn¡¯t even on the ballot!¡± Ulgrim sniffed, and rubbed his hands together. ¡°Do they have decent liquor where we are going?¡± ¡°No,¡± Kristie said, and he blinked in surprise. ¡°Freehold hasn¡¯t had the area or crops available to make more than the most basic liquors, although their rums can keep you pretty sauced if you like getting knocked on your can by girly fruity drinks with a nasty kick. ¡°On the other hand, King Borelean needs an official Royal Brewmaster to start getting some of the good stuff back into production.¡± His dark eyes lit up with satisfaction. ¡°I think I can qualify for that position, lass!¡± ¡°That be Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha-Briggs, old fart,¡± the Mick corrected him sharply. ¡°Ye¡¯ll address her as Highness or Warlord, as ye prefer. Her pa¡¯s the Butcher of Viamont an¡¯ the Emperor o¡¯ Ispar, back home. Ye can probably remember Commander Briggs o¡¯ Celdon, aye?¡± Ulgrim blinked in shock. ¡°That brute became an emperor?¡± he gasped, earning a raised eyebrow from Kris. ¡°Er, no offense, Your Highness!¡± ¡°And his hag of a wife is Empress. Mind your head now,¡± I added encouragingly. ¡°They literally wiped out half of Viamont, and the Princess here just ended the Corcosi bloodline¡¯s last survivors in Sanamar. So, be respectful of the people with histories of much head removal, Lord Mayor.¡± ¡°Bah, never did like that title, and I doubt it¡¯s mine anymore. Royal Brewmaster sounds much more fitting!¡± he answered fearlessly. ¡°Samplin¡¯ all the wares be half the pay, or so I heard,¡± the Mick nodded wisely. ¡°Ah, you did inherit some sense!¡± Ulgrim said. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m ready to go. How are we getting off here? Is the Portal magic working again, in some different way?¡± ¡°No, but there is an alternative. It involves working with your Lived-Line, so we¡¯re going to be taking a short run across the waters to the mainland,¡± Kris told him sweetly. ¡°A run across the waters?¡± he repeated blankly. ¡°This I¡¯ve got to see¡­¡± AF Chapter 396 – An Island to Search By ¡°Another busy day gone by,¡± Kris said lightly, dipping a six-inch prawn into the bright red sauce and biting down with relish. Shrimp were a deeper water meal, and so largely a delicacy to fishermen who couldn¡¯t get past the Shoreward. Cue up a certain Imperial Princess having the great idea of having me Locate Animal, running out there with a net, and then having me telekinetically scoop up a boat full of the things before running back to throw a spontaneous welcome back party for the former Mayor of Ayan Baquar. He was back to his former height, too, courtesy of a Polymorph Other at VII+1 as a favor, and a wild party had erupted when he made it back to Freehold and met up with his famous cousins Aliester and Ardry, as well as his niece Britana, who had been one of the NPC¡¯s bound up in Varicci¡¯s torture chambers for a generation. The spell was basically fixing some deficiency of his Clone and should have no trouble persisting as he eased into his original body. There were a couple casks of QL 36 vintages up there, although Briggs preferred a good brandy with cigars and Kris preferred smokey scotch whiskey. A couple shots of the latter had even the red-faced and very experienced Ulgrim wheezing and dribbling snot down his nose. ¡°You¡¯ve been planning this for a while,¡± I judged. The big Force Boat I¡¯d dumped all the shrimp into was packed with ice, surrounded with big bowls of six different varieties of shrimp sauce, and we had a platter stacked up with the things in between us. There was also a veritable cauldron of seafood and shrimp spiced and boiled to perfection, which people had devoured with almost unseemly speed, unable to keep their mouths away from it. Probably a good ton of spiced prawns, clams, and oysters had vanished in less than fifteen minutes as I allocated scoops of the mix to everyone, and they all begged for more after it vanished so quickly. Alas, they had only the cold prawn the size of their hands with the incredible sauces to fall back on. ¡°I can¡¯t do much in the way of genealogy studies here, so I¡¯m left with cooking good food. Yeah, had all the stuff rounded up for a while, but Fuzzy did most of the hard work while we were on Ulgrim¡¯s Island.¡± She grabbed up another prawn, peeled it smoothly with one nail, dipped the whole thing, and devoured the whole thing slowly and thoroughly. I wasn¡¯t going to compete with her bottomless gullet and ability to digest food, even if she barely needed to eat, so I got to be a little bit more proper in how I ate mine. Damn, that was a fine sauce. Just the right amount of bite, heat, tart, sour, and sweet. ¡°Which island do you think Harlune took cover on?¡± she asked me. ¡°There¡¯s really only two possible ones, right? Qin Xikit¡¯s island over north of Ayan, or the two Spur islands off of the Tou-Tou Peninsula,¡± I said around the sweet flesh of the shrimp. It was hard to open my eyes, I was enjoying the melange of sensations from the sauce too much. There was a big barrel of some really, really good rum and fruit juice mixes being seen to by Briggs over at a very impromptu bar. The big man was having a good time passing out drinks, while the gentle wind of a southern winter came off the sea and was keeping everyone cool. There were musicians playing some energetic songs, and Ulgrim was happily leading dance after dance, seemingly full of inexhaustible energy after his long disappearance. ¡°I rather doubt he¡¯s going to use an island that holds a temple to the deities of the Falatacot. That leaves Tou-Tou,¡± she nodded. ¡°I¡¯d like to say that¡¯s our next move, but we¡¯ve got another not-small problem to deal with first.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± I had to ask, wondering what had come up. ¡°Scouts reported the wandering Tremendous Monuga is back around Yaraq. It must have gone into the Dires and come back along the shoreline. The scouts on duty there didn¡¯t engage with it, preferring to keep as far away as possible. There¡¯s indications that it has a regular route it takes up through Tufa, then Samsur, then east into the rolling hills beyond the desert. It stays out of most of the canyons, and out of the north, and steers wide of Cragstone now, too.¡± ¡°How has it reacted to us closing down the Summons?¡± I asked, dipping another prawn for myself. Nibble, nibble, nibble¡­ ¡°We basically cleaned up the board for it. It knows anything it sees is food now, instead of being distracted by Summons. We don¡¯t want to have to deal with it on its terms.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°So, you want to set up a trap for it, lure it in, lock it down, and kill it.¡± ¡°There are multiple records of it eating Isparians, lugians, and tumeroks. Nobody around wants it alive,¡± she confirmed. And we couldn¡¯t have a forty-foot three-eyed Jotun rumbling around eating everything on the landscape, which it certainly would do, and it was alive and cunning, perfectly happy to run away if wounded and not fight to the death like a Summons. ¡°Fine, fine. Then I need five days off to finish off the work on Primus Atamarr¡¯s Heart. We should have the Gearknight Lord up and running by then.¡± Kris just nodded. ¡°I need to get a lot of smithwork done, as does Briggs. Activity now is mostly recon and surveillance work, and coordinating the grinding and conditioning of the troops. It¡¯s really not too much different from Ispar in one respect: the cap for normal folks is about 100. They just start tapering off really quickly there, satisfied with how tough and badass they are at that point. Sort of like hitting Six in the Matrix System.¡± ¡°Hmmm.¡± She kept better track of that stuff than I did. ¡°So, ten percent are pushing to become more?¡± ¡°That seems to be the right number. The cap on those seems to be about 200, give or take. The ones who push past to 275 are going to be one in a hundred. They just seem more common because we inherited so many paramounts from before the Fall, and they had a better overall survival rate than those of lower Levels.¡± Who would end up becoming the new champions and officers of the new generation. That effect was particularly pronounced around Briggs, and rubbed off on Kris and I as a result. Those who associated with us were generally those aiming for the heights of power their forebears had gained from before the Fall. It just wasn¡¯t as easy now as it was back then. ¡°Well enough, then. A pit to hold a forty-foot Jotun¡­ the damn thing¡¯s going to need to be over a hundred feet deep!¡± It wasn¡¯t a small amount of stone to move, although nothing like a larger Pyramid. ¡°I can probably dig one out of the needed size in about half an hour.¡± ¡°Good. Ideally, we¡¯d like to put it down someplace it just passed so it won¡¯t suspect a thing when we lure it back that way. You should be able to track it with Divs, right?¡± ¡°It¡¯s powerful enough it might notice the magic, but yes.¡± There was a rustle of motion, and Ulgrim, tottering a bit, red of face and bright of eye, was tottering behind our plate of prawns, having somehow snuck away from his legion of well-wishers. ¡°Highness, Magos!¡± he breathed out, opportunistically taking a prawn, cracking the shell, and dunking it without shame. His face lit up. ¡°Oh, this is the best sauce yet!¡± he proclaimed happily. ¡°Is that a surprise?¡± I had to ask him as he chewed, the jaw motion making him sway from side to side. ¡°No, no, can¡¯t say that it is, Lady Magos!¡± he exclaimed brightly around his new favorite. ¡°But I have a special request of you, if I may?¡± ¡°Sobriety spell already?¡± I asked, raising my fingers. He jerked away from me as if I¡¯d stung him. ¡°The first good buzz I¡¯ve had in almost twenty years, and you¡¯re going to take it away from me?!¡± he cried out in horror. ¡°Apologies. I thought you¡¯d enjoy getting it back again.¡± He blinked a bit owlishly at that. ¡°Hold that thought, Lady Magos. This was brought up to me by my niece Britana, who you rescued from that bastard Varicci¡¯s grip. She was wondering if you might not be able to locate and rescue her brother Ketnan.¡± I let that name bounce around a bit, and couldn¡¯t remember anyone mentioning him. ¡°That is not familiar to me, Master Oswald?¡± Kris asked him archly. ¡°He¡¯s a bit of a wheeler-dealer, set up shop in an extinct volcano north of the main city on the Tusker Island there, where he catered to Isparian tourists getting about the place.¡± ¡°A merchant?¡± I asked him carefully, glancing at Kris, who blinked to hide the sudden interest in her eyes. ¡°Yes, selling some, eh, odd wares. If you could get him back from the tuskers, that would be wonderful!¡± ¡°We are planning to go to Aphus Lassel soon, Master Ulgrim. We will certainly attempt to repatriate any humans who seek to return here.¡± ¡°Thank you!¡± he beamed, almost falling down before catching himself. ¡°Er, this sobriety spell, it won¡¯t KEEP me sober, will it, Lady Magos?¡± ¡°No, Master Ulgrim. It simply gets rid of alcohol in the system and the symptoms of drunkenness. It does not, however, repair the damage to your liver.¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯ve got a new liver that¡¯s been waiting almost two decades to be properly tested. I¡¯ll take a shot of that spell, then.¡± He smiled expectantly. ¡°It¡¯s called Seagram¡¯s Chaser, Master Ulgrim. And you are only allowed to receive it if you promptly go over to Commander Briggs over there at the bar and order a Purple Jungle Doom.¡± Kris proudly held up a drink with a slice of lemon and orange floating in it, sparkling yellow lights swirling inside a cloudy purple drink. He blinked at me and at Kris. ¡°A Purple Jungle Doom,¡± he repeated carefully. ¡°That sounds wonderfully ominous. I shall most certainly endeavor not to disappoint you, Lady Magos!¡± he promised quickly. A minute later he was much more stable on his feet and fairly sprinting over to Briggs¡¯s bar, where the big fellow was already mixing his drink. ¡°Well, that¡¯s a fast way to get him drunk again,¡± Kris told me out of the side of her mouth. ¡°The chill when it comes out the other end is going to be particularly memorable, as I recall?¡± ¡°It really is a fast way to cool down your arse,¡± she agreed sagely. ¡°I¡¯ll go on ahead to track the TM and be ready to lure it. Bring the Mick and the Roaches along to make things quick and clean.¡± ¡°Going to be a heck of a Baneskull for you¡­¡± and she grinned fiercely at the idea. ¡°Yeah, not many options for good ones here, as the Monugas are the only ones we¡¯ve seen. But, you make do with what you have.¡± I could only agree to that. I tunked my glass of Brigg¡¯s cherry cordial to her Purple Jungle Doom, and we stayed to watch the last of the sunlight vanish in the west, and eat more prawns. AF Chapter 397 – Three Eyes, Two Feet, One Pit It was really a shame, if you thought about it. Talking with some of the older scholars and hunters, including Lord Mick, it was pretty obvious that this Tremendous Monuga was the last and probably only one of its kind in Dereth. The ones that popped up in the so-called Valley of Death were Summons, likely ancestors who¡¯d lived and died in the past over time, bound to the System now. Supposedly there was also one mutated by Aerbax in a laboratory in the northern Dires, too, but whether that was still being Summoned was unknown. So, this Monuga, who had once reigned over the islands of Aphus Lassel before being battered and chased off by the Tusker King, was likely the only free-willed member of its type on the whole island. Had to make for a lonely existence. For the vast majority of Monugas, getting bigger involved getting weaker. The squared-cubed rule of physics weighed down on them, and their incredible strength was progressively eaten up by their own weight, until they became too heavy to move and basically died under the stress and lethargy of their own size. It was a rare, rare Monuga who found the way to unlock the potential of Jotun Stature and allow primal elemental strength to surge through it, taking care of its weight problem and restoring to it the vigor and energy of its smaller size. It also made them the single most powerful natural inhabitants of Dereth, and why monugas had once dominated the islands, long before the coming of the olthoi and armies of Empyreans who¡¯d been able to wear down the titanic creatures with enough spells and Debuffing magic. The fact Tremendous Monugas had equally large appetites and considered just about anything except other monugas to be food didn¡¯t help matters at all. They were powerful enough to break the Shoreward, ominous enough to keep the Aquatics at bay (considering it had to swim out to Aphus Lassel and then back when chased off), and was strong enough to kill some extremely powerful nefanes and sleeches without much trouble. They were also big enough to grab a human in their hands and squeeze them to death, or just flatten them under feet the size of a car and grind them to dust. The Mick himself was a bit leery on how they¡¯d managed to fight such things in the past. He even boasted that he¡¯d killed one solo, although he had to break off the fighting to keep re-Debuffing it since it took so long to kill and had immense natural Fast Healing, given it had a cool million Health Qi to work through! Looking back, he¡¯d muttered something about melee defense and better armor and kind of shook his head at the magic involved in the whole nonsensical idea of just standing there and tanking a fight with the thing. The thing was the size of a True Titan. You didn¡¯t stand there and tank its hits, you¡¯d be squashed flat! Every attack was basically an Area of Effect attack, not a melee attack roll! If you didn¡¯t dodge it, you were hosed, and your Armor wasn¡¯t going to bounce such hits at all. YOU would bounce, not the monuga¡¯s fist or feet, unless your Armor was so powerful it could bounce a car moving a couple hundred miles an hour slamming into you. Yet, somehow they had done so. Pissing off the TM wasn¡¯t that hard. Coming up on it with everything on Coldphasing, Armor-Cleaving, Charging in with a One Strike, critting with a Crushing Blow¡­ yeah, that had been a pretty big hit, thousands of points of damage to leathery hide at least six inches thick, freezing and slicing through it, venting a whole bunch of Health Qi that by itself would have killed 99% of the monsters on Dereth. It was like poking it in the shin with a needle, getting its attention as the wound flashed and was gone with its Health Qi taking all of the damage, while leaving it aware of the little morsel that had come out of nowhere and dared to smite it. Therein had followed a classic cat-and-mouse routine, with the mouse evading the massive feet that slammed down and whose shock-waves would have blown her right off her feet if the Waveskating Step hadn¡¯t kept her just off the ground. Massive hands grabbed for her that only Close Quarters Combat kept from ensnaring her multiple times, slicing through its palm and the tendons there and turning a grabbing attack into just a slapping motion that would send her flying¡­ only for Cloudstepping Sandals to stop her arcing away and return her to the ground to dart into him and Flurry through a half-dozen blows before it could respond, Healing Edge taking care of the damage and keeping her in the fight. Blooding was taking care of much of its Health Regeneration, but all it needed to do was get lucky once, and she would be in great trouble. Quaver could Teleport her out of its grip, but it could rip apart the Blooding with an expense of Health Qi and resume massive Fast Healing with only a moment or two of thought, too.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Soloing it would take hours, and Kris didn¡¯t have nor want to take the time to do that herself. Thus, after ten minutes of dancing around it, inflicting maybe twenty thousand damage to the creature with some devastating One Strikes while moving in and out and dodging its huge limbs, she turned around and ran away. Its legs should have been hamburger, but they were completely unharmed and totally able to race after her in outrage as the hungry and vengeful TM gave chase. Yeah, it was covering forty feet with every pace, and every stride took no more time than a human runner. As it got up to speed, it was thundering across the landscape like a living avalanche. Anything in front of it would have been bounced right off their feet or wheels by the shock-waves of that much mass coming down that rapidly. It was understandably a bit shocked that she was able to keep ahead of it, bellowing and raging as it pounded after her. -------- ¡°Mithar and Valus bless me bright and happy soul,¡± the Mick muttered, a bit wide-eyed as he watched the duo coming in at speed. He¡¯d run away from those things in the past? How in the Hells? They were moving way faster than any horse, and even knowing he could run fast, it wasn¡¯t THAT fast! The slamming footsteps of the Tremendous Monuga were like drums pounding on the landscape, it looked just like a normal human running normally, except it was seven times taller and covering a whole lot more distance with every stride! The way the trees looked like shrubs as the big fellow tore past and through them without slowing was pretty impressive, too. Yet Princess Kristie was managing to stay just ahead of it, mostly with little course changes it couldn¡¯t compensate for easily and had to corner with great gouging footsteps tearing up the soil or bouncing off the tallest trees with limb-cracking, trunk-shattering force to redirect itself. The five miles between the pit and the fight went away incredibly quickly, with the TM actually taking shortcuts at two points to try and cut her off as the trail wound around two hills, and Kristie pulling off some acrobatics up and sideways above the ground to avoid an avalanche of monuga coming down from above. The thing could jump a hundred paces with no difficulty at that speed¡­ But its own knowledge of the terrain was about to get it killed, as it rounded a hill for a long straightaway, and dug in to pound after Kristie with nothing to slow it down, gradually closing the distance and- Its leading foot crashed down on the flimsiest of netlike grass covers, concealed by Hallucinatory Terrain. It was something strong enough for the Princess to zip right over without any trouble, but unable to normally hold a man¡¯s weight, let alone the tons of mass of the Tremendous Monuga. Its cry of alarm was a bit belated as it pitched right over and drove down into the depths of the pit at speed, crashing off the far wall, flailing impotently as its hands clawed at the stone instinctively. It tried to slow its fall and failed as it crashed down to the bottom over thirty paces down with an impact that sent a plume of dust and grit flying into the air from the pit. The whole landscape jumped from the thunderous impact. Stopped its bellow for the moment, too. Everyone was on Disks just to avoid being hurled dozens of feet into the air by the shockwave. Without hesitation, a wind came up and blew the airborne debris away, incidentally shuffling them up to the sides of the pit. Bows and Crossbows were out, while the Mick gripped Bunita¡¯s Kiss in both hands, Sharding up and ready, icy motes of Lost Light sparkling and ready to let loose. The Lady Magos, silken white hair barely stirring in the breeze, launched the Imperil VI down at the Monuga, and it flared to life around the brute with a flash of shattering gray fractals. The attacks from all comers were descending before the Festering and Frost Vulnerability followed, the first spell a spiraling ring of tearing bloody stars sinking into it and slowing its natural Fast Healing immensely, the other an imploding infusion of Cold energy amplifying its slight natural weakness to Cold and magnifying incoming cold damage to over double the normal effect. The Mick simply slashed down at the creature with endless figure eights. He didn¡¯t pull out his Crossbow without needing to snipe something at range now, more to pop a chicken or rabbit for dinner than anything else. No, while using Sharding the brute below was still in range of Bunita¡¯s Kiss, and it wasn¡¯t going to be avoiding his cuts. He had more than enough power to get through its weakened hide and drive into its Damage Reduction¡­ and if it got up, it only shortened the range and made it easier to hit! Princess Kristie was doing the same thing, Quaver out, ringing ominously and giving them all a beat and tempo to follow as death rained down from above. Ignoring the deadly rain of piercing cold coming down from above, the half-stunned Tremendous Monuga writhed about, got its feet under it, and pushed and clawed itself to its feet. Flames were dancing over it, lightning was plucking at its nerves, and ice was gathering heavily around the impact points, everything interrupting any concentration it was trying to muster and keeping it off-balance. About every thirty seconds, even the Lady Magos was unleashing true Shard volleys, condensing them down into doubled Shardrays and ravaging it for incredible damage that left ever more residual attacks upon the hapless thing below. It bellowed defiance, fists slamming into the walls around it, sending rocks spraying and the earth jumping, but that had no effect on the creatures above shooting it, none of whom were standing on the ground. It jumped, and though its feet cleared an impossible thirty feet above the ground and it reached angrily up for them and the lip of the pit, it still fell over twenty feet short of the lip. Point-blank explosions of ice drove into its face and shoulders, driving it down and back and slamming into the stone ground below. AF Chapter 398 – Tremendous Differences The barrage continued without stopping, Health Qi venting at tremendous speed under the assault as elemental energies raged over the Tremendous Monuga. He tried to get back up, clawing and ripping at the stone walls with blunt fingers, trying to get a handhold that would take his weight, and failing as the stone crumbled beneath his grip. He faltered, raising his hands to take the impacts of the arrows, but that didn¡¯t stop the venting of Health Qi, only where the pain was at and continued. It would buy him only seconds when his Health Qi faded and his arms froze solid and were blasted apart at the same moment, moments before its skull would do the same. ¡°¡± he finally called out in ultimate despair, falling into a crouch, his three-fingered hands clutching its skull. I blinked in utter surprise that I could actually understand it. ¡°HOLD!¡± I called out. Probably thirty seconds from disposing of this brute which was the terror of all of Osteth, the group still stopped firing immediately, looking at me in surprise, even Princess Kristie. ¡°It just surrendered,¡± I said into the sudden quiet, staring at it. It was Brown. The Alignment of an animal, of a territorial being whose thoughts didn¡¯t move much past instinct, with no higher thoughts whatsoever. Defend territory, eat, maybe find a mate, fight to protect itself and its lands that it had claimed. Really, nothing higher than filling its belly. I didn¡¯t know monuga, because monugas didn¡¯t really talk with anyone. Even Kris didn¡¯t talk with them. She just beat the crap out of them until they got the message that messing with her was the wrong thing to do. Monugas fought or ran away from a fight, that was it. They didn¡¯t talk with other species, and I wasn¡¯t going to shadow one around to figure out their language and what it consisted of. The fact this Tremendous Monuga actually had something of a language and my Permanent Tongues could pick up on it was kind of impressive. ¡°Monugas don¡¯t surrender,¡± the Mick said firmly, although his face was probably as weird as my own. The Elemental Kickers on my spells slowly puffed out on its flesh, one by one. It kept its hands up above it¡­ but now they were actually showing frostbite and burns on them. It was at one percent. If we resumed pummeling it, it would be dead in seconds. Her Whiskers of the Wild Tat rippled up on Princess Kristie¡¯s face in predatory cuteness. ¡°Why?¡± she called back in a feral purr. ¡°Monugas do not surrender. It is kill or be killed.¡± ¡°,¡± was the somehow despairing rumble from below. ¡°¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been seen to eat our kind, Tim. Kind of weird to be talking with your food, isn¡¯t it?¡± she shot right back, clearly not happy at this development. ¡°,¡± was its only mournful reply. Kristie glared down at the cowering, towering brute, hands still raised pitifully to defend itself from the barrage that would kill it, looking rather pathetic now, instead of defiant to the end. ¡°Well, fuck,¡± she said, looking really annoyed. ¡°I was really, really looking forward to seeing if we could make a Girdle of Tremendous Monuga Strength¡­¡± ¡°That be a thing?¡± The Mick was a little wide-eyed at the idea, and turned a calculating look back at the massive creature below. ¡°Won¡¯t know now.¡± Kristie was clearly annoyed, and the Mick threw up his hands in mock outrage. ¡°Ryin.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°How many Eaters do you think this big fellow could eat?¡± I blinked, just like everyone else. ¡°In the end? Probably all of them.¡± ¡°How many hugely oversized cows?¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I looked down at him. ¡°He¡¯d need help, and probably vivus. I wouldn¡¯t want to be touching the meat of those things.¡± ¡°And could a Ring of Sustenance take care of his food needs?¡± I just looked down at the three-eyed titan, kind of peeking up at us. ¡°You¡¯re talking caloric needs at least fifty times that of a normal human, and that¡¯s with Jotun Stature effects taking up a huge amount of the load. It would take a high-end version of Sustaining¡­ but yes, it could be done.¡± ¡°And something like a Girdle of Perfection?¡± I lifted an eyebrow. ¡°Probably have to kill those Aurochs for the leather, but sure.¡± ¡°Gotta keep ¡®em fed in the meantime,¡± the Mick sighed, reconciling himself to not throwing around cottage-sized boulders. ¡°And can¡¯t have him running around before his appetite is satisfied. Can¡¯t go to the Isle of Ruin¡­ he¡¯s big, but an Eater horde will still take him down.¡± ¡°If he was armored up?¡± Kris asked, and the Mick blinked.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. ¡°Ye¡¯d make up a suit of armor big enough for him to wear?¡± He smacked his own head as she started to smile. ¡°Well, of course ye would, why am I askin¡¯?¡± he mumbled to himself. ¡°He¡¯s going to eat as much as a whole company. How do ye want t¡¯ handle that?¡± ¡°We have whole warehouses full of extra food, but there is a short-term solution. Didn¡¯t we find out just last night that there might be another Merchant NPC around?¡± I blinked. ¡°Ulgrim¡¯s nephew on Aphus Lassel?¡± ¡°That¡¯s the one. We can buy all the food he needs and more in the short term. As for his behavior and wandering around, can we Geas him?¡± ¡°Of course, but he¡¯s so big that he can hold off the negative effects of disobedience a long time.¡± ¡°Combined with some positive reinforcement? What¡¯s his Color?¡± ¡°He¡¯s Brown,¡± I admitted. She stared down at him a bit longer. ¡°Aren¡¯t the gromnies of this place utter savages until they become dragons or something? Why do I have the feeling the Tremendous Monugas might be the same thing¡­ except there are no other TM¡¯s around to teach this fellow different?¡± ¡°Borelean has been handling all the stuff with the Viridian Rise, and the gromnatross dragons there don¡¯t venture outside the Rise and the Deru Tree. But you are correct, they have no hostility innate to any living, natural creatures. They loathe the shades and the undead, however, and are deeply skeptical of the virindi.¡± ¡°None o¡¯ the stories about the gromnatrosses ever call ¡®em aggressive an¡¯ conquering types. They were a sacred animal to many o¡¯ the Empyreans. Not so much to the undead Falatacot, o¡¯ course,¡± the Mick mused. ¡°But the records we found indicate there were gromnatrosses here when the Empyreans first arrived, and there¡¯s no records that the monugas were ever NOT here. They¡¯ve been on Dereth longer then the Ruschk, although nobody thinks the Rushck started here.¡± ¡°What do we need to do this?¡± Kris asked me directly. ¡°Go to Briggs for the pyreal to make the Ring, and you¡¯ll need it for the armor, too. I can handle the Geas right now, and even make him some manna that will take the edge off of his appetite, we needn¡¯t go find Ketnan right now.¡± I glanced at the Mick. ¡°Haven¡¯t we found a few more stacks worth of MMD¡¯s recently?¡± ¡°Aye, some o¡¯ the old Mansions we didn¡¯t get ta earlier had some they recovered, although we¡¯ve kept it quiet,¡± the Mick admitted calmly. ¡°Didn¡¯t see much need fer ¡®em, as it were. Nice to have some as a backup¡­¡± ¡°A merchant who could cough up a few years worth of supplies would be another good find,¡± Kris sighed. ¡°How long are we going to need to keep him down there?¡± ¡°No use bringing him out while he¡¯s hungry. I¡¯ll take care of that and the Geas.¡± I stepped forward over the pit, looking down at the Tremendous Monuga¡­ which Kris had just sort of named Tim, I supposed. ¡°I am not food,¡± I told the Tremendous Monuga, his three vertical eyes locked on me. ¡°If you strike me at all, we will kill you immediately. If you have surrendered, lower your hands and prove your sincerity.¡± There was a moment of hesitation as the great brute stared at me, but then he slowly and carefully lowered his frozen and burned arms, exposing himself to all of our sights. He probably wasn¡¯t clever enough to come up with a hostage play, but he didn¡¯t know I could just Blink out of his grip, and when that happened, he was immediately going to die. I walked down on a spiral towards him, making it totally plain to him that I was walking on the air, he had no way to do that. There was a twitch as I entered his actual reach, but he held himself in control, and just kept watching as I descended into the pit until I was standing on the air, my Cloudstepping Sandals misting and keeping me there as I faced him across less than sixty feet of space. ¡°We take our promises seriously. If you have surrendered, that means you have given yourself into our custody, and we may treat you as a prisoner, and you will obey our orders until such time as you have earned your freedom. ¡°That also means that we are in charge of your care and your feeding. Do you agree to this continued surrender?¡± I asked him formally. He stared at me again, licking his lips once, and I distinctly heard the massive rumble of his gut eating at him. ¡°,¡± he confirmed reluctantly, bowing his head slowly, ashamed of his own weakness. The Geas took hold. He might be able to resist it, but he would know when he was being disobedient. ¡°We will address you as Tim.¡± His Assay wasn¡¯t indicating a name for him, perhaps unsurprising. His lesser fellows probably called him the equivalent of ¡®the biggest and strongest one.¡¯ ¡°Tim, extend your hands out like this.¡± I put them together and held them out like an offering. Carefully and a bit suspiciously, he did so, reaching them out towards me. I stepped up to the edge of them, and Cast a Create Godfood for him. I was partial to Aru¡¯s apples. A Very Good Apple taller than I was materialized in his hands, prompting all three of his eyes to bulge in shock to behold what was in his grasp. ¡°Go ahead and eat it, Tim. It should take care of all of your hunger.¡± He brought it up to his head closer to examine it, still in disbelief. He of course recognized an apple, he¡¯d just never seen one so big¡­ or looking so absolutely delicious. With another rumble from his stomach, he jammed it into his mouth. I noted he had an omnivorous set of dentistry, not too much different from our own, and he bit and sucked and made a noise of absolute bliss as all three of his eyes closed in absolute joy at the taste exploding in his mouth. Technically, it probably wasn¡¯t enough mass to satisfy him, but Godfood of sufficient size could satisfy anything, even if it wasn¡¯t a fruit-eater. That apple he was holding could satisfy hundreds of creatures, and was certainly enough to work for him, and then some. He slobbered and chewed and ate the whole thing, as it had no seeds to be wary of or anything. The only way it could hurt him was if he hit himself in the eye with it. When he was done, he actually leaned back against the wall of the pit and slid down into a crouch. ¡°,¡± he said with obvious relief. ¡°¡± ¡°I will return tomorrow with another Really Good Apple for you. Or maybe an Orange. We will see.¡± He just grunted, closed his triple-stacked eyes, and looking suddenly like a very tired savage brute, went to sleep right in front of me. I only waited a moment, but the change in breathing and heart rate indicated a complete lack of subterfuge. I ascended back to the lip of the pit and stepped away. ¡°I¡¯m not going to waste anyone¡¯s time. I will leave a minor Summoned Guardian here to warn me of any intruders, and put a wall around the pit to make sure nothing wanders into it.¡± The Seal Focus came up under my feet, and was Energized with a few dozen mana. ¡°This mission is successful. Where to, Highness?¡± I asked. ¡°Mayoi. We¡¯ve all got things to do, and my work starts there. Go get the Primus up and on his feet. I¡¯ll get the Ring to you between the other stuff Briggs and I will be working on.¡± She looked at the Mick. ¡°Get a Lived-Line connection to the Tusker Island. If you want to do some exploring and testing the ground there, that¡¯s fine.¡± He just nodded. ¡°Done, Highness.¡± A minute later, Tim the Tremendous Monuga was dozing alone inside a walled pit, and we were away from there. AF Chapter 399 – Atamarr the Gold Primus The aetherium ore we¡¯d lucked into helped immensely in making an energy-drawing Formation for the Gearknights, but like before, was massively susceptible to broad energy surges, conducting far, far more energies from a planar flux than was safe. I had to wonder what protections they had against such effects on their homeworld. Causality sinks that could vent the distortions away? Flux anchors stabilizing the waves and channeling them away from protected areas? Energy sinks to direct such waves down into hardened matter instead of along the dimensional Veil? Well, whatever, there was no way I was repeating such a mistake. Powering up a Construct wasn¡¯t actually all that much different from powering up a magic item. In the case of the Gold Primus, all the mechanical pulleys, pistons, and gears were all present, save for the core ¡®engine¡¯ that would get it all working. Using mechanical means was actually more energy-efficient than straight animation, like a golem would use, and actually required far less money once we got the processes in place. There would be some up-front costs for making the parts, but once we got them in place, it was much easier than bespoke custom designs for each Gearknight. The only thing we had to worry about was Axiomatic resonance growing with parts production, but that simply involved adjusting the parts randomly with combinations or customizing just enough to break up absolute repetition. Without identical parts and forms, Axiomatic resonance wouldn¡¯t form. As long as the parts differentiated in non-essential ornamentation and didn¡¯t follow a purely logical or arithmetic progression, it was okay to do such a thing. It was why Gear Knight parts were so interchangeable between them. Superficial coding and inlays of the parts differentiated between them, enough that you could probably trace them all the way back to the original Knight they belonged to¡­ but you could salvage such pieces and use them to repair or rebuild another one. How much of a Gearknight¡¯s spirit was bound up in its parts and which one might return to the body was another question, Ship of Theseus and all that. It was also possible that all the parts were personality aspects for the animating spirit and would change if rebuilt with the parts of others. Who knew, except the Gearknights themselves, who had no real replies to such questions about their origins. They didn¡¯t even know who had first constructed them, grandiose claims of the Divine Assembler aside and all. So, what I was doing was a combination of Gearknight energy management and true Construct reliability. For the Gold Primus here, I had melted down four Gold Golem Hearts and reforged them into a single central heart that would operate as both spiritual housing and a power core to motivate the Gear Engine that powered the Gearknight¡¯s metallic body. The alloy it was made of was similar to pyreal for the foundation parts, being tough and lightweight, acting as a secondary conductor and attractor of magical energies to supplement their core, generating kinetic fields that greased movement and acted as a sense of touch to the immobile portions of their mechanisms. Over those were plated the armor of the Gearknights, which could be of variable hardness and weight depending on the preferences and power systems of the Gearknight involved. Too much weight and their Engine couldn¡¯t move them. Lots of power meant lots of strength, and meant two absolutely identical Gearknights from the outside could have very different capabilities within, depending on total amount of energy available and their allocation of it. A Golum Heart gave the Gearknight an absolutely reliable internal energy supply, which would keep it mobile and active even if there was another flux wave blowing out its aetherium. Indeed, the aetherium was more like a luxury item, condensing down the required amount of metal while accepting greater risk. Alternating aspects of its Core Formation with mithral and pyreal gave it much greater resilience, although giving up some of its ability to be mended by standard Cures and Healing spells for the more Construct-specific Repair spells, given a Gearknight had no organic components. With the reliance on an external power supply alleviated, this would mean the beginning of a whole new breed/design of the Construct race. Pyreal Burned as goldweight, summoning and binding arcane energy into Rune Patterns that were precise down to the molecular level. Golden energy swirled as I accented it all with the Sublime Chord, imparting a unique melody to the new Gearheart, a heartbeat all of its own, and Holy energy came in on spent Valences with the equivalent of a Resurrection spell, making sure the spirit appropriate to the shell was returning. There was a crink and a crackle of lightning and power, and the Rune Formations innate to every cog and gear on the massive form of the Primus lit up one by one as new power flowed into them. There was a quiet hum as Atamarr¡¯s Gear Engine started up, cogs and shafts began to spin, and delicate internal mechanisms began to churn, measure, and test out tolerances and functions. They didn¡¯t find anything wrong. The best artificers and gearmages of the Alliance had been working on him, a few of them for the second time, and they knew what they were doing. They¡¯d been helped by the excavations that had begun at the Gearknight Assembly Area southwest of Al-Arqas, making sure that we had multiple samples of the relevant parts and specifications for them.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The reboot process went through most of the body before proceeding back up to the head. I could feel the magic drawing in¡­ something, a unique spirit of a type and classification I wasn¡¯t familiar with, less being pulled from another place than gathering itself together and returning to a place made just for it. Hmm, techno-elemental, maybe? Who knew¡­ Glowing eyes finally lit up like diodes, but came from emerald crystals instead of normal lenses. There was a distinct sound, like crystalline notes going off and announcing¡­ ¡°¡± a deep baritone voice, somehow alive despite having a metallic edge to it, sounded out in alien, precise syllables. Breaths released all around as gears whirred, and the upper body of the great Gearknight slowly lifted from the table, his flat domed head spinning left, then right, surveying all the Isparians and lugians gathered around him silently. His head tilted forward and down, letting him look at the open plastrons of his chest cavity, the armor plates levered away and the inner workings of his torso exposed and visible to the eye. Delicate gears, cogs, pistons, and other mechanisms whirred, spun, cycled, pumped, and rotated for perusal. In the middle of it, his new Golden Gearheart hummed and pulsed steadily with a unique note, sending power into his systems. Aetherium glittered about it, channeling planar flux energy, but silvery mithral and pale green pyreal accented it and spread out into his systems, conducting that energy to the rest of his body. Analyze Construct also informed me that with the return of his spirit, conductivity of energy had increased by 129%. It appeared that more efficient use of existing energy was a side-effect of the spirit of the Construct, meaning higher Levels gave the Gearknights more power to use. Logical. ¡°My last memory was of my comrade Gearknights exploding all around me. I felt a surge of power going through me, and then¡­ I have woken up here.¡± Atamarr¡¯s Isparian was deep, commanding, and flawless. ¡°What has befallen us?¡± Gears clicked, and panels began to slide, plates to close, and his chest plastrons swung shut, hiding his vulnerable mechanisms from sight, while light plates and metal mesh of armor snapped down into place to protect the seams and joints. They were considerably lighter than something a Gearknight would wear for combat, but enough for casual environmental protection, like wearing a set of light leathers. King Borelean stepped forward with a welcoming smile. ¡°Primus Atamarr, it is good to see that you have returned to the activated. Welcome back. It has been a long time since any Gearknight has been active in these lands.¡± ¡°King Borelean of Osteth,¡± the noble Gearknight identified him immediately, swinging his armored legs sideways and off the table with a precise movement, his waist pivoting with a range of motion non-mechanicals didn¡¯t have as he got to his steel feet with speed and surety. Standing up, he was easily a full head taller than Briggs and definitely heavier¡­ and that was without combat armor equipped, built very solid and obviously designed for combat, the size of a tall Lugian, head and shoulders above most of his kind, nearly twelve feet tall. Benefits of being the Primus, I assumed. ¡°You have aged, as organics do,¡± the Gearknight observed of the king. ¡°But there is inconsistency, for is this not your daughter by her eyes? She came barely to my knee when I last saw you, and the noble Queen Mother¡­ you look younger than I remember you. This is not a logical progression of Isparians that I have witnessed in the past.¡±¡¯ ¡°Seventeen solar cycles have passed since the events of what have come to be known as the Fall, Primus Atamarr,¡± I spoke up, stepping forward and earning the rotation of his eye-slots towards me. ¡°I am the Lady Magos Ryin. I have been leading the effort to build a Gearheart for you that would not be susceptible to the same circumstances as claimed you and all your brethren. A planar flux surge of extraordinary power overloaded your aetherium systems and destroyed your Cores en masse. Not a single Gearknight survived the Fall intact, and it has taken this long to gather the necessary resources and manpower to reconstruct you. I apologize for the delay.¡± I bowed low to him. ¡°I see. So, I am the only Gearknight now active?¡± he asked sadly, but with iron determination. ¡°That is correct, Primus Atamarr,¡± King Borelean replied. ¡°Do we know who is responsible for this event, if anyone?¡± the Gearknight went on with repressed ire. ¡°If we were to guess the source, it would be the leaders of the undead messing about with the ley line configurations underscoring the entire island of Dereth,¡± I answered for everyone. ¡°But we do not know that for a fact. It could have been a confluence of inter-dimensional conjunctions formed by the virindi, a massive display of power by one of numerous Entities served by the shades or other factions of the undead, such as T¡¯Thuun, or it could have been a completely natural event that happened in some great cosmic joke to bedevil us all.¡± ¡°I see. And what plans do you have for me, seeing that you have reassembled me first?¡± he asked after pondering on all those possibilities for a moment. ¡°Primus, we would have leave to seek your counsel and your wisdom, and we would have you take over leadership of the efforts to return animation to your brethren,¡± King Borelean responded promptly. The great golden Gearknight leader paused only a moment before bowing slightly in return. ¡°A fair and honorable reply, King Borelean. I will be happy to give freely of what I can to such efforts for yourselves and my people.¡± Cheers erupted spontaneously from all around, and old friends of the Primus moved forward to greet him and congratulate him on his return. The living Construct accepted all of their welcomes with deft diplomacy and thankful words, truly grateful that he¡¯d found such friends willing to go to such efforts to bring him and his people back. I just nodded to myself. The schematics and details of what I had done and how I had done it were encoded in crystal and available to the Primus, and if he had to master a completely new set of magic to get the job done, well, he was likely the most intelligent member of his people we could have revived, so it would not be too difficult to get him started on Matrix Levels. He had a lot of work to do and a lot of Gearknights to rebuild and restore, and it wasn¡¯t going to be done quickly. But it was one more obligation discharged, and hopefully what it built to in the future would be something magnificent. AF Chapter 400 – Tusker Island Hey there from the author! It''s my fourth regularly scheduled encouragement to do a Rating and Review! (every 100 chapters!) If you aren''t financially supporting an author, the best way to say thanks is to leave a good Rating and Review! If you''re reading this, you''ve been with the story for likely a full year now, so I hope you enjoy it and it''s worth a good Rating from you! If you do feel like tossing a fiver or tenner at me, I do have the Patreon, and I appreciate all the support I get! Thanks for your time, and now it''s time for some tuskers, the best grinding Karma beast in Asheron''s Call!... although not always the best for loot. ================ The Mick had wisely come in at the northern end of Aphus Lassel¡¯s two islands. The islands of the Tusker King were divided into zones by age and power, with the youngest and weakest tuskers to the north, and the mightiest and oldest in the south. Tuskers were an ape-like, barely sapient species, strong and brutal, pack-oriented, fast, and strong, if a bit of glass cannons in their toughness. Their oily sweat was prone to burning very, very hotly, among other things, making them very susceptible to flames, and their hides weren¡¯t all that strong, given their size and mass. That said, the smallest of them weighed more than Briggs did, their arms were twice as long as those of humans, enabling them to run on all fours, and they were aggressive, territorial, and omnivorous, although they didn¡¯t normally use Isparians as a food item. They were also all over the bloody place as Summons here. The Mick took the initiative to clear out and Seal a whole swathe of Spawn Points, as these younger Tuskers weren¡¯t going to be used in any kind of army regardless, and opening up more land meant more places for the real tuskers and the chitticks they liked to snack on to grow up and run about on. Still, the density of the Summons here was on a par with that of the thickest areas of the Isle of Ruin. They weren¡¯t anywhere near as dangerous, of course, the Summons having little idea what magical Arms, Armor, and spells meant to them, and they died very quickly under arrow fire or swipes of a Firephased Blade. We were here to meet Ketnan, and ascertain if we could use him for a short time. As the Mick had been here before, all he had to do was cross the waters and link up with his previous lived-line. Naturally he had visited the Tusker Emporium on the island before, even frittering away some pyreal on useless touristy stuff for the heck of it. Then he had left and never gone back, which was hardly a surprise. There was nothing useful to acquire from the fellow, only basic food and some useless overpriced tourist stuff. But basic food was something that might ease a lot of problems for the moment, even if it was quite overpriced. There weren¡¯t that many places to spend MMD Notes and the like, after all. --- The dormant volcano was obvious above the trees, and making our way there with the Roaches wasn¡¯t difficult, nothing on the landscape dangerous enough to be a threat. But, there were only the ape-like tuskers and the centipede-like chitticks around. The Mick¡¯s face was ominous, and I had to ask why. ¡°There should also be spawns o¡¯ Isparians here what the tuskers enslaved, head-bashed by the Tusker King an¡¯ serving the monkeys happily. I didnae realize they were Summons back then, but they were common on the northern islands and parts o¡¯ the southern. ¡°Lass, I¡¯ve not seen one Summons o¡¯ ¡®em since I came back ta the island.¡± ¡°Ah...¡± Summons reflected the creatures that lived in or occupied an area, at least out in the wilder portions. Thus the way Summons changed to reflect a large force living in an area, like all the Gotrok lugians that popped up around the Linvaks when the Tukora had control of the area, or the number of Hea spawns in areas the red Tumeroks controlled. Human Summons would have reflected the fact there were humans around here. The utter lack of human spawnpoints... ¡°Hold a moment.¡± We weren¡¯t far from the volcano, and the Mick glided to a halt before getting into range of another Tusker Summons, the Roaches lowering their Bows so as to not draw anything in. Locate Creature was a multi-Valence Divination, mostly due to the variable range. It was designed to track down and locate rare creatures, as opposed to traipsing all over tarnation trying to find one, and at higher Valences had ranges that started at miles and only grew longer. If Cast out of a VI+1 Valence, the range would easily cover the whole of Aphus Lassel¡¯s two islands. I sent the spell out, specifically ignoring the pings our group earned from it. And I waited. And waited as it reached out, looking for other Isparians, Summons or natural or NPC¡¯s, it wouldn¡¯t matter, they¡¯d still ping off it. The spell was fifteen miles away before it pinged off a concentration of Isparians underground in the distance off there¡­ and they weren¡¯t ¡®real¡¯.Stolen story; please report. I took a deep breath as I brought up the Holo of the map and interposed my results over it. ¡°The only Isparians I¡¯m seeing are Summons right there, underground, probably in a Dungeon.¡± The Mick¡¯s eyes were flat and cold. ¡°That be the Tusker King¡¯s den. There were a couple levels to that Dungeon where head-knocked Isparians helped defend the place, with magic an¡¯ the like that tuskers didnae have, probably made the magic traps an¡¯ such there.¡± He paused significantly. ¡°Were like a dozen NPC¡¯s in the Tusker Town, Ooltanga or whatever it were called. Were only a few miles south o¡¯ us.¡± I just shook my head. ¡°I¡¯ve got nothing there, Lord Mick. Unless they are Div-warded, there are no Isparians other than us and those in that Dungeon alive on Aphus Lassel¡­ and that includes Ketnan, if he was supposed to be in the volcano ahead.¡± ¡°Lord Mick? How many people are we talking? What happened?¡± Selena asked softly. ¡°T¡¯ tell the truth, I dinnae know. Dozens, at the very least. Maybe several hundred, although the Summons¡­ the Summons numbered probably thousands, an¡¯ where those came from, well¡­¡± He gave me a look. ¡°Nothing says these islands weren¡¯t alternate arrival sites for Isparians before the Tusker King came.¡± And if so, probably prey for Tim, if he liked to eat people, although there were likely enough tuskers to satisfy him, and they had more meat on them. The fact Tusker King Bobo could smack an Isparian on the head and effectively Charm them into obedience and worship was something else, and didn¡¯t necessarily mean all the tuskers took such a conversion to heart. If all those Isparians woke up suddenly, AND took control of the Isparian Summons¡­ ¡°Let¡¯s find Ketnan or his remains, if we can. Then investigate this tusker town of yours. Feel free to kill all the tuskers in the way, I doubt they are going to be friends at this point.¡± It was rough treatment, but no different than walking into hostile Hea territory in the Direlands. There certainly had been no hesitation on the side of the tuskers from charging to the attack¡­ ------- ¡°Well, that¡¯s pretty telling,¡± the Mick pointed out for everyone. Tuskers didn¡¯t use fire, didn¡¯t go near fire. They could catch on fire as easily as a torch. The entryway to the Emporium was a mounded tunnel down into the stone of the semi-extinct volcano, and now said stone was cracked, split, and blackened by repeated flames. More to the point, there were a LOT of charred tusker bones scattered about that entryway. They¡¯d been picked mostly clean by scavengers, dusted and eroded by the time and the wind, but there were a LOT of them, heaped and mounded up here and there. ¡°Yer take, lass?¡± the Mick asked softly, as we took in the entryway, the clearing around it, and the trees. A dozen Summons points were also Burning vivic up around the rim we¡¯d jumped down from. The Mick hadn¡¯t remembered any such Summons being up around the volcano at all. ¡°There¡¯s scores of burn scars on the volcano walls, you can see the craters from the strikes.¡± Fire Bolts made the bigger and deeper ones, Volleys shallower ones in a row, and slow-moving, grid-like Isparian Walls rigid patterns of them, all where they would have missed their primary targets. There were a LOT of them. ¡°That means spells going OUT from the entryway,¡± the Mick said ominously. He walked over, and kicked at the mounded bones there. A couple of kicks, and the tumbled remnants of a stacked stone wall was visible, black rocks heaped atop one another, scattered by time and force. ¡°There were a rough wall here. Not a very good one, set up in haste, likely blasted out o¡¯ the crater. It were torn down an¡¯ scattered.¡± ¡°Ripped apart by the tuskers, no doubt.¡± I sighed, and cast another Detect variant. Detect Bones. Dead ones, that is, not the living ones inside flesh. Very different paradigm, that. Even out of only a III Valence, the area around me fairly screamed of the presence of bones, both tuskers and Isparians, which were easily told apart in the spell. Tuskers outnumbered Isparian at least five to one out here, but the mounds of weathered, burned stones corroded by time, wind, and ash were remarkably well-preserved for the time that had passed, having been out here for more than a decade. And that was without the remains of Summons, which would simply discorporate. ¡°I see about fourscore dead Isparians among everything,¡± I murmured, my eyes closed while I was basically counting skulls, although most of the Isparian ones were crushed by heavy bludgeoning blows. ¡°I see over four hundred dead tuskers, from sizes equal to the basically children and young adults we¡¯ve seen, all the way up to some old brutes the size of anything in the Direlands.¡± I turned around once slowly. ¡°Tusker skeletons are randomly all over the place out there, and then concentrate intensely as they get closer to here. All the Isparian remains I can sense start here, around the half-circle of the entrance down.¡± I flicked up a Holo to better illustrate my findings, all of them looking at the many dots of green versus red remains. Tellingly, odd white robes, moldering and fraying in the wind, coated many of the human remains, with the occasional remnants of a bright blue beach towel or a cotton shirt in bright green among them. The tuskers had left behind odd bits of metal armor, mostly broken breastplates, greaves, bracers, and helms, among their remains. There were collections of swords and knives in the hands of the Isparians as well, but next to no armor at all. ¡°This be a final hold-out,¡± the Mick breathed softly, looking around at the desolate place, a boneyard highly suitable for a necromancer. ¡°They were defending it against the tuskers, as they had no way off the island, an¡¯ it were the only defensible point. The tuskers came in an¡¯ overwhelmed them with pure numbers. Given the amount o¡¯ dead, I imagine the Isparian Summons were lettin¡¯ off massive volleys o¡¯ flame spells, an¡¯ the dead tuskers must have been piled high¡­¡± I flicked up a flight of Bursting Chained Shards. Normally the spell didn¡¯t target objects, but the Bursting allowed it to do so as part of an area of effect. The Shards took off, arching up into the air and plummeting down all around us. They plunged into the mounds of bones and blew off in eruptions of fire, force, and vivus everywhere around us, blasting bone in all directions and sending shooting chains of eruptions bursting forth as they jumped from one mound of old disintegrating bones to another. In an eyeblink, fountains of fire exploded all around us, doing nothing but going after the unburied, undissolved bones, their persistence probably a result of all the fire magic that had been at work here. Scores of mounds all around us winked out in my Detect immediately, the ground flashing white even after being burned by the secondary damage of the Shards. Vivic mist gushed out of the ground and began to spread, naturally flowing towards the residual elemental and death energies inside the remains scattered around. ¡°Let¡¯s see what became of the rest o¡¯ them,¡± the Mick said, and we all turned our eyes on the tunnel leading into the extinct volcano, and what had once been the Tusker Emporium. My Detect Bones was slaved to my Holo, and everyone saw the long line of many red and a few green dots extending out ahead of us. I brought up my Darts. As Lord Mick led the way down the tunnel of carved magma slowly. I detonated volley after volley silently underneath us, the bones crunching against the stone vivifying and falling to restful white powder and mist as we followed the trail of the dead down and in. AF Chapter 401 – Emporium of Extinction https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/asheron/images/e/ef/F784.gif/revision/latest?cb=20141117094904 The map of this particular Dungeon was long enough I thought I''d make a link to it =================================== The Dungeon was big and long, unduly so, if there being little chance of getting lost. The fighting started fairly soon, and rapidly began to increase in intensity. It started with golden-furred Tusker Liberators and Redeemers, mature males who were of age to be breeding, out to prove themselves as suitable mates. Much to Lord Mick¡¯s surprise, these soon upgraded to Tusker Slaves and Guards, strong and fast warriors who had originally been mutated by the Virindi, and then become part of the improved Tusker advancement. Lord Mick withdrew Bunita¡¯s Kiss, all Firephased and up for tusker-slaying, from the chest of a black-furred, coppery armored Tusker Rampager, one of the stronger and more elite breeds of tusker that had popped up as we moved into the older, Empyrean-made section of the Dungeon. ¡°Lass, weren¡¯t nothing tougher than Redeemers here at one time. Ye didn¡¯t find the likes o¡¯ these apes until ye got t¡¯ the southern island.¡± ¡°You mentioned Isparian Summons down here,¡± I pointed out. ¡°We¡¯ve not seen a one of them...¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ seen we only the bones. Probably died in the fighting against the tuskers themselves, I imagine.¡± He eyed some of the remains to the size of the room, human skulls and bones quite visible against those of tuskers for their smaller size. Rogar toed a relatively massive tusker skull. ¡°This looks to be the size of an Assailer, Lord Mick.¡± He glanced at it, and the crumbled and rusting armor attached to the skeleton. ¡°No, that¡¯s a Devastator,¡± he corrected Rogar grimly. ¡°Armor is bronzed. Ye don¡¯t see them in the Direlands¡­ nor the Plated and Armored Tuskers which were the equal o¡¯ the Rampagers here. The Ramps were the fast ones, the others were stronger and tougher, respectively. Devastators dominated them all, but never got outside the tusker lands here, kept close by Bobo.¡± ¡°There¡¯s tuskers bigger than Assailers?¡± Milee asked, wincing. While they were quite vulnerable to arrows, particularly fire arrows, the black-furred and silver-armored Assailers stood at least ten feet at the shoulder and massed well over a ton, capable of crashing into and running right over a braced lugian when they charged! ¡°Well, we¡¯ll ignore the Snow Tuskers up in the Frozen Valley, but aye, the Devastators and Annihilators be both as big ¡®r bigger than the Assailers.¡± He watched Rogar kick the crumbling head of the Devastator into the lava below, the bone exploding and vanishing as it hit the lava into a poof of vivic mist. ¡°Bobo brought out the big guns o¡¯ the tuskers for this fight, an¡¯ the defenders piled ¡®em up, aye, just like we used to rampage through these places and kill the Summons by the hundreds an¡¯ thousands. Tuskers were a great thing to fight. Only did the blunt damage, died quick t¡¯ fire, an¡¯ if ye were skilled, didnae hurt much t¡¯ fight. ¡°Now, when they actually be strong an¡¯ kin push ye around like a sack o¡¯ potatoes, ¡®r jump on an¡¯ grapple ye while gnawing yer face off? That kind o¡¯ thing be suicide. Without the Crushfoot keeping us on our feet, we¡¯d be having problems here,¡± Lord Mick stated, looking back ruefully on his past fights. The Roaches nodded. They¡¯d seen some paramounts fighting tuskers in the Dires, and how their utterly confident demeanors changed into shocked confusion when the brutes manhandled them extremely roughly. The older cocksure fighters were having to learn how to fight tuskers all over again!¡­ which was damn funny to watch, I¡¯d also been told. The Mick and Hundig were blocking the hallways with their Shields up, resisting the attempts by the tuskers to rip them out of their hands, throw them aside, and get to the rest of the Roaches behind the two. It helped when they could ignite your Shields with a Flaming Infusion and burn the tuskers when they tried to grab the metal. Ouch-ouch, hot-hot! Of course, the tuskers were dying really fast to the flaming arrow fire at point-blank range, but the fact was the two men were basically concentrating on not losing their Shields and the Archers were doing most of the killing. The areas behind us were replete with vivfiying tuskers with arrow holes punched through their skulls as a result. ¡°Why is there Empyrean architecture here?¡± I had to ask, walking up to the edge and staring at the lava pool below. Like other Dungeons, the heat of the lava was being channeled away and restrained, not super-heating the Dungeons at all. The air was warm, but not hot, or the furred tuskers would have been extremely uncomfortable. ¡°If this was a mine, it would be base walls of volcanic stone and the like. This has been prepared for habitation. It¡¯s actually cooler than the surface is!¡± Everyone looked around at the layered room about us, eyeing the chambers above looking down on us, speculating as to the layout and why it was set up this way.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°Better question. What sort o¡¯ daft idiot puts a vacation home in the middle o¡¯ a volcano?¡± the Mick had to ask. ¡°There¡¯s no living quarters, unless you consider the lava pool a giant self-cleaning privy. But look, you can see pegs on the walls there, as if something used to hang from them. Tapestries, possibly?¡± I pointed them out on several of the walls. ¡°Wait, you mean something to look at as you walked through the place?¡± Politia asked in disbelief, leaping to a conclusion. ¡°This¡­ really was a tourist spot?¡± We all just kind of stared dumbly around us at the idea. ¡°Could put a lot o¡¯ artwork up on them walls,¡± the Mick finally managed to get out, trying not to laugh. ¡°Ketnan, he must have figured it out when he got t¡¯ the end o¡¯ this place. The hot springs, maybe?¡± he guessed. ¡°If the Summons were as weak as you said, you¡¯d get some exciting light exercise on the way down, and reach the end in time for a soak and a drink. I can see that, but¡­¡± Rogar, always the grim one, looked around in disbelief. ¡°Lady Magos, I know you can mold a lot of stone, but would all this be worth the effort?¡± I just chuckled softly, flicking up a Holo of the winding area we¡¯d cleared so far. ¡°You¡¯re talking about the Empyrean magic system, so I don¡¯t know how much area they could mold at one time, but I¡¯m assuming at least a hundred thousand cubic feet, and it could be several times that. It probably cost them at least fifty thousand pyreal, too.¡± My eyes twinkled as Lord Mick coughed, and even the Roaches got peculiar looks on their faces. They each went through five hundred pyreal, a goldweight raw, a day, over ten goldweight between us all. An MMD note or less had been all that was needed to build this whole Dungeon?! Rogar just slapped himself on the head. ¡°I keep forgetting how much money they could throw around. Sorry, Magos.¡± ¡°It¡¯s unnatural to think of just how much coin they could spend, and how fast they could make it back. Once they hooked into the ley lines and made the place more or less indestructible, it was just a source of cash they probably earned back inside a year¡­ or a few days if they killed Summons themselves and pocketed the drops back then, aye, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Feh,¡± he spat over the side, into the lava below, watching it fall and hiss and pop when it hit the molten stone whose heat we couldn¡¯t feel. ¡°We would¡¯ve made more than fifty thousand pyreal in loot just fighting our way down t¡¯ here, if we took everything. Once the Summons came up, they¡¯d¡¯ve gotten their money back inside a day, an¡¯ had their own private Dungeon t¡¯ play with fer light exercise fer perpettin¡¯ tuity.¡± ¡°That really was an insane time,¡± Selena commented, testing her fingers. ¡°We¡¯re good to go, Lord Mick. Group three, finish off your Naming Karma, you¡¯re in front.¡± ¡°Aye, let¡¯s go clear out some monkeys.¡± Lord Mick brought up his Kiss¡¯s burning point, cutting with it lazily. ¡°It occurs to me I saw no tracks o¡¯ tuskers up top. That probably be because there might be no way out o¡¯ the caldera here without a Portal at the bottom and all.¡± ¡°Making this an interesting and safe place to fortify up and use as a base!¡± Hundig finished for him, hefting his Shield Sul next to his teacher. Which was a very interesting point... ------ We proceeded on, and the Tuskers got tougher. As the Mick predicted, the Armored and Plated Tuskers showed up as Summons, filling up the hallways in front of us, trying to smash the two Isparians in front back, and instead ate fiery arrows to the face as they burned their paws. We ground through them slowly and patiently, while I cleared away the bones of the Isparians and tuskers from long ago, silently making tallies as I did so. If this was all the real humans on the island, there had to have been hundreds. If Summons had been involved in this fight, then tens of thousands of combatants had likely been involved here. The dead tuskers were only increasing in size as we went deeper, sort of keeping pace with the Summons, and such brutes had to have been drawn from the population of the southern island, traveling miles to get here. Still, they¡¯d come at the command of the Tusker King, and they had died here. Had Bobo himself come to this place, to fight the humans who had rebelled against his power? I could only assume that his head-cracking Charms had broken when the surge of magic from the Fall swept past, leaving behind a bunch of Isparians clad in towels who had single-mindedly gained power to keep up with their tusker lords, but abruptly were free to treat the tuskers as they themselves had been treated. One tusker reacting violently to not being able to push a human around, magic flashing, tuskers dying, and likely it had all gone downhill from there with amazing speed. ¡°Lord Mick, everyone, hold a moment again.¡± The death cry of the first Devastator we¡¯d run into echoed off the stone. The ground was thick with tusker bones of all sizes, a virtual carpet of them, interspaced with the occasional Isparian. They¡¯d probably run out of mana and been reduced to weapons, the lesser tuskers taking the brunt of the casualties. Without armor, a melee fight was only going to go one way. I picked up an upper armbone as long as my whole arm. ¡°Your opinion?¡± I asked Camwise, handing it to him. He took it with some confusion on his face visible in the darkness of the tunnels here, looking it up and down carefully with his Mask down like we all had for the Devilsight. ¡°What am I¡­¡± he trailed off, peering closer. ¡°This looks like it has been gnawed?¡­¡± he said, as I picked up another forearm and handed it to Selena. He looked down the end of it, thumbing a long crack in it. ¡°The marrow is all sucked out¡­¡± ¡°This one, too¡­¡± Selena confirmed, inspecting her prize. Soon everyone had a different bone in their hands, Isparian and tusker alike. All of them were split open, all of them were gnawed with not a scrap of dusty hide or flesh remaining, and none of the marrow was left. ¡°When did this start showing up?¡± the Mick asked, holding the human pelvis to Bunita¡¯s Kiss. White streaking motes of Lost Light punched into it and set it en vivus in his hand, and he watched it crumble rapidly to power and dissipate to mist in his fingers. ¡°Since at least when we left the rooms to the lava pool behind, I think. I wasn¡¯t paying much attention to it, until I realized how very, very clean all the bones were, even if they were burned. There should be nigh indigestible hide remaining, sinew, something.¡± ¡°Something ate them,¡± the Mick nodded agreement. ¡°I can recall thinking that Devastator skull Rogar kicked into the pool, it were unsuitable for a Baneskull. None o¡¯ ¡®em were suitable fer Baneskulls¡­¡± ¡°Because they were all split open and cracked,¡± Mizaya murmured, everyone nodding along. ¡°Are we assuming the tuskers were victorious, and ate all the dead? Possibly when they couldn¡¯t get out?¡± AF Chapter 402 – Striking to the Marrow I picked out two tusker leg bones, squat and powerful and shorter than their massive arms, and also broken cleanly in two. ¡°Teeth marks.¡± I handed them to Camwise and Mizaya, who inspected them critically. I bent down and retrieved two arm bones, but these had been split open lengthwise. ¡°Teeth marks.¡± ¡°They are different,¡± Camwise said instantly. Mizaya nodded, and they passed the bones over to the others to inspect. The Mick studied them side by side. ¡°These be tusker teeth, crunching an¡¯ cracking, an¡¯ breaking the bones with brute strength. These¡­ be sharper, filed teeth an¡¯ claws, digging into the bone fer the prize o¡¯ the marrow, splittin¡¯ with time an¡¯ patience instead o¡¯ crackin¡¯.¡± He looked at me. ¡°Heard tales o¡¯ cannibals who eat folk like this, file their teeth sharp so they can gnaw at the bones. But¡­ that means there were human survivors?¡± He didn¡¯t sound too certain of himself. I slowly shook my head, tapping the side of my nose. ¡°The brimstone from the volcano is hiding it some.¡± Everyone had their Masks down, but not all of them had taken the Whiskers of the Wild, and especially the Scent advance for it. They noted I had my silver on black Whiskers up right now, and could only sniff carefully. It was Milee who first said, ¡°There¡¯s a smell of rot lingering under the spoiled eggs that isn¡¯t the same.¡± The Mick and Politia both nodded, the others just shook their heads and accepted it. ¡°What be we lookin¡¯ at here, lass?¡± the Mick asked softly, turning around to survey the dark room ahead of them, strewn with bones. Now the trails between the bones took on more ominous meanings, more than heaped bodies stuffed out of the way. ¡°Well, we¡¯ve all been spoiled by the undead of this world,¡± I said quietly, studying all those bones. ¡°Go back to Ispar, and the tales there. Of the graveyards, and the battlefields, and what is called the punishment of the gods for eating the flesh of your fellow man.¡± ¡°Ghouls¡­¡± Hundig murmured softly. ¡°The eaters of the dead¡­¡± ¡°Gor,¡± murmured the Mick, as everyone else nodded slowly. ¡°Never saw such a thing at home, an¡¯ not here, either. They be real?¡± he had to ask, not doubting, just surprised. ¡°They are rare in Aluvia, far more common in warmer lands. Milantos specifically has a problem with them, especially the more outlying islands of their archipelago.¡± I considered the bone in my hand, let it fall, and flicked up my Darts. ¡°Run it through your Visual File. The bones outside were gnawed clean, too. Too clean, but the char and the dust covered it up.¡± They all swore softly. ¡°Can they leave the crater?¡± Selena asked quickly, blue eyes now looking up and around sharply. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯ve seen a single living tusker on the northern island yet, have you?¡± Their silence was an ominous reply. ¡°We didn¡¯t do a circuit of the rim or the caldera wall, because we came down on Disk and lightfoot. There¡¯s probably a way up some nice bony claws could dig in and use to get out of here.¡± ¡°Would they come back if there¡¯s no prey?¡± Rogar asked, his wide brow furrowing. ¡°Cursed undead are usually bound to their place of origin. They might go wandering out at night, but they come back to their graves during the day,¡± I replied. ¡°They know we are here then, killing all these Summons nice an¡¯ loud as they die,¡± the Mick mused, and we all kicked ourselves for not putting up Sound Bubbles. ¡°What¡¯s the main danger? Aggressive biting, clawing?¡± ¡°Paralytic attacks. If you don¡¯t resist, your muscles will lock up and you¡¯ll be totally helpless.¡± They all stared at me. ¡°The old tales speak of it, the dark poison of the grave that locks up your bones?¡± A chorus of affirmations at the old ghost tales followed. ¡°Got a solution, lass?¡± the Mick grinned, confident in me. ¡°Mass Free Action,¡± I said, a holy Silver Light spiraling around Crown, the Lost Light dancing energetically around it. ¡°Which won¡¯t stop them from biting off your face, so be careful.¡± ¡°Us be careful?¡± the Mick responded, as the spell swept out to cover them all. ¡°They be undead! Ye¡¯re going to kill them where they cower in the shadows!¡± Well, that was totally true. Rose gleamed on my finger, totally ready to put her power to the test. I fished out my Baneskull to Undead, fit it on over Crown, and said, ¡°Alrighty, let¡¯s see where they are waiting for us.¡± Detect Bane was the newest addition to Crown, automatically looking for whatever it was Bane to at the time. As I could Infuse a Bane as well as use a Baneskull, this was a pretty effective way of my Staff keeping watch for me in dangerous places against a known type of enemy.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The Rune-carved skull of the Dericostan lord lit up with black Baneflame to the Undead in its eyesockets, and slowly turned to scan the area, locking on the tunnels leading off to the west. ¡°Nothing precise, but they are in that direction.¡± ¡°Mmm.¡± The Mick studied the ground, trails broken through the bones by Summons and much, much worse things. ¡°Think they be like Eaters, chewing on the Summons what they slay?¡± ¡°Undead can eat all kinds of things. Ghouls are never full, however,¡± I replied. ¡°They embody unclean hunger, after all.¡± ¡°Clear the road o¡¯ bones ahead of us, just to set the mood. I¡¯m bettin¡¯ we¡¯ve lots more Summons t¡¯ kill, an¡¯ furthermore, the ghouls are going to be tough enough t¡¯ kill those Summons fer some munchies on demand.¡± ¡°Ten pyreal there¡¯s a boss monster, it¡¯s a big undead tusker ghoul, and fighting it will suck!¡± Rogar said gloomily. ¡°Now ye¡¯re getting in the spirit of things!¡± the Mick agreed cheerfully. ------ The copper-armored Annihilator with fur like black iron was a foot taller than the Devastators, even heavier and stronger, and we engaged it on open ground. It came at us after four of the Devastators failed to stop us, and happily focused on our Shield-users, so we could spread out around it and Wolfpack it down fast. When it spun around to focus on Milee and Mizaya suddenly, something Summons never did, I knew there was going to be a problem. The Fastcast Shards blew into its chest and, if they didn¡¯t kill it, at least they knocked it flaming off its feet and backwards before the massive ape could tear into the lightly-armored archers. It never made it back to its feet, the Wolfpack going apeshit on it as Lord Mick, Rogar, and Hundig chopped it flaming apart, while Selena shifted everyone back to the passageway, Bows out and covering the hall in front of us. ¡°Watcher six o¡¯ clock high,¡± I murmured, and everyone¡¯s eyes snapped up to a pair of feral, gleaming yellow orbs barely visible above, before they vanished behind the wall of the oversight opening up above. ¡°Them be not tusker eyes,¡± the Mick growled. ¡°Yet it could command the Summons¡­¡± The bones were piled up here, even more Isparians among them, but they all gleamed very white and clean in the dim ambient magical lighting. I set them all en vivus, aiming to Seal the spawn points. The undead knew we were coming already, no reason not to make the setting more hostile to them. ¡°Three o¡¯clock high. Something just crawled out of the other overlook and onto the walls or ceiling there, just around the corner.¡± ¡°Ladies, shoot it down,¡± the Mick growled at the four on their Disks, while Camwise and Rogar backed up him and Hundig. Bows and Autobows were lifted high as we proceeded towards the corner there. The Mick stepped around it, Clan up, Hundig taking the corner, Rogar¡¯s Glaive Accent hovering over top of them, Camwise set and aiming with his Autobow, and Selena, Politia, Milee, and Mizaya all aiming high. I dropped the Fire Vuln V on both Annihilators standing there poised at the edge of the room, on either side of the passageway out. Bows thrummed and snapped, and a precise volley of flaming missiles flashed upwards at the ceiling forty feet above. There was a yowl and a screech even as deeply impressive bellows sounded from the two Annihilators, and they turned and came pounding toward us. The Mick immediately stepped out, giving both tuskers room to hit the front of us, Kiss up and locked in Stance, as Hundig¡¯s Saber Qamar did the same¡­ and Camwise was pumping his Autobow Target as fast as he could, while Rogar was braced with Accent above Hundig¡¯s head as well. The once-human thing that dropped burning down the wall was impossibly thin of arm and body, only its belly distended and swollen unnaturally, the very picture of starvation¡­ except for the foot-long purple tongue whipping from its mouth, hands and feet grown to twice the size of any human hands with bony claws, and all its teeth more like fangs than anything human. Its nose had rotted away, and it only had scraps of hair left¡­ but it was still wearing the remains of an off-white robe, patched together tediously and with great care, despite lack of materials. Oh, and the fact it was on fire. It hit the ground, rolling and flailing, and the girls promptly shot it again, fixed on their target, just as the Annihilators slammed into our Shield-users. Hundig would have been driven a lot further back, except for the fact the Annihilator had a flaming Glaive in its neck and two burning quarrels in its face, and Qamar had also slid up neatly into its trunk of a throat and set it ablaze, all of which combined to allow the rangy Gharundim Scout to only be forced back about three feet and maintain his footing as his boots bit and crunched on the stone. The Mick had likewise withstood his opponent, Kiss long and straight and up into its throat, levering it to one side and away from the rest of us, keeping himself and Clan between us and it as he forced it away to the side. Both tuskers were Fire Vulned, and the Firephased Weapons left massive burning paths behind them as a result. Huge paws crashed against the Shields, and then the first one put its paws down, swung out with both feet, and slammed them into Sul together. Mass and power did their thing, tearing Hundig free of the ground and sending him flying backwards before he could compensate. All four women locked their Bows on that Annihilator, and before it could charge into the midst of us, Rogar was in the way with Accent following up on Qamar, and five blazing shafts were clustered to the feathers around the Glaive in its chest. All the Archers pivoted around to target the tusker whaling on Lord Mick, while Rogar levered the dying Annihilator off to the side, its neck almost reduced to bones and the vivus sparking off as the Summons died, just as something big and fast leapt out from up above at that watchpoint, directly down at us. Featherweight got it before it fell five feet¡­ which left it thirty feet of space to fall through at one foot per second. Even with its incredibly long limbs, there was nothing for it to grab and hold onto to change its fate, suspended in midair and falling as gently as a leaf down upon us. AF Chapter 403 – A Ghoulish Ending Bows and Autobows thrummed, and Mick¡¯s target jerked back, skull impaled and starting to blaze with flames from five shafts punched into and through it. Superhumanly strong himself, the Mick forced the dying carcass off to the side and started cutting upward in Sharding strokes at the thing falling down much too slowly from above, arcs of blazing fire and vivus surrounded by sunfire motes of fiery Lost Light ready to do their work. I could have blown it apart, but I was moving out and to the side, because Crown was saying there was another one in the hallway the Annihilators had been guarding. I flicked up the Fire Vuln V over the thing up there, highlighting arms almost half again as long as a normal Devastator, claws easily a meter across, and widespread jaws that could tear a man¡¯s head off like a lollipop, with a disgusting tongue that had to be six feet long flailing about it. It was by far the skinniest tusker we¡¯d ever seen, but it moved so fast and powerfully it was plain that it was far stronger than any that we¡¯d seen yet, too. The stench of it hit us like a wall of blargh, but it was cut by fire and vivus, and so not nearly as gut-churning as it could have been. What it could have done if it landed in the middle of us would not have been fun, but what it ended up being was target practice as Shardings and missile fire drove into it, and the Fire Vuln doubled the impacts of all the attacks coming in on it as it screamed and shrieked in tones and sounds no normal tusker could ever make. When its partner leapt out of the hallway, quick as a panther, spinning and making ready to charge and pounce at us, I was waiting. Rose flared on my finger. Fire and Positive Energy swirled in the Lost Light, which blazed with real wrath at the presence of a chosen foe. The Baneskull on Crown Burned blacker than the void, and for just a moment, the Tusker Devastator Ghast locked eyes with it, and flinched. Then the Paired Admixtured Greater Shards slammed into it like the first rays of dawn. Fire, Force, and Positive energy slammed into it and smashed it up and backwards off its massively-splayed feet, driving it into the wall. Unwhite, dead black, starlight motes, and Holy Primal flames like all the spirits of the morning smashed into it like starfire arrows from the heavens, detonating upon it, tearing through undead flesh, and blowing it and its remains into vivic dust and a blast of shining unwhite mist almost instantly. There was an explosion of whiteness up above me as the shriek of the second Devastator Ghast was interrupted, and heavy white vivus blew in all directions. All the bones were now ablaze with vivus, staining the stonework white as they spread rapidly, feeding on the remains of the angry, desperate, and despoiled undead. An unspoken pressure around us was both rising and lessening at the same time. The Mick was circling slowly, looking in all directions. ¡°I feel spirits moving, lass,¡± he reported quietly. ¡°Two of the human-sized ones in that room up there. Bows up!¡± I said softly. They came up, and Zeks reached up and Telekinesis launched the first one out through the opening they were inching towards violently, my Featherweight catching it in midair and leaving it a target. The other one didn¡¯t know what had happened, and could only watch as its companion seemed to jump out the opening and then somehow drift slowly down as flaming attacks shot up from below to destroy it. Then it was launched out the opening the same way, telekinetic fingers giving it no love, and it was drifting haplessly in midair, only able to kick and writhe helplessly, nothing in reach. I didn¡¯t bother to Fire Vuln them, because Rogar, Hundig, and the Mick had joined the attacks, and neither got within a dozen feet of the ground before they exploded into ash and vivus violently under the flaming assaults from below. ¡°Nothing above, nothing in the ramp up,¡± I reported, now the nearest to both openings, ready to bring up Shards or something else as Lost Lights spiraled eagerly and brightly around Crown. ¡°It¡¯s eating away the stench and still turning my guts,¡± Selena whispered, still covering the above opening. ¡°That¡¯s worse than the fish guts pile on a hot day!¡± ¡°Tuskers already smell, so that be not worth mentioning,¡± the Mick murmured. ¡°Ye all got yer Whiskers o¡¯ the Wild up high enough to be blockin¡¯ stenches as well as smellin¡¯ good, right?¡± There was acute silence from all of them. ¡°Yeah, respondin¡¯ like folks what never had to inhale olthoi acid pool vapors for an hour straight,¡± he said, his own rather ferocious and snarling Whiskers out and displayed in a much more wolvish snarl. ¡°Put yer masks on. In close quarters, the smell is gonna make you puke without ¡®em.¡±The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. There were murmured apologies and promises to get the Tats as everyone dug into their Masspacks for the alchemical masks they could strap on to breathe underwater and filter their breaths if needed. Their Mask of Clarity Tats were enough to protect their eyes, they¡¯d all at least done that much, if only to be able to ride Disks at speed without having a helm on. ¡°Lass, a bit o¡¯ scoutin¡¯ ahead be soundin¡¯ appropriate,¡± the Mick said, and I had to agree. The Wizard¡¯s Eye popped up, and zipped on off ahead of us, just a flicker of shadow in the darkness. It might still be seen, since it was moving, but I could use a Detect through it, so it was also going to tell us if the ghouls and ghasts were closing in, and where all the Summons were so we could pick the fighting points. ¡°Hunding, next fight, ye crouch down, angle yer shield up, make the feet bounce up instead of going through ye,¡± the Mick murmured to the ashamed Gharu¡¯n, giving a knock to the Roaches shoulder. Everyone was watching the combination of my Detect Non-Good and the Wizard Eye¡¯s view in the Markspace window. The layout of the hallways ahead of us was slowly spinning into the Visual File map, along with side corridors that were pinging defenders. The Summons were Brown, and the undead Black slime. The Mick saw that and paused, looking at the layout of the tunnels. ¡°They be going to surround us an¡¯ hit us from four angles,¡± he stated grimly. ¡°Rogar, yer on Shield with Hundig, move to the back, both o¡¯ ye. Cam, with me at the front. Ladies, two forwards, two back. Lass, first spell puts them on the ground, if ye can, second spell Vuln ¡®em t¡¯ Fire.¡± The responses were quick and curt as all of the men were off their Disks and Shielding up now, Rogar¡¯s Glaive shortening to basically a short Spear as he joined Hundig at the rear, Milee and Mizaya facing backwards and over their heads. ¡°When we advance to the next junction, I can start shooting the first Annihilator, and probably blow that ghoul off the ceiling there,¡± I informed the Mick. ¡°Shootin¡¯ ¡®em around corners just makes me laugh, lass. Do it,¡± he grinned back. We advanced to around the corner, and I let loose the flight of Shards with Seeking on them, which could turn several corners in pursuit of their targets, and I knew right where those targets were. There was a bellow and a shriek in tandem as the split flight of Shards found their targets, smacking a ghoul off its ceiling hiding-spot and blowing an Annihilator spawn off its feet. Neither target was killed, although the undead was severely burned and injured, and fled immediately to deeper in the Dungeon, my Wizard Eye following it smoothly as its burning, ice-rimed, and sparking body fled urgently back into the corridors, bits and pieces of it falling off as the layered Kickers raged at it again and again. It made a nice distraction as I plotted out the location of the other undead it ran past, none of them paying attention to the Eye amid the clatter of bones, swirl of vivic mist, and eye-catching show of the blazing ghoul frying in so many colors of Kickers trying to outrun its pain and not quite succeeding. A basic layout of the area ahead scrolled past before the Kickers Burned out on the ghoul, leaving it at less than 20% Health, and giving us an excellent idea of what we were waiting for. Then a massive undead figure it ran past grunted, there was a blur of motion, and I snapped the Eye¡¯s connection closed just before it was torn apart, saving myself some bleeding from the eyeballs. In the meantime, the Annihilator had gotten back up and come charging down the corridor towards where the attack had come from, looking for something to fight. But it actually had to turn two corners to do so, sapping its momentum and making it a great target as the two men in front raised Weapons to brace for it, Bows and Autobows centered, and the scarlet flash of the Fire Vuln V went off. --- Going down the side corridors and restricting attacks to the front and back was the proper way to foil a multi-pronged ambush, leaving Shields between us and them, and the size of the tuskers and tusker ghasts preventing them from doubling up on us in the corridors. I was plenty happy to knock Devastators, Annihilators, ghouls, and ghasts off their feet with basic Shard Attacks, also softening them up for the burning missile volleys slamming into our attackers at point-blank range. The stench as the ghouls and ghasts tried to close in to melee range was indescribable, if you could smell it. The Roaches were biting into their masks for dear life at just the slightest whiff getting through the filters of the eye-watering fumes, but vivus and flames did manage to devour the worst of it as they perished with great speed. There was no teamwork on the part of the enemy, the tusker Summons basically just sacrifices for the undead trying to slip in close and get to us, and the undead didn¡¯t cooperate well, although they didn¡¯t attack one another, either. They still Burned down and away as we worked our way through the defenses, Seeking Darts zipping out to fall upon Spawn Points and Seal them, as well as setting all the bones en vivus. It became a bit of a grind, obvious Summons being ordered in from ahead of us, forming a wall of meat for us to get through to advance, even as we wiped clean and clear all of the tunnels behind us. Bones fell to dust, stone was washed white, and we entered the final tunnel to the main holding area. The bones of Isparians were more common than ever before, and we were all wincing at what we were going to see and find. It was plain more of them were women by their sizes, and the area of the final stand was coming up. The biggest and most brutal tuskers had been sent to attack it, and their echoes were coming at us, even as the undead drew back and waited for us. ------ The final room was spread wide in front of us, the largest and most open so far. Once it had been flowered and ferned, with tables and chairs, a bar against the wall, a hot pool at one side, and cheerful lighting and banners all around. Now, it was piled with bones, and a lot of those bones were of children. Their skulls were universally crushed, all their bones snapped to flinders, but it was pretty plain what they were. The Isparian dead outnumbered the tuskers in this room, where all the non-combatant women and children had fled, and the tuskers had killed them all. AF Chapter 404 – A Ghoulish Fate Being dead obviously hadn¡¯t stopped either side completely, because there were definitely a bunch of them still moving in the room, although only one was obvious. He was sitting on a crude throne of bones and wood, with several carved wooden signs sticking out above him proclaiming that he was indeed ¡®The Boss¡¯. His off-white robe was in good shape and almost spotless, too. Well, he had a three-foot purple tongue lolling down his chest and sliming the cheap cotton cloth up, but that was a different thing. The Mick turned to look at me. ¡°Eh, that¡¯s Ketnan, by the Assess.¡± And naturally he was the Baron Ghoul, although he probably styled himself a Ghoul King, and had noticed us. He popped to his long-toed and taloned feet, pointing at us accusingly. ¡°Now you come?!¡± he shrieked in contempt and outrage. ¡°NOW YOU COME?! Puling adventurers, ready to claim the prizes after everyone else has died, like your greedy, thieving kind always do? Always taking, taking, taking, never giving or risking for others?¡± he shrilled at us, plainly working himself into a frenzy as he clawed at the air. ¡°Do you still sell meat pies?¡± I shouted back at him, ignoring his diatribe. He actually stumbled on the edge of his robe and almost fell down at my question. ¡°What?¡± he demanded, slitted yellow eyes blinking at me. ¡°We would like to buy ten thousand meat pies, Master Ketnan!¡± I shouted back at him. ¡°Oh, and your sister is finally free of that torturing bastard in Sanamar, you¡¯re welcome!¡± He jerked reflexively. ¡°Britana is free of Varicci?¡± he gasped, not quite processing that. ¡°Yes, yes, we all watched the twat die. Now, are you still selling meat pies?¡± The reason being that he had a basically new robe on, something I could not imagine staying in good shape down here, especially with his tongue discoloring it like that. ¡°What, what would you possibly need ten thousand meat pies for?¡± Ghoul Ketnan asked, clearly very off-centered. ¡°We¡¯re feeding a Tremendous Monuga and wanted a change of pace for him. If you¡¯ve got a tun or so of wine, we¡¯ll buy that, too!¡± I called back. He looked rather dazed at that. ¡°I¡¯ve, I¡¯ve never sold ten thousand meat pies before¡­¡± he gasped. ¡°T-Twenty pyreal apiece!¡± he yelled out. ¡°Thirty-five for each serving of wine!¡± ¡°Bulk rates!¡± I immediately parried. ¡°14 and 27, and not a farthing higher!¡± Which was still way too bloody high, but the place WAS a tourist trap. ¡°Deal!¡± he crowed in delight, bounding off his crude throne. ¡°How are you paying, dear customer?¡± ¡°In resurrections or M notes, which would you prefer?¡± I shot right back. He paused at the edge of the overhang, looking across at us on the other side of the room. He didn¡¯t know I knew where every hidden ghoul, Isparian or tusker, was hidden up on the walls, behind corners, underneath the bones, on the ceiling, and everything, and so did everyone else with me. There was no way we were moving a foot into the room, not the least because there was a motionless Annihilator Ghast hanging from the wall right above the opening, somehow managing to control its stench and of course not breathing or tiring at all. ¡°Rez, resurrections?¡± Ghoul Ketnan asked blankly. ¡°Do you want to be restored to life?¡± I asked him coolly, and he twitched so hard he almost fell down. ¡°Life! You can¡­ restore me to life?!¡± he blurted out in shock, staring at me there behind the Mick and Hundig, just visible above their Shields. ¡°I have restored over a hundred brave men and women who died in the massacres at Mayoi and Hebian-to back to living, breathing mortality, Master Ketnan. Your father and sister await you in Hebian-to, and even your drunkard of an uncle sent us after you, despite all the years that have passed. We came here because of you, and you alone.¡± The ghoul that had been Ulgrim¡¯s nephew goggled at me. ¡°Look at me!¡± he finally screeched, oversize claws hitting his chest and ripping his now-slimed robe immediately. ¡°You think you can restore me to life!?¡± he shrieked. ¡°No. You¡¯d have to die first. THEN I can restore you to life. Going straight from undeath to life takes more power than I currently have. ¡°So, we have to kill you, and all these ghouls and ghasts you have command of who are preying on the tuskers that killed you. Did any of your other minions manage to retain their sense of self, Master Ketnan? It does not seem like they did.¡± He stared at me for a long, cold moment, clearly thinking hard about this. ¡°No, none of them,¡± he finally said, which basically matched what I was reading of their gluttonous, slimy Black Auras, and then his smile stretched in a predatory, hungry grin. ¡°So, you came here to save me.¡±Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Pretty much the only reason we¡¯re here,¡± I agreed, and under my breath said, ¡°Be ready¡­¡± ¡°So, if I have everyone attack you and kill you and eat you, I¡¯ll still be here and I can go recruit some more tuskers to my cause. If you kill more, you¡¯re just going to bring me back to real life. That sounds very much like I win either way, little miss!¡± he crowed cheerfully. ¡°Well, once you sell us what you were going to.¡± ¡°Oh, right! Right! My biggest sale ever!¡± He started waving his arms up and down in manic triumph. ¡°Ten thousand meat pies and that volume of palm wine! Hahahahahaha, adventurers! You owe me four hundred and ten thousand pyreal!¡± he declared pompously. ¡°Pay the man, Lord Mick,¡± I whispered, and in front of us, the floor burst into vivus, rapidly consuming all of the bones there and clearing the space out to pristine whiteness. The stone receded immediately down into the floor, while a cloth swirled into the air and fell to the bottom of the growing pit. ¡°Put the spare change in the bottom of the pit first, Master Ketnan.¡± The Mick took out five M notes, the next smaller denomination than the largest MMD notes, and flicked them out towards the ghoul. The limp papers spun through the air like flying shuriken, and the ghoul nabbed them nimbly out of the air. ¡°Money! Money!¡± he crowed, dancing in place. ¡°I can finally pay that asshole off and get out of debt to him!¡± he shouted, while we ignored the grit falling down from above as the nervous tusker ghast just above the entry shifted uncomfortably at vivus Burning so close below it. Ghoul Ketnan looked back and forth between us and the money in his hands, obviously considering just taking the money and not delivering, but plainly he was also wondering if we might not buy more stuff in the future, and he couldn¡¯t stop himself. Besides, they could always eat the meat pies and wine if we died, right? He wasn¡¯t losing out on anything! There was a ching of falling metal as ninety thousand pyreal coins fell out of nowhere and down into the pit, coating the cloth at the bottom. I immediately drew a line of stone over them. ¡°The wine next,¡± I told him, and he waved his hand again. The barrels materialized in midair, but that was fine, Featherweight and Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis handled them instantly, directing hundreds of gallons of wine down in precise rows and stacks, instead of falling and shattering. He stared at the casual display of power foiling his entertainment, and before I said anything, triggered the meat pies. I could Shape a whole lot of stone very precisely, and the Featherweight gave me the time to do it. Hundreds of meat pies lined up with incredible speed and precision into multiple levels, stacking up into twenty-foot squares and levels in midair and falling gracefully down into the pit in formation. Thin sheets of stone slid across the pit and up from the bottom, catching and preserving every single pie seamlessly. The final cover slid across them, the Tapestry activated, and vwoop, the whole pit was suddenly empty of everything, Ghoul Ketnan staring down into it in disbelief. ¡°Send them, Master Ketnan,¡± I smiled. ¡°The Land is hungry today.¡± With a roar and a burst of ungodly stench, the Annihilator Ghast above us let go and slammed down directly in front of us. The Triadspell of the Imperil and the Fire Vuln went off on it instantly, and then a whole lot of flaming death blew into it, ripping through the ragged remnants of its copper breastplate and molding fur, and set the bastard on fire with a whole bunch of crits. Darts smashed into it as it howled in pain, shoving it backwards and into the pit behind it, on fire with a whole lot of Kickers and not going to survive the second volley of shots that caught it in midair. Tusker ghasts and human ghouls were rising from piles of bones, leaping from the ledges at the far side of the room, dropping from the walls and ceilings, and they were coming for us in a howling, shrieking, screaming, slavering horde that had all the OMFG wall of odor preceding them, trying to get at us. The Mick and Hundig had the front, Camwise and Rogar were backing them, and the girls slammed flaming arrows into the undead. I Vulned everything two and three at a time, and in between I blew Shards into them with Toppling and knocked them all over the place. It was a lot of fast and furious action, undead with paralyzing claws trying to scramble over and past our guys and receivingFirephasing Weapons to the face, then hurtling through the air as Shards detonated against them and sent them flying. Zeks was quite artistic about guiding them into the empty pit over there and soon filling it with Burning, vivifying undead howling in pain as so many different kinds of flames consumed them. Happily, the Devastator and Annihilator Ghasts were so big they got in one another¡¯s way, and were so hungry they didn¡¯t even think about giving way to one another. We didn¡¯t try to kill Ketnan, even though he was up there in front of his throne of sales signs proclaiming two for one shirts with purchase of a coconut, yelling at his undead minions and forcing them to fight us to the death while standing back and appreciating the show. I could see the magical ties to his minions. Any attacks on him would be sent out to his servants and kill them before he took any real harm at all, so killing these fellows was a requirement, not just being thorough. The Ketnan Ghoul thought it was Ketnan, and the System was sure treating it like it was, to the point of giving it his merchant stuff. But to become a ghoul you actually had to die. What was left behind was a negative energy mirror image of your soul, inhabiting your body as it was infiltrated by massive amounts of necroic power, warping, altering, and changing it to something that was powered by the energies of death, not those of life. Or, if you wanted to be scientific about it, powered by directly consuming the energies of life, not those of dead matter, even if it was just residual energies from once-living, rotting flesh. Still, his reaction as we tore into and through his servants became more and more frantic and extreme, as he really wasn¡¯t expecting us to be able to fight his minions. Their paralytic touches had probably won them constant kills against the tuskers and the Summons here, who had no real defense against it save natural resistance and ¡®saving¡¯ against the effect with vitality and will. Free Action meant we weren¡¯t susceptible to that stuff at all, and even if they pierced the armor of our guys and drew blood, we didn¡¯t stiffen up and go down like their foes had before, nor were we reacting to their horrific stench in the slightest. That was probably about when he realized we really were going to clean them all off, and he really was going to die. AF Chapter 405 – Fire in the Hole Ghoul Ketnan started launching spells in at us, an impressive achievement considering he hadn¡¯t been known as a spellcaster at all. I could only assume the Isparians who¡¯d been brainwashed by the tuskers had taught him, and as a matter of survival he had learned incredibly quickly. That, and he came from a family with known affinity for magic, and maybe he¡¯d just been hiding it all along. He was not happy when I Countered his Vulns and Imperils, stopped his Drains, and then I began to run Chains of Shardrays through the declining number of undead raging at us. The Chains leapt them over and up to him to speed the whole process down by channeling the damage back down to his minions. It was hard for him to Cast spells on us when he was on fire in six colors and trying to put them out, and my spells kept hitting him over and over. Even Healing up instantly as he displaced the damage to his minions was extremely distracting, and the very unwanted spell support from him was quickly strangled before it was dangerous to us. Ghoul after ghast went falling back in flaming arcs into the big pit behind them. It certainly wasn¡¯t big enough to keep them down there, and they were strong enough to punch their claws into the stones and make their way back up. Their problem was that they kept taking damage, the Kickers on them kept getting refreshed, and already injured, they were being smacked by newcomers falling from above so they couldn¡¯t climb out as they were falling to vivic dust. The last undead Devastator was smashed backwards, chest and arms on fire, Burning missiles in its face, and its neck and chest a charred mess as it was flung backwards over the edge of the pit and crashed down on the Burning, dying undead below. Ghoul Ketnan, still up on his ledge, saw us finally advance out of the tunnel, the Mick orient on him. While the rest of us spread out around the pit to bombard the occupants mercilessly, the Mick charged him, right up through the air, treading on wisps of vapor from his Cloudstepping Sandals, not needing to run or leap or take the ramp or anything. His charge took the startled Ketnan square in the face with his Shield Clan, Bunita¡¯s Kiss driving deep into the ghoul on the charge, crits exploding, Valorous Charge damage multiplying, all the fun stuff as the mass of stinking, Burning undead flesh down in the pit fell apart with great speed. Claymore against claws and jaws began to have its way. I wasn¡¯t worried about the Mick, as no matter how much Ketnan seemed to bounce and bend and try to get away from him, the ghoul went nowhere. Thorned Stance and Standstill kept the undead merchant locked in place, Sword beats Fist triggered for extra attacks, as did Opportune Sneak Attacks, Riposte, and Defensive Sweep coming in from multiple angles, free shield bashes from Clan stacked on top, and Ketnan began to die. I didn¡¯t bother to Debuff him, because that would have triggered automatic Buff spells to counter, and maybe to auto-Dispel what I had laid upon him. The Mick tore into him, and he began to take the injuries as the last of his minions blew explosively into vivic dust below, and then it was all on him. The Mick was putting on a textbook display of containment swordplay, not allowing the lightning-quick ghoul to take so much as a step away from right in front of him. His Flaming Claymore was slashing and stabbing in a gorgeously ornate flurry of blows that only seemed to be accelerating as Ketnan tried to get past his Shield and blazing defense, steely claws raking against adamantine plates and finding no real way through, and having no advantage of strength against his living opponent. A flicker of a feint, another Defensive Sweep, the explosion of a critical and a Flaming Burst going off concurrently, ripped the ghoul completely open from neck to crotch, extended tongue going flying and disintegrating. Ghoul Ketnan staggered, scooping at his withered flaming internal organs, and hissed, ¡°Adventurers,¡± with deep contempt and yet a smugness, knowing ¡®he¡¯ was going to live again. Then his head was flying off his shoulders, and flames were Burning on him. Noticeably, vivus was not among those flames there at the end. ¡°This enough to bring him back, lass?¡± the Mick asked, breathing deeply as he sucked in oxygen while his boot toed the horrific sneer and leer caught on the dead Ghoul Baron¡¯s face. ¡°Yes, although the spell will have to create a new body. We¡¯re going to make a nasty Baneskull out of this sucker.¡± The Mick reached down onto the charred corpse of the ghoul, lifting away the satchel at his side. He levered it open with interest, and saw within not just the M notes we¡¯d given him, but quite a heap more notes, mostly MMD¡¯s, stuffed inside and not remembered at all by the ghoul. Plunder from the dead, more than likely, hoarded to pay a debt to someone likely long dead.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I floated up behind the Mick, pointing behind the throne. The Mick peered around the side, and saw a massive treasure chest, easily four feet high at the top and roughly plated with scrapings of gold, garish and showy and meant to be seen. ¡°What¡¯s a tropical paradise without some hefty loot?¡± he asked meaningfully. ¡°Well, it won¡¯t keep reopening with different loot like they did in the old days, or the same loot items repeatedly, but he should have a key on him,¡± I told him. The key was made by assembling two dangling charms on the ghoul¡¯s ornate bracers together, and everyone stood back as the Mick inserted it and opened it up, stepping back swiftly in case there was a trap that neither one of us had been able to find. No such reactions, although there was a lot of glitter in there. We all crowded up, and looked upon the collected spoils of the deaths of the Isparians of Aphus Lassel, and whatever ornamentation the tuskers had carried and left beyond. There was quite a bit of it. Casting Implements of all sorts were part of it, but there were lots of stacked semiprecious and precious stones likely carried as mementos, along with a lot of simple jewelry of all types. Weapons and armor didn¡¯t seem to be part of things, although there were a few skull-like Helms and tusker bone Swords that were definitely made from tusker parts. ¡°Tusker Slayer Weapons,¡± the Mick stated, pointing them out, his gaze turning thoughtful. ¡°Gor, I ain¡¯t thought about that treacherous little bastard in nae twenty years.¡± At my arched eyebrow and those of the Roaches, he elaborated. ¡°The servants o¡¯ Aerbax made up an infiltrating tusker they called Mudmouth, using him to poison the Tusker King an¡¯ eventually try to kill an¡¯ replace him with a false Tainted Bobo. Those Weapons are made from the bones o¡¯ those two critters.¡± His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ¡°Bobo was actually the first Prodigal, but he was made by the virindi from a common tusker, who were already enslaved by them, where the rest of the Prodigals were made by Aerbax. Gotta wonder how things worked out with two factions of virindi both with designs fer him, an¡¯ if their little creations might¡¯ve actually gotten through t¡¯ him.¡± ¡°Do you care to investigate his Dungeon to find out?¡± I asked him calmly. He actually considered that a moment before saying, ¡°I have the impression the northern island is mostly abandoned by the tuskers because o¡¯ these ghouls. That gives us an open period t¡¯ clear out the entire island o¡¯ tusker spawns before the tuskers further south realize the ghouls be dead. That cuts out a lot of work an¡¯ a lot of Summons for the tuskers to use in a fight. ¡°There are a LOT of tusker Spawn Points we have to Seal up as fast as we can. We should bring in a lot o¡¯ help to take care o¡¯ that problem.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Let¡¯s do that, then.¡± ------ Orders went out in Markspace, troops were mobilized with speed, and I Teleported back to the mainland north of the old Falcon Clan training camps to start shuttling Hea, Aun, and Isparians with spears and bows across to the islands, keeping a safe distance out of observation distance from the southern island. Culling of the tusker Summons began quickly and quietly, Spawn Points noted and vivus applied to each as the many, many Summons died. There were some Phyntos Wasps, both real and Summons, and those were also zealously hunted back to their nests as soon enough hundreds of soldiers were working down the length of northern Aphus Lassel. No actual Fire Weapons or spells were used, being too easy to see at a distance and thus rouse the curiosity of the tuskers. Piercing attacks worked almost as well, and the fighting forces progressed with speed and energy, being used to this Summons-clearing work and having little mercy for the tuskers who had wiped out their former slaves so viciously. Restrained by their own fear of the ghouls and ghasts sweeping out to kill them, the tuskers to the south didn¡¯t bother to investigate the quiet deaths and disappearances of the Summons. Any that were visible on the beach from the shallow shores were disposed of quietly during the night so any watchers from the southern side a mile away would see little to nothing. Also, conjuring up a wind to send a nice rendition of the stench of the ghasts wafting across the waters to the tuskers was an excellent way to dissuade them from investigating anything. Indeed, a rough line of tuskers was drawn up along the shores of the southern island in an attempt to dissuade any of the undead from attacking. As the undead didn¡¯t need to breathe, their infiltrations could be done underwater and come up literally anywhere, likely to the intense detriment of the tuskers there. It was not our problem, in the end. ------- ¡°The ghouls were busy for years,¡± Hadon, the head of one of the other Scout teams, reported to us, shaking his head. ¡°Total confirmation from every Dungeon on the island, Lord Mick. There¡¯s dozens of tusker bones in all of them, although the Summons were still there. The living tuskers using the lesser Dungeons as dens were slaughtered wholesale.¡± The Dungeons were already being earmarked for training purposes, being fast-spawning and exactly mono-Summons, and thus very easy to prepare for. The Summons there came in large numbers, tended to cluster up, and were incredibly predictable. There were no material rewards, but for training purposes and Karma, they were some of the most useful Dungeons we had ever run across for training, a purpose they had also been earmarked for in the past, the Mick informed us smoothly. Just advancing up the line of tuskers from basically teenaged Minions to the young Females was a guaranteed method of Level-appropriate training that could easily get even the less ambitious sorts to Level 100, albeit with experience against only the one kind of foe, which wasn¡¯t ideal. Still, it was a good resource to have. We just had to keep the rest of the tuskers from coming back and reclaiming everything, especially reopening the landscape¡¯s Spawn Points if they were capable of doing so. ¡°Something feels incredibly off about all of this,¡± Briggs stated firmly. ¡°I think it all hinges on the fact there are still Isparian Summons in the Dungeon of King Bobo, despite not being anywhere else in the islands. That says that something is in there that isn¡¯t killing Isparians out of hand, while the tuskers basically went, eh, ape on them.¡± ¡°Knew it!¡± the Mick swore. ¡°When that damn Mudmouth popped into my head, it were like something were pointing at me fer the damn bastard!¡± AF Chapter 406 – Monkeyshines ¡°Mudmouth?¡± Briggs repeated blankly, and was swiftly informed of the relevance of the name and where the creature had come from. Another of Aerbax¡¯s shenanigans. ¡°So, you¡¯re thinking this not-tusker and its False Bobo servant survived the Fall and took control of the external tuskers? Bobo might only be holding onto his own Dungeon?¡± Kris wasn¡¯t skeptical at all that it could happen, just wondering how. ¡°How is it maintaining control?¡± ¡°Better question: how did ghouldom suddenly get introduced into Dereth?¡± I replied smoothly. Briggs nodded to me. ¡°Good and dangerous point. It¡¯s not natural or native to Dereth that we know of, but with the changes in magic, there¡¯s no reason having so many undead around didn¡¯t bring it in ¡®naturally¡¯, as it were, at least in a necromantic sense.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no way the virindi would not know of ghouls, if they have any planar traveling experience at all,¡± Kris considered slowly. ¡°At the same time, Shades have a control mechanism as part of their darkness infestation, and we haven¡¯t gotten any good looks at the southern tuskers, have we?¡± ¡°Huh. You think the Bhael-Zhaon¡¯s Patron got his hooks into some of them, and is infecting the rest?¡± Briggs asked, pale green eyes intent on her. ¡°I¡¯m saying this Mudmouth is a creation of shadow and virindi magic, as is the False Bobo. Furthermore, Mudmouth was a spellcaster, its appearance as a tusker was basically all show. There¡¯s a lot of things it could have done, especially since tuskers aren¡¯t too bright and bow to strength.¡± ¡°He would have gotten rid of the two women who helped King Bobo out the most,¡± the Mick broke in suddenly. ¡°Jilna Fullgood, an¡¯ the juju priestess calling herself Kleoh. Apothecary an¡¯ poison expert, respectively. If they are dead, well, Bobo was poisoned by Mudmouth once, an¡¯ might well be again, this time with no King¡¯s Crown infusion to help him fight it off.¡± ¡°The eradication of all the Isparians just being cover to kill off two of them. That sounds incredibly ruthless,¡± Kris commented grimly. ¡°Mudmouth were a cunning little shit what did whatever it took t¡¯ complete its mission. The lives o¡¯ others meant nothing to it. Would nae surprise me a bit were he behind this, an¡¯ that fact only makes it sound more convincin¡¯, Highness, not less,¡± the Mick nodded firmly. ¡°Nastiness o¡¯ the shades, uncaring ruthlessness o¡¯ the virindi. And if it be true, it got what it was sent t¡¯ do, taking power from Bobo.¡± ¡°That means we have to reach the Tusker King,¡± Briggs stated. ¡°There be a lot o¡¯ monkeys in the way, even if we come as friends. The Summons just go off on ye,¡± the Mick shook his head. ¡°Even the Isparians, although I dinnae know how much changed with the Fall. The fact they are in there as Summons don¡¯t mean they can¡¯t be reclaimed, aye?¡± As we¡¯d proven they could be. Everyone looked at me, I inclined my head in acknowledgment. ¡°We should get Martine in on this, too,¡± I said firmly. ¡°They are all basically related. I believe the Prodigal Hea joined him at the Keep, and I¡¯ve heard rumors that Harraag might be joining them there, if it can get Ayan settled to its liking.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve no particular designs on reclaiming Ayan or Wai Jhou,¡± Briggs grunted. ¡°The banderlings didn¡¯t wipe the town initially, that was a virindi force taking advantage of the Fall. Candeth Keep is much more defensible and commands the terrain around it better. Ayan doesn¡¯t even have a wall.¡± He rolled his eyes, muttering something about silly magical rules when a town in an incredibly dangerous high-Level monster playground didn¡¯t even have to put up a fence. ¡°Are we going under the waterfall there, then?¡± the Mick asked, frowning. ¡°I have the feeling that will be quite the fight to get in there¡­¡± ¡°Not the normal way, of course. I want a Scry of the outside first. If what we suspect is true, there are going to be a lot of hostile tuskers outside there,¡± Briggs confirmed. ¡°What, no sending the elite scouts through twenty miles of jungle dripping with powerful tuskers?¡± I grumbled. ¡°No, no, just have the magos Cast a basic Div and save all the running around and stealthy stuff, sure, sure¡­¡± ¡°You are the BEST support mage!¡± Kris grinned shamelessly. ¡°Damn right I am.¡± I got out a basic crystalline plate for the spell, and began to weave it together. I knew the location because of my earlier Locate Creature, so I just scanned for that area and a higher vantage point, and slaved a Holo to it so everyone could see what I was. The spell materialized about a hundred yards above the waterfall that was the single largest source of fresh water on Aphus Lassel¡¯s islands. The Dungeon was located behind the rush of water spilling up from below under volcanic pressure or something. ¡°Ah,¡± Briggs murmured grimly, staring at the scene. There were hundreds of tuskers gathered in the pool in front of the waterfall. Bones could be seen scattered around the shoreline, where the waters had pushed them back and away from the entry point. The tuskers were a dark green, not black, with soiled and stained armor that was dripping something that was staining the water there, giving it a nasty tinge as it flowed down and out of the pool there.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. The Mick leaned forwards. ¡°Huh. Those look like the diseased Assailers what popped up on the south island long ago. I guess that disease were more than a disease. Are those Summons, lass? They aren¡¯t moving much.¡± ¡°There is a lot of twisted shadow essence there, it¡¯s kind of hard to tell, and might be immaterial, if they are infused with enough of it,¡± I responded, eyeing the hundreds of brutish creatures standing guard and contaminating the water supply at the same time. I shifted the focus of the Scry north, to the top of the waterfall instead of the pool at the bottom. There were a hundred more tuskers up there, lazing around in the water and blackening it as they did so. ¡°They are either trying to Taint or sicken the tuskers inside the place, but they¡¯ve still managed to hold it. That¡¯s impressive on its face,¡± I noted. ¡°No, it were impossible. There¡¯s more tuskers there than were found in the whole Dungeon afore.¡± The Mick leaned forwards, studying everything. ¡°The Dungeon be not strong enough to stop that kind o¡¯ force¡­ unless they be using magic. ¡°Lass, can a Caster avoid yer divs?¡± ¡°Easily, if they are skilled. A basic Div Ward at VII will block Divs at VIII. If someone thinks that Mudmouth is trying to use Divinations to see what is going on, they could easily block me from seeing them,¡± I informed them all. ¡°Then I think a powerful Caster is running the Isparian spawns inside that Dungeon, and giving the tuskers the edge they need to hold the line. If they are organized and disciplined, the tuskers can provide the brute power and the brainwashed sots the spell power. With their Spawn Points right nearby, they can recycle endlessly faster than the attackers could. If they choose their ground as near the magical traps what Cast Bludgeon Vulns and Shockwaves an¡¯ the like, it could get really bad, really fast for someone coming in.¡± ¡°We can¡¯t truly break the Siege, although I imagine vivus would clean up a lot of the place¡­¡± I blinked, and then clenched my fist. The Scry shattered as there was a bit of motion at the edge of my vision. Everyone looked at me. ¡°Something was coming, and I didn¡¯t want it to notice me looking.¡± Briggs grunted, looking at the frozen image on the Holo left behind. ¡°It concentrated its forces below, there¡¯s no quick way up to the waterfall if something were to happen. Think you could get up there, slaughter everything, and put something vivic in place to really mess up Mudmouth¡¯s plans?¡± he asked me. I looked at the arrangement of lazy tuskers doing nothing but spreading disease and Taint up top there. No sentries posted or anything, they weren¡¯t expecting anything to get that close. ¡°I could put up a wall around that place, Sound Bubble to contain all the noise, and we could butcher everything inside it, sure. When vivified water starts pouring down from above, it¡¯ll burn the Summons and force them out of the pool as it starts purifying the waters. Put some Vivic Eternal Lights sunken down out of reach of them, and they won¡¯t be able to turn the effect off, either.¡± ¡°You mentioned a King¡¯s Crown Infusion. Let¡¯s say that it might be a solution to this problem. How do we make it, and where do we get it?¡± Briggs asked reasonably. The Mick smiled widely. ¡°King¡¯s Crown flowers grow about the base o¡¯ the Deru Tree on Xik Minru¡¯s Island,¡± he said cheerfully. ¡°As for making and powering up the Infusion, I have no knowledge o¡¯ that, but I suspect whoever is in charge of the place will know.¡± ¡°You think Madame Kleoh is in there?¡± Kris reasoned out. He nodded. ¡°She were a cunning one who saw things others missed. I expect she an¡¯ Jilna Fullgood might both be in there, directing what Isparian survivors are deep in the Dungeon. If yer Divs were stopped, then stands t¡¯ reason Mudmouth¡¯s were, too, an¡¯ he might not even know there are survivors in there at all. ¡°The wholesale slaughter o¡¯ Isparians weren¡¯t like the Tusker King at all. He appreciated having Isparians around t¡¯ work magic an¡¯ do things the tuskers couldn¡¯t, as we¡¯re smarter than his people are. Killing us all would weaken him, not strengthen his position in the slightest.¡± ¡°Mudmouth playing on racial anger and territorialism, then,¡± Briggs agreed with him. ¡°Ryin, can you insert, wall them in, slaughter them, set up the vivic cleansing, and prep things for a full-scale assault on the outside forces?¡± I studied the numbers of the tuskers there. Despite their infamous vulnerability to fire, that was a lot of meat to have to pound through. If I could just sit in the air and kill them, sure, it wouldn¡¯t be a problem. But how likely was that to happen? ¡°Summons have no brains, but the stronger tuskers can toss their little ones right over any walls I put up, so the walls will be contested, even if I make them pretty big and strong. Also, I won¡¯t be able to mana reinforce them, so they can be battered down, even if it might be difficult. Lord Mick said Mudmouth is a Caster, so he could smash them down fairly quickly with straight magic. The walls won¡¯t hold forever¡­¡± I shrugged. ¡°I can do it. They aren¡¯t undead, but they are definitely unclean and they have to go. I don¡¯t know if the tuskers down below will notice any residue from the fighting. ¡°Once we have the top, I can put in a Teleport Focus and we can start bringing people in via that route.¡± ¡°Do you want Martine and Hea Rheaga there now or later?¡± Kris asked reasonably. ¡°Either way. They may wish to study what Mudmouth has done before or after, but the fact is we¡¯re going to have to run the bastard and his False Bobo to ground and then True Death their asses. It¡¯s a big island with a lot of holes to crawl in. I imagine the Prodigals will want to talk with Bobo, as he was basically the first of them and the most unintended.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t want to be calling on either of them to display their power. Wisdom, experience, and understanding of otherworldly powers at play, sure,¡± Briggs stated firmly. ¡°We have to make them see we can indeed handle the fighting, even against something like them.¡± I inclined my head slightly. ¡°Well then, why don¡¯t we bring in some real muscle, then?¡± Everyone looked at me. ¡°Tim¡¯s Ring will be up and working in a few days, and he¡¯ll finally have his appetite under control. I imagine if we put some Buffs on him, and he gets some actually decent armor and effective weapons, even if they are crude ones, he¡¯s going to be a much more terrifying opponent than any tusker on that island is prepared for, right?¡± AF Chapter 407 – Tremendous Improvements Riding the Light to insert myself into position above the waterfall wouldn¡¯t be that hard. I had a previous scrylock, near-orbital survey, and I was very good at the math. I would leave from the rim of the volcano where Ketnan had held sway. As I had promised, Ketnan had been Resurrected early, taking the time and spending the mana so it didn¡¯t interrupt my normal six a day, slow and sure. His uncle, sister, and parents had been overjoyed to get him back, his body basically spun out of nothing in something akin to a Deathstone revival. Unsurprisingly, he had absolutely no knowledge of what had transpired after he died and his body was made into a ghoul. Rarely were the true souls of people involved in the undead that could be made of their shells. He did remember his grim tale of survival there at the end, the way the tuskers turned hostile as the Isparians were freed of Bobo¡¯s charms, and his desperate mastery of magic and organizing the Isparians to defend themselves against increasing tusker aggression. His tale of defending the Emporium he had turned into a last redoubt was a tale for the ages. His mercantile empire would likely never exist, but Ketnan was going to be famous and appreciated for what he had gone through. He was also unsurprisingly cool about the whole revenge thing, especially when he learned Mudmouth was probably the force behind everything. He had Leveled to over 200 in wild and crazy fashion during the year after the Fall, mastering the magic he¡¯d never put any effort into in his life with the zeal only a desperate survivor could have. That said, he had literally been fighting for his life and watched everyone die around him, before dying horribly himself just a short time after. That was dead-dead, not Deathstone dead, and a whole lot of PTSD came along with a magnificent last stand that had still, in the end, not been enough, and ended in massacre and failure. The bones of the dead had been split and gnawed by the ghouls and ghasts, and were wholly unsuitable for Resurrections, tainted by negative energy and basically forcing the dead to stay dead there. It had been too long, with too much undead influence and negative energy. I could bring him back because of his ghoul providing a thread tied to his soul as an NPC, but not the rest of them. It was very depressing. However, if the System had collected their souls, there was hope!... On the flip side, his treasure chest was credited to him, and he was pretty damn wealthy instantly because of it. Pyreal wasn¡¯t worth a whole lot, but probably the one bright light in all of that was he found himself VERY interested in Artificing and making reliable magic, especially after the catastrophe of the Fall, and now he had the time and money to pursue such things. As for his debtors, if any came calling, there were numerous people totally willing to put a yard of steel in their guts for even mentioning anything so stupid. ------ In between a visit to Martine and Hea Rheaga, Kris and Briggs worked on making a basic Armor set up for Tim. At their level of skill, they could eyeball the measurements, so the main thing was the amount of weight the additional gear was going to put on the big guy, necessitating some things be put into place for improvements so he could wear them. Also, a Titan-sized set of armor wasn¡¯t going to be done in only a few days. It was simply too damn much metal to have to shape up. Happily, when you are forty feet tall, just getting lower body armor is a pretty good set of protection as it stands. --- ¡°Hands out!¡± I instructed Tim, who dutifully extended his three-fingered hands in puzzlement. A thousand meat pies were taken out of Itemization (dutifully transferred there from Tapestry), and I placed a hundred of them in his over-sized palms. ¡°Slowly,¡± I told him, as his triple eyes boggled at the sight and aroma of what was in his grasp. He kind of slurped them up in shock, more when a barrel of wine was tapped and a stream of it came coiling out of the barrel, sitting there in midair for him to slurp at¡­ which he did energetically. Like most Jotuns, he could handle a huge amount of food when given the chance to, and a thousand meat pies wasn¡¯t too many for him to handle, nor were forty gallons of palm wine. At the end, I let him take the barrel and go off, sit down against the side of the hill, and ruminate on life as he watched the sun go down, slurping a gallon of wine at a time slowly and in obvious comfort as he did so. ¡°Tim, we have a problem on the islands you used to call home, out to the east there.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. One of his three stacked eyes turned to look at me, parked there on his shoulder. ¡°Tuskers bad,¡± he growled, clearly remembering an epic fight he¡¯d lost. ¡°Chase Tim from home.¡± ¡°To be fair, you were eating them. It was kind of warranted, don¡¯t you think?¡± ¡°Tuskers fat and good eating,¡± he sighed. ¡°Also, big fat juicy bugs. Tim loved big fat bugs!¡± I had to raise an eyebrow at that. ¡°Well, you won¡¯t be hungry in the future, but we can certainly make some really, really good bugs for you then.¡± ¡°Really?¡± Two eyes were looking at me now. ¡°Promise?¡± ¡°Dangerous sword princess knows some recipes that will have you glowing happily for days.¡± ¡°Good! What Tim have to do?¡± ¡°You know the shades and the virindi, right?¡± I asked him, and he blinked once. ¡°Nasty, cruel things. Alien. Not belong here,¡± he pronounced solemnly. ¡°I agree. There¡¯s a thing on the islands, made from shades and virindi. It¡¯s rotting out the islands, putting that shadowy Taint into the place, and we have to stop it. Also,¡± I let my voice drop conspiratorially, ¡°it made a fake tusker king. Looks exactly like Bobo. We have to stop and kill that thing, too.¡± ¡°Tim get to fight Tusker King again?¡± He ruminated over that, clearly not wanting to lose again, although eager for the tussle. ¡°Well, this time we¡¯re going to be helping you. You¡¯re going to go into that fight looking like this.¡± I waved up a nice big life-size illusion of what Kris and Briggs were planning. His three stacked eyes stared at the image of himself in surprise and awe, because he looked pretty damn impressive that way. He pointed repeatedly with his free hand. ¡°Tim look like that?¡± he asked in a hushed rumble. ¡°With spells to help you out.¡± Imitations of magic flashed and settled over the image, making it straighter, taller, more vigorous, smoother, and faster. Spells and rocks smashed into the image, doing next to nothing, only making the image snarl and lift a massive spiked club in his hands, ready to use. ¡°Tusker King used magic to beat Tim,¡± the great monuga mumbled. ¡°Maybe Tim use magic to beat Tusker King?¡± he asked hopefully. ¡°That¡¯s the idea¡­ along with a whole, whole lot of other tuskers.¡± ¡°Tim happy to go fight on old islands!¡± he pronounced enthusiastically, raising his quarter-barrel of wine. ¡°Eat well, fight well!¡± ¡°You¡¯re going to find out what it means to be fighting alongside little people with magic, as opposed to against us, Tim. I think you will enjoy it.¡± He blinked all three of his eyes slowly, ruminating on that as the illusion vanished. Then his gaze dipped to the barrel in his hand, and he said, ¡°Finding out new things, Tim is,¡± he finally admitted. ¡°Things not like the ways of Tim¡¯s people. The children are not very smart,¡± he confided in me. ¡°Always think with fist and clubs, not able to make stuff well. Not like little folks,¡± he waved at me. ¡°How bad was it, growing up? It doesn¡¯t seem like many of you make it to your full growth, Tim.¡± His expression turned sad. ¡°Tim not meet any real adult monugas. They all magical things, chained spirits,¡± he waved derisively. ¡°Cannot talk, even dumber than children. Tim try to talk to ones in magic valley, they stupid. Talk to one virindi think can force to grow to adult, it even stupider and mad with pain, slave to virindi, born to go mad and die. Silly one up in north, chops down trees which keep regrowing, dumbest one of all, but has nice shirt, and big blue ox very friendly.¡± ¡°Does Tim like aurochs?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Auroch okay eating, like tusker. Have to pick meat off the bones. Shellfish, bugs, just peel and eat, much easier.¡± ¡°Well, there¡¯s two huge aurochs on the cold islands up thataway, off the shore.¡± He turned his head to follow my pointing figure, nodding after a moment. ¡°Really big. Big as the blue auroch. We¡¯d appreciate it if you killed and ate them so they don¡¯t come back.¡± He blinked. ¡°Really big auroch? Might take Tim a while to eat all that,¡± he confided in me after a moment. ¡°Kris said she would make the absolute best steaks out of them you ever tasted, too.¡± ¡°Sword princess cook for Tim again?¡± he asked eagerly. ¡°She would.¡± ¡°Tim will kill big aurochs if needed!¡± he promised fervently. ¡°Well, thank you for that. Are you familiar with Eaters?¡± I whipped up an image of the eating machines made by the Fiuns at normal size. He leaned forward for a better look, so I brought the image up closer to him, imitating their running motions and attack patterns. ¡°Alien thing,¡± he grunted, sipping his barrel and shaking his head. ¡°Not know how taste.¡± ¡°They eat everything. If they get loose on Dereth, it would look like this.¡± I waved my hand, and replaced the trees and brush and green of early spring here with a barren, rocky, wind-swept desert, bereft of even weeds and scrub, everything alive eaten away. Tim tensed as a wave of Eaters rampaged across the distance, running over the landscape on their stubby legs, looking for more food, always more food. His eyes were a glare as they surrounded a lone stubby tree, quickly tearing it apart and consuming the wood, then digging at the ground to actually drag out its roots and eat them, too. ¡°Have to die,¡± he pronounced. ¡°Eat too much.¡± ¡°That they do,¡± I had to agree with them. ¡°Question for you, Tim. Do you know how to help other monugas grow up? There¡¯s no need for you to be all alone.¡± He was silent for a long while, looking at the sunset. ¡°Need magic,¡± he finally said. ¡°Lots of magic. Have to eat lots of magic, get stronger inside, as well as outside. Kids have problems eating that much magic. Too much, get sick and die. Too little, not get strong enough, do nothing. Tim see many children die in magic place, trying to get stronger and failing.¡± ¡°Is this magic place a secret? I understand if you do not want to share it, and will not make you answer.¡± He deliberated on that for a long moment. ¡°Tell little lady user of magic. Tell no one else?¡± ¡°Sword princess will have to know, but she likes Tim.¡± He hummed deep in his chest, puffing up slightly. ¡°Magic place is mushroom forest, across the water.¡± He pointed west, towards the setting sun and the Direlands beyond. ¡°Must eat the mushrooms. Lots and lots of the mushrooms.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± Magic giant mushrooms made Tremendous Monugas. Who would have thought that? Bringing back a race of Jotuns might not be too wise, but the gromnatross/dragons were already back, so what was one more uber species joining us, especially natives who might be allies? I considered the setting sun as it went down, and what our next moves were going to be. AF Chapter 408 – Tremendously Equipped ¡°AUUUUGGGHHH!¡± Tim screamed, as yet another hole was poked in his skin and his soul, and the spurting Brown light of his Soul Essence streamed forth. He shook and he shuddered, but he didn¡¯t let go of the massive pylons to either side of him, muscles bulging as he fought the pain of having his Chakras opened up for Soul Magic. He had already taken the Mark from Kris, and was present in the Markspace. Seeing all those powerful minds and souls there who dwarfed him in mental power was a huge wake-up call for him, especially since the bonus of the Mark was to his Intelligence, and he was now aware of the potential and power of gaining some Matrix Classes. Soul Warrior was a decent enough way to get started on that process, especially since it worked off Constitution, of which a Tremendous Monuga had tons. ¡°Gor, that is a lot of natural Soul the blighter has,¡± Lord Mick exclaimed with feeling, watching the process as Kris trotted up Tim¡¯s right arm and over to his left, her Disk following her with her Soul-Tatting supplies. Tim kept very still as she went to work scribing the Philosopher¡¯s Might Tat on his left forearm, bands of alternating long and short whiteness punching into the thick skin of his arms. Her Arakne Arms were out to help with the process, wielding needles twice as long and thick as she used to work on Isparians, tumeroks, or even lugians. The list of warriors clamoring for her time in such matters was pretty long and involved. She also had a couple very diligent Aun focused on mastering the Soul Painting technique so that they could start taking some of the load off of her. ¡°His natural Con score is almost as high as Kris¡¯s is, and that¡¯s saying something, given she¡¯s a Null and really Con focused,¡± I agreed, watching the whole process. ¡°Which is important, as he can go right to a Capacity of 5. Without a bunch of Soul to use and move around, multiple Tats is worthless to him.¡± ¡°It be a good thing he¡¯s a friend now, given the upgrades?¡± the Mick asked, only a little warily. ¡°You can see the Yellow starting to pervade him already,¡± I said calmly, and he hesitated only a moment before nodding at the tint to the Brown. ¡°I have no idea how many years he¡¯s been alone, nothing to talk to, only himself and his own thoughts to keep him company. Longer than Isparians have been here, and longer than the virindi. He might even be from before the olthoi, although I didn¡¯t press on that.¡± ¡°¡¯Tis a long time to have no one to talk to. He¡¯s not much of a chatter, but he¡¯s listening a lot,¡± the Mick admitted. ¡°He¡¯s not used to minds who work so much faster than his, plus he feels small in the Markspace, clumsy and slow compared to so many of us. He¡¯s got brute strength there, but he doesn¡¯t use it well because he¡¯s never had to. His life has been one of moving from one meal to the next, fighting for those meals, and not too much else. ¡°That said, he¡¯s eager to learn and he¡¯s having fun, almost like a child discovering new toys. He¡¯s actually not dumb, he¡¯s just never had to exercise his brains.¡± ¡°Well, I got me no respect for the little ones, but a skull that big should have some thoughts to it,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°Jotuns in other worlds are often fairly heavy thinkers. Heads in the clouds way up there, not much concerned with basic needs. The more powerful they are, the less they are concerned with stuff mortals think is important. Mostly on the Elemental side of things, not concerned with the Alignments, either.¡± He gave me a weird look. ¡°One o¡¯ these days yer gonna have t¡¯ tell me where you picked up so much weird shite about the greater worlds beyond our own. Sounds even more profound than the Empyrean shite, as they are mostly flailing about messing with shite they shouldn¡¯t be for power an¡¯ knowledge an¡¯ lore an¡¯ bragging rights.¡± ¡°Someday,¡± I half-smiled. ¡°Tim has Jotun equals and superiors in other times and places, beings that deserve the name of Titans who can contest with some of the lesser gods. Just like Dragons, the Jotuns can grow to be immensely powerful, especially in their spheres of endeavor. The Monugas, for example, are textbook Earth-Aligned, with no nominal affinity for magic at all. But they can get very strong, big, and resistant to magic if they work for it.¡± Tim¡¯s feet chakra had already been opened, and a misty gout of Brown Soul Essence was glowing on the top of the rough hides made from the largest of the Malus Shreths wrapped around his feet. A team of men was hauling in a foot covering made of gleaming silvered metal. There was no need for stealth in this case, so why not silverslake it? I eyed the Runework scrolling like delicate, powerful ink across the silvered metal, eye-catching and quite beautiful. The layered shell of metal was brought up and around the top of Tim¡¯s foot, fitting quite snugly around it.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Alright, Bind it to your foot, big guy!¡± Briggs called out in his commanding voice. The sides of Tim¡¯s head furrowed, much like our foreheads would, and there was a swirl across the metal. The black lines lit up with Yellow-Brown light as the Soul Essence suffused them, and there was an audible crink as the metal was sealed into place over top of Tim¡¯s massive foot, bonding right to the skin and leather beneath it. ¡°Clever,¡± the Mick admitted with approval, looking at it. ¡°Can¡¯t strap the thing down, ain¡¯t nothing would stand up to his weight an¡¯ strength without magical reinforcement. Bind it to the Chakra point, hold it there with the magic itself!¡± We both looked at the greave that was coming in behind it, almost ten feet long and made in much the same pattern, with chain links and mesh clearly meant to connect to the solleret top there. ¡°Just proper boots are gonna make him a pain in the arse to fight,¡± the Mick predicted, shaking his head. ¡°Ten feet just to reach his knees!¡± ¡°Briggs isn¡¯t a fool, so he¡¯s going for full lower body and vital points, anything an archer would aim at. Tim is going to look like a titanic shining warrior by the time we¡¯re done here.¡± ¡°Wouldnae it be easier just to use those Bracers and wind some Force Armor about him, as ye do?¡± the Mick asked. ¡°Damage Reduction,¡± I reminded him, and he grunted. ¡°My Force Armor can bounce some hits, sure, but it doesn¡¯t soak up anything strong enough to punch through it. Your own Way of Water is basically designed to shear right through it. It takes metal and mass to get true Damage Reduction, and stacked onto him, it¡¯s going to take one of his primary vulnerabilities way down. For all his size, his skin really isn¡¯t that thick or durable, you know. He¡¯s actually far more vulnerable than something that size should be, likely due to inefficiencies in the growth process. ¡°A true Jotun of his size would have six inches to a foot of skin and fat to cut through before you even got to the muscle or any vitals, and that skin would be as tough as old oak or even stone.¡± ¡°Modifier?¡± the Mick asked, always curious about the numbers. ¡°Jotunblooded True Giants of Earth can hit +20 Natural Armor. The least of them is around +10.¡± ¡°Gor! That be better than the best Enchanted Armor!¡± the Mick blurted out. ¡°He¡¯s only got +3. It¡¯s maybe equal to horsehide from back on Dereth. Stops most of the scraping. His vitality and incredible Fast Healing are basically his strongest points, and the sheer amount of Health Qi he has is incredible. If we can reduce the amount of incoming damage to him, his Fast Healing will take care of everything, and even moreso if we use Life Magic to boost that, too.¡± ¡°So, boosting that Natural Armor be very important,¡± the Mick nodded slowly. ¡°Life Magic or Barkskin both viable, methinks?¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t aware that he could invest more in his own Stature effects. How much Karma do you think he¡¯s accumulated over the decades, even centuries, he¡¯s lived?¡± The Mick¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°So, he¡¯s suddenly going to get a whole lot tougher each and every day, an¡¯ he¡¯s already starting on a Matrix Class¡­¡± ¡°It might be his only Matrix Class. For all his aggression, he¡¯s more Elemental than disciplined, and he doesn¡¯t want to fight just to fight, unlike his little cousins. He might just take Warrior Levels instead of Melee or Archer as Secondary. ¡°But he loves Soul Magic, you can see and feel it, and he¡¯s a natural for it. He¡¯ll probably take Soul Warrior as far up as he can go, maybe Soulcaster on the side. It¡¯ll likely become a hallmark of the Tremendous Monugas. They¡¯re just naturals at using it.¡± ¡°Aye, I¡¯m not feeling any spiritual basis for using ki,¡± the Mick nodded, watching the Greave get levered up into place on Tim¡¯s fur-wrapped shin, connecting chains and mail mesh already linked to the Solleret top. Brown-Yellow light flared up the black Runework, and the unstrapped metal adhered fully without needing straps to keep it in place. ¡°Naturals, you say? That include the kiddies?¡± The back half of that Greave, the Knee Guard, and the Tassets for the upper leg were already on the way, while the left foot¡¯s Solleret was being carted over as well. ¡°Probably. Although the only way to test that out is using Charm Magic to Dominate them and keep them docile while we open the Chakras on them. It might be an alternate road to Enlightenment for them. If we can access the Isparian System enough to raise their Focus and Self enough to get above their base instincts, that could be a road to full growth for more of them.¡± ¡°Can the island sustain a bunch o¡¯ Tims?¡± the Mick had to ask, picturing that situation. ¡°No. But it can Sustain more of them than there are now¡­ and Enlightening the monugas would be worth it, regardless. They never stop growing, and eventually die under their own weight, no longer strong enough to keep moving. Soul Magic could alleviate a lot of that, even if it doesn¡¯t bestir the massive evolution to being Tremendous. Being able to Invest in their own Stature would also overcome a lot of problems, but they are too dumb to do so.¡± ¡°These Jotuns ye speak of, they do the same?¡± the Mick inquired, curious now. ¡°No. True Giants that I know of come with Stature active from the moment they are born, and just grow into it. They are more than humans like we Isparians are, or even the Empyreans. They have tremendous amounts of innate Elemental energies within them, and simply inherit all that power and much of the instinctive knowledge they need to survive. ¡°The monugas seem more like the gromnies. They can grow to contain the power, but are too dumb and savage to invest in themselves and gain it properly, and so never do. True Dragons in other realms grow into power, but they also take a great deal of time to reach the higher tiers among themselves. It takes a full century for them to reach adulthood in size, for example. I would like to see how old the Summons of the large gromnies in the Valley of Death are, although I suppose just asking the gromnatrosses how long it takes their young to actually become self-aware would be easier.¡± AF Chapter 409 – Visitation Rites ¡°I be surprised ye¡¯ve not gone to visit the grommers yet,¡± the Mick commented. ¡°They¡¯ve generally good hearts to ¡®em, what I could tell back then. Hopefully they¡¯ve not changed, an¡¯ all the Empyreans I knew revered them, save the blackhearts among them.¡± ¡°So I¡¯ve heard. It¡¯s why I was so ready to spare Tim. The potential to be more might just be an aspect of some of the creatures here.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± The Mick considered that. ¡°Shreth? Reedsharks?¡± he had to ask. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Go ask the gromnatrosses. They may just get big. I know ursuins can get pretty monstrous in size here, much bigger than back on Ispar. Darling, right?¡± I recalled one of his tales of an old Quest here. ¡°Aye, she were one big fatarse ursuin, that be true,¡± he admitted. ¡°Ten foot at the shoulder if she were an inch!¡± he remembered vividly. ¡°Tough as nails an¡¯ way too nimble for the size, too! If ye weren¡¯t a master o¡¯ yer weapon, fighting ¡®er was well-nigh impossible!¡± ¡°But still just a nasty and vicious predator, when it came down to it.¡± ¡°Aye, just experienced an¡¯ cunning,¡± he agreed. ¡°Also, really liked to eat tuskers.¡± ¡°Surely just a coincidence in these tough times.¡± ¡°Is someone tryin¡¯ t¡¯ round up ursuins an¡¯ train ¡®em into warbeasts or something?¡± he asked after that slipped out. ¡°Well, they are kind of big and fuzzy, you know?¡± His smile was incredulous. ¡°Are ye actually serious?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a lot easier when you can actually talk to them¡­ and can cuff them on the head if they get too stupid.¡± ¡°Where does the woman find the time?¡± the Mick shook his head incredulously. ¡°Helps when you can Teleport around and like to run for miles to cool off¡­ I mean, draw lived-lines all over the island.¡± ¡°I be lucky enough to have done most o¡¯ that a lot o¡¯ years ago,¡± he admitted. ¡°Though I be admittin¡¯ that Aphus Lassel were a hard place to run about on.¡± ¡°I think we¡¯re going to be taking care of a lot of that going forward.¡± ¡°I killed that damn twat o¡¯ a fake tusker enough. Ain¡¯t goin¡¯ t¡¯ hesitate t¡¯ do it again.¡± ¡°With a nice support mage around to counter all his War Magic an¡¯ debuffs?¡± I asked innocently. ¡°That sure be helping matters. Using a Healing Kit be not the quick fix it used t¡¯ be, an¡¯ I ain¡¯t got me the gear with the Life Prots an¡¯ Wards that I used to have¡­ an¡¯ all the critters seem to have kept their damn War Magic an¡¯ Debuffs, rotters all o¡¯ them.¡± ¡°So very un-tusker-like.¡± ¡°Ye¡¯ll have no problems taking out his Buffs?¡± he asked me quickly. ¡°None. But Debuffing will just trigger auto-counters, so softening him up isn¡¯t going to work like normal. I¡¯d have to be creative about things, and that usually means it¡¯s easier just to sit back and let you do the work.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what we be there for. Have ye no fear, when it¡¯s time t¡¯ kill thousands o¡¯ things at once, we be plenty happy to sit back an¡¯ not be about hackin¡¯ away fer hours t¡¯ do the same thing.¡± ¡°You are such a generous man, Lord Mick.¡± ¡°Aye, comes with me great wealth in all things under this great an¡¯ glowing sun,¡± he answered piously. ¡°It okay Bunita can¡¯t share your bed for now?¡± I asked him softly. ¡°She didnae share me bed for seventeen years, lass. She be there t¡¯ laugh at me in the morning an¡¯ tell me about what she be learnin¡¯ t¡¯ cook an¡¯ go study under the master. I hate t¡¯ admit it, but this whole gettin¡¯ old taught even a dumb shite like me some patience.¡± ¡°She probably hates that she can¡¯t be out here fighting next to you, you know.¡± ¡°Oh, gods an¡¯ shades, she bitches about it non-stop, but happily she¡¯s not resentin¡¯ me fer that, but whoever an¡¯ whatever got her into this situation.¡± He coughed once. ¡°However, there is one thing she be wonderin¡¯.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± ¡°Is there anything in that unlimited arsenal o¡¯ tricks ye seem t¡¯ have to restore her original appearance?¡± I lifted an eyebrow at him. ¡°Easy, lass,¡± he raised his hands. ¡°I don¡¯t care a whit about her new life, but she misses her old looks.¡± ¡°She doesn¡¯t even remember exactly what she looked like,¡± I sighed. ¡°She just hates red hair, Lord Mick.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Aye, she do be complainin¡¯ about that the most,¡± he agreed. ¡°Well, that an¡¯ the freckles.¡± ¡°There is a spell called Biosculpting that allows minor permanent changes to one¡¯s appearance. However, the changes are literally only skin deep. They won¡¯t have any effect on children or lineage or anything, unless you are an innately magical being, who are defined in many ways by their appearances.¡± He blinked at me. ¡°I know I shouldnae be surprised ye¡¯ve got more rabbits in that hat, but that exception be a mite strange, too.¡± ¡°Magic is like that, or so I¡¯ve been told.¡± ¡°True enough. Pay me lass a visit or two?¡± ¡°No. It won¡¯t stick while she¡¯s a Summons, washing away in the dawn with Natural Renewal as her body magically resets. Once she¡¯s real again, aye, I can change things. I suggest playing with that mess of red curls she has and counting her freckles in the interim. Lots of hair combing.¡± ¡°That be a nice way o¡¯ tellin¡¯ her to be patient. Aye, I can be doing that. The Teleporting, that be real helpful.¡± ¡°So, totally ready to go burning through tuskers tomorrow?¡± ¡°Ye know it!¡± he agreed cheerfully. -------- Tim took a step forward. He was wearing a lot of shiny metal now, and it was heavier. Yet he felt lighter on his feet than he had ever felt before. Magic hummed over him. His Soul burned Yellow-Brown Runes into the Armor he was wearing, not only making it seem weightless, but him as well. The soles of the boots he was wearing had been prints of metal on the ground he had stepped into, then fused them to the metal tops he had already been wearing. Metal treads had lifted him an inch or six off ground under the power of his own soul. He could feel the sand underneath him, rubbing on him, more aware of the ground under his feet than he had ever been, and he supported his own weight, all of it, without effort. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Tim,¡± the little spellcaster on his shoulder said calmly. The monuga looked back as the forces of little armored people behind him rippled and faded from the view of his three eyes, along with the Disks and Wagons they were standing on. He looked down at his own Gauntleted hands as the Armor and his own body became¡­ well, not quite invisible, but he could look right through it clearly, even as he could see it was still there. ¡°Going!¡± he said, and started forward. One long stride of a heavy metal-armored foot, and he came down into the shallow waters. Onto the shallow waters. His soul supported him effortlessly as he walked out over the waters, delighting in not sinking down and into the heavy stuff that got into his way. Magic swirled ahead of him, and the Shoreward he always had to break to get out of and through glittered and opened a half-circle more than tall enough to admit him, and all the Disks and Wagons following behind him. He began to pick up his pace, great long strides that would rapidly eat up the miles between him and his old home, full of so many juicy big bugs. There were streaks of motion to either side of him, little v¡¯s of motion cutting across the surface of the sea, streaks of mist identical if smaller than the thick whorls of mist spinning off his own feet as he ran across the water. The fact the two Dangerous Little Ones could still keep the pace with him was a challenge he decided to take, and he began to pump for more speed with a low growl. The Hag Princess¡¯s wicked laugh came clearly to his ears, and both she and the dark and stealthy man on the other side had no problem keeping up with him as he thundered across the waters, moving so fast now that without the transparent face of the helm he was wearing, he knew his eyes would be closed against the force of the wind resisting him. ¡°You won¡¯t be able to beat them until you can push the wind away,¡± the soft voice of the Caster on his shoulder spoke up. Tim blinked and looked at her, holding her place effortlessly, when the wind resistance should have picked her up and flung her away like a leaf. He could see the wind bending and parting a foot in front of her, scarcely more than a stiff breeze blowing back her almost glowing white hair, a gleaming flower on a dark stalk, thrumming with so much magic against the Essence of his soul flowing through the Armor under her Tim couldn¡¯t imagine ever wanting to get into a fight with her. Push the wind away. He didn¡¯t know how to do that, but he would figure out a way, and one day, he would run without the wind being able to stop him! Pitting his bulk and strength against the wind, Tim raced for the shadow of the island on the horizon. Intimately familiar with the island, he knew exactly where he was going and how to get there, but there would be a surprise this time! --- The passage over the dark waters took only a few minutes. Unsurprisingly, considering that they could not be seen, there were no ray-sharks or shellfish to interrupt them, which was something of a pity. Shellfish tasted good, and the big ones could satisfy him for a long time. There were some tuskers along the shoreline, supposedly looking for dead things coming up under the water. There were a lot more of them in the dark colors of their elders and tougher fighters than he remembered, but it had been a lot of seasons. ¡°Ready to go up,¡± the Cloud Flower on his shoulder said in her impossibly clear voice, weaving some magic of incredible complexity without effort, then touching him on the shoulder. He felt like a bubble, and it took a great deal of effort not to howl in delight as he stepped UP into the air, his Soul pushing off the air as easily as it had the water¡¯s surface! He had to slow down, as the air suddenly felt thicker to him, but that was fine as he strode up into the sky. A circle in the air fractured open silently, the Shoreward opened with impossible ease from the outside, and he stepped through without having to slow down at all. Thirty feet above the ground, and rising higher with every stride. The enslaved tusker spirits below did not react to the streaks of mist zipping by overhead, not having enough sense of self to question things happening that weren¡¯t a direct threat to them. Tim could sense when the magic was waning, and he could rise no higher than the treetops of the palms swaying back and forth, the trees themselves responsible for the increased height. Near the shore, he could barely rise much higher than his own head. Well, that just made it easier was all. It wasn¡¯t like he was going to fight tuskers up here. It just meant he didn¡¯t have to bat the leaves out of his face as he moved over the island. The pool where he¡¯d drank from, stood in the falling waters, and liked to rest nearby wasn¡¯t too far away now, rising above the rest of the island as its highest point. Rotting, sick, diseased, and Tainted tuskers in his pool. Tim grit his teeth, but stayed quiet. He was hunting now, and when hunting you should be quiet so you didn¡¯t have to chase the prey as far. There was a lot of prey ahead of them. AF Chapter 410 – They Call Him TIM! Tim the Tremendous Monuga could see the black waters of the pool, and smell the rot of the flesh and fur of the fake enslaved spirits sitting in it unmoving. Stupid, silly things, not even knowing they were rotting the jungle, not smart enough to care, only to obey. The pool was upwind, the tuskers would not smell them coming, could not see them. Tim just waited there, his feet standing on the air just above the trees, a swirl of mist with no source and cause, weird but not very visible in the night. Stone began to rise around the pool. There was no sound, no grinding, no tremors. Smooth and silently, like it was water taking on a new form, the stone began to rise around the pool in the darkness, up and up and up, the first section of it thirty feet high in mere seconds, and then it began to expand sideways around the pool, which was only a few hundred feet across. Its waters surged up from below constantly, flowing over the edge of the waterfall constantly in a churning mass whose quicksilver drops were muted and blackened by the filth and disease growing there. Tim watched the stone walls grow around the pool, ringing the black forms there inside it, leaving them no escape except the waterfall¡¯s cliff¡­ and then the stone advanced across that too, except bars and sluices extended down, not interfering with the flow of the water all that much, but still closing that way out. ¡°Come,¡± Cloud Flower¡¯s voice sounded in his ear. A globe of magical Light expanded out and around from the middle of the pool, encapsulating all the tuskers below, some of whom were aware enough to look up in confusion at the sky and wonder what was going on. The sound of the waterfall from that direction was cut off like a knife. Tim started forward, holding out his hand as he¡¯d been shown, and Called for his Weapon. His Soulbound Weapon. The first Class of this magical System he¡¯d taken had been an Advanced Class. The Soulmark was a Class about building a bond with a Soulbound Weapon, harmonizing with it, filling it with Soul and making it strong. It was a very unusual way to go about such things, but from the instant Smasher had fit into his three-fingered palm, it was the only thing that was appropriate. The Spiked Club materialized into his hand, called from the non-space it was stored in when he didn¡¯t need it. Brown light crawled over silver and adamantine, his Essence pumped through it. It was just long enough that he could easily touch the ground with it when he swung it, balanced for throwing if he so desired it to be¡­ and it would come tumbling back to his hand if he did throw it, pulled back by his soul. As he closed in on the tuskers in the pool, the aware ones now seeing a sourceless Brown light in the sky, there was another swirl over his Weapon, and unwhite mists, a color that was not white, was more than white, latched onto the spikes and the mass of it. Then he was past the edge of the Sound Bubble, the sound of wind and jungle was replaced by the muted fall of the water, and as he raised Smasher, he felt the Invisibility upon him break. With real delight, forty feet of Tremendous Monuga, clad in silvered Armor reflecting the moon and stars and complex patterns of Shaped Soul Essence, came down out of the sky onto the tuskers. In his hand was what looked like a tree clad in a boiling white cloud, and he roared with a voice as loud as any thunderclap. Three of the diseased Assailer tuskers died in seconds, two from tons of monuga landing on them, one as Smasher came down and flattened it just as badly as the others. Vivic flames wooshed up from the pool, and began to eat away at the tusker spirits and the rot they emanated alike, while Tim began to pound and kick away at the things. His boots had pointed toes, shaped like a crescent blade. A simple kick would split a tusker open like an orange, sending their furred bodies flying. He had to restrain himself from trying to see if he could launch one over the stone walls as he tore through the pool, going after every dark bundle of fur that moved. Hissing shafts of fire began to whistle out from atop the walls. They were aimed at all the tuskers who were outside the pool, giving him more targets to swing at, as well as occasionally dropping one or two of the Assailers with extremely accurate burning bits. There was a flash of light, and suddenly dozens of streaks of fire were arcing through the air all around Tim. Everywhere they went, and they went everywhere, they plunged through a tusker and ignited their fur, lighting up the whole top of the pool with stinking, burning tusker fur¡­ and making easy targets out of every single one of the dozens of tuskers still left for him to smash. The Assailers, every single one of them wounded now by those streaks of fast-moving, almost blinding light, were converging on him, but that was fine, fine by him. Every step was a tusker to kick, another one to step on, and Smasher was arcing back and forth, sending tuskers flying, their strong bodies cracked, pierced, and broken. Unstinting volleys from the little ones on the walls sent Assailers screaming to flaming deaths, even falling into the pool not helping them when their hearts and brains were cooked inside them. The mistflames of the vivus ignited on them, having spread rapidly across the pool, and Tim added more bodies to the flames with every step he took.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The magical multi-colored fires from the Shards went out if the tuskers died, so it was easy to tell which ones still needed to be stepped on, kicked, or Smashed. Tim happily did so, while the fists of the tuskers beat on his armored legs and feet. He added chuckles to his roars of delight, because their blows barely hurt at all, whereas before he might even have been wincing a bit to receive them! But no, not now, not after getting his Armor. Tim enthusiastically Smashed everything moving around him until the bright fires were all gone, and the only things Burning were the vivic mistflames boiling thickly over and through the waters his feet were still floating above, the purity of the mists caressing his soul and letting him know the magical vapors were a really good and clean thing. Cloud Flower floated in the air next to his shoulder, gesturing him over to near the waterfall. Tim was more than tall enough to look over the wall there, and he saw that the little fighters had all moved that way, looking cautiously over the stone at what was beyond. Tim carefully stepped over there, staying on top of the water as he breathed deeply, feeling his blood pumping and nowhere near as tired as he had ever been after such energetic fighting! There was a shimmer in front of him, vaguely looking like the open sky. ¡°So they don¡¯t see you,¡± Cloud Flower whispered, and Tim nodded wisely, for he was certainly easy to see, towering above the stone. He looked down on the greater lake below, and scowled deeply. There were¡­ a lot of tuskers down there. He hadn¡¯t seen so many tuskers since the Tusker King had come with his great army of followers to drive Tim away from the island, long ago. And all of them were dark and rotting and Tainted! He wasn¡¯t the pickiest of eaters, but even he turned up his nose at the smell. There was nothing down there to eat at all! ¡°What¡¯s the read, Magos?¡± Dangerous Sword Princess spoke up, standing just to his right. The one eye that glanced at her could read a hunger to fight on her that was obvious even to him. Her hand was on the Sword at her side, and he knew first-hand how incredibly painful that Sword was in her grasp. ¡°I see only a dozen real ones among all of them, and 762 Summons, dominated by eighty percent Assailers, fifteen percent Devastators, and thirty-nine Annihilators.¡± ¡°Damn, that be a lot of monkeys,¡± Dangerous Black Sword muttered. ¡°Mudmouth?¡± That would be the Bad Fake Tusker. ¡°Not present,¡± Cloud Princess said. ¡°His lair be about six miles due south, or it were,¡± the Mick stated, pointing that way with his Sword. ¡°He can make it here in twenty minutes or less once the fighting starts, if he hears anything.¡± ¡°If we kill the real ones, he¡¯s not going to hear anything,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°So those are the first targets. The rest are Summons, and are programmed to fight.¡± She turned to Tim. ¡°You ready to stand in the middle of them and kill them as they come, big guy?¡± He looked at Cloud Flower, who just nodded at him, and he knew he could do this, it didn¡¯t matter how many tuskers they were. If nothing else, couldn¡¯t he simply step up into the sky out of their reach? But he knew it wasn¡¯t going to come to that. ¡°Archers up and ready.¡± Regretfully, Dangerous Sword Princess let go of her Sword and racked up an odd missile-shooter in her hands. She moved her hand back and forth on it, and a flaming missile came into existence on it All along the wall, but below the sight of the tuskers below, flaming missiles were fit to Bows and Autobows by the little ones. Tim felt kind of strange, seeing those fires light up, knowing they were not pointing at him, but were going to be pointing at anything trying to attack him, trying to hurt him. He was going to be protected by the little fighters, while the tuskers, they didn¡¯t have a chance! ¡°I¡¯m going to be putting up a Sound Bubble at V, which should be enough to cover the entire lake below,¡± Cloud Flower stated. ¡°Tim, we¡¯re following you.¡± Tim grunted, looking down. ¡°Right into the middle?¡± he asked eagerly, knowing this was definitely going to be the biggest fight he had ever been involved in. ¡°That will draw the most of them in,¡± she answered calmly. Tim jumped up once, twice, with high-stepping strides, and his feet were up level with the top of the stone wall that had contained all the Assailers up here. The misting waters of the pool were frothing below him, but hadn¡¯t managed to make any progress against all the accumulated rot below. With no bellow, for the magic wasn¡¯t up yet, Tim jumped out and down, crouching, feet braced, aiming for two of the biggest tuskers who were standing side by side in the waters. Like falling stars from the heavens, the little ones on their Disks and Wagons arced down after him. Magical light burst out above them, the sound of the wind went away, and Tim bellowed his battlecry again, waking up dozing tuskers as he came down from the sky. He slammed into the two big tuskers, flattening them against the stone of the shallow waters there instantly. Smasher came down and added one of the dirty gray Devastators to join them. He saw precisely twelve tuskers scattered all over the place light up with some strange purple fires. A second after they did so, all twelve were targeted by arrow fire coming from above, as well as a few magical spells from other little spellcasters now able to unleash. None of the twelve managed to do anything other than die flaming, and now the many, many tuskers were coming for Tim! Tim laughed and he roared and he bellowed as the tuskers scrambled over one another, trying to get to him, trying to overbear him, trying to bring him down. Flaming missiles filled the air around him, and tuskers pitched over and died screaming, flaming, falling to vivus, their bodies not even able to build up as the ectoplasm they were made of was devoured by flames. Smasher came up, Smasher came down. If they built up high enough, Tim smashed them with his Armored fist. His legs kicked, and Tuskers crumpled around the toes of his Boots. He took a step, and tuskers crunched and broke under his weight and mass and the metal treads of his Boots. He waded through them, fire descending all around him, and tuskers died before they could mound up to be any real threat to him, even with as many as they were. Standing in the air at shoulder-height to him, the little fighters and their flaming missiles fell like the vengeance of heaven, and the rotting tuskers burned as Tim crushed all that came at him! AF Chapter 411 – Trust Madam Kleoh It was a few hours before there were any alarms going off in the jungle, mostly because the number of real tuskers near the pool, waterfall, and the lake was pretty low. Perhaps not coincidentally, the majority of the tuskers called to the lake had Spawn Points located not far from the lake itself. That meant they reappeared nearby, and could certainly be ordered back quickly as reinforcements¡­ if there was someone alive who could command them to do so! This also happened to be the most tainted and diseased ground in all of the Aphus islands, so the real tuskers basically wanted nothing to do with the area, and thus stayed far away. The Summons sitting on their Spawn Points out in the jungle were thickly placed and reinforced one another pretty quickly, but they were Summons, with Summons combat programming. As long as they didn¡¯t make too much noise shouting and dying, and we kept the magical displays down below the treetops so they didn¡¯t carry, we could and did sweep the surrounding terrain slowly and thoroughly. Tim, staying down on the ground, was very, very useful to this endeavor. He attracted all their attention, the tuskers converged on him, and we could mass slaughter them fairly easily. He could also kill them with incredible speed, so he towed around his own kill crew of Archers on Disks. That wasn¡¯t to say the lads weren¡¯t getting their own experiences in. King Borelean had a team of Royal Knights in here getting in some work, and more impressively, a wagonload of elite spearmen had been brought by Briggs, their layered lines of burning Spears just a hedge of death to any tuskers who dared to charge them. They¡¯d gotten the taste for the fighting helping clear the northern island, and with the Skeeters and Royal Guards watching the flanks, they were a blazing row of thorns moving through the jungle, disposing of the tuskers charging at them and only succeeding in getting themselves impaled on multiple Firephased Spears. --- I kept an ear on the fights out there, but the Marked were talking carefully, moving with precision and skill, and whole sections of the jungle around us were now clear of tuskers and Burning en vivus, especially around the stream that led out of the lake. I¡¯d made up a whole bunch of stone braziers for this, fit them with Vivic Eternal Lights, and left them Burning underneath the water, going after the magic-originated disease and rot from the Tainted tuskers, wiping it away with grace and speed, and starting the slow job of cleaning up the waters and everything downstream. I¡¯d also ringed the whole lake proper in yet another thirty-foot high, twenty-foot thick stone wall to keep out any stray tuskers who might show up, or at least make it harder for them to get in. Tim helped by tearing down any palms growing too close to the walls when he came back to take a rest. His Fast Healing abilities were more impressive than any Healing spells I could ladle onto him, especially when enhanced with Life Magic to nearly three times their normal speed. They burned a lot of energy, however, and while the Armor helped a lot, it didn¡¯t stop all the damage. By the time he came in for a rest, he was down to half his Health Qi, meaning the tuskers had somehow managed to wear away half a million Health Qi from the big fellow¡­ which probably meant they¡¯d done ten times that much damage to him, all told, and it just hadn¡¯t been able to stop him. I was pretty satisfied. Princess Kristie was working over a very big cauldron full of boiling water over there, into which the bodies of several improbably thick centipedal obsidian chitticks she¡¯d stumbled across had been peeled, gutted, and dumped, and were now being boiled in something that smelled very spicy and quite incredible. A bunch of vegetables, rice, massive shrimps, strips of remoran meat, lemons, oranges, and I¡¯m not sure what else had gone in, and everybody was trying not to drool just smelling it as it cooked and thickened up. Not coincidentally, the smell also blew down around and behind the waterfall, where a great big cave entry, large enough to fit the mightiest of tuskers, gaped open behind the curtain of the falling waters there. The lake, and its counterpart up above, looked more like a sparkling, misty idyllic scene at a comfy resort than the messed-up, stinking, decaying mess that it had been just a few hours before. The rot was Burned away, the waters were clear enough to see the sands and pebbles below, the Summoned Corpses were dissolved, and the unhealthy growths and decay along the shores had all been reduced to white dust from vivus, kind of unreal and sacred and placid in the other direction now. The sweet clarity of the fresh air really carried the smell of whatever jambalaya or gumbo or whatever Kris was cooking up, too. I finished up planting the last of the braziers near the outflow from the lake, the glowing and misty waters flowing out and attacking the rot and Taint beyond eagerly and continually, filth washing away and Burning in fingers of growing whiteness as the residual vivus purified what had been contaminated.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I was walking back to the big circle where Kris was up on her Disk using a four-inch stone pole I¡¯d made up for her just for this to stir the mouth-watering stuff. ¡°Ten minutes, quit moaning! It¡¯s just getting better as I stir it!¡± she snarled at everyone, batting away Tim¡¯s poking finger with a crack like a hammer, flinging it away. Chided but still eager, the monuga¡¯s three eyes followed the regular circling of her pole as if hypnotized¡­ and there was a monstrous bowl there obviously sized just for his hand, waiting to be filled. I plopped into my seat off to the side near the freshly-whitened beach, my Disk taking my weight without a problem. I heard a cough, and the Mick dropped onto a conjured Disk, while a startled older very darkly-skinned Gharu¡¯n woman with graying hair and a very rough robe of palm fibers was pushed into place next to me on his own Disk. ¡°She thought she were being stealthy, coming out of the cave back there all sneaky-like. Like I¡¯ve not seen sneaky old hags like her creeping around t¡¯ do their dark an¡¯ nasty deeds before!¡± he grinned shamelessly. The woman rolled her eyes. ¡°Always a damned McMikal be undahfoot when ya nevah want one around! Churl! Brigand! Ingrate!¡± the woman promptly swore at him. ¡°Lady Magos Ryin, meet the great and dreaded Kleoh, wise woman, spirit talker, poison-tongued harridan, snake oil saleswoman, an¡¯ expert on lowlifes where¡¯er they might be found,¡± the Mick introduced the new comer shamelessly. Her attire was much-patched and carefully preserved, the charms and beads she was wearing carved by hand from stone, bone, and wood with long and careful fingers. She definitely looked out of place among all the smartly armed, armored, and polished mainlanders, all of whom were maintaining their armor as they sat about and waited for what was going to be an early morning meal. ¡°Madam Kleoh, we¡¯ll be doing the Salute to Aru to start the meal off in a few minutes. You can just sit here and smell the air, or you can leave¡­ but you really don¡¯t want to miss Princess Kristie¡¯s jambalya.¡± There was no missing the way she sniffed the air and narrowed her dark eyes hungrily. ¡°I ain¡¯t had nothing like dat foh a good ten yeehs now, girl. You best believe Madam Kleoh be going to sit around and wait foh it!¡± she almost cackled eagerly. ¡°Who is dis Aru you be speaking of? Kleoh never heah dat name befoh.¡± ¡°He¡¯s an actual god of the Sun, Light, Life, and new beginnings, among other things.¡± I didn¡¯t miss the skeptical flash in her eyes. ¡°You¡¯ll see shortly, elder. May I ask how King Bobo is doing?¡± ¡°Poorly. The poison in de watahs be designed specially ta huht da Tuskah King and keep him weak. All de fightin¡¯ and defendin¡¯ o¡¯ de cave has been done by da mighty Mowen foh yeehs, backed up by dose tuskahs still loyal ta Bobo,¡± she admitted after considering us carefully, especially the looming mass of Tim. ¡°We¡¯d like t¡¯ verify that Bobo didn¡¯t give the order to kill all the Isparians he enslaved on the island, Madam Kleoh,¡± the Mick said, in a voice that was as light as his eyes were dark and cold. She read him perfectly. ¡°Would I be dehe now if dat were true, McMikal? Not all de beings aroun¡¯ be as nasty as you and youh family be! ¡°No, dat bit o¡¯ poison was from Mudmout¡¯, and be no mistakes about it!¡± she sighed, at least managing to look a little sad about what had happened. ¡°Please tell me you¡¯ve been maintaining Scrywards about the caves and there¡¯s more real humans down there in the deeper places?¡± I inquired of her. A slow, hard smile spread across the older woman¡¯s face at my question. ¡°Near a hunnert managed t¡¯ find shelter an¡¯ survive down in de deep aheas, where de old magic made it possible to plant some things and keep us fed, however poohly. De caves, dey be much bigger den you tink down dehe. Got us whole gahdens down dehe, fake magic lights what suhvived the magic goin¡¯ bad, an¡¯ the like.¡± ¡°Fertilized by tusker turds, no doubt,¡± the Mick sniffed grandly, unimpressed. ¡°Aye, but faih enough when grown, for all de souhce. Maybe t¡¯ree, four hunneht tuskahs down in dere, too, but the magic Bobo put on de place means dey don¡¯t really need to eat, oh we would ha¡¯ stahved out long ago,¡± the older woman retorted quickly. ¡°We have ten doses of King¡¯s Crown Infusions prepared and ready to be rendered into medicine if you need them,¡± I told her, and she stiffened immediately, surprise and hope mixing in her features. ¡°Dat be real t¡¯oughtful of you, it be, chil¡¯,¡± Madam Kleoh finally answered, giving me another assessing once-over. ¡°It seems dis fool tol¡¯ you a few t¡¯ings of de past, aye?¡± she asked me. ¡°Lord Warden of the Royal Scouts of Freehold Mikal McMikal has been quite effusive with his knowledge of these isles from nearly two decades ago, although he has also admitted there¡¯s been quite a few changes.¡± She glanced at the Mick in some surprise at him having achieved such a lofty station, and he just grinned back at her. ¡°We found what happened with Ketnan and the others who didn¡¯t make it here, those who tried to take shelter in his Emporium.¡± Madam Kleoh just sighed and shook her head. ¡°We know, child. We¡¯ve known foh years. Mudmout¡¯, dat bastard, liked to boast about what he and his slaves done to de oddahs. Howevah, he stopped bragging about it and his attacks on us let up not too long aftah dat. The living tuskahs spoke about dead tuskahs eating tuskahs, pahalyzing with a touch, chahnel deat¡¯ on de wind, and tehhible things hunting ¡®em at night.¡± ¡°Tusker ghasts and noble ghouls,¡± I confirmed for her, and she just cackled sinisterly and knowingly at my words. ¡°Serves dem right, livin¡¯ in feah all dese yeahs as de cohpse-eaters hunt de livin¡¯ among¡¯em, including Mudmout¡¯ hisself. We t¡¯ink dey almost got him a couple times, an¡¯ he¡¯s had no stomach for much fightin¡¯ since then, not knowin¡¯ what to do about ¡®im.¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid we had to kill them, but that shouldn¡¯t be all the surprising,¡± I told her. ¡°After all, we intend to kill Mudmouth, too.¡± Her dark eyes moved over to the massive form of the Tremendous Monuga in his magnificent Armor gathered there, Brown and maybe just a little Yellow lights glowing on the Runes thereon. ¡°You tamed de beast what took Bobo¡¯s hand and were chased from de island. You gots powah, dat be suhtain, chil¡¯.¡± ¡°Truer words,¡± the Mick mused, as I rose to my feet. It was time for the Salute to Aru. AF Chapter 412 – A New Day ¡°-Let go the shadows, and behold the sun! The Light has come, as ever it must. Behold the new day!¡± The stone bowls in everyone¡¯s hands were held up to the sun from the edges of the wall. The Salute ended as ever it did, just as the sun crested the horizon. A light breeze blew past us as the first rays caressed everyone, eyes closing to receive the blessing of a new day, invigoration, banishing of sleepiness, a pep in the step and new energy. Stupid morning rituals aren¡¯t so stupid in a magical world. Madam Kleoh was clearly shocked to be receiving the Blessing with everyone else, and like everyone, felt the distant and faint power behind the Salute, the most delicate touch of a greatness beyond mortal comprehension. It was the quietest and gentlest touches of the Divine, and it was real. This was no power born of mortal making, and was given without rancor or restrictions¡­ although folk merely seeking to do it for its power gained nothing from it at all, as was normal for an Aligned effect. Princess Kristie¡¯s Chittick Jambalya dropped into all those bowls, hot in more ways than one, and the faint cheers that followed the Salute were matched by immediate grabbing of the stone spoons and the commencement of much slurping. ¡°Oh! Oh, gods an¡¯ demons,¡± Madam Kleoh blurted out, tears already starting to drip down from eyes and nose. ¡°Dis, dis be So Damn Good-!¡± she barely managed to get out around her spoonful of joyous exploding mouth. The Mick¡¯s Disk bumped the older woman in the back of her skinny knees, and she reflexively collapsed into the patient Disk waiting there. She was far from the only one having that reaction. Of course, me having Cast Feast of Heroes on the cauldron of heavenly gumption might have had something to do with it, but high-end QL 40 Alchemical cooking was absolutely the best material component for the spell, there was no doubt of that! They were not small bowls, so nobody was getting shorted. Men and women had their legs buckle and were down on their butts, either leaning up against the parapets on the walls above or with their feet dangling over the sides, some looking up in the sky and trying not to sob at whatever they were experiencing and remembering some deeply personal moments with a clarity they¡¯d never experienced in their lives. That included Tim, who was hunched up against the wall, the massive monuga¡¯s bowl up close to his lips, slobbering and crying as much as anyone else there, small rivers of tears and snot coming down from his eyes and flat nose as he mumbled things nobody understood. His triple stacked eyes alternated between looking at the blue sky and down at his culinary transcendence, but he didn¡¯t eat any faster, sticking with the unfamiliar spoon and putting every mouthful in one by one slowly and gratefully. ¡°Gor, I¡¯m remembering every great stew an¡¯ soup I ever ate,¡± the Mick snorted and sniffled around his tears. ¡°Me mouth be on fire and me guts burning and me blood be singing and this is So Damn Good¡­¡± He took another spoonful helplessly. ¡°I think it¡¯s the Obsidian Chitticks. The smaller versions wouldn¡¯t work so well in the stew,¡± I mumbled around the explosions in my mouth. How many people would waste the Feats, Masteries, and Ranks to get a +30 Cooking check? Especially combat-crazy fighter types like a Rantha Hag? Well, they didn¡¯t know how important good knife technique was to a cook, and how useful that could be to a blade specialist. Cooking was part of the Sama Rantha Sword Grandmastery Sagedom! Of course she was ridiculously good at it... Kris and Briggs were sitting over there, heads together and feeding one another, giggling and sniffling like everyone else as they did so. Further conversations were put on hold as we ate the first meal of the day, and it was So Damn Good. ------- As the Mick had informed us, the Halls of the Tusker King were plenty big. Originally it had been a set of five stacked Dungeon Levels, each pretty sizable in their own ways, Portals connecting them in a downward linkage, no easy way to come back up, only ever down. Powerful tuskers occupied every level, with one level actually devoted to the raising of Obsidian Chitticks, arguably the favored prey of the tuskers beyond fruits and the like. Outsiders had fought or run the gauntlets of halls and chambers down to Bobo, delivering him his King¡¯s Crown Infusion and thus earning the chance to beat up Mowen Udaun, the Champion of the Tuskers, and get cracked on the head by the stone ball Bobo had used to replace the first he¡¯d lost battling Tim so as to use the magic of the Monkey Paw from the Tusker Shrines there, earning much Quest Karma.Stolen story; please report. Whether such things still worked now was completely up in the air, and nobody felt like fighting their way down there to figure it all out. Happily, we had Madam Kleoh with us to walk us down, and walking with us was the towering form of the biggest tusker we¡¯d seen yet, the magnificently black-furred and inordinately heavily-armored tusker named Mowen Udaun. He recognized the Mick immediately. ¡°Ho! A former challenger!¡± the tusker grunted in extremely deep and surprisingly clear Isparian. ¡°Come to test your might in the arena against me, furless one?¡± he asked, dipping his huge head down to stare right into the Mick¡¯s eyes with total confidence. ¡°One better,¡± the Mick said, leaning forward to stare into the bloodshot eyes of the massive tusker. ¡°I come t¡¯ race ya t¡¯ the kill on Mudmouth, soon¡¯s we see him! Think a big hulking galoot like ye can beat me to that?¡± he challenged the big tusker. Mowen went up on two legs and pounded on his chest like they were war drums, shaking the stones of the repurposed Empyrean hall around us. It was occupied by a score of massive Assailers and Devastators in far more armor than any Summoned Tuskers wore, along with two dozen Summoned Isparians wearing little more than shifts and skirts, but also brimming with some really potent Casting ability they¡¯d no doubt honed tremendously holding this first chamber from invading tuskers coming down. It looked like when a Summons died, they¡¯d simply move the real armor to the next Summons that had come in to reinforce the entryway, doing it enough times that the Summons actually started reappearing with duplicates of the armor already equipped. The living tuskers naturally had to wear it on their own, but there were only three of them here, all of them heavily scarred, with Mowen naturally in command. ¡°Mudmouth is coming?¡± the Champion of the Tuskers growled out loudly, cocking his ear and listening to some of the echoes coming down from the passage behind the waterfall. ¡°Ye lasses go on ahead. I¡¯ll escort the big fellow up an¡¯ outside so he can listen to the shouts an¡¯ see what be happening.¡± -You just want to see his face when he sees Tim and gets lifted up to the top of the wall like a cub!- Kris /laughed at him, violet eyes dancing but face otherwise impassive. Kleoh, I noticed, wasn¡¯t saying anything about the great monuga being out there, either. We started down after watching the two of them go. Briggs was still outside and in command of everyone as the teams of Knights and Royal Guards swept out there to clear more of the local spawns, particularly focusing on a path down to the beach to the west so we¡¯d have easier access to the water for coming in and out of here in numbers, and retreating out of range of the Summons as needed. Neither of us was much worried about things, Kleoh walking along without much speed, but steady and implacable, utterly confident in her invulnerability to the Summons¡­ and she was right. ¡°This looks like it used to be a temple to the patron of the Shades,¡± Kris remarked, eyeing the iconography all around us, which the tuskers hadn¡¯t bothered to change much, even after all these years. ¡°Dat be what we t¡¯ink, too, girlie,¡± the old Gharu¡¯n woman nodded, her tone more respectful than her words after that meal. Kris had vibes like a hunting cat ready to strike, always hanging on the edge of exploding into combat¡­ and she could cook So Damn Good. Hard not to be respectful of a combination like that, right? ¡°Any idea what cleared them out?¡± I asked, eyeing one of the fiendish stone statues so reminiscent of the ones kept in unholy places by Bael¡¯Zharon¡¯s fellows before we headed down a side tunnel. The tuskers and Isparian minions standing around completely ignored us. Naturally none of the close Spawn Points by the entry were being used. They¡¯d be the first reinforcements sent in when the defenders there fell. All of the tuskers were fully armored, far more than any we¡¯d seen outside. Their Isparian Summoned minions weren¡¯t wearing anything more substantial than their palm-leaf fiber shifts and skirts, although all of them had shortswords of decent style, if crude make. The top Dungeon level seemed to once have been some sort of Shade worship area. The area leading past it down one of the sloped ramps that seemed to be typical of these layered Dungeons led down to what was obviously a form of living quarters or barracks. There was a living nature to the smell here that indicated a lot more real tuskers were around, and indeed some came racing up to investigate Madam Kleoh curiously when she came down into there open area with guests, hooting and calling for news of what was going on up above. The news that the waters up above were purified and Mudmouth¡¯s diseased tuskers had all been slain was cause for celebration, and soon smaller tuskers were racing eagerly all about in very loud and fervent jubilation. None of them were allowed upstairs as yet, as Mudmouth itself, or its fake Bobo, had not been brought down yet. The level down after that was appropriately the sewage level, where the detritus of the upper levels fell through and somehow accumulated into food for the very uncaring palates of the Obsidian Chitticks and Jungle Reedsharks raised there, even though the tuskers ate very little compared to what they would need outside these chambers. The chitticks and reedsharks were the main meat sources for the tuskers, and one reason why the new generation of tuskers was in pretty good health and size, all things told. They still had to regulate how many pups they had so as not to strain their food sources, but they weren¡¯t in danger of going extinct or anything here, that was certain. We walked past open sewer grates that stank with an eye-watering miasma. Those were the places the eight-foot black chitticks were most attracted to, as if the stench alone was enough to feed them, and it very well might have been. Some of the creatures were Summons, and seemed essential to the fecundity of the level in some way, Kleoh informed us, tolerating the smell as we made our way through the maze of chambers and hallways where tuskers, reedsharks, and chitticks seemed to roam without a care for one another. One of the massive gray-white Devastators was ordered in front of us by Kleoh, and he quickly and roughly tossed aside any bugs or sharks who didn¡¯t get out of our way fast enough as we headed down to the next level. That Dungeon level had been set up as a kind of entry hall to the Tusker King, with crude signs displaying his personal history. It had also revealed a whole new subsection of Dungeons with areas concealed from previous runners, most of which had been taken over by the free-willed Isparians who had fled here from the tuskers all over the islands hunting them mercilessly. It was also the area with the arena where Mowen Udaun had fought for cheering crowds of tuskers, and where a lot of very young tuskers were being raised near Isparians. AF Chapter 413 – The Tusker King ¡°De little ones be smarter den dere parents be,¡± Madam Kleoh told us, while tusker pups that only came up to our knees gamboled and tumbled around us, somehow managing to avoid us even as they came very close, clearly considering it a loud and happy game. Kleoh¡¯s walking stick was enough to shoo them off and give us room when she waved it at them, and the youngsters hooted at her and us and started tossing coconuts back and forth at one another in yet another game. The adult tuskers, mostly females, just watched it all patiently, while the free-willed Isparians, wearing longer skirts, robes, and tunics than the Summons, seemed to be occupied with grabbing the young tuskers and inspecting them carefully before letting them go. There were also Isparian children, the first we¡¯d seen on these islands, playing with the tuskers under the watchful gazes of their parents. ¡°Schools?¡± Kris asked professionally. She noted the men had spears nearby, and they were all well-maintained, the long and viciously hooked heads seemingly made of tusker bones. ¡°Down dat way,¡± the old woman pointed negligently. ¡°De tuskahs, dey don¡¯t ken much to de writing and de reading, but dey likes to listen and to talk, and try de workin¡¯ wit deh hands. Dey fingahs, do, dey don¡¯t flex so easy as ouhs do, so?¡± She wiggled her fingers at a rambunctious tusker who came rolling towards us. The little tusker hopped to his feet, grinning ferociously and holding up up his large fists, flailing his whole hands as the stiff fingers didn¡¯t move like those of a true monkey. He didn¡¯t have an opposable thumb to help grab things, making their paws more like shovels best suited for digging. Still, magical world. They might not be very smart, but they could Invest in their Stat line and increase their own intelligence if they so desired to. Their main problem was that they started from a point much lower than a normal human, and so raising their intellectual abilities was something restricted to the most powerful and older tuskers¡­ who might instead want to focus on the combat abilities that helped them survive to that level. A couple black Assailers in silver armor guarded the doorways down to the Tusker King, parting respectfully before the aged mambo and sniffing the two of us carefully as we passed, shooing off the little ones who looked like they might be trying to get past and see the great Tusker King. At the end of yet another descending ramp was a set of great wooden doors, which Madam Kleoh pushed open with confidence, and we strode into the final Hall of the Tusker King. The first thing I noted was a sharp and acrid odor that was very out of place with the bright and cheerful lighting, and all the green of ferns and flowers growing inside. Jungle lilies and orchids cheered up the place, their perfumes warring with a familiar odor from up above outside the Dungeon here. ¡°The water from above purify yet?¡± Kris asked as we proceeded into the room, pushing the ferns out of the way. ¡°Kleoh, you¡¯re back!¡± The speaker was another older woman, perhaps the Mick¡¯s real age, dressed in a long white robe she¡¯d somehow managed to keep in repair and pristine despite everything. She was an Aluvian with long blonde hair going silver, blue eyes, and a complexion somehow keeping a healthy tan hundreds of feet underground. ¡°And you have guests!¡± the woman exclaimed, her voice warm and only slightly surprised. ¡°Jilna Fullgood, dis be de Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, ahn de Lady Magos Ryin. Dey come heah to heal de Tuskah King.¡± ¡°Oh! How wonderful! When we realized there were others attacking the usurper¡¯s forces above, we did not expect such generosity!¡± the woman responded with a bright smile. ¡°What plans have you made?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve ten King¡¯s Crowns reduced to essence and ready for preparation into Infusions. Between that and my Healing Magic, I think we should be able to repair the Tainted damage and bring the Tusker King back to health,¡± I replied calmly. ¡°You have King¡¯s Crowns?!¡± Jilna clapped her hands in delight. ¡°That is wonderful! I do not have the equipment to refine it properly right now¡­¡± ¡°That is not an issue, either.¡± I stepped to the side, drawing out a piece of paper and flicking it down to the floor as the other women watched closely. It swirled around and settled on the floor, promptly bursting into flame, and the Item spell broke. The long worktable rose out of the remnants of the spell, fully adorned with a complete if somewhat compact set of alchemist¡¯s tools, vials and beakers, distillers and mortars, tubes and dispensers and all the raw materials that might be needed. ¡°Her Highness and I will make up the infusions while you direct us. I trust you still know the process?¡± ¡°I¡­ of course.¡± She looked us at us, as if wondering how good an obvious Caster and warrior woman would be at apothecary skills. ¡°We can begin immediately, if you wish?¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I reached out and bopped fists with Kris. And then in complete synchronicity, we both cracked our necks, flexed our fingers and stepped up to the table. ¡°Begin!¡± we said together, and both of the older women looked at one another in shock. --- Well, we put on a bit of a show. Jilna would call out instructions and components, and Kris and I did them in sync, from twists of the mortar to shaking the distillations to stirring the mixture. I¡¯d look at the component with Analyze Components active, she¡¯d be using her Trembling Domain, and then we¡¯d switch vials and do the same thing to make sure we were getting the same results. Madam Kleoh and Jilna Fulgood could only look on, more than a bit unnerved as we did everything in time to Jilna¡¯s instructions, made sure the end product was usable, and then handed the milky white infusion over to her. Then we ran through the process twice more each, giving her six of them total to administer, again simultaneously and checking one another¡¯s work repeatedly during the process. Then, it was time to meet Bobo. --- The massive Tusker King wasn¡¯t far away, basically on the other side of a wall of ferns, spread out on a bed of moss, looking wasted and jaundiced. Whole sections of his bright reddish-orange fur had fallen off, revealing weeping sores treated with ointments and poultices. Great muscles had decayed and withered, and his famous stone ball of a paw had fallen off, discarded and sitting to the side. So was his great big bright green swami hat, waiting for him to put it back on, resting atop a stand to the side and doubtless dusted every day. There was a pond nearby, not very large, but big enough to wash him, or maybe to play around with a mate. The water in it was still murky and unclear, and that was likely after being filtered many times. Whatever Mudmouth had cooked up for his target, it was plainly extremely effective against him. Bobo¡¯s eyes were rheumy and bleary, but just from the shifting in the manafield around him, it was plain he still had magical power and was fully aware. His body was just being preyed upon. ¡°I can see you are conscious, Your Majesty. There is no need to address us,¡± Kris spoke up before I or Jilna could speak. ¡°First, we¡¯re going to clean out your pool there.¡± I tossed three braziers with Vivic Eternal Lights on them into the waters, and then blasted the thing with Vivic Darts repeatedly, blowing purity through the pool. Within less than a minute, it was sparkling and utterly clear, white sands covering the bottom of it. ¡°Jilna, give him two doses to help clear up his mind,¡± Kris said, keeping her Null tight so as not to alarm the big fellow as she walked up next to him. A little surprised to be ordered around, the woman still complied, walking up quietly to the head of the massive Tusker King, kneeling down in a worn spot there, stroking his head and murmuring quietly to him. He managed to open his jaws slightly, perhaps prodded by the smell hitting his nostrils, cutting through the smell of his own decay. He sucked the King¡¯s Crown Infusion, energized with life energy from a Deru Tree, down noisily. His eyes blinked twice, the veins in them visibly decreasing in size. A shudder shook his great frame. ¡°Don¡¯t try to move yet, Your Majesty. We¡¯re going to get you into the pool and cleaned off with vivus, then you can drink some actual good water before you get another dose.¡± And without further ado, Kris picked up both of his legs as if he were a tusker pup, and rather unceremoniously, yet still quite carefully, dragged him down into the pool. His fur lit up with vivus the instant he touched the waters, and we all watched the shudder go through him as the misty energy hissed and swirled on his fur, skin, and the weeping wounds upon him. I made a ramp for him in the water, keeping his head above the surface, but allowing his long arms to dangle in it, bubbling and misting. ¡°What do you see when you look at him, girlie?¡± Madam Kleoh demanded of me, staring at my eyes. ¡°He¡¯s got Taint running all through him, but the vivus is taking care of a lot of it. As soon as it stops actively bubbling and clearing up, Jilna can start giving him water slowly, and more of the Infusions. That¡¯ll send the vivus into his system and start clearing it out of him. Don¡¯t worry if he craps or pisses into the water, the active vivus will take care of it. Just splash water onto the mess and it will wash away.¡± There was an immediate grunt and groan from the Tusker King, and something energetic began boiling around a darkness released from his buttocks. There was a whiff of something bad that didn¡¯t get the chance to materialize before the vivus was on it, and a long groan escaped the mouth of the Tusker King as he seemed to relax. I Shaped up what was basically a watering can with a narrow tip, sending it floating over to the eager Jilna, who dipped it and began to pour little sips of water into the tusked jaws of the recumbent Bobo. ¡°Time?¡± I asked Kris, who just nodded. ¡°Time for what?¡± Kleoh asked suspiciously, watching as I stepped to a clear area. The stone began to run under me, rapidly turning into a complex diagram of magic. ¡°Peace, Your Majesty. We¡¯re bringing in your little brothers to assist you in getting better.¡± There was a grunt from the massive tusker who, supported by the water, was able to move slightly to watch me as I pumped up the Diagram below me. ¡°Little brothers?¡± the great tusker repeated in a deep wheeze, his voice probably seldom used. The Focus Seal flared to life, reached out to the far end, and a great power there locked onto it instantly, prying open time and space into an open Portal with a swirl of sparkling purple energies. Two, no, three sets of energies. The hole in space opened up, and the three beings with glowing eyes, all in different hues, slowly and carefully stepped through, their postures very neutral. Candeth Martine, mask on, his eyes faintly blue behind his ornately carved mask, his ravaged skin still visible around the edges of his hood and hands. Hea Rheaga, an otherwise normal-seeming Hea tumerok with eyes glowing deeply green. Harraag, the Prodigal Banderling, had arrived at Candeth Keep not long ago, his dark gray fur and black stripes a stark contrast to the bright red glow of his eyes. There on the mound in the water, the Prodigal Tusker¡¯s eyes began to glow a hot, bright yellow as he met the eyes of the Prodigal Human, Tumerok, and Banderling. AF Chapter 414 – Love for One Monkey, Not for Another Silently, all three Prodigals approached the stricken Tusker King. Without saying a word, the human Martine and the banderling Harraag entered the water and came up under a massive arm each, while I Shaped up seats for them there to be more comfortable¡­ although likely it didn¡¯t matter, but I was polite, right? The tumerok Hea Rheaga actually went right onto Bobo¡¯s backside and sprawled out on the fur there, his arms spread wide and his head flat against the back of the great tusker. Magic crackled in the air. It was red, and blue, and green, seething with virindi energies from multiple dimensions and sources, and it danced around Bobo the Tusker King there in the water, alive and really, really powerful. A dim yellow flicker danced on the tips of the fur of the Tusker King in response, and the energies began to play with one another, adjusting, feeling one another out, trying to find a way to blend and to synergize with one another and the very different backgrounds of each of these Prodigals, three of races alien to this world helping one who was born here. ¡°Dis be good. Dis be really, really good¡­¡± Madam Kleoh murmured from next to me. The Portal to Candeth Keep had closed already, but I knew Martine could re-open it with little effort, let alone with two others there to help. ¡°That¡¯s kind of what we were thinking. Those four have something among them that nobody else has, and they are probably the only ones who can understand one another and what was done to them. Of course they¡¯d come to save him. He was the very first of them. He¡¯s the big brother to all of them.¡± Reclining there in his pool, the grunt that escaped the lips of the Tusker King was heartfelt as he finally seemed to relax, and took solace there in the hands of his little brothers. ¡°One more gift for the Tusker King.¡± I glided over above the ground, coming up next to him, and slowly brought the heel of Crown in contact with the top of his skull. Regeneration and Greater Restoration went out in waves of cool, soothing Healing energy. The moan that escaped Bobo was heartfelt as it washed through him, and his glowing golden eyes closed completely, basking in the moment and the energies around him as I uttered a single Note. The four disparate and very individual energies snapped together into a shining whiteness so suddenly that all three of the newcomers turned their heads to look at me in astonishment. The Sublime Chord echoed all around them, finishing up their harmonization instantly. ¡°Can you sustain that?¡± I asked them reasonably, and all three just nodded and closed their eyes. The whiteness tingled, swallowing the other colors, and wrapped all four of them in a new energy that was somehow purer and freer than anything they had wielded alone. Jilna stared in me in wonder, but did not stop slowly feeding Bobo sips of water as I floated back and away from them, back to Kris, who was watching the whole process curiously, but as usual was not overly impressed by my miracle-working in the slightest. Madam Kleoh, however, was eager to know, ¡°Dat magic! I never be seein¡¯ magic like dat afoh! What you use on de king dere?¡± she demanded of me, waving her hand urgently but not daring to touch me. ¡°New spells for a new magic to this world. Regeneration and Greater Restoration, Elder. The first will regrow his hand and his fur and replace his injuries. The second will ease the mental and physical strain he has been under, and repair the fundamental damage to his body the rot has done to him. His brothers will see to the restoration of his power, and his true might will return, although not overnight.¡± ¡°A month,¡± Kris judged. ¡°A month, and Bobo the Tusker King will stand tall on this island again.¡± ¡°Do you want to apologize to him now?¡± I asked Kris. ¡°You know Mudmouth and the fake Bobo aren¡¯t going to live that long.¡± ¡°Hey, a girl has to have some violent hobbies for stress relief, right?¡± Kris just grinned. ¡°He¡¯s a king, and he needs his rest. Mowen¡¯s out there crying big tears of snot out of his nose over the scrapings from breakfast and sharing palm wine with Tim. Those two fake fuckers are so dead.¡± I couldn¡¯t deny that at all. Some things were just meant to happen. ------ Kris and I didn¡¯t walk back up to the top, and although we could have visited the humans down here, that was Kleoh and Jilna¡¯s job for now, as we hadn¡¯t secured the topside and so none of them were coming outside. Instead we Dimension Doored across the distance, the magic easily enough to cross the intervening space¡­ and deliver us back down below, if we were needed. Kleoh had to talk with the local humans, who probably wanted to send up a party to work with us if they could, and if not there¡¯d be talks about moving out of the caves and back under the open sky. The first thing I saw was Mowen up there on the wall, sitting there next to Tim, who was leaning against it, the pair incongruous yet appropriate in their armor, looking almost like a knight with a pet monkey in scale. They were rumbling to one another as they looked out into the jungle and listened to the distant calls and cries of tuskers yowling back and forth.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. ¡°Cloud Flower!¡± Tim called out as his bottom eye tracked over to see me. ¡°Want to join fighting!¡± he said loudly, puffing himself up. Mowen hooted and raised his fists as well. ¡°Big Tim says you are good spellcaster, help boost power in fight!¡± Mowen called down to me. ¡°Great Mowen has to stay strong to protect the King!¡± Confirming that it was how he¡¯d managed to stay alive this long, getting magical Buffs to put him on more than equal footing with the Dark Bobo. ¡°Give me a design for a couple of Tusker Knuckles,¡± I asked Kris. She glanced at me, then back at Mowen, studying his big curved paws with the massive knuckles. A design in stone popped into my head, and I drew stone up out of the ground, Shaping it into the pattern. Telekinesis from Zeks tossed the two spheres of stone up into the air towards Mowen. ¡°Put these on, Mowen Udaun!¡± He proved adept enough to catch the great shells of stone, which not coincidentally looked like the massive stone fist of his king sitting discarded by the pool down there. He carefully fit his huge paw into the slots on them, and found they fit like gloves, accepting his grip in optimal style. He hefted them up and swung them around experimentally, then blinked as he watched Kris and I walk right up the air like it was a pair of steps in front of him. ¡°Tim, club,¡± I told him. The big guy held out his hand, and Brown light flared as he pulled his Club out of storage. The massive thing was hefted in one hand, over twice as long as Mowen was tall, and probably just as heavy. The two Greater Magic Weapons and Firephasings went off on both set of stone fists and Smasher. With a woosh of ignition, both Weapons became instruments of solid fire, Mowen rearing back in instinctive alarm. There was a snap and pop as Fire Protection VII and Resist Fire went off on him together, cooling him right down instantly to the point where he couldn¡¯t even feel the heat anymore. ¡°Let¡¯s go hunting,¡± Kris smiled, and Quaver flicked out, ringing Ding! Ting! Mowen found himself flinching at the two notes, especially as Kris¡¯s Sword ignited and basically became a bar of sunfire wound about with starfire. I made sure Mowen and Tim had good Artificer Buffs to their Armor and hides, which would soak a LOT of punishment up, especially the Bludgeon Banes. ¡°Tim is the bait. Let the slave-spirits see him, charge him, and we cut them down around him. The Magos keeps everyone Healed and watches out for surprises.¡± Vivus ignited on both of their weapons, red stars swirled as Regenerate Health VII circled around Mowen and Tim, amplifying their prodigious Fast Healing rates. ¡°We are to make a spectacle of ourselves and let everyone know the two of you are out there and fighting. If we can pull in Mudmouth and Dark Bobo, we will kill them. If not, we¡¯re going to Seal every Spawn Point we see and take away his army. ¡°You ready, Mowen Udaun?¡± The massive tusker lifted the new balls of solid flame at the ends of his arms, and his dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction. ¡°Mowen will fight!¡± he promised enthusiastically. ¡°Then let¡¯s go!¡± Kris hopped over the edge of the wall without hesitation. Mowen hooted and leapt over after her, while Tim bellowed and vaulted it easily with misting heels. My Wings popped out and I headed after them, hooking into the Markspace chat and heading south to where the action was building and Briggs was directing the fighting. They¡¯d already sealed at least a couple hundred more Spawn Points while Kris and I had been down below, fighting enthusiastically and with grim purpose. They could hear Mudmouth gathering the Summons that were out here, but the fun thing was¡­ we had a Tusker Champion with us right now. The only Summons Mowen couldn¡¯t control himself were the Tainted ones! Mowen knew it, too, and easily half the Summons and more they were running across were Tainted, only fit for Burning and Sealing. But if they were normal tuskers¡­ well, now, those were troops fit for recruiting and building up a force of his own, while we Sealed the Spawn Points behind them! Mowen Udaun, Champion of the Tuskers, was now going to be able to recruit a really, really big Tusker army to go up against Mudmouth, and that was going to save us a LOT of time¡­ ------ ¡°TREMBLE. OH OHHHHH OH, TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE!¡± The earth was pounding. Massive paws were thundering over the ground, great chests bellowing curses at one another in tusker-talk, then slamming into one another with great biting jaws and bashing fists. The crunch and crashing of great muscular bodies slamming together was non-stop, the din made hearing anything of relevance impossible¡­ and still the Trembling Song cut right through it all, set the heart to pumping, and souls to singing. The +6 bonus to hit and damage didn¡¯t hurt, either, meaning our tusker troops were mauling those of Mudmouth and the Dark Bobo as they came streaming at us. Tim was naturally the biggest focus of attention for these Summons, and they thronged him, trying to leap on him and bring him down with weight of numbers. That wasn¡¯t working out too well, because there was a lot of absolutely murderous and very focused firepower concentrated around him, not to mention the mass of Smasher blowing through the clustered tuskers like a firestorm, sending them flying, flaming, and dying. ¡°SMELL YOUR ROT UPON THE LAND! TREMBLE, TREMBLE! ¡°TASTE YOUR BLOOD UPON THE SAND! TREMBLE, TREMBLE! ¡°SEE YOU BREAK UNDER FIST OF STONE! ¡°HEAR YOU SHATTER SKULL AND BONE! ¡°FEEL YOU DIE WHERE YOU STAND! ¡°TREMBLE, TREMBLE! WE COME!¡± Even the Summons roared along enthusiastically, as her Song was Tongues translating via her Mask, and they could comprehend all the spirit behind it as they raged in the fighting. Loyal Tusker Summons had black and white Faerie Fires dancing about their heads, making them easy to tell apart from those under the control of Dark Bobo. More pointedly, I was using Control Summons conjoined with Mass Faerie Fires under Triadspell VI to break the control of Dark Bobo over untainted tuskers, promptly slaving that control to Briggs¡¯ Warlord status, and reinforcing us at the same time as I stripped three dozen tuskers at a time from the enemy! AF Chapter 415 – A Tumult of Tuskers Regular as a drumbeat, Endure rose and fell, keeping the pace, and tuskers screamed and died around Briggs with every step he was taking. The Mick and Kris were flitting back and forth in an ever-evolving Wolfpack circuit that led her Skeeters through the tuskers in a deadly, winding serpent of fire. The screaming tuskers dying in flames as Quaver cut right through their thick bodies didn¡¯t interfere with her enthusiastic Singing at all, which was good, as there was a whole goddamn messload of tuskers to kill. The numbers on our side didn¡¯t equal the numbers on theirs, but that was fine, as ours were far more effective with Bardsong and a Warlord¡¯s direction, however simple, Buffing them up to a level well beyond what Mudmouth and the Dark Bobo could command out of their Summoned forces. Briggs was using my Controlled tuskers to form elite squads I could use Mass Buffs on easily, and wielding them like hammers against the loose horde of the enemy. Thus, there was a unit of dark-furred Annihilators down there, currently crackling with Haste sparking silver lightning all over them and ripping through the main mass of the attackers with aplomb and fury, just blurs of muscle in motion. They were backed up by two units of Devastators with Mass Barkskin and Mass Bludgeon Protection on them, which rendered them incredibly durable and much, much harder to kill than the tuskers they were going up against. Since it all stacked with the Morale Bonuses from Heartsong and Warlord commands, those tuskers were just juggernauts. The Casters with the Isparian forces were keeping eyes on Mowen and Tim, making sure they weren¡¯t targeted by hostile magic that might really be able to hurt them. I was flying at about shoulder height near Tim and Mowen, assuring them I was watching and looking out for them as the two of them pounded away. Mowen¡¯s great flaming fists could easily one-hit most of the Tainted tuskers, and he was having a great time reducing them to vivus, while bulling through and basically ignoring most of what they trying to do to him in return. As they came in to attack Tim, he mauled them from the flanks relentlessly. -Hilltop, half a mile, SSE!- Selena /reported, and I glanced that way, opening my Detect Magic VII+1 for just a moment to read the magic there, before equally quickly reducing it down to a local view. -Mudmouth confirmed over there by magical field,- I /informed everyone. -The fake Bobo I don¡¯t know. Eyes sharp looking for it!- -Try two o¡¯clock, quarter-mile out in those trees. A lot of the incoming tuskers are coming from there,- Briggs /stated calmly, not interrupting his own killing. I glanced that way, agreed that it looked suspicious, and prepared to Linejump over there. ¡°Tim, if you see me using fire over in those trees, the Dark Bobo is there!¡± I Messaged both him and Mowen, who naturally turned to look in that direction. -Do that prick Mudmouth have anything around him?- the Mick /asked. -I can¡¯t see any bodyguards, Lord Mick. If he has any, they are running right past him. Wasn¡¯t the Dark Bobo supposed to be his bodyguard?- -An¡¯ he sent it away to lead the troops. He¡¯s open!- And before I could even Linejump over to Dark Bobo, the Skeeters were pulling back towards the line of flaming Spears, and the streaks of fire that represented the Mick and Kris had snapped off and were gone, the two effectively disappearing among the rush of Tuskers charging in toward far more visible targets. There was a rush of dislocation and space spinning, and I was in among the trees and looking down from them at what was going on below. Tuskers didn¡¯t normally look up, and these were no different. Even seeing the missile troops out there shooting from Disks and Wagons well above the ground, the tuskers below didn¡¯t look up as they streamed on past in a constant flow of respawning reinforcements funneled here by howled commands from real, Tainted tuskers forming a funnel of battle assembly calls over the miles. They came here, fell under Dark Bobo¡¯s control, and raced out into the fight taking place here. Dark Bobo did indeed look like a shadowy version of the Tusker King at his prime, with the bright red eyes of Shades further emphasizing the difference. Same kind of tusker armor, and he even had on a big shiny black swami hat with a black star sapphire set in it, clearly emulating and mocking the Tusker King at the same time.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He had a bodyguard of four Tainted Annihilators, all Summons, so never needing to be fed and no questioning his orders, flanking him and not getting in his way. His head was turned to the towering form of Tim, looming over many of the palms in his bright silver Armor, the huge Club of solid fire a swathe of doom scything through rows after rows of tuskers, the Summons basically exploding and incinerating in fire and vivus, many reduced to dust before they could hit the ground. Yeah, Tim was pretty attention-getting. I didn¡¯t start off with attacks, as Dark Bobo could and would run away, heading back to Mudmouth for joint magical support. No, I brought up a wall behind the group of them, Shaping up the stone silently into a circle behind them ten feet thick and forty feet high, making sure he and his minions couldn¡¯t get out. Given all their attention was focused ahead on all those Flaming Weapons and tuskers burning, screaming, and dying as the attackers pressed ahead, they didn¡¯t notice the walls coming up silently behind them until it was basically too late. Dark Bobo¡¯s head jerked around, the glowing orbs widening as he watched stone flowing up out of the ground and locking him in. Instead of sprinting for the opening, he pivoted around to see how much was blocked off, and so I simply Cast the Wall of Stone to seal off the rest instantly. It was only three feet thick as opposed to ten, which meant that if he charged the opening instantly, he might have been able to break through it with muscle and mass. He made the wrong choice, and the instant the Wall was up, indistinguishable from the Shaped Stone, I was reinforcing it. His head snapped up when I Cast, seeing me standing on the edge of the Wall to his right. He snarled and jumped at me, his shadowy black fist of stone raised to pound at me. He crashed into the wall five feet below me, the stone cracking loudly but holding. I stared down at him as he fell back to the ground, his Annihilator bodyguards bellowing and scraping at the cool stone of the walls as they tried to reach me. I brought up some Fire Shards ¨C very, very bright ones ¨C and Chain Shardrayed the lot of them with six streaks of fire that ignited the air in an inferno as they came down. Out of the corner of my eye, I heard Tim bellow and point, and he then simply bulled his way forward through the tuskers, flaming Boots alternately kicking them out of his way or crushing them to fried ectoplasm underneath him. He charged my way, Smasher raging back and forth to clear more tuskers out of his way, and incidentally spun half the tuskers or more on the battlefield around to follow him. Mowen took off after him, racing on all fours, but bouncing back and forth between the enemy Summons chasing after Tim, sending them flying, broken and burned, as he lashed back and forth. After them poured Briggs¡¯ Commanded units of Annihilators and Devastators, heads crowned with harmless flames that nonetheless looked spooky and impressive to even Summons, widening the gap and punishing any tuskers dumb enough to turn their backs on them and stay in their way. The flaming arrows into the backsides of the tuskers were murderous as the lines of archers shifted forward in partial pursuit of Tim, dotting the field with tumbled and flaming tusker corpses caught in mid-run and joining the flaming, misting carnage the Tremendous Monuga was leaving in his wake. -Charge the wall! I¡¯ll bring it down and he¡¯s on the other side!- I /promised Tim, who didn¡¯t slow down his massive strides as he raised Smasher and came up on the Wall. I Dispelled it and un-Shaped its reinforcement. It melted out of Tim¡¯s path as he bellowed a deafening battle cry. The Tusker King, barely singed despite eating over three thousand points of fire damage, turned just in time to look up at Tim and see Smasher arcing down. I saw a whole bunch of Health Qi vent, and even more when Tim¡¯s boot came burning in and caught the nearly-erect Dark Bobo who¡¯d dodged most of Smasher right in the chest, sending him crashing him back against the stone wall. Howling like a mad monkey, Mowen pounded in, somehow wove between Tim¡¯s legs, and slammed into this parody of his beloved King at full speed with both flaming fists. I watched a whole lot more Health Qi vent explosively. The Dark Bobo tried to fight, he really did. But I Shaped up the stone behind Tim again and blocked the pursuing tuskers trying to reach him, although only making it thirty feet tall so they could see his head above it and keep trying to reach it in stupid frenzy. Multiple Chained Shardrays bored through the tuskers, and they began to fall with incredible speed, the Kickers on the Rays eating them away and making them incredibly vulnerable to the fists and flames of the attackers following them. Dark Bobo screamed as he was locked in there with two massive Buffed attackers. When I Mass Blooding¡¯d their Weapons, instead of targeting him with Fester, his doom was assured. Dark Bobo had insane Fast Healing and a lot of armor and Damage Reduction¡­ and I wasn¡¯t going to target him and spur any reactive Buffs from him. But Blooding didn¡¯t care, it was a Curse effect that lasted until Natural Renewal or Dispelled¡­ and getting rid of Curse Magic didn¡¯t seem to be in his repertoire, judging by his howls as suddenly his very serious rate of Fast Healing wasn¡¯t having any effect on the pounding attacks of his two attackers at all. The two brutes with flaming Weapons had no problems hitting him repeatedly and venting a lot of Health Qi as they did. All forcing them back with powerful swipes did was get them beating on him from both sides, and he roared and bellowed and spun, trying to figure out how to beat them and get out of there¡­ and I waited overhead patiently, watching him, waiting for him to try the magic which I could see he had, to Counter and stop it and only hasten his ending. AF Chapter 416 – Here’s Mud in your Mouth They were just whispers in the jungle, hissing through it as the occasional tusker ran past in the other direction, any noise lost in the bellowing tumult and thuds of bone-breaking that were ringing out from the tusker civil war going on. Their target certainly wasn¡¯t looking for them, had no idea they were there, and had other concerns on his mind as he suddenly saw his pet fake Bobo trapped by an armored Tremendous Monuga, of all things, perhaps even the one the real Bobo had driven off in the past. Only this one was armored and wielding a flaming Weapon, as well as girt with at least a half-dozen Buffing spells! Mudmouth, his shell of tusker flesh scarcely bigger than a goldenback despite all his power, shuffled forward a step, weighing the risk of getting involved and aiding his idiotic minion. Bobo had only beaten the monuga back then at the cost of his right paw. Mudmouth had no confidence in his Dark Bobo being the equal of Bobo at all, and facing a monuga who actually had armor and Buffs up? That, that was an impossible fight, even if there wasn¡¯t an Isparian Caster helping him out! He could hear his minion¡¯s throaty howls of pain and rage, as could all the tuskers, and it was driving the Summons berserk as they tried to come to his aid. Unfortunately, that only left the idiots completely exposed to the invading forces raining fire on them. They were dying off in screaming throngs and droves, while the biggest and best of them were being torn away from Bobo¡¯s control completely and going over to the other side! It was incredibly effective, dangerous magic, and Mudmouth was not aware of the principles it worked on, because no such magic had ever been used in the past. But magic had changed, and his masters had made it plain that magic was very different in different places. Could he even save his minion? The unwhite fire was very disquieting, a new force he was utterly unfamiliar with. He could only see that it was Burning away the corpses of all the dead Summoned tusker spirits with incredible speed, and swathing the field of battle in shining whiteness and ground-hugging mist as it did so¡­ The attackers came in on either side of him, just whispers of motion he ignored until he saw the flames ignite like suns, the motes of Lost Light turn into stars, and they slammed into him from either side with Breaks the Tide. He didn¡¯t know the name of the Ocean Dragon Form, of course, but he got to feel it all as, powered up by Child of Waters for the opening charge, the Mick and Princess Kristie Rantha hit him full force. He heard only one word. ¡°TREMBLE,¡± the dark-haired female swore at him, pale violet eyes blazing with killing intent, and two Notes rang out that seemed to thrum on his body and soul. Ding! Ting! Armor Cleaving ripping through his admittedly thin hide, triple damage Power Attack, multiplied by Leap Attack, multiplied by One Striking, multiplied by Valorous Charging, Shadow Slayer doubling it, multiplied by Crits going off Biting Strike, multiplied by Crushing Blow. The first two swings were the hugest physical attacks Mudmouth had ever suffered. His Health Qi boiled off him in a flood of black and purple lights, flames searing bright paths across his sides and instantly sticking to him as Curse magic fouled them up and didn¡¯t let him Fast Heal. ¡°All the world waits for you.¡± He realized he was really in trouble when both Blades came back equally fast, and cut again, and then came back again, even faster this time, and cut again! ¡°All your time has come due.¡± Unable to move except to flail wildly and pivot in shock, the streaks of fire came in even faster, cut deeper, building on one another in a crescendo of violence that was painting the area around him. ¡°All your magic comes to its end.¡± He tried to Cast, to get spells off, but the mana in the air seemed immovable, inflexible, and wouldn¡¯t come to his call like it should have. ¡°Aerbax¡¯s folly, off we¡¯ll send ¡°You to tremble, and Feed the Land!¡± When the streaks of fire in the air somehow gathered into a flaming rose, he didn¡¯t know what was going on, but something seemed to turn in time and probability itself, and it all went bad. ¡°TREMBLE!¡± The attacks going off on him all crit, and they crit explosively, tearing at his flesh and Health Qi raging across and through his system with greater speed than any two swordsmen should possibly be able to execute. The two of them were circling him smoothly, attacks trading back and forth from openings that flowed into being as if he was choreographed with them. ¡°Death bursts forth, and knows it¡¯s time!¡± He had been hit hard by the Weapons of many Isparians in the past, usually after they had softened him up with magic he could Counter or Dispel as he wished. Usually it was half a dozen or more of them, backed up by their own spellcasters tearing into him and covering for those he blasted with his own magic. ¡°Fires will feast on this life a crime!¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°Deal with this!¡± he screamed at the interfering Isparians, scarcely able to believe that they¡¯d reached his contingency limit in under twenty seconds, and his shadow Tusker-Imps flashed into being around him. The spell seemed stronger now, there were an even dozen of them for these foolish attackers to deal with, coming at them from every side- He thought they¡¯d been hitting fast, but that all faded as the world became streaks of razored flame. ¡°Against Nature, aberrant Tainted thing!¡± Slices of the sun cut through his Imps, exploded, blowing them into white wisps of energy, and Mudmouth flinched as he felt the enslaved souls vanish from his grip, never to be Summoned again. ¡°A Blood Rose shines, a thousand Dooms now sing!¡± And then the woman cut right into him, Cleaving through them, and it felt like she took the power of their deaths and carved right through him as the Imps tried to swing at her, missed, and she reaped them. ¡°Seven Dragons roar their rage and ¡°Tremble! You will FEED THE LAND!¡± And for every Imp she reaped, she cut him again as she circled Mudmouth, and he screamed as his Health Qi covered him in flames now, no chance to even be quenched before more was riding on him, eating at him¡­ --- It was the first time the Mick had seen Finish and Hew at work, or really felt the utter dread being brought to bear of a master Heartsinger screwing with the head of a target. The Shadow Tusker Imps didn¡¯t have a chance. Maybe 500 Health, walking into an absolute firestorm of crits, Slayer effects, Power Attacks via Breaks the Tide and all the multipliers involved with that, Sneak Attack damage coming in as they lost initiative and were caught flat-footed, and so the Imps just died as soon as the first one took a swing at Princess Kristie, missed her, and the Attacks of Opportunity from Riposte and Sword beats Fist just exploded. He couldn¡¯t use Finish and Hew, because they were a Spear and an Axe Feat respectively. Finish was a Spear Feat, where if you dropped someone you could instantly perform a coup de grace on them. It was designed to stop things that might Heal up, going right to death, no lingering, no more cards to be dealt. Hew was an Axe Feat, where if you dropped something and Cleaved to another target, you added all the excess damage of that blow to the next swing. He actually did take all the Attacks of Opportunity on the little blighters that he could, but he didn¡¯t kill any of them. No, no, that would be wasteful. Instead, he and the princess administered six attacks each as the Imps flailed at them, and then he basically just focused on Mudmouth as Princess Kristie ignited and overkilled the shit out of those Imps with her second swings. Her Bladedancing was impossibly graceful, gloriously beautiful, and fantastically deadly. Every motion she looked like she was posing just to be admired, and yet he knew he was only seeing after-images of cuts and strokes that had only passed by as they built upon one another. All Mudmouth was seeing was death coming for him. The Mick was pretty sure the thing in a tusker¡¯s shape hadn¡¯t even been designed to feel fear, but like the undead, a Threnodic Song was slamming on to his heart and soul, and it was SUPPLYING the fear to him, enabling Mudmouth to experience all the helpful terror he never wanted to, and the damn thing didn¡¯t have any idea on how to deal with it. He was panicking and flailing, not thinking clearly, trying to flee via magic or foot and unable to do either, not having any calm or direction or concentrated focus at all as he shook in the throes of the Trembling Song. Gods damned, the Princess Rantha was fucking nasty when she opened her pipes and let that Song fly. ¡°TREMBLE! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Mudmouth¡¯s eyes were near bulging out of his head, wild and crazed, and all he was doing was screaming frantically and trying to get away, to live, and neither he nor his little Imps had a bloody prayer. The Imps were down under a hundred Health, and likely the bleed damage would have killed them off, but when the second attacks came through with Seven Dragons Rampaging, crits igniting from the Blood Rose dissipating around them, then all those crits +coups carried over into Mudmouth in a dozen slashing strokes as the two of them circled the brute, Princess Kristie killing all the Tusker Imps in one unearthly violent and overwhelming flowing series of impossibly fast-to-follow arcs of golden Wrathfire and motes of Lost Light that hit like tiny meteors, detonating continuously and blindingly against the cunning not-a-tusker. ¡°A Blood Rose blooms in Hell tonight.¡± Constitution attacks. Strength damage. Bleed damage. Burn damage. Flurries of blows of terrific violence that only fed barrages of Attacks of Opportunity going back and forth as Mudmouth alternately tried to flail at them, tried to flee and Stand Still sheared through his legs and stopped him immediately, and Cast spells that went nowhere and fizzled horribly in Kristie¡¯s Null. ¡°Drags you down despite all your might.¡± Mudmouth¡¯s Health Qi was venting wildly dealing with everything, especially nullifying the Ability Damage in horrid and painful gouts that drew screams from him. Vivus was eating the stuff happily, and ichor that wasn¡¯t blood or even really liquid was pouring out of the corrupted virindi-shade thing Aerbax had made all those years ago. ¡°Your vigor, your vitae, a balm so sweet.¡± The Mick knew he had never moved Bunita¡¯s Kiss so fast, and that included when under Haste. He and the Princess had set up a resonance of attacks and openings that was just driving the engine of Fire and the power of Ocean faster and deeper. The two of them were doing more work than two full Fellowships tearing into this bastard with crazy intense speed. ¡°To the lips of the Land, passing fleet ¡°Where you quaver, and FEED HER WELL! ¡°TREMBLE! TREMBLE, SHE COMES!¡± Sidesteps of Hotfoot, the Fire-style lightfoot, drove them around the not-a-tusker as it frantically tried to keep up with them, tried to land a telling blow, and couldn¡¯t. They danced around it constantly, Fire Dancing, Ocean-Flowing, and the fires of their Blades bit in with monstrous speed, accuracy, and exploding crits. Sixty percent, fifty percent in under a minute! He never imagined that would be possible with just two people. This bloody thing had 300k of Health Qi, but the stuff was venting madly with every cycle and step of their dance. ¡°Summon your servants! Call your slaves!¡± Another contingent Summons of the barely-visible Shadow Tusker Imps came up, Whirlwinds went off, none of them died, and then six seconds later they were all dead, and 40 percent Health Qi was down to 30 percent as they blew apart and their deathstrokes all ended up carving into their shrieking boss. ¡°It¡¯s not your life they¡¯re going to save!¡± The fact her voice was totally comprehensible no matter how loudly Mudmouth screamed or how crazily he flailed about was near as terrifying as the Heartsong itself. AF Chapter 417 – The Land is Happy Mudmouth couldn¡¯t get away, and he couldn¡¯t stop them. Any blows he hit them with were only glancing shocks at best, and Positive Edge kept them ahead of the Healing game on him. The damage was only stacking up and multiplying, the energy-flesh Mudmouth was made of seemed to be mending itself ever more slowly as purple-black lights and goo poured out of wounds blazing with vivus, every Bleed and Burn effect the Health Qi Countered also taking massive Health Qi to fix. ¡°Seven Dragons ignite, the world is on fire!¡± A Blood Rose bloomed again, and they both went into Seven Rampaging Dragons, adding in the bonus damage, multiplying, critting, Slaying, feeding AoO¡¯s to one another and triggering more with every final gasp of this damned thing that should never have been created¡­ It was almost a popping sound as the Health Qi evaporated with under 8K of life left, and then it was just a body made of something that was only mimicking meat and bone. ¡°Listen, and hear the Land¡¯s desire!¡± Mudmouth screamed and flailed and tried to do something, he really did. Now the vivus was sticking, and he could feel it eating at his power, his soul, and the energies he was using to fend it off only fed it. Constitution damage tore through his meat, Strength damage hobbled him, Burn and Bleed damage raged over his hide and into his body unchecked now, stacking up, piling up, building into an inferno as crits after crits exploded in Fiery Bursts over and over until - ¡°That you TREMBLE, and FEED THE LAND!¡± The Mick saw the blast go off, he did. That was because he and Princess Kristie overkilled Mudmouth by at least a thousand Health, limbs and body cloven apart from multiple scything blows. It was all held in place by will and resistance and force for one terrible moment as Mudmouth screamed, trying to keep himself intact by pure desperation and disbelief of what had been done to him. Then there was a silent explosion of whiteness as the last Fiery Burst triggered the explosion of vivus, and the world went all sorts of quiet and whiteness filled the Mick¡¯s vision. He realized he was kind of airborne, close enough to the ground that his Cloudstepping Sandals didn¡¯t catch him, and even though it seemed an incongruously long time, he hit the ground with a grunt, rolled automatically despite being in heavy Armor, and was back on his feet as smoothly as any acrobat. Around him was a thick, almost turgid white mist, filling the world and blocking all sight more than a foot from his face. He could only see the blaze of Bunita¡¯s Kiss, and that was it, not even the hand that held it. Something moved around him. The Mick didn¡¯t know what it was, but it was BIG. It felt like the world was spinning, like he was in the center of something gargantuan, immense. The thick vivic fog around him, he wasn¡¯t sure how deep it was even with his Mask, suddenly seemed to fall straight down around him. He could see the lines and flows of it pouring down past him, as if it were impossibly heavy all of a sudden, and the ground and trees and everything around him were stained purest white as it did so. He wobbled and fell to his knees, surrounded by a feeling of more power than he had ever imagined would be displayed around him as vivus poured down out of the sky, and the Land ate it all. Only two breaths, but they seemed far longer and to take forever. Then the sun was shining down, the world was white, and the only colors were the blue of the sky and Princess Kristie in her leathers and Golden Armored skin, Quaver ringing with two clear and celebratory notes amid the six different hues of fire covering him, Lost Light motes dancing like white-hot stars now in a rush of pure magic and released energy. The Mick blinked, looking around himself in rather stunned incomprehension. ¡°What,¡± the words managed to force themselves out of his lips in pure defiance of his instinctive awe, ¡°was that?¡± ¡°Pretty sure that was the spirit of the island kipping up for a quick snack,¡± Princess Kristie said in a neutral voice, the closest thing he¡¯d ever heard to her being impressed. ¡°Mudmouth was big enough to be noticed and grabbed as a snack after he went en vivus, I reckon.¡± The Mick lowered his Kiss and placed his head against the pommel. ¡°Gods an¡¯ demons, lass, I dunno how I kept going that long. That were bloody fucking intense.¡± He felt utterly drained, knew his stamina was blooping near empty, and he breathed long and deeply, drawing in extraordinarily refreshed air into his lungs, so it felt like a thunderstorm was starting itself inside his chest. The fires of his heart and the pumping of his blood gradually steadied, slowed from a guttering trip-fest down to something more manageable under the force of his ki. Without that ki, he would have been down and gasping for air in the first minute at the speed they¡¯d been moving! ¡°Yeah, it was!¡± she admitted cheerfully. He knew her endurance was unreal, but she wasn¡¯t making any effort to get up, either. That full-on blade dance she¡¯d been in, swirling with Seven Dragons ki, had to eat up her stamina even faster than his own, taxing even her incredible reserves.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Her Golden Road path of using stamina to fuel further depredations on the unfortunate victims of her attention was definitely getting a workout. She cocked an ear to the side. ¡°Hear that?¡± she asked him gleefully. He turned his head slowly, but only heard the vague whistling of a breeze through the trees and the undergrowth of the jungle, nothing much more. It didn¡¯t surprise him, even the bugs would be hiding after the shadow of that incredible presence¡­ Oh, right. ¡°Mudmouth be dead. Be guessing the Dark Bobo be suddenly dead. All the Summons be out o¡¯ control, an¡¯ all the dominated Tainted tuskers be out o¡¯ command, too. Mowen should have taken control of just about everything not Tainted, aye?¡± ¡°That is what it sounds like.¡± She got to her feet, visibly swaying for a moment before catching her balance. Her Disk flew up out of her Masspack, spun out from stacked wedges into its Floating Forge form, and she carefully walked over, grabbed his breastplate, and hoisted him onto it like a child getting a free ride. He didn¡¯t complain. His legs felt like wet noodles, and he kept a firm grip on Bunita¡¯s Kiss, because if he let go, his arms were just going to dangle at his side. Skating very leisurely, Princess Kristie trucked him back through the unnaturally white and quiet jungle around them, and the stunned silence of an abruptly ended civil war beyond. ------ I saw Kris taking her own sweet time coming back to us, but that was pretty cool. After all, she was responsible for that huge serpentine mouth coming up out of the ground, a ghostly thing that had closed over the massive vivic explosion of what had to be Mudmouth going up¡­ and then the jaws had probably turned sideways and done the same thing when Dark Bobo was finally Smashed to flaming, pulping ruin by a gigantic flaming spiked Club, and also lit off like nobody¡¯s business. Tim was sitting on the ground now, looking around and not saying anything as he stared at the jungle stained all clear white, doubtless trying to digest that overpowering sense of grandeur sweeping past him when the island here woke up and had itself a nice snack. Didn¡¯t even leave any Wisps for us to kill, which was pretty nice of it. Mowen was taking control of the Summons over there, or at least the non-Tainted ones. The screams and shouts from the distance had cut off instantly when Mudmouth and Dark Bobo went down, so there were no reinforcements arriving any more. The Tainted Summons were shot down by the archers or impaled by the spearmen quickly, just victims with how they were all reeling drunkenly after the forced ripping-away of their controllers, and the spirit of the island sweeping by fast and letting them know they weren¡¯t liked, invited, or even really relevant. It was definitely a relief to them when the Bows twanged and the Spears thrust, and the dazed Tainted Tuskers went down in flames, without even a howl of protest. All the Tainted ones in the area of the vivic explosions were just gone, of course. They¡¯d popped like soap bubbles when the ephemeral jaws had manifested and concentrated the vivus, adding more fuel to the meal, like little spicy add-ons for the Land¡¯s benefit. Generous of them. And yet, they were still going to be free of the System forever. Who knew how many countless tuskers were enslaved to the System here, given they were natives of the place and had been breeding here for uncounted thousands of years. Their numbers might be in the tens of millions, even hundreds of millions. Depending on whether or not the System corralled undead from outside of Dereth, they might exceed the number of undead slaved to the magic here. Still, it was a finite number, and it could end. It would just take a whole lot of killing of Summons. I just sat down on Tim¡¯s shoulder, leaning against the wall, taking it all in with him as he pondered things no Tremendous Monuga had likely ever pondered before. ¡°Kinda impressive, huh?¡± I asked him. His bottom eye turned to look at me, the other two continued to rove over the whiteness all around. ¡°You could see it? Feel it? Hear it?¡± he asked me slowly. ¡°I didn¡¯t hear it,¡± I admitted, curious now. ¡°What was it saying?¡± ¡°It said there is a worm eating at the Seal, and more, much more, is needed,¡± Tim said slowly. ¡°What did it mean?¡± My blood went utterly cold, so much so that my skin turned blue. ¡°Tim? Don¡¯t mention that to anyone but me, Princess Kristie, Warlord Briggs, or the Mick. That you know that is very, very dangerous.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± He considered that for a long moment. ¡°The not-tuskers have something to do with the worm,¡± he said in a whisper all the more amusing for the fact it really was pretty soft. ¡°You know who Aerbax is? You remember it?¡± ¡°Heard of him. Seen floaty place in the black plain. Never met him, didn¡¯t want to. Unclean, hummy-bad like other virindi, only worse.¡± I nodded agreement with him. ¡°He was thought to be dead, and was really powerful, capable of even messing with time to some extent, it was said, and had no scruples to stop him from doing those things. ¡°Aerbax is the one who made Mudmouth and the Dark Bobo.¡± The Tremendous Monuga grunted and nodded slowly. ¡°So he might be the worm¡­¡± ¡°And this Seal is blocking something so horrible the very Land warned you about it.¡± Tim grunted, and then awkwardly patted the stained-white ground with his huge three-fingered hand. ¡°Land take care of us, if we take care of it?¡± he asked hesitantly. ¡°Yes, and sometimes, sometimes the care we have to take is incredibly and horribly bloody.¡± Tim grunted again, deep and echoing, and thought about that for a long moment. At last, he nodded and said, ¡°Tim glad he made friends with little Isparians, then. Tim think this going to be biggest, nastiest fight Tim ever fights.¡± I couldn¡¯t argue with that judgment. ¡°I agree with you. Only we aren¡¯t strong enough to get there, and we don¡¯t know what side is fighting with who, only that they have their own desires and those are probably going to get in the way of what we want to do.¡± Tim just grunted. ¡°Fighting for territory. Land IS the territory. Stupid to fight over it, instead of with it, FOR it, like we need do. Tim seen lots of fights for territory, been in lots of fights for territory. Small fights, when Land tells you what you need to fight.¡± Tim was a whole lot smarter than he looked like in real life, but I¡¯d already seen his Markspace presence was growing more complex, pumping Karma into his mental attributes as the Isparian System allowed. Yeah, Tim was going to be something special when he got where he needed to go. AF Chapter 418 – These Old Bones… ¡°I understand there¡¯s been some excitement going on with the tuskers, Lady Magos,¡± the undead Master Ben Ten greeted me as I finished up the last of today¡¯s Resurrections. Six more former undead were walking around dazedly, staring up at a sun and a sky that was not a gray and cursed smear of unkind pain above them, but light and hope and goodness once more. Some didn¡¯t have any family there to welcome them back, but if nothing else, there were always other Resurrected there to welcome them back to life and the living. The most senior undead had still deferred their own Resurrections, despite having satisfied the requirements a long time ago. Only one of Master Ben Ten¡¯s students had been given leave to return, and he had been the youngest and weakest of them. Jorgio MacLinder had promptly headed out for the Hall of Lost Light to take up the Oath there, and finally join an organization truly wedded to a higher Cause. The Knights had plenty to do, and if the job hadn¡¯t changed much, finding the right purpose was still something Good men chose to do in their lives. Most of the Master¡¯s students would have qualified to take up the Lost Light, but unfortunately they were all undead right now, and it would just burn them away if they tried it. Patience, something the undead had much of, and they too were trying to work on improving themselves, if only exchanging current Karma for old Karma and changing themselves to fit a new paradigm, as opposed to growing, something very, very hard for the undead to do. ¡°It was significant enough that I made Fourteen, and have begun clearing my secondary Classes again,¡± I answered the old Sho swordmaster with a nod. Although he was all bones, his soul was Silver, and I didn¡¯t feel uncomfortable in his presence at all, nor motivated to end him. Well, his ending would be a new beginning, as it were, when he chose to be Resurrected. ¡°That sounds¡­ important?¡± he wondered aloud, having been told that the Matrix Classes usually required a significant deed to advance past Ten. I turned to walk, and he fell in smoothly, the crowd parting respectfully around us. ¡°I did not think making contact with the Tusker King to be so important.¡± ¡°It was the deaths of Mudmouth and Dark Bobo that were significant. They had basically usurped his kingdom and have been slowly spreading rot and death over the jungles and tuskers there. I¡¯m going from here to make a whole lot of braziers to put in streams all over the islands to Burn the Taint off. ¡°They even managed to generate ghouls from the dead. That should tell you something about whatever was empowering them.¡± ¡°Cannibal feasters on the dead,¡± he murmured in his hollow voice, teeth clattering thoughtfully as he recalled old tales. ¡°That is a foul step, indeed, Lady Magos.¡± ¡°It is, but now they are gone, and we are taking steps to right the situation, annoying and painful as it may be. Even the Tainted tuskers are coming to Bobo¡¯s Lake to cleanse themselves, and that process is not free of pain. Even if vivus Burns them clean, they will need months to regain their strength. The Taint is not lost cheaply.¡± He clacked his teeth again. ¡°Curses seem to follow around this island, especially after the Fall.¡± ¡°It¡¯s like something is out there encouraging the cursed to stay around and grow, or something.¡± He glanced at me with ghostly white lights deep in empty sockets. ¡°That sounds like a comment on something profound, Lady Magos.¡± ¡°Were you flesh and blood I¡¯d trust you with more, Master Ben Ten, but your very undead condition leaves you susceptible to influences that the living are simply not aware of, and thus cannot hear without great effort. The massive Curse which brought you all back to unlife is very suspicious, as I¡¯m sure you long ago realized. A miracle in its way, but true miracles don¡¯t damn good men to undeath¡­ just so they can keep on fighting.¡± His teeth clacked again, letting me know he was thinking my words through deeply. ¡°Yes. While our avowed purpose might be to defend the living, in the end we are here to fight and fight endlessly, just like those who were once slaved to the Deathstones and thought of combat as without risk, just some little pain to go through before being reborn.¡± He nodded serenely as we headed towards the new gardens to the side of the city, planted by diligent citizens restoring the city of Mayoi to something of its old and beautiful self. It was not something the undead could truly appreciate with the necroic view of the world they had, but they could be told it was there, and would take care not to despoil it. In their eyes, such things were always rotting and lifeless, always seeing the slow deaths of the plants, not their bursting to life and color. ¡°The preoccupation of the System here with keeping things endlessly recycling themselves to fight and fight again is very much not a good thing, elder, and it keeps getting re-used. The implementation of the Deathstones themselves is incredibly suspect, all the good it did aside, and the incredible amount of wealth and magic that simply evaporated and now is gone as if it never was¡­Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Magic is not our friend here, Master Ben Ten.¡± His teeth clicked quietly once again. ¡°You are now even suspicious of Asheron himself, are you?¡± He shook his head slightly. ¡°If he had malicious intents, Lady Magos, he fooled everybody. Even now I remember him as one of the kindest and most generous men I have ever met. I would be extremely reluctant to accuse him of planning us ill.¡± ¡°The destruction to his castle was not caused by the Harbinger, nor was the Rift there. The key thing is that he was a wielder of Empyrean Magic, and that magic has connections to some incredibly alien beings and influences. Regardless of his intentions, I don¡¯t believe his magic was clean¡­ and if he truly was as kind and benevolent as you think, then that explains why he never taught his magic to Isparians.¡± Master Ben Ten¡¯s skull tilted back, considering all that. ¡°So, he used the magic of the System to integrate us into it and keep us alive, because he needed us for some purpose, even if he had to use the Empyrean magic to do so. The only one of us known to use Empyrean-level magic is Nuhmudira, and her dark arts are based on blood¡­¡± ¡°She is definitely dealing with something Out There, a being of Mythos, to wield the magicks she does, and the Cult of the Raven Hand believe it is their sponsor. She also refuses to teach her arts to other Isparians, but that is definitely not because she doesn¡¯t want us using twisted arts. Her willingness to kill her own followers and pursue positions of power match the behavior she had on Ispar and has displayed here. She just doesn¡¯t want the competition. ¡°I will note that Asheron never seemed to pursue power, but like all of the truly powerful, those desiring his power and counsel made sure to include him in all important decisions. Nuhmudira never earned that trust, and for good reason.¡± ¡°The Radiant Blood talked a virtuous talk, but they never delivered on their proclamations, and they pursued personal power and wealth relentlessly while chattering their lip service. A reflection of their hidden leader and her secrets, and now she is loosed from her prison, and, it seems, training a successor?¡± He didn¡¯t hide his grim scorn, knowing full well the activities of the rival factions. He¡¯d been the Grandmaster of the Celestial Hand, easily the most virtuous of said factions, if not completely clean because paramounts were often self-serving arseholes, and they couldn¡¯t read Alignments back then. ¡°Her daughter is indeed here, and she is not here to help us, that is certain. The fact I would only like to kill her at this point doesn¡¯t help matters, of course.¡± A fact I was unrepentant of, too. ¡°Given the tale you told of her, I imagine the feeling is mutual,¡± he nodded as we strolled along the outside of the city wall I had helped put up. Minor Casters had done a lot of touching it up with colors and murals and stuff, encouraged by the people, and so it was a fine illustration of old tales and fables of all three primary cultures here, along with some of the great events of Dereth itself. ¡°Nuhmudira¡¯s moves were always to benefit herself and her own influence, even if others happened to benefit. You, on the other hand, have not only introduced a marvelous new Tradition of magic to others, you also give of your own magic with a rare generosity, while shunning those stations of power that woman was always envious of. She was deathly envious of the power and influence Asheron wielded, and she took steps to tear down any other Caster among the Isparians who might seem more deft than her.¡± I slowed to a stop abruptly. ¡°What was her relationship with Harlune?¡± I had to ask. ¡°Poisonous,¡± the Sho swordmaster replied instantly. ¡°Especially after he came to the Celestial Hand to help me. He made himself more accessible than Asheron, and he was willing to trade information on using magic in the Isparian Tradition unstintingly. He was a true cornerstone of the Celestial Hand, willing to overcome his own curmudgeonly and isolationist tendencies to do what was right.¡± ¡°Master Ulgrim said he was on an island up north. There aren¡¯t many that are eligible for him. Given how much he loathed the olthoi for what they did to the Haebran Empire, we are assuming that island is the smallest member of the archipelago where the Olthoi Queen now hides, one not easily reached by she or her brood.¡± ¡°That¡­ seems reasonable. Harlune was a frequent contributor to a circle of Isparians who also loathed the olthoi, including Queen Elysa herself. Looking over the olthoi does sound like something he would do, and he was a master at concealing himself if he needed to,¡± the swordmaster said thoughtfully. ¡°I am wondering if Nuhmudira managed to follow him and usurped his base for her own, and his knowledge as well.¡± That earned me Master Ben Ten¡¯s full attention. ¡°If that is true, we should find him quickly!¡± the skeletal warrior urged me immediately. ¡°Our main forces are tied up on Aphus Lassel. They have to clear out a great deal of Summons points and Burn a lot of Taint from the place.¡± ¡°I and my students would be happy to assist you, especially for the sake of our old friend!¡± he volunteered instantly, his hand dropping to Giri, riding at his side as always. They couldn¡¯t gain much Karma as undead, but they could still grow the name of their Weapons, and they had done so unstintingly since they were taught how to. I lifted an eyebrow at him and nodded. ¡°Gather them, then. I will return here at dusk. I can Teleport us to a shore location close to where we need to go, and make the run around the side while you all ride Disks.¡± ¡°Even if Nuhmudira is not there, this will be worth it to speak with my old friend again,¡± Master Ben Ten stated firmly. ¡°We will be ready, Lady Magos!¡± ¡°Excellent, Master Ben Ten. We have the end of a long Quest line looming ahead of us if we discover him. Have you any other questions?¡± He rattled instead of hummed. ¡°There is a request I would have, but it was more for the Princess,¡± he admitted humbly. Asking for help with something was somewhat shameful in Sho culture after all. ¡°By the way you¡¯ve been handling Giri, I am guessing you want a new Warfang home for him? Perhaps full Jadework?¡± I asked archly, and he sighed in defeat at his desires being so easy to read. I just laughed, knowing Kris would have no hesitation making such blades for the Old Master and his students¡­ and she quietly /agreed before we took another five steps on our stroll... AF Chapter 419 – The Vault of Heaven Master Ben Ten selected seven of his students to come along with us, rounding out our Fellowship to the nominal limit of nine people and maximizing the sharing of magic and Karma that would result. Unlike most of the Isparian undead, Master Ben Ten and his students took meticulous care of their Armor and Weapons, and so didn¡¯t look like a clacking mess. Indeed, with their helms closed and down, the only thing that might give them away as undead was the disconcerting lightness of their movements, and the clacking of their bones against their Armor if it wasn¡¯t secured. Night was the most comfortable time for the undead, and I had no problems working in it with my Mask of Clarity down. The skeletal warriors were quite gratified when I proposed we leave after Aethra¡¯s Salute, and take the long watch out into the waters in the north. ¡°We can see your face more clearly when you drop your Mask down,¡± Master Ben Ten informed me after we shimmered into place well over a hundred miles to the north. My lived-line had passed along this beach when I ran the island¡¯s shoreline with the Mick, so arriving on target was simplicity itself. ¡°It does not look so¡­ rotting and degrading as it might, mists of magic falling off the bone,¡± he told me. ¡°There are spells that allow the living to see the world as the dead do, but such things are not for the faint of heart, nor the wise. I imagine you can see one another as if you were almost alive, just able to glimpse the bones inside of one another, too?¡± The skeletal warriors affirmed that was how it seemed: they looked real to one another, mostly, and the living looked like constantly decaying corpses that somehow never really broke down, and moved unnaturally. Even the brightest magic was muted, although the Lost Light of my Staff was searingly bright and almost painful to them, they couldn¡¯t gaze at it for too long. ¡°Were the world itself not looking so different to us, we would almost believe we were still alive, and it is all else that is dead and corrupt,¡± Master Ben Ten said softly. ¡°When the first living people we fought for told us we were merely bones, when they looked so horrid to us, we knew something was wrong¡­¡± ¡°You are caught on the precipice between life and death, held there by unnatural forces, whose energies intertwine with you on physical, mental, and spiritual levels. The fact that you are bound by Curses instead of necromancy means your actual souls are still within you, still alive, and it is your body that is bound and Animated to hold it. True undead are actually long dead, slain by the process that makes them rise up, and only a negative mirror image of their soul remains behind. It thinks it is them, but it is not. It is a thing wrought of anti-life in the mirror, whatever its stolen memories and life tells it. What true undead have is not a soul, and you likely have noticed that as well?¡± I asked them, spreading my hands and bringing up some Disks for them to ride on. All of them had their own Disks by now. The flow of pyreal goldweight bars hadn¡¯t stopped and wasn¡¯t going to, with the result that not only was some powerful magic being Invested into stuff, a lot of versatile and useful items were coming back into being. Disks were just too bloody useful not to have one of your own to haul your stuff around on. Nobody liked to wear heavy packs and purses if they didn¡¯t want to. All they had to do was throw a dark cloak over mine and disguise the muted translucent silver of the Force magic that made them up, and they were good to go. ¡°The Empyrean undead, they look like black ink wrapped around their overlong bones,¡± spoke up Konrad ¡®the Destroyer¡¯, the tallest and brawniest of the lot, a dead Aluvian axe-man with a long and cheerfully violent past. He was, like the Mick, someone who¡¯d led a morally ambiguous life until the Fall, and there in the midst of disaster he¡¯d found a truth he¡¯d been ignoring all his life. His valiant death didn¡¯t stop him from pursuing that truth, and he had been bringing that truth to things that threatened living Isparians for years ever since. He also eagerly came over to help out Briggs whenever the big Ancient was in town, especially with any smithwork. Being fairly tireless as an undead, he¡¯d taken up the trade to wile away the hours, and actually kicked out a constant stream of decent ironwork for tools and the like. ¡°That¡¯s because they took their immortality in Blood Magic, very similar to what Nuhmudira manipulates. The proper method for Dericostan ¡®immortality¡¯ is for them to sacrifice someone for the benefit, perhaps paying them to volunteer or compensating their heirs. However, the means and method are corrupt, and so they degrade as negative energy rots their souls from within over the centuries and millennia, and they do not care.¡± I started walking out across the incoming waves, just high enough that I barely went up and down as they rolled gently in the swell, pacing out towards the Shoreward. ¡°It took me a month to realize I wasn¡¯t actually breathing anymore, and what I thought was flesh was actually passing through what I touched until it hit my bones,¡± Sumzan, a proud tulwar-bearing fellow in the immaculate jannisar garb of a turbaned desert warrior related. ¡°I thought I was trying to eat things, and they would just fall to the ground beneath me, lost in the ruin and clutter I didn¡¯t want to notice.¡± He sighed eerily through his ornate turquoise naryid armor helm.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°We can touch one another as if we have flesh, and that was the most disconcerting,¡± Shouzan the Stormsword told me, their hollow eyes watching as magic shimmered around Crown and opened a way through the Shoreward easily. ¡°It is no different from the likes of the dreads, phantoms, and even the wraiths and ghosts of the lands of Ispar from the tales. Incorporeals can touch one another, even as they pass through mortal flesh and sear it with the necroic energies of their existences as they do so. In the same way, your spirit is bound to your bones, and you can beat on them as they can beat on you, two spirits meeting.¡± The waves were rolling a good two feet higher further out, but that was fine. I popped my Wings out, celeste feathers filled with more stars than the night sky above, and simply propelled myself ahead steadily and firmly, keeping close enough to the surface of the water to maintain my lived-line. There were creaks as all of them bent to get a better view. ¡°Lady Magos, your Wings¡­ they look like the night sky as I remember, not this ghostly tableau of weeping orbs in the sky and spectral clouds chasing shadows across them!¡± Master Ben Ten uttered for all of them. I looked back at them all, who were staring at my raised and frozen pseudo-limbs in wonder. My Wings were more ectoplasm than anything real, and certainly not invested in enough to be considered extra limbs, which could then be weaponized. No, they just channeled aeromancy and enabled me to fly at a decent clip, namely twice my ground speed, three times if I had my Cloudstepping Sandals engaged and helping them out. I couldn¡¯t outrun the master lightfooters, but I could outfly them! ¡°Can you see this, gentlemen?¡± I asked, and swept a Spectral Force back above me. It was more Hologram than Phantasm, magical light sharper and harder than was normal, where the suggestive effects of a Phantasm would fill in desired details from the viewer¡¯s own mind, making it seem more real. Such things naturally didn¡¯t work on most undead, whose brains and minds operated very differently from humans. Undead could be tricked with illusions, sure, but those illusions did look very different to them than what we thought. Basically, the ¡®science¡¯ of them had to make up for the loss of the ¡®art¡¯ of them, which generally meant keeping your damn Illusions pretty simple. Simple, like just reflecting and showing the night sky visible above us. A shout of joy and wonder escaped all of the skeletal men as they craned their heads back to look up at the soaring wheel and arch of the star-filled heavens above. Two of the younger ones outright fell flat on their backs and stared up at the sky in rapture, while the others could not take their empty eyes from the stars that were no longer staring back at them. ¡°It is good that we are doing this during the night,¡± Master Ben Ten breathed, his head tilted back and slowly sweeping the sky, as if trying to devour the sight of it to be remembered forever. ¡°I fear my eyes would burn out from staying open too long if this were during the day, and I could behold the blue sky and white clouds again!¡± ¡°My apologies for not considering such a simple matter earlier. I will raise a place outside the walls of Mayoi and Hebian-to that will replicate the sky above with illusions, it will be a simple thing to put up.¡± A Permanent Illusion that required basically no thought whatsoever, actually. No different from putting the illusion of something over itself. ¡°You will be able to see the sky whenever you stand beneath it.¡± Rattling sighs from bones emulating breathing escaped behind me as semi-corporeal spirits wrapped around old bones channeled the wind blowing through the gaps in their Armor. ¡°That would be wonderful, Lady Magos, although you may have to make it somewhat large. I imagine it will be getting quite the use out of our compatriots still waiting their turns.¡± That was probably a given. ¡°I apologize for my lack of magical reserves that could accelerate the process of the Resurrections. Even the simplest improvement, a Rapid Ritual to bring the time of the Resurrections down to a minute to Cast, still requires the Casting of a thousand of the spells out of a IX Valence to either bring the cost of the Metamagic down, or raise the synergy within the spell. Doing so would require me to be a Seventeen, and I haven¡¯t even reached Fifteen so that I may Cast VIII¡¯s in the Matrix system.¡± ¡°Do not bother yourself, Lady Magos,¡± Master Ben Ten said softly, all his students nodding with him. ¡°We are patient, and our souls are filled with hope. Were this my homeland back in Ispar, there would be no noble lords nor households who could possibly afford to return us to the living. The amount of time and magic the Resurrections clearly demand of you is visible to all of us. ¡°When you can do more, we know you will do it. Already you do more than any other being in these lands has for us. You have clearly set it in your heart to right a great wrong, and not a student of mine will dare to whine and complain that you cannot deliver us all from this horrible mockery of a fate right now. ¡°We endured for years without the hope you have given us. Now, you display it before us, and it only shines brighter by the day! We will endure with the patience of stone, for deliverance is here! Let the most anxious and weakest go before us. We will wait,¡± he stated proudly, solemnly, and his men all nodded agreement with him. I inclined my head at him. ¡°Well spoken, Master Ben Ten. Yet, I do not think I have to tell you what it is like to know what needs to be done, to have the road and path you must take right in front of you, and progress still be so frustratingly slow!¡± Bony jaws clattered in amusement. ¡°You have seen us working at trying to learn the Ways of the Golden Hag!¡± a bluff, rather squat Sho by name of Ugisko, hailing from a hill clan there, spoke up merrily. ¡°I have. The Ways are a pain to learn at the best of times, you are all under a massive handicap, and yet still you make progress! You are all geniuses!¡± I assured them, and if bones could glow, these fellows certainly would have. AF Chapter 420 – The Heavens are Indeed Watching It was not a short run. We had run from the shore near the Olthoi North Mansion (which still had to be fully explored, and which the olthoi were basically daring us to attempt), and had to make our way out into the waters, then loop around to the north to make it to the island there. And we still didn¡¯t know if that was the island, and even asking Ulgrim hadn¡¯t clarified the matter. The words he¡¯d spoken to us had been programmed into him, and he honestly didn¡¯t have the slightest clue at all where Harlune actually was. Par for the course for this place. It was about ten miles, all told, but I wasn¡¯t going overly fast, finding no need to sprint. Being undead meant my passengers didn¡¯t need to wear glasses against the wind, and my Mask warded me enough that a good sixty-mph darting across the seas was just an easy, steady pace to keep. I had Detect Aquatics up, but nothing was responding to my presence, and I didn¡¯t see the shadows of anything too awful big to worry about. The remorans didn¡¯t hear us coming or going, they didn¡¯t alert the sleeches or niffis or whatever, and so it was basically open waters and seas all the way there. --- Master Ben Ten¡¯s gauntleted hand plunged down like a crane darting for fish, pulled back, and came up with his prize. I glanced back at the wet and ragged olthoi wing, parts clearly nibbled on. His hand caressed an area halfway down it, the translucent membrane torn and punched right through with extreme precision. ¡°A Piercing Bolt through the wing,¡± he judged, studying the nearly three-inch hole calmly. ¡°Platinum-grade, if I am not mistaken.¡± He handed the thing, nearly three-feet long even after being nibbled on, over to Ugisko, who took it and looked it over himself. ¡°Odd,¡± the hillman said, focusing on a leading edge of the wing. ¡°This is a discoloration from fire, if I am right. I can see the residue of ash about it. Who uses fire against an olthoi?¡± I looked back at it, and shook my head. ¡°No, that¡¯s not fire. Fire doesn¡¯t spread along the veins like that. You¡¯re mistaking the ash of fire for the crumbling of necroic damage to organic tissue. It was clipped by a bolt of Void Magic.¡± Murmurs of appreciation went up as the wing was handed around, and the men examined the wound, it looking different to them than it did to me. When it made its way back to Master Ben Ten, he simply waved it away, and Konrad tossed it back into the sea. ¡°Void Magic is hostile to everything,¡± the swordmaster murmured, his eyes fixed ahead, where a small forested island, only a mile long, sat isolated and distant from the larger islands in the distance. I could see the spores of the mushrooms on the wind, and x50 forward view could make out a haze that was all too bright and colorful in the UV spectrum on the main islands, spilling softly out over the sea. Not INTO the sea, however. Apparently they didn¡¯t do well in salt water¡­ ¡°Yes, attacking the spirit as much as the flesh. There are few people who use it, and although I know the principles and can wield it if I must, I vastly prefer not to introduce such energies into the mortal world.¡± Bony jaws clattered in agreement. Void Magic was something the Empyreans had learned from things Beyond, and the Entities who had brought it in for Isparians to learn in the past had been pretty much the definition of malevolent¡­ if enslaving the souls of the dead and putting them into undead constructs was any indication, of course. ¡°I will be placing us all under Invisibility for the last mile of the approach, so be ready to fade from sight,¡± I told them all over my shoulder. ¡°I will also be executing a Heavens-Up Display for your benefit, so be prepared when it appears overhead.¡± They rattled slightly. ¡°I am not familiar with that spell,¡± Master Ben Ten said for all of them. ¡°It creates a holographic image to your vision above your normal line of sight and out of the way, indicating the positions of friends and enemies, the active map around you, directions, threat levels, traps, and any information you know how to input into it, such as my Detects. It should be quite intuitive when you see it, as it is made to work for tactical thinkers the best.¡± They straightened up just a bit in expectation. ¡°I will also be dropping a couple Buffing spells on you. I don¡¯t like using necromancy, but I¡¯ve had them ready in case I had to fight directly along with our undead allies. We have a Weave going among us through the Fellowship, so these should be simplicity for you to gain. ¡°Let me start with Ironbone.¡± Magicks of necromancy and transmutation interwove in a custom form, only different from the other iterations because these bones were in use by undead, and the spell would affect them when necromancy was used to buttress them.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. There was a crackling and snapping among the skeletal warriors, who flinched at the dark magic flowing over and through them, buttressed with the Elements of cold and fire nominally attached to my magic. Intrigued, they flexed their hands and arms, wondering what it had done. ¡°When we get closer, I¡¯m going to pop a Void Shield on you specifically to guard against Void Magic. In the meantime, Energize your Armor and Bane it to bludgeon, slashing, and fire, as you would normally.¡± Energizing would mean the Armor would be effective against Ray-type Isparian magic attacks, either bouncing the spell or reducing the damage, depending on how they were hit. I had, however, just taken their vulnerability to bludgeon and slashing damage away with the Ironbone, as their skeletons now shared the better characteristics of bone or steel, as it were. Longstrider and Barkskin followed, as did Resist Fire, Acid, Cold, and Lightning. It would stack with their natural resistances, which were percentage-based, reducing the damage to their best benefit, i.e. taking it down by a percentage, and then sweeping away thirty points after that. ¡°My ability to Heal you is more limited than normal living people, so the majority of that is on you. I can do so for emergencies, but if so, I would prefer to do it on your entire group at once.¡± I lifted Crown, and around his head flared a black and silver flame that was probably completely reversed to their undead eyes, the manifestation of Channeling negative energy ready to go, constrained by the natural Vivic of my Staff. ¡°Again, it is introducing negative energy into the world, which I prefer not to do, but this will all find a home in you, so it should be fine. Be ready to Infuse Reaper as we get closer.¡± ¡°Understood!¡± the Master replied. The Reaper Infusion was the opposite of Healing Edge, inflicting additional negative energy damage and Healing an undead user for the same 1-8 points. It wasn¡¯t a lot per individual, but these were all master weapon users, so they¡¯d be plying their Weapons energetically. They didn¡¯t dare impart it permanently to their Weapons, as all of them intended to claim their Weapons once they returned to life, and what use would Reaper be to them then? However, all of them were masters of Item Magic, which fed easily into the Artificer Levels they were reallocating their Karma into, slowly and surely. ¡°Invisibility going up.¡± I hissed the simple spell, shared it through the magic of the Fellowship Weave, and with a swirl of illusion magic, we all disappeared from sight, Disks and all. ¡°Heavens-Up Display coming online.¡± With a few more words, the Holographic display overlaying their vision slightly popped into view, and they all murmured in interest as they saw our line of X¡¯s, all in blue, arrayed behind me, who had a white Aura marking a Caster. Their own X was naturally totally obvious to them, situating them perfectly, and they turned their eyes down in grave interest as they saw below them a whole crapload of O¡¯s in colors from orange to blue, moving unseen through the waters beneath them at various depths, which they¡¯d had no clue were there. Focusing on the X¡¯s and O¡¯s resolved them slightly, getting more information about them. The O¡¯s were mostly my guesses as to what were sharks, what were food fish, remorans, sleeches, and the like, the X¡¯s simply named each indicator. As normal, there was a concentration of the intelligent creatures near the islands, and it seemed a lot of the smaller fish liked to feed on the olthoi spores, too. ¡°The HUD will update with whatever you see and want to post to it, especially if you are out of line of sight of us,¡± I went on calmly. ¡°We will have Messaging up shortly, so you will be able to communicate without having to speak.¡± ¡°Ah, not one to be screaming up that bloody soul-churning Song of the Hag, aye?¡± Konrad asked in amusement. ¡°You have my permission to clout me on the head soundly if I ever come up with such a plan myself, Sir Konrad. My Heartsong benefits don¡¯t translate well to mad charges into many opponents. I¡¯m more of a ¡®sit back and slaughter them all from safety back here¡¯ type of person.¡± They all chuckled hollowly in understanding. ¡°Worry not, Lady Magos. The up-close and personal is very much our specialty!¡± Konrad assured me confidently. ¡°If the Raven Hand is here, they are sly and duplicitous, known for their stealth and backstabbing. You don¡¯t have to worry about poisons, but sneak attacks are really their things,¡± I reminded them. ¡°Don¡¯t expect honorable combat out of them.¡± ¡°And the Freebooters fell in with them,¡± Master Ben Ten spoke up with regret. ¡°I have to wonder what she promised them to secure that level of cooperation after everything that had happened!¡± ¡°First, it was likely for protection from interference with their business and survival. Then, well, Blood Magic, and likely they don¡¯t have a damn choice in the matter now,¡± I answered grimly. ¡°You believe she has used magic to secure her hold over them?¡± Master Ben Ten asked, his voice cool now. ¡°Blood Magic is extraordinarily good at such things. All you need is some of a person¡¯s blood, and it is very hard to fight, Elder.¡± ¡°We shall see how well it works against us,¡± he muttered darkly, and the other seven undead men just nodded slowly. ¡°She has experience against the undead, but I daresay she considers you all vulnerable to War Magic, so we shall see how she deals with you now.¡± Soft hollow chuckles followed in grim amusement. Upgraded and Buffed undead were not common, and could be Dispelled reliably. That would not be so simple with Matrix-style Buffing and Debuffing. Detect Evil at VII+1 ranged out ahead of us, pinging off the Browns of the Aquatics below, which dipped into Purple whenever the sleeches and their kind passed by. Having unleashed their own Soul Essence, even as Cursed Undead, the eight warriors with me were all very familiar with the Colors of Souls, and eyed the sunken creatures suspiciously as they glided past swiftly and invisibly above them. ¡®Reaper your Weapons,¡¯ I said into the Fellowship, and gauntleted hands glittered very faintly as magic pressed into their Weapons, weaving in negative energies that would harm living foes and Heal them at the same time. My Detect ranged out a good thousand feet ahead of us in the open air, looking for spotters and intelligent life. It came up onto the beach, and into the treeline¡­ and pinged almost instantly. AF Chapter 421 – Bubbles, Bubbles, Swords make Troubles... ¡®I will apply vivus only if you are safely away from the dead,¡¯ I /promised my eight undead warrior helpers, feeling more than hearing their nods as I steered us away from the sentry slightly, getting closer to and scanning more of the shoreline. He was set up high in a tree, with a good field of view that would cover a great deal of the shoreline, so there shouldn¡¯t be any others too close to him. The key would be finding the trails they had doubtless made getting to their positions over the years. Short Ugisko would be our tracker for such things, leading the rest of us to their base of operations¡­ and hopefully Harlune. ¡®We can expect more of their forces to be deployed on the side facing the olthoi, I am assuming,¡¯ Master Ben Ten /spoke up. ¡®They do appear to be fighting them.¡¯ ¡®It is possible that the olthoi managed to open a tunnel under the waters from there to here, and the Raven Hand simply flooded it to stop such nonsense. Master Oswald told me there were at least two of them before the Fall, and there may be another, but it is directly connected to another hive and not exposed the way such things were previously.¡¯ ¡®Nuhmudira clashed directly with the mind of the Queen before. I doubt the Queen would tolerate her presence willingly, if she knew Nuhmudira was here,¡¯ Agika the Laugher /mentioned cheerfully, tachi already in hand as a sliver of darkness, ready to fight. ¡®Doubtless why she was on the Singularity Caul instead, not long ago,¡¯ I /agreed. ¡®I am actually hoping she is not here. Her best choice would be the Northwatch Fortress, as long as she believes it is secure. If not, there are other places. But this, this is where Harlune should be.¡¯ ¡®And we know someone else is here,¡¯ Master Ben Ten agreed. ¡®Let us find the old master, my friends, if he is here. If we happen to dispose of some of the Raven Hand along the way, I doubt the surviving Knights of the Golden Flame will denounce us for taking away their fun.¡¯ I was never a big fan of killing fellow humans, but I also realized that it was hypocritical of me not to do so when it was warranted, yet kill non-humans so easily. I just nodded, as the Raven Hand had sold out mortals for power from a Mythos entity, and there was little to say about trying to redeem or reform them. They had to be willing and we had to have the time, and both were unlikely at this point. ----- Our sentry we left where he was, not knowing how long it would be until he was relieved, and seeing no reason to break out of our Invisibility to deal with him. He did have a fairly obvious trail winding into the island, but not towards its highest point. Ugisko took the lead to follow it, everyone alert for wanderers who might be coming down it. Lord Mick wasn¡¯t the only one with Sound Bubble up for his Weapon. Glowing in a nice display was nice, but quiet killing was definitely preferable in most instances to making yourself an easier target. The fortress was built fairly low, as were the walls, and right up against the stone of the hill that gradually rose towards the high point of the center of the island. Unseen, we studied it from the tree line, noting the bored men on guard there, and the trails that wound off towards the western shoreline. ¡®Harlune preferred his caves. We can assume there¡¯s a mine or similar layout of tunnels behind that building there if he is involved,¡¯ I /noted for all of them. ¡®If either is present, I can¡¯t feel them, but that¡¯s definitely an undead Zharalim up there in the central tower.¡¯ The full-face wrapped mask they wore and its complete motionlessness was a dead giveaway, even if it wasn¡¯t pinging Detect Undead for the heck of it. ¡®You all confirm that¡¯s Raven Hand garb on about half the sentries, and the rest look like freebooters?¡¯ There were quiet murmurs in the Fellowship /channel. ¡®Separate and take them out quietly, my brothers. Lady Magos, I will trouble you to take out the Zharalim up there. We all know how fast you can kill the undead.¡¯ His words were dry, but unafraid. It wasn¡¯t a skill I was going to be turning against them, after all. ¡®Of course, Master Ben,¡¯ I /agreed promptly. ¡®Take note of this Rune on the ground.¡¯ They all looked down at the pattern of stone that rose up under me, which glittered subtly behind the brush for a moment. ¡®This is an Evacuation Rune, attuned to all of us. If you need to flee to avoid destruction, pull on your tie to this Rune, and you will be instantly transported back here.¡¯ I pulled out a twelve-pack of glittering black, oily liquid in clear glass vials, setting it to the side and out of sight. ¡®This is Empowered and Energized Unholy Water. To you, it¡¯s a moderately effective Healing Potion that should get you out of danger range. ¡®Do not hesitate to use this Rune if you are in danger of being destroyed. We do not want your shell to be left behind here, even if you would normally return to your grave. There is every chance that the Casters here can enslave your soul if they have possession of your body.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡®Recall to here, get Healed up, and take up station outside, informing us if there are more intruders. Unless you¡¯ve the power to massively Heal yourself and recover, this is all we expect at this point. ¡®If this matter gets dangerous, I or Master Ben will give the order and we will ALL pull out. These are honorless foes, so prudence is necessary. I do not doubt the bravery or skill of any of you, you have proved all of that by climbing out of your own graves to defend the likes of myself. Remember that, and if it is time to go, do not presume your graves are going to be there to take you. ¡®Your lives are precious once again. Treat them like it.¡¯ ¡®Yes, Lady Magos!¡¯ they /responded with some spirit, and we were off. --- Being skeletons and lightweight, as well as quite disciplined, the men could all move quietly even in their heavier armor without much difficulty, and Sound Bubbles basically made it all moot. Invisibility meant they didn¡¯t have to skulk, just avoid anyone on the ground on the way to the targets they worked out, using the Heavens-Up Display to coordinate targets, and then we all moved out. Lightfoot aided everyone getting into position, while I ghosted over the wall, to the side of the central tower, and along and up the side of it. Aeromancy wouldn¡¯t take me very high, but it was high enough. I basically reached over and bonked the motionless Zharalim staring to the west on the top of the head. Touch-contact Split Shardrays poured into him on contact, blazing with the purest undead-eating fire, and poof, he was vivic dust inside his clothes, armored robes falling to the ground with a swirl of white powder and gushing of vivic mist around him. Each of the swordsmen had engaged a separate sentry at the same time, and those fights were ending rapidly. Half dead before they could get a Weapon out, even if the freebooters were wary enough not to be caught totally flat-footed, the fights ended with savage speed and ferocity as Named Weapons went up against Runed Weapons remade for the current magical paradigm, and the cultists found out which was better quickly and rapidly. It looked like they were favoring the Way of Water for their styles, which was understandable. It had always been the favorite, the ability to find the weak points in armor and natural armor making it almost universally useful. The Ways of Iron and Stone were next, but they were more about the defense than the offense. They had a lot more difficulty learning new things, because they had to forcibly unlearn old stuff as they reassigned Karma. Holding to those two Dragons would be plenty fine for them, making them individually solid, if not as ferociously blenderizing as Fire Dragon Feats would make them. Master Ben Ten was definitely interested in the Way of Lightning, but I saw no hint of the Storm in his style as yet. He had a great deal to perfect in other aspects before going for the Way of Lightning and such, and he knew it and was not pressing the point. Heck, the Mick was past Fifteen and hadn¡¯t bothered going for Lightning yet. There were just too many things to learn and perfect first, and he was already a Cuisinart with the Fire Dragon stuff he was slowly working into his style. He¡¯d never be Kristie¡¯s equal, nor would any of them, even Master Ben Ten knowing Item Magic and picking up Artificer basics. But it didn¡¯t matter. They were clearly well above the danger level of the men below, who used lighter weapons, armor, and were equipped for ranged combat. They were probably ready to hurry out and respond to calls from the sentries on olthoi trying to breach the Shoreward or something, not to be attacked by undead master melee specialists in good Armor! In less than a minute, all of the guards here were down, and the skeletal warriors regrouped by the doors to the inside, the two guards there dragged outside. I Darted all the corpses, making sure none of them would be coming back, not really caring if someone came in later and recognized the blots of white for what they were at this point. They already knew we played for keeps, as it took actual time and energy to bring back the dead, not just a free trip to some Deathstone equivalent somewhere. If they didn¡¯t have the magic available, they weren¡¯t coming back. If they did it back to us, well, that was only to be expected. Konrad and Sumzun, who had Shields, took the lead for us, Sound Bubbles delivering us silence as I sent a Wizard Eye ahead to plot out our course and give us the layout of the place, as well as see any defenders who might be in the way. Detect Evil was pinging locations, and Detect Traps was noting several points of interest I painted into the HUD for them. The undead studied the results with interest, made their plans, and acted with the swift sureness of experienced combatants. Doors were cut open, Swords skirled and silenced inside Sound Bubbles as men screamed alarms that went completely unheard, and we cut our way into and through the fortress, not an alarm sounding in front of or behind us. --- ¡®That is clearly Empyrean handiwork, and Harlune¡¯s style,¡¯ Master Ben Ten /stated with authority, looking at the open archway leading further into the mountain, the great doors standing open. ¡®There were guards standing there and there. You can see the faint imprints of their legs. Probably Constructs, hacked down to allow easy access.¡¯ My Wizard Eye was already ranging ahead, zipping down the hall to the nearest intersection, staying right to survey. The image in the HUD opened up into a large room stacked high with crates, sacks, barrels, and other basic supplies of all types. The side of it had a familiar circular set of Runework on the wall, crimson etched into the stone, the area clear in front of it. ¡®One of their Portals,¡¯ Ugisko /said instantly, the Holos of Caul Island and the Royal Castle at Sanamar shown to them before. ¡®We are in their network, then, one of their supply depots. The room to the left probably leads to more storerooms and sleeping areas.¡¯ AF Chapter 422 – The Eye has It We headed toward the storeroom as my Wizard Eye zipped ahead of us, looking for any workers this late at night. I paused it by the entry to the next room. Across the next supply chamber were two Zharalim standing guard in tireless motionlessness beside a hallway leading deeper into the mountain. ¡®Lady Magos, let us be patient a moment while you cover the areas to the west side that we haven¡¯t been in,¡¯ Master Ben Ten /said as we stayed near the wall of the supply hall, out of sight of the Zharalim. Konrad had chopped apart the triggers and firing chambers of the magical traps with the magical Axe that Briggs had made for him, the adamantine Weapon clearly inspiring the others to get Warfang upgrades to their own beloved Blades. ¡®Very well.¡¯ It was the wisest and most patient move, and since I dumped everything it saw into the HUD, they could follow right along as I shifted the course of the Eye back and through side tunnels, mapping out the place swiftly and precisely. We did indeed locate the sleeping areas and offices, along with a couple more storage chambers, a dining area, privy, bathing area, and a kitchen. Some were converted from other rooms, or repurposed from individual to group use. The kitchen and dining area had been greatly expanded in size, of course, while multiple meeting rooms and working areas had been turned into barracks for those living here¡­ as well as a couple sinister chapels with closed doors and margul sentries waiting outside them I wasn¡¯t going to tempt. Since the primary purpose was to find Harlune, we didn¡¯t waste time going after the sleepers, although we certainly could have. Guards would be getting relieved sooner or later, so we would have to move. There was virtually nobody around, so the Eye could zip around and plot out everything while we moved Invisibly into position opposite the unmoving undead Zharalim. They probably had some exposure to the skills of the Tanada assassins who¡¯d been trying to imitate Oswald and his students, so I didn¡¯t consider our Invisibility anything resembling perfect cover. More than likely the Zharalim were going to notice them unless they stayed out of sight, unless they moved very slowly and stealthily. Coming in from the side instead of straight on, and giving them no notice due to Sound Bubbles covering the sound of motion, would all help, too. Also, we had to disarm the trap that was engaged at the other entrance, which Zeks accomplished with his Telekinesis and my attention by pulling out a couple important springs before they could trigger. From there, it was basically walk slowly and quietly up on the two of them, and then charge them with three men each, giving them no chance to respond. I could have blasted them, but I was keeping violent magic use to an absolute minimum, for reasons that weren¡¯t hard to imagine. Thus, I simply watched as the two Zharalim were cut down in seconds, caught by surprise and unable to defend themselves from the coordinated attacks. The masters stepped back, and Zeks moved the corpses well off to the side before I Darted them with vivus, making sure Nuhmudira wouldn¡¯t be able to keep them enslaved to her will any longer. Master Ben Ten was stroking the dark metal of the locked door there. ¡®There is no lock, and it is sheathed in lead, Lady Magos,¡¯ he /informed me, clearly wary of what might be behind it. I just looked at it up and down, Detect Magic at VII+1 analyzing it instantly. ¡®Magically bound shut, released with an attuned command or magic, but not very effectively. Weapons out and up, gentlemen. I¡¯m going to Upcast a Knock and open it up.¡¯ I inserted the spell into the complexity of the locking spells, keying off their triggers as if I was also the master of the spell. With a quiet creak, the doors opened, and a billowing dark mist with something hard to see at the middle of it swirled out at us. ¡®Black Breath!¡¯ Konrad /swore, he and Sumzun instantly in front of me with their Shields, while the others collapsed around it instantly. I had other concerns, namely the stench of the magic that leaked out of the place. ¡®Dropping a Graysphere! Hack her dead!¡¯ I /said before they could tell me to blast it. The world lost all color, drained down to black, white, and shades of gray as anti-magic filled the air. This not incidentally prevented the impossibly resilent Shade girt in a whole lot of weapon-absorbing materia from Casting spells and alerting the fuck out of this place. It was also the hard way for them to kill it, as all their Named Weapons went inert in the field of anti-magic. They started hacking into the Shade as it started swiping at them with monstrously powerful limbs¡­ but all of them had Improved Armed Strike, and so all that did was give them something to attack.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Black Breaths were infamous for the amount of armor they had, combined with their Fast Healing and spell use. Mages could blow through them fast enough, but weapons just had a time of killing them. That said, there were eight of them, and they were all master combatants with Ways of Water. They clove into her Damage Reduction like nobody¡¯s business. She definitely was not expecting them to be able to hurt her like they did, circles of blows that opened ways for one another as she tried to press past them to get at me. She realized quickly that she couldn¡¯t Cast, and her only hope to live was to beat her way through the surrounding warriors¡­ and that simply wasn¡¯t going to happen in a circle of braced paramounts intent on containing her and bringing her down. It was a testament to her resilience that with seven master swordsman and one fellow with a Jadework Axe named Vernicht in old Aluvian, it still took them a full minute to chop her apart and drop her to the ground in a boiling cloud of dark shadowy energies. ¡®Pull her into the room, and I¡¯ll give you Crown to set her alight.¡¯ I was effectively not very useful at the moment with the Graysphere up, but I passed off my Staff to Sumzun, who took it somberly as two of the others dragged the fallen Black Breath to the side. Just taking Crown out of the Graysphere was enough to ignite the miasma of darkness around her, the undead staying well back as the vivus collapsed on her and began to devour her corpse with great speed. ¡®Okay, for the moment I am a walking barrier of anti-magic and can Cast no spells,¡¯ I /informed them all. ¡®That makes me a fallback point against magical barrages and means your weapon skills become all-important here. There¡¯s no magic in the Gray around me at all. ¡®I¡¯ll be able to bring it down after ten minutes minimum. We can wait here or proceed.¡¯ I looked down the hallway ahead of us, enchanted torches guttering there with a definite crimson tinge to it. ¡®There¡¯s Blood Magic active ahead of us, it is so thick in the air I can taste it. This is definitely the right way to go.¡¯ ¡®Shields, take lead. I will be responsible for the Lady Magos,¡¯ Master Ben Ten /ordered firmly. ¡®If we must take magical fire, let her be our shield as we will be hers.¡¯ ¡®I am not worried about missile fire, and I can definitely be an annoyance in melee if required, although don¡¯t expect me to kill anything with half a brain to it.¡¯ Especially with no magic to defend my unarmored self. Unlike before the Fall, Casters didn¡¯t get to traipse around in full armor anymore, so I had basically never worn any. Bracers of Force Armor were quite useless in a Graysphere, ironically enough! ¡®Expect Void Magic use if they can call in the Black Breath,¡¯ Master Ben Ten /inclined his head to agree. ¡®Go!¡¯ I couldn¡¯t command or get a relay from my Wizard Eye while the Sphere was up, so I just let it dissipate and followed the undead as they advanced ahead, closing the doors behind us so no surprises would come that way, the magic automatically locking them shut. The big white spot where the undead Zharalim and Black Breath had Burned would be hard to miss, but that didn¡¯t mean they could get through the doors easily. I sniffed. The skeletons were normally dry and almost odorless, all things considered, so the surrounding smells came in pretty clear, even without my Whiskers of the Wild active. ¡®I¡¯m smelling blood now,¡¯ I /said softly. Mental nods indicated they could smell the same with their undead senses. ¡®Human, not animal,¡¯ Ugisko /confirmed quickly, a difference I couldn¡¯t discern, but which those sensitive to negative energy certainly could. Sapient souls were simply more potent. An intersection, leading off to left and right as well as straight ahead. ¡®We can¡¯t risk them coming up behind us,¡¯ Master Ben stated. ¡®Konrad, Shouzon, with me to the right. Ugisko, lead the others left. No survivors if possible. If Nuhmudira is found, then we will have to attempt to find Harlune with a rush.¡¯ Highly undesirable, considering how many guards we were likely to alarm. The five warriors nodded and spun to the left, leaving the closed doors we could see at the end of the corridor for later, and headed out left. --- Master Ben Ten¡¯s choice of directions was fortuitous. To the right was the quarters of various Raven Hand Cultists. To the left were the rooms and barracks for the Freebooters and their workers. All of them jumped to their feet to attack the undead intruders, who even were nice enough to open their visors and helms to make it totally plain they were undead forces come to attack them! Only one group of them immediately resorted to magic for an edge¡­ magic which dove into the Graysphere and went absolutely nowhere, before three master swordsmen were on top of fellows who, eh, weren¡¯t. The freebooters, on the other hand, were actually decent with their rapiers and cutlasses and whatnot, but it was night time, they weren¡¯t in armor, and there weren¡¯t a lot of shadows for them to be backstabbing from, while their frantic calls for help were nice and loud and were heard by nobody. I just helped out by clonking opportune knees and elbows, setting up openings for my companions, who capitalized on them nicely. If the Raven Hands went down in rather bloody messes, Konrad was quite happy to take up Crown, press him down to the corpses, and light up bodies replete with negative Void energies to ignite like oil-soaked tinder into unwhite flames. No vivus on the other side, which meant the Freebooters might be getting away and setting up the alarm somewhere else. Or, there would have been, if Ugisko hadn¡¯t pulled out a rather ceremonial Knife that lit up with vivus out of a lead-lined scabbard and almost ritually finished off each one of them, carefully resheathing it after setting them en vivus. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn¡¯t anyone in this section of the complex left alive to worry about taking us from behind, unless there were secret chambers somewhere on HUD that we couldn¡¯t see. We reformed up in the main corridor soon enough, the bloody work done, and the very unfriendly doors looming ahead. Scattered about them were symbols we didn¡¯t want to look at too closely. ¡®Hold up the symbol,¡¯ I /told Shouzon, who lifted up the amulet he¡¯d taken off a senior cultist in front of him. Was pretty sure some of those symbols turned to regard the unholy symbol of a black feather on a red background. I felt the doors part before I saw them, as the magic streaming off what was beyond picked up immediately¡­ as did the smell. AF Chapter 423 – Blood of an Empyrean The salty sweet smell of human blood assailed me as the door opened, underscored with a magic that was damn close to necromancy and about as friendly. The two Raven Hand cultists standing there on guard turned to greet or challenge us, it was hard to say which. Their eyes almost popped out when six skeletons in fine armor with really nice Weapons charged them. Their shouts didn¡¯t get out before they were surrounded in Sound Bubbles, and they didn¡¯t manage to get any spells out before they were bleeding out on the ground. It didn¡¯t make much difference, as the flashes of light in this dark place were enough to draw attention, and I heard the shouts rippling past their Sound Bubbles as the other guards of the place raised the alert. Which meant I strode forward as the first spells were launched our way, and they vanished into my Graysphere. ¡°Left! Find the source of the blood!¡± Master Ben Ten ordered instantly, and I trotted ahead, the skeletons closing around me in shades of black, white, and gray, and we made for the two cultists there blurting out spells and sending purple-black lashing tongues of Void Magic our way. Isparian Magic didn¡¯t have any default protection against Void Magic, so the cultists were pretty confident of slamming the skeletons hard. Unfortunately, their magic drove into the Graysphere, went away, and we utterly ignored all the War Magic coming from behind us as it, too, vanished into the grayness around us and ceased to exist. Then the skeletons were on them, their magic ceased to be, and they were cut down with great speed, their blood flowing out to join those on the floor. Notably, they weren¡¯t starting to degrade in whatever their custom Deathstone effect was. The cultists at the other end of the room and the back of it were still Casting on us from the distance, preferring not to engage, and Void and War Magic were sizzling through the air, to absolutely no effect. ¡°Konrad! Chop the lock!¡± I ordered calmly. The adamantine Axe came up and down, its ability to cleave softer metals undeterred by the anti-magic around us. The stone portals there cracked audibly as Vernicht chopped whatever locking mechanism that was in place apart loudly, unerringly finding the seam between the stones and cleaving through the catch in place there. Asiko and Ugisko hauled them open, and the two undead Zharalim there waiting to lunge forward and attack paused when they saw a bunch of skeletons in armor there waiting for them. A second later the masters were on top of them, driving them back, disarming them, and following up with passing crosscuts that relieved them of arms and heads in smooth fashion. Ugisko pivoted quickly behind me, his Final Rest Blade plunging down once, twice¡­ and then flicking out to cut through the thin stream of blood flowing past on the rivulet in the floor, which promptly ignited as well, spreading down towards the thick pool of the stuff in the middle of the room, drawing shouts of alarm from the cultists there. Then he and Arika were hurrying after me, belated spells came streaking in too late to stop them. He paused again to flick-flick across the bodies of the downed Zharalim as he let us get a step ahead, naked teeth clattering at the cultists who were finally abandoning their posts and running after us. There was a woosh as the pool of blood in the middle of the room ignited with vivic fire, a burst of unwhite flames fountaining up and spilling mist all over the floor, just like the corpses that had been set ablaze. The vivus wasn¡¯t technically magical, except for the moment it was formed. It was an energy type that didn¡¯t coalesce without magic, sure, but it wasn¡¯t magical itself. It zipped right on ahead of us, undeterred by the Graysphere, leading into the room beyond, which was dimly lit by only a single torch. A very tall figure was splayed out on a slab against the wall there. Blood flowed down from gashes in his wrist, multiple scars indicating how many times they¡¯d been healed and re-inflicted on him. The swirling ruby motes of regeneration magic were at play on him as he lay there powerless, and his blood dripped constantly from him, down the gutters in his slab, and along that line in the floor. ¡°Brother Harlune!¡± Master Ben Ten roared in outrage, and the tall Empyrean¡¯s eyes snapped open in astonishment at the voice. ¡°Ten?¡± a hoarse voice broken by a lot of screaming rasped out weakly. ¡°Konrad, destroy his manacles!¡± I ordered, stopping by the entry. ¡°The rest of you, stop anyone from coming in!¡± The other five masters promptly flowed to join Ugisko and Asika behind me, in plenty of time to take on the cultists come screaming at them down the hall with blades out. Their opening fusillade of spells smashed into Grayness and was gone, and they slammed into the skeletons desperately, trying to push them back.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Well, that actually worked, which they were a bit surprised about, except for the Blades that cut them forward and back, and the Swords that thrust out to take the first pair of them right in the throat from the second ranks, who spun aside for the third rank to promptly crash into them and stop them from reaching me. Konrad raced up, Vernicht held high and gleaming with restored magic. He chopped down with unerring skill, not bothering to work at the bindings at all. Steel wrought with inner blades to work at the exposed flesh squealed and sparked and rang as it was sheared through rapidly and forcibly, the slab the Empyrean was bound to gouged and cracked by the force of the strikes as as the Axe came down. ¡°Master Ben, carry him between you.¡± I pulled two Potions out of my Vest, useless while in the Graysphere. ¡°Recall to the Evacuation Rune and give him the Potions. We will be along shortly.¡± ¡°YOU DARE?!¡± screamed a voice from far down the hall, and there was a brilliant bloodly light there. A wall of flame as thick and heavy as blood erupted down the corridor. It was powerful enough to snuff the vivic trail, and looked just like an incoming flood raging our way, hissing and eating at the stone as it did so, and certainly enough to sweep us out of the way. It smashed into the Grayness and faded away to nothingness in front of Ugisko and Asika, who clattered their teeth in mockery, holding their positions in front of me, just inside the corridor. Master Ben Ten snatched up the Potions and raced for his old friend as Konrad chopped through the second to last of the bindings upon him. Withered and weak, the Empyrean could barely flail as the swordmaster came up on him, skeletal face looking down at his old comrade. ¡°Ten,¡± Harlune whispered, looking up at the naked bone of his old friend¡¯s face. ¡°What happened to you?¡± he whispered sadly. ¡°Nothing I cannot overcome!¡± the swordmaster replied firmly, as Vernicht smashed down, and the last leg binding screeched and bounced away with more force than it should have possessed. ¡°Konrad, take his arm. On three, recall to the Rune.¡± The axeman hung his Axe off his girdle instantly, ducking and spinning to bring a long arm across his armored shoulders. ¡°One, two, three!¡± The air popped as the magic in the Weave took them and their passenger along with them, and they were gone. ¡°Gentlemen, it takes one minute for the Graysphere to fade once I dismiss it,¡± I said quietly. ¡°I am going to begin that process now.¡± An outraged scream echoed down the hallway, a figure outlined in purple-black visible at the end. The beam of Void Magic that came streaking down the hallway was almost solid, shaving shards of stone off walls just scored by acidic blood-flame, energies enough to kill an unlucky paramount straight off raging for us. The swordmasters didn¡¯t even flinch as it vanished inches in front of them, soft chuckles matching the chattering of their jaws. ¡°It appears my old teacher hasn¡¯t really learned anything effective, has she?¡± I called out bitingly down the hallway. There was a shocked pause from the other end. ¡°You! You miserable brat!¡± came the cursing a moment later. ¡°What manner of magic are you playing with, that you can stop my mother¡¯s arts?¡± she snarled at me. ¡°This? Please, a mere Valence V. Was that some Incantor-level magic? No, it wasn¡¯t, it was a different paradigm. You actually got up to the Empyrean level so soon? Your mother must be very proud of you. Of course, you had all that practice with Blood Magic already to get you started. Such marvelous talent, teacher!¡± The Graysphere was fading, and in thirty seconds wouldn¡¯t be an absolute null anymore, more of a Dispel¡­ which was fine, as her magic could then wipe it away for us. ¡°Gentlemen, when the Gray goes down, we are Recalling out instantly. I don¡¯t want her seeing us leave,¡± I whispered, raising my hand. Jaws clacked in acknowledgment, but their Swords, dim yet gleaming in the torchlight, didn¡¯t move a millimeter. ¡°Come now, teacher! Why don¡¯t you try something with a little more kick to it? Surely you¡¯ve something more impressive in your mother¡¯s arsenal!¡± I shouted back at her with a verbal sneer. ¡°Impudent child!¡± she hissed, and magic both blood-red and purple-black swirled up on two hands coming down the hall, illuminating the woman who¡¯d forced me to flee to this world down there, and at least a dozen cultists behind her, keeping a respectful distance. ¡°See if your barrier can stop this! Quenzael Mishraak!¡± Void and Blood Magic blew towards us, swirling and weaving together like a corkscrew, drilling right for us. Nice, a Heavy Magic technique. That was actually pretty clever, instinctively binding one of the magicks inside the other so the anti-magic wouldn¡¯t null them both. Unfortunately, a collapsing Graysphere was more like a Dispel Magic waiting to happen. As the spell slammed into the Graysphere, the Void Magic was indeed suppressed¡­ and the Bloodfire raged out into the rest of the Gray, just in time for me to force all the dissipating anti-magic full into it and cancel it out with basically a superior Caster Level. Oh, she wasn¡¯t going to like that. The fires blew over and past us, doing nothing, and I tugged at the Evacuation Rune and brought everyone out of there. ----- We snapped out of the short-range Teleport effect, the sudden jolt of fresh air almost dizzying to me after the stench of the blood there. I looked around sharply as the undead masters were all around me in hex formation, blades out and ready for signs of trouble despite their disorientation, but there was no one threatening us. Konrad and Master Ben had Harlune on a Disk against a tree, a Potion bottle in each hand. He looked dangerously thin, cadaverous, and his nearly naked body was covered with deep and repeated scars from where arteries and veins had been cut to bleed him out. ¡°Make room. There¡¯s incoming,¡± I told the men, planting myself. The six swordsmen hopped away instantly, and arcane blue flames swirled around me. Princess Kristie Rantha walked out of the shadows of the light, while Commander Briggs seemed to take a step from infinity and was there. The Mick had his hand on the hilt of Quaver, as Kris had recalled to the side of her Bondmage. From the ground the arcane fires leapt up and resolved into the Roaches and the Skeeters, all of them with Blades out and deadly looks in their eyes. AF Chapter 424 – An Empyrean Retreat ¡°See to Master Harlune,¡± Briggs ordered me in no uncertain terms, while I hooked them all into the Heavens-Up Display and their gazes all turned toward the fortress nearby. ¡°Masters Konrad, Sumzun, Neskai, Isaam, with us. The rest kindly guard Harlune. He should be surrounded by friendly faces at this time.¡± ¡°The rest of you, follow us,¡± Kris added with a silk over steel smile that promised even more mayhem than they¡¯d probably just come from. A Null and a Source bloomed to full strength in the night, everyone who could feel magic feeling that combination of instantly immovable magic and softly burning, utterly domineering force wiping magic away, both beyond their ability to affect. Lost Light swirled on a lot of Weapons as over a score of very focused combatants followed the two Forsaken towards the fort nearby much too quickly to be only human. ¡®There¡¯s going to be shore guards coming,¡¯ I /said in Fellowship, before any of the skeletons could protest. ¡®He left the sneaky ones behind.¡¯ Pinpoints of light glittered in empty eye sockets in understanding. Master Ben Ten gestured, and the three other skeletal swordmasters trotted into the darkness and were rapidly out of sight, if still visible in the HUD. I moved over to take Konrad¡¯s position on the other side of the Empyrean, who gave me a curious look as I did so, glancing at my hand. ¡°I see you¡¯ve one of my Rings, lass,¡± he rasped, his glowing eyes rising to meet my silver ones in interest. ¡°Followed the breadcrumbs, elder, and the clue you left with Ulgrim led us to guessing you were here,¡± I said softly. ¡°Quiet, now. You¡¯ve a reputation as a famous grump, but you know what Healing needs at this moment. Be the patient instead of the Life Mage this time.¡± He just closed his eyes and waited as I put my hand on his chest and began to invoke. Regenerate would get rid of the scarring, and it looked like they had pulled a bunch of his teeth, too. The Potion had closed the wrist injuries, but he was definitely low on blood, completely exhausted, and empty of mana, too. ¡°I see they were pulling out your mana with your Blood. Using it for Summoning, working with the ley lines, I am assuming.¡± My tone indicated I wanted no response, I was just letting him know we understood what they¡¯d been doing. ¡°These are two spells to ease your mental damage and help your recovery.¡± I didn¡¯t normally carry Heart¡¯s Ease and had to use Zeks to recall it from his Ring Library, but Greater Restoration was just Upcasting a higher Valence of Restoration. Heart¡¯s Ease would deal with the emotional damage, trauma, and lingering mental injuries. The Restoration would take care of mental and spiritual damage, and bring him back towards his ideal state of mind, as if making a quick and full recovery. Given the length and depths to which he¡¯d been tortured, I gave them both to him at VII. He gasped in spite of himself at the flowing power of Holy energies imbued in both spells shining through his mind and soul. A moment later, it was like a dam breaking as a flood of tears came down his face, gleaming like falling stars in the night. He blinked and his eyes turned up to the stars above, shining so welcoming to him¡­ and then closed as he drifted off to healing sleep against the tree he was braced against. ¡°He¡¯s lost a good hundred pounds of weight,¡± Master Ben Ten said softly, reaching out to stroke the Empyrean¡¯s patchwork of withered brown hair. The Yalain¡¯s scalp was torn, burned, and scarred, but now regrowing with visible speed as my magic started to take effect. ¡°I have to get started on a stew for him,¡± I told Master Ben Ten quietly. ¡°I¡¯ll mix it with manna so he can eat it regardless of his digestive condition. I would like to evacuate him, but I have to stay nearby in case they need me. When he wakes up he¡¯s going to be ravenous, and probably is already, only the magic of that torture rack keeping him going.¡± Not that I really thought they would need me, but they might for Healing or some Revivify spells. The entire complex was within easy Dimension Door range, I could be there in seconds if some powerful magic went off and caught a few of the fighters. ¡°Can that woman even land a spell on the Princess?¡± Master Ben Ten had seen Kris wade through dozens of spells without harm, and Briggs do the same, out in the Direlands. ¡°Maybe a one in ten chance? And that¡¯s if neither she nor Briggs Spellcut whatever idiocy she¡¯s using, which they most definitely will.¡± I sent my gaze after the others, but they were out of visual range. I couldn¡¯t see that portion of the HUD without going into Markspace, and wasn¡¯t willing to split my attention here. ¡°Sssaaa,¡± he hissed, pointing with a gauntleted finger. I saw the green X coming in from the east, no, two, three of them. Ugisko was over there, Arika had also seen the HUD and was moving quickly to support him.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Master Ben Ten looked at me, I inclined my head, and gracefully and unnaturally quietly, Giri was out and wrapping him in a Sound Bubble that made sure he gave off no sound as he raced with quick and controlled steps towards the incoming Raven Hands. The sentries were dead men. Shouzon was waiting to the west, and doubtless any of those men alerted by magic would soon be returning, too. Unless they were quick, Master Ben and Arika would be back in position to support him before they arrived. I brought up a spell of Mana Renewal VII around Master Harlune. It almost seemed to gutter for a second, as if the Empyrean¡¯s body expected the mana to be bled out of it as rapidly as it was regained. But no, this was boosted by the Sacred Metas and Holy energies, and Master Harlune visibly relaxed even further as mana dancing with blessed energies swirled about him and into him, and his massive Mana Pool, several times the size of mine, finally began to rebuild itself. I swirled a concealing illusion around us, Shaped up a cauldron, and pulled out an Item scroll I would normally save for emergencies, but Hells, everyone was going to want something to eat when this was over. Might as well make a whole bloody lot of it¡­ ------- ¡°She ran like the good fucking rat she is as soon as the Raven Hands started dying. We found the emergency Portal in her chambers behind the sacristy, just out of range of our Interdictions, and then the magic she triggered behind her blew her chambers into a sludgy, Tainted mess,¡± Kris informed me sourly, shoving a big spoonful of healthy stew into her mouth. She made a face that it was acceptable, but I wasn¡¯t trying for some Tremendously Spicy Gumbo, as it were. She was shoveling it down fast, because she and Briggs had to get back to Aphus Lassel. It wasn¡¯t a good idea for Tim and the tuskers there to be without some firm guidance. Master Harlune was saying nothing and eating everything. He was on his fourth bowl, and they were good-sized bowls. Fortified with manna, there was no problems with an upset stomach or anything, and it was being digested with magical speed. Combined with Regeneration already flaking off all of his scars, regrowing his hair, refreshing his blood, and returning some color to his pale skin, the old Yalain with the glowing eyes was looking much better than he had last night. There wasn¡¯t anything importantly urgent to tell us, it seemed, or at least things that could not be relayed later. ¡°That sounds like her, sacrificing her servants to save herself. Takes after her mother that way, or so I¡¯ve heard.¡± ¡°She was using Empyrean-level magic, right?¡± Master Harlune looked up as I nodded at Kris¡¯s question. I swirled up the Holo, replicating the three spells she¡¯d gotten off at me, everyone watching raptly as I reconstructed them. ¡°Those are all definitely above Incantor-level, and they are not using the Isparian modes,¡± I told them after the quick show was done. ¡°That melding of Void and Blood Magic was particularly dangerous.¡± ¡°I knew her mother was dangerous, but not how dangerous until I fell afoul of her,¡± Master Harlune whispered hoarsely, everyone else falling silent as he spoke. ¡°How long has it been since the Fall?¡± he asked quietly. Any reluctance to answer was cut short by the Mick. ¡°Nae seventeen years, Master Harlune.¡± His dark eyes met the softly glowing orbs of the Empyrean. ¡°If I be not too brash¡­ what of yer lady fair?¡± he asked softly. The pang of pain that crossed his face told us everything. ¡°My lovely Alia,¡± he murmured, and his face twisted in a vicious scowl that looked entirely out of place on him, yet somehow fitting. ¡°She was sacrificed by Nuhmudira, an offering to one of the beings that made contact with the woman. My blood and my wife, there to draw a shield around Nuhmudira and her own to shield them from the carnage that had seized Dereth, and driven the other Yalain to madness!¡± ¡°She thought it was something in your blood?¡± I had to ask, and the old mage nodded somberly. ¡°Gods, what a twit. You were never held in stasis in the aether, nor was your wife. Of course you weren¡¯t affected like the others.¡± ¡°She has been using my blood for years to buttress her own magic and spells. Perhaps there is something special about Empyrean blood, perhaps it is merely that it is easy to drain my mana from me through it. I have been the subject of her ministrations for over fifteen years now¡­¡± he whispered, and if his hands shook a bit, nobody noticed. ¡°Dereth is not a small place, but we are tracking her. Also, she didn¡¯t blow up the primary transport Portal, merely her escape Portal. We¡¯ve a fair idea where she is going,¡± I assured the older mage. ¡°Oh?¡± he inquired, deadly interest in his glowing eyes. ¡°Count Dardante¡¯s island, or the northern areas of Marae Lassel.¡± Harlune¡¯s head turned, the restored brown hair stroked once with a faintly trembling hand as he looked west. ¡°There are thousands of locations she could have taken over in the Direlands,¡± he finally spoke up. ¡°What makes you so sure she might be on those?¡± ¡°Because both are isolated islands that are hard to reach, and have not been visited by us yet. The Aun basically abandoned Marae Lassel, leaving the Hea to deal with the olthoi and virindi forces there. The Hea are trying to hold it in the face of the olthoi, but it is not easy for them¡­ and not easy for the olthoi, either. Plenty of room to hide something in the north where nobody has any grip on the land. ¡°As for Count Dardante¡¯s island, there has been a thundering lack of communication from it for some time, and they didn¡¯t even get any signals off to Castle Corcima for all this time. What survivors have trickled out of Sanamar indicated that there was no offer to link Dardante¡¯s island up, although they had mentioned visiting Corcima and possibly taking it back.¡± ¡°I see.¡± He sighed as he looked at his empty bowl, then at the cauldron now two-thirds empty of stew. I tugged the bowl out of his hand, floated it to mine, ladled more stew into it, sprinkled some of Kris¡¯ zestier spices on top of it, and sent it floating back. He accepted it, dug in again, and his eyes popped open in interest at the extra punch. ¡°Did Xunidara or her mother let anything slip while they were torturing you, Elder? I cannot believe that they did not try to pry as many secrets of magic from the foremost Life and Item Mage on Dereth as she possibly could, and she would have boasted to you as one of the few beings she would consider an equal,¡± I asked him with grave interest. AF Chapter 425 – Empyrean Words ¡°Her arrogance and envy of all the Empyrean races was indeed rotting deep into her bones,¡± Master Harlune confirmed with a slow and careful nod, keeping to his pace. ¡°She has great plans, dealing with the ley lines and snatching up power and affecting all magic, damning and dooming the undead and seizing all of the ancient secrets for Isparians¡­ meaning herself, of course. ¡°She has begun the fatal descent of so many of the older Empyrean nations, dealing with things Beyond for secrets and power even as our own ancestors did, and the undead continue to do, making bargains for damnation and planning ways for others to pay for those bargains instead of herself. Her willingness to sacrifice others for power reminds me greatly of Lady Aerefalle¡¯s behavior, although Aerefalle is slyer and more subtle about it in recent centuries than she once was. Perhaps not as many men or women desiring her touch and company as there once was.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve not visited all the Hengestone sites,¡± Kris pointed out to me. ¡°They are probably not as important to the ley lines as all the Festival Stone sites,¡± I replied, which earned me an instant sharp glance from Harlune. ¡°Deduced that yourself, did you?¡± he asked softly, glancing about to make sure no one had heard, but most of the squads were conversing around their own fires, and respectfully not bothering our important guest. ¡°May I ask how?¡± ¡°There are major ley lines running under every place of habitation, and for some reason the Festival Stones are also almost always located near the cities. The Henges are scattered, and while they are indeed located on nexi, they don¡¯t command near the influence on primary ley lines as the Festival Stones do. ¡°That celebratory popping they do is mana venting as a control factor for the lines. The Henges only exude mana naturally if you pull on them, or stand inside them, an effect easily duplicated in every single town hall once erected in every single town. ¡°It was also exponentially harder to affect the stone around and under the Festival Stones than it was the Henges. I could even fix up the Holtburg Henge without much difficulty. ¡°Exactly how to manipulate those lines is still beyond me, but I¡¯m hoping that Nuhmudira also hasn¡¯t figured that out yet,¡± I finished calmly. ¡°Before now, only myself and Asheron had figured that secret out,¡± Harlune admitted after a few more spoonfuls of quiet contemplation. ¡°Even the cleverest of the undead who¡¯ve been around ten millennia and more believe the Henges are the root and heart of the ley line system. I will trust you all not to repeat that to anyone.¡± Heads nodded all around. ¡°Might the witch have blathered a wee bit o¡¯ something about who might¡¯ve been behind the Fall?¡± the Mick asked in an artificially sweet voice fairly dripping malice. Harlune grunted approval, but not certainty. ¡°Her personal belief was that someone intended to set up a massively destructive wave of magic aimed at Asheron, Bhael¡¯Zaron, and the Virindi Imperator. Given the fourth missing party to that meeting of powers, she believes it was Prince Gerain, the true head of all of the undead factions, and the most secretive of them. ¡°But something happened that both bled off the power of the magic, disrupted it, and scattered it widely, changing the very nature of it and leaving it completely out of control. While the undead certainly were able to profit from the incredible disruption to the power of you Isparians and your allies, what investigations I myself made and I heard of through her indicate the undead were nowhere near prepared for the events of what happened, either. In particular, the revelation of so many of their hidden enclaves was a great blow to their collective desire for secrecy and hoarding things close. Each of the factions blamed the other for what has occurred, and certainly none have come forward to claim responsibility for it. Indeed, Prince Gerain, like Bhael¡¯Zharon and Asheron, has not been seen since, either, suggesting the magic may have backlashed on him.¡± ¡°You think that stunt your mom and dad pulled, disrupting that Viamontian Ritual, could have been enough to disrupt whatever was intended?¡± I lobbed Kris¡¯s way. ¡°It was a lot of raw power, and heading to Dereth. Hundreds of spellcasters and loyal knights involved, if not the thousands of something truly grand. They put a lot into it, and it went pretty crunk wild when my folks disrupted it,¡± Princess Kristie nodded slowly. ¡°Cause something of the scale here? Not a chance. If it hit at exactly the wrong moment for some twat doing something clever? Oh, yeah, that was a ton of juice coming in from the flank and going to take any Caster by surprise. No way someone was going to be able to control and compensate for a blast like that coming out of nowhere,¡± she nodded. ¡°Forgive me, young lady, but you are?¡± Harlune asked, eyeing her warily. ¡°Master Harlune of the ancient Empire of the Yalain, I am the Lady Magos Ryin. May I present to you Her Imperial Highness Kristie Rantha, second daughter of Briggs and Sama Rantha, the Emperor and Empress of Ispar,¡± I promptly spoke up for her, good little Imperial citizen and personal quasi-herald that I was. The old mage blinked in shock. ¡°Briggs? Commander Briggs, of Celdon?¡± he asked hesitantly.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I held out my hand, and Kris rolled her eyes as she slapped a Platinum Scarab into it. Not that she needed the thing, but they made great higher-end coin equivalents, now that pyreal was worth next to squat. ¡°Of course you would know my dad,¡± Kris grumbled. ¡°He was one of a very few Isparians who could look down on me. Rather hard to forget him and that big Hammer he used,¡± the Yalaini artificer admitted in some lingering astonishment. ¡°Conquered Ispar and made himself emperor, did he?¡± he asked keenly. ¡°To be utterly fair, he united Aluvia, freed Roulea, slaughtered half of Viamont, and Mom basically browbeat both the Gharu¡¯n and the Sho into acknowledging his status. There are still some rebellious peoples here and there, but Mom¡¯s been doing some investigations into Milantea.¡± Investigations which had drawn a lot of blood, actually, as the Empress was pretty disrespectful of people and nations who practiced dark magic and called them state secrets of treasured noble family lines. Empress Sama had a ruthlessly effective army of Witch Hunters and Inquisitors behind her to back her up, too. The Emperor could have sent in a full-blown invasion, but that would just have sent the rats to ground. Instead, Empress Sama was going through the cities and villages of Milantea with a shadowy comb, finding all sorts of interesting things as she did, and scooping up a lot of nastiness before it could actually run. Including running into her first Hag Coven, confirming that the Hag Curse really did exist back on Ispar. As for Auberean here? We still didn¡¯t know. I Cast those Sendings for Kris at least every other day, so she was pretty caught up on politics back home. Harlune looked at Kris¡¯ relaxed and completely unrepentant face, and just sighed. ¡°Broke the Viamontians, you say? Well, I can¡¯t say that is unexpected. They long had it coming, and it sounds like the lesson was appropriately brutal.¡± ¡°The thoroughness with which my parents dealt with them convinced the Gharu¡¯n and the Sho to knuckle under to them. There¡¯s a lot of bruised egos and hard feelings, but my mom, she just loves that level of personal excitement in her life.¡± Kris shrugged, but there was a blaze in her pale violet eyes that clearly indicated she enjoyed that level of experience, too. ¡°And you, young man, forcibly remind me of that Briggs I knew back then, although you are much darker of skin than the Isparians I am familiar with,¡± Harlune asked, turning to the impressive bulk of Commander Briggs. ¡°I was born on Jafilya, which is well across the oceans from Ispar, Master Harlune. My name also is Briggs, and I am the Commander and Warlord of the Isparian Expeditionary forces which are taking back and fortifying Osteth,¡± Briggs rumbled in his magnificent deep voice, pale green eyes meeting the softly glowing orbs of the older Empyrean before him without effort. ¡°Our primary efforts at this time involve upgrading the quality of our troops and the independent citizens pursuing martial and magical prowess, defending the lands we are resettling, and exploring the changes to this island and the inhabitants of it since the Fall. ¡°Our most recent success was the liberation of King Bobo from the machinations of Mudmouth and his false Bobo on Aphus Lassel. For your information, four of the Prodigals are still alive, including Candeth Martine, and we can also confirm that Aerbax survived the Fall and has been recuperating under the volcano at the Singularity Caul for all of this time.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t forget that visit by the most fair an¡¯ accomplished Lady Aerefalle after that whole shebang came t¡¯ light,¡± the Mick reminded him, and Briggs inclined his head to him. ¡°My old friend Ten here says the Royal Family yet survive, and are waiting to greet me in Freehold.¡± He had a complex look in his eye, as King Borelean had once been a student of his. ¡°Freehold instead of Mayoi, because that¡¯s where the heart of the new magic instruction is taking place,¡± I informed him calmly, which perked him up noticeably. ¡°I had noticed you had a very unusual aura, and are casually displaying powers I am not familiar with, Lady Magos,¡± Master Harlune admitted. ¡°It is called the Matrix method of magic, rather than the Isparian, and is quite different from the Empyrean-sourced methods you are familiar with, Master Harlune.¡± I pursed my lips and blew a single Note. The magic vibrated and coalesced around us into a thousand hues and colors in the thaumaspectrum, making him jerk upright in shock and wonder as he looked upon the Sublime Chord¡¯s manifestation of the manafield. ¡°I daresay I shall be taking lessons as eagerly as the freshest young students, Lady Magos,¡± he said gravely as the Note faded away slowly, the old Empyrean clearly stirred by the sight. ¡°We are attempting to break the final secrets of the various Slayer Weapon Enchantments, along with the Set Pieces, and the supplemental Armor Defenses, among other things, relearning them according to the new paradigm. I have the feeling your input will be nearly as valuable as the new magical Tradition you will be learning, Master Harlune.¡± ¡°The magic has changed much since the Fall, but there are still underlying truths in place that should be relevant, young lady,¡± he agreed formally, nodding once as he spooned up the last traces of yet another bowl, this time setting the stone container aside. ¡°I see a great number of you are wearing copies of the Rose of Celdon...¡± ¡°Complete with the last upgrades from Ulgrim,¡± I agreed, slipping off Rose and tossing it to him. Harlune caught it nimbly in long fingers, belying his earlier infirmity, and stared at it intently. ¡°You have added your own magicks to this!¡± he exclaimed softly, not keeping the admiration out of his voice. ¡°The Matrix method operates with different structures and Runeforms than the Isparian-Empyrean Tradition, Master Harlune. I would have been remiss not to do so,¡± I replied calmly. He held it up before his eyes, glancing from the amarinthine ruby and back to me several times. ¡°You did not violate the final layers of the Rune-Pistil,¡± he noticed professionally. ¡°One doesn¡¯t do such incredibly detailed work without a plan intended for it, Master Harlune. Naturally I did not touch it. My structures all work around the band.¡± ¡°So I see. There is indeed a final level of Enchantment that can be activated on the Rings.¡± I nabbed the Platinum Scarab out of the air as the Mick flicked it to me, not taking my eyes off the amused elder mage as I tucked it away. ¡°Yes, Master Harlune?¡± ¡°A moment. I¡¯ve not gotten back all of my mana, but I should have enough to do this, considering you¡¯ve done most of the hard work already.¡± He clasped the Ring between both hands, closing his eyes, and energies whirled and swirled around his hands. They looked a lot like the Lost Light, I noticed, as had several of the others, forces shining at the heart of purple-black and bloody crimson. ¡°Here you go.¡± He raised his head to look at me as his hands parted, and Rose floated between them. AF Chapter 426 – The Final Rose My Rose only hovered in place before Master Harlune for a moment before zipping back to my hand and onto my finger. I promptly Assayed it. === The Rose in Full Bloom of the Lady Magos Burden: 5 Spells: Legendary Combat Medication, Night Voyager, Legendary Healing Prowess, Legendary Flame Ward, Legendary Blood Ward, Legendary Void Ward, Legendary Arcane Lore Prowess, Protection from Fire VII; Regeneration VII Wield Level: 200 (Bonded) Arcane Lore Required: 340 --------- Wizardry I-V, CL: 15, Ringlord¡¯s Bonded Ring. ======= Upgrades to Fire Protection and Regeneration, the Fast Healing Life Magic effect, plus two brand new Wards, against Blood and Void Magic! ¡°Why you clever old shyster, you,¡± I murmured, staring at the Ring as many interested eyes watched. ¡°She exposed so much of the Blood and Void Magic to you, you worked out a way to Ward against it!¡± Impressed eyes turned his way, and he smiled thinly. ¡°I figured out how to Protect against it, too, but I am afraid that will be my secret for now.¡± I raised an eyebrow at his admission, as did Kris, although the assessing glance he gave Kris indicated hers was much more intimidating than mine. ¡°If the Protection gets out, it will take Nuhmudira very little time to work out the Vulnerability by reversing the structure of the spell. That cannot be done with a Ward.¡± A few glances around, and everyone understood. Few people practiced Void Magic, but the lack of Vulnerability effects tied to it meant it couldn¡¯t deal the raw unleashed killing power that pure War Magic could. Those spells getting out would only benefit Void Magic wielders, and anything to delay that was a good idea. At best, getting the Void Protections would only get those strong enough to Cast them back to par, and hurt basically everyone else. ¡°I will ask that you write the spell down and remit a copy to King Borelean and Master Ben Ten. At their discretion, they will release and distribute a copy of it for wider public use as they deem necessary.¡± He measured me with his glowing eyes for a moment, then slowly sighed and nodded agreement. ¡°Very well. It is a wise precaution.¡± ¡°We have a Teleport Focus Seal set up right next to the Ring Case inside your little olthoi trap up north,¡± Princess Kristie spoke up firmly. ¡°One Ring a day is being harvested from it as they are being made. They are then being updated through the mine, and brought to Master Ulgrim to make his contribution.¡± She, the Mick, Briggs, and the Roaches and Skeeters all raised their hands, where the Roses gleamed on fingers under removed gloves and gauntlets. ¡°If you can upgrade them all, we would be most obliged, Master Harlune.¡± He sighed again heavily, but not in exasperation. ¡°I seem to have made more work for myself,¡± he admitted dryly. ¡°I will need a couple days to fully Renew my mana, Your Highness. But when it is restored, I will naturally upgrade the Rings I created, as was my intent all along. Come visit me in a couple days, at least, and give me some time to recover and re-situate myself. I have lost a great amount of my resources and reserves, and have much to rebuild.¡± ¡°Well, wealth is one thing you needn¡¯t be worried about, Master Harlune,¡± Briggs said gruffly. ¡°At least, when it comes to raw pyreal. Ryin, I trust it would be okay for the Master to use your personal lab?¡± I inclined my head. ¡°He would have more assistants to help him in the Royal Academy, but I understand he may want his privacy, and mine is up to my standards.¡± ¡°Then the first thing he¡¯s going to be learning is the Infusing method and beginning the process of remaking his Gear. If you¡¯ve orders for any special materials or tools, you can reach out to Ryin and she will be able to get you satisfied shortly, Master Harlune. Although I believe you are soon going to be neck-deep in the Matrix Artificer and Alchemy lines of study,¡± Briggs went on calmly. The Yalain¡¯s eyes gleamed brighter at the mention of magic. ¡°How suitable is this new method of yours on Summoning Magic?¡± he asked with an iron edge to his voice. ¡°Impressive in its own way, but different from the Empyrean. You wish to recover your wife¡¯s soul, I trust?¡± My tone did not indicate disapproval, and everyone around stirred and straightened. He looked us all over, judging the moment. ¡°It is the height of foolishness. The thing Nuhmudira deals with is extremely powerful, with a mind and power beyond that of mortals,¡± he warned us. ¡°But ye¡¯ll try regardless of that, because she deserves no less,¡± the Mick said softly. The Yalain¡¯s face hardened as he heard that, and he lowered his gaze to his empty hands.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°I could not save her then. I do not know if I can save her now, or if there is anything TO save. But I must try¡­¡± he trailed off, ashamed and defiant at the same time. ¡°A true Elder God of Mythos is not something I have the power to Bind, let alone Compel, Master Harlune, and nor do you. I do not think that what it might demand of you to restore your wife to you will satisfy anyone. We all know how such things usually end up,¡± I said quietly into the silence of his resolve. ¡°Yes. I am not a fool. But her suffering for my weakness is not something I can tolerate, either.¡± I just nodded. ¡°Then we will definitely be looking into what needs to be done, Master Harlune, but we will do it slowly, properly, and when it comes time, Nuhmudira and her daughter are going to pay the price for the things they¡¯ve done. Shall we be as grimly ironic as possible when it comes to pass?¡± His smile was grim and brittle, but completely determined and nobody was going to talk him out of it. ¡°That sounds like a wonderful idea, Lady Magos¡­¡± --------- I actually didn¡¯t involve Tim in my next endeavor. Plans change, and he wouldn¡¯t be necessary. We forgot we were dealing with animals, not truly intelligent and canny creatures. Kris¡¯s muscle had gone in and cleared out the island fortress of Corcima, and then I buried the whole complex in Shaped stone after it was all cleaned out with vivus. Once done, I departed for my own special project. The reclamation of the Hlaetian Isles was going to take a while, and certainly wouldn¡¯t be done in any conventional manner. The main way of doing so was going to be using the Eater hordes cyclically, killing them off and using the vivus generated by their corpses to restore the landscape. It was going to have to be done in sections, each walled and separated from the others so the Eaters wouldn¡¯t come in during the interim and eat it down. But killing the Red Bull and the Thunder Cow, that would take some preplanning, but it could be done in any area that we desired. I chose the scoured land just north of Sanamar, for reasons. Getting the Red Bull and Thunder Cow into position wasn¡¯t all that hard, either. They tended to wander north, then come back to the south to bullyrag the walls of the beleaguered former capitol city on a regular loop, eating the Eaters who tried to nibble on their hooves after cooking them with great storms of fire and lightning. Getting their attention wasn¡¯t hard. I just started Sharding them to my heart¡¯s content, knowing I probably didn¡¯t have enough mana to actually kill either one of them, but I had plenty enough to annoy the heck out of them, and it hurt, something they definitely weren¡¯t too used to feeling. They were five miles north of Sanamar when I found them, whipped up the default cheap flights of basic Shards that cost me only a mana apiece to get off eight of them with all the fun Kickers, and I started to pound on them. Strictly speaking, I should have used Split Shardrays if I wanted to go for damage, but the damage was immaterial, and getting pricked 5+3 times by a Shardcaster¡¯s bees was better for that than being stung twice by a killer hornet. The Thunder Cow bellowed in anger when I lit up her arse, purple lightning crackling up around her horns as she turned to look at me, and promptly filled the air with lightning heading my way. Lightning Rod on my first Hexar Shield, floating at my side and definitely not in contact with me, sucked the Lightning blast, equivalent to an IX spell at the least, down and away harmlessly, exactly as it was designed to do. Then I gave her millions-Health Qi-boosted face another bunch of stings to the jowls. She bellowed her annoyance and rounded on me, while the Red Bull issued his own roaring challenge and started my way, leading the way with his own blasts of Fire. Multiple balls of Flame came streaking my way, and then bent abruptly aside and went down the gullet of the Heat Sink on Hexar Shield #2. My Wings were popped and I was gliding backwards at full speed as both of the whale-sized bovines rumbled after me. They couldn¡¯t do the full out-and-out charge of actual bulls, being far too heavy for that, but both of them were basically hundreds of tons of meat and power in motion, and they were definitely coming for me and not going to let up until they chased me out into the ocean and well away from the island. I made sure to keep both of them nice and fixated on me with constant fusillades of Shards, the Kickers rupturing over them and coating them in Ice and Acid that seared and ate at them before crackles of Fire and Lightning burned them away in expended Health Qi. Their spell attacks were constant and unceasing, their mana supplies near as enormous as their Health Qi, and obviously not going to be exhausted just from focusing their attention on me. It wasn¡¯t the power of my attacks which was doing the job, it was the fact every single spell was hitting and hurting, and I was happy to aim for sensitive areas. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the throat, even the genitals if they looked hesitant, and oh boy, was that enough to keep their attention. Rock scoured clean of all but the toughest mosses and scraps of greenery and small craters scattered about where tree roots had been dug from the soil zipped by underneath me as I retreated swiftly and constantly, unconcerned about the two massive magical aurochs raging after me from only two hundred feet away. If they caught up to me, one hoof from above or one hook from a twenty-foot horn and that was basically all she wrote, but that wasn¡¯t going to happen. If they were truly intelligent and not something so driven by frazzled magic and irritated by a painful gadfly, they would simply have realized I couldn¡¯t actually do any lasting harm to them and simply broken things off until I ran out of mana. That didn¡¯t happen, either. They both had violent tempers, weren¡¯t too stable at the best of times, and I was really trying hard to piss them off¡­ so I was pissing them off. We came within easy sight of the walls of Sanamar. The horns had long been sounded, the people within were taking cover yet again, but there were still quite a few people on the walls watching as I and the magical cows closed in on them. I was pretty sure the walls could take it even if one of the cows crashed into them at full speed and knocked themselves silly, but that wasn¡¯t what I was trying to do. I was also certain that they¡¯d seen the big beasts were tossing spells at someone, someone who was NOT from Sanamar, and were probably thinking I was leading the big beasts here to annoy the fuck out of them again, or maybe use them to breach the walls and start a massacre, which would most assuredly happen if the Aurochs got within. But no, that wasn¡¯t why I was there. Thus, I imagined that when the ground opened up and my massive bovine pursuers tumbled down and out of sight with bellows of surprise, the Viamontians on the walls were plenty astonished. AF Chapter 427 – Pits of Thunder and Fire The impact was quite literally ground-shaking. The shocked and pained bellows were not quiet, either. Dust and air gouted up out of the pit in the ground, accented by generously pyrotechnic displays of fire and lightning blasting up very high into the sky. None of which affected me as I wasn¡¯t in the line of attack, not on the ground, and had enough Thunder resistance to offset the deafening cries easily. There was only thirty feet of stone separating them, however, and it was probably something they could bash and blow their way through, and it was plain they were definitely lighting everything up down there. I wasn¡¯t really worried about them getting out, but I was a Stone Shaper, not a Lava Shaper, so it was best to get to the Red Bull first. I glided up to the edge of his pit, and promptly got a huge detonation of elemental flame to the face, enough explosive power to wipe an acre of land and kill hundreds of people. Heat Sink ate the whole thing with a swirl and a magical burp. I gave the Red Bull some Piercing Cold Shards to the face to show him what I thought of him, and wow, was that huge head glaring up at me from down there angry. He actually managed to rear up on his back hooves, put his front hooves on the wall, and lunge for me with his great black horns trailing fire. They crashed into the stone twenty feet short of me, and I punched weapons-grade Shards all over his thick hide at point-blank range, driving them through several inches of magically-strengthened hide and causing star-like eruptions all over his head. Big, bad, belligerent, bellicose, and brutal, the Red Bull instinctively turned his head and backed away at the incredible pain. Weapons-grade meant I got to apply weapons-based damage individually, instead of collectively, as I had to punch his natural armor to do so. If he wanted to set himself up so nicely to do so, I was glad to oblige him. He fell back and down, and I had to return to mere touch attacks and a fraction of the damage, but that was fine. Crown¡¯s butt end was sitting on the ground, I was Shaping. Sure, it was only two thousand cubic feet at a time, but two thousand feet of stones was approximately two hundred TONS of material. It might not have been as much volume, but it was denser, and it was heavier. And, just like I had excavated that pit, I could fill that pit in. The Red Bull didn¡¯t see it, bellowing at me and returning my Piercing Cold Shards with blasts of fire that couldn¡¯t even melt the stones I was floating just above before the Heat Sink Hexar Shield in front of me drank them in. Behind his flanks, the pit was closing over, thick and firm, a volume of stone flowing together over his flanks and back as he glared at me and voiced his defiance. That was totally fine. I wasn¡¯t trying to tame him or suppress him, cage him, make him obey. I was pretty sure that was stupidity and impossible. No, I was just going to kill him, and feed him to the Land. I was also fairly certain that any steaks made from him would be unpalatable, apologizing silently to Kris and Tim. The Red Bull finally noticed the stone when the sides of the pit closed in and the ceiling of it came up right behind his head. He turned his head, and his horns clashed with the stone. He tried to shift, and suddenly there was no room to either side of him at all. His burning eyes turned up at me, and the bellowing slowly stopped. From the other pit, the Thunder Cow calling out for him heard him stop, and she stopped calling out as well. The eyes that looked up at me were more than animal eyes. The fires didn¡¯t shoot at me, watching as I came around the side of the pit, turning up to see me right above him, above the stone that was locking him in on all sides, giving him nowhere to go. He was staring at me as I raised Crown, and brought him down. The planes I Shaped were a quarter-inch wide, thirty feet high, and sixty feet long. The stone cracked audibly as they split from either side, and for a long and cruel moment that mass of thousands of tons of stone was extended out on a lip above the Red Bull. Then the far end un-Shaped, and cracked loudly halfway through as the stone couldn¡¯t take the weight. It fell. Not far, because it didn¡¯t have far to fall. But it was far, far more weight than even the colossal body of the Red Bull could support, and it hammered him straight down. His leg bones cracked instantly, spine smashing, ribs pulverizing, unable to deal with that much weight coming straight down upon him. The fires below guttered, and went out. Flaming blood sprayed out of the Red Bull¡¯s mouth under the pressure of the stone, and his internal organs started forcing themselves up out of his throat. I was sure broken bones were protruding through his skin, and high-pressure blood was escaping that way, too, muscle and organs being almost liquefied by the pressure and squeezed out and down under the remorseless weight of the stone.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. My Assay of the Red Bull below slowly winked out as its Health and Health Qi plummeted like a rock, unable to deal with that much pressure, that much damage. When it was gone, the Assay had no living target, and there was only its horned head protruding out from under a massive solid cube of stone, rendering him down. I flicked out the Soulspear from Crown¡¯s head, and drifted down into the pit. --- A few minutes later I appeared above the edge of the pit the Thunder Cow was in. To either side of me, supported on a couple Disks, the severed horns of the Red Bull, darker than any ivory should be and still spitting fire, rose in grim display. There was a sad and wary lowing from below as the Thunder Cow, also obviously more intelligent than any normal beast, looked up at me, understanding what I was displaying to her. There was one ineffectual bolt of Lightning, which turned and vanished into the Lightning Rod Hexar Shield there, not touching a hair of my head. Her attention was on me. She didn¡¯t see the stone starting to close in behind her as she backed up as far as she could in the pit, choosing to keep blasting defiantly now, as it was all she could do. I made sure I kept her attention, icy Shards raining down on her and poking her constantly, so that she didn¡¯t notice the stone gathering above and behind her, or the area in front of her hooves rising up and restricting her ability to move back ahead. It took a few minutes to do the job, and like the Red Bull, she didn¡¯t notice until she tossed her head and her horns slammed into the stone that hadn¡¯t been there a minute prior. Suddenly she realized that the stone had grown up under her head, and was also over her shoulders. She had no room to kick and buck and move, only to fall down to a squat, and that wasn¡¯t going to save her. Her bellow was loud, loud enough to make the stone crack and the air quake with the pure volume of her anger and defiance, earning her name in truth. The crack of the stone splitting once in tandem, then another to finish things, was still totally audible, and with a devastating crunch, her thunderous final cry was smashed to silence. A minute later, I drifted down into the pit, and came out shortly later with two great ivory horns, sheared cleanly from her skull and still sparkling with lightning. Behind me were two pits thick with vivus that was slowly staining all the stone down there very white indeed, and it wasn¡¯t going to stop anytime soon. I turned my eyes to the line of soldiers and mages watching me from the walls of Sanamar close by. I could feel their nervousness as they watched me, not knowing my capabilities, but aware I had just disposed of the threat that had been bedeviling them for years. They also did not know if they should be grateful or afraid of what was going to come next. I flew rapidly to the east, down the hill and to the sea nearby. There I began the next step of what I had to do here. ------ It did not take them too long to venture cautiously out of the city. There was still the threat of a horde of Eaters coming this way, but those could be seen in the distance and out-run, so there was no chance of being killed by them. The twenty-foot walls I was erecting two miles from the city were something else altogether, and had to be investigated. They were nobles and knights, looking a bit ragged after so many years of restricted crops, no mining to speak of, and absolutely no trade. They¡¯d been living on fish instead of their beloved cattle, and it had impacted their physical conditioning, clearly no longer the massive warriors of old times, especially the unfortunate souls once trapped inside their own armor and made slaves of by their king. But, hey, Viamontians. Their king, sink or swim. Watching me pull up a ten-foot thick, twenty-foot high wall, ten feet longer every six seconds, was definitely surreal to them, and at first they just paralleled my slow process, keeping pace as the new wall, so far beyond the city¡¯s walls and out into the bare rock that had once been farms and fields, came into being. There were some consultations between them about what to do, with a few overly-arrogant sorts actually proposing taking me prisoner and making my magic work for them. Somehow, I wasn¡¯t all that surprised when that particular loudmouth ended up with a sword in his throat, red blood gurgling out against blue skin, and any thoughts of attacking me died with him out there on the lonely rocks. They swallowed when a Dart of white flame struck the corpse, and it began to burn with a misty flame that set the stone to whiteness all around it, a whiteness they could not fail to recognize from the throne room where their king and so many of his most loyal followers had died. A rather haggard-looking fellow in the bright copper of treated pyreal Armor that was once a Hand, still kept up as immaculately as possible, its straps notably now made of woven straw instead of leather cord, took the initiative to walk up to me. He was not, I noticed, the Count who had taken the initiative to approach Briggs and Kris at the Royal Castle. ¡°I am Count Ricardo du Bellenesse,¡± the tired blue-skinned man greeted me carefully, watching as stone flowed out of the ground in an even, unbroken stream as I glided along on spread Wings filled with stars. ¡°Whom do I have the honor of addressing?¡± he asked, bowing quite low. I glanced at him. ¡°I was expecting Count Furzi or Baron Lotila, Your Grace,¡± I admitted evenly. He paused that I would bring up those names. ¡°After several discussions, it was agreed that the two of them would not be representing the people of Sanamar in further dealings with the Imperial Princess,¡± he responded diplomatically. ¡°Did you burn them, or feed them to the fishes?¡± I asked with some disinterest. ¡°They were burned to ash, and used to fertilize the fields they refused to work all these years, my lady,¡± he replied succinctly. ¡°You turned away the Freebooters when they sought to return. That was wise of you. You should know that the men who came to coerce you again ended up floating in the seas to the east, courtesy of Master Oswald, the Green Hunter.¡± He closed his eyes and breathed a long sigh of relief. ¡°Neither Nuhmudira nor her daughter returned here, my lady,¡± he informed me as I glided slowly along. ¡°May I ask what your intentions are here, my lady?¡± he inquired with painfully stiff formality. I was no good at playing the haughty arrogant bitch. I¡¯d bring Kris in if that needed to be done. She¡¯d put the fear of the gods into this clan-abandoning Bellenesse noble. ¡°I am the Lady Magos Ryin, foremost Magos of the Kingdom of Freehold and the First Stave of the Order of the Lost Light.¡± He couldn¡¯t fail to recognize the swirls around Crown, after all. ¡°What I am doing now is giving your people some succor and a chance, Your Grace.¡± AF Chapter 428 – Gates of Fire and Thunder ¡°A¡­ chance, Lady Magos?¡± Count Ricardo du Bellenesse repeated cautiously. ¡°I am going to draw this wall around the lands around Sanamar. This is going to take me a few hours. I will put two gates in those walls, to the north and the west, walls that will be framed by the horns of the aurochs there, for use in your future.¡± His eyes turned helplessly to the massive horns, each of them over twenty feet long, carried along on floating disks of silvery Force Magic, like nothing he had ever seen. ¡°These walls are more than tall enough and thick enough to keep away the eater hordes, and the gates will also be designed to withstand them. I intend to build one up here, if you care to wait a few minutes and examine it for yourself.¡± ¡°I should be honored, Lady Magos,¡± he managed to get out, looking around. ¡°If I may be so bold to ask¡­ what are we expected to do with this land?¡± It was an extremely valid question. Nothing grew here, save the most hidden scraps of vegetation that the Eaters couldn¡¯t dig out. ¡°When I am done putting up the wall, I will depart for Dereth,¡± I went on. ¡°I will return before dawn. I expect the entire population of Sanamar to be waiting for me by the pits where the two Aurochs died at that time. ¡°Do you understand my words at this time, Count Bellenesse?¡± I asked him sharply. He bowed his head instantly. ¡°I hear your words and will see that they are obeyed, Lady Magos,¡± he complied instantly. I nodded slowly. ¡°I said I am giving you and your people a chance here, Your Grace. Princess Kristie honestly would leave you here to slowly wither away without a shred of guilt or regret on her conscience. However, the largesse that is coming will not come free. There will be something expected of you for it, but since that is also in your own best interests, you will not find it very burdensome, and it will harken back to what might be called truly worthwhile martial endeavors on your part.¡± I could see the surprise clearly cross his face, before he concealed it. ¡°I see. And what does the Kingdom of Freehold seek to gain from this, Lady Magos?¡± ¡°Nothing, Your Grace. I am doing this without prior knowledge or permission from the Kingdom, merely taking my personal time to do something I deem is proper and necessary for some people who are innocent of their king¡¯s machinations¡­ and forgiving enough of those who are not so innocent to go forward. ¡°Incredible foolishness, I know, but that is what it is.¡± I glanced his way, and his schemes and questions froze in his mind. ¡°Don¡¯t try to take advantage of me with this. I know exactly what I am going to do, how I am going to do it, and there will indeed be work on your part. What you do with this chance is up to you, but it will be worth it. ¡°Now, let me do what I came here to do, and be content that I hold no ill will towards you or the people of Sanamar. Remember that before the dawn, I want them all at the pits where the two great Aurochs died, and that is all.¡± ¡°Yes, Lady Magos.¡± He bowed again and withdrew politely, unwilling to test my patience or my power, which was a wise decision. I continued my slow pace of putting up my walls, about a grand one mile per hour, but it was enough. I¡¯d still be back in time for the daily Resurrections. Light and easy work. ------ The gate crackled with lightning, and the great stone disk rolled quietly away from the opening, hundreds of tons of stone moving aside and leaving a broad opening for traffic to pass through. Count Ricardo du Bellenesse stared at the great horns framing the Thunder Gate, and watched with the others as the lever was pulled down, and counterweights of stone cycled, gears wrought by nothing but pure will turned, and the round stone rolled back into place along its track. He had seen enough castles and siegework built to know that it was a marvel of engineering, and this Lady Magos had built it right before his eyes, stone moving like water and settling perfectly into place and form under his gaze, pulled right up out of the ravaged stone beneath his boots. As she glided slowly and steadily on, her mind obviously elsewhere, he took the stairs up to the top of the long walls, leaning on the narrow battlements to look over the land outside. There were no Eater hordes coming. The two Great Aurochs had likely trained them to stay away from them, if nothing else. The grated surface of the wall-top, a strange luxury, extended away from him. The design would allow water and ice to run off of it and increase traction, he was certain. A wonderful yet simple complication that would cost far too much money to make normally, here done effortlessly.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. She had erected two great pits, covered them with Illusions so that none noticed them, and lured the behemoths that had bedeviled the survivors of Sanamar for an entire generation into them, in the end killing them effortlessly. So quick, so easy, so¡­ simple. That fool of a Hunnit, thinking they could capture and force such a woman to do their will? He deserved what was done to him, and that was without her killing the Aurochs! The fact that she was very likely among the Isparians who had killed Varicci and the Royal Household, well, that was another matter. Whether that was an honorless ambush and assassination or a courageous and well-struck raid depended entirely on one¡¯s opinion of the king. He was a Bellenesse, and while he had left the family holdings and upheld his oaths to the prince and later king here, his opinion of the man wasn¡¯t all that far from that of his rebellious kin, only he had not had it in him to forswear his oaths and rebel at all. Well, there was no rebelling now, only making sure men like Varicci didn¡¯t step into power again, or deal with the likes of the Raven Hand, Freebooters, and Nuhmudira. There were plenty of nobles who played games of power and would eagerly embrace any chance to rebuild their strength and claw back status and power in the face of the other Isparians and the people of the Freehold. Dealing with devils was part and parcel of the price of being noble in their minds, and peace was a sign of the weak. Well, he¡¯d made sure a fair number of them were permanently at peace, now. Ruthlessness in pursuit of not upholding vendettas that had no meaning were not something he was going to subject the people to after a generation of suffering, even with Viamontian resilience and readiness to fight. What would happen at the dawn? Count Ricardo du Bellenesse, reluctant Hand to Varicci II, and now the grim leader of Sanamar by dint of putting to the sword those other nobles who had grasped for their chance at a crown and power over their fellows, looked out over the ruin they¡¯d made of this pastoral landscape with the madness of the Fiun, the Eaters, and the Red Bull. The evils of Viamont had ruined this land. It was bloody apparent the other Isparians didn¡¯t want them on Dereth, ruining their land as well, and he could not blame them. What this daughter of the deserts wanted of them tomorrow morning, he didn¡¯t know, but he was going to make certain the people of Sanamar were there. ------- I shimmered into distance a fair distance from the graves, just in case they had something nasty planned. There were a couple thousand people there, most of them in civilian attire, the women outnumbering the men significantly, as did the children. I was noticed soon enough, walking in from the west as I was and the white of my attire easy to see in the light of the dawn. They parted before me as I walked through them, afraid, residual arrogance at my lack of blue skin knuckling under at the silver of my eyes and the power swirling about me. The earth and sky were humming faintly at my arrival, they could feel magic crackling over their skin, and the ground casually leveled itself out perfectly straight around me as I skated an inch above it. ¡°You will be joining me for the Salute to Aru this morning,¡± I informed them with Magevoice, my gaze fixed to the east, barely glancing at them come out there in what remained of their finery. ¡°Aru is a deity of the sun revered on many worlds for His kindness and guidance to mortals. You are here to bear witness to what He is going to help you do.¡± I did look down very deliberately as I finished that. They could not help but do the same, their gazes falling on the veins of whiteness snaking in all directions across and through the stones beneath them. The graves of the Aurochs were clearly the source of the whiteness, and the clever among them noticed that the pits were indeed basically right in the very middle of the massive area I¡¯d enclosed in with the walls I¡¯d put up the day before. Vivus. Massive amounts of vivus from two very magical creatures who had sucked in massive amounts of power and life from the land here, and in dying, had been Burned en vivus, and in so doing, given so very much of that power back. ¡°Here are the words to the Salute to Aru.¡± I flicked my hand casually, and the Holo lit up in very large letters above me, shocking them with how casually I put the Illusion up. Their lips moved as they read them silently. ¡°We begin.¡± They all took deep breaths. ¡°Dreams of the wind at dawn¡­¡± I began the easy, gentle cadence, and in spite of their reluctance and nervousness, they recited the words along with me. Beneath my feet, I felt magic begin to tremble. The Sublime Chord I¡¯d been humming subvocally began to rise, and Hope began to bubble in the air. Their words grew stronger and smoother as they felt it. ¡°A new day has begun. Light chases back the dark, and the future lays before us.¡± Golden lights began to swirl and glow in the air, and a faint breeze began to blow. The Salute began to rise as their eyes widened in wonder at what was streaming across their souls. ¡°Will it be something bright and new?¡± Rays of sunlight could be seen streaming in from the east above us, rapidly falling, lowering upon us as below something began to rustle and to grow with old, old magic. Heads tilted back, eyes closed, but the words to the Salute blazed before them regardless. ¡°Walk the road before you now, and leave the night behind, Today is a new day, and the light comes to warm you all.¡± Rings of Primal Druidic power radiated slowly out from around me, pulsing as the streaks in the rock seemed to light up for a faint moment, and then went dark, changing as the waves swept out and past them. They felt it all. ¡°Let go the shadows, and behold the sun! The Light has come, as ever it must.¡± Life boiled and bubbled, and what had been taken from the Land, then returned to the Land, gushed up, rising up towards the coming light above. Their joined voices rose towards the final line with the uncounted numbers who had and would join their voices to Aru at the moment of dawn. ¡°Behold the new day!¡± Sunlight came down and blew across the old fields of Sanamar in golden glory, and the Land rose up to embrace it. Green grass rose out of stone that degraded into rich black soil, flowers erupted here and there. Butterflies launched themselves into the air above us, as bees and beetles shook free of the soil that had held only the faintest dusty remnants of them, now returned to life and being as aspects of the ecosystem that had been destroyed here. Life rose out of everything and everywhere around them, spilling out and away from the graves of the dead Aurochs, and the fields of Sanamar blossomed with life once again. AF Chapter 429 – Salute the New Day ¡°Lady, Lady Magos, I do not know what to say.¡± The Count du Bellenesse was down on one knee in grass that already rose to his knee, unable to stop himself from reaching out and caressing a blue wildflower that was in full blossom there¡­ and staring at the bright blue and gold bee that was already at work on it, although I wondered where its hive might be. There were already trees regrowing in the many holes where they had once stood, so who knew? The nobles and leaders of the city also knelt behind him, while behind him, the people of Sanamar were running around in celebration, laughing and crying in equal measure as they ran through the fields they had never thought to see again. ¡°If you think this was me, you are mistaken. At the moment of the dawn, when the Salute is voiced, Aru can see into the hearts and minds of those who pray to Him. I gave but a touch of guidance and connection to the Land, and He guided the power that was here to restore what was lost, instead of letting it sink back into the ground and disperse. ¡°That was the whiteness you saw in the stones, the power of vivus, freed from the dead Aurochs, and it is the key to restoring the islands of the Hlaetians ravaged by the Eater hordes here. That was no power of mine. ¡°It was the power and call for mercy from your hearts, and He heard you.¡± I snapped my fingers, and two score Force Disks popped up around them. ¡°Climb aboard for a moment.¡± The Viamontian leaders glanced at one another, except for Count du Bellenesse, who simply rose, strode over to the nearest Disk, and sat down without hesitation. A minute later, they were all seated, and I was streaking above the green grass that extended right up to the Walls I¡¯d erected with life and health, the train of them following after me and the celeste Wings extending behind me. They¡¯d likely never traveled so quickly, and had to turn their heads and shield their eyes from the wind. Still, it was minor to the miracle they had already witnessed come into being all around them. The wall came up on us, and I floated up high enough to bring them all to the top of it. The other side of the wall was just as bleak and desolate as the land behind me had been just minutes ago. They stared at it, then behind themselves, contrasting the verdant green across the lifeless stone and pitted hills they could see there. ¡°This is all your responsibility to make bloom again,¡± I informed them calmly, gesturing at the lifeless landscape ahead of us. ¡°The only way to do this is by slaughter, and sacrificing to the Land the lifeblood of the creatures that did this to it. ¡°Each Eater horde you slaughter and feed to the Land will return another square mile of land to life and prosperity. As the Eaters tore the life back from the land, so they will return it. ¡°Thus, you will have to kill the Eater hordes, but not ALL the Eater hordes. By my calculations, it takes about two weeks to make enough Eaters for a completely new horde, spread out across these islands. ¡°I will put up a new section of walls, enclosing most of a square mile of area. You will pull an Eater horde into that area. In the center of that area, I will make a hardpoint. At that hardpoint, we will slaughter the Eater horde, we will Burn them en vivus, and the following morning you will raise the Salute to Aru and ask Him to guide the Land into restoring what was lost. ¡°Horde by horde, mile by mile, weeks by weeks, this island and the others of the Hlaetians will be reclaimed. I will build the walls to guard the lands restored, and I will take them down once the territory you expand moves past them.¡± I paused long enough for them to comprehend the enormity of what they had to do, and how long it was going to take. ¡°This will take years. Decades. Perhaps even centuries,¡± Count du Bellenesse murmured, staring out at the naked rock from next to me. ¡°Yes, and it cannot be sped up without titanic levels of magic neither you nor I can command. The Eater hordes only swell so quickly, consuming the hapless Summoned beings, but they do swell. They are our only tool to restore what your people¡¯s idiocy and their ravaging appetites caused to come to pass. ¡°If you want to reclaim and grow your lands, the means and method is right before you. You will earn every inch of ground you take for your own in blood, sweat, and tears. ¡°And if you are not sincere of heart, when you Salute Aru, He will see, and the Land will simply take your offering and leave behind the naked stone you brought to pass upon it.¡±Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. They shook about me, looking out over the miles and miles of stone and realizing just how much work they had to do to restore what they had made happen. ¡°What do you gain from this, Lady Magos?¡± Count du Bellenesse asked hoarsely. ¡°I, I cannot see where any of this benefits you. You do not need us to accomplish this¡­¡± Well, he was definitely wiser than his comrades. ¡°You have no way of paying me the value of what I am going to help you with. I gain from this no more than Aru does, but Aru bade me show mercy, so here I am. ¡°Remount your Disks, I will return you to your fellows to celebrate. I imagine there will be some discussions about the farms and orchards you will be setting up, and who owns what and when and how and why. ¡°I will return in two weeks. I will know who has Saluted Aru, and who has not. If you are not ready, I will leave, and come back at my leisure. ¡°When I return, I will wall off a new area, lure an Eater horde into it, and support your warriors while you slaughter them. ¡°Search your hearts, and find a noble fire there that Aru can see and admire. Today, He saw me and the need and suffering of those left behind. When I return, He must be able to see you, or all that you do will be for naught, and these fields are all you will ever have.¡± I saw them clenching their fists as they slowly sat back on the Disks. I stepped off the wall, drawing them after me. They had a great deal to think about, but at least they had felt Hope, and knew there was something they could build towards, instead of trying to take it from others. =========== ¡°You are very generous, Lady Magos,¡± the towering non-armored Duke Bellas said gravely, bowing deeply to me as I finished my report on what I¡¯d done. He looked much more approachable outside that suit of custom Armor Briggs had made for him. ¡°Thank you for your intervention in this matter.¡± I waved off his courtesy calmly. ¡°It was little more than you might have done yourself, Your Grace.¡± He was contemplative as he considered what I had done. ¡°We can still liberate more enslaved souls among the souls on the Hlaetians, can we not?¡± he asked me. ¡°Yes, although Princess Kristie or Commander Briggs is necessary to break the System¡¯s hold. Conventional magic cannot do so,¡± I answered readily. ¡°The more we can free, the more labor we have on hand, and the more warriors whose hands we free up to free more of them. Furthermore, the islands are vast, and it will take a very long time to restore them, and that if we kill the Eater hordes regularly as soon as they are viable.¡± ¡°Also very true,¡± I agreed with him. ¡°Is it possible that we might presume upon the Commander or Her Highness to join us on a regularly scheduled excursion to the northern islands? They are cut off from the southern islands, so they will not be interfering with the people of Sanamar at all, and those islands also need some restoration, even if only on the shores and southern areas.¡± ¡°I will present it to them, and I doubt there will be much issue. Freeing souls from the System is definitely something they want to happen, so there should be little issue with it. Also, they enjoy some regularly scheduled mayhem, as you might have noticed.¡± He coughed politely. ¡°I must confess that the Princess has a thirst for combat I¡¯ve seldom seen outside belligerent drunkards and the near-mad. That she can control it as well as she does is a testament to an extraordinary amount of willpower.¡± ¡°That it is,¡± I agreed with a smile. ¡°She¡¯s almost as insane as the average adventurer was before the Fall, I reckon.¡± That earned a deep chuckle from him. ¡°Given the stories I¡¯ve heard of the amount of killing and slaughter of the Summons from back then, I feel I must agree with you. I missed much of that time in my prison, and the years in there are little more than a blur at this point.¡± ¡°Probably for the best,¡± I just nodded. ¡°I will bring the request to them. Another thing you might want to consider is how you might make use of your cousins in Sanamar.¡± ¡°Oh?¡± His skeptical tone was cool, but interested. ¡°Among the most valuable tools almost everyone has is eight free hours a day to Invest magical items. There are hundreds of people in Sanamar who do not have enough to occupy their time. You could recruit them to Invest pyreal on your behalf, and even pay them a fair wage in pyreal or trade goods, if you were amenable to the idea.¡± He did consider that, turning it over several times, and finding it quite attractive. ¡°Will there be any trouble securing the pyreal?¡± he asked, knowing Briggs had absolute control over the dispersing of goldweight bars. ¡°None. You should probably coordinate with the crown about what exactly you¡¯ll be Investing for. I recommend only civilian-use items, but there are many of those.¡± ¡°And they might opt to actually buy some of them for their own use,¡± he deduced quickly, earning an inclination of my head for him. ¡°Or something more practical, like seeds for their new fields¡­¡± ¡°I think even Viamontians get sick of the same foods for years on end. Enduring sieges is never enjoyable.¡± ¡°I will see what we may do to aid our cousins on the sly, and will await word from the Commander and the Princess.¡± I bowed to the new Duke of House Bellenesse, and turned to my other duties. --------- ¡°How are you adjusting, Master Harlune?¡± He looked much better than several days ago. He had put on some weight, many of his scars had faded or peeled off, and his complexion was better. Still, he moved carefully, the motions of a man without much muscle or exercise for years having to recondition his body to the simple duty of moving around. It was late in the day, and he was reclining in my favorite force-chair, padded and cushioned and molding itself to him, with no legs to bump his shins as he idly turned it around, and drifted around the room. ¡°Lady Magos!¡± He battled his way back to his feet, I waved him back down into the chair as Haul peeled itself out of my Masspack and formed itself behind me. I seated myself calmly, and only after I did so did he return to his chair. ¡°Your lab is wonderful, Lady Magos,¡± he admitted, gesturing graceful fingers to the array of mechanical, magical, and alchemical devices cluttering the wall and several worktables to the other side of the room. ¡°I admit to not even knowing the function of some of the devices you have over there.¡± AF Chapter 430 – A Cranky Master ¡°I stopped by to answer any such questions you might have about such things, Master Harlune,¡± I replied firmly. ¡°I trust your first lessons have not been too basic for you?¡± He actually leaned forward eagerly at me, his much-brighter eyes lighting up with his intensity. ¡°I devoured the beginner primer, Lady Magos,¡± he admitted candidly. ¡°I may have somewhat discomfited some of my erstwhile instructors, as some of them were secondary students of my own in the past, and they practice the traditions of Isparian magic that I passed to them.¡± ¡°Your raw capabilities are indeed considerably higher than a basic apprentice, but the key part of the magic is, as ever, starting at the proper foundation. Leap ahead, and you will only make things harder and harder on yourself,¡± I chided him. ¡°You are doubtless already attempting to devise a ladder of potential Infusions to the Platinum tier, like every other student who is introduced to the basic concepts of Typeless Magic, yes?¡± His mouth worked like a child caught in the cookie jar. A bit disgruntled, he finally sat back, a bit defeated. ¡°I see I am more predictable than I thought¡­¡± ¡°Geniuses and experienced Casters usually are. Egos thinking they are better than the methods and methodologies of the countless geniuses who have tried every conceivable way to break, leapfrog, or do an end run around the System. Sometimes they found something new, and then it was added to the System to expand it, and it became ever harder, ever more difficult to improve, circumvent, or shortcut the System¡­ until you reach the place it is at today, where there is almost nothing to be improved on.¡± I met his glowing eyes with my Silver ones, unafraid of his experience or intellect. ¡°I myself would doubtless master your Empyrean magicks with a speed you would probably find almost terrifying.¡± His mouth opened to challenge me, refute me, and I Sang one Note. Any words he was about to say choked and died as the manafield reverberated around us, and he felt my iron-hard chokehold settle on the manafield all around us. My Caster Level had considerably more raw power behind it than his own, even if did not bear the same subtleties and elegance that his did. He was silent for a long minute as I let the Note fade, studying me very intently indeed. He couldn¡¯t look into my mind at all, but I¡¯d basically just flared my Aura to him, and he was now plenty aware of the incredible depth and intensity of it. His own Aura had some higher Height, given he was basically the equivalent of a Twenty and I was a mere Fourteen in comparison, but it was like looking at a slender tower, and next to it was a massive pyramid, shorter but immeasurably more dangerous and stable. ¡°How much exposure have you had to Empyrean teachings, Lady Magos?¡± he asked softly, consideration in his voice. ¡°I have examined multiple Empyrean artifacts and mana-reinforced constructions. I possess the power but not the raw subtlety or technique yet to imitate them. I have witnessed the power of the Harbinger, and seen how to draw on Elemental energies beyond the Isparian limit. I have seen Candeth Martine manipulate his virindi-derived energies to call on planar fluctuations High and Low to work his magicks, as well as seen the virindi alterations to the Ampherelion Vault. ¡°I saw and can imitate the very spells that Xunidara employed during our rescue of you, despite her employing what might be considered proprietary methods and energies that do not follow standard Isparian styles. ¡°I have not had anything remotely resembling a true teacher of actual Empyrean methods and techniques, only seeing the end results of their magicks, Master Harlune.¡± He sighed deeply after I finished. ¡°Those I have spoken with have only the most glowing regard for you, even when it is tinged with envy and personal desires, which is likely even more sincere than their words. When you instruct them, you make the maddeningly complex seem simple, and the depths of the magic you open to them seem to have no limits.¡± ¡°The Matrix is very different in how you may ascend to heights of power than the Empyrean, but it is no less powerful at the high end, Master Harlune,¡± I informed him. ¡°There are multiple roads to getting there within its System, but they are valid both independently and together.¡± ¡°And you are a master of those Paths woven together.¡± His fingers intertwined symbolically. ¡°I am a Master Theurge of the Arcane paths, yes, if not a Sevenfold Master, which does not seem possible here.¡± He silently repeated those titles to himself, nodding slightly. ¡°I have but one question, then.¡± I inclined my head slightly. ¡°The Tyranny of Rep Counts?¡± he asked archly, challenging me with his irritation and distaste for the requirements to grind magic. ¡°One of the most loathed but most inescapable aspects of the System,¡± I admitted without the slightest hesitation. ¡°There have been many, many attempts to find a better methodology, from spells to accelerate comprehension, Rituals to shortcut the counts, or pure raw intellectual ability, Talents, or Feats to reduce the need for Rep Counts. Surely if I possess intellectual ability to rival the gods I need not engage in such base grinding, yes?¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. My tone rather erased any hope from his expression. ¡°No other methods really worked. The closest that we have come is a Siege Joint Rep Count Mastery, where you can partner with another who also has extremely advanced Siegecasting Mastery and together you can jointly Cast and Counter one another to accelerate the Sieging Rep Counts together. Unfortunately, it doesn¡¯t help individual Rep Counts, nor has a method for Metas, pure Spells, or Reserve Casting been discovered. The Sieging Method itself takes over sixty thousand joint Rep Counts to take to full potency of counting both your partner¡¯s Sieging and your own at the same time.¡± He sat back, thinking. ¡°The number of repetitions required for broad Mastery would take years,¡± he noted to me. ¡°I can do basic math, Master Harlune, as can the many, many mages who came before me. We all have expressions like you have right now when we discover the facts. We all want to skip them, circumvent them, shorten them. ¡°The Tyranny of Rep Counts sits on its iron throne and has laughed at us all.¡± He grunted, not wanting to believe it, but he¡¯d find out on his own. Everyone wanted to short-cut the system. ¡°You have a great advantage over a younger mage in that your ability to focus and concentrate is leagues above them, and that is a key requirement of Rep Counts, particularly emulation. ¡°If you fine-tune your magical vision, you will see I am paying homage to the Tyranny of Rep Counts right now, and do so consistently whenever it seems I am not active Casting.¡± He blinked, then stared at my fingers, then around me at wisps of magic few people would be able to sense and see, staring narrowly at them. ¡°You are¡­ emulating the Casting of spells?¡± he asked hesitantly, watching the threads of magic build, then dissipate before they could truly take form. As if bringing a spell together, then releasing it before it could take shape. ¡°Yes. It takes extraordinary control to do so successfully, basically false Castings of a spell. It actually requires even more rigor than Casting a spell, because if you do it wrong, you actually spend the Valences, or waste them entirely. You have to weave the magic precisely, maintain absolute mana control, and be utterly ready to fully empower it at every moment, not just spinning threads. The juxtaposition of discipline allows Fauxcasting to qualify as Rep Counts. ¡°It¡¯s just not something a beginner mage can do. You have to be at least a Ten to even start on the simpler spells with the methods, and have a lot of experience across the multiple forms of Rep Counts to proceed. ¡°It doesn¡¯t free you from the Tyranny of the Counts, but it does release you from the Rule of Valences below them.¡± He took a long, deep breath. ¡°Can an Empyrean Mana Pool be used for such things?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°I cannot use my Isparian pool for such matters. Indeed, Valence spells Cast out of a Mana Pool or re-infused by free mana do not Count at all.¡± He considered my point in silence, thinking about a lot of numbers. ¡°Does the Tyranny apply to true Isparian Magic?¡± he asked after a moment of thought. ¡°No,¡± I said definitively. ¡°There are multiple Casters who have attempted to satisfy the Counts demand with basic War spells, among others, while others have launched tens of thousands of key spells over their past careers. ¡°The Isparian magical structure is much freer and flowing than the Valence structure. It is why Valences represent so much more raw mana than a Pool does, and why their power scales so much more freely than Isparian magic does. If you like a profound reason, Isparian Magic is tilted towards the free-wheeling style of Chaos, and Valence Magic blends in considerably more Law. Valance Magic thus has both structure and versatility, while Isparian Magic tends to be much less flexible in execution.¡± ¡°I saw some of the basic spells,¡± he admitted, ¡°and then displays of the Metas that could be attached to others.¡± He paused in consideration. ¡°Empyrean Magic treats spells very differently based on the Elements they draw on. Your Matrix Magic considers such things interchangeable, like exchanging a gear of silver for gold in and out of a clockwork.¡± ¡°That is correct.¡± ¡°And Creature Magic, with all of its Buffing power and versatility to enhance or cripple Stats and Skills¡­ is basically two spells, which scale by level, and are Cast positively or negatively, in your System.¡± ¡°That is also correct,¡± I confirmed. ¡°And¡­ all of Isparian War Magic could be condensed down to exactly one spell, with the appropriate Metas, scaled by Tier.¡± I nodded again. ¡°That is also true. The benefits of Law and manipulating the structures of a spell, whereas the Isparian System¡¯s focus is on managing the mana that supplies those spells, not the spells themselves.¡± He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. ¡°You know that makes a tremendous mockery of the magic I have devoted my entire life to learning, do you not?¡± ¡°Irrelevant, Master Harlune.¡± That popped his glowing eyes back open. ¡°It restores the wonder of magic to you. I think that is worth a moment of disgruntlement as you walk down a new and wonderful world, even if it takes some time to reach the lofty heights you are used to standing alone upon?¡± Despite his irritation, he could not fight back a slight smile as he regarded me. ¡°The¡­ more whimsical uses of the magic did catch my eye,¡± he admitted with false reluctance. ¡°The Hedge Magic is always what draws in the good men and innocent souls. Those hungry for power want the spells of war and conflict, to heal damage and to inflict it, to protect themselves and harm others. ¡°Summoning a flower on command.¡± I snapped my fingers, and a gorgeous red and gold rose in full bloom grew and unfolded in my fingers. ¡°Making minor illusions on command to stress your points.¡± Holos popped up around my hand, showing a score of tulips, irises, lotuses, orchids, and other gorgeous flowers there. ¡°Casually being able to change the color of your walls today.¡± I waved at the side wall, and it changed from a neutral off-white to a manly warm brown wooden pattern. ¡°Being protected from the rain. Cleaning your clothes instantly. Washing the dishes and putting them away. Cutting the grass, of all things¡­ ¡°Great mages sneer at such things, but those are the wonderful little things that make magic great. A spell to make a farmer¡¯s field verdant and bountiful is worth far more than a spell that reduces it to a charred ruin, but the egotistical Casters will seldom want to acknowledge such basic truth in their pursuit of power.¡± AF Chapter 431 – A Teacher at Last Master Harlune was silent for a time, regarding me. I knew he was wary and suspicious, doubtless lulled by honeyed tongues in the past who wanted to learn the secrets he knew, and who then abused them without shame or restriction. ¡°You¡­ bring the undead back to life, Lady Ryin,¡± he finally spoke up. ¡°That¡­ is something even the Life Magic I know cannot do.¡± ¡°To be absolute fair, Master Harlune, it is not by my will that such things occur. Resurrection magic is totally and completely the realm of the Divine. They take my power, add the right and Will of the Divine, and in doing so can return a soul from the hereafter to life. I provide them the energy on this mortal plane to do so, so they need not spend their own. But without their will, aid, and permission, I could not do so. ¡°They give me all three, and I pass on their will to those deserving of it. Master Ben Ten and his fellow Cursed Dead are eminently worthy of it.¡± ¡°You have not sought power nor remuneration for that service, however,¡± he pointed out to me. ¡°They cannot afford to pay me what that service is actually worth, nor their families, or anyone else. It is a situation I am certain you are familiar with.¡± He nodded slowly. ¡°Those most worthy of the blessings of magic are often those who cannot afford its benefits or its graces,¡± he admitted. ¡°Neutrals trying to assign a value of secular pricing to everything is the most insidious force that Good people have to fight against over time,¡± was my reply in return. He grunted again. ¡°I am willing to become your teacher in matters of Empyrean Magic, Lady Magos.¡± I inclined my head again. ¡°I am also willing to become your teacher in matters of Matrix Magic, Master Harlune.¡± He blinked at me in shock, and then burst out laughing as he realized that he was all too willing to learn things from me, too! ¡°I see. How shall we coordinate our lesson plans then, Lady Magos?¡± he asked, his glowing eyes now actually glittering slightly. ¡°I thought lessons on Slayer Effects and Bane Infusions traded back and forth and compared at multiple Valences would be an excellent place to start.¡± Runeforms, Seals, and Sigils rose around me in multiple complex formations. ¡°Let¡¯s see what Empyrean Magic has to say about what we¡¯ve deduced so far, and I¡¯ll explain how much of it transfers over and between Matrix magic.¡± His smile was wide as he scooted up to the wide table of force that popped up between us. ¡°Excellent. There are principles of anathema and opposition that are integral to the intersection of Life and Item Magic once you get past the Incantor Level of magic that are referenced when working such specific alterations to the enchantments¡­¡± ========= Weeks pass¡­ Aphus Lassel was secured. Master Harlune¡¯s island in the north was basically gutted and abandoned, filled in completely so as to give the Freebooters nothing to come back to but blank stone. With no residents above sensed psychically or by scent, the olthoi lost all interest in it. Of the lesser islands around Dereth, the two most obvious targets left were the initial island settled by the tumerok races, Marae Lassel, and down in the south, the Moarsman Island off the southern coast. ML, as the adventurers called it, had a long-term olthoi and virindi problem, and a Deru Tree that had its own problems as a result. The Aun had mostly withdrawn from the island during the Fall, slowly evacuated by Master Oswald in small groups, reinforcing their kinfolk in the Kingdom of Freehold slowly and unseen, leaving the Hea to deal with the constant pressure from the great insects they called Wharu¡­ the olthoi. There was debate back and forth on which to pursue. ML would open up some more land for resettlement, but the hostile Hea would be a problem that had to be dealt with, as the tribes there were still knuckling under to the mutant strains dominated by the virindi. Not wanting to engage in a war of kinfolk quite yet, it was determined to see what the Aun could accomplish on their own before trying anything. When they came to me, I said simply, ¡°If you want to clear Moarsman Island, it is useless without fully clearing Freebooter and the Vesayans of every last trace of T¡¯Thuun. It¡¯s become quite apparent the island and its pyramid-temple is the heart and soul of the Entity¡¯s power on Dereth, and if you want to break T¡¯Thuun, you need to break all of its centers of power, including the scattered shrines on Dereth, before taking out the Island.¡± So, that¡¯s what the energetic soldiers, adventurers, scouts, and knights concentrated on for the moment. There were five shrines to the creature around Dereth, and those were cleansed energetically, washed in a lot of blood, violence, and vivus, populated by hundreds of Blighted and Tainted creatures defending their tentacled Patron-thing from beyond the stars.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. I wasn¡¯t much involved in those efforts, instead raising a Pyramid for Bobo the Tusker King over Aphus Lassel, then raising three more down the length of the southern landbridge and over Candeth Keep. This created a very secure path to the direlands and really cemented our control over the southern reaches of the Direlands. The return of Master Harlune meant rapid breakthroughs on Four-System Smithing and Artificing in particular, bringing together elements of different magical Systems into a greater whole that really expanded everyone¡¯s views of what was possible and how it could happen. Master Harlune¡¯s slow but steady progress through Matrix Classes and his private quest didn¡¯t stop, either. He had long stayed away from Summoning Magic and was not an expert on it through the Empyrean System, but Summoning and Binding Magic had some very serious support on the Matrix side, especially the whole Binding aspect. ------- The last crystalline irregularity fell away, and I eyed the wedge of perfectly cut Sunsands Silica Diamond in front of me. The sputtering elemental energies within it coalesced, stratified, and transformed into a burning, shimmering core of restrained latent power. Tink. Tink. The wedge of crystal fell apart into three identical Sunsands Silica Diamond Scarabs, the first intact ones that had ever been made on Dereth. They glimmered inside with fractals of prismatic light, undulating across the Thaumaspectrum. Blackfire Diamonds were not the Incantor Scarab source, these were! Which was a pretty nice thing, because we didn¡¯t have any sources of Blackfire Diamonds. Caul Island was still getting shot up by shades and virindi who didn¡¯t truly die, and we weren¡¯t testing out Aerlinthe Island yet. We still had to go to Mount Lethe and get our next set of Infusions there, too. ¡°Well done,¡± Master Harlune complimented me as I sat back, rubbing my head and looking at the results of Shape Stone at VII+1. ¡°Pure magic and without a tool. Extraordinary, Ryin.¡± ¡°Thank you, Master Harlune.¡± He was still a few centuries my senior, so I still gave him an honorific, as our relationship was purely professional. We¡¯d talked enough that he was comfortable addressing me as an equal, regardless. I watched him pick the first Scarab up, turning it over and analyzing the shape, the Runecraft, and the workmanship, shaking his head. ¡°This is extraordinarily difficult work, is it not?¡± he asked me, lifting a dark eyebrow. ¡°It¡¯s a 40,¡± I agreed, which he understood as reaching the mortal limit of skill, and at the edge of what he could craft as well. Briggs and Princess Kristie could go higher, but they were proto-Eternal schmucks, so, eh. He wove a spell of Mana Renewal VIII expertly as he held the Scarab in his hand, and the magic came to him swiftly and easily, swirling around me and popping my natural Renewal rate by +145%, or about two and a half times. I eyed the pile of Burning Sands Golum Hearts off to the side. Since the return of Neftet, there had been the opportunity to fight Burning Sands Golems on the dangerous Spawn Points surrounding the formerly hidden city. The native A¡¯nekshay had no cares about fighting them or the other Summons in their territories, especially once the more irritating Summon points were shut down and the areas seeing spawns could be controlled. As a result, the most powerful Golum Hearts known, the Burning Sands Golum Hearts, were trickling in and being acquired. They¡¯d had no known value, but after this knowledge was spread, the demand for them was going to explode, and with them their price. There were only a few active teams who could reliably take down one of the Golums without injury, and the drop rate on a properly congealed heart was 1/10 or less. The demand for carving them was going to be equally high, as the number of people who could actually do so reliably I could count on one hand, namely me, Master Harlune, Briggs, and Kris. The Mick was a maybe, as this was gemcutting, not a carving skill based off his Lockpicking ability. There were a smattering of paramounts who had carving skills, but most of them had left civilian activities to their supporters and hangers-on, preferring to be combat specialists raking in the money and paying their attendants, cohorts, and followers to do mundane tasks. As a result, if one of us didn¡¯t want to carve you some of these Scarabs, it didn¡¯t matter how many Hearts you¡¯d collected. Our normal compensation was basically going to be 2:1, so half the Scarabs we made we¡¯d decide where they went. It wasn¡¯t that different from the Elemental Fields, which over the last few months had settled down to regular teams making excursions out there. The gem carvers were only getting better and faster at their craft, and the teams faster and better at clearing out the Elementals. Best of all, the mixed Elementals meant the Karma was good for both Matrix and Isparian advancement. Prismatic Stones were becoming more and more common as a result. ¡°They will keep you busy all day and all night with their demands if you let them,¡± Master Harlune laughed, following my gaze. ¡°You are far more active in the field than I, so I will take over the cutting of these Hearts, if that is alright with you. Will that Fabrication magic you know help?¡± ¡°Yes, but it¡¯s a V, and the gods know how much I need more obligations to Cast V¡¯s. Still¡­¡± I shook my head, and began to weave the best and fastest Crafting spell known, one that did eight hours of work in but a minute, drawing off the Caster¡¯s own skills to do so. If you had the right tools, and Shape Stone VII+1 was always the right tool here, then carving a Golum Heart wasn¡¯t that hard. Adamantine would suffice on the physical level for non-Casters. Doing it RIGHT, however, was more difficult, and its sale value completely eclipsed its goldweight value, of course, simply due to current rarity and demand. There were hissing sounds as the extraneous parts of the Hearts began to crumble away, one after another, sliced off by magic guided by other magic. Master Harlune watched with great interest as the Hearts were chipped down one by one at great speed, until the final wedge was glittering there, and then tink, tink! It fell apart into three identical Scarabs glittering with internal radiance and manaflows. Ten Hearts fell apart before the spell was done, which was a fair display of how long it would have actually taken to carve them apart with Shape Stone. ¡°I think that may be the first V I ever learn,¡± Master Harlune swore, watching all that work get done so quickly and smoothly. AF Chapter 432 – Memories of Lethe ¡°Not Teleport?¡± I inquired of Master Harlune immediately. His teaching Portal Magic to Celcynd the Dour, who then brought Item Magic to the rest of the Isparians on Dereth, had been the big event making his name famous among us. ¡°That will be the second,¡± he promised. ¡°But this is pure Artificing and Crafting magic, like nothing I have known before.¡± ¡°I have to agree.¡± Zeks stacked the Scarabs up silently, and I pushed them toward Master Harlune, keeping five for myself. I would only use them in emergencies, and I wasn¡¯t at the point that I¡¯d be doing tireless rep counts with them, like I did with so many other spells. ¡°How close are you to Fifteen?¡± he asked thoughtfully. ¡°I could probably take the step if I was okay with my Secondary Classes remaining static, which I¡¯m not. If that means I have to earn more Karma, so be it.¡± I considered my recollections of Aelryinth, and how long he¡¯d stayed at Fourteen, getting all his Secondaries to Eight, and even Levels in a couple Advanced Classes he¡¯d sussed out. I didn¡¯t have the time to do all that, as there were already extremely powerful spellcasters on this world, and I had to Level up to counter them in some manner or another. The Isparian system was incredibly free and easy with how Karma was earned and passed up, but the Matrix System was quite a bit more fussy and demanding. Hence, continual field trips, each and every day, getting at least my Naming Karma and staying in practice as a Shardcaster, not just a support mage. Also, a great way to build up Slayer Masteries, and I took every edge I could get at that stuff. ¡°I understand the desire. It has been a very long time since I¡¯ve felt the desire to increase my strength so strongly. Building up my Theurgic skills while restricting myself to minor magicks has been somewhat stressful.¡± ¡°Your Pool Theurgy means you have an immense advantage over all of us with that massive Empyrean Mana Pool of yours, so don¡¯t bemoan your progress.¡± He could also Buff himself to the nines when going out and practicing with his minor spells. ¡°I have not said it, but it is very good you are taking the Melee Levels, Master Harlune. The next time you are in a fight, you are going to be far more dangerous than people will expect.¡± He eyed his new Staff Qwyll, leaning against the wall. He had been sparring with Gharu¡¯n and Sho masters to get the feel for staffwork and his skills up to stuff, and had already bashed a lot of skeletal, golum, and olthoi skulls with it, coming along nicely. ¡°Yes. Sometimes, simplicity means a lot,¡± he agreed. ¡°Especially when you can Archer Stands Thrust an idiot charging you, then roast him alive with a Topped Energy Grasp,¡± he grinned harshly. ¡°That is indeed the idea!¡± I agreed. ---------- Teleporting to the proper area wasn¡¯t hard, as we¡¯d passed nearby, Mount Lethe being the westernmost volcano in Dereth and fairly close to the ocean shore. We¡¯d been able to see it when we¡¯d run by. Briggs and Sama were along to see the place and get Lived-Line ties, they¡¯d be coming in with different teams on succeeding days. Upgrading the Motes of our Lost Light Weapons was a good motivation, and coming here had been something basic that in the past had been done in series, going from one volcano straight to the next to complete the quest. With it broken and working differently, there was no need, and as we had soooo many other things to work on, it had slipped down the scale in importance. But we had decided to upgrade before we hit Moarsman Island, and so here we were. There was a crackling blur of purple lightning and exploding spark motes, and the first Banderling Thrasher first dropped his arms, then fell in two pieces. There was a crack and the rather unique sound of bone and flesh going liquid, and the Paragon next to the Thrasher didn¡¯t even have the time to howl as it went flying. Thuuuuuuum. Sizzz, zizzzz, zizzz. One more of each dropped as arrows and bolts punched into them, and the Mick cut down his target coolly, barely breaking stride. All four were vivifying with great speed, ectoplasm coming apart from the overkill damage, which was just fine. Briggs idly kicked the Mick¡¯s target thirty yards onto the spawn point they¡¯d worn down with a heave of his boot, the location promptly poofing as the vivus found the built-up magic gathered there, ready to respawn something, and promptly began eating it and Sealing the point. ¡°Dominated by drudges and banders, sure enough,¡± Princess Kristie acknowledged, looking ahead at where Mount Lethe loomed over the landscape, and the plateau leading up to it was visible over the trees. We could see a half-dozen Summons around us, all either drudges with brightly colored and painted skin, or banderlings with showy armor. There was one Gotrok spawn in the distance, of equally brightly armored Titan and Juggernaut lugians, oblivious to the fate of their fellow rebels and just looking to have some bashing fun. ¡°There actually used to be a mine in this place?¡± she repeated, shaking her head. ¡°It¡¯s way freaking out in the middle of BF nowhere!¡± she complained. ¡°How do you set up an operation out here?! How did they even reach here to set one up?¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The Mick cleared his throat grandly, clearly a cue for him. ¡°Well, the Dires were dangerous back then, aye, but nothing like today, Highness. The nastiest things ye¡¯d find wandering about were Virindi Masters, a few tuskers guarding them, an¡¯ some Drudge Stalkers, Hea warriors, an¡¯ Lithos, with random Revenants and Skeleton Warriors fer fun.¡± We all waited for more, and he just looked back at us and shrugged. ¡°Seriously?¡± Briggs had to ask, blinking once. ¡°Aye. That were back when being a Thirty meant ye were badarse, o¡¯ course.¡± ¡°Okay, so a skilled Isparian, perhaps a trained noble, could have made it here. But how do you get a crew out here to work the mine? Did they have Portal Magic back then?¡± Kris had to protest as we headed towards a collection of mixed red-skinned and white-skinned drudges. Peerless and Bloodletter Drudges, one more a Caster, one more a fighter-type. ¡°Another funny story to that, an¡¯ aye, they did before he set his mine up. There actually be a Quest line to gain Mount Lethe Recall, a spell t¡¯ bring ye right outside this mine. Involved running around an¡¯ speaking with old Celcynd the Dour, Aru rest his soul, an¡¯ Master Harlune. The scroll actually spawned repeatedly down at the bottom o¡¯ the mines¡­ the cursed mines, what turned the miners an¡¯ Baron whatsizname to undead an¡¯ all.¡± ¡°Ranged,¡± Briggs ordered casually. The Roaches aimed, I brought up three Darts, and our Senior Melees just cocked their Weapons back. I released, and then twangzingwooshwhack AIEEEEEE! The four drudges there dropped as Shardings, missiles, and Darts tore through them. The neighboring spawns did little more than glance in our direction, and we just kept going. Rogar squinted off to the side. ¡°Pink crystal, sir!¡± he pointed calmly at a glimmer through the light underbrush. ¡°Oh, can¡¯t let a Diamond Lord off. Free Heart on that, an¡¯ likely a pyreal mote!¡± Lord Mick said enthusiastically. Not that pyreal was worth all that much now. ¡°You just like killing Diamond Golums for the slightest reason, sir,¡± Selena sniffed loudly. ¡°Aye, an¡¯ I¡¯ll have ye learning t¡¯ loathe the bright glittery bastards as much as I do one day, I will!¡± The Roaches groaned in rehearsed unison. ¡°Relax, me fine unkillable pesties. Ye¡¯ve the single best Hammer-wielding mound o¡¯ muscle in Dereth right here, do ye not?¡± he asked theatrically. Endure transformed from the fiery wedge that had fried the vivifying drudges back to extremely weighty adamantine smoothly, spirals of Lost Light crossing in front of the Greathammer¡¯s head. ¡°Light exercise,¡± Briggs admitted casually, having had plenty of experience shattering Diamond Golums in the south Dires around Candeth Keep. ¡°Not if I get there first!¡± laughed Kristie, and was off like a shot. ¡°Hey!¡± Briggs protested, and then glanced at me. I waved a Mass Imperil IV+1 off around the resting collection of pink slabs of crystal scattered among the vegetation there a hundred yards away. The gray flashes shimmered around the oddly pink Diamond Lord and its three crystalline white escorts, all of which promptly began to rise from the ground at the attacking magic. All of which meant Kris could likely kill them all before Briggs actually got there, except, well¡­ Endure hurtled over and past her like a thunderbolt, hit the Diamond Lord, and blew its central crystalline chest to smithereens before she could possibly get there. ¡°HEY!¡± she protested, as Endure whipped back past her, the other golums all turning into the distance. ¡°No Casting at my bondmage!¡± she corrected promptly, as all three of them seemed to coordinate and launch two Pyreal Shockwaves and a Bludgeoning Vuln in my direction. The Vuln bounced off my Magic Resistance, everyone hopped aside as the two War spells shot past and blew apart an innocent rock behind me, sending the boulder tumbling away. There was a blur of motion, the golums started to turn around to address the threat in their midst, and then all three of them collapsed as their chest-crystals shattered from precise thrusts finding the proper fracture points, breaking apart into large lumps of crystal that began to further shatter down immediately. Briggs halted after catching Endure deftly, no reason to chase any further, and smiled broadly as he turned around and loped back to us. Kris almost beat him back, tossing two motes of pyreal, a collection of diamond powder, and two Diamond Golum Hearts on the Disk that Rogar was riding. Then she climbed up on Briggs¡¯ back and gnawed on his ear to punish him for taking her kill, which punishment he took with a broad grin on his face. While Briggs pretended to paw helplessly at the Hag administering dire sexy penalties upon his ear, I asked the bemused Mick as we resumed course, ¡°If the spell was already down there, that means it wasn¡¯t a true mine, it was a Dungeon, and it already existed before that idiot baron decided to mine from it.¡± ¡°Well, now, telling others that might have put the fear o¡¯ the dead inta his workforce. Let¡¯s just call it a fine set o¡¯ volcanic lava tubes, right magical they were, an¡¯ the first great source o¡¯ pyreal for coins an¡¯ magical Gear an¡¯ everything. If there be pyreal coins left o¡¯er from the Fall, the odds are they came out of this mine here, I were told in the past,¡± the Mick replied piously. ¡°Someone explain to me how a volcano pops up AIR Gold, please!¡± I held out my hands and looked up at the sky, providing an excuse for Kris to stop gnawing and join everyone in snickering at me. Briggs used the opportunity to drag Kris lightly off and around him and promptly bite her squarely on the nose. She squealed in mock dismay, and he let her drop, striding on without missing a beat. ¡°There shall be blood!¡± she promised his backside, all eight canines on display with her smile, and indeed, there was a drop of blood coming down from her nose. It was pulled back up and into her nose before we took another dozen steps, and the bite marks thereon completely vanished. Briggs¡¯ ear looked fine, too! ¡°Are we the only chances they get to play outside together?¡± the Mick asked a bit too loudly. ¡°I be feelin¡¯ a mite unimportant right now.¡± ¡°We had to max out the ten Infusions somehow,¡± I noted to him. ¡°We don¡¯t even know what they¡¯ll do yet¡­¡± ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick agreed, his gaze roving over the collection of Lost Light Weapons everyone wielded. ¡°The basic Sword didnae use the Font o¡¯ the Lost Light, an¡¯ also used the old Mana Capacity system. It used the classic four Weapon spells from Item Magic an¡¯ the spells to support yer Sword Skill, upping Strength, Coord, an¡¯ the Skill directly. As ye Infused it, the Sword itself improved, an¡¯ the spells on it increased in tier with it. But it didnae compare to Blades with inbuilt Renders, so few folk bothered to use it. Only the Sword o¡¯ Lost Hope were worth the wielding, even at the end, an¡¯ weren¡¯t that thing an unholy mess o¡¯ Blood Magic making it what it were,¡± he finished astutely, remembering his prior talk with Kris about that thing. AF Chapter 433 – A Scolding at Mount Lethe ¡°The Rending Blade Magic doesn¡¯t work anymore, so we can assume that leaves channels of power untapped that the Lost Light can exploit for the upgrades, and the Blood used channels that were actually reserved for the Font. Likewise, the Mana Capacity Matrix is no longer in place, so we can assume it will be a constant effect more appropriate for the Lost Light,¡± I judged calmly. ¡°You said it improved the Swords, Lord Mick. Base damage back then was a given, something similar to what we do with Profound Weapon. To hit AND damage?¡± ¡°Aye, but not speed¡­¡± He trailed off as he looked down at Bunita¡¯s Kiss, Kris and Commander Briggs having stopped and now staring at it. He glanced up at them, back down to his Claymore, and called out, ¡°Rogar, hand Her Highness yer Glaive now.¡± Startled, the squad leader of the Roaches drew the short-hafted version of Accent from its scabbard and tossed it to Kris, who caught it nimbly and looked it over quickly, tapping on it with her black nails up and down its gleaming blue-back length, the spiraling motes a neutral white. ¡°Well, damn,¡± she muttered, staring at it. She passed it over to Briggs, who likewise tapped it with his thumbs, staring at what was within it, then also shook his head in exasperation and tossed it back to Rogar, who caught it deftly and sheathed it, to much confusion. ¡°Jadework quality?¡± I asked simply, and Kris nodded, holding up two fingers. ¡°Well, wouldn¡¯t that have saved some forging time,¡± Briggs muttered, then his broad face brightened up. ¡°And it will in the future!¡± he pointed out cheerfully. He wouldn¡¯t have to get any of the Weapons of any Knights of the Lost Light to Jadework quality. That was definitely a plus, even to a Natural Smith like him. Also to me, as it meant I wouldn¡¯t have to waste that many more Fabricates on my Staff getting it to Jadework quality, either. ¡°We¡¯ll see if it equals the skill of Her Highness,¡± the Mick sniffed, and Kris grinned in appreciation. ¡°But, aye, a good thing to find out,¡± he had to admit. ¡°Gives ye both time to upgrade me Armor, or sommat!¡± ¡°Everyone raise hands if they now want Armor of the Lost Light, too!¡± I called out, and everyone¡¯s hands shot up, including those of Kris and Briggs. ¡°Maybe we can put in a special request to the Font to upgrade or something¡­¡± ¡°Or feed it a whole lot of Fire Infusions so it can do so?¡± Briggs asked thoughtfully. ¡°Every damn Order o¡¯ knights an¡¯ guards an¡¯ cultists an¡¯ factions an¡¯ whatnot has their own sets o¡¯ Armor,¡± the Mick pointed out righteously. ¡°¡¯Tis only fair, don¡¯t ye think?¡± I glanced at him. ¡°I don¡¯t think the Lost Light would be about shadowslake, Lord Mick,¡± I pointed out as we resumed our course. ¡°You¡¯d likely have to go silverslake!¡± He recoiled from me as if stung. ¡°What? ¡®Tis no fair! ¡®Tis disqualicrimnation against the more intelligent an¡¯ refined martial combatants, ¡®tis! I be filin¡¯ a protest, sure as Aru rises, on behalf of all me unkillable subordinates what use the stuff between their ears more than the average knight!¡± he proclaimed righteously. The Roaches didn¡¯t know whether to be supportive of their teacher, or to roll their eyes again. ¡°I am forced to concur. The Lost Light¡¯s ultimate goal is to stand strong and lead in the light, not strike from the shadows,¡± Princess Kristie admitted over her shoulder, while we headed towards another cluster of banderlings, these ones having orange armor on the Predators. Color-coding for convenience and all¡­ ¡°No wonder the undead didnae like ¡®em,¡± grumbled the Mick. ¡°Like as not blinded ¡®em with all the glitter when fightin¡¯!¡± ¡°The wonders of Devasight never cease proving themselves!¡± Kris agreed with a laugh. Then conversation fell off, although the Mick grumbled with spirit as we kept advancing. ------- ¡°Not near as many Fire Elementals as the Crater, but a lot more Golums around,¡± the Mick remarked as we made our way up towards the crack in the top of Mount Lethe, ignoring the mine entrance for the moment. While it would be interesting to see if there was a final spawn of the Scroll down there, or if the magical waters at the bottom of the mine that wiped memories still flowed, it wasn¡¯t anything urgent to investigate¡­ although I had to wonder about the possibilities of a spring that connected to the mythical River of Forgetfulness, and now understood why it was called Mount Lethe¡­ The Mick¡¯s observation as a Plasma and Vapor Golum were sliced through with cold Weapons from four directions each made Kris glance at him warily. ¡°Really? How many more Golums?¡± she asked carefully. ¡°Because these gas and those magma golums over there seem awful familiar, Lord Mick.¡± He paused a moment, glanced at me. ¡°Weren¡¯t the golums at the Crater a wee bit enhanced too, lass?¡± he asked me carefully. I replayed the spread of creatures inhabiting the active Crater at the lake there, turned my eyes to two spawns of magma golums standing there with another spawn of Diamonds close to the crack, along with two clusters of Fire Elementals. ¡°This might seem strange, Lord Mick, but there were only gas golums of plasma and vapor at the Mt. Esper Crater. There were no magma golums on the landscape at all.¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Huh.¡± He tilted his head slightly. ¡°Apologies. I be mixing things up with the big crater at Tenkarrdun. Stronger magmas all over the place, and diamonds both normal and enhanced older types, too. More to the point, then, are those magmas Summons?¡± he pointed at the trio grimly. I blinked, literally not having been paying too much attention to the fact. Of course they¡¯d be Summons, brought in by whatever Elder Elemental was in charge here¡­ ¡°No,¡± I blinked. ¡°They¡¯re not?¡± The utter lack of Conjuration Magic was a dead giveaway. I¡¯d been focused too much on the air swimming with pyromana to notice without paying strict attention to the fact. ¡°Huh,¡± Kris said, the tip of Quaver rising and starting to hum, the motes of Lost Light frozen crystals swirling about him. ¡°That vapor golum is deflating and leaking, not disintegrating,¡± she pointed out. ¡°Scold is here?!¡± Selena blurted out for everyone¡¯s benefit. ¡°Sir.¡± ¡°And has likely been here for a while if he¡¯s added some minions to the defenses.¡± Briggs had his eyes on the Diamond Golums, Endure still in base hammer form. ¡°As I recall, those things explode if hit with fire at death. Let them vent before we attack, and I don¡¯t think anyone is going to care if you take a frozen lead for us, Ryin.¡± I looked at the two golums, both deflating and coming apart as vivus ate at them rapidly, heavy gasses decompressing and blowing past us as they did so. ¡°Right. Double Shardrays to the magmas, sweeping through all of them. Commander, take out the Diamonds fast. The Elementals will blip out immediately, we¡¯ll only have to Wolfpack the magmas with too much Health.¡± ¡°I hear Chain Frost Vulns an¡¯ Imperils in the breeze!¡± the Mick said cheerfully, turning his ear. The Triadspell of both those spells exploded over the entire assortment of creatures there, bouncing from one to the next in chiming tones of icy blue and pale gray shells of energy ripping out from them, taking down their natural armor and magnifying their vulnerability to cold. They didn¡¯t even get to turn and shoot out spells before the Split Cold Chained Shardrays slammed into them. The enhanced Magma Golums didn¡¯t die, but I ripped a thousand Health off five of them, twice that off one of them, and all of the Elementals blew apart and discorporated. Even the Diamonds, pretty resistant to cold, tottered at the slamming impact of that much frozen fun messing with their energy matrices. Everyone around me was charging, but Endure led the way¡­ and nobody was going to be worrying about the Diamonds, because Briggs¡¯ Hammer bounced between them like a ping-pong ball, scattering frozen shards of crystal all over the side of the volcano before roaring back to his hand. The Magma Golums came striding heavily down to meet everyone, right into a volley of concentrated Icephasing Arrows which had a great time with their double-Debuffed arses. Under those and two Shardings from Kris and the Mick, the more heavily wounded golum didn¡¯t even make it to the fighters, and the rest of the golums found themselves engaged with two Roaches in two teams as the boys played Melees, and Briggs, Kris, and the Mick made a tight little cluster with them, where everyone got to hit at least two of the golums, and Briggs and Kris got to hit three. I added some Cold Darts because I could, making sure not to wince at the cracking of flash-frozen rock splintering and spraying all over the place as the Magma Golums were ripped apart hastily. Cold flames Burned all over them, and I Countered three different attempts to get off Platinum Fire Bolts, because I could. Kris¡¯ went down first, being hit by her, the Mick, and Briggs. Briggs¡¯ went down next, as she moved to help him directly, freeing him up in just seconds more so they could both flank the two golums fighting the Roaches and whittle them down. I popped the Mick¡¯s target twice for him, just to help out some, but he was deftly flash-freezing it down, and his was collapsing before arrow fire and a lot of Weapons brought down the other two. ¡°Hoy de doi, two intact cores!¡± Kris said, grabbing the intact Black Rocks out of the cooling, crumbling remains of the unheated golums with unerring precision, crushing them out of some larger pieces in so doing even before they could fall away. She waved them at me for attention, more high-demand Scarabs to be carved, and then tossed them into her Masspack. I Sifted through the scattered crystals and gemstones dropped by the golums and the Elementals further up the hill, little more than spare change with the volumes of pyreal we were Burning¡­ but the gemstones were actually a form of currency now, given that pyreal was only seeing one use, and if people were hoarding anything, it was the gems that came off the Elementals and golums of this land, the only ¡®fast¡¯ way to make something valuable that didn¡¯t rely on a massive exploit. The crack itself loomed before us, not too long¡­ but there were more Elementals on the other side. These Elementals were REAL Elementals, however, and I took the lead, lighting up my celeste wings and bringing up the Ritual of the Fiery Heart. Everyone else had their Weapons of the Lost Light out as they carefully followed me forward. The Elemental looked like a big, crude tusker made out of fire, and it puffed itself up and pounded on its chest in front of me, as if challenging me to advance. ¡°Do the Elementals of Lethe forget their old promises so easily?¡± I asked calmly in Magevoice. ¡°Or has that little golum who does not belong here been whispering falsehoods and lies to you, and making you forget your Oaths?¡± The Elemental clearly didn¡¯t want to fight me, able to measure my Aura and not finding it hostile, even if a bunch of cold critters were behind me. It could also feel my power, and the fact I could probably just reach out and take absolute control of it if I desired made it extremely wary of me. I waited calmly, staring at the guard, until there was a roar and a rumbling from behind it. The oversized tusker of living flame, easily half-again the size of King Bobo, happily flowed aside on the red-hot ground, and allowed us within. The space inside Mount Lethe was an ersatz courtyard again, not much different in size from that of Mount Esper¡¯s Hellion, although the walls around were the actual volcano, not just a shaped-up extrusion coming out a lake. I lifted an eyebrow at what was waiting there, as the massive humanoid figure with skin like gold and hair of flame was not a true Elemental, although there was little doubt he was a noble of Elemental Fire of sorts, definitely dominating all the Elementals around him with heroic appearance and demeanor. AF Chapter 434 – A Scolding before a Brother ¡°Is that a Sun Brother? Here?¡± Princess Kristie asked, startled at seeing one of the noble myrmidons of Elemental Fire as we filed into the crater/courtyard of Mount Lethe. They were reputed to be some sort of off-shot of Fire Titans and genies or something, powerful warriors with great authority, if fading influence as a race, in the Elemental Realms. Of course, that was back on Luna-Terra and from the game. Who knew what the situation would be with this fellow. The massive Magma Golum, twice the height of a normal one, standing next to the throne of polished basalt and obsidian the Sun Brother was lounging on was immediately identifiable. ¡°YOU!¡± the massive intelligent Golum ground out, pointing with vestigial fingers on its clublike arms. ¡°THESE ARE THE ONES I WARNED YOU OF, PLURINAM ICANDESC! THEY ASSAULTED ME BEFORE WITH ICE AND COLD, AS I WAS GOING ABOUT MY DUTIES OF FIGHTING THE FORCES OF WINTER!¡± ¡°You mean, trying to clean up after the mess your crude snowball Construct made of things, don¡¯t you, Lord Scold?¡± I asked politely as we approached the throne, stopping at a polite distance as the molten eyes of the Sun Brother eyed us with some amusement. My statement did get all the Elementals turning their heads Scold¡¯s way, disbelief and revulsion in their gazes as they did so. ¡°LIES FROM CREATURES OF COLD AND WATER!¡± Scold shot back instantly. ¡°ALL KNOW HOW SLY THE TONGUES OF THE WATERFORMS ARE!¡± ¡°TRUTH.¡± I wasn¡¯t going to waste time on this crap, and every Pyric creature in the crater there rocked, some of them doubling over and clutching their heads as the Word of Creation seared at them¡­ and most especially any recent lies they¡¯d been told by this doofus of a golum in front of me. The Plurinam, a noble rank equal to a Duke or so, clutched his head as glowing snot ran out of his nose, coughing and spitting as what looked like unclean fires were expelled from him. The gaze he turned on the golum had the massive fellow stumbling back awkwardly, already unbalanced as Scold also reeled from the impact of Truth. ¡°A Truthspeaker, in my court,¡± the Sun Brother breathed out in a magnificent voice underscored by the fires of a working bellows. ¡°This is a rare day.¡± ¡°You will have to forgive the golum his lies. He does not understand the duties of the Elements, only his own small experiences that whatever constructed him motivated him into. He does not know that as the earth turns and day after day the sun rises, as the years pass and mountains are ground down, seas move, continents sink and rise again, the earth lives and breathes and changes¡­ but the Fire, and its promises, look down upon them uncaring from the Heavens, and ten millions years may pass, yet still it burns, never wavering.¡± The Sun Brother noble visibly straightened at that image of pure fidelity and unwavering duty. He did not even bother to look at Scold as he said, ¡°Begone from this place, golum. If you think to bring to life things of ice and snow, then you have no place in this court!¡± Eh, no reason to reveal my aptitude with cold, I considered prudently. Scold looked back and forth between us and the Plurinam, but the tensing of the entire Court there was plain enough that if he said anything he was going to be torn apart as just another impure creation of Earth and Fire, and that would be that. ¡°WE WILL SEE ONE ANOTHER AGAIN,¡± he promised us, while taking a wide walk around us and heading with weighty yet energetic strides for the way out, dismissed as he was. -Notify the next group of Knights that go to Mount Esper for Infusions to warn the Hellion there of the sunuvabitch,- I /mentioned to Kris, who promptly did just that. The Sun Brother was now studying us and our revealed Weapons with interest. ¡°You wield the Lost Light. It has been long since true members of the Order came here to Infuse their Blades. Do you believe you are worthy to wield the Light?¡± I frowned at him severely. ¡°You doubt the ability of the Font to choose its wielders, Plurinam?¡± I asked slowly right back at him, while the motes of Lost Light around Crown flared Golden suddenly in response to my sudden doubt. I lifted Crown up as my wings slowly spread. ¡°You are not an original Keeper of the Flames, or you would not voice such a question,¡± I stated grimly, making everyone behind me tense up, and their eyes narrow. Nobody had Frost-Stoned Weapons at the moment because it might be construed as insulting, but they were definitely ready to swap them in instantly. The Sun Brother just laughed at our display. ¡°You are correct, I am not the one who made that promise long ago, but it is one of the duties I must discharge. I would see what valor those who come to bear the Lost Light have, that earned the fires of this place from them as a boon!¡± he proclaimed jovially. I just blinked at him for a moment, wondering if he really was a big doofus just looking to show off and flex on us. I did notice his burning eyes kept flitting to Endure. ¡°Oh, you want a duel and a display of combat skills.¡± I said it in such a bored tone that he raised his eyebrow in surprise. ¡°Your Highness, if you would.¡± I turned around and shooed everyone else off to the side. ¡°Make way for Her Highness,¡± I urged everyone, backing them up with a completely blas¨¦ expression.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Kris happily stepped right on up, her very, very eager smile gleaming off eight canines. This clearly surprised the Sun Brother, who was easily over twice her height. ¡°A female?¡± he said in astonishment, glancing at Briggs. ¡°Do you hide behind a woman, warrior?¡± he promptly challenged Briggs, who froze instantly. The Plurinam was absolutely too self-absorbed to see how Kris¡¯ eyes got very wide and very small at the same time. Those of us with ki, which was all of us and none of his court, felt like a sharp blade was just unsheathed in front of us. Briggs¡¯ expression was pretty flat, too. ¡°Do you want to fight the best fighter among us, or do you want me hitting you with a Hammer, Plurinam?¡± he retorted coolly, his pale green eyes calm and guileless. The Sun Brother leader hesitated, glancing back and forth between them. ¡°And take the Firephasing off that travesty of a Sword you have leaning there, or you¡¯ll do no harm to me at all,¡± Kris broke in icily, a haughty sneer in her voice. ¡°You are not going to harm me with fire.¡± He promptly swept a hand at her, his expression affronted, and a Fireball detonated around her. Well, it tried to. What actually happened is that the streak of fire hit her Null and vanished completely, making him blink, and Kris just snorted in contempt. Kris flicked Quaver out to full length, and oh-so-gently, Quaver began to chime. It sounded like little blades in the ear. Also, he looked at the orange-tinted Gold around the blue-black adamantine of her Blade, that obscene QL it was forged at, the Elemental and Blackfire Stones mounted in it, the way the Runes stabbed at the eyes with their perfection. His jaw dropped at the sight of it, eyes lighting up with desire and admiration. ¡°Oh, you want my Sword. Given how poor your own Blade is, I can understand why. What did you make it from, eshbronze?¡± she sniffed disparagingly, and his embarrassed flush was remarkably easy to see. ¡°My opinion of your skills in smithcraft and aesthetics falls by the second, Plurinam. ¡°I am Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, and I am a Knight of the Lost Light,¡± she stated in no uncertain terms, her eyes dangerously narrowed. ¡°I imagine you have some pride in your fencing skills. Take up that eyesore of a Weapon and be prepared to be instructed on how the Lost Light chooses those who represent it, Plurinam!¡± she ordered him, and he was snatching up the eight-foot Blade before he could stop himself, responding to the arrogance in her voice, and the sudden feeling that she grossly out-ranked him. ¡°If your skills match your spirit, this will be a fine battle, Princess!¡± he declared happily, oozing confidence as he marched out towards her. ¡°If your footwork matched your confidence, it might. Magos?¡± she asked neutrally, lifting Quaver¡¯s perfection against the flaming Sword opposite her, as the Plurinam did the same. ¡°Begin,¡± I waved my hand dismissively. Crackwhack ting OOOF thud. ¡°I told you you¡¯re not going to harm me with Fire. You might as well be waving an illusion at me. Now pick up your Sword, make it a real Weapon, and try again.¡± Teeth grit and clearly embarrassed at the utter lack of an injury across her midriff which she had blatantly left exposed to him, just so she could crack his wrists and force him to drop his Sword, the Plurinam grabbed for his fallen Blade. The swirling bronze shifted from its energy state to something more solid, and the Sun Brother actually looked like he was getting serious. ¡°My apologies for that. This will not go the same way,¡± he promised confidently. ¡°Indeed.¡± ¡°Begin!¡± Shingchingwhingwhine thud. ¡°I told you your footwork was poor. Get up and try again.¡± --- Changwhangcrishcurshchung whirlwhirl chok. ¡°Your grip needs work. Go get your Sword.¡± Which had impaled the back of his throne when she struck it from his hand. ---- Chingwhoop. ¡°Your anger gets the better of you.¡± He stared down the blade inserted into his mouth at her, frozen in mid-swing, her pale violet eyes promising death if he tried anything stupid. ¡°Try again.¡± --- Chongdingwrangwhisk woosh, WAAGH thud. ¡°You are overextending and have problems with your balance. Do you deliberately sabotage your high guard stance?¡± --- Bingdingrooong HUFFF UGH thud. ¡°You aren¡¯t strong enough to beat down my parry. When you get your wind back, try again.¡± ------ Changchangchangchangchang WAAGH ugh, thud. I carefully kept my face very straight as the shocked Plurinam stumbled and fell back on the steps of his throne, clutching at the stump of his overlong Bade, four sections of it now fallen to the ground and embedded in the floor, bright fiery bronze sticking out of the black magma next to fiery cracks. ¡°The worksmanship of your Sword is inferior. You need to get a new one,¡± Kris said in exactly the same dry, dismissive tone she¡¯d used on all her other dozen comments, while the Plurinam stared at her in gaping disbelief. ¡°Next time, get a decent metal. Only pretentious fools make a Sword out of eshbronze. What are you, an ifrit?¡± His shock turned to anger and humiliation at the scolding, especially against the descendants of his racial enemies. But he took another look at Quaver as the Blade shrank and was sheathed behind her, and she looked down at him in both physical and threatening terms. ¡°If you need further convincing, it will be with fists,¡± she informed him coldly, and flexed her fingers. They sounded like rocks cracking, and Golden lines drew over her black nails and reached out, basically tripling the apparent size of her hands. She closed them, and the light-shadows of the fists were bigger than his own. ¡°I am convinced of the validity of the boon given to the servants of the Lost Light!¡± he admitted hastily, holding up his hands. He gave the ornate hilt in his hand a disappointed look, then threw it negligently away. As he rose, he waved to a Hellfire standing carefully back from the fight, blue-white and burning hotly. ¡°Render unto them the tithe of the volcano!¡± he ordered the Elemental, who bowed and swept tendril-like hands out, depositing ten bluish-white containers of liquid Flame Essences before him. Zeks reached out and zipped them into the hands of the Roaches, myself, and Lord Mick. The Plurinam looked startled when neither Kris nor Briggs accepted one, but they did not explain themselves. AF Chapter 435 – Unmoaring the Enemy ¡°Magos, make him a suitable Sword he can empower, and not one of eshbronze,¡± Kris waved at me as she strolled back to us, daring to turn her back on him because she had earned the privilege to do so. Huh. Well, it wasn¡¯t actually that hard¡­ I pulled at the stone around, purifying and stratifying it as I did so. A heavy Sword sized exactly for the fellow, except perhaps a bit broader than the one he¡¯d wielded, flowed slowly up out of the ground, and his burning eyes fixated on it as it did so. It rose higher than I was, standing there with its tip in the ground, and I cast Reed, Rune, Iron, Stone, and Adamant on it, basically turning it into something much harder and naturally sharper than his gem-strewn and overly fanciful Vier-Slotted eshbronze toy. QL 35 out of the gate, too, and that was being made of stone. No innate goldweight value, of course. ¡°Fill it with power, or merely Cast upon it, and it should perform admirably for you, Plurinam.¡± I flicked my hand, and the massive Sword spun end over end across the court of hardened lava to the Sun Brother there. He nabbed it out of the air effortlessly. The instant he did, fires lit up about it and ran along inside it, numerous Runes waiting to be filled with magic becoming obvious. His smile was wide and unfeigned as he stared at his impressive toy, hefting it and testing how it felt. ¡°A fine gift! I shall see how it performs, Magos of the Lost Light!¡± he said loudly. ¡°I shall return on the morrow with more Knight Aspirants, and every day for several more,¡± Kris stated crisply. ¡°I trust that will not be an issue.¡± The Plurinam waved it away. ¡°Such minor draws on the flame of the mountain are inconsequential at best,¡± he said breezily. ¡°We shall await your return, Grandmaster!¡± We all bowed politely following Kris¡¯ example, were dismissed in turn, and headed out of there. --------- ¡°One of us is going to have to accompany every group of aspirants, aren¡¯t we?¡± Briggs grumbled as we headed down the slopes of the mountain towards a clear area nearby. ¡°Ahem!¡± The Mick grumbled and pointed at the entrance to the Mines of Lethe. ¡°You want to go in there?¡± Kris asked, only a little surprised. ¡°Aye. Three, nay, four things.¡± He held up his fingers. ¡°One, the Waters o¡¯ Lethe have to be of interest to our fine alchemist here, and there are NONE in any alchemist storehouse I be knowing, despite retaining its properties if taken from here.¡± I blinked, looked at Kris, and nodded. That alone was worth going in. ¡°Two, if that Mount Lethe Recall spell be in here still, that might be interestin¡¯ as a model for spells we could Recall to other tied places. There used to be nigh a dozen o¡¯ the damn things, an¡¯ now there be none that we know working properly. Even the Undead seem to be using extant Portals to send an¡¯ receive their ¡®porters.¡± ¡°Huh,¡± a bunch of us said at the same moment. None of the natives except him had ever used such things, so they didn¡¯t spring to mind. ¡°Three, this were a pyreal mine. It might just still be viable, for one reason or another, or it might be summat different now. A survey of the place be sounding reasonable, an¡¯ there be no reason we can¡¯t clear the place an¡¯ Seal it if we be liking to.¡± Which was also true. I could plug a lot of the mines in very little time if that was appropriate. ¡°Four, there were a curse or something associated with the place, the undead messing about in it, an¡¯ it probably be time to break that or summat, I be thinkin¡¯.¡± Everyone was nodding as the Mick brought down his fourth finger. ¡°Good thinking all around, Lord Mick,¡± Commander Briggs stated firmly. ¡°Let¡¯s do a clear, but not before.¡± He pointed at Rogar. ¡°Lieutenant, use the Infusion and let¡¯s see the results.¡± Rogar hauled out his short-hafted Glaive and dutifully took up the Infusion of blue-white fires, then slowly poured the Fires of Lethe over the adamantine of Accent. The spirals of Lost Light converged on the falling viscous flames, brightening noticeably. They zipped in and out of the Infusion, diving into the Glaive in little sparkles of flame, and rapidly covered it in a short sheath of blue-white, gentle flames that sank slowly into the dark metal, turning it more darkly blued than black. Kris held out her hand as Rogar lifted up his Glaive, clearly transformed somehow, and he passed it over to her. She took it, examined it, handed it up to Briggs, who then passed it to the Mick and I to examine. ¡°Interesting.¡± Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ========= Accent, Named Heavy Glaive of the Lost Light, Twice-Infused Damage: 3-18 (Profound Weapon, 4-32) Bonus To Hit: +III Bonus to Damage: +III Slotted Powers: Greater Soulbound (Rogar Tagelsir), Vivic, Blooding, Enmity to Evil, Bane of Legends, Blessed Unslotted Powers: Morphing, Subtlety, Impervious, Defender Quality Level: 40 (Hardened and Full-Temp Adamantine with blueslake) Hardness: Base 52 + 4x Enhancement Hit Points: Base 160 + 40x Enhancement. Blackfire Gems: Minor, Major (+2 to hit/+4 to damage) Elemental Stones: Prismatic Stone Currently Slotted (Armor Cleaving, Elemental Slayer) Forger: Kristie Rantha Namer and Bound Wielder: Rogar Tagelsir =============== Rogar gripped it, sending Soul Essence into it as it sprouted to its full length of eight feet in his grasp, Electrum soulfire igniting around the arc of its head. Pointedly, the bonus to hit and damage only increased to +IV. ¡°It improved a die class in damage,¡± he reported, the rush of his Essence through it telling him completely how it had improved and changed. ¡°The, ugh, Jadework bonus is now +III instead of the +II it was before. And the Defender ability is new,¡± he reported for his fellow Roaches. ¡°Och, free Defender at will?¡± The Mick had already drawn Bunita¡¯s Kiss and was reaching for his Infusion. ¡°If I¡¯m willing to take the penalty to hit, that¡¯s a fine cheap Slot for free, all!¡± ¡°No one turns down more defense when needed,¡± I agreed, lifting my own Infusion. ¡°Bets on Guardian when we get the next one?¡± I asked everyone, but there were no takers. The next few minutes were spent carefully treating Weapons of the Lost Light and improving them to Twice-Infused, admiring the new blued hue of the adamant before stowing them all once more. ¡°Let¡¯s go relax in the Dungeon, eh, mine, and see what¡¯s to be seen in it,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°Lord Mick, if you¡¯ve got a map, now¡¯s the time to put it up in Markspace. If not, no worries.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve a rough one, but it¡¯s been years, Commander,¡± the Mick said seriously, ¡°an¡¯ we don¡¯t know what might have changed in inhabitants or layout. I be thinking both have upgrades.¡± Everyone took that with straight faces. ¡°Well, then, let¡¯s try out Cold for starters, and switch if we need it,¡± Briggs suggested, and most everyone complied, swapping in Elemental Stones. I didn¡¯t, because I wasn¡¯t going to fight anything. The Mines of Mount Lethe beckoned, and Lord Mick cheerfully led the way in. -------- ¡°MEATBAGS! AGAIN YOU DARE TO THWART ME!¡± The massive molten arm with the crude fingers was shaken at us in volcanic outrage. ¡°THERE SHALL BE A RECKONING WHEN NEXT WE MEET!¡± Kris was charging him, but Scold didn¡¯t give her the chance to catch him. Once again, he took the course of discretion, jumping off the bridge into the active lava below, and plunged directly out of sight in the stuff, like it was water instead of really heavy liquid stone. Everyone had that sort of special expression of exasperation on their faces you get when the trash-talking poser you really want to put down somehow manages to run away from you right in front of your eyes, and you really can¡¯t do anything about it. Then the floor lurched under us. ¡°Everybody out!¡± I exclaimed, whipping up the Dimension Door. There was no hesitation as everyone piled through the standing dark rectangle of vertical space. Kris was second-to-last through, and simply tugged me along after her as she raced past me and plunged through the Dim Door. We were outside and down the hill, right on top of one of the spawn zones we¡¯d cleared a few hours earlier. Kris rolled once with me in her arms, sank all the inertia, and was up on her feet and setting me on mine before I could do much more than take a breath. There was a pulse under our feet. The white around us hissed and sank into the soil. ¡°Spawn point released!¡± I indicated, as fwzoop, suddenly there were six drudges in black and brown skin hues around us, with colorful yellow and red war paint dabbed all over them. For some reason, everyone still had Weapons in hand. There was a moment of rather radical violence, me popping a Drudge in the face with Darts and sending it stumbling haplessly into Kris, who promptly relieved it of its head in the midst of chopping through three others in a bloody whirlwind. The ground lurched this time, not just a pulse in the manafield, and there was a rumble and crack and roar up on top of the flattened mesa leading up to the caldera. I flicked up an Eagle¡¯s Vantage and sent it skyward as I sat down on Selena¡¯s Disk, and without any hesitation the Senior Melees were dragging the Roaches and I directly away. ¡°Hole collapsing around the mine entry, crater forming below as the rocks shatter,¡± I relayed, moving the view into the Markspace so everyone could watch the hole forming as the ground fell away. Violent liquid red was spurting up from below under high pressure, but it wasn¡¯t doing so with the violence of a full eruption. Our extraction path now had idiot spawns atop it as the vivic Seals were broken by the energy surge, so there was some light exercise happening as we withdrew. ¡°The fucker did it just so we¡¯d have a harder time coming back for Infusions, right?¡± Kris snarled, disposing of a yowling Banderling Thrasher with an irritated blur of a crackling Quaver. ¡°Er, ye did notice we did kill all his pet golums an¡¯ trashed at least three more o¡¯ his odd machines, right?¡± the Mick remarked, impaling his own banderling opponent, wincing extravagantly as the second of Brigg¡¯s swings from Endure sent his opponent flying just as far as his first victim had. ¡°Details, details! He¡¯s a malicious little bastard I¡¯m going to have fun reducing to pebbles!¡± she promised loudly. ¡°He definitely has a great sense of self-preservation,¡± Briggs agreed cheerfully. ¡°I think we¡¯re too used to fighting Summons and other things that all think they are coming back from the dead,¡± he mused gravely, shouldering Endure as he turned back to look at the mesa a safe half-mile away, a geyser of leaping lava bubbling at the top of it and leading to a lavaflow going down to the north out of line of sight from here. ¡°Aye, me first action on learning I¡¯d be having to fight either o¡¯ ye would be t¡¯ withdraw to a very safe distance an¡¯ hopefully leave the area,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°Scold¡¯s a sniveling bully, aye, but he¡¯s definitely not dumb!¡± The Roaches all agreed with that sentiment heartily. None of them had any desire to fight the Hag Princess or Warlord Commander, either. ¡°How¡¯s the tally of our haul?¡± Kris asked, miffed but willing to let it all slide for now. I pulled out the two copies of the Scroll we¡¯d found, and started teasing one of them open carefully, then stopped. ¡°Null up, please.¡± A bit surprised, Kris extended her Null over me, and I unrolled the Scroll fully. AF Chapter 436 – He who Fights and Runs Away, lives to Loot another Day ¡°Aye, that¡¯s smart,¡± Lord Mick spoke up quickly at my odd request that was confusing the others. ¡°Used t¡¯ be, if a Scroll held a spell ye didnae know, just reading it would destroy the Scroll an¡¯ teach the spell to ye. Good sense, lass.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± I eyed the diagrams and glyphs inscribed on the thing. ¡°This definitely has Empyrean principles that are not covered in basic Isparian Magic. No wonder they were lost in the Fall and couldn¡¯t be replicated. The principles are very different in some aspects, and the Diamond Scarabs required are only the start of them.¡± ¡°Aye, what why ye had t¡¯ get it translated by Harlune himself first t¡¯ gain it,¡± the Mick nodded. ¡°Summat ye can work with?¡± he inquired. I tapped three of the sigils on the sheet. ¡°These are the key markers. I think they are referring to three-space coordinates relative to the Henges, using them as reference points to a place of power here. There must be a major ley line running under the volcano, and its junction is the actual target of the spell.¡± I eyed the Scroll carefully, then slowly tilted my head. With a hint of exasperation, I turned it sideways, stared at it, rubbed my eyes a moment, then turned it fully upside-down as everyone watched curiously, completing the circle with two more turns. ¡°The spell is different depending what angle you read it from. No wonder everyone lost it from memory, it has fourth-dimensional components to it!¡± I snorted, rolling the thing back up and depositing both copies back into my Masspack, Kris dropping her Null thereafter. ¡°Waters o¡¯ Lethe useful?¡± the Mick asked, contemplating our haul. ¡°Not directly to Empyrean Magic, but Matrix Magic could do some rather nasty stuff with it, yes,¡± I confirmed, glancing over at the big Shaped stone barrel riding the Mick¡¯s Disk. ¡°It also offers some interesting possibilities, as where the River Lethe flows, it means the River Mnemosyne exists.¡± The Mick blinked. ¡°Yes, the name of those memory-tokens of the undead is not an accident. They likely made them using the water of Lethe¡¯s opposite number¡­ or, if you use the principle of opposition, the Waters of Lethe itself.¡± I paused, thinking about that. ¡°Yes, that sounds logical, pulling out the memories and holding it inside a devoted container. It also would explain the intense undead affinity down in the mines.¡± ¡°Both Earthfire and Firestone Obsidian behind the pyreal veins,¡± Kris murmured, looking at the geyser of lava in the distance. ¡°Will the lava ruin that, Ryin?¡± ¡°It might upgrade the Fire aspect of both of them more. If it¡¯s hot enough to melt them, we may get more Blackfire Obsidian in there.¡± Zeks pulled the hunks of rock out of my Masspack, and sent them over to Kris promptly. We all waited patiently as she flicked up Gold-Rainbow soulclaws over her black nails and started to carving them with great speed. The magical energies in each of them would thwart Shaping Stone, which didn¡¯t work on truly magical materials, and what existed at the heart of those rocks was truly magical. The surrounding rock fell away, and the gleaming ebon-and-crystalline white glow of a Minor Blackfire Stone glittered in her hand. ¡°Are we going to have to THANK the bastard when we run inta him again?¡± the Mick offered up as Kris set the Stone aside and started on the next lump of rock. ¡°If those machines made to condense mana are still under the lava and working, probably,¡± I answered him, much to his surprise. ¡°They are the things making this possible. The Caulcano is much, much bigger than what is going on here, and could condense the gemstones naturally¡­ although we haven¡¯t gone back to see if more have formed, and I somehow doubt there¡¯s a mechanism in place to do so.¡± ¡°Wait a moment,¡± the Mick said, waving his hand dramatically. ¡°The Behemoth in Tenkarrdun coughs up multiple Black Boulders, what spit out the Minor Blackfire Stones when given to a Stone Collector¡­ shortcutting what Her Highness be doing, aye?¡± he asked me. ¡°Correct¡­¡± I nodded. ¡°The Behemoth were a guaranteed drop o¡¯ the things, a Boss-type creature, not a random Summons. So, it were made as much as Summoned inta being, an¡¯ had ten o¡¯ those things inside it,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°Was it really ten Blackfire Stones more dangerous?¡± I had to ask, wondering. His mouth opened and closed, working a moment as he considered that odd power ranking. ¡°No?¡± he finally asked hesitantly. ¡°Make a note that such is probably not the case anymore.¡± He winced at that call from me. ¡°So noted. Aye, that could be a wicked surprise if not pointed out. Er, two points.¡± He waggled his fingers again. ¡°There be Major Stones in Aerefalle¡¯s Trove, down in her personal chambers. Assuming they weren¡¯t created out o¡¯ nothing, wouldnae that imply that the Forges o¡¯ Tenkarrdun made them as a side effect o¡¯ firing up an¡¯ working?¡± I tilted my head in thought. ¡°There weren''t a lot of notes on what exactly firing up the volcano actually DID, especially since it soon overloaded and the material changes to the environment went away so quickly. What exactly did they forge and make there? Just pyreal items? Nobody knows what the golums are actually programmed to make, nor the default machines.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Except the Control Bar an¡¯ the Bellows, p¡¯raps,¡± the Mick nodded, referring to the devices need to temporarily fire up the Tenkarrdun machinery again. ¡°Point two, if Scold duplicated that, how did he learn how t¡¯ do so? I can¡¯t believe a random golum, however bright, duplicated the effects o¡¯ one o¡¯ the grandest Empyrean magical devices around so easily.¡± We all looked at one another. ¡°That,¡± Mizaya pointed out, ¡°is drawing an uncomfortable line to the fact Scold may have visited Aerlinthe Island and seen the machinery there?¡± she hazarded. I put a hand to my forehead. ¡°Now I¡¯m going to have to dig down into Mount Ingot and see if that was what he was making there. Thanks loads!¡± I muttered. ¡°Source o¡¯ Blackfire Stones be worth it?¡± the Mick asked, as the last dregs crumbled from another rock under Kris¡¯ ministrations and revealed another Minor Blackfire Stone. ¡°And the mechanisms might be duplicated and replicated,¡± I reminded him, which pursed the lips of everyone. ¡°If you recall, I didn¡¯t get enough time to really examine the devices deeper in his original lair.¡± ¡°And the ones here seemed significantly more advanced¡­¡± Selena recalled quickly. ¡°More, I don¡¯t know? Precise? Located properly?¡± ¡°If the devices survive, then that¡¯s a plus for us. If the golum has been to Aerlinthe Island, that¡¯s more worrisome,¡± Briggs pointed out. ¡°Has anyone been in the Crater Forges since Mount Ingot blew to check on matters?¡± Everyone looked at Mick, who just made a face and lifted his hands. ¡°That would be a no, then. Is there an area with open lava in there?¡± Briggs asked grimly. The Mick blinked. ¡°Aye, back near the end o¡¯ the place, where ye had to retrieve the bellows from¡­¡± His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ¡°Would Scold even know the bellows were important?¡± he had to wonder. ¡°Meaning that he¡¯s seen the machinery at Tenkarrdun, but he¡¯s never seen it in operation, especially since the Fall?¡± I asked for emphasis. The Mick nodded slowly. ¡°Damn bellows just sits there. No indication it¡¯s important.¡± ¡°As I recall, the kick-up from activating the machinery at Tenkarrdun also causes a pyromana surge at Lethe and the Crater¡­ but not at the Singularity Caul?¡± Briggs glanced at me. ¡°They might be on different ley lines, or the Caul is simply too far away. Don¡¯t forget Linvak Tukal and Mount Ingot should experience surges now, too.¡± ¡°That is also true. Do you know the travel paths of the ley lines now? I presume Master Harlune is familiar with them.¡± Everyone was curious about that detail. ¡°As you might imagine, that is very sensitive information, especially since the Fall. I will ask him. I¡¯m guessing there¡¯s an outgoing flow from Aerlinthe that passes through the Crater and Lethe, and the Yalain tapped it at both other locations. The Singularity Caul might not be on the line¡­ or it might well be on the line, but was too far away before. Aerbax may have used that to his benefit.¡± I tapped the Blackfire Stones mounted on Crown. ¡°The Caulcano didn¡¯t cough up Blackfire Stones before, either.¡± ¡°Very good point,¡± Briggs conceded. ¡°Especially having a higher energy flow than expected that Aerbax could tap into¡­¡± ¡°Ley lines vent energy as well as give it, balancing the system out rapidly. This will cool off quickly, but it will give me time to investigate Mount Ingot. We¡¯ve been holding off clearing the Caul because of the shades and virindi so active there, but we might need to go in there again soon.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s hope they don¡¯t unite again against a common foe, namely us,¡± Rogar pointed out with a sigh. ¡°We¡¯ve been building for Moarsman Island, so a return trip will have to wait until after,¡± Kris interposed. ¡°Any additional discoveries on that end?¡± I asked them. ¡°They have a way of pulling moarsman into the island via Portals, and so bypassing the Shoreward,¡± Briggs said grimly. ¡°There¡¯s far too many of them shuffling around the place that aren¡¯t Summons, and the place was thick with Summons before.¡± ¡°I trust they are coming out of the temple complex, then,¡± I could only sigh. ¡°There¡¯s no way to take that temple unless the incoming Portals are shut down. We could end up fighting every moarsman in the ocean that bows to T¡¯Thuun.¡± Briggs did not look enthusiastic at the idea. ¡°Potentially a lot of moarsman,¡± I groaned, looking from him to Kris. ¡°Stealth ops, or a raid?¡± ¡°Temple complexes in Matrix worlds have this habit of being selective about what they allow access in dimensionally,¡± Briggs noted with a dangerous gleam in his eye. ¡°Forbiddance, with a key to the Wards, yes,¡± I confirmed, everyone but Kris looking at me as if I¡¯d taken away their favorite toy. ¡°Let¡¯s assume that an actual powerful temple complex has such an upgrade. That means no Teleporting in or out without access to the Ward,¡± Briggs proposed. ¡°So, we need stealth ops, THEN a raid. As long as we recover at least one Ward key, I can transport however many are needed.¡± ¡°There be four minor an¡¯ the main temple there,¡± the Mick said carefully. ¡°I be assuming that forces could be brought in at any o¡¯ them?¡± Briggs could only nod. ¡°It¡¯s not confirmed, but it¡¯s what we believe.¡± ¡°Method three. What if we brought down a whole section of the Shoreward?¡± I asked. ¡°Why would that be¡­¡± Briggs trailed off slowly. ¡°You¡¯d be letting in The Deep¡­¡± ¡°Moarsmen do have a language and can be communicated with. They, in turn, could be passing word onto the sleeches and nefanes, and the other minions of the Deep. It could whelm the army for us, and it doesn¡¯t really care about the lives of its servants that much.¡± Briggs considered that solemnly, and the Mick spoke up again. ¡°The Deep has never made a move t¡¯ secure any kind o¡¯ footing on the land. It actually be kind o¡¯ miffed at its servants who have wandered onto land an¡¯ been snared by the System. We dinnae have to worry about it taking an¡¯ holding any o¡¯ the lands, in me opinion. An¡¯ there be lots of evidence it loathes T¡¯Thuun, especially its habit o¡¯ Blighting everything under the sun.¡± ¡°Master Oswald has been leading the teams across the north to clear out any Blighted they see. We¡¯re hoping that if that island is cleared, it will break T¡¯Thuun¡¯s grip on Dereth completely¡­¡± Briggs trailed off when he saw the Mick shaking his head. ¡°Are we missing something, Lord Mick?¡± he asked patiently. ¡°Be Blighted Pyreal Golems all over Aerlinthe Island, last time I were there. That be meaning Lady Aerefalle herself be using its services,¡± the Mick informed him apologetically. Briggs reached up to massage his temples. ¡°I get more irritated with her all the time, it seems¡­¡± AF Chapter 437 – Moar Alternatives ¡°I can bring up an Archway to breach the Shoreward with about an hour. Illusions concealing it should be a minor matter. If you think you can arrange an army, it¡¯s our best bet for breaking the forces of T¡¯Thuun, and getting ALL of its remaining forces in one place to die. The forces called in aren¡¯t reinforcements, they are additional meals for the Deep¡¯s forces,¡± I proposed to Commander Briggs. ¡°Once the forces are annihilated, we can bring down the temples, and the Deep¡¯s forces might even help with it,¡± Briggs agreed slowly. ¡°Is there a convenient way to speak with the Deep?¡± ¡°Aye,¡± the Mick piped up again. ¡°Two, actually, but one be much easier to get to.¡± He flicked up his own map of Dereth and the surrounding islands with a Holo, and then zoomed in to the northeast. A point of light lit up between two of the islands up there, both very well-explored in the past, and both of them were very, very dangerous places to go wandering about on back then, too. ¡°This be a shrine o¡¯ sorts to the Deep, set up t¡¯ encourage Isparians t¡¯ go hacking about an¡¯ kill everything on the Dark Island there. The other were located on Vissidal hereabouts, an¡¯ were a mite more dangerous t¡¯ get ta, being surrounded by dozens o¡¯ Summons enslaved t¡¯ the System an¡¯ all.¡± The second light in the middle of the once-sunken island wasn¡¯t encouraging, probably an undersea shrine caught in the rise and lifted up to the surface. ¡°That should not be that hard to get to, and the only ones who¡¯ve been anywhere near Vissidal post-Fall that I know of are Master Oswald and Ulgrim. We can check out his merwarts on the way to the shrine, if it still stands,¡± Princess Kristie commented. ¡°Oh, good. I thought we were going to go on an impotent rampage across Moarsman Island in mad frustration that we couldn¡¯t take them out,¡± I breathed out. Briggs cocked an eyebrow at me. ¡°Who says we aren¡¯t? It would make a fine diversion, wouldn¡¯t it? Especially if we did it at speed?¡± I clamped my mouth shut, looking wounded. ¡°You¡¯d just alert them that we¡¯re going to attack!¡± I said. ¡°Yesssss¡­ and they¡¯ll have all their priests ready to promptly open Portals and bring in lots and lots of help quickly afterwards, right?¡± he grinned shamelessly. ¡°Rampaging slash-and-hack, and just as quickly retreating.¡± I considered the tactic. ¡°It¡¯ll definitely spook them and put them on high alert, particularly if word of your extermination campaign reaches them. As you say, the more the merrier once the Deep moves.¡± ¡°Then that¡¯s our next move.¡± We all paused to watch the third stone fall away, and another Minor Stone was revealed under Kris¡¯ fingers. ¡°Figure the morning after next. I¡¯d like you to do that exploration of Mount Ingot if you can, tomorrow.¡± ¡°Oh, sure. Got nothing better to do on my plate than that,¡± I grumped, but it was true, I really didn¡¯t. If I could find the design to condense Blackfire Stones like those in the proper environment, that was a hellaciously good resource to have. ------ Our Blackfire Stone haul turned out to be all Minor Blackfire Stones, which was a bit disappointing after the Caulcano, but also somewhat expected. All in all, it meant that the next morning, I was standing on the slopes of Mount Ingot near the main tunnel entry to Scold¡¯s old lair, which was totally eaten away and filled with still-hot magma that had flowed out from it in quite a mass, spilling down the mountainside. The top of the mountain was still hot enough that no snow or ice was condensing, despite the proximity to Frosthaven and the adorable little Snowmen and their colorful cottages in the distance. It turned out the Snowmen were good at raising the various plants that grew in icy terrain, like snow lilies. Who knew? They didn¡¯t know the value of the stuff, but King Borelean had stepped in and was giving them a fair value for their goods, which to the Snowmen meant colorful banners, more statues, flag, pennants, ornamental ribbons, frescoes, murals, ice-carving contests, and all sorts of silly little fun stuff to do that made the place a travel destination for those who could move about the land easily and knew of it. Good for them. They were simple little things that just wanted to be happy and have fun, after all. I was also pretty sure that there were at least a dozen more than there used to be, as I didn¡¯t remember so many snow cottages. I think they started increasing after the families started bringing their children there. ¡°Everyone ready?¡± I asked Kris and Master Harlune, who had renewed another of their intermittent discussions on the more sophisticated Rune structures on armaments while standing there. How could I NOT have the foremost expert on Item magic and Empyrean Artifice we knew coming along? He was rather excited himself, as he¡¯d never been able to get a good look at the buried Yalain Artifice that worked in Tenkarrdun, so this would be a good thing to learn. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. I brought the air temperature down to -50 F, which instantly frosted even the hot magma, at least on the surface. Double layers of Cold Protection/Resist joined the Fire versions of same, and I began to Shape the stone ahead of me. We were starting at the entryway so I could exactly duplicate the position of the arcane mechanisms we¡¯d seen down in Scold¡¯s lab. If they were buried in lava, it didn¡¯t actually matter as long as their positions hadn¡¯t changed much, and they were designed to draw on the power of the fire in the magical magma, they weren¡¯t going to be harmed by it. The black magma cooled off ahead of me as I Shaped it out of the way, although it rapidly heated back up behind us. Kris was actually in front, reading the stone with her Tremblesense, and thus able to sense any fractures which could turn into a gas chamber or lava vent and really make things uncomfortable for us. Like, blown out of the tunnel on a jet of super-heated steam uncomfortable. That, naturally enough, was exactly what we ran into as we came down to the level of the original mines. ¡°Big space, lots of superheated air behind here,¡± Kris judged, patting the smooth wall between us and it. ¡°There¡¯s actually a lot of pressure here, don¡¯t get any thinner than ten feet. Do you have a way to vent it?¡± she asked me. I looked up to the ceiling, and a circular pipe a foot across formed itself from the stone at the touch of Crown, and then zipped up back and behind us nearly three hundred feet to the opening above and beyond. I made the walls of it six inches thick, then extended it through in a narrow hole only a centimeter wide into the gas chamber beyond. We all heard the squeal and felt the stone tremble as the superheated air found the hole and began to vent in that direction with speed. I smoothly Shaped it wider even as erosion from air moving VERY fast did the same thing, and the squeal became a trembling roar as a whole lot of very hot air rocketed up and past us. Up at the entry, a blowtorch hundreds of feet long vented up into the air, doubtless visible for miles. Harlune bent down to my ear, his voice carrying easily over the howl. ¡°The magicks that kept the air of the mine breathable should still be in effect, so this should be safe once the built-up pressure is vented,¡± he told me, and I nodded understanding. Obviously this place had been more than a mine, if that level of magic was invested in it, and when the Dungeon-makers had unlimited funding, was that a surprise at all? --- In a surprisingly short period of time a whole lot of high-pressure air was vented out, and the pressure dropped enough that Kris indicated I could slowly slide the stone out of the way. We all stood to one side as the wall opened, and a hurricane-force wind of incredibly hot air exploded up and past us, heading for the exit above and equalization, courtesy of Queen Physics. That wind, died down too, as there wasn¡¯t much incoming to keep the process going, and I pulled the rest of the stone out of the way, increasing the airflow and reducing the wind as I did so, until we could walk in against what was basically a very hot, stiff breeze. Harlune was actually the one most at risk here, as he relied totally on magical protection to endure what was surely lead-melting temperatures. Kris and I were completely immune to Fire, even this level of heat. My Control Temperature 20¡¯r dealt with some of it, but that was enough to like reduce the stones under our feet to not-red, which promptly heated back up as soon as we moved. Five hundred degrees of temperature control wasn¡¯t what it used to be, I guess. I vaguely recognized the walls of where we¡¯d come out before, although the stone was soft and running, and the whole side to the left of us was now occupied by seething magma whose crust was barely solid. Harlune was wisely sitting on a Disk, with a Flight spell as backup, and neither Kris nor I were touching the ground. The Holo of the layout popped up, and Kris led the way as we moved slowly through the former mine. --- I had to Shape a path through four obstructions of lava that had filled in the rooms and hallways ahead of us, some sort of magic from the Dungeon actually managing to keep a few chambers and passages totally clear of anything. We made it without further incidence to the chamber with the first columns and Crafted pillars with great anticipation, when Kris ground to a halt. Her hand had been on Quaver¡¯s hilt, and now she drew him. Icy motes glittered in the scarlet light of the heat around us, fighting it back. ¡°There¡¯s something inside the lava ahead of us,¡± she pointed ahead of us. I held out my left hand, and Primus gleamed. ¡°Come forth, don¡¯t force me to come in after you,¡± I stated calmly at the lava, reaching out to the Elemental presence there, and finding it. An amorphous blob heaved itself out of the crusted magma like a bubble rising on water, pouring itself out in crimson and black, pseudopods working the air about itself absently, maintaining contact with the wall of red-hot magma behind it as it formed up. ¡°True Magma Para-Elemental, not the false things that wander around on Dereth,¡± I informed Master Harlune before he could ask, Primus glowing and Elemental Command very active as Kris made sure not to get between us. It probed the edge of my Control Temperature, and immediately flinched back as the red-veined tip of the tentacle went completely black. Its rumblings and writhing motions translated angrily as, ¡°What do cold things here?¡± ¡°This is not your home, and you ask us what we are doing here?!¡± I immediately retorted to it, my skin going red and wings extending to the full celeste glory behind me. ¡°We are here to investigate some of the magical creations in the chambers beyond you, and then we will depart! If you think you are going to impede us, then I will show you how we deal with invaders and trespassers on our territory!¡± The Magma Elemental actually withdrew partly into the red-hot stone behind itself in the face of my anger. ¡°Meant no harm, no disrespect!¡± it bubbled and flailed quickly, as I definitely became a Hot One, Elemental Command giving it a very clear idea of just how quickly I could overwhelm the thing. ¡°Inform your brethren that we will be passing through, but we will not harm them if they do not make nuisances of themselves,¡± I said loftily. ¡°Away, and do not bother us!¡± I ordered it. AF Chapter 438 – Secrets of Mount Ingot The Magma Elemental was glad to ooze its way back into the near-molten stone, rather more quickly when I bent my will upon it and it Shaped out of my path like flowing water, shoving the Magma Elemental along with it. ¡°Nice! Has that thing got all the bells and whistles on it yet?¡± Kris asked, the hot stone cooling almost to black as we stepped through the narrow hallway, getting down almost to below boiling. ¡°No. The proper way to make one is the Elemental Command powers first, then the primary Ring magic after it, then the various secondary powers. If you¡¯re a paranoid overachiever like someone, you add all the possible Elemental Commands you can now, while they stack and they are cheap. Base Elemental, Para, Quasi. It¡¯s a lot to empower and adapt up.¡± Like, literally years worth of daily Karma Infusion to a Ring! ¡°I see.¡± She did. Layers on layers of Gear improvement were exactly what she was doing, too. The amount of Naming Karma put into Quaver alone was just ungodly at this point, and getting the Protections on her Necklace up to VII had not been cheap at all! Master Harlune asked quietly, ¡°Ryin, I am not familiar with such a Ring. What are you referring to as ¡®Elemental Command¡¯?¡± I lifted up Primus for him to glance at on my left forefinger, opposite Zeks. ¡°This is a Ring of Primal Elemental Command, as opposed to Air Elemental Command, or Fire Elemental Command, or whatever, Master Harlune. It does not have the extra powers of the lesser Rings yet, but it allows me to communicate with and bear power over all kinds of Elementals. This works even against the Faux Elementals of the island here, so it has proven quite useful at times, particularly when I have to fight them.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Master Harlune¡¯s glowing eyes glittered. ¡°It also means you are wearing THREE active Rings¡­¡± ¡°I can wear four. So will you, when you reach Twelve in Artificer, Master Harlune.¡± ¡°Indeed?¡± He was immediately looking forward to it. ¡°I think we have reached the first of our objects of study¡­¡± There was indeed one of the Rune-carved pillars in this room, rising up into the ceiling on the edge of a lava pool that had once been twenty feet below it. We strolled forwards inside our little bubble of only beyond-boiling temperatures and walked up to the side of it. Kris reached up to tap the side of it, instantly replicating its internal structure in Markspace, refining it with every additional tapping. Master Harlune walked up to it and put his hands on it, sending magical energy through it and paying careful attention to the Rune configurations and how the powers moved. A nice picture of just how everything was moving in it began to take place rapidly. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean the rest of Kris¡¯ Trembling Domain was ignoring the area. The Icy Greater Shards snapped up next to me like javelins as another amorphous form lurched out of the pool of lava towards us. It had no Elemental presence, and was nothing of the sort, concealed by the lava until it was extremely close¡­ but I could feel a dozen other Elementals in the walls nearby, watching this and seeing how we responded. Cold would have been ideal, but I decided making an impression was more important. Fires beyond Fire, Flames taken in three different profound directions condensed down into a Shardray hotter than the meaning of physical heat, and Split into two Rays that drove right into the Lava Ooze about to take a swing at Kris. A creature that soaked in the pools of elemental magma Burned away as star-bright flames ignited inside it and expanded, taking the cracking-lava structure of its massive body with it as they did. The reaching tentacle burned away to less than ash, and not only was a massive hole left in the lava, it continued down and onward in a pair of tight cylinders for some distance, actually fusing the lava solid! I hadn¡¯t even bothered looking at the thing, standing by and letting the two of them do what they needed to do. The watching presences in the walls and pool, just points of heat amid the cracks and sullen glow of the lava, slowly withdrew at the display of a fire hot enough to Burn them away, body and soul, and leave not a trace of them behind. ¡°I make no allowance for pests, but we don¡¯t have to worry about Elementals testing us,¡± I informed them firmly. ¡°Because my Flames are even more effective against them than a mindless ooze,¡± I added in Pyric for them to hear. The Elemental presences withdrew even further. --------- ¡°Quite a clever fellow,¡± Harlune commented as we completed our exam and replication of the sixth column. ¡°Two parallel series, working to concentrate the flow of energy. Fascinating to see its comprehension increase with each column it put up.¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Agreed. Complexity, purity, harmony increased with each pillar,¡± Kris nodded along as we stood before Scold¡¯s final chamber, now completely plugged by a wall of solid magma. Unafraid, she rapped on the stone, reading the impressions. ¡°Over twenty feet thick. Slow and steady, Ryin.¡± The solidified lava slowly parted before me, feeling like slick grease or mud compared to the solid stone I usually Shaped. Kris was out ahead, pacing it. We got in forty feet before she held up her hand and I stopped. ¡°Open space beyond, but LOTS of pressure there. More than on our original entry." I plotted out our location relative to the surface, and tapped Crown against the side of the chamber. A minute later there was a roar and rumble from the chamber on the other side. Both of my companions looked at me inquiringly. I flicked up the map and showed them the vent I¡¯d established from the room to the surface, a good meter square and so capable of venting a lot more pressure very quickly from there. ¡°A lot hotter, too,¡± Kris added matter-of-factly. ¡°The major ley line confluence is in there, and there were four pillars in there and two pedestals, as I recall¡­¡± ¡°Tch. You forgot to mention that this is basically a ruined Dungeon and that¡¯s the final room.¡± Harlune blinked and looked at me inquiringly. ¡°Not much of a Delver, Master Harlune?¡± I asked with a smile. ¡°I¡¯ve seen my fair share of battle and political intrigue, sickening as it all is, but rote plunging into Dungeons was never really my thing,¡± he replied without apology. ¡°The Mite Maze?¡± I had to ask. ¡°You don¡¯t think I actually had to wander through the place to get to my chambers?¡± he sniffed disdainfully. ¡°Clearing my original path there was not difficult. The Wasps are very easy to hear ahead of time, and I wasn¡¯t looking for hidden treasures or anything!¡± ¡°Well enough. The main rule of a Dungeon delve is that the last major room will have the Boss. That goes double if it has the main loot of the place.¡± The tall Yalain considered that as we waited for the pressure to fall in the room beyond. ¡°That¡­ seems very tale-appropriate?¡± he ventured cautiously. ¡°That is exactly the right logic to use, appropriate to a tale. Dungeons are usually designed to generate good stories, and so you very rarely have the boss and the loot up close near the entry, saving everyone time. No, no, much better to have the enterprising group of hardy delvers and intrepid heroes not motivated by anything as crass as greed crawling through the entire Dungeon, meeting all your carefully-placed monsters, springing all your traps, overcoming all your tricks, and finally meeting the boss for a nice big finale.¡± ¡°You speak as if the Dungeons are alive¡­¡± Harlune ventured, frowning at the imagery. ¡°The Mite Maze had two bosses in it, yourself and the Mite Princess. You both satisfied the trope perfectly. She had the remains of Branith¡¯s Staff there at one time, as I recall.¡± ¡°Yes, he perished there, running out of his fire magic after pushing too far, too confidently. I left it there as a suitable salute to the Princess and her guards¡­¡± He trailed off after a moment. ¡°And how many hundreds of people, if not thousands, recovered Brandith¡¯s belongings from the Mite Maze?¡± Kris asked rhetorically. Master Harlune looked like he wanted to say something, and instead contemplated the facts. ¡°This is the¡­ mind-fuckery, as Lord Mick so eloquently puts it?¡± he asked at last. ¡°Yep. You were part of it right up until the Fall, Master Harlune. Do you remember the designs for Celestial Hand Armor?¡± Kris asked him. Again, he started to reply, then stopped himself, thinking about the question. ¡°That is¡­ my word.¡± He looked off into nowhere. ¡°I have the plans of Armor I have often considered making, something that equaled the best of Empyrean Armor¡­¡± He gestured up his own Holo proudly, minor magic that was so useful. ¡°It looked something like this.¡± The image of gold and orange armor was quite eye-catching and unique. Kris and I both nodded. ¡°That is the Celestial Hand Armor design, yes. But you don¡¯t actually remember disseminating it, and you know why?¡± He tilted his head at Kris. ¡°Because it was randomly generated by treasure chests, not actually forged by anyone. There was no control, no customization, just the vagaries of a magical System that dumped random combinations of spells and qualities beyond the base Armor itself.¡± ¡°And the Armor for the Eldrytch Web and Radiant Blood look quite different, but did exactly the same thing as your designs,¡± I added, flicking up the designs for both of them. His expression was aghast as he considered the truth of that statement, staring at the Holos of the Armors of the rival Societies. ¡°I¡­ never knew that. I worked with the Celestial Hand and Master Ben Ten for years¡­¡± ¡°Doing research on a great many things that nobody can recall the details of whatsoever right now, the other mages of the Celestial Hand have related to us,¡± Kris finished for him, deepening his dismay as he found himself agreeing with her! ¡°Yes. They feel like years of their life just vanished. Happily, they don¡¯t seem any older for the years they were doing that, but it¡¯s still very unnerving. Everyone we¡¯ve brought out of NPC status says much the same thing.¡± Master Harlune considered all of the implications of that, glowing Empyrean eyes flashing as he digested that. ¡°I gather Nuhmudira designed their armor, and she and her fools would be subject to much of the same thing¡­¡± he reasoned out. ¡°It¡¯s reasonable to assume she didn¡¯t make any breakthroughs before the Fall that weren¡¯t part of the System¡¯s plans for her. Since then, however¡­ well, she got out of her prison, that is saying something right there.¡± ¡°Indeed it is. I have been working on my own personal defenses with some of what you¡¯ve taught me, Lady Ryin, and I hope to improve them yet more in the future, to prevent a repeat of what happened to me there.¡± ¡°Wise.¡± I looked at Kris, who tapped the wall behind her and nodded. ¡°Alright, the pressure is down, we¡¯re going in. If it¡¯s too hot, we¡¯ll pull back out.¡± ¡°Understood!¡± Master Harlune agreed immediately, and I Shaped the last of the plug to Scold¡¯s laboratory out of the way. ¡°We should be expecting a fight of one manner or another, I believe you mentioned¡­¡± ¡°That is correct. You can War as you like, but stay behind Kris.¡± This time, I was not ashamed to bring up some bitterly cold Greater Shards in readiness, their chill so profound they even drove away much of the residual heat around us, swirling with layers of Kicker energies. If the Magma Elementals were wary of me tossing Profound Flame, the presence of uttercold at this extent made very, very sure they weren¡¯t coming in! The plug rolled out of the way, and Kris, Quaver a bar of fire-chilling frost swirling with icy star-motes, led the way in to the chamber beyond. AF Chapter 439 – Scolding Hot Creatures ¡°There¡¯s an Elemental Creature in here!¡± I stated instantly, as my Detects swept through the place, this particular one buffed by Primus. ¡°Dispersed, yet connected¡­ I think we¡¯re dealing with a Hordemind! Look for insectile forms of one kind or another!¡± I uttered, as promptly my sphere of awareness started pinging a lot of Elemental creatures. ¡°Yeah, a bit hard to miss,¡± Kris muttered, stopping cold in ready pose. Well, she was right about that. The far walls were crawling with the bodies, scores of them. They were roughly lobster-like, except having a weird hexagonal and trilateral symmetry, with three forward claws and nine legs, three waving atop them like weird spinal crests on level surfaces. The shiny red and black carapaces varied in size from four feet long to easily twenty feet long for the biggest one. ¡°Oh, wow.¡± Kris was actually smiling as she saw all of them. ¡°It really is a Hordemind¡­¡± ¡°This was one of the fixed spawns at the major Fire Node on Coralost, wasn¡¯t it?¡± I asked, as the creatures all stilled and slowly rotated their viewing organs our way. ¡°Yeah, although they were more like fleas there. A nice big hefty Swarm. Why don¡¯t you open up with a Cryoclasm to introduce us?¡± she smirked. ¡°That sounds like a good idea.¡± And as the lobster-things of Elemental flame started scuttling our way in a devouring horde, I tapped Crown on the thousand-degree stone and the Cryoclasm went out. The x-clasm spells were specifically made for horde creatures and swarms. They don¡¯t do a lot of damage, but they are designed to carry Kickers and apply them over a VERY large area. The area-to-damage ratio of the spell variants of Pyroclasm were very high, designed to wipe out chaff over a very large area and clear the space of nuisances so you could focus on the bigger stuff. Swarms and hordes, naturally composed of chaff, suffered catastrophically under the spells. I didn¡¯t even have to use a higher Valence, as the damage of the spell stayed fixed, but the area cap went up with Valence. Given the room was impressively large, I still only had to use a III to fill it up from end-to-end. The first thing it did is utterly lower the air temperature, not that the superheated rock and lava pool wouldn¡¯t rapidly revert that. The second was the wave of cold, 2-12 damage base, with Piercing Cold doing full double damage to fiery creatures and laden with Kickers for additional fun, washed across the Horde coming our way and shattered the chaff instantly. Every crab-thing smaller than a dinner table was pounded by cold, lightning, and sonic energy, as well as Holy fire and Baneflames, as well as Vivus riding the spell. They were shattered and blown apart promptly, and then the larger ones faltered and were blown apart as silvery residual damage ate away at them for another six seconds, bringing all the Kickers along with it as it did so. The main result was that well over half the Horde¡¯s exposed bodies died instantly, and that got up to about 75% as the residual damage tore through the rest of them, shattered them, and vivus lit off on the collapsing bodies. Which left us standing there facing a whole lot less bodies, all of them injured, and me with a whole bunch of Greater Shards raring to go. So, I let them go. The Chained Shardrays went scything through all of the creatures left in the chamber, about two dozen of them, and there was no surviving them. They blew apart, shattered to frozen shells, and vivus further devoured them quickly. ¡°It¡¯s the perfect individual-killing monster, and unfortunately it ran into an army-killing magos,¡± Kris snarked, not batting an eye at the slaughter and sight of so many shattered frozen firecrab-things. Master Harlune was staring in shock. ¡°This, this is Matrix Magic¡¯s potential for slaughter?¡± he asked. He¡¯d been struck by the Cryoclasm, but he was a Good soul and so the magic wouldn¡¯t harm him, and his Cold Protection and Resist Cold would have dealt with it completely, regardless. ¡°Yes,¡± Kris responded before I could, ¡°and our Lady Magos and my bondmage is very, very good at abusing the intricacies of it,¡± she stated without a shred of remorse or regret, stepping further into the room. ¡°You may have noticed that just because she can annihilate large numbers of enemies at one time rather easily, she doesn¡¯t push the fact nor strut around like she owns the world, too. Using magic for violence is a choice of the Caster, and Casters who abuse magic are due the same fate as warriors who abuse their strength and steel.¡± ¡°I see.¡± He was amazed and impressed, although reluctant to express it so. ¡°And I¡¯ve yet to sense any real fear of you by others who know of your capabilities¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m not one of your fellow Heiromancers, Master Harlune,¡± I reminded him quietly. ¡°I Cast spells to fight when it¡¯s time to fight, I don¡¯t go searching out things to slaughter to impress people with my capabilities.¡± Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°I am impressed nonetheless. That spell was a Cryoclasm? It did not seem to be that powerful, but it did the job incredibly well¡­¡± he complimented me. ¡°It is specifically designed for Swarms and Hordes, designed to kill large numbers of weak creatures that think overwhelming one with numbers is enough. I will be teaching it to you as one of the alternate battle spells Matrix Magic uses. It is similar to the standard Fireball, but trades damage for greatly increased area.¡± ¡°A most interesting principle.¡± We both had followed Kris as she strode into the place, air currents swirling as supercooled air re-heated with incredible speed. ¡°Are there more of the creatures?¡± ¡°Not in range of my Detects.¡± I walked up to the edge of the platform, these ones a bit elevated and the lava five feet below, blowing up past me with furnace-hot updrafts. ¡°There might be one hidden below in the lava, and if there¡¯s any Magma Elementals who want to kill the Horde creature, it has almost no bodies left and now is the time.¡± There was a pause, and then molten forms of various sizes and shapes started emerging from the magma layers coating the chamber, slipped into the molten lava below us, and went hunting. ¡°The Hordes aren¡¯t much liked in the Elemental Realms, even the little ones,¡± Kris informed the amused Harlune, stopping before the first of the last set of pillars. ¡°Shall we?¡± ¡°Of course.¡± -------- Our exit from the Dungeon was up through the vent I made, no reason to walk all the way out with an opening right there doing the same thing. The Pyromana in the area was messing with dimensional space, much like the Crater, so it was that we headed up a passage of stairs forming in front of us, and some three hundred steps later emerged outside, rapidly getting out of the way of the gusting heat gushing out of the passageway behind us. Harlune was giving Kris some further education in Empyrean Runecrafting, and she was working through some alternate casting and assembly methods with him. The control pedestals for the process had been simple yet multifunctional, and with higher craftsmanship everything could definitely be improved¡­ and duplicated! I would probably be part of that effort, too. I also had four Minor and four Major Blackfire stones that had condensed in the ley line nexus underneath the pedestals. The four Majors seemed a reaction to the initial surge that had blown the mountain, the other four had accumulated in the months since, judging by the energies in them. Scold¡¯s contraption wasn¡¯t really designed to make the Majors¡­ but what could be done by accidents with massive surges of energy could also be done with time and control, so it was a possibility. ¡°Excellent,¡± Princess Kristie nodded, snagging the Stones from me. ¡°I¡¯ve got to join my Skeeters at Lethe, so I¡¯m off. See Master Harlune home, and get some plans drawn up to really improve on what Scold started, will you?¡± she asked me. I tapped my foot, clicked my heels, and saluted her precisely. ¡°Yes, Your Highness!¡± I said very properly. ¡°It will be done as you command!¡± ¡°See that it is!¡± she laughed, and then set her hand to Quaver. Wind whiffed across the space she was in, and she was gone. ¡°That method is so superior to Item Magic Recalls, save some of the powerful Recall gemstones,¡± Master Harlune sighed. ¡°Which we¡¯ve yet to rediscover, even the ones tied to the various settlements,¡± I reminded him, making his face long at the mention of more magical items lost. ¡°Even merely replicated Portal Ties,¡± he murmured. ¡°The Mount Lethe Recall should satisfy some of those problems and help us discover specific Recalls, if such can be done.¡± ¡°The Mick mentioned that there were specific Recalls to Aerlinthe Island, Banana-Town on Aphus Lassel, the Olthoi Trader near the Paradox Hive, the Gear Knight Staging Area, to the Boneyard, Candeth Keep, Neftet, and even the Rynthid Invasion area, while gems were the only ways to get to the Frozen Cottages, the Society headquarters, and Vissidal Island. It took a magical Orb to access the Whispering Blade headquarters, and there was no independent way to access the Moarsman Island, Xi Ru¡¯s Island, or Freebooter¡¯s. It was all very strange and inconsistent.¡± I tilted Crown towards him, and he extended a hand to clasp it well above mine. ¡°Even in Isparian-level Item Magic, it should not have worked that way,¡± he shook his head. ¡°Of course, gaining access to those specific-site spells was often a mark of great trust in an individual. Most had to make due with Portals to and hence¡­¡± ¡°The Nexus and the New Subway,¡± I nodded. ¡°Completely ignoring the security implications that putting so many Portals in an unsecured location means¡­ have you made any headway in locating them, or confirming they are destroyed?¡± ¡°None whatsoever.¡± The Teleportation I used was a burning wind of arcane flames whipping past us, wiping away the world as we shifted along lived-lines, and then falling away to reveal the walls of Mayoi before us. ¡°Ah, your Resurrection Rituals, of course. I shall catch up with Master Ben Ten while you work.¡± ¡°Thank you for your patience, and I know the two of you enjoy catching up.¡± ¡°The lack of Portals has made the world much larger once again. Almost amusing, in its own way, given how I tried to sequester my wife and I far from any Portals for security, and we were found so quickly nonetheless.¡± ¡°I doubt you were found at all, Master Harlune,¡± I said as we walked into the city. The skeletons on guard in their restored and polished armor saluted both of us as soon as they caught sight of us. There was no need to say what I was here for. ¡°They either had the exact same idea as you, and stumbled across you, or you were betrayed by someone, or a scout witnessed you heading there and guessed your destination. ¡°I believe it to be the first, unless you trusted someone with your destination besides Ulgrim. The bandit clans have a good idea of everything moving through the north, but everyone had long abandoned the Olthoi North by then. Of course, if some of the wild tribes saw you heading north, then that information might have found its way into the wrong hands¡­¡± He frowned strongly. ¡°I do not recalling telling anyone where I was going, and only indicated it to Ulgrim in broad terms. He does not remember having any visitors after I departed from him on his island¡­ but that is not absolute, as he was, as you indicated, an NPC for all those years¡­¡± ¡°Horrible status to be left in,¡± I agreed. ¡°He might have been visited, given out the clue, and simply not remember it.¡± ¡°It is irrelevant now. All that remains is to gain revenge and return my wife to me,¡± Harlune stated firmly. ¡°This Divine magic you practice has great potential towards that end. I will improve my skills rapidly to support you when the time is right.¡± AF Chapter 440 – Vissidal and Dark Island Getting into position for the Vissidal Run wasn¡¯t too hard, as we already had lived-lines along the shoreline. Basically it was a section of the beach off the northern end of the Espers Mountain Range; just line up with the island five miles away on the other side of the Shoreward and head on out. Both of the islands had great reputations among the paramounts as places to get a lot of loot before the Fall, and the trophies offered by The Deep had meant great Karma to be harvested from everything, too. They were also full of high level crap shooting Pyreal, Platinum, and Mana-level spells around, with far too much Health and annoying numbers and varieties of them, like the South Dires, only worse. Worse meant more Karma. Variety meant great for the Matrix side of things, too. The Dungeons on the islands had historically been limited, torn between undead of the Falatacot who had once buried both islands to Bind and Seal the Ruschk champion Grael below them, and who had come out of hiding or returned once those bindings were undone; and some minions of Grael who had taken over places devoted to their champion. Given Grael had a huge connection to the Shadow in the Void that was responsible for making the Shadow creatures, my sympathies for his rebellion against his Haebran enslavers was limited. He did manage to bring down their empire, in the end, ending a full Empyrean Age with the power and fury of his uprising. And somehow Dereth had been the key to doing so, imagine that. The trip across the waters was fairly short and sweet, barely five miles to come in on the side that historically had very few spawns, a fact which Master Oswald had assured us had not changed. ------ We swept ashore, the Skeeters and the Roaches on the Wagon, more for the experience than any expected fighting. This was a contact mission, not a treasure dive¡­ although they¡¯d also be testing the local spawns for the new generation of warriors coming up, and maybe even paramounts wanting to come back here to play. ¡°Well, seems to have lost a lot of the rotten fish smell an¡¯ the jutting coral an¡¯ shells an¡¯ stuff,¡± the Mick remarked, striding up the pink-sanded beach. ¡°There actually be green things growing here now,¡± he pointed out, where tough low shrubs, grasses, and weeds had managed to embed themselves into the island and were eking out a living here. ¡°There¡¯s a layer of dead coral under us, which has started crumbling with time and the elements now that it is out of water,¡± Kris agreed, tromping forward and up the dune. ¡°Crushed shells and coral for the beach sand. Pretty enough.¡± She looked east, to where the dangerous elements of the island were, and the growth of greenery was also widespread, many coral formations collapsed or worn away by time and weather. ¡°Where are Ulgrim¡¯s lads? They were NPC¡¯s, so they should be just fine¡­¡± ¡°The merwarts? They be just up here, aye. Good merchants, nobody used them¡­¡± he trailed off, shooting her a knowing glance. ¡°They sell a whole lot o¡¯ crap, too,¡± he added in a softer voice. ¡°That couldn¡¯t be important, could it?¡± she returned in a level voice, looking back at all of us following on the Wagon. None of us said a peep. --- The Merwart Village wasn¡¯t far, up off the beach on the highest part of the island, so as not to be washed away by any storm waves that came up. Also, the only place the gargantuan shells and coral constructions had survived, obviously mana-reinforced. I sat back with Selena up front on the Wagon as Kris and the Mick made the rounds of the merwarts, a paler-skinned tribe of the scaly fish/lizard anthros from the same world as the banderlings, tumeroks, and drudges, which hadn¡¯t increased in number and for some reason had been sitting around for going on eighteen years waiting for humans to come back to sell stuff to them. ¡°They¡¯ve just been sitting there since I was a little girl, waiting for us to come back?¡± Selena asked me, just to be sure. ¡°Yes, selling basic supplies in quantity, despite there being no trade Portals here at all.¡± She pointed off to the left, where the absolutely biggest nefane shell we¡¯d ever seen was embedded into the ground and clearly used as a home by what looked to be the local merwart wizard or shaman. ¡°That¡­ looks at least as big as the one off the shore of the Vesayans was back then.¡± I measured it by eyeball. ¡°Yes, it¡¯s about three feet taller,¡± I confirmed after a moment. There were two of them visible. ¡°Supposedly there are others scattered across the island, but they¡¯ve probably crumbled down now if they are out of the water and exposed to the sun.¡± ¡°That means there¡¯s even bigger nefanes down in the ocean, right?¡± she asked uneasily. ¡°Perhaps even too big to be floating around,¡± I agreed, eyeing the pale purple shell with fading crimson bands to it. ¡°I can¡¯t see them being killed just by the island coming up, unless they were marooned on it and literally died under their own weight and exposure to the sun on the surface when it rose. That shell is much too heavy to wash ashore.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ¡°But there are other nefane shells, some of great size, scattered around the beaches,¡± Selena frowned. ¡°I¡¯ve seen them!¡± ¡°Tim loves nefane tentacles. He¡¯d break the Shoreward, draw one in for a fight, kill it, drag it to shore, and eat it, leaving the shell behind.¡± ¡°Oh. Ohhhhhh¡­¡± Selena nodded. ¡°That really does make sense. He really couldn¡¯t use them for anything, could he?¡± ¡°Tim¡¯s not dumb at all, but there¡¯s no ancestral knowledge there, and no society for him to learn from. He could potentially have crafted armor or shields from the shells, but he has no idea how to treat them to endure, imbue magic into them, or the like. You know monugas. They can make clubs and barely leather and hides. There are no real craftsmen among them.¡± ¡°But Tim can learn all the stuff?¡± she asked warily. ¡°Do we want him to know it?¡± ¡°That is a question a lot of people are putting forward, equal parts fearful as impressed by him. I say we leave the choice on being friend or foe to him, and if we have to kill him, we have to kill him. He has no magical ability to speak of that we can discern, although that also might change if he discovers a way. There¡¯s no other free Tremendous Monugas for him to learn from, after all.¡± ¡°True. Is it also true that any monuga might grow to the same size?¡± she asked urgently. ¡°Yes. It is very, very unlikely, however. A combination of eating the right things, advancing through combat and sucking in enough magic that their strength grows faster than their size. It¡¯s very hard to do. Most monugas just get too big to move themselves and just die of starvation.¡± ¡°Why is that?¡± Selena was startled. ¡°Don¡¯t you get stronger as you get bigger?¡± ¡°Double your height increases your strength fourfold, but your weight eightfold.¡± She frowned as she followed the math. ¡°Truly large creatures are either mostly hollow, collapse under their own weight, or are magical, like the Aurochs on the Hlaetians. Humanoids who can grow to height have to tap into Jotun magic, the effects of Stature, or our bones would break and organs tear away inside us as we get bigger. We wouldn¡¯t be able to breathe enough oxygen, our hearts couldn¡¯t pump our blood, and the like. We find it hard to move our arms and legs as they get bigger, and so forth. ¡°We¡¯d be okay weight-wise in the water, but the blood and breathing problems would persist. ¡°Becoming something like Tim means tapping Stature Magic, which he¡¯s done. He might live a long, long time, and his brain is big enough he¡¯s outgrown the pure savagery of his upbringing. ¡°If TM¡¯s are the final form of the species, a normal Monuga is nothing more then a belligerent and angry child. It might be why they are so savage and dumb, in the end.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll remember that,¡± she told me. ¡°What about this island itself? Know anything I haven¡¯t heard?¡± ¡°Probably not? I¡¯ve seen as much as you. I doubt the Summons here drop golden trophies any more, they¡¯d just be ectoplasm and vanish with them. No loot, of course. Just things to fight and slaughter. They might have Luminance energy attached to them now, however, they are powerful enough. It¡¯s one of the things we are here to test.¡± ¡°Ugh, no free power-ups from The Deep? So unfair!¡± she protested without heart. ¡°You¡¯re at least twice as dangerous as an Isparian of your level was back then, and that¡¯s even accounting for the Gear difference,¡± I reminded her. ¡°All they did was One Shot archery and One Strike combat. Wolfpack combat and multiple attacks simply weren¡¯t possible by them,¡± I reminded her. ¡°The Wintermas collection of Weapons they had to haul around is famous, too. Lord Mick still rails on about it!¡± She was plainly amused at the idea. ¡°Aye, the older mages all love talking about their collections of lethal Wands and Orbs and whatnot, how they babied them and modified them and ruled the world with them.¡± Ad nauseam, even if it could be interesting. You wanted the best Weapon to fight something, so you carried an Xmas tree of stuff! ¡°Until the world blew up on them.¡± Her voice said she remembered the moment of the Fall well, even after all these years, despite her age when it happened. ¡°The sick joke is that it probably wasn¡¯t even intended as it was. Something was, and it was likely intended to be disastrous, but not like it happened. We believe the leader of the undead was behind it, but there¡¯s no absolute proof, only the fact he¡¯s missing, like many of the other great magical beings.¡± ¡°But we¡¯re going to find out, right?¡± ¡°Right!¡± I confirmed for her. ¡°Now, get ready to move out and test out the Summons here. It looks like Her Highness and Lord Mick are done.¡± --- Selena scrambled up to get her team ready as Lord Mick and Kris wandered back to us. Their faces were carefully neutral, more thoughtful than planning. ¡°Anything useful?¡± I asked her, and was shown an egg-sized yellow Gem, looked like a topaz variant, glittering with magic inside it. ¡°Still selling the Vissidal Portal Gems? Does it even work?¡± I had to ask. ¡°No idea. But I bought a dozen to be sure.¡± She poured them into my hands, and I deposited them into my Masspack. If nothing else, they were a reference to one-shot consumables. ¡°Nothing of great value at the vendors. We can buy up a lot of cheap steel if we need it, although it¡¯s not THAT cheap.¡± ¡°I¡¯m surprised they haven¡¯t been shut down,¡± I admitted, while the Mick called out orders for making ready for some skirmishes to come. No new creatures had been seen here, and they¡¯d even fought more powerful subspecies of the local monsters before, but it was all about the Karma and spawn density, and Vissidal had been famous for its proliferation of Spawn Points. ¡°I¡¯m guessing lazy managers and video game logic. As long as there are MMD¡¯s, there has to be some place to use them, so they just can¡¯t blanket remove that aspect of the System, but it¡¯s so archaic they don¡¯t pay attention to it, either,¡± Kris guessed knowingly. ¡°And there being fewer and fewer NPC vendors around isn¡¯t helping,¡± I agreed with her. ¡°Speaking of¡­ when are you planning on freeing Lady Vundanewall?¡± ¡°We ask her every week, and she keeps refusing for the time, given how much olthoi armor we are managing to harvest off of her. Briggs is getting close to perfecting the method, but the instant conversion is extremely convenient right now. Being able to hand her pieces and get back armor is the equivalent of like fifty high-level smiths and alchemists working every day to accomplish the same thing.¡± She leaned into me. ¡°We gave her one of the Blackfire Stones for her Crossbow,¡± she whispered. ¡°Heard you been having the lads take turns Investing Gear for her, too.¡± I nodded. It was only right. ¡°If we ever go after the Queens, she¡¯s being released, period. Lots of the boys who can invest in the skills if need be,¡± Kris sniffed, and that was that. AF Chapter 441 – The Dark and the Deep Combats against the Summons of Vissidal Island were quick and brutal, designed exactly to give data for training by others. Thera and Nippo were along for this run, giving the old Vuln+War Magic combos a try. There were four main types of spawns around Vissidal, with the Wave and Aqueous Golums being very dangerous, but incidental. The others were solos near the edge of the spawn zone, rapidly growing into four and more as we headed east. Why reedsharks were one of the four spawns nobody could explain. Reedsharks were not aquatic and tended to loathe salt water completely. How they even got on the island was a complete mystery nobody had answers to, and there were certainly no real ones here, even after all this time. Unlike Eaters, they didn¡¯t consume one another, and they wouldn¡¯t eat the fish they might catch in the shallows. The floating Benek Niffis, table-sized shells with tentacles hanging down; the Mucky Moarsmen in their dark red, green, and orange hues, and the blue remoran Sea Raptors were all aquatic and fit the backstory of raising this island back up from the depths. But the reedsharks just didn¡¯t fit, yet here they were. They also died fairly well to lightning, piercing, or slashing damage, and were dangerous enough to represent decent Karmic gain for everybody here, save the Mick. The Mick and Kris were the ones to try all Elemental Modes beyond the historical ones used against the creatures, verifying if anything had changed, with and without Imperils to test their Armor going negative. Also, they tested positive for Luminance transfer, which raised a cheer all around. We were still looking for triggers for other teams as far as as keying Luminance went, and this seemed like a reasonable place to discover something. There were gold creatures among the spawns, exactly as the Mick had promised, and while they were twice as tough as the plainer creatures they spawned among, they didn¡¯t drop any loot or gold items, being Summons true now. The Sea Raptors turned out to be somewhat easier to kill, especially with Fire, than the Mick remembered, while the shelled nautiloid Niffis spewing and flailing away with acid were quite annoying to cut down regardless of what one used. Findings were logged in, a good twenty different spawns of each type of creature cleared rapidly and thoroughly by missile fire, spells, and weapons before we pulled out with our findings. Checking out the Dungeons and Temples located here would wait until later, and probably not even by our teams. The Dark Isle sat on the horizon, still as oily black now as it had been a generation ago. The Deep¡¯s shrine was five miles almost exactly north of the Merwart village, and took us only minutes to reach across the water. ------ The Deep¡¯s Shrine sort of looked like a mutant lobster crab had thrust up a hooked claw out of the ground, leaving a platform and short tunnel behind leading down into ickiness. ¡°Yeah, still looks an¡¯ feels the same,¡± the Mick supplied, wrinkling his nose in distaste. ¡°Lass?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an Aquatic power, I can feel it on my Ring,¡± I admitted, also grimacing as I looked at it. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ not sure if it¡¯s Elemental. Maybe partially. It¡¯s definitely not going to be a friend of us, mostly uncaring¡­ but based on your prior experience, if we do what it wants, it will reward us.¡± ¡°Aye, that be true enough, but how we be able to offer trophies to it now?¡± the Mick asked, rather amused, making a show of looking around. ¡°There be no cultists here now slaved to it an¡¯ its insights, as there were back on Vissidal, but we¡¯d be at it all day slaughtering a path to the Vissidal shrine, as I recall it. Probably be a hundred spawns between us an¡¯ the shrine there now, if not more.¡± I took a deep breath. ¡°I can probably talk to it,¡± I said reluctantly. ¡°You sure?¡± Kris promptly asked, concerned. ¡°We have to ask it for help with Moarsman Island, regardless. Can¡¯t do that without making contact.¡± I made a face. ¡°The biggest problem is not knowing its Name. It¡¯s a matter of simple recognition. I only know to call it The Deep.¡± ¡°Ask a Leviathan,¡± the Mick ventured promptly, and I blinked. ¡°What? Ye called in two terrors o¡¯ the deeps t¡¯ kill that thing down south. They know who ye are. They¡¯ll know how t¡¯ address the elder god o¡¯ the deep places mortals aren¡¯t meant t¡¯ go, right?¡± Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Makes sense,¡± Kris agreed, nodding thoughtfully. It did. I had debated just asking The Deep for the proper Name to be addressed by, which would mean coming from an inferior, uninformed position, not the best for dealing with such Entities. The Sending was fluttering out a moment later, addressed to the one we¡¯d spoken with by Asheron¡¯s Island. ¡°Elder, I am standing before a Shrine to the being we know as The Deep, near the islands brought back up from the depths some two decades and more ago. I need to make supplication to this being. How do I address it, if you would be so kind?¡± I waited patiently for the reply, and when it came, it was exactly as ominous as I thought it was going to be. A note, four, six, deep and swelling, echoing within themselves from unseen canyon walls, fading into depths beyond light and sound¡­ and that darkness and silence was alive¡­ It was appended with a cautionary note in Aquatic that I was really messing with something dangerous, too. ¡°Thank you, Elder,¡± I whispered, while that Name rang in my head like an earworm, something I¡¯d never be able to forget, even if I wanted it to. Just knowing it, I would be hearing it in the waves of the oceans and seas forever¡­ ¡°Share it.¡± My eyes popped open, and I realized Kris was holding me upright against the polished and pristine black coral of the Shrine¡¯s side. Her head clunked against mine. ¡°Share it!¡± she ordered me, her eyes staring into mine as her Null swept around me, and the waves ceased shouting its Name to me. I took a deep breath, everyone staring at me in grave concern, and shared it through our Magebond. That Name crashed into her Null and faded to a whisper as she stared it down. I could have endured it, but my greater sensitivity meant I would have had to put up with the worship of the waves forever. My fellow Dauntless soul couldn¡¯t give a flying fuck for some Mythos Entity that had no real business on the Prime, and her disdain stared down the wave-worship until I could just filter it out and ignore it if I wanted to. ¡°Fuck,¡± was Kris¡¯ informed royal opinion as she drew back from me, still holding me. ¡°I could have lived with never hearing that, you know?¡± She wiped the blood from her nose with an unspoken curse. ¡°Agreed,¡± I could only say, reaching up to my own nose and coming away with a bunch of crimson, too. ¡°The Deep is just so much simpler¡­ and demeaning to it.¡± I straightened up, casting a newly-informed eye on the shrine as a flicker of Prestidigitation cleaned us both up. ¡°Well, this is going to suck, and I don¡¯t know how long it¡¯s going to take. I suggest Lord Mick take most of the team over to the Dark Isle and do some testing.¡± Kris just looked at me, then waved her hand. ¡°Everyone, off with Lord Mick. Lord Mick, you¡¯re in absolute charge. No fatalities. Reserves and wolfpacks, minimize all casualties. You already told us this is an equal tier to Freebooter, and we all know what a shitshow that place is.¡± ¡°You sure you don¡¯t need anyone here, Highness?¡± Sonya, the team leader of the Skeeters asked promptly, concerned. ¡°There¡¯s absolutely no sign anything as simple as a crab has come within fifty paces of this Shrine, if you watch the tracks.¡± They blinked and looked around, and it was true. ¡°The only threat that might come from this thing is a threat none of you can help with in the slightest. I¡¯d prefer you not fearing the sight of water for the rest of your lives. Shoo.¡± ¡°Right!¡± the Mick said promptly, overriding any other questions. ¡°Mount up and get ready for fucking serious fighting! Yer gonna be on your toes and firmest focus! This is the Dark Isle, and the only ones who thrive here are the quick, tough, and fucking smart! Mount up and we move to the end of the island.¡± He paused as he stared around. ¡°There¡¯ll be a short service at the Deathstone Pit.¡± Their eyes turned towards the blue pit spitting up more sparks and lights than they¡¯d ever seen. ¡°Probably more Paramounts dead in that pit than any other in all of Dereth. Let¡¯s put ¡®em to rest, an¡¯ see about living up to their example, aye?¡± --- I watched them ride the Wagon off. As a mobile battle platform, it made a great instant evacuation point that could totally shrug off some really nasty magicks with the hide of the Aetherial Ravager Sovereign-Glued to its sides. Someone trying normal mortal magicks on it was going to have luck between none and nothing. Magic Resistance Rating of 54. I hadn¡¯t seen anything on Dereth that could punch that, except maybe the Harbinger¡­ and myself, but I couldn¡¯t bring enough damage to be relevant. ¡°You¡¯re going to share with me to ease the mental strain, even if I can¡¯t help. So make the Binding Pattern big enough for me to sit back against you,¡± Kris stated in a tone that brooked no complaints. ¡°Will do.¡± I set up the patterns in my head, having to combine approaches from three different styles to do this properly. An Aquatic power, a power of Water, a power of Shadow and Darkness, and a power of Mythos and races very different from Humanity. Not something any normal human with a shred of sanity should be doing, that road of power leading right into the depths of the sea, but at least it wasn¡¯t Dagon. Aelryinth already had a grudge with Dagon I wasn¡¯t sad I hadn¡¯t inherited. Yet. ------ I wasn¡¯t going to mar Its Shrine, but nothing said I couldn¡¯t build on top of it, and around it. The ground was still stone underneath, even if coral dominated the area around us, preserved by the Shrine¡¯s power. One Thaumaturgic Circle around the entire Shrine on the sands there. One simple Summoning Circle on the outside of the Shrine. A triple Circle with a nine-point asymmetric star in the middle of it, where Kris and I sat down. I filled the Circle with the highest Tier of Valences that I could, VII+1, and the Waters of Oceanus swirled in quickgold fluid into the grooves of the Circles. Layered Protections built up in sheathes of power that were not overtly hostile, but bore ties to powers that were also vast beyond the mortal plane. The last of the Runes, Glyphs, and secondary Seals flared to life, the layers hummed as I brought up the Sublime Chord, and I sang into the manasphere. Down that short tunnel not twenty feet away was a dormant but mighty force that connected somehow to a thing older than humanity, and I opened my mouth and voiced its Name in the Sublime Chord. There was something of a reaction to that happening. AF Chapter 442 – Striking a Deep Chord ¡°Fuck me!¡± the Mick swore. Everything around them had turned around to look in the direction of the Shrine at the same moment. A breath later, even the Black Coral Golums they were fighting had all bowed down or were kneeling in supplication. The warriors turned around, to see the shoals between them and the shrine were standing in circular walls of water in concentric waves, as if every wave in the local bay had instantly cleared ten feet high and was just hovering there in awed horror. The sky had also gone very, very dark blue, even though it was early afternoon, and there were no stars showing through the indigo above them. There was a single hanging Note hanging in the air, like strangely inverted Thunder that wasn¡¯t stirring the heart into the sky, but bending it towards the dark of The Deep... ¡°Back it out!¡± he ordered flatly, and there was not a single complaint from either team, good-natured or otherwise. Both the Skeeters and the Roaches basically burst into a sprint for the Wagon, hanging there just offshore and out of range of any Summons¡¯ Spawn range. Armored feet and boots trod above the waves with much-practiced lightfoot and scurried onto the armored vessel, which the Mick left right where it was, just shy of the standing walls of water that couldn¡¯t advance further up to the shore. The inky darkness swirled up from the apex of the horn-like arch over the Shrine, making it difficult to make out at this distance, but didn¡¯t completely cover it. Indeed, the brightest point in anything any of them could see was the area right at the entry to the Shrine, like a single moon in the night sky. ------- ¡°WHO CALLS ON THE DEEP?!¡± Multiple Circles buffered and filtered the voice so we weren¡¯t stunned by the volume of it. Heavenly waters rippled and pushed back with the echoes of eternity, and a whelming pressure coming in with curiosity and arrogance paused in place for a long, pregnant moment. Then it receded slowly and warily, a looming darkness looking at me there, the only light in the metaphysical darkness all around. I didn¡¯t talk to it, that was asking to be drawn into a conversation that might just draw me out of reality. Instead I just sang Chords gently and inoffensively in the manasphere and ladled thoughts out into the darkness like dispensing tears of memory that never contacted my own directly. The Fall¡¯s mana surge, the abrupt cessation of offerings to its Shrine. The reality of the Summons and spirits bound to the magic of the System here, no longer dropping offerings. Our hunting of the assorted Tendrils and Tentacles of T¡¯Thuun across land and sea, slaughtering its adherents anywhere we found them. The invasion of the Aetherial Ravager, and the Leviathans who had responded to destroy it. Their admonishment of the creature that had Called it to the mortal plane. The destruction of the Arm of T¡¯Thuun on Freebooter Island, and the elimination of all slithyr Tentacles from lands known to us. Except one. Moarsman Island. I felt some of Its passing interest in the Fall, a feeling like mild curiosity answered as to why the offerings to it here had ceased. That feeling had sharpened as it considered the fate of the souls bound to the System here, continually respawning to defend these places to no purpose¡­ and it was likely taking souls constantly from the Deep¡¯s followers near here and elsewhere, since the Reedsharks had probably been inhabitants of Vissidal before it was plunged into the depths. The images of the manifestations of T¡¯Thuun being slaughtered, its Blight vivified, and the Arm of T¡¯Thuun being slain and Burned cause the dark and silence to roil in active feelings that didn¡¯t feel all that different from malicious satisfaction and glee. The Deep did NOT like T¡¯Thuun. And then Moarsman Island. I gave it the location. I gave it the overhead view of the island, teeming with literally thousands of moarsman, sclavi, and T¡¯Thuun Tentacles, full glorious pyramidal temples, spawning pools, and shrines. The malacious glee was wiped away, replaced by cold, depthless hatred on a scale that would heartlessly doom entire mortal civilizations trying to satiate it. An image of me erecting an Archway, cracking open the Shoreward. Behind me, the armies of The Deep rising up silently from the seas under a moonless night, ready to deliver the fanatics of T¡¯Thuun a final blow. The Pyramids cracked and shattered, the endless reinforcements of T¡¯Thuun¡¯s minions stopped as its servants died, and the Island was covered with vivic fire devouring them all and feeding them to the Land. A terrible deep hum was now carrying through the earth and sky and darkness all around me. There was a surge of imagery, and then the hum was fading. The manasphere cleared up with frankly shocking speed, and I jerked in something close to astonishment as the power and presence of the Deep was withdrawn. Standing waves in all directions splashed back into the ocean, and the seas rippled and were still. It took a few breaths for the winds to dare to move again. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Kris looked up at the vanishing indigo. ¡°I hate dealing with things at that level,¡± she muttered with resignation. We were simply irrelevant on a personal level to such things, less dangerous than an ant was to us. Only the fact that they didn¡¯t personally involve themselves meant we were still alive, and all mortals on Dereth and beyond. I could see the Wagon hanging offshore to the west, with everyone aboard it. ¡°Seems this was a bit distracting to their hunting efforts,¡± I muttered as I leaned on Crown and got to my feet. Kris hopped to her own feet effortlessly. ¡°How¡¯s that? Something in that last surge?¡± ¡°Prove our worth.¡± I pointed to the Dark Isle. ¡°The deaths of one hundred boss creatures of the Dark Isle, put to vivus.¡± Kris narrowed her eyes. The spawns of Dark Isle had a unique mechanic. They came in sets of four, dangerous creatures all. When a random one of the four was killed, that activated a Boss monster, Spawning in with two more assistants. So, seven kills to earn one Boss kill. Everything more dangerous than Vissidal Island, Casting Platinum and Mana-tier spells. ¡°I think the Mick said the tougher bosses are inland, up on the mesa there. Where the Taint of Grael and the Shadow in the Void is greater,¡± I noted. ¡°Huh.¡± Kris lifted her eyes to the long length of the higher hill forming the center of the Dark Island. ¡°They aren¡¯t going to drop trophy items. How do we prove the kills?¡± she asked reasonably. ¡°Mnecromonic. There¡¯s a field of Its awareness sitting right there, after all.¡± She looked down to the bottom of the tunnel, which went way deeper than it did physically. ¡°Right. Well, sure, then, prove ourselves to the eldritch uncaring entity so it will order Its minions to die in droves to kill our mutual enemies. Sounds utterly reasonable to me, right?¡± I was doing mental math. ¡°Getting the kill means doing more damage to the Summons than any other party, not being the last one to kill it, if what the Mick says was true. That may have changed, but Mnecromonic makes no real difference between those you help kill and those you actually put the killstroke on,¡± I pointed out. ¡°And one hundred kills is one hundred spells for me, at least. That¡­ is a lot of mana.¡± ¡°I¡¯d say only one of us needs the kill totals, but that sounds lame even to me. If I want Warlord authority over the bastards, I¡¯m sure I need it, and it¡¯s bloody obvious you do,¡± Kris nodded thoughtfully. ¡°If it¡¯s a standing authorization for everyone who manages it so they don¡¯t get attacked by the Deep¡¯s forces, everyone is going to want it. I can¡¯t picture the Mick NOT getting it, for instance.¡± ¡°That is a LOT of killing,¡± Kris pointed out. At her unspoken command, we started trotting out towards the Wagon, which obligingly turned our way as the Mick headed to meet us. ¡°Anything else in the message?¡± ¡°It will acknowledge kills of gold creatures on Vissidal and boss creatures here just as it always has. They have to be vivified, however.¡± Her pale violet eyes narrowed. ¡°Okay, that means everyone and their mother needs Mnecromonic on their Weapons if they want to profit from that. Not taking advantage of Karma accelerators is very stupid.¡± ¡°Not everyone has the force of mind and will to put up with the weight of everything they¡¯ve killed every time they bring their Blade to hand, Kris,¡± I said quietly. ¡°Then they aren¡¯t going to have the force of mind to break Ten, let alone Twenty, and they aren¡¯t going to be sucking power out of The Deep. Pity them.¡± Her voice held no sympathy. Since she basically lived to be a black hole for Karma, that wasn¡¯t surprising to me at all. If you didn¡¯t have the force of will or personality to deal with that shit, grow your mind and soul until you did, that was all there was to it. A magical universe allowed you to do that, so why wouldn¡¯t you? ¡°The true elites are going to be swarming over this place again, especially if it grants Luminance, too,¡± I said thoughtfully. ¡°This place is going to be hosting a LOT of vivus.¡± ¡°So, we call it the Gray Island and then the White Island in time. I think it¡¯ll be a while. The Taint is pretty deep here. I get the feeling it wasn¡¯t returned to the surface so much as thrust back up, ¡®thank you, get off of me¡¯ by the sea.¡± ¡°Not gonna argue that.¡± The Mick was almost to us, and we slowed down mutually. ¡°I dinnae think ye meant ta make that big an impression, but ye definitely did!¡± the Mick huffed for everyone, all of them curious to hear what had happened. ¡°Unsurprisingly, The Deep has amended our plans after our request, everyone,¡± Kris spoke up, and got everyone¡¯s attention instantly. ¡°One, Kris and I have to kill one hundred Boss creatures of the Dark Isle each to be recognized by The Deep.¡± They all looked at one another, even a short time of killing letting them realize it was a lot of fighting. ¡°That may or may not apply to every other one of you who wants to be recognized,¡± she went on, tilting her head at the Mick, who raised his eyebrows in instant interest. ¡°Secondly, if you have Mnecromonic on your Weapon, The Deep will continue to award Karma for Boss kills and Gold creatures alike. Just present your Weapon to the Shrine¡¯s Portal for The Deep.¡± The rather blank looks on the eyes of those there were cut short by Lord Mick¡¯s long, low whistle. ¡°Are ye serious?¡± he asked carefully. ¡°I don¡¯t know about Luminance, but yes.¡± He looked back at the Skeeters and Roaches alike, and shook his head. ¡°Ye done went and got aboard a Karmic Wagon o¡¯ the gods. It be not as fast an¡¯ easy as clearing Asheron¡¯s Island o¡¯ one-shot Wisps, but damn close to it, an¡¯ it never runs out, if demanding ye use Fellowships and teamwork for tactics instead of fighting alone. Ye lucky dogs, ye are!¡± he declared with feeling. He had a thought and looked back at me. ¡°One HUNDRED kills?¡± he repeated carefully. ¡°It¡¯s a lot for a mage, I know. It will definitely take me at least two days. And we don¡¯t know if it¡¯s the killshot, or just doing the most damage to one,¡± I replied to his unspoken real inquiry. ¡°So, ideally ye¡¯ll do both,¡± he nodded, turning his eye back to his people, then to Kris. ¡°Highness, I propose ye an¡¯ I split the purpose an¡¯ find which The Deep is looking for. I¡¯ll do kill shots, you do major damage. I dinnae think it¡¯s the former, so ye should be fine, and I be not needing the acknowledgment so much as ye.¡± Kris nodded at the chivalrous volunteering. If The Deep cared nothing for final blows, which was likely as it might allow the weak to be recognized, then Lord Mick wasn¡¯t going to get any counts at all. But then everyone would know. ¡°Showing strength isn¡¯t showing you know how to slit a throat, sir, Highness. Agreeing with Lord Mick on that!¡± Rogar piped up, and the Roaches and Skeeters murmured agreement. ¡°Aye an¡¯ truth, but we¡¯re going t¡¯ be finding out fer certain, so no complaining about it. No time like the present t¡¯ get started, then!¡± the Mick called out brightly. The Wagon was turned around, and we turned with it. ¡°Also, we¡¯d prefer to kill up on the hill, the tougher Bosses,¡± Kris stated coolly. ¡°If we have to do this, we¡¯re going to impress the bastard.¡± ¡°Sounds proper. Just have t¡¯ be more careful,¡± the Mick agreed, and our course was adjusted to take that into account. AF Chapter 443 – Dark Rewards and Deep Understandings Two days later, we were grimy and grungy in soul, even if Cantrips and vivus cleaned us up of the Tainted soil and coral and shit on the Dark Island. But the three of us had our hundred kills, with Mick¡¯s as a maybe. The key to killing the things quickly was Vulns and Imperils, of course, but only the former benefited me. Imperils stripped a lot of the Dark Isle creatures of all armor-like defenses and sent them negative, meaning a group of Summons could be killed very quickly by prudent Imperiling. But it all took mana, and we only had so much to go around before we had to withdraw, Meditate, and Renew the stuff, which took time. The creatures had a variety of vulnerabilities to damage types, and went from Aquatics like the Sleeches, to Magical Beasts like the Remorans, Construct Coral Golums, Native Outsiders in the Shades, Undead of multiple types, and Aberrants like the Mukkir. The Spawns were totally random, including respawns, so we never knew what we might be fighting, which meant changing Banes and Slayer Enhancements constantly, which sucked up mana from all the physical combatants, too. On the flip side, the Wolfpack teams got very good at wiping the spawns in tight clusters, even if the Healers had to be on the ball in the face of the Platinum and Incantor Magic being thrown around. Kris and the Mick were the primary tanks, of course, being able to resist a LOT of the magic, survive if it did come through, and still reap their opponents steadily. I could get the Most Damage on an opponent with one spell, usually, as long as it wasn¡¯t Imperiled. The crits on Imperiled creatures could be silly lethal, so a Vuln would be dropped on the boss as Kris or the Mick tanked it, I¡¯d blast it with an appropriate Shard spell turned up to nine, and then a full six people would tank it to distribute damage, with the Mick taking the killstroke on most of them. It was still a lot of fighting and a LOT of Healing Magic. Healing Magic sucked more mana from us, which meant more downtime, and even Healing Edge couldn¡¯t keep up with the pounding effects, especially if someone got Vulned and slammed with a spell, basically having to pick up and run instantly if that happened. It got worse if our tanks were the target of more than one opponent, and so we had to be on the ball. If the first one killed in the frontspawn of four was the trigger, it also meant we could be fighting six of them at once, and the ones coming in might pick anyone as a target, too! Even with a score of combatants, there was no relaxing at any time. Random events could converge, things could go sideways too fast, and all this shit had to die as fast as bloody possible. Two days for me to get a hundred kills. I was really missing Perpetual Shards now, but nothing was allowing me to bring unlimited firepower back, and having over six hundred mana in my Pool was at least some comfort. Still bloody annoying. The Mick went first, not overly concerned with his results. He simply stuck Bunita¡¯s Kiss up against the Barrier there, and we all felt a surge of power¡­ and, I was pretty sure, a sensation like ¡®Oh, it¡¯s you again.¡¯ He just nodded as he backed off, his Claymore spinning around and being sheathed. ¡°Most credit for the kill. It noted the killstrikes but didn¡¯t pay them much mind,¡± he said easily. ¡°Got some for Golds, too, but it¡¯s all base Karma.¡± ¡°No Lum?¡± Kris asked. ¡°Seemed about a 50/50 split, actually, in relative value,¡± he judged, which piqued everyone¡¯s interest. It was not a system that was conducive to all but the most coordinated Fellowships, catering to massive skilled solo players who could get kills on their own¡­ but that was why we stressed teamwork so much, and Mnecromonics allowed everyone to track their kill credits as needed. Trust the people you work with. Kris nudged me ahead, and the Mick stood aside as I stepped up and extended Crown down into that Barrier there. I whistled something that made the manasphere shudder in acknowledgment as a truncated Name whispered out¡­ and all the waters around this little shoal of an island went absolutely still. AH. YOU RETURN IN VICTORY, the manafield seemed to throb and the sky darken as that voice echoed in my ears, although still restrained and distant. THREE NIGHTS, ON THE DARK OF YOUR MOON, MY FOLLOWERS WILL GATHER ABOUT THAT ISLAND. SEE TO IT THAT YOU ARE THERE, SONGBINDER. Darkness flashed and flared, and Crown was released and pushed back strongly enough that the Mick had to grab me to make sure I didn¡¯t fall over. ¡°It¡¯s an arse,¡± he informed me knowingly, then glanced at the head of Crown. ¡°Well now. It used to dump Relic Armor on us for some reason when we accumulated enough trophies. Looks like it found something it liked.¡± You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I looked at the dark shell-like Token hanging from Crown with some trepidation. It had an Aura of Water and Darkness, neither of them energies I wielded often. Primus thrummed on my finger. I raised Crown up, and Elemental Command surged out and around the Token. The ululating sound that came forth was plenty ready to be hooked into the Sublime Chord, but I wasn¡¯t Singing right now. It still made the blood tremble, and the waves just starting to return went still and silent again as the shadow of the Name of The Deep washed past them. ¡°Well, that¡¯s definitely going to get something¡¯s attention,¡± Kris spoke up as I let the sound die. ¡°Let¡¯s see what it has to say about me.¡± Ding! Quaver was out and inserted into the Barrier as the cutting edge of its tones broke over us. She stared at the darkness behind it all without flinching, and when it was done, she withdrew her Sword smoothly, it wasn¡¯t forced back like Crown had been. Tinginginginginging¡­ Even the Lost Lights about Quaver looked like teardrops, and the following flames liquid and watery. The sound rolled out, and once again the waters went quiet as as Kris fluttered Quaver through butterflies in easy series. ¡°That is going to be extremely intimidating,¡± the Mick judged professionally. ¡°Creeps me out just hearing it.¡± ¡°I just got appointed Warlord of his forces for the escapade. It¡¯s curious to see how I will do!¡± she explained with grim irony. ¡°An inverted Heartsong effect carrying on a Bladedance,¡± I said calmly. ¡°You¡¯ll be able to give orders to them through the Deepsong in the middle of a fight.¡± ¡°Might need to practice a bit with that, then,¡± Kris murmured, the ululating tones fading as Quaver was flipped, shrank down, and was sheathed behind her waist. ¡°I can speak Aquatic, shouldn¡¯t really need it, but I¡¯m guessing it also counts as authorization.¡± ¡°Probably seeing if you abuse it, too. The expectation is that you totally will, I think.¡± ¡°I presume it also indicates that I¡¯m a servant of The Deep. You?¡± she asked me. ¡°It knows I am a Binder, and I know its Name. I could totally go requesting more power from it. It would probably approve a Pact if I asked it.¡± ¡°Ewww.¡± Kris scrunched up her face. ¡°That¡¯s probably a really good thing not to do,¡± she told me. ¡°Something we don¡¯t really want t¡¯ know about?¡± the Mick asked pleasantly. ¡°Not with an alien Elder thing of the seas and darkness, no,¡± I replied evenly. ¡°Pact what? Packed fer a big nasty fight? Aye, sounds right enough,¡± he misinterpreted loudly and smoothly. ¡°Now, howabouts we spend a day out here on Vissidal, give the scamps a nice boost before we head home with golds.¡± ¡°Everyone noticed that the Karma for the Awards was shared in Alliance, right?¡± Kris spoke up. The Roaches and Skeeters blinked, then hurriedly looked at their Assays, crying out in delight when they saw the floating Karma and Luminance there. ¡°Recognition from the Deep with a hundred kills, but absolute sharing of the rewards in Fellowship and Alliance,¡± I confirmed. ¡°The Deep is acknowledging teamwork, at the least, so it doesn¡¯t matter who gets the credit, as long as everyone stays in Fellowship or Alliance,¡± I went on, having no problem sharing my reward. ¡°One more day, with the break for Resurrections as normal,¡± I reminded them with a sigh. ¡°Now let¡¯s find a place to camp and get our Infusing done.¡± There was tired acknowledgment, everyone digging for pyreal bars. Daily Infusing and improving Gear waited for nobody but yourself, and everyone wanted better stuff now. The only way they were going to get it was to make it themselves!¡­ ------- Three days later, late afternoon, Moarsman Island¡­ There were two full Wagons with us, with the elites of the Royal Guard and Lugian Vanguards with us, about sixty combatants all told. The Royal Family was here for this, not about to miss it, more Knights of the Lost Light, and even a couple opportunistic paramounts keen to get back to feeling uber again. The Salute to Aru was done, and we breached the Shoreward on the east side of Moarsman Island, an Illusionary Wall in front of us to prevent us from being seen until it was a bit too late, taking care to place it well between any Summons out in the water. I put Crown down, Shaped Stone, and filled it with power as the Illusion in front of us failed. The pale blue-white arcane flames blasted fifty feet into the air, limning a massive figure within it. A gargantuan Club in misting white Coldphasing was lifted into the air, and the sun shone off a silver suit of Armor that could probably be seen from almost everywhere on the island as Tim the Tremendous Monuga bellowed for attention enthusiastically, shaking Smasher emphatically. At his feet, black-furred Mowen in his own set of new Armor, clutching gleaming silvery Tusker Knuckles Named Paws now Burning white with Coldphasing, added his own hooting and howling for attention. The nearest Summons were about fifty yards away, gawking up at the massive form of the Tremendous Monuga, especially as Tim broke into motion right for them. Mowen, the Hero of the Tuskers, was right beside his big friend, and we pounded after them. There were hundreds of moarsmen visible within just a quarter-mile, so there was going to be no end of fun for us, but Tim was going to be inheriting a lot of attention. They weren¡¯t going to enjoy his Regeneration rate at all, nor the way he would be getting Healed, either. Briggs was leading the Lugian Vanguard, who were each assigned the point of a Wolfpack team, their Shields all leading the way. Behind them, two Wagons with archers and mages were towed behind, and Coldphasing arrows slammed out in volley fire, pitching the toughest moarsmen around, as strong as those of Freebooters, over with every release. The rampage across the island began. --- Briggs plotted the course, I shot the Spawns with Dartrays, and Tim, looking for the next targets, raced Mowen to them. Sclavi and moarsmen went flying in icy pieces, or just went splat as the two massive combatants blew through them like tenpins. Behind them, our line of killers made sure nothing lived to the sides, clearing a path behind the two brutes about a hundred yards wide, ready to contract down as soon as resistance started getting organized¡­ but all that was happening for the moment was confusion and panic. Which was fine. We weren¡¯t invading, we were rampaging, straight across the island for the far side. Our job was to inspire them to bring in more help, sow fear and uncertainty, and set the stage for tonight. Having a forty-foot colossus smashing his way through your supposedly powerful servants was a nice start on doing that. AF Chapter 444 – Rampage Early, then Rampage Often I was probably a little showy, Wings out and everything as I kept up with the combatants, but this was a moving fight, so there was no reason not to do so. Certainly they weren¡¯t looking at me much, even when I marked the next spawn for Tim to head toward, dragging everyone else behind him. There was a lot of magic discharging, but Tim was ignoring most of it, and Healing up the rest. In the shadow of the big Monuga, Mowen was mostly ignored, but the damage from any spells hitting him were gone in under a minute with his own terrific Regeneration rate boosted up with Platinum-tier Life Magic. -We¡¯ve got motion coming from the Temples!- Princess Kristie /reported coolly, holding down the corner on the north side of the formation with wickedly fast swordwork, mostly Shardings flying in all directions relentlessly. -I guess they decided all the panicked horns going off and two of their shrines being junked finally got a reaction.- The massive Spiked Club of Smasher crashed through one of the jade-like support pillars to the third shrine, sending it flying after I snipped the mana-reinforcement conduit below it. With a bellow, Tim charged onto the thing, and the dome-like cap cracked off and went flying, landing on top of one of the groups of guardians there and crushing them flat. He spun with surprising agility, sending the rest of the support pillars flying, then bent down and brought Smasher down on the befouled altar strewn with gore and other offerings, shattering that into multiple pieces, too¡­ all of which went flying as his armored toe swept through them in a powerful kick and launched the fragments into the distance. Mowen was swatting moarsmen around like children with his Knuckles when the Tentacles of T¡¯Thuun erupted from the ground and snaked around him. Completely unimpressed, the massive tusker promptly backpedaled and howled for assistance, dropping his Knuckles and grabbing two of the massive stalks in his huge paws as he backed up and pulled them taut, instead of being pulled into them. ¡°Kill the Reedshark!¡± Briggs roared back, reminding the tusker of the anchor beast for the powerful Summons here. Mowen blinked, looked down at the big reedshark nipping at his legs, and simply let go of the trunk-thick tendrils. He clenched his fists, and the Paws were back on them. He brought them both down squarely on the reedshark, and it only managed to yipe once in pain before it was smashed flat into the ground with a crack and crunch of freezing hide shattering and bones crushing under the impact. There was a hiss, and the tendrils all shuddered, shivered, and dried up from the inside. In but a breath they had shriveled up and were falling apart on the ground, and the Tusker Champion was free of them. Mowen growled, fixing the fact clearly in his mind, and looking around for more of the deep blood-red reedsharks to pick on. ¡°Archer Wagon along the south, be ready for pursuit!¡± Briggs called out. The landscape ahead of them was starting to come into motion. ¡°Bring it in, flying wedge and line behind Tim! Straight ahead, no stopping. Second Wagon to the rear, blades out, cut as we pass, don¡¯t stop! ¡°Tim, trot due west, no stopping!¡± Our Warlord¡¯s voice had instant effect. The lines closed in, almost shoulder to shoulder and setting up a strong pace behind the slowly trotting Tremendous Monuga who was simply scything his Club through everything in his path. Scaled bodies went flying with shattering hides and broken bones, and his feet punted through any press they tried to bring up with tons of mass and muscle behind them. The Lugian Vanguards trampled flat anything on the ground as Tim continued on, striking to the sides against anything reeling there and sending them sprawling as the tall and slender snake-men bounced off their Shields alongside the shorter and broader moarsmen. Forward spell volleys were increasing, but Tim was tanking them wonderfully. Said volleys were breaking up as he then thundered through the Casters, it being hard to Cast when tons of monuga was stepping on you with a steel-shod boot. Mowen was actually moving faster than Tim, darting and charging back and forth through the increasing press of bodies, thinning them out and sending them flying with great glee, opening them up for the warriors behind him. I glanced north, where a wall of warriors was running after us, right into the face of repeated volleys of Ice arrows mowing them down with speed and deadly accuracy, rather trumping attempts to catch up to us easily. They also had to get past both Wagons to reach the runners beyond them, and were constantly having to deal with stepping over the bodies of those in front of them. Thera and Nippo, the Mick¡¯s attached Support Mages and two of my most enthusiastic students, were spotting the real ones among the Summons. The flash of Imperils going off on targets with a shiny white Aura around them to make them stand out had a bad habit of attracting a lot of focused fire, which led to unfortunate loss of command over a lot of Summons¡­ who then stopped, turned around, and ran back towards their Spawn Points, exactly as their default programming told them to do. Which kept mucking up the chase even more, but, hey, they were chasing us with a horde, not an army. Problems to be expected, amiright? If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Briggs was playing the Vanguard like a master, expanding and contracting with force and rhythm and really upsetting any attempts to stop the little folks following Tim the Tremendous Distraction. ¡°Coming up on the water!¡± I Called out for everyone, who were a bit busy to take in all the terrain. I zipped forward, lighting up a bunch of moarsmen and sclavi in the way. Tim thundered through them as they burned, Mowen bashed his way over them, and they were trampled if they didn¡¯t get up in time, Sword and Spear points plunging down to finish them in passing. I caught up to Tim as he broke into an open area already stripped of defenders and continued advancing to the shoreline. The Vanguard collapsed into a long line extending behind him, and everyone else rapidly caught up to them and passed them by. The last ones deployed Disks, the armored lugians hopped on them, then turned around and presented a shield wall to the chasing forces as their shields locked together. Magic crackled and roared at them, but bounced impotently off the blue-black metal. I zipped ahead, hit the ground, and Shaped up the Circle even as I pumped it full of mana. Dimension-bending magic swirled, and Mowen and Tim whooped and bellowed in excitement as they charged into it. Blue-white arcane fires roared up as they set foot inside it, and the two vanished. The Wagons hurtled by to either side of the Circle, while the running troops charged right into it and disappeared. The shield wall folded back into a reverse wedge, vanishing into the arcane fires just a few yards ahead of the horde of moarsmen and sclavi chasing after them. I chopped down, severing the Circle and its connection with Crown¡¯s Spear, while the entire chasing line of sclavi and moarsmen slowed down to a halt as they lost their targets¡­ except for the real ones in command hanging towards the back and not knowing what was going on. A Dimension Door crossed over me from right to left in a black rectangle, and I was out past the Shoreward, just ahead of the Wagons that had just been ushered through the Shoreward by Briggs and Kris pounding it out of the way. Gliding backwards, Kris grabbed my elbow and kept going out into the water and away from at least two thousand Summons of dangerous levels of power and skill, some of whom were actually sort of Casting after us as we very swiftly got out of their range and angle of attack, spells splattering against the Shoreward in magical fireworks as it self-sealed. ¡°I think that worked out rather well,¡± Briggs rumbled happily, a big grin across his face. ¡°We¡¯ve got some wounded, but nothing a bunch of Healing magic isn¡¯t fixing right now. They¡¯ll all be ready for tonight.¡± ¡°Wagons together!¡± I ordered crisply, and the two Forsaken leading them swerved in tight. I wove the Illusionary Wall, and there was a phantasmal burst of blue-white fire behind us, followed by an illusion of empty seas where we¡¯d been. I fluttered up fifteen feet and the Wagons came by underneath me, the troops all ducking as I came back down on the back end of Kris¡¯ Wagon, the Mick grabbing Crown and making sure I didn¡¯t overshoot as he dragged me down. I didn¡¯t move my eyes from the Wall concealing us from observation as Kris and Briggs leisurely turned south, back around the direction we¡¯d come. The seas were empty of anything resembling interference as we motored over them, although everybody was looking for signs of Aquatics. --- ¡°Thought we¡¯d be seeing more of them by now, lass,¡± the Mick admitted after a mile of waters went by under the two Wagons. ¡°You can¡¯t hear the subsonics. Kris never put Quaver away.¡± He looked at me, then promptly turned around and made his way to the front of the Wagon. Kris was indeed power-skating across the waves, Quaver held off and away, trailing a solid swathe of misty vivus droplets from Golden Soulfire. Grasping Bunita¡¯s Kiss more tightly, he could feel more than hear a rising and falling ululation in the magic of his Sword, probably because he¡¯d also offered his Sword to be judged by The Deep. He was standing back next to me after another minute, looking out at the waves where nothing was poking its head up, leaping out of the waters to check us out, or doing pretty much goddamn anything. ¡°They¡¯re already here, aren¡¯t they?¡± ¡°She¡¯s letting them know WE are here,¡± I confirmed. ¡°There¡¯s a reason we did this so late in the day.¡± ¡°Will the moarsmen hear it?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°If they go into the water, they might, but they aren¡¯t going to want to. Hearing that name echoing through the waters like that? They¡¯ll want to get out of the waters as fast as possible. I can also guarantee that there¡¯s no moarsmen NOT subordinate to The Deep outside the Shoreward at this time.¡± He looked over to his left and the island trailing past us a half-mile away. ¡°Take a lot of critters to secure that entire length,¡± he mused aloud. His Mask came down, and he studied the motion along the shorelines and lands rising up from it, as well as from the pyramid-temples there. A tide was reverse-flowing across the island as Summons returned to their Spawn Points, and flashes of light were popping up as destroyed Summons were replaced, Points Sealed in passing forced back open with the magic of Sclavi and the moarsmen¡¯s priests. More numbers were spilling down the temples much further inland, and that dark tide didn¡¯t look to be stopping. ¡°It would.¡± ¡°Ye think they could hear it while we were fighting, lass?¡± the Mick wondered aloud. ¡°Because the reinforcements still be coming.¡± ¡°I think they could.¡± ¡°But ye didn¡¯t make the same impression.¡± ¡°That probably would have called in the ones in the water and exposed them in their eagerness to join the fighting. Not a good idea. They just know that The Deep was involved in what just happened, and they didn¡¯t manage to capture or kill any of us, while we tore through them like a storm.¡± ¡°Well, aye. Tim an¡¯ the big ape were awesome, ye have t¡¯ agree.¡± ¡°They were,¡± I agreed. ¡°Getting prepped for later right now, too.¡± ¡°Mmm.¡± He looked at the waves around us. ¡°Do I want to know how many are close to us right now?¡± he asked under his breath. I flicked a finger. Unlike normal, I kept the Holo beneath the edge of the railing, although it was at just the right angle where the Queen Mother on the other Wagon could see it perfectly. The Mick eyed the hundreds of yellow, green, and blue streaks layered five and more times underneath us, speeding along below us and keeping pace with the easy strides our two Wagon-mules were using. More were ahead of us, falling in and expanding the wedge slowly and constantly. ¡°Aye, that¡¯s a few of them,¡± he agreed, turning to look at the setting sun, less than an hour from the horizon. We had our army. AF Chapter 445 – Coming Deeply Unmoared We were parked two miles off the eastern coast, just a couple Wagons, sitting in one place just above what the waves could touch as they passed by underneath us. Endure was beating, slow and steady, like a giant heartbeat as Briggs stood there on the surface of the water like an unmoving statue, the waves breaking past him, none getting within five feet of him. Quaver was out, and now we all could hear the faint dinginginginginging tinginginginginging, the droning ululation seemingly a product of the stiff breeze flowing past Kris as she waited there, and the waves flowed past her as if the space she was standing in actually wasn¡¯t really there. Someone with any real respect for the sea would likely have been utterly horrified to look beneath us at what was holding position there while the rays of the sun grew long and streamed out past us, shadows rising, extending, and taking over as the blue faded to the deep indigo and blacks of the night. A moonless night, only the stars dancing on the waves around us. I eyed the three Violet-tiers basically right underneath us, likely massive sleech akin to that which had tried to prevent us from reaching the Vesayans long ago. They knew I was Detecting them, but there was no casual attempt to rebuff me, which they certainly could do. I could tell they had an alien form of cool amusement at my attention and likely the whole situation, fatalistic about the slaughter to come and their own lives coming to an end, horrors of the depths consigned to potential death by their master and having no choice in the matter. The spectrum of creatures, none below high Yellow, extended off the range of my Detects both horizontally and vertically, a hemisphere filled with many, many remorans, nautiloids of various sorts, and even some nasty moarsmen. ¡°It¡¯s time,¡± I announced, and stepped off the top of the Wagon. Airy Water popped up around me, and the water was a new sky. There was a remoran forty feet wide directly beneath the Wagon, and I fell right past its jaws as I descended into the water. Above, the heartbeat picked up speed as Briggs took a step, and the ululating drone quickened and flowed and began to move. On either side of me, two nautiloids larger than the Wagons hovered in the waters, while behind them another nautiloid even larger waited with cold, eternal patience. Empty dark eyes full of inhuman thoughts fixated on me, my Wings spread and filled with stars there under the water as I began to move forward. And I began to Hum. In all directions about me, countless finned, scaled, and shelled forms in the waters began to move, pretty much all of them larger than me by a considerable margin. The lesser creatures in front of us parted out of the way, seeming to shimmer as even the faintest echo of their master¡¯s Name flowed over them. Uncaring of the lidless eyes fixed on and following me closely, I continued forward through the dark waters, and the army of The Deep moved with us. ------- The seafloor was coming up rapidly below us, which meant the entire force had to both cram together and spread out because the narrower space couldn¡¯t fit everyone. I descended deep enough to make sure I was right on the edge of the Shoreward as Briggs and Kris drew up on it. The Heartbeat was grew quite loud, indeed, enough to be heard on the shore, and Quaver¡¯s Deepsong suddenly whooped loudly as the entire undersea army quivered in anticipation. I drove Crown down into the muck at the edge of the Shoreward, and Shaped Stone. The great arch exploded off the mire and sands, extending thirty feet above the water and sixty feet across the surface of it in an instant, thickened as Runes fell into being on it, and waters churned against gravity and flowed up against the surface of it. Hammer and Sword smashed into the Shoreward, cutting and shattering, and the Shoreward broke under obdurate Null and unstoppable Sun. I brought up the Sublime Chord, and the waters peeled back from me, as I wasn¡¯t all that deep, even as the Name of The Deep blew through the waters. I extended the Arch into and through the Shoreward, anchored it to the stone, and prevented it from closing. Briggs and Kris skated ahead, the manasphere echoing with the Name of The Deep, and the sea rose behind them with So Much Shit. The two did veer aside to let them pass as the army of The Deep erupted from the waters and soared through the spray-filled air, a-wing like sharks and the air nearly solid with their bodies as they streamed past us. None touched me, although they came close as I flew through them to the side of the Shorebreach Arch and hurried after the Wagon. We were basically right where we¡¯d started the attack earlier today, and the alarm horns and conches were already wailing in a panic as the Summons along the shores screamed and charged to the attack against the flood of The Deep¡¯s servants coming ashore. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. They¡¯d wisely broken and shattered the Circle I¡¯d made earlier, Tainting the sands within it to make it impossible to use. The second Circle next to it buried a foot down, not so much. The first Nautiloid Great Elder rose up out of the sea and was drifting in awesome silence through the Arch when arcane fires blossomed and shot into the air, and the colossal form of Tim the Tremendous Monuga, his Armor all painted black and only the cold vivic Flames around Smasher really visible, stepped out of the Teleportation Circle with Mowen, the great dark tusker¡¯s own Armor blackened and only his Tusker Knuckles really visible, right behind him. The Isparians, Lugians, and Aun troops following them were quick to gather behind the Wagons, very careful not to react to the incredible numbers of deadly Aquatics streaking past in non-stop haste, even as the landscape in front of us began to ignite with dozens, then scores of spells going off, both the shining Auras of Elemental Vulnerabilities and the explosive blasts of War Magic. The Nautiloid Elder turned slightly to regard the Tremendous Monuga whose head was higher than its own, its long tentacles curling in what might have been a bit of consideration and agitation. Tim¡¯s triple eyes looked right back at it with confident, almost dismissive scorn. He glanced with one of them at me, and I just shook my head once. Grunting, he turned away as I floated up to his shoulder. ¡°Our job is to take those temples down,¡± Briggs stated coolly. ¡°We leave the landscape spawns to The Deep, and we Seal and Burn everything in vivus.¡± Hundreds of Weapons dripping vivus raised behind him. ¡°By squads, disperse and follow them, and feed everything to The Land.¡± The steady heartbeat strode away from us, taking one of the Wagons with him. ¡°I want a sleech sitting atop any Spawn Point that has not been Sealed until it is treated,¡± I Sang into the Chord. I had no doubts whatsoever that they could sense those places, but they didn¡¯t have any vivus. A liquid gurgling that made the stomach churn backed up my words instantly as the Nautiloid Elder broadcast the order. Squads of land-dwellers with vivic Weapons broke apart, following the streams of The Deep¡¯s warriors and looking for the motionless sleeches waiting for them, as well as every corpse and body being torn apart in fanatical, no-holds-barred combat. ¡°Tim, to the Temples. Take it slow and easy, and clear the road if you have to,¡± I told him, and Dartrays Chained out into a night that meant nothing to the Devilsight of my Mask, while Eternal Lights on helms, shields, and around the Wagon beamed out in all directions and illuminated a dark and shadowy Hell come to the surface world. There were already thousands of combatants engaged, more than we¡¯d seen in our initial rampage, and we were barely off the beach. We¡¯d wanted them to know we were coming, so that we might kill all of them, and they¡¯d obliged. The Deep¡¯s forces continued streaming in through the Arch behind us, and the mutual slaughter wasn¡¯t going to stop anytime soon. ----- I lit up our path with Chained Dartrays igniting lines and clusters of our enemies, up to seventy-five of them Burning in the night in magical flames along our course. Tim alternately stepped on things, kicked things, and waded through things. He was impossible to stop, his feet armored, greaves and plates guarding his legs and making him basically invulnerable to the physical attacks of the T¡¯Thuun adherents. Smasher systematically swept back and forth, like harvesting wheat, and screaming moarsmen and hissing sclavi went broken and flying as shattered fleshy ice. There was an eruption a quarter-mile to the left, where a bunch of Tentacles of T¡¯Thuun blazed with an unclean brown-yellow light, uniting into a full Arm of T¡¯Thuun which slammed down with an impact that flattened a score of Deep creatures instantly. A scything blade of force ten feet across ripped space and the disruption in reality accompanying the thing as the Nautiloid Great Elder immediately moved to confront the hundred-foot tentacle. Another Great Elder was moving in from the side, its tentacles picking up T¡¯Thuun servants and casually twisting them apart, nibbling on some and tossing others away casually as it plowed through them. I let them do what they had to do as we pressed forward through the press, leaving a land Burning vivic white behind us. Corpses and carcasses coated the ground, and we gave vivus to all of them. Behind the line pushing forward, the ground was rapidly being stained white, expanding most quickly along the shoreline where the spawns were spread out the most. The remorans were winging to the hunt, their nautiloid masters reaching out ahead of them with Vulns and Imperils to soften up the defenders and accelerate the killing. The sound of the carnage was horrific, as there was a lot of flesh being rent, jaws ripping and chewing, claws tearing, and creatures screaming death-cries as they met their vicious ends. The stench was pretty eye-watering, too, although the vivus helped with that. Tim just looked like a big shadow swinging the Coldphased Smasher, and if he could give out a bellow deeper and louder than anything else out on the field, well, that just made him even more fearsome and unexpected. Really, who expects a Tremendous Monuga to just come out of nowhere, even if you¡¯ve seen it happen once already? Mowen, on the other hand was being rather quiet, a shadow in the night that just tore holes, smashed and threw hapless natives around, and basically didn¡¯t announce himself as he raged through the press with mass and tremendous strength buttressing him, the very image of an unknown terror in the night. ¡°Potential Arm ahead!¡± I Said from next to Tim¡¯s head, seeing the clearing all the native creatures were instinctively avoiding. Tim growled as the next line of Dartrays pointed right to it for his attention, but not for him to fight¡­ unless he wanted to. He looked at me, I made a gesture that it was up to him, and he just grinned ferociously. He looked at Smasher, and the Coldphased metal dimmed to steel, then all the spikes on it turned into blades as it Morphed into slashing damage, each former spike as big as an axe-head. Mowen grunted his approval, lifting up his Paws and turning them into long arcing claws on his fist. The eruption of the Arm out of the ground as the two of them bulled their way through the defenders was still shocking, especially as the disparate Tendrils united to form something nearly as big as the Arm we¡¯d killed on Freebooter Island back then. I had to wonder what it was costing the Temples there in mana, how much weight was pressing on the ley lines allowing it to manifest this way, and then it was just for me to drop an Imperil/Slash Vuln on the thing and watch these two go to town on it. Well, except for the fact that Kris beat them to it. Which, thinking about it, I should have expected. AF Chapter 446 – Arms and Temples The Arm¡¯s many, many eyes opened and focused on the mass of Tim charging it, the shadow flitting through its servants and leaving a trail of wrathfire behind it as she did so was mostly ignored as more magic going off. But this wasn¡¯t a Summon, this was a Call, just like the damn thing on Freebooter. It might have recognized her, and it certainly did when Quaver¡¯s two tones echoed out, but this time warbling the name of The Deep to further impress T¡¯Thuun. Quaver inserted into the rind-like hide of the Arm right through one of those staring eyes, and she took off right up the side of it, dragging Quaver behind her and splitting open a layer of its hide behind her as she did so. The whipping it was going to level at Tim writhed and pounded down next to the monuga, who completely ignored it as he brought Smasher¡¯s slashing spikes across and crashed his Club into the base of the Arm with a thunderous blow. Mowen slammed into the other side, double claws hooking and ripping across from Tim¡¯s crushing impact, and suddenly the Arm was already chopped halfway through! ¡°A glutton for punishment, come thirsting for banishment, Writhe as you might, wail to the night, A monuga and a tusker are here to slay, Now die and come, come show your servants the way! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Yeah, Kris gave fuck-all about elder Mythos Entities and such-like. Her total F-You carried perfectly in the Voice of her Whispers of the Wild. Every Deep creature in hearing went totally apeshit on hearing the two tones come alive with something they could totally understand, while the T¡¯Thuun servants quavered that a mortal being would so dare to talk to their master, and with the attitude of someone who had done so before! ¡°Feel the jaws and might of the tails, The rip of the claws and scorn of the scales! The cold dark eyes as your petty magic fails! The DEEP! THE DEEP IS WATCHING! The DEEP COMES FOR YOUR SOULS! TREMBLE, WE COME!¡± Tim had dropped Smasher and tackled the slimy Arm, forcing it over and sideways as it writhed and flailed in his mighty arms, while Mowen was howling and ripping monkeyshines through its base in windmills of furious motion. Unnatural flesh and gore was spraying in all directions, blowing into vivus that was now all over the black Armor and fur of the Tusker Champion as he raged all over the stump. Kris slammed to the ground next to him and blurred through seven strikes of motion, tearing away at the widening wound in a specific pattern, tracing curves and whorls in the air that formed into a deadly Burning rose made of the misting blood of the Arm of T¡¯Thuun. Mowen¡¯s monstrous blows all turned into crits, shredding the unnatural meat of the Arm despite all the Health Qi trying to flow through it, vivus flaring as Kris opened up the other side of it further, ripping and tearing with frenzied precision. ¡°A tribute to The Land, an offering by The Deep! Hunger, thirst! Wail and let your Blighted eyes weep, Wells where The Deep Dwells Hells where darkness tells THE DEEP IS COMING FOR YOU! TREMBLE! TREMBLE, THE DEEP COMES!¡± With an awful ripping that felt a lot like your own flesh was tearing, the Arm was torn off its foundation, hacked clean through. Tim raised the flailing corpse of it above his head as it writhed and died, and the Deep¡¯s minions went totally berserk. In the distance, another Arm collapsed under the concentrated magic of the Elder Nautiloids, and the fighting entered a new level of savage killing. --- Our progress towards the temples slowed, but didn¡¯t stop. The defenders weren¡¯t fighting at full strength in our area and The Deep¡¯s chosen Hag of a Warlord was ladling out the awesome to everything fighting around her, but there was just a lot of meat and scales to be tearing through, coming from all over the island and from the temples specifically. Exactly as it was supposed to. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I eyed the Heavens-Up Display, checking the spread of troopers. They had penetrated far into the backfield of the island¡¯s defenders, and sleeches were leading them from one abandoned spawn point to another, stopping the reinforcements from cycling endlessly, a force that even The Deep¡¯s numbers would simply be unable to equal in the long run. But this wasn¡¯t going to take a long run. Sweeping the spawn points rapidly cut down the immediate reinforcements, destroying the scattered shrines in the area helped destroy morale, trashing the spawn pools sent a clear message as to their fates, and the instant closing to combat of the remorans and Deep moarsmen kept the combat pitched, while the nautiloids in all their varieties were constantly Casting to supplement the efforts of their minions. Five Arms of T¡¯Thuun had been encountered, all of them eventually hacked down, most by gathered spell power. Eating those things wasn¡¯t allowed, so the remorans were less useful up close, but considering their own incredible Casting ability, even if mono-themed, the Arm fell after enough magic to fell an army was heaped upon it. The stepped pyramids of the temples were now in front of us. They were of Empyrean design, and even looked almost exactly like the ruins on Freebooter Island. That didn¡¯t surprise me in the slightest, even if it was disappointing to see. Dark Falatacot factions did worship the bastard, so this could be expected¡­ it was just that it was likely the biggest temple complex in all of Dereth, and it was devoted to an eye-tentacle thing from the Outer Dark. Righto. Good peoples, them Falatacot. Four smaller corner temples around the central one. Mana-reinforced construction, sure enough, defying tens of thousands of years and still here. However, that reinforcement was being incredibly strained right now by the volume of the respawns, the Portals bringing in servants, and naturally enough T¡¯Thuun manifesting Arms here at the invitation of its priests. Yeah, the ley lines here had a lot of stress on them, which meant the channels of mana-reinforcement to the building structures weren¡¯t quite so solid. Normally this wouldn¡¯t be an issue. The structures could actually restore themselves with full mana flow, so as long as the damage was kept to a minimum, which the hardened structure was surely capable of withstanding. Well, no, not with me here. There was an Arm of T¡¯Thuun right before the steps leading down towards us, writhing and hurling explosive balls of spores, dispensing Inflicts and Curses as it wished. The Deepchord began to build in the manasphere as I truly began to use the Sublime Chord in earnest. In basically seconds I had sleeches, niffis, nefanes, and even wings of remorans hovering in the air all around me. ¡°Cut him down,¡± I Whispered, but they all heard me. Triadspell, Lower Magic Resistance and Slashing Vuln going off in tandem. +4 to the Caster Levels around me, -4 to those of the enemy. It was like seeing a magical firing line going off, so many wheeling blades of force punched out for the base of the Arm in front of us. No hesitation, no pausing, even as sporeblasts cut through the Casting creatures around me, instantly replaced by more fanatical servants eager to join this effort and fight the unfightable. Tim was standing directly above me, idly batting away any Void Magic or spores coming my way with Smasher, his triple eyes flat and unimpressed by the thing before him, the third one he¡¯d faced already tonight. There were something like two hundred Casters hurling constant War Magic at the thing, the target a shining blue-white area blazing with Silver Fire and vivus where I was pumping triple Darts into it constantly, giving everything a common target. Under so much concentrated firepower, the Arm couldn¡¯t last long, even with some of its incoming minions racing into the fusillade to take the shots themselves, which only inspired more nautiloids to float in from the sides and take that sweet +4 bonus for themselves as they laid into the incoming reinforcements without mercy. Two minutes of wild concentrated Whirling Blades and the base of the Arm was torn apart, blazing and on fire. The defenders all around all wailed out in horror and despair, and none of them moved, even when the bulk of it came crashing down on top of a bunch of them and pancaked them rather explosively. Their fate was to come here and die, so no sympathies from me. Vivus shooting down to sever its extradimensional connection with its death here also led me right to the ley line it was tapping, which led me to the mana-reinforcement connection feeding off the gravely weakened line. Having sympathy for their power-balancing needs, I calmly snipped off the connection to the ley line entirely, and removed it from their need for consideration. ¡°Bring up your water for me,¡± I whispered, and slowly leveled Crown at the temple as I started forward. The psychic trembling of bloodlust around me was almost overwhelming. Flanking Deep Casters were still volleying down the constant flow of reinforcements coming down the stairs and over the walls from the top of the temple. If the newcomers were a bit shocked on seeing an Arm of T¡¯Thuun Burning right on the doorstep of the temple, it still didn¡¯t stop them at all. Green magic swirled up about me. Nominally released as acidic magic, here it just built and held as I wove it all together in Ritual format, expanding the area and power of what I was about to do, which was a basic spell that combined Water and Earth. Its resistance to magic gone, the stone of the Temple was extremely vulnerable to Rock to Mud. Crown¡¯s Token wailed the Name of The Deep, and all that green magic turned deep indigo as I swept my hand forward. A wave of liquefying magic swept out in front of me, hit the stairs right in front of us, and melted it down¡­ then kept right on going as I pushed it Straight Thataway. Why go up to the top of the Pyramid, fight your way inside through the corridors and defenses in tight quarters, when you could just crack the thing open and go right for the main Summoning Chambers within? ¡°Remorans, hunt everything,¡± I Whispered, and with eerie flicks of their tails and flaps of manta-wings that matched the ululations of The Deep¡¯s Name, a flood of them soared down the newly enslimed twenty-by-twenty foot square tunnel in a river of death. Sighing inside, I glided forward, and sleeches jostled one another to keep pace with me as remorans flowed past us overhead. Vivic Darts waited in readiness, and I brought up a Crown of Stars just so I would have some formidable punch ready if something did indeed happen. The sleeches drew back from what looked like massive motes of the Lost Light circling my head, all them Holy Kickers going at it and making them very uncomfortable, letting them know I was as alien to them as they were to me. Celestial powers and energies were something antithetical to much of their existence. I saw more explosions and the bright lights of War Magic going off ahead of us, croaking calls of alarms and echoing hisses of surprise assuring me that the remorans had met major resistance and excitement was forthcoming. The lesser sleeches around me sped up and ahead, racing to join the fighting. Unhurried, I skimmed along after them into the base of the temple. AF Chapter 447 – Temples to Tombs It was known that the main temple had its main chamber down at least two levels beneath it, but not so the secondary temples¡­ and we were coming in to basically a ground-level room entered from three floors higher on the outside. The streams of creatures coming out of the three eye-like portals had been racing for the hallways of both side passages leading up and out of here. They were blindsided a bit when the wall turned into a wave of mud and muck, and a surging wave of remorans coming through it bypassed all the nasty corridor fighting above and dove right down onto them. One of the Portals was shut down immediately by dint of the priests keeping it open suddenly being munched on by two or three remorans each. I paused only a moment at the entry, noting the flow of bodies from the remaining Portals was, if anything, only increasing in frantic reaction to the incoming flow of Deep Servants, stacking up the bodies for a really tight scrum. That is, until my Twinned Spellflare hit both of them. The explosion as the Portals were disrupted and flared into wild magic filled the place with shooting worms in every color imaginable, the smell of calculus and pressure differentials, the sound of walnuts cracking while shouting the Name of the Deep, and the colors of basket-weaving taking place in the darkness. I was pretty sure those were newspapers floating through the air there, and wheeling crystalline crystals set up a chop suey vortex on the one, while mad butterflies fluttered over the other circle of T¡¯Thuun natives, landed, and promptly dissolved into skin-eating poison. Well, you never knew with Spellflares. Still, the 15d6 damage cap base meant it wasn¡¯t going to be too awful silly. Plenty enough to totally destroy their Formation, knock them off their feet, and shut down their reinforcements, however. The weird ululating cries of The Deep¡¯s minions overwhelmed the gasps of horror and dismay from the moarsmen and sclavi guards, but that was to be expected. ¡°Sleeches, Imperil for your servants. Niffis, Pierce Vuln them. Remorans, if you can¡¯t reach one of them, Piercing Bolt one that has been Vulned. ¡°The Deep is watching. Be impressive.¡± There was a shudder in the very air, the manasphere bubbling and darkening to indigo, and The Deep¡¯s servants knew I wasn¡¯t exaggerating about that at all. It was really basic teamwork, but the uncoordinated attacks cleaned up just like that. Aural lights flared as the Debuffs began to go off, and half-berserk remorans tore into their demoralized and weakened opponents. Kris wasn¡¯t in here. She was leading Tim and the others over to the second side temple, getting started on the Arm of T¡¯Thuun in place there. I sniped off the center of the defense, a circle of moarsmen priests surrounded by armored Sclavi, Darts and Crownshards flying out with Toppling to slam defenders off their feet, which allowed the remorans to press into the lines, split them open, and really broke up their defensive spellcasting. Five minutes later, there were only dead defenders here, save for some incidental fighting in the hallways to the sides. I was floating in the center of the room, so I Said simply, ¡°Vacate the room.¡± There was no questioning me. The remorans flitted off like flying fish, and the various nautiloids drove for the muck-hall out, some taking the side halls out to hunt any survivors in the upper temple. In less than a minute, the whole chamber was empty of everything but the blood, gore, and reek I was keeping at bay with my Mask. I took care of all of them with a Pyroclasm, simultaneously putting to vivus every single corpse in here and feeding them to The Land¡­ and incidentally setting up a nice vivic Burn here in a center of Blighted power, the whole room exploding into misting whiteness at the same time. Unbinding the ley line connections below the place with Crown¡¯s foot tapping the stone ground, I finished up and headed back outside, the length of the muckhall also Burning vivic. My assault group was gathered up outside. Off to the right, the three Great Elders had engaged another Arm of T¡¯Thuun before the main temple, while Briggs was on the opposite side of it, chewing into the opposing side of it as the Empyrean-class Whirling Blades pounded into the Arm with screaming rotations, giant saw-blades sweeping in to tear into the plantflesh of the oversized tendril. No problems with its access point being vivisized, then¡­ I headed around to the left, where wings of nautiloids to the sides were blasting into the other Arm as Mowen, Kris, and Tim hacked into it as well, while throngs of Deep servants clashed in knots of meat-chewing savage combat all over the place around them. I helped by discharging the last of my Crownshards to pop all of the main eyes of the Arm, which definitely didn¡¯t earn me any goodwill on its part, but eh. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. We had temples to bring down fast and efficiently. I wasn¡¯t going to be nice to this Deru-Tree-killing abomination. ------- The side temples were down. Ninety percent of the island was swept, its spawn points Sealed and only a few scattered ones still coughing up Summons, all such promptly swept down on by watching nautiloids and teams of vivus-wielding land-dwellers. The three Great Elders were assembled behind and around me. There was a stone circle radiating out from them and us, and hundreds of nautiloids were gathered around us as boiling green neo-acidic energies gathered into thick streams, forming a building maelstrom that was not so much shaking the air as making it chant, and bubble, and writhe with a Name. The Deep, The Deep, The Deep¡­ in a very non-human manner, of course. The sky was supposed to be lightening up in the east, but the only lights were the frantic combat going on all over the outside of the central temple in front of us as the Deep¡¯s servants kept T¡¯Thuun¡¯s fanatics away from us, and of course the ground that was basically covered in whiteness and mist from the tens of thousands of corpses Burned away and Fed to The Land. The Sublime Chord was pulsing like the heart of the deep ocean as I brought down Crown, holding the magic up there with pure focus and Concentration, cutting light in the middle of a building indigo-green hellwater cyclone. I let the spell go, filling all the Widened and Twinning and such to the limits of the ageless monstrosities behind me to handle the mana load, and sent it out ahead of me. The servants of The Deep moaned in the liquid rhythm of the far depths, and a Rock to Mud of legendary proportions slammed into the temple in front of us. Ancient stones liquefied, pitching hundreds of snarling, clawing combatants down the stairs and landings as they gave way. Flows of green and indigo swarmed up the middle of the temple as the Name of The Deep beat on the stone, and it gave up under the assault of that endless infinity of emptiness. The magic went straight through from one side of the massive temple to the other, only the very top level not touched as the magic swam through the stone and turned it to muck and silt. It poured down into the empty spaces below, the many, many halls and corridors beneath, and all of the sunken rooms and chambers in a smooth wall of destruction forty feet wide, including a convenient ramp of slime and mud leading down into that mess right in front of me. A thousand wings beat as one as the remorans swept forward, each wing of four or so now accompanied by its own nautiloid to Imperil or Vuln for them, sparing the lives of their minions and increasing the speed of the assault at the same time. The area ahead and below erupted in Aural flares and War Magic, and this time the beat of Heartsong rode with them as Briggs and Kristie strode fearlessly into the mess down there with the assault forces, and the Deepsong came with them. A wordless inquiry from the massive Elders behind me, and I just nodded. ¡°Continue pouring power into the Circle, and when I break the ley line links down below and vivify the mess of them, I will return and we will sink this entire structure down into the dark,¡± I replied to the alien intellect in Aklo, popping my Wings once more. Without hesitation, I joined the streaming hordes heading down into the depths, while behind me the Ritual Circle of Nautiloids doubled in size¡­ and, if you were watching, spread along a low wall of raised stone all the way back to the Breaching Arch, whose stone began to glow and fill an eye-watering assortment of Runes with turquoise energy, one after another as power was drawn from the surrounding ocean towards the center of the island here. We couldn¡¯t bury the island itself, but we could sure bury this temple! I kept up the Deepchord, boosting the spellcasting of The Deep¡¯s minions, penalizing the defenders, and unleashing Chained Dartrays into throngs of the T¡¯Thuun fanatics constantly, setting them on fire and knocking them off their feet, breaking their press and opening up opportunities for remorans or moarsmen to exploit. ¡°The Temple falls and all its bells do shake Darkness calls, and faithless servants quake. The Deep Sings a Song to welcome you Preparing your long-awaited due. Tremble, ohhhh, you best Tremble, Tremble, Tremble¡­¡± Yeah, if they were creeped out by The Deep¡¯s Name echoing off every stone and surface, ringing through earth and sky and the very mana of the Land, adding in the Trembling Song really added that ole Heartsinger edge of You Are So Fucked to this shitshow. Creeped all the land-dwellers out something gods-damned fierce, too, as the alien nature of the Entity was ferociously apparent to all of them. Shouldn¡¯t be getting any new cultists forming out of anybody who was actually here¡­ but of course that wouldn¡¯t stop fools who hadn¡¯t heard a Name like that drenched in the screams and meat of tens of thousands of faithful and enemies alike sacrificed to Its glory, and only thought of calling on it for power. They were out there. Fools charged in where celestials knew gods-damned better than to go¡­ Sighing, I dismissed the thought, concentrating on starting a whole lot of vivic fires over the butchered carcasses strewn about in many pieces, with helpings of copious stinking blood and gore as proper accents to The Deep¡¯s revenge on its old rival. Kris was still Singing down there, both Warlords directing traffic and making this fight as brutally one-sided as it could be. Whether or not we ever called on The Deep again, its creatures would know us, would know who we were, and the remorans in particular would know we didn¡¯t just throw their lives away. They might not have been too smart, but they were pack hunters, and they knew teamwork and packmates in their blood and bones. They would definitely remember pack leaders like us. If they knew no remorse or real loyalty, it didn¡¯t matter. Cold, clear survival instincts would let them know who to follow if push came to shove, and if their masters couldn¡¯t push their domination down on them over some land-dwellers chosen by The Deep, what did that signify? It signified that the nautiloids probably wanted us to die, and die rather badly, all things considered. That was why we were down here, the elders were concentrating on gathering up their magic and hopefully maybe thinking of drowning us with it, and our troops were finishing up the spawn points and starting to withdraw, just in case they got ideas about adding us as tasty extras to this grand sacrificial ceremony. The Deep wouldn¡¯t care at all. If we couldn¡¯t deal with a little back-stabbing, were we really worth the effort? His favored race wanted to remain His favored race, and that was not something just a little mass war that killed a few tens of thousands of them was going to solve. Time to present our own solution. AF Chapter 448 – A Hole in the Ground ¡°They¡¯re going to try to drop the temples without me and drown us in here with it, maaaaaybe try to kill us if we make it out. Additional sacrifices of filthy warm-bloods and all to The Deep, proper service and all aside and everything.¡± No telepathy here, nautiloids of various types around and the Great Elders outside. Talking while Crown and Quaver and Briggs and Endure maintained the various Heartsong Effects was a matter of Subvocalization, don¡¯t leave home without it. ¡°Tim might be able to take one of them if uninjured. Three of them, not a chance,¡± Kris agreed, streaks of motion turning a sclavi into frozen chunks with remarkable speed. ¡°The landscape spawns are 99% and more done. We can actually do the rest if the Deephorde withdraws. Any ideas on how to tell the Great Elders to fuck off?¡± ¡°Yes. But it means going back up top before they finish up and confronting them. Which is why you two are here, to make sure everything keeps right on going despite them losing the Sublime Chord for the Casting.¡± ¡°Warlords do the job,¡± she grinned. ¡°Do I want to know what you¡¯re going to do?¡± ¡°Sure. I¡¯m going to help them play a game.¡± I held up a glittering red Ruby, a golum loot gem endowed with magic paid for with its own value. ¡°Vivic Pyroclasm stored in here. Crush it to clean the place when the slaughter is done. I can actually snip the ley line locks from further up once all the priests are dead.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll see to it they die soon enough,¡± Kris agreed, catching the crimson jewel as I tossed it to her. ¡°Go negotiate. I¡¯ve got to hear this.¡± -------- ¡°You¡¯re doing your job well. Rather exceedingly well. And you¡¯re making a very big mistake.¡± The torrent of Water Mana flowing into the ground slowed and paused as I drifted down out of the sky, right before the three Grand Elders. All three lidless and soulless sets of black eyes fixed on me, and tentacles twitched and began to move. A single Note rang through the Chord, one syllable of a Name they knew all too well. But it was bent somehow, and it made them shudder, their tendrils reflexively snapping back, out of range of the echoes in their minds. ¡°Don¡¯t. Don¡¯t think I¡¯m an idiot. I have no interest in further service of your master. He is YOUR Master, not mine. My masters are far greater and mightier than The Deep, which is why He has made no claim on me or my soul. He knows that if He were to dare, it would cost Him far, far more than He cares to pay. If He finds my service exemplary, that is a matter He can ruminate upon. He did not leave that consideration to you, Elders, and that is TRUTH.¡± The flow of mana was completely disrupted as every nautiloid around had their concentration broken and squealed in horrified dismay at the same moment. All the whelming power waiting to follow the previous flow swirled away and was lost. There was more than enough for me to lead them in burying the temple down there already, so it wasn¡¯t a matter of concern. ¡°YOU OWE ME,¡± I stated coldly, my Wings outspread, rising off the ground as their minds reeled under the assault of something they didn¡¯t want to hear or confront, but to deny it was to make it a thousand times worse. You could accept it, and then respond to it, but you couldn¡¯t deny it. Truth was wicked useful that way, and these creatures thought their viewpoints defined everything, when, in truth, they were meaningless specks, and now they had to face their true status before The Deep¡­ and before my own masters. In truth, they were far, far smaller than I was, because their master did not care about them at all... ¡°If I die here, the Breachgate shatters and falls instantly, and you and all of your servants and minions become trapped on this island, as surely and completely as those of your kind trapped on Vissidal and the Dark Island in the north.¡± A lot of soulless eyes turned east towards the Breachgate, belatedly remembering that the Shoreward operated in BOTH directions¡­ and it was stronger the more powerful an outsider was. ¡°Trapped by the System which rules these islands with a merciless fist. You will become enslaved as aliens and intruders, bound to the Spawn Points which will be wiped and attuned to you as your flood of raw mana reactivates them. Frozen at this moment in time, never to grow, never to know more, your only destiny to be killed over and over and over again by those who would challenge you, only to be reborn again as another test for another set of mortal heroes to overcome.¡± Masters become the ultimate slaves in a gladiatorial contest, never to escape unless someone else released them. They had seen the fate of those caught by the System, they knew the results¡­ and The Deep loathed them! ¡°Forever, until something arrives with vivus and Burns your souls out of the System again, to dissipate forever. Slaves made of kings, court jesters made of the Sages of the Deep, your knowledge, your power, your authority mere jokes and spectacles in a game of uncaring powers with less chance to decide your destiny than you did with the victory we handed you today. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°YOU OWE ME. Because of me and the Breachgate, you get to swim away. You get to perform your task for your master. You get to see your ancient rivals thrown down. You get to oversee a bloody sacrifice to your Master that has likely never happened in your lifetimes. ¡°Then you get to swim away and exult in your service for the eons it takes before your master finally bids you come to Him. As opposed to being a trapped pawn of the System here and a stepping-stone for mortals looking to write their own legends.¡± They were staring at me, knowing, unlike most beings, that if I could speak that Word, I couldn¡¯t lie to them at all. I truly didn¡¯t care about serving their master and supplanting them. The incredible performance of their underlings was immaterial, as I wasn¡¯t taking them away, and I wasn¡¯t going to be using them. Their victory was the victory of The Deep, and that was that. I wasn¡¯t going to be The Deep¡¯s new voice or spokesperson, because I was already that for something else, and these twats didn¡¯t want to mess with that something else. ¡°Now, what is going to happen is that I¡¯m going to light up some vivic flames on the tops of those temples. The reason I¡¯m going to do that is so that you don¡¯t have the idea of taking these conquered temples of the enemy and turning around and rededicating them to The Deep, which I¡¯m sure you had no thought of doing.¡± None of them believed me, and the agitation in their tentacles indicated I was spot on, too. ¡°YOU OWE ME. Those temples are fucking filled with T¡¯Thuun¡¯s Blight. They would eventually have corrupted you all, and it¡¯s already been proven that islands sunk into ocean with magic can be raised right up again with magic. I would like you to picture all of what The Deep would do to you if you are responsible for T¡¯Thuun corrupting a whole swath of his servants AND ripping this temple dedicated to Him back and away once more.¡± The eyes surrounding me actually went dim, and mottled shades washed across tendrils and shells in response. No, no, The Deep would not be happy at all. ¡°When I get back from setting up those vivic fires, I¡¯m going to come back here, and we¡¯re going to set these things up to be dropped into The Deep. We¡¯re going to wedge open a channel, drop this temple down a thousand feet with the remnants of its Blight, and then vivic flames are going to purify that water, slowly reduce those stones to powder, and T¡¯Thuun is going to feel its power being eaten away for a thousand years before it finally loses this hold on the mortal plane, all the while The Deep is looking on and gloating in satisfaction. ¡°And YOU OWE ME, because you¡¯re going to be able to watch it all, too.¡± I met the eyes of each of them in turn, and I felt the submission take hold. They might be older, mightier, and emotionless twats capable of killing off thousands with a tentacle flip of command, but they fucking owed me, and that was Truth. Not paying off that debt or trying to shirk it was going to have some very, very dangerous consequences that The Deep didn¡¯t want to pay, let alone them! Obediently, their commands rippled out, and the conduit of the mana from the seas was restarted. I spread my Wings and headed for the top of the temples, there to put up some very big and strong Eternal Cold Vivic Flames for the amusement of The Deep, just so It could watch Its rival¡¯s efforts slowly, painfully, and inexorably, be Burned away over years, decades, centuries, and not be able to do anything about them. Then I was going to come back, we¡¯d wait for the Deephorde to finish its slaughter and evacuate, and then we were going to bury this place forever. --------- With a crack and a gurgle, the stone underneath that ridge of rock I¡¯d erected liquefied around it, and it began to sink and widen at the same time, starting way back at the Breachgate. Water pressure did its patient and wondrous thing, and the weight of the sea began to pour into this new place, rapidly picking up speed as the new channel broadened and especially deepened, sinking with great speed, like someone was carving a mighty canyon right through the base of Moarsman Island toward the temples. The stone underneath the place was liquefying, the ley lines were changing their nature under the saturation of water mana, and up above, the temples rumbled and groaned as they began to sink. Sink, and the incoming waters flooded over them with supernatural speed, darker than such waters should be, climbing up the stones faster than the stones were dropping, claiming their new prize, their new territory, and driving it down faster, harder, as the claws of The Deep were made manifest to claim Its prize. Where the extra stone mass went was not our problem or issue, but I felt the temple sink, and sink, and sink some more, the whole complex falling intact into the depths. The vivic Flames somehow shone through the indigo waters that held them, as if acknowledging that purifying the Blight present there was important enough that even The Deep wasn¡¯t going to extinguish them. We were left looking at a great pool of water, deep blue and far, far deeper than any such thing had a right to be, already two thousand feet down and only getting deeper, including the canyon giving access to it and everything. The sun was about to arrive. With silent solemnity, the tens of thousands of nautiloids, remorans of all sizes and colors, and even the scattered moarsmen all dove over the edge of the pool and into the dark waters, rapidly vanishing from sight. I could feel the schools and swarms forming, heading back out towards the ocean through the canyon below, now a hundred-foot-wide chasm cutting in from the south-south-east and into the center of the island, like a dagger plunged into the heart of this land, taken by The Deep and leaving His Mark here forever. ¡°They all going?¡± Kris asked, staring down at the place. ¡°Some are heading deeper, probably to serve as a kind of honor guard or something.¡± I looked back towards the Shoreward. ¡°They lowered the Breachgate down to the bottom of the canyon, so they¡¯ll be able to go in and out in pilgrimage to what is basically a holy place. The Deep is definitely there and watching the place. One of the Grand Elders might even take up station there.¡± ¡°Well, that¡¯s not all kinds of ominous if we want to settle here,¡± Briggs rumbled. ¡°Consequences,¡± I agreed. We¡¯d definitely have to set up reminders that this was a place of The Deep. ¡°And you know you¡¯re going to have to make at least a few bridges over that damn channel they cut in the land, right?¡± Kris grinned. I groaned loudly, she slapped me on the shoulder with a laugh, and we turned around to Salute Aru and face the new day coming. AF Chapter 449 – One Last Blighted Area for Aerefalle Weeks pass¡­ ¡°Aerlinthe Island.¡± The Holo was on display in front of us. Kris and the Mick had crawled all over the island again, to the point of going to the top of every single mountain and hill on the place to be sure they hadn¡¯t missed something new. The many, many spawns on the island hadn¡¯t particularly liked the two of them dashing around with impromptu speed and leaving them behind, avoiding all sorts of violent conflicts. Very unsporting of them! There had been a lot of activity on the Dark and Vissidal Islands, careful probes by teams exploring the nasty places and seeing if the rewards matched the danger. Getting Mnecromonic on a Weapon and collecting the additional Karma and Luminance for offing Gold and Dark boss spawns was indeed very attractive to younger and ambitious paramounts-in-training. On Dark Isle, there were also plenty of Golums running around to earn at least some minor wealth in gemstones and Hearts for daily expenses, too. It turned out that working for The Deep and being recognized with a hundred kills of Dark Bosses also sufficed as a Luminance unlock, which had the expected result of creating a huge surge of interest as the only easily-achieved Luminance Awakening. Of course, it was only available to level 200+¡¯s, so only the most elite and formidable of those upcoming dared the accompanying tasks, but it was one more goal and target for people to achieve as they reached for strength and power. Very cunningly for The Deep, it also cemented Its position among the land-dwellers here. Nobody wanted that Shrine gone now. As far as we could tell, the only Blighted creatures remaining in the Dereth islands were Spawns on Aerlinthe Island. The Deep was definitely interested in the island, while at the same time not going to be pressing anything itself. I could sense a keen but subdued interest, as Lady Aerefalle probably was involved with the Falatacot priestesses of N¡¯cthail who had banded together to bind Grael all those years ago. I had the impression The Deep didn¡¯t consider N¡¯cthail as an enemy, more of a wandering rival power with a different agenda who¡¯d sent Him a gift, and another force had broken the gift and stolen it away. That force was probably the Shadow in the Void, tied to the shades and Grael as it was, something The Deep would be both opposed to and very wary of. Another power of Darkness, but involved with fire instead of water, but also something that might be able to start a conflict out in the Aether¡­ Blighted crap meant Lady Aerefalle had dealings with T¡¯Thuun in one form or another, which wasn¡¯t unexpected for a Caster of her age, knowledge, and status among the Empyrean undead. She was one of the most powerful Casters the Isparians knew of, functionally immortal by whatever system the undead used to rebirth themselves, and haughtily arrogant towards beings that might actually die of old age because of it. Of course, that was before vivus came along ready to eat her soul rather than let her be spontaneously reborn. ¡°The Lady has seriously upgraded her defenses,¡± the Mick began, the only one of us here with a before/after viewpoint. ¡°I dinnae ken what exactly what inspired her, but the spawns on the island have shifted dangerously up the power scale. ¡°The place is at least as lethal as the Dark Isle, if that be where she got her inspiration from, an¡¯ the spawn allocation be, eh, more tactical than I remember it, denser among the choke points as well as more powerful individually. ¡°The Relic Bones, which were summat o¡¯ a joke, be now Ancient Relic Bones, an¡¯ are flipping 230 on the level-equiv, equal to the toughest o¡¯ the bones ye can run into. The Ancient Diamond Golums be now Armored Ancient Diamond Golums, the Vapor an¡¯ Plasma Golums be now Vapor an¡¯ Plasma Storm Golums, an¡¯ the random Magma Golums be now replaced with Pyroclastic Golums. ¡°Even the Blighted Coral Golums be replaced with their equals on the Dark Isle now, as if the Blight upgraded ¡®em.¡± ¡°Grieving Phantoms, Banderling Soldiers, Drudge Soldiers, Plasma Wisps, in addition,¡± Kris recited, dots filling them in as the displays from the Mick winked on likewise. ¡°As Lord Mick said, all of them 220 and higher. The only thing which wasn¡¯t affected seems to be the Black Phyntos Wasps buzzing around everywhere. They ignore the undead and the Summons, so she¡¯s not chasing them off¡­¡± Because Phyntos Wasps didn¡¯t prey on undead, natch. ¡°An¡¯ naturally enough, all the Dungeons on the island have now phased into being and were reformatted.¡± Those areas glowed for emphasis. ¡°Aerefalle¡¯s Keep be a full-blown fortress surrounded by a moat o¡¯ lava. The Reservoir Dungeon blew the hill it were on up to thrice its height. The Foundry be a full and obvious cavern complex in the side o¡¯ Tenkarrdun¡¯s little brother there, opposite the Ancient Masonry Dungeon on the other side o¡¯ the volcano, while the Coral Tunnels an¡¯ Coral Columns are confirmed t¡¯ run completely underneath the entry to Aerlinthe Harbor and connect the two, with tons o¡¯ undead an¡¯ golums in the mix guarding ¡®em who¡¯ve also been upgraded.¡± The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°Even the ancient gromnatross nest at the top o¡¯ the dormant volcano, which had an assortment o¡¯ gromnies spawning there, is popping up gromnies equal in size to those found in the Valley o¡¯ Death. Were quite weird seeing ¡®em there.¡± ¡°Total undead forces are impressive, then. And we also don¡¯t know if the undead have an easy way onto the island, reminiscent of the Recall spell that used to be anchored there,¡± Kris finished up. ¡°If Nuhmudira could make a specific Portal to be tied to, the undead could do so. The number who have knowledge of the spell and privilege to tie to it is another matter,¡± I supplied calmly. ¡°For instance, the Emissary in Candeth Keep does not seem to have gained the updated right to travel to his mistress¡¯ realm.¡± ¡°She¡¯s finally worried about security after all this time?¡± Briggs shook his big head slowly as he contemplated the thousands of Spawn Points scattered around the island. ¡°Real undead presences?¡± he inquired. ¡°There were definitely some in the Relic Town,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°Undead in her livery and armor, commanding the Bones there. In addition, there is definitely a very powerful Fire Elemental presence in the crater permanently. Whether or not it is subordinate to Lady Aerefalle is a different matter.¡± King Borelean, also in attendance at this meeting, frowned as he considered the place. He naturally had been there in his youth, up to and including a delve into Aerefalle¡¯s own private chambers. ¡°Based on this illusion, you didn¡¯t run through the new version of the buried Dungeon under the harbor mouth, so you¡¯ve no idea how many additional undead reinforcements are in there.¡± ¡°Aye, an¡¯ not been in any o¡¯ the Dungeons there, t¡¯ be absolutely fair, Yer Majesty,¡± the Mick nodded cheerfully. ¡°They could be stocked chock full o¡¯ undead an¡¯ golum reserves waitin¡¯ t¡¯ flood out to engage any intruder, right?¡± The King sighed at the Mick¡¯s unrepentantly grim words. ¡°That is what I am worried about, yes, Lord Mick!¡± ¡°We can assume that the main trigger for any action will be the introduction of vivus to the island,¡± I offered calmly. ¡°She will not want her defenses compromised or unexplained disappearances of her followers to occur. It is not hard at all to determine if vivus has been active in an area with any amount of scrying or investigation.¡± ¡°I have a more important query,¡± Briggs spoke up again. ¡°As I recall, running the Tenkarrdun Quest had some nice side benefits, but the end goal was always to open the Portal to Aerefalle¡¯s personal abode. That is no longer necessary. What else exactly does running that Quest do?¡± ¡°Huh,¡± the Mick answered after a moment. ¡°It unleashed the Hellfire with the Lost Light Infusions that we want; freed the Behemoth with the low-grade Blackfire Stones; and up popped a lot o¡¯ Fire Elementals and Fire-tied golums o¡¯ various sorts. Really heated up the volcano an¡¯ got it nice an¡¯ toasty, too.¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t tell if the volcano was heated up, but there were definitely a lot of Elementals in the area,¡± Kris confirmed. ¡°Don¡¯t forget Scold,¡± I reminded them. Scold had indeed been at the Crater. I had popped in to check on matters with the Helion there, while Kris and the Mick went into the Crater Caves where the last Pyreal Bellows ever popped was present, one that did not respawn after it was retrieved from the forge chambers deep down beneath the Crater. The Helion had chased the Golum off, and Kris and the Mick had interrupted him setting up a new base of operations in the Caves. He had only managed to erect one of his columns, but like before, it was an improvement on those he¡¯d made previously. He had also jumped into the lava and fled once again. ¡°The odds he be not on Aerlinthe be low,¡± the Mick agreed, and we all nodded at that. ¡°He could also be in any o¡¯ the three Dungeons with lava fields, or around Aerefalle¡¯s Keep itself, tho¡¯ that be unlikely.¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t present in the Ruler¡¯s Court, at least from what I saw from the rim,¡± Kris was quick to say. ¡°Importantly, does he know about the Quest? Would he try to get it started?¡± ¡°More importantly, how much influence or control could he take of the Empyrean Machinery fueling the whole process?¡± I added on top of that. ¡°He left the Bellows in the Caves alone. He¡¯s not privy to the Quest details, or likely that it even existed,¡± the King pointed out to us. ¡°Which doesn¡¯t mean he can¡¯t interact with the machinery down in the lava chambers directly.¡± There was a pause as we all considered those points, and the Mick groaned loudly. ¡°We gots to run the Quest, don¡¯t we?¡± he complained, although his eyes were gleaming in counterpoint. ¡°That seems like the proper thing to do,¡± I had to agree. ¡°Do you remember all the details of it, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°The important stuff, aye. I be a mite shady on the layout o¡¯ the Reservoir after all these years, but ¡®tis not an issue. The place needs to be wiped an¡¯ cleared o¡¯ olthoi anyway. No idea why there be olthoi in the place, regardless.¡± ¡°This might be the last time the Quest is ever run, if it works at all, and it might be changed dramatically,¡± King Borelean theorized. ¡°We can assume that Lady Aerefalle hasn¡¯t changed her personality or preferences, and doesn¡¯t mind mere mortals running helter-skelter over her island becoming fertilizer and raw materials. She will probably react very badly to a formal military force of any type and size, however, which could be lethal.¡± ¡°So, a scruffy band o¡¯ ragtag adventurers, daring to romp about her private domain, an¡¯ then perhaps intrude on her private demesne once again?¡± the Mick mused aloud. ¡°Aren¡¯t nobody here qualified in proper scruffiness, Yer Majesty,¡± he pointed out with a grin. ¡°To be utterly fair, Lord Mick, to her, the most cultured Isparian is little better than a yapping dog or squeaking rat,¡± Kris remarked with a knowing sniff. ¡°The arrogance just oozes off of her. She¡¯s seen servant races like us come and go across at least twenty millennia. We are just walking dust to her.¡± ¡°That arrogance and pride might be enough to kill her, especially after the Fall.¡± King Borelean regarded us all. ¡°Can vivus truly kill her if we get to her?¡± he asked us directly. ¡°Yes,¡± I replied for everyone who knew the Matrix Magic. ¡°It most definitely can.¡± I knew more than them, so I had to answer this. ¡°Vivic fire, Banefire to strike where it is most vital, Soulfire to transcend Auras to life and death, and an Enhancement bonus of at least +VI, and +VIII is probably better, will cleave through even legendary spiritual ties to whatever magical force or phylactery she uses for revivification. ¡°If we can reach Aerefalle, we can certainly kill her. Whether she allows that is another matter entirely, of course.¡± AF Chapter 450 – Running a Quest for the Umpteenth First Time ¡°The resurgence o¡¯ Tenkarrdun supposedly deactivates the Wards around Aerefalle¡¯s Fortress, allowing invaders entrance fer a short time. Of course, it always reset before very long, the Portal in never lasted long, an¡¯ the one to her deeper abode didnae last long, either,¡± the Mick went on slowly. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ all changed now. Do we even need t¡¯ run the quest t¡¯ get t¡¯ her?¡± He cocked an eye at Kris and Briggs. The two Forsaken looked at one another tellingly. ¡°She might believe it¡­¡± Kris said carefully. ¡°Can you even Death Attack someone with that much Health Qi?¡± I had to ask. Even Briggs had to lift an eyebrow at that. ¡°It depends on how much she misses the Save by,¡± Kris said slowly, running some mental calculations. ¡°She¡¯s an undead and a mage. She¡¯s got shit and crap for a Fort Save by any measure, and no Constitution score. She might take it on Charisma, but that¡¯s if I let her. I¡¯d have to go for the physical nexus and ignore her magical one entirely.¡± ¡°A Null Strike would do it,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°Which you¡¯ll probably need to neutralize her personal Wards and Contingencies in any event.¡± ¡°Can you get to +XI?¡± Kris looked at me sharply. ¡°XI is absolutely Eternal-level, exceeding the base ten Slots on a Weapon.¡± ¡°I¡¯d¡­ have to pay it in as an Arsenal option, but yes, I could do that,¡± Princess Kristie Rantha nodded slowly. ¡°And it will up the Fort Save even more if I do¡­¡± Left unsaid was what the Blackfire Stones might also be adding on. ¡°Greater Soulbound. Vivic. Blooding. Undead Bane. Bane of Legends. Enmity to Evil. Ruby. You¡¯ve got two Slots to spare. Do +I and add Blessed, also. I think the condemnation of Heaven is perfect for what is coming here,¡± I told her. She actually smirked at me. ¡°Alrighty, but that means a two-day delay as I go out and do some hunting for Naming Karma for Quaver here.¡± ¡°Oddly enough, we need to do so to set-up for our Tenkarrdun run,¡± Briggs rumbled. ¡°Can¡¯t imagine that might take a couple days or two and all, given the running-around required.¡± ¡°Dare we hope to meet Scold and finally get to kill him?¡± Kris asked, pale violet eyes still focusing elsewhere. ¡°That would be nice, but not our priority. The best thing to do would be to wipe Aerefalle without being caught at it. If she dies, we can probably expect some form of retribution,¡± King Borelean interjected. ¡°And remember, she is not the true head of the undead.¡± ¡°Rytheran will definitely react,¡± the Mick agreed. ¡°It¡¯s well-known that he¡¯s been in love with her fer millennia. If we take her out, then we¡¯ll have to head inta the Graveyard to kill him as well.¡± ¡°Leaving Prince Geraine without his two primary underlings, and plenty of subordinates who might finally be able to gain positions of power after ten or twenty thousand years,¡± Briggs grunted in satisfaction. ¡°The undead position is going to be very close to civil war, even if not outright fighting one another, for this chance. Some are going to see it as literally the only chance they might ever have to raise their status. They are undead because they could not give that status up. There WILL be violence!¡± Briggs stated firmly. ¡°And certainly the shades will not be moving while the undead are in an uproar, not that it will do much good anywhere to anyone¡­¡± ¡°Unless we come in and start making those deaths permanent to all concerned. But they WILL band together against us if that happens,¡± I pointed out. ¡°We are getting stronger, and they may be uncertain, but we don¡¯t have the numbers to fight all the undead at one time. Our people WILL get massacred, there is no doubt about that.¡± There was silence at the table. ¡°Then I guess there better be no eyewitnesses to the death of Her Eternal Splendor?¡± Kris grinned nastily and confidently. ¡°And you best be seen to be somewhere else than where she dies, too,¡± I nodded, and heads bent forward as plans were made. ------- The cycle of the Aerlinthe Quest was: Get the Bellows in the Crater Caves; get the Pyreal Bar in the Foundry; Give the Pyreal Bar to the Forge Golum in the Reservoir; then Give the Bellows to the Smithing Golum in the Foundry. The last portion triggered the surge in Tenkarrdun and powered up the volcano. From there originally the Questers ran into the Tenkarrdun¡¯s crater, killed the Hellfire that spawned there and perhaps looted the Infusions, potentially killed the Behemoth Magma Golem for Minor Blackfire Stones if they wanted them, then ran to the Relic Town, killed the Relic Watchman, and finally entered the Portal to Aerefalle¡¯s Keep the Watchman had held shut. Then they fought their way down to Aerefalle¡¯s Handmaiden, killed her for a key, recovered the spells they wanted from the keyed loot chests, or headed deeper through a Portal to kill Aerefalle herself and gain better loot and a Major Blackfire Stone. So, part one was making it to the Foundry Dungeon and getting the Pyreal Bar. Even trying to minimize encounters, it was a lot of fighting, and we didn¡¯t dare to use vivus to Seal the Spawn Points and open a path for ourselves, knowing there were a lot of undead watching us and we¡¯d likely trigger a massive assault and have to run if we did, likely rousing the whole island against us. More adventurers just running a tried and true Quest to see how far we could get, however? Just another boring day watching mortals repeat their mindless actions over and over again. The undead couldn¡¯t be bothered to care, and like jaded spectators in an arena, or maybe simple-minded sots loving the blood and violence, they watched from the tops of the hills and from among the many undead spawns as we tore a path through the enhanced Spawns. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Briggs, Kris, and the Mick led the effort, I was along, we¡¯d recruited Kopf and Gros again, and exactly three others: King Borealean, Queen Mother Elysa, and Princess Fan, all determined to be in on this and blaze the way for others. It was a nine-person Fellowship, the classic limit for an adventuring band. The Royal Family had their armor magically re-colored, and if there was no way to hide who Briggs was by his size, he was always in the open about such things. He and Kris and I had definitely never run the Quest before, nor had any of the Roaches or Skeeters, so it was easy to understand WHY we would do this after the quick scouting runs from earlier. With little hesitation in the matter, we powered our way brutally across the island. Elysa, Fan, and I were the only devoted ranged attackers, but that just meant we had a brutally effective melee front line, and the Imperils and Vulns I ladled out were put to good use. I had to do a lot of Healing, but it was expected, and really, Healing Edge on the Named Weapons of everyone involved actually took a huge amount of the load off on that matter. The Wolfpack tactics were becoming hard doctrine among the Senior Melees now, and the lethal power of their teamwork was not to be underestimated. Thus we powered our way north and around the first hill there, went through the valley cutting through to the harbor, down to the waters, ran along the T-shaped harbor, crossed the static hot lava flow that came down from the volcano but never expanded or filled in the harbor at all, and then went up the west side and around the mountain on a simply ridiculous path that no supply or trading caravan in their right mind would ever set up, all in order to reach the Foundry Dungeon, all crackled up and bulging out of the side of the mountain with its four Ancient Armored Diamond Golums guards sitting outside. Instead of just running past them or luring them off with one person while the rest piled in, we killed them all and went inside. The Dungeon within was likewise far more dangerous than Lord Mick and the other old-timers recalled. Inside were the same upgraded Gas-based, Magma, and Diamond Golums as were outside, as well as toughened Fire Elementals and some of the Plasma Wisps¡­ and there were easily thrice the number that the Mick recalled from his many, many runs through this place. Regardless, behind a lot of Coldphased beatdowns and Hammer-blows to the Diamond Golums, we fought our way down and through the place step-by-step. In this place, we dared to shut down the Summons and Spawn Points. If they wanted to free them up, let the undead come in behind us and do that¡­ or more likely, cycling up Tenkarrdun would probably pop them open, but at least we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about them on the return trip. Hopefully. The Smeltery area itself was a blast furnace of heat, manned by golums of gas and magma working the place¡­ or trying to, not having anything to work, so basically just sitting there basking in the incredible heat of the lava pool on the other side of the wall the smelting furnaces were tapping. The creatures died frozen and crumbling alongside the random Fire Elementals that popped up, and the Mick stepped over and picked up the Pyreal Bar laying on the floor there, gleaming like it had just been ejected from the furnaces. We waited five minutes, more than enough time for another one to reappear given the backlog of energy built up, and there was nothing. This was going to be the last Aerlinthe Quest run, unless there was a way to make another Bar. Maybe by feeding the furnaces some pyreal ore, which we didn¡¯t know the location of, nod nod, wink wink. Once there were Portals leading outside from down here. Instead, I Dimension Door¡¯d us out of there and to the side of the mountain, away from the AA Diamond Golums which had already respawned at the entry to the place, but still on level ground. It had taken us all day to get in and through the place. We could have camped inside, but nobody felt like being surprised by Spawn Points potentially reactivating at a random time because, like, there was a volcano RIGHT THERE. Instead we struck up a fire and made for a simple camp, Disks making decent beds if reconfigured. If there were undead watching in the distance as we made a fire and even set up a Ward along the trail to warn us of anything else coming, they still didn¡¯t react. Mortal adventurers running around doing silly and stupid stuff. If I popped out for an hour to do my Resurrections a bit late in the day, they didn¡¯t need to know that, either. ------ Come the morning, we headed right down the hills towards the mounded area where the entrance to the Reservoir Dungeon was, the entry-point now sitting atop a massive sprawling mound and buried formation clearly displaying that there was stuff waiting down below, it was not just running into a Portal anymore. What they didn¡¯t see was Kris receiving an Invisibility spell from me and never going into the place at all. Just like they hadn¡¯t seen her get another Invisibility spell from me, sprint up three thousand feet of Tenkarrdun¡¯s slopes and down into the crater to about halfway down the place, well past the area where Ancient Relic Bones or Grieving Phantoms manifested, and then come racing back to reunite with us and replace the illusion that had been fighting in her place for those ten minutes. She was now heading to Aerefalle¡¯s Keep, sitting up there on its sprawling stone foundation in the center of a lava lake and surrounded by crackling Wards that would defy any magical attack or physical entry. Except one from something as basic and non-magical as a Null Forsaken, who could crash right through those Wards, get stripped of her Invisibility, and put it instantly back up from the Wand inside the Wand Chamber of Quaver as she dove towards the lava pool below, her heels sprouting mist and running down the sides of the lava moat, then across the lava itself without breaking stride. There was nothing down there to watch as she headed right to the basalt stone base of the keep enduring the lava patiently. If her Invisibility was stripped from her again, she was already on the stone, clawing her way up as she shut down her magic and drew her Null in tight. The black of her cloak and attire blended in just fine on the stone, and she swarmed up in the dancing shadows without hesitation, aiming for the walls above. Once at the high windows, she popped a Potion of Gaseous Form without hesitation, and as she dissolved into a sparkling mist that flowed through the shadows inside, she brought up the maps of the place as the Mick remembered, which might well be very out of date. Nothing but mist in the shadows with a Stealth modifier in the completely unnatural area, Princess Kristie Rantha flowed through the gates and under the doors quickly but smoothly, heading ever down and through Aerefalle¡¯s Keep. If there were at least four times the undead and golums crammed into this place as there had been previously, well, they didn¡¯t notice the smoke stealing through the shadows above the magical torches, either, and there were plenty of shadows abounding in Aerefalle¡¯s Keep... AF Chapter 451 – The Quest Continueth The Reservoir Dungeon did indeed have upgraded Undead stationed within it, and easily five times the number as before. For some reason that didn¡¯t help them very much, imagine that. But that was only the top level. The second level was occupied by olthoi, of all things. They had somehow managed to paint their ecology all over everything, so we Burned it all away with vivus, wiping them all out patiently. Still had no reason why they were tolerated within here, but we calmly proceeded through the entire place, Burning away the black-green ooze and mold on the walls, Sealing all the Spawn Points, and making our way down to the third level. This way was fairly obvious, a ramp entry point with a circular set of hallways extending around it, with one way down to the last level. A couple stray olthoi nymphs were down here, and then it was decidedly old-school gas golums, a couple Elementals¡­ and an umbris shade? The Mick just shrugged as she Burned en vivus. He had no idea why the umbris was tolerated down here, either¡­ As another example of the batshit insanity of these places, the way down to the Repair Golem was a jump. Not stairs, not a ramp, but a jump. Sure, they just used a Portal at the bottom to get back up, so if you were a magic-rich society, who cared? But¡­ seriously? I was so offended I Shaped ladder rungs into the side of the shaft as we came down, sliding along the wall to the left, because not only did you have to jump, but if you jumped straight ahead or to the right, you jumped right down onto a lava pool with no way out. Some magma and vapor golums later, and we were at the Repair Golum¡­ which looked like any other magma golum, but Assay¡¯d special, so it was obviously a version of an NPC. The Mick handed over the Pyreal Bar with the easy attitude of having done this many other times, while I was not nearly so confident. There was no Portal out, and so¡­ There was a slot in the wall, into which the Repair Golem fed the Bar. Something ground together and cranked loud and metallic, dragging the Bar away and out of sight, doing something that cleared up the cooling mechanisms for the Foundry and opened up the flow of power to there¡­ The cranking, clanking, and really, really loud grinding nose, combined with the protests and squealing sounds, were really not remembered by any of the old-timers watching this process. Had someone messed with something else, or had the Fall done something? I flicked up the Dimension Door as the room about us began to shake. With no hesitation whatsoever, everyone bailed. As I tumbled through one side of the Door and to my feet, a plume of hot gas and molten rock blew out the other side, almost catching Briggs and Gros before the former could spin the latter out of the way. Then the Door was closed, the ground was jumping, and all nine people here went booking back north. Yeah, an illusion of Kris came running along with us, courtesy of that person in the mirror. Distant eyes watched us as we ran rather urgently away from the ground that was starting to fracture as the mana-reinforcement below the Reservoir Dungeon failed, and molten rock had its normal effect on empty spaces and normal stone with great energy and verve. We all did pause to survey the sinkhole opening behind us as whole chunks of the surface fell away into the pit that the Dungeon was turning into, the mounded hill there destabilizing and its pillbox entry with the Diamond Golum guards falling off sideways and sloughing off into the lava rising rather violently for the surface above. ¡°Hey, Lord Mick,¡± Briggs rumbled genially. ¡°This looks like a really uncontrolled Pyric Mana surge to me.¡± ¡°Aye, that be¡­ fuck,¡± the Black Aluvian slapped his forehead. ¡°We be havin¡¯ t¡¯ fight our way all down through the Foundry again, don¡¯t we?¡± he cursed in exasperation. ¡°And we don¡¯t want to keep Kris waiting overlong,¡± Briggs sighed. ¡°How¡¯s your mana, Ryin?¡± ¡°Down only twenty percent. I can get through the Dungeon, I¡¯m sure. But Tenkarrdun¡­ we don¡¯t know what is going to happen, and I¡¯d prefer to be at full strength for that,¡± I admitted. ¡°Expecting trouble, Magos?¡± King Borelean asked, turning around to consider our route back up to the Foundry. The Points had all respawned, of course. ¡°It was the critical part of the quest, and there¡¯s a fifty-foot Elemental Lord sitting down there waiting for us. Just what kind of energy release is going to break Aerefalle¡¯s Wards this time, and how is it going to happen? How much influence does Aerefalle have with the Lord? And where is Scold?¡± We still hadn¡¯t found the renegade magma golem. ¡°He could be in the back end o¡¯ the Foundry,¡± Lord Mick offered unconvincingly. ¡°The Foundry is not where the power is,¡± I rebutted. ¡°He probably doesn¡¯t want to interact with the Elementals again after being rebuffed twice. He¡¯ll go directly after the Empyrean mechanisms.¡± Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°He¡¯s going after the Behemoth?¡± Elysa spoke up abruptly, the Queen Mother¡¯s blue eyes focused. ¡°That¡¯s¡­ a waste of time? The Behemoth is nowhere near as tough as he is¡­¡± ¡°A Behemoth with Minor Blackfire Stones, when we know that Major Blackfire Stones are produced by the mechanisms here, and lesser Stones are subordinate to more powerful ones,¡± I said mildly. ¡°Of a Behemoth presiding over a broken and malfunctioning system.¡± ¡°A Behemoth with Major Stones instead of Minor,¡± Briggs considered. ¡°Assuming resonance among the Stones, that could easily be a thousand times tougher than the original, could it not?¡± ¡°And if there are Greater or Supreme Blackfire Stones, they will likely be in the possession of whatever commands the Behemoth, because those are far, far too weak to be the primary control golums of the volcano,¡± I agreed. ¡°Gor, a proper boss fight, then?¡± the Mick wondered aloud. ¡°Ispar doesn¡¯t really have an equivalent name to the Behemoth, Lord Mick. But in ancient legends on other worlds, the Behemoth is one of the classic almighty monsters, like Leviathans and World Serpents and the like. ¡°Nothing you¡¯ve described to me of the thing says ¡®Behemoth¡¯ to me. It was more like a random worker golum of a little size dispatched to the top of the volcano to monitor what was going on.¡± ¡°Wow, that be a little too spot on,¡± the Mick murmured, looking around at the other older folks there, who had similar expressions to his own. ¡°More mind-fuckery, then¡­¡± ¡°We probably have to fight something actually worthy of defending an Empyrean mechanism that can tap a volcano. Just keep that in the back of your head¡­ and we¡¯re burning daylight here,¡± Briggs noted. Endure was in Hammer form as Briggs turned and led the way, matched by the Axes of the two lugians who moved up to flank him, while us ranged sorts hopped on Disks to maintain visibility and trail after them. The Mick and King Borelean moved to take the circling flank positions, Kris¡¯ Illusion taking up a blocking position I could shift around as needed. The illusion was woven with enough Shadow reality that it could actually do minor damage and serve as a flanker for a Wolfpack, which I was happy to do. The grandmother and granddaughter royal archers focused on whoever I Vulned and Imperiled and mercilessly brought it down, generally aiding one of the two Lugian Vanguards who didn¡¯t have the raw offensive power of the others, but whose Shields could stand against almost anything. Resigned but confident, we headed back into the fight. ---------- It had been a long and somewhat boring wait after making her way down the Keep to the lower floors. There was no communication, save Morse Code tapping on their magebond. The others were hacking their way down through the Foundry again, as it seemed the entire thing had respawned, despite vivic Seals on everything inside, after the power surge that had rocked the entire Keep. Kris was up in the shadows of the ceiling of Aerefalle¡¯s own throne chamber. She hadn¡¯t seen the legendary leader of the Winds faction of the undead, but that was not unexpected. Two of her powerful attendants had drifted in and out, using minor magic to clean the place, completely missing Kris up there, waiting patiently against the ceiling, wrapped in a Camouflage Cloak, Null tight and no magic leaking out to be sensed. Aerefalle would be called to her Keep when the Wards fell, it was an aspect of the Quest. Whether or not someone could make it down to her was up to them, but she would be here to receive them and fight them if they did show up, as was only proper. Aerefalle certainly wasn¡¯t going to die, so showing herself and dealing with intrusive rats was only appropriate if they dared come to her own abode. And the only place that was appropriate for her to appear at would be right in front of her own throne, ready to receive any intruders. Patient as stone, heartbeat and breathing so slow as to be undetectable, Kris waited patiently in the shadows, while her illusion ran about under the eyes of the undead outside and made sure she was seen elsewhere. -------- Things were a bit tense as Lord Mick handed the Pyreal Bellows over to the Forge Golum at the end of the Foundry. As I¡¯d expected, we¡¯d not seen any sign of Scold, despite passing two more lava chambers, and the forges around us were fairly blazing with the torrent of raw pyric mana moving through them. Lord Mick had informed us that the chamber flooded with lava once the golum placed the bellows in the primary forge and it began to work. Thus I put up the Dimension Door, and everyone went out through it without even waiting around. Which was good, because as we came out on the ground outside, that ground was nice enough to lurch and a very loud and emphatic rumbling start up. The trio with heavyfoot stood there like blocks, swaying with the side of the mountain, while the rest of us stayed above the ground or on Disks, looking up at the side of the mountain there to make sure nothing was coming down at us¡­ which, among other things, encouraged the trio of big guys to sit on Disks and the rest of them to follow me as I winged my way back down the trail, occasional rocks and boulders crumbling down from above just to keep us on our toes. It also had the pleasant side-effect of knocking all the Summons off their feet and rendering them incapable of fighting or chasing after us as they bounced about and couldn¡¯t stay on their feet. -Now this be a whole lot more o¡¯ a show than in the past,- the Mick /remarked on the Fellowship channel, the noise too much to be talking normally, or even shouting. There was a solid plume of ash jetting up thousands of feet from Tenkarrdun, and the lava flows down the southern slopes towards the harbor were solid crimson, not just veined beneath darker magma. -There are things in the lava,- Fan /pointed quickly. -True magma Elementals. There is a true amount of real Elemental power at play here,- I /said to everyone, not stopping my forward movement. The magma Elementals weren¡¯t affected by the shaking at all, but they could also sense the Elemental Command on Primus, and were hesitant to approach us. I was also in red-hot mode, given the amount of local Fire Elementals around, and they weren¡¯t bugging us, either, although they were having a hard time keeping their balance. We zipped past golums shaken off their feet like toys, multi-ton bodies bounced around like erector sets, and quite a few dispersed and jiggling Relic Bones stirred up by all the commotion. Fire Elementals and Wisps were scattered all over the place, but they were hesitant to attack on my approach, and the Shields were guarding us from behind as I started up the steep slope towards the top of Tenkarrdun. There was a tapping from my Bond with Kris, indicating that Aerefalle still hadn¡¯t shown up¡­ AF Chapter 452 – A Court of Fire -We¡¯ve got to advance the Quest to get things going,- I /murmured to the others as we sat up on the lip of Tenkarrdun, a wind hot enough to singe cloth already blowing past us. Three layers of protections against Fire, plus Roses of Celdon, were warding us, so we weren¡¯t particularly worried about the flames or the Court. The fifty-foot tall Fire Elemental Lord with the vaguely draconic head, able to look down on Tim, was pretty impressive, however. Had a full court of Elementals in various colors, and the magma and diamond golums in the area were keeping a careful distance from it. The lava flowing down the outside of the caldera was actually forced up to the inside of the southern rim and then down toward the water. The inside of the crater was still red-veined solid black magma, still plenty hot, although ash and fire were also shooting up from four fountains or vents spaced around the place, the plumes expanding as they shot into the air and formed the raging ash cloud overhead. Winds seemed to be blowing it north over the ocean for now¡­ -I see a Hellfire,- Briggs /stated, his grim Mask of Clarity down, something like a visored helm, fixing on the hot blue-white flames of our target Elemental. -No Behemoth, I don¡¯t think¡­- -May have come here too fast? It always took a while for him to appear¡­- the Mick /murmured thoughtfully. -Still, no better time for Miss Suns-inside-Wings to go down an¡¯ make a good impression fer us¡­- -Agreed. No wasting time. Let¡¯s go, Lady Magos,- Briggs /directed simply, and it was so. Everyone else on Disks, I led them down, skimming just above the ground and ignoring the heated stones thrumming with a lot of Pyric Mana below me. This was indeed the source of the ley lines linked to the volcanoes on Dereth. I could only imagine where the source of this much Elemental Fire was coming from. Was it a fuel source for the unseen Wards under the island, a vent for the stresses involved, or simply a natural volcanic upflow ready to blow off being siphoned away? In the end, it didn¡¯t matter all that much. We were coming down to the Court of Tenkarrdun, and that was that. Sound Bubbles went up as we came down, because the noise from the fumaroles made it impossible to think. However, if you actually spoke Pyric, you could understand them as basically one long sonata of praise being voiced in honor of the of the Elemental Lord here, like a choir calling out its name in exultation. I related that fact to the others, who all promised to be on best behavior. They couldn¡¯t fail to see us coming down, especially me being as showy as I was. Those behind me were literally the coldest things in the entire crater, meaning they stood out like frozen icicles in a flame, refusing to melt or heat up. That didn¡¯t mean they were unnatural, as the Elementals certainly knew the average temperature of this mortal world was much different from their own, but it did mean they did not naturally belong here. Eh, it was what it was. We swept by the ash plumes pouring fire and grit into the skies, the Mick remarking again how that was not something that had ever happened in all his previous runs of this Quest. Approaching the opposite end of the center area from the throne of black-veined crimson Fire Granite the Elemental Lord was seated upon, I slowed to a stop and bowed, waiting patiently to be acknowledged. The others followed suit. ¡°Mortals, come to the Court of Z¡¯rzzshszyz,¡± the amused half-telepathic voice came to us right through the ground, reverberating inside the Sound Bubbles. ¡°Approach, cold ones, and tell Us why you dare to tread here.¡± ¡°At your will, Great Elder,¡± I answered smoothly, gliding forwards into the center of the court. I approached no closer than a hundred feet before coasting to a stop and bowing again. Magevoice made sure my Voice could be heard over the tumult and blazing elemental song of the vents easily, and I was speaking in Pyric, which blended into the raging flames smoothly, instead of competing with them. ¡°Interesting. A Bloodline of the Void Phoenix, and a Servant of the Fire and Ice together. A rare sight you are, little winged one,¡± the Elemental Lord remarked in Its crackling furnace of a voice, seeing right through me without any effort on Its part. ¡°Tell Us what brings you to this place, Little One.¡± It hadn¡¯t told me to rise, so I didn¡¯t. ¡°Great Elder of Flames, this one and her companions have come as a result of old Oaths Sworn in ages past, and now taken up again.¡± Lost Lights flared up on Crown, Motes of old glory strengthened by the Fires of Lethe and Esper. They swirled up and down the length of my Staff, impossible to miss, glowing with powers Sacred and Primal alike. Seven other Weapons - two Bows, two Axes, two Swords, and a Greathammer ¨C touched down to hardened magma beneath them, and Lost Light lit up on all of them. The Royals had not been slow to visit Lethe and gain their Infusions as well. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°The Lost Light.¡± Z¡¯rzzshszyz¡¯s dragon-like head leaned forward to peer more closely at the motes of power around our Weapons. ¡°It has been an age and more since I have beheld the Lost Light, and now a band of those Sworn to it come before me in my first visit to this realm in five millennia. How interesting.¡± It turned Its head slightly, including those Elementals in Its Court. ¡°Who here is in charge of fulfilling the Oaths to the Lost Light?¡± The Hellfire was quick to step forward and bow to its Lord, saying nothing, but not needing to. Z¡¯rzzshszyz turned back to us. ¡°The ancient Oaths to the Lost Light will be upheld. Present the Infusions to those chosen by the Lost Light.¡± ¡°As per the ancient agreements, those not taken personally by a Knight of the Lost Light will be offered to a Font of the Lost Light, Elder Z¡¯rzzshszyz,¡± I agreed formally, waiting as the Hellfire strode forth on flaming legs. Bending without bones, the crackling Fire Elemental laid the full grouping of nine burning red Infusions before me on the ground. Kris was going to be irked she missed getting some of the first ones, but she could lead the Skeeters down here tomorrow, if everything went well. I was not the first to claim one, I was the last. Briggs led the rest off of their Disks, each stepping past me, one by one, kneeling down reverently to claim the Fires of Tenkarrdun for their Weapons, then retreating to their Disks, all without raising their heads to the titanic Lord watching us all closely. When they were done, I stepped forth last, claiming the last two Infusions, the illusion of Kris here just to fool any undead watchers from the distance and not even acknowledged as present by the Lord here, as indeed it was not. We¡¯d all agreed to Anoint our Weapons before the Lord, completing the basic Infusions of the Lost Light. In tandem, we held the containers of force and fire over our Weapons, and the Lost Light reached into them to harvest the fire for their own. There was a definite shimmer to the Motes as they reached up to take the Fires and sank down into their Weapons. I felt the thrum in Crown¡¯s heart, noting that the enhancement was definitely meant to favor Weapons over Implements, and not really designed to do both. Eh, didn¡¯t matter much, when it came down to it. Mages had magic for their Tools, giving better Tools to master tool-users was only appropriate. The motes of Lost Light spiraling around our Weapons were scintillating through the spectrum with strength, yet somehow restrained and subdued nonetheless, resilient and enduring instead of flagrant. We still had one, maybe two more Infusions to claim, especially the penultimate one on Dark Island, under the Shrine to N¡¯cthail there. Why the Radiant Infusion was found there, and a Shrine to a Dark Power was the guardian of it, didn¡¯t strike me as all that propitious, as it meant the Dark Falatacot had to have wrested away control of it after the Order of the Lost Light fell. Well, we were going down in there blades first, and if they didn¡¯t like it, tough shit. We¡¯d take down their stolen Shrine, too! ¡°This one and her fellows thank the Grand Elder for Their forbearance,¡± I intoned calmly, and bowed again to It, waiting calmly. It was a long five minutes before Z¡¯rzzshszyz bent forward slightly, studying us carefully as we did not move until we had been dismissed, knowing our place. ¡°Tell Us, Little One, what dealings do you have with The Deep?¡± It asked in a voice both curious and dangerous. ¡°To the Grand Elder! Under TRUTH, this one and her allies were used by The Deep as the leaders of The Deep¡¯s forces in a grand and lethal stroke against the Blighted forces of Ancient and Infinite-Tentacled T¡¯Thuun! Furthermore, we have The Deep¡¯s recognition for freeing the captive souls of its servants on the risen islands to the east of this island called Aerlinthe among our kind!¡± I answered immediately and forthrightly. The quiet Thunder accompanying the Word was still echoing vaguely off the stones of the caldera as I finished. ¡°A Truthspeaker,¡± crackled the intensely interested Elemental Lord. ¡°So, The Deep did not dare to Claim you, as We dare not Claim you for Fire.¡± I said nothing at this observation. It wasn¡¯t selfishness so much as proper valuation of our worth and potential as mortal servants. ¡°Was your stroke successful, Little One?¡± ¡°To the Grand Elder! We slaughtered every adherent and servant of T¡¯Thuun upon the Moarsman Island located to the south of the land of Dereth to the south of You, fed the Blighted to the Land, and sank its stolen temple under a mile of waters! The island entire has been Sealed, and its minions cannot incarnate there, while shelled servants of the Master of the Depths chant His Name endlessly over the decaying remnants of its Blight there for the next thousand years, burning It and letting It know the pain of facing The Deep endlessly!¡± The Elemental Lord smote Its chair, and for a hot second the blazing vents at the four corners of Its court burned with pure volcanic flame, shooting to the heavens in pillars of solid Primal Fire. The Court immediately flashed a thousand degrees hotter, and everyone was very, very happy for the layered Protections on them. ¡°Well spoken!¡± Z¡¯rzzshszyz proclaimed cheerfully. ¡°And you have come to free this island of the stench of The Many-Tentacled One¡¯s minions here?¡± It continued quickly. ¡°To the Great Elder! That is our ultimate goal, but we do not have the power to face the Great Mistress of the Undead who claims this island as her Domain, and as long as she reigns here, we shall not be able to Seal the island against the forces she has called here to aid her!¡± I responded promptly. ¡°She dares bargain with the Tentacled One?!¡± the Elemental Lord spat in a cone of fire that ended just three feet short of me, hot winds blasting back hair and cloaks. ¡°Who is this upstart?!¡± ¡°To the Great Elder! She is not of the Yalaini who first bargained with your people at this place! She is far, far older, and her name should be known to You! Among us, she is known as Lady Aerefalle, Leader of the Filinuvekta of the Dericost Empyrean Undead!¡± That sent the Elemental Lord back in Its throne visibly, and It was visibly pondering at my words. ¡°That is an ancient and powerful name, indeed,¡± Z¡¯rzzshszyz admitted after several moments broken only by pulses of flames alternately spewing curses upon enemies and singing of the glory of their Lord. AF Chapter 453 – The Limits of a Behemoth ¡°To the Grand Elder! We are aware of the threat of the Lady Aerefalle! We thought the ignition of Tenkarrdun and the machinery beneath it might collapse her Wards for a time and render her vulnerable in her place of power on the harbor below!¡± The vaguely draconic form of the solid flames that made up the Elemental Lord Z¡¯rzzshszyz sat back in the black-veined crimson stone of the fire-immune Fire Granite throne It sat in. ¡°So, that is she¡­ so close, and yet so far.¡± It regarded us with burning eyes. ¡°The surge you seek will not occur so easily. It was a result of the aging of the mortal mechanism in place below the surface of this volcano, but those mechanisms have been, if not fully restored, at least rendered stable. The momentary resurgence of the mechanisms will not endure without proper fuel and resources to continue them, but they function well enough for now.¡± That¡­ was not a surprise to us. I just kind of closed my eyes and sighed. ¡°To the Grand Elder! And may this one and her friends meet the one who repaired those constructions, in pursuit of the goal of chasing the Tentacled One¡¯s Blight from this place?¡± ¡°Hmmm. Yesss, that could prove¡­ interesting,¡± Z¡¯rzzshszyz mused aloud, a crafty light flaring in Its burning eyes. ¡°Our influence has prevented him from rising, but I can withdraw it¡­¡± The ground rumbled behind us. All of us turned around and faced the source of it. The first thing to appear was a great big hand, larger than I was tall, which meant bigger than Tim, and even this Elemental Lord. It was made of red-veined volcanic stone, the same as a magma golum. It thrust out of the volcanic vent furthest from the Elemental Lord, widening it and sending shattered stones flying into the sky under the impetus of venting flames and ash. Forcing aside the flames and stone, the true Behemoth of Tenkarrdun heaved itself out of the hellish inferno below. Liquid magma dripped crimson and smoking from its mottled hide of constrained lava as its body resettled in its force matrix form, towering an easy seventy feet tall. ¡°That,¡± the Mick said firmly, looking up at the colossus of stone and fire, ¡°is a LOT bigger than it used to be.¡± Then it tilted its head to look at us, and a squeal of delight broke from it. The voice was deeper, but there was no mistaking the cadence and pitch of it. ¡°YOU! AGAIN YOU INTERRUPT MY WORK! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CHASE ME FROM THIS PLACE NOW?!¡± the voice of Scold thundered through the stones beneath us, bypassing the Sound Bubbles keeping everyone from behind deafened, blowing a hot wind past us. The ground jumped as Scold took a single very long and ponderous step towards us, clearly eager to settle a few scores with us. Hands creaked on Weapons all around as we stared up at the monolithic golem. ¡°You fool,¡± I said quietly into the face of the massively upcharged golem. Scold took one more step, covering half the distance to us, but halted there, the unusually flexible mouth and eyes betraying uncertainty as he stared at me. ¡°THE TRUTHSPEAKER,¡± he murmured in only a cavernous bellow, remembering Lethe and staring back at me. ¡°DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BEST ME NOW, MEATBAG?¡± he demanded, raising a hand and forearm probably massing a hundred tons, clenching fingers longer than I was tall. ¡°No, but I don¡¯t have to. You¡¯ve defeated yourself, and made yourself a slave, after how many endless centuries spent breaking free of the System.¡± He stared at me, frozen in place for a moment of dawning fear. ¡°NO! IT CANNOT BE! YOU, YOU¡­¡± He actually jerked and shuddered as he tried to say it, but could not. He¡¯d heard Truth from my own lips, after all. ¡°Master Scold,¡± I said calmly, lifting off the ground on wings of suns between stars, rising easily up to his eye level. ¡°You only have to prove the Truth by turning around and trying to walk out of this volcano.¡± Eyes that were basically pits of magma stared at me, somehow conveying a growing existential horror. ¡°NO! NO!!!¡± With a bellow that was more like a wail, Scold turned toward the southern slopes and thundered into motion. ¡°NO! NOTHING CAN STOP ME! NOTHING CAN BIND ME! NOTHING, NOTHING¡­¡± His building run from Tenkarrdun got just past the vent and began to slow quickly, making only another five steps before slowly coming to a halt, staring up the slope. He was even reaching out with both hands, stony fingers trembling as he flailed madly up at the distant rim, his voice trailing off into greater despair. ¡°You were lured here by the System. You have no power to change the programming of the Behemoth, but you have given it the power and skills to repair the mechanisms it is in charge of overseeing. Even had we not chased you here, you would have sought out the greatest ley line of Fire in these islands, fused yourself to the Behemoth to gain its power, and taken up its task.¡± ¡°THIS, THIS!¡­¡± Scold turned back around, and began to claw at his chest, the largest stone there, which completely defied his fingers scraping across it. ¡°FREE ME FROM THIS! I WILL BE FREE!¡± he shrieked in a wail that knew all too well the fate of endless years of servitude and obedience to masters absent and uncaring. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°I can free you.¡± Scold froze, the burning pools of his eyes turning towards Commander Briggs, standing there on his Disk, the now-Coldphasing Greathammer of Endure held in both hands, Lost Lights shining like cold stars winking in the void. A Warlord¡¯s Voice also cut through the fury of the flames and demanded his attention and instant respect. ¡°But you willingly Bound yourself to the System, Master Scold. Unless you are Bound to another, you will be compelled to come back here and submit once more. ¡°Are you willing to be Bound to me, Master Scold? It seems that you must serve¡­ but I, at least, can give you the choice on who to serve: the ones long dead who made the artifice beneath you, or someone alive and willing to at least consider your own wishes?¡± The Scold-Behemoth stood there, his molten mouth and eyes actually warping and flowing with the anguished turmoil there. ¡°TRUTHSPEAKER!¡± he bellowed out finally, striding towards me, still hovering up in the air on the updraft of Pyric Mana and heated air. ¡°IS THIS TRUE? MUST I SERVE ANOTHER?!¡± he shouted at me from only thirty feet away, well within reach of me. ¡°The rote golums of this realm serve the System. Even when you gained thoughts of your own, you were trapped in the same sequence of events over and over, there were merely great periods of time between when you had to respond, if you recollect. When your Snowman perished, you were still compelled to appear to avenge it, and when you wandered, you were still compelled to assemble your superior golums and your artificing pillars. The closer to Tenkarrdun¡¯s power you came, the better your artifice became. ¡°You were still an NPC, and still bound by the System. The only way to break this link is with a Source¡¯s ability to defy Fate, and their mastery of Oaths. Commander Briggs is such a Source. ¡°But you are bound as a golum is once again. If you do not serve another, the System will reach out and take you once more, as it did so in bringing you here. ¡°If you think clearly back on your recent actions, since you left Mount Ingot, you have been compelled to come here. Unless you serve another in the eyes of the System, you will be brought back and compelled to take up the Behemoth¡¯s duties once more. ¡°This is Truth.¡± Thunder echoed in the soul, and the gargantuan golem actually slumped in place, not fighting the words echoing in whatever passed for his spirit. ¡°I HAVE NEVER BEEN FREE,¡± he whispered in burning despair that actually could only be sympathized with. ¡°No, you have not, Master Scold,¡± I agreed gently. ¡°And if you wish to be free, you cannot be truly free. You must serve. But, at least you have the choice now, unkind as it may be.¡± He looked back up at me, then down at Briggs and the others. ¡°I AM TRAPPED WITHIN THIS BEHEMOTH, BOUND TO THE MATRIX I THOUGHT I COMMANDED. I MUST BE CARVED FREE OF IT.¡± ¡°So we must destroy the Behemoth, for however short a time, to free you.¡± Crown went to Coldphasing, and the temperature around me dropped a thousand degrees as it did so, my crimson arm going pale blue. ¡°By any chance, will this destabilize the artifice below, for however short a period of time, Master Scold?¡± ¡°YES, THE MATRIX OF THE BEHEMOTH WILL RAPIDLY DIRECT THE GOLUMS AND ELEMENTALS TO REBALANCE THE POWER FLOWS ASSOCIATED WITH ITS DESTRUCTION,¡± Scold said shortly. ¡°I CAN INTERFERE ONLY SOMEWHAT WITH ITS MANDATES TO DEFEND ITSELF¡­¡± ¡°Mis-aim its spells, nudge its blows as you see fit, Master Scold, and we will endeavor to free you.¡± ¡°WHY?¡± he asked abruptly, looming even closer to me. ¡°WHY WOULD YOU HELP ME, TRUTHSPEAKER?!¡± he demanded to know, his flaming eyes still wild and angry. ¡°Two reasons, Master Scold,¡± I reassured him calmly. ¡°The first is that the destruction of the Behemoth is something that we need to do regardless, it seems, and you can aid us in this matter. The second is that you are no longer an enemy and renegade. You are a slave who seeks to be free, and you are neither the first nor the last we will save from that fate. ¡°Now, ready yourself, Master Scold. As you fight your battle within the Behemoth, we shall face it without. Let us see how well we fight together, instead of against one another!¡± Scold stepped back, molten mouth and eyes settling into a determined line. ¡°I WILL BE FREE OF THE BEHEMOTH! COME, AND SEE HOW I WILL FIGHT FOR MY FREEDOM!¡± Kris was going to be very pissed she missed this fight. ¡°This one requests of the Grand Elder a Judgment. As long as the Behemoth draws on the power of Tenkarrdun, it is unkillable. For this to be a fair battle, it must be severed from the replenishment of the Fires of Tenkarrdun.¡± The Elemental Lord behind us was actually standing now, watching all this with the intensity of a sports fan about to see a great show. ¡°GRANTED!¡± It bowed, waving Its hand dismissively. The venting fumaroles all around us cut off like a knife. I flapped my Wings, and shot back a hundred feet as the Assay Magic Resistance went off over the Behemoth. I didn¡¯t double any spells, because I was going to have to watch my Mana and Slots like a hawk here. It definitely looked like it had ten million Health Qi to get through! The structure of its resistance to magic became a sparkling network of layered magical flaws to Vatic Sight. It was instantly apparent this wasn¡¯t a true golem, because their structure was almost impervious to magic, save for very specific exemptions. Nor was it designed for military use, as the magical defenses would have been deeper and more intricate, instead being focused on absolute defiance of any attempts to control or subvert its programming and mission. This was not a thing designed to really do battle, but its size and strength made sure it could do so, regardless. The Imperil flared over it in a gray echo, and my eyes widened before anyone could charge, even as a shift and hardening of its eyes showed that its natural defensive programming had just activated. ¡°It went to negative armor! Use slashing on it, and turn off Armor Cleaving!¡± I called out to the others in mild shock. They all looked at me in astonishment, and I just nodded. Elemental Stones were hurriedly swapped out, and I lowered the orange-yellow flaring of the Slashing Vulnerability down over it. Maybe this wasn¡¯t going to be as horrible as we expected. Negative Armor with a VIII should be nearly x9 damage if going from 100 to -125! Only two million to get through, then¡­ AF Chapter 454 – Freedom Isn’t Just Another Word Kris was definitely gnashing her teeth at missing a fight like this, and we were definitely going to be missing those Seven Dragons Forms of hers. On the other hand, Briggs was here, and he was still a Grandmaster of the Hammer, and Aelryinth knew just hard he could hit. With an Imperil into Negative Armor Value, Vulns to magnify damage, and the crit-magnifying Crippling Blow with Biting Strike Runes making those crits happen up to half the time for x6 or more damage with his Greathammer, Briggs¡¯ lethal combat ability just exploded. He never tried to show up Kris, just as Ael¡¯s Briggs never tried to show up Sama. But that didn¡¯t mean he gave up anything to her in pure ability to kick arse. The fact he had a much more dangerous base Weapon in his Exotic Greathammer, which he wielded as easily as a willow wand despite its size, helped marvelously with that. He was much more dangerous with One Strikes, for instance, and his charge multipliers were colossal, Uber-Charging right to the limit. He couldn¡¯t get off the blizzard of attacks that Kris could, but any hit he landed was something his enemies were going to pay attention to. Using slashing damage with Negative Armor meant the lava skin of the Behemoth tore across in an arc, ripping apart like wet paper to create wounds wider than the cutting area of the broadheads and Weapons coming in. I was on oversight, Healing, and Dispels, with Darts of uttercold plunging in for some incidental damage with Penetrating Cold, especially after I also landed a Cold Vuln VIII on this big fellow. Oversight meant pulling them out of danger with Zeks¡¯ Telekinesis. -Pulling Gros!- I /swore, and the big lugian inverted his heavyfoot as much as he was able to, allowing the TK to yank him thirty feet sideways, narrowly avoiding fifty tons of stone coming down to stomp him flat. He ground to a halt, then promptly leapt back to the attack, a huge blow from his Axe Maior opening a huge bright wound on that wall of a leg, Health Qi spraying hotly as the injury was insta-mended. None of the three tanks were using their Shields, as there was simply no way a Shield was going to stop that much mass crashing down on them. It was an AoE effect, not an attack, and there was only avoiding it or being able to take the damage¡­ and nobody wanted to take that much damage, even with adamantine armor. A long arcing blow from a half-spin actually looped around and caught Briggs at one point. He barely saw it coming, releasing his heavyfoot and bringing up Endure to cushion the moving wall of stone screaming at him and tearing it open at the same time. He should have gone sailing a hundred yards or something from the kinetic energy as he was bounced, but I flicked a Featherweight at him, and he was ten feet from the arc of the massive fist when he stopped and floated right back down to the ground, even though he was half-stunned by the impact. Darts came streaking in to wash away his stunning, and then I yanked him aside as a remarkably fast follow-up hammered down from above and slammed down into the lava. He wasn¡¯t even thinking as he automatically hewed through two feet of half-molten stone and crits exploded in Icy Bursts in place from the Minor Shivering Stone, half-severing the fist for a moment before the Health Qi repaired it. If the Behemoth flexed and sent out War Magic at the archers, I tugged their Disks out of the way as they kept up the rapid fire at the joints of the colossal golem, slowing its movements down, even as the desperate Scold within it would suddenly shift a leg off-balance, bash itself in the chest or head, or trigger a pose or autonomic function that would freeze or catch the Behemoth in a pre-programmed motion for a few seconds, during which time the Wolfpack would explode around the legs of the Behemoth, heaping up tens of thousands of damage in mere seconds. Short kicks and sweeping arcs of the overlong limbs were the biggest threats, and I had to stay very focused on how the mighty golem was standing and shifting. Happily, everyone here had massive amounts of experience fighting golums and their attack patterns. The Behemoth had additional options with its pure size, as its stomps would pancake anyone who caught one fully, and wild flailings to clear the area beneath and below it would work fantastically well against smaller creatures who simply couldn¡¯t handle that much mass. If it wanted to waste time and magic on me, I was more than happy to slide around on my Wings and annoy the heck out of it in return with Darts. I was not stupid enough to waste mana on attack spells with my other responsibilities, however. Even the Darts I was putting into it were clearing a good two hundred points of damage, so I was perfectly happy to keep pounding it down. The Mick was leading in raw fury of attacks, cutting away like a whirlwind, Icy Bursts exploding in crit after crit of Slashing damage around Bunita¡¯s Kiss as she cut away and motes of Lost Light sliced and detonated against the Health Qi. He¡¯d also stashed his Shield and was using his Claymore two-handed, sliding continuously to give and gain Attacks of Opportunity as rapidly as he could do so. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The thick slabs of stone that formed the skin did nothing to absorb the blows raining down, every cut and arrow coming in plunging into cracks and veins of molten metal, slicing through the force matrix integrity of the great golem. --- ¡°A hundred thousand left!¡± the Mick gasped, sucking in a deep breath as he slid back twenty feet. I flicked over a bright yellow glass vial in front of him, and he plucked it out of the air, downing it without a second thought for some cool alchemical Revitalization. Kopf was hit by a foot sweep before I could pull him far enough, half a ton of lugian going flying and sliding¡­ but TK kept him upright, his heavyfoot dragged at the stone, and cold Darts plunged into him to take care of broken bones and bruised flesh. He grunted and gasped as his ki dragged him to a stop after only thirty paces, bracing as another flight of Darts came in to complete the Healing process. Growling defiance, he brought Lapis up and charged right back into the fight. Briggs was circling and spinning in constant motion, each step braced like a mountain, endless pivots that carried him around and around in Titan-Fighting. It was a Feat none of the others had, as its usefulness had never really come into being here in Dereth, with few things being large enough to trigger it. He could actually hit the golem hard enough to move the massively heavy legs, throwing off its balance and forcing readjustments even as he spun aside from being crushed again and again. If he was bounced off his feet because he didn¡¯t dare to keep heavyfoot locked beyond proper leverage of his blows, he always landed perfectly steadily. Elysa and Fan had both launched over a hundred arrows each, and were looking exhausted. King Borelean had been briskly and smoothly efficient, wielding Hoshino with grim efficiency and speed hard-pressed into his arm this last year. Lost Light swirled in a dance around the men, helping move them out of the way of incoming blows, instead of pushing the blows away from them with parries¡­ The THOOM of a blow caught my attention, as suddenly one of Briggs¡¯ blows tore free hundreds of pounds of molten rock and scattered it over the area. ¡°HAH! Pound it down!¡± he roared, and the tired warriors were moving in on the same leg with marvelous harmony as the Behemoth bellowed, trying to shift its weight, and in the next two seconds tons of magma and hide were ripped into and through its right leg. They opened up the wound, aiming to get to the central force matrix inside¡­ -AWAY!- They all obeyed instantly, bouncing back as far as they could, the lugians aided with TK to slide back even further as the Behemoth brought both fists down. Greater Shards slammed into that open wound, exploding through the molten stone and instantly freezing it solid. Pressure differentials promptly shattered the limb and sent it exploding over the area in molten rivulets. A second later Briggs¡¯ Uber Charge hit it, and Endure blasted completely through the great boulder of a leg. The Behemoth wobbled and fell sideways as it lost the lower leg, reaching out to catch itself and suddenly on all threes. The Mick promptly ran up the bracing arms and drove Bunita¡¯s Kiss into the floating stump of a head atop the house-sized chest-stone. Ice flared against molten stone as he executed a complete circle of the massive hand, the glowing gold of the Slashing Vuln carving right through its stony armor, while Gros, Kopf, and Borelean jointly tore into the left arm¡¯s elbow, sheering away more stone and aiming to cripple it. Hissing broadheads trailing frozen motes finally plunged successfully into the molten eyes, the Behemoth jerking and twisting as it explosively lost its vision. With cool efficiency, the Mick ran by both eyes and crosscut them to make the damage stick, then was forced to leap off its shoulder and slide down its wounded arm as the other arm came slamming in to bludgeon him dead, nearly knocking the Behemoth itself over from the impact. Bunita¡¯s Kiss did plunge into the elbow there as he came down, actually whipping in a complete circle around the joint as he cut it as deep as he could. As his Claymore sliced free, Briggs came in right underneath him, and Endure came down in an irresistible arc of charge damage. The crack of the force matrix disrupting, followed by the thump of the massive forearm dropping free and slamming down to the ground out of control, was pretty impressive. The crippled golem, unable to regain its feet and completely blinded, was even more awkward and uncontrolled than before. While this added a nasty random element to its flailing about, it was definitely easier to attack, and the lads went to it with a will with charges and One Strikes now that it couldn¡¯t see them coming. Methodically, they first took out its other leg to stop any kicks or attempt to get back to its feet. Once its knee-matrix was chopped apart explosively, it could only barely keep itself upright, and its random strikes with its remaining arm sent it spinning uncontrollably as it attempted to hit them. They were having none of it, and Blooding was making sure none of its Health Qi was coming back, nor was it able to magically Heal itself. Inevitable, the boys withdrew long enough to swallow one more set of liquid stamina with the two lady archers while I froze up their next target. They took deep breaths, and then went in for the kill. The right arm was shattered loose of the force matrix, and the Behemoth was defenseless, only able to randomly launch War Magic that wasn¡¯t going to hit anything, especially as I Countered each and every spell it hurled out. --- Briggs cleared twenty feet on a massive leap, and Endure came down in one titanic final blow. The flattened, neckless head shuddered as the axe-shadow around the Greathammer hewed right through the entire five-feet height of the lump of a skull. Crimson-hot lava gushed forth as its force matrix destabilized, and the fiery energy empowering it began to dim with incredible speed. Briggs kicked off with Cloudstepping Sandals, coasting back to the ground as the Behemoth¡¯s great head split, dimmed, crumbled, and fell apart. A breath later, the massive chest pieces were dimming, the disruption flowing to the other connected pieces. A hundred tons of central rock fell to the ground with a jolt and crash, rapidly going black and still. The Behemoth of Tenkarrdun was dead. AF Chapter 455 – Ruby and Blackfire BEHEMOTH DEAD! The ratatat code on their Magebond pinged her. Quaver went Ruby and changed configuration in his scabbard as she touched her Blade. Less than a breath later the energy disruption to the ley lines blew through Aerefalle¡¯s Keep, and most importantly, its Wards. Magical lights flickered, stone shook and grumbled, and flows of energy and tensions of heat and stress began to tremble through the stone all around her. Princess Kristie Rantha stared at the throne below and in front of her, waiting. Her Trembling Domain was very acute, and being able to sense dimensional movements was all part of it. When she could flex her soul and reinforce the Veil against dimensional movement, being able to sense the ripples and stresses involved in such movement was naturally something a Forsaken could develop, just like a Powered might. Something was coming. There was a flicker and flash, a subspatial transit folding across space, one of multiple ways to Teleport. The Formation underneath the stones of the Throne, out of sight, served as the Focus that Lady Aerefalle was recalling to, likely the only one who knew it existed to be Recalled to. There was only a hiss of magic dissipating as the most powerful leader of the Wind Faction of undead, save for Prince Geraine himself, appeared on the stones in front of her throne. Seven feet tall, an average Empyrean. Flowing red hair, preserved strong and vital, hints of her old beauty visible in shrunken, bone-hugging skin that was still fair, and the typical glowing eyes. She had on her trademark black and yellow robe, and the original Staff made for her by Rytheran in her hand, copies of both which had been loot items on previous Quests for those that had managed to fight and kill her. Kris watched her tense and look around slightly, feeling the energy flows and trembling of her home and abode around her. This disruption was going to be something very different from before, building up on the damage done by the bar being given earlier, this one triggered by the death of the Behemoth controlling the mechanisms that Scold seemed to be repairing. The shaking and shuddering of the stone sounded and felt dangerous, and real power was going to have to be spent to reinforce this place before the magic in effect stabilized and returned on its own. Kris watched the undead mage¡¯s lips thin as she realized she was actually going to have to work at something this time, and still might have to deal with arriving pests. --- Lady Aerefalle was just about to raise her voice and call for her handmaidens when Princess Kristie hit her, her three rounds of studying her target done. There was no sound as Quaver went in the back of the ancient Dericost revenant¡¯s skull and came out the front between her eyes, a solid length of blood-red metal gone Ruby and striking directly at her life through 200k of Life Qi. There was indeed a burst of black Qi venting, trying to insta-heal the Death Attack, but vivus met it and blew it into misty whiteness, re-affirming that vivus could totally crit any undead, Blooding could stop Regeneration, and a +XI Sword could cut through even Eternal-class protections and deliver the Banefire right where it was meant to go. Right to the soul. Aerefalle tried to say something, she really did, but vivus was already burning at a brain steeped in necroic energies, consuming memory, personality, and power as it did so. Kris rode her down, pulling out Quaver as she did so. She spun a full circle in the blink of an eye, and the head of Lady Aerefalle of ancient Dericost leapt free from her body. Kris snatched the head off on its way up from the stump of her head, no vivus remaining behind to eat at the corpse and give away who was responsible for her passing. Mnecromonics made it very plain that the spirit of the ancient matriarch was screaming as things she had dealt with long ago and denied all these millennia were now reaching out for her soul, and payments that she thought she would never have to pay came due. With a hiss of magic, not bothering to loot things which could be tracked easily, Kris was out of there on the wings of Quaver¡¯s Teleportation. ---------- I swept a few Detects over the rubble of the Behemoth, shared the findings, and everyone jumped into action, hacking and hammering at all the massive pieces even as they crumbled. That was mostly because the crumbling remains seemed to be falling right through the surface of Tenkarrdun¡¯s crater. I floated over the top of the massive chest stone and proceeded to Shape it open. Now that it was no longer animated and magically infused, it was just stone as long as the magma within cooled and solidified. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. With cracks and crumbling, the almost-ashen magma within was forced out of the way, and I blasted the rest with cold Darts to accelerate the magical cooling as the essence of the Behemoth was drawn away for reconstruction below. A quite-intact figure tied to a fractured crystal Formation inside the golem¡¯s remains was soon revealed by my digging. I shattered the edge of the Formation, and the crude fingers flexed instantly. After a bit more clearing, his arm could also move, and started to beat on the stone encasing the rest of it. It took a few minutes to clear Scold¡¯s head and torso, then his other arm. Silently, the intelligent golem sat up and cracked and crumbled the stone about his legs, while I shattered the Matrix Formation he was stuck to and enabled him to finally stand up. The number of beings who saw Kris materialize inside the illusion standing atop the Seal Focus point she¡¯d selected were exactly zero. Even the Elemental Lord Z¡¯rzzshszyz didn¡¯t realize when she went from illusion to Null reality, dipping the skull in her hand into the lava of the vent there to burn away the trademark long red hair there and accelerate the removal of the flesh from ancient steely bone. Scold¡¯s rising to his feet was interrupted by the sight of Z¡¯rzzshszyz surging to His own feet, looking south as the vents of the crater suddenly blew skywards again in pure flame. ¡°THE BINDER¡¯S SPIRIT HAS FLED THIS PLANE. HER KEEP FALLS.¡± I promptly Linejumped up to the lip of Tenkarrdun to the south to get a better view, leaving Scold to look after me and then clamber down by himself. The Elemental Lord was indeed correct. With my Mask of Clarity active, I could clearly see the walls of the Keep over there starting to crumble, the ancient magicks keeping it intact failing, by design or by default, with the death of their mistress. The lava pool around the Keep was surging and splashing with the rocks coming down, fractures expanding across the stonework, the imbalance of millennia and the pressure of elemental forces swaying and tilting¡­ It took about a full minute for it to ultimately collapse, first the outer walls, then shuddering inwards to the foundation and deeper levels, imploding under the pressure of collapsing magic, surging ley lines, and heavy lava pouring into and down to swallow all signs that the Keep had ever been there at all. Well, guess no more Aerefalle Quests were going to be run. Also, any evidence of who killed her was going down with her. Pity, that. I Door¡¯d back down to my previous position in a flicker of spatial magic, reappearing above the disintegrating chest of the Behemoth. ¡°Aerefalle¡¯s Keep is swallowed by the lava,¡± I announced to all and sundry. ¡°I don¡¯t think we need to run the last part of the Quest.¡± ¡°Gor-damned shame, that is!¡± Lord Mick muttered under his breath, sending a glance in Kristie¡¯s direction. Shadows fluttered vaguely about her, and made her seem very much like the illusion she was not, which everyone about found most amusing. Scold was still standing there, trembling. He had turned towards the slope rising to the south, wanting to leave, to prove he was free¡­ and he could not take a step in that direction. ¡°Well, Master Scold?¡± Briggs asked, stepping up calmly to and looking up at the intelligent golem looming above him. ¡°You have a choice to make. Do you serve those gone, or do you serve one who is still here?¡± Stubby fingers opened and closed, rocks crinkled, the magma veins on his body flared and dimmed as the golem wrestled with his options. And then, slowly and unwillingly, Scold went down to one knee and bowed his blocky head. ¡°Commander Briggs,¡± he murmured. ¡°I will serve you faithfully, as golem to master, so long as I do live,¡± he promised, grinding out the words, but meaning them, as he had no choice with me there to verify them. I nodded at Briggs, who reached out and touched his head. A Source Aura flared, and like that, a snip of fate and control was evaded and severed, and the doom of the intelligent golem was subverted and reassigned. ¡°I accept your service, given of free will and acknowledged as the same, Master Scold. Rise, and receive your orders.¡± The golem¡¯s grumble was long and obvious, but he stood up immediately, head tilted, and waited for directions. ¡°First of all, what were you doing here in Tenkarrdun, and do you wish to continue doing it?¡± Briggs asked reasonably. Scold actually blinked his fiery eyes. ¡°I was examining and repairing the Empyrean machinery down in the volcano properly. It has not been maintained adequately in some times, and there are many parts that need to be replaced or upgraded. I was studying their functions and how to do so. ¡°I¡­ would not object to staying here and continuing my work, if I am allowed to leave when I have learned all that I can,¡± he finished warily. Briggs just nodded. ¡°Then that is what you can do. I suggest you keep the Elemental Lord Z¡¯rzzshszyz there appraised of your progress, and stay away from the Behemoth, who I doubt will interfere with you after it reforms.¡± ¡°I¡­ Yes, sir,¡± he amended after a moment. ¡°Is there anything else?¡± he asked. ¡°Does this place actually produce anything worthwhile? Like, oh, Minor, Major, and Greater Blackfire Stones?¡± Briggs grinned openly. ¡°Those are indeed one of the things it can produce, and there is a small store of them built up. They are used to upgrade the lesser golums and power the Behemoth,¡± Scold informed him. Briggs lifted up a hard black rock that had survived the crumbling of the Behemoth and the way its body was now sinking below the surface of the crater. His fist flashed, stone shattered around it, and he slowly drew his gauntlet back, opening it back up. The egg-sized Greater Blackfire Stone glimmered between obsidian and crystalline white in his palm. ¡°Why don¡¯t you retrieve those for us. We¡¯re also looking for supplies of Earthfire and Firestone Obsidian, if they are below the volcano.¡± ¡°If they are not, the mechanisms below can certainly mix them into being with the Fires of Tenkarrdun,¡± Scold responded promptly. ¡°Excellent. We¡¯ll be stopping by to pick up any related production, and when you¡¯re done investigating everything, fixing what you like, just wait up top here and we¡¯ll get you back to Dereth if you like.¡± ¡°I¡­ Yes, sir,¡± Scold said slowly, wondering just where this all was going. ¡°How long do I have, sir?¡± he asked, a bit stiffly. ¡°As long as it takes, Master Scold. As long as it takes.¡± Briggs patted him on the forearm casually. ¡°Off with you now, big fellow.¡± ¡°Yes, sir!¡± The golem headed for the nearest vent as we watched, the ruptured one that had spewed forth the Behemoth already mended. I looked at everyone who held a chunk of black rock from one of the major pieces of the Behemoth¡­ including mine, the one behind and below where Scold had been trapped. Yes, this Quest had come through for us after all¡­ AF Chapter 456 – A Time for Tea I poured the black tea for Master Ben Ten politely. He appreciated the gesture, especially me doing it personally when Telekinesis would certainly do it for me. Negatively-charged, the tea was one of the only pleasant things in his undeath. I politely charged up bottles of wine, barrels of ale, and even hand-kegs of mead for the undead in Hebian-to and Mayoi, but the tea was always served ¡®hot and fresh¡¯ as it were. Apparently the fresh decomposition was as important as the tea leaves in this situation. Stored tea went flat and bland much more quickly than the alcoholic drinks. If the undead had to burn the barrels and kegs when they were done with them, well, it wasn¡¯t like we¡¯d been paying them for years of defending us. Nobody minded spending a barrel or keggers every week, and the undead did it for the taste, since none of them could actually get drunk. He waited while I poured the softly glowing white tea from the accompanying white porcelain pot into my own cup. We raised them and drank them together. He couldn¡¯t sip at it, having no lungs and thus no suction, so I also drank in silence as his thick black tea, which would rot and erode any living tissue it ran across, ran across his bones and teeth, and he sighed as it slowly sank into the whiteness of his skeleton. ¡°As always, thank you for taking the time to serve me tea, Lady Magos,¡± he finally said. ¡°It is only fair, since none of your students can make the tea properly, Master Ben,¡± I replied calmly. ¡°And¡­ I have busy days. It is a relevant moment of sanity and pleasant company in the rush-rush of my average day.¡± ¡°You and your students are indeed incredibly busy at most times. Are you aware that there are even some artisans and craftsman who grumble about all you do?¡± He was definitely amused at the thought. ¡°Yes. Some of them want to do the jobs we do, parlaying them into a long-term occupation that will pay them a living wage for years and more. The fact we are rebuilding society rapidly is no excuse for them losing potentially years of wages. I am familiar with the mindset.¡± He chuckled gently. ¡°Small minds with small concerns,¡± he agreed. ¡°Soon enough your Casters will move on to higher concerns, and they will take over the maintenance and replacement of what wears out¡­ if they have the skills to do so. Perhaps in time they will grow into something more¡­ and their grumbles are not serious. They know what you have done for everyone.¡± ¡°I know what I have done and plan yet on doing, Master Ben. It is not of much concern to me,¡± I admitted candidly. ¡°What are your plans for the future now?¡± he asked, interested. ¡°The matters on the northern islands seem mostly settled?¡± ¡°We have to forge a trail across the Dark Isle, and chase the last of the Blight off of Aerlinthe. The first is to gain the Radiant Infusions and the potentially final upgrades to the Weapons of the Lost Light.¡± His head turned to his own sheathed Katana. I knew proving himself worthy of the Lost Light was one of his avowed goals for himself and his senior students, but not possible as long as he was undead. ¡°Another basic Quest, then, one I never bothered to pursue. Yet I do not remember any extension to that quest¡­?¡± ¡°The Sword of Lost Hope was made after finishing the Radiant Infusion.¡± ¡°Ah. Yes. The corrupting of the Blade¡­¡± he nodded, remembering. ¡°Corrupt, and yet the most powerful iteration of the Sword of Lost Light, according to the Mick, if made only to Acid damage. The various Infusions against Skeletons, Shadows, and Olthoi were very minor in comparison.¡± ¡°That is true, but the Warfang Weapons that are being forged so meticulously now are clearly superior to those, are they not? Especially with the Elemental and Blackfire Stones added to them.¡± He and his students had undertaken acquisition of the Elemental Stones, and who was going to complain about the master of the Sun Legion advancing to the front of the queue for them? ¡°It means there¡¯s at least one more grade of Infusion. Blood with a negative energy charge can be purified, or its counterpart used.¡± ¡°Counterpart?¡± Master Ben Ten inquired with interest. ¡°Holy Waters, Flames, Vapors, or Sands.¡± ¡°That¡­ does seem logical,¡± he agreed. ¡°So, you need to take a trip to the tomb of Avoren Palacost¡­¡± ¡°Which should also be extant in the world now, instead of requiring a ridiculous number of sub-Quests to qualify for.¡± ¡°Well enough, then. I understand that something happened during your trip to Aerlinthe?¡± ¡°You mean the destruction of Aerefalle Keep and the Lady?¡± My composure stayed quite blas¨¦. ¡°It could have not happened to a finer undead harridan. I understand you led a delegation to the Graveyard a couple days ago. How did matters go there?¡± The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Lord Rytheran has left the Mhoire Graveyard,¡± Master Ben Ten reported as I refilled his cup. ¡°His presence was, hmm, intermittent before, but as we started visiting he stayed present more, obviously expecting the sort of Karma-harvesting done by the living in the past. The undead there seemed more amused than anything when we didn¡¯t start hostilities, but they were almost non-existent on this last visit. ¡°The remnants of House Mhoire were also more agitated and energetic than before, but we were unable to readily make contact with the slain Lord and Lady of the house. The method to do so would likely have slain us in confrontation with the Lord¡¯s elite guard, all other things being equal. ¡°However, we believe that it is a fine opportunity to finally send the members of the House off to their final rest.¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°I will extend a Lived-Line there and begin the process of whittling them down. Are the rats there still a problem?¡± ¡°Yes. Annoying things. Their warrens run under the entirety of the Graveyard. There is no way to get rid of them, above and beyond their continuous spawns.¡± ¡°We will Seal the spawn points, but the best way to kill rats is not hacking on dog-sized monstrosities breathing acid, but proper poison. I should be able to fill their warrens with a suitable poison and wipe them out when I hit Fifteen.¡± ¡°The Wide Progressions are Karma-intensive at Ten and later. How far are you along?¡± ¡°The completion of the Aerlinthe Quest and destruction of the Behemoth was surprisingly rewarding, so much closer than I expected.¡± I frowned slightly, looking away. ¡°I may not go Wide from Fifteen to Seventeen, however,¡± I admitted. ¡°Oh? Why is that?¡± ¡°I can send the True Olthoi Queen back home if I reach Seventeen on the Matrix Side.¡± He actually sat back slightly to look at me in astonishment. ¡°Truly a worthy reason. And if going Wide is so costly even with the great events you¡¯ve been a part of, a reasonable thing to do, especially if you wish to make such a move before our enemies organize against us.¡± I nodded slowly. ¡°However, we will probably still have to kill the mutant Olthoi Queen on Marae Lassel, and the Paradox Queen in the north. They are born of this world and native to it. The True Queen will not allow them to bring their mutations home and eventually challenge her for dominance with their mutations.¡± ¡°That is a far simpler matter than slaughtering the olthoi of every hive in the north,¡± Master Ben Ten nodded slowly. ¡°You will indeed have to be grinding away for Karma every day to pay those costs.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good thing this place is so Karma-intensive,¡± I agreed as he took another silent sip, sighing and clearly enjoying the flavor and sensation of the drink. ¡°That is true. I thought I was long past having to worry about such matters, and then Her Highness came with the Seven Dragons. Realizing there is so much more to learn about the sword is a humbling moment.¡± ¡°I remember you mentioning taking Master Oswald¡¯s step and seeing if the Temple of Forgetfulness would be able to help you reallocate some of your current Karma to the Matrix side. How did that work out?¡± I inquired of him. ¡°It was successful! However, the conversion of Karma from the Isparian side of the system to the Matrix side must be quite brutal. I believe you said the Isparian method being part of the Empyrean method means that it is more about sheer quantity of Karma overcoming resistance than the more qualitative measures of the Matrix method, yes?¡± ¡°That is correct. There is no direct correlation in Karma that we can tell, it seems to vary by the foe and source of the Karma. The Matrix side rewards what we might want to call actual growth of mind, body, and soul, rewarding the striving by opening doors. The Isparian side simply accumulates raw Karma and because it can be allocated so freely, instead of by Class functions, takes more and more to accomplish everything as the impetus builds towards the limits of the System.¡± ¡°Master Harlune has not been able to enlighten us on breaking the limits on the Empyrean System, despite being able to selectively harness it,¡± Master Ben sighed, cupping his mistily cold tea thoughtfully. ¡°The explanation likely lies in the Heiromancer Halls where he received his advanced magery training. There is likely a ritual they undertake that releases the mortal limits on their system and he did not realize it, or simply spending time in the place with some sort of spell formation active that conditions them to accept it. He might also have been subjected to a Geas or similar compulsion to be unable to reveal the elements of Empyrean advancement.¡± ¡°The vast majority of the undead, and indeed, most Empyreans, never actually reached the Empyrean levels. The number of undead who could administer spells beyond the Incantor Tier that we have encountered has been quite small¡­¡± he mused after a moment of consideration. ¡°Consider Asheron. According to the lore we have, none of the Yalain or Haebran magi, even such as Gaerlan, had the power to travel the worlds. It is an art almost entirely restricted to the undead of Dericost. Yet the ratio of Dericost undead who can even use Incantor magic is hundreds to one, and beyond that even smaller in number.¡± ¡°They are capable of raising their physical Stats to levels higher than we are, especially their Health, but that does not seem to grant them extraordinary combat ability, that is true,¡± Master Ben agreed. ¡°So, ah, requirements within the Empyrean System too, I would guess?¡± ¡°That is my guess, too. The secrets of advancement hoarded by the powerful and doled only reluctantly to the loyal and most trusted.¡± ¡°Naturally. They are feudal imperialists, it is the proven way.¡± His tone was wry, as he was also a member of the Murim, which also had some very competitive meritocratic factions. Sects, dojos, and independent masters often stayed independent of the Family-owned and dominated schools that were basically alternate feudal fiefdoms in many ways. ¡°If Rytheran has left the Graveyard, that means power is shifting. Stories say that he is tired, and only his love for Lady Aerefalle has allowed him to return to life. I believe we can guess that he first wants to identify the killers of his Lady and come after them, then eliminate any traitors he can until he perishes.¡± ¡°But there is nothing to identify the killers with her buried under the lava of Aerlinthe. Do you believe he will go after your party?¡± he asked reasonably. ¡°He has the words of dozens of undead scouts that we never came near the Keep. The energy pulse from the Behemoth might be determined as the cause, of course, but just the disruption to the Wards should not have been enough to do the job. He can probably identify the precise moment of her death if he can recover her remains. The majority of the undead also managing to Recall out of her Keep also indicates she was dead before the Keep fell, unless she has gone to some place so secret she didn¡¯t even tell Rytheran of it¡­¡± AF Chapter 457 – Dark Things Isle Find It was another of those long, slow overland crawls. Ten miles of spawns of some of the most dangerous creatures in the Dereth islands, clearing a road through them to the end of the island. It might or might not have been easier to work the beaches instead, but that was kind of self-defeating. The beaches were the easy spawns, the ones the rare paramount teams were daring now and then in the slow and steady quest to gain The Deep¡¯s approval and open up Luminance to new people. The spawns up on the Blighted stone of the island were the dangerous ones, but the ones that had to be cleared the most. Everyone took a week off just to prepare for this fight, heading home to visit the families they didn¡¯t get to see often, blow off steam, relax, and get ready for more tough fighting to come. Lord Mick was regaling us with tales of all the different meals he and Bunita had been trying out, his wife consistently out-eating him at all stages, combining that with a trip to the Temple of Forgetfulness to free up some Karma so she could actually start gaining some Matrix Levels and begin her own rebuilding process. Kris and Briggs actually vacationed on Aerlinthe Island. With Aerefalle¡¯s fall, the sapient undead stationed there had mostly abandoned the island, and the two of them had a great time rampaging against everything that remained, Sealing every Spawn Point they came across during the day and getting some vigorous exercise in at night, too. I¡¯d kept busy mostly in the A¡¯Nekshay area, hunting Burning Sands golums. There weren¡¯t enough of the Hearts around, and very few people were bothering to hunt them with better options available. Master Ben Ten and a couple of his students had offered to accompany me, and we¡¯d run circuits of the Spawn Points among the ancient sandstone cliffs of the area for hours. The only loot was jewels and the Hearts, but it was enough, and the swordsmen appreciated the fact that I could play close support mage without difficulty, and I was plenty able to Inflict-Heal them easily and keep them in the fights. I didn¡¯t stop my daily Resurrections, either. Like my daily Investing, it was just something I did. Candeth Martine had sent a missive over, wondering if I might not want to raise one of my smaller Pyramids near to Candeth Keep for some security. So, another project to add to my downtime. The Dark Isle had one random element, and that was the Dark Falatacot undead followers of N¡¯cthail who still wandered the place, occupied the temple at the far end, and actually controlled access to the Radiant Infusion. They didn¡¯t appear to have much control over the Summons crawling all over the place, which was fortunate, because soon enough we were in running skirmishes with the black-clad monastic male followers and the scarlet-clad mistresses of the Sect and their Incantor magic bombarding us. That did indeed get irritating, especially since they could forcibly break any Sealed Spawn Points. As a result, all of the undead, Summons themselves or not, became primary targets on the Dark Isle, to be vivified if at all possible. Reaching them was something of an exercise in frustration, as they were centered inland and far up the coast, and to reach any of the Summons or real ones, we¡¯d have to go through rings and layers of Spawn Points all too happy to try and kill us for them. When we retreated, they¡¯d come in and break the Seals on the Spawn Points, and we¡¯d have to reclaim the same ground all over again, as there just weren¡¯t enough forces working the place to hold it against them. Four days we went back and forth over the same ground, getting better at killing the stuff that was there, but essentially making no progress whatsoever. The real undead retreated through the Spawns and impassively watched from the distance as we killed our way through them, not bothering to engage with us. There were infinite amounts of Summons, so what did they care? --- ¡°Getting nowhere. Skirt the beach an¡¯ go right fer the temple. If the lass can bring down their little place o¡¯ worship, they¡¯ll have t¡¯ come running, right?¡± the Mick asked, annoyed as we retired to the Wagon after another day of tracing whiteness across the Blight of the Dark Isle. The undead naturally didn¡¯t want any vivic fires Burning here and doing any real work, so anything we left behind in that vein was rapidly defiled. No real progress was made, deeper contamination welling up from inside the island to keep everything unclean and nasty. ¡°Maybe,¡± Kris growled, stabbing her steak as if it were personally responsible for her level of frustration. She was primarily offense here, as Quaver¡¯s Deepsong meant the enslaved remoran and sleech spawns here wouldn¡¯t dare to attack her¡­ or me, for that part. It was a nice benefit that allowed her to charge in on them and go apeshit all over them if I got some Imperils off on them for quick kills, but it didn¡¯t do anything for the golum, shade, ruschk, or mukkir spawns. ¡°It depends how fanatical they are about defending specific areas of rock. By that definition, this whole island could be considered holy ground.¡± If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The Mick groaned as Briggs just nodded. ¡°The temple is an Empyrean building. They are quick to be rebuilt by design. Anything we do to it can be undone with magic and a little patience. I think they¡¯ve got both down pretty pat, and their tolerance of dust mites running around messing things up has been demonstrated for years. They are indeed wary of the rumors we can kill them forever, but it¡¯s not a small hunk of rock, and we don¡¯t have the forces able to run them down.¡± ¡°Then we wall them off.¡± Everyone turned to look at me. ¡°That¡¯s how you capture ground against a mobile foe. You deny them the ground. We can either wall them off or pit them off, but the jumping ability here is pretty ludicrous, so we¡¯re probably better off with the former.¡± Briggs, Kris, the Mick, and the Roaches and Skeeters, too, all turned to look at the Dark Isle behind us. ¡°Gor, that¡¯s going to be a lot of walls, lass,¡± the Mick sighed. ¡°Good thing ye¡¯ve so much practice at it, aye?¡± I threw a fry at him, but he wasn¡¯t wrong. Putting up walls was slow but relatively relaxing work, and if plans called for some, I was happy to put them in place. ¡°You referring to my work with the Viamontians, or something else?¡± I asked him. I¡¯d been back to Sanamar twice in the last two months, the Viamontians eager to expand their reclaimed territory. They¡¯d lured in the Eaters, slaughtered them at the hardpoint I¡¯d put up for them, and reclaimed some additional territory of the ravaged island. If Sir Bellas and some of the most skilled Bellenesse under him had quietly gone along to help out, that was their choice. The Bellenesse were using the same tactic on the northern island around the Hold of Karlun more frequently, as the hordes of Eaters spilling out of the north built up with remarkable speed because of the dense spawns there, based on what had originally been a green and thriving land. I was going out there about once a week to claim about a square mile back, slow but steady work. They were also pulling more souls trapped in System slavery out of there, slowly but surely, but that was also something being kept on the down low. The people in Sanamar were still former servants of the Corcosi, and would certainly be all for rebuilding their conquering armies if they could do so, something we simply weren¡¯t going to let happen. ¡°Lass, ye¡¯ve put up probably a thousand miles o¡¯ walls an¡¯ roads an¡¯ bridges an¡¯ whatnot combined, an¡¯ ye even bother t¡¯ ask that?¡± the Mick just laughed at me, wagging that fry at me and then downing it flagrantly. Well, he wasn¡¯t wrong. ¡°They¡¯ll have to be at least twenty feet tall to be any kind of a barrier, and thirty would be better,¡± Kris mused aloud, going right from annoyance at having to do it to execution. ¡°They¡¯ll have to start right at the Shoreward and keep looping out and over.¡± Briggs just glanced at me, and I flicked up a Holo of the island, starting here, on the shoal island just off the shore of the Dark Island proper, with The Deep¡¯s shrine setting at the far end from us. ¡°Spawn Points,¡± he said, and I blew up the local area before filling in the bright white dots of Spawn Points, limning in red those we¡¯d repeatedly Sealed heading up into the middle of the island, all of which had been power-surged free by the undead working patiently once we¡¯d quit the area. ¡°You can walk up about a mile of wall per hour, right?¡± Briggs asked, everyone moving over Disks to take a look at the Holo with professional interest. ¡°Yes.¡± A higher Valence opening would increase that, but that was my limit for now. ¡°Safe zone, skirmish zone, danger zone,¡± Selena spoke up, pointing out the zones that started at the area nearest the Deathstone Pit and moved parallel along the shore until they were across from The Deep¡¯s shrine. I flicked up rough walls in that area. The Dark Isle basically sloped up from south to north, the north side being mostly sheer cliffs. For that reason, the southern beach was generally considered the easiest area to work, with the zone right across from us having the most area to retreat to without a Shoreward and thus the ¡®safest¡¯, even if the Summons in the area were no safer than anywhere else on the beaches. No Spawn would get anywhere near the Deep¡¯s Shrine. ¡°Fortifications on the beach. I feel like a Marine again or something,¡± Briggs smiled happily, and I belatedly remembered that the Commander of Redshore had been very, very good about his shore defenses. ¡°Question! Does raising walls affect the Spawn Points at all?¡± Kris¡¯ student Sonya spoke up, her eyes, like everyone else¡¯s, roving over the hundreds of Spawn Points visible on the map, just in this small area. ¡°Good question?¡± Briggs looked at me. ¡°No, unless a wall gets raised on top of one. Then it is displaced to someplace else nearby¡­¡± I pursed my lips at the observation. ¡°We haven¡¯t been doing many combat fortifications in hot zones,¡± Kris added to that, seeing the same point. ¡°So, how far do you think we can push these Spawn Points apart?¡± she asked me. ¡°Take it to the next stage,¡± I murmured back to her, steepling my fingers thoughtfully. Tsu Nippo, one of the two regular Support Mages, spoke up, ¡°If the walls can displace them, we should be able to track exactly what has been displaced and see if we can move them via other means, right?¡± the Sho exclaimed eagerly. ¡°Oh, wouldn¡¯t that be so damn useful,¡± Briggs murmured, pale green eyes wide and intense. ¡°Shifting Spawn Points from one point to another less convenient point to them nearby¡­¡± ¡°Temporary, I be thinkin¡¯,¡± the Mick grunted into the hopeful atmosphere, earning sour looks from everyone. ¡°If ye be using magic to shift the things around with a spell or ritual or something, I be thinking that it¡¯ll reset soon enough, same¡¯s as the surges un-Sealing them.¡± I threw up my hands. ¡°He¡¯s not wrong. It can be done, but it¡¯ll probably reset after so many respawns, or Natural Renewal, like a slowly tightening rubber band snapping back into proper position. A wall works because it¡¯s more like terrain shifting, and Spawn Points don¡¯t happen on ground a Summons can¡¯t stand on easily.¡± ¡°So they could pop to the top of a wall instead of to the side if it was closer?¡± Briggs reasoned, sighing as everyone basically nodded at the simple sense of it. ¡°I never tried to build a short way to test it, but I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if a Spawn Point could move to the top of one of my walls if that was the easiest way,¡± I agreed reluctantly. AF Chapter 458 – Dark Roads and Walls ¡°Still, we should be able to open a gap right up through here.¡± Endure glittered on his shoulder, and a parallel line of Holographic walls ran to the north up the side of the illusionary slope towards the corrupted former shrine where the undead Vaeshok, the leader of the effort to free Grael, had set up shop¡­ and which we¡¯d emptied of Summons, including him, vivified everything, and then buried the whole thing in liquefied ex-blightstone. The Spawn Points had all shifted up to the surface after the spaces below were filled in, but they had changed to more random surface spawns, ¡®losing¡¯ whatever individual character settings had been fixed below, mostly as sclavi guards and a few scattered mukkir. ¡°Following the ridgeline north means we only have to build one wall,¡± Princess Kristie Rantha stated, eyes narrow as Quaver hummed and Briggs¡¯ wall grew, advancing up to near the sheer slope on the far side before shifting to follow it north-west. ¡°Those spawns aren¡¯t too dense. We can actually make decent time up there¡­ and cut off the ends relatively easily.¡± ¡°Ley line surge,¡± the Mick promptly spat out. ¡°They can un-Seal them without passing the wall, aye?¡± Everyone looked at me. ¡°Funny thing about how walls are avenues for conduction of magical energies. It¡¯s why Wards work so well. So the proper thing to do in such a case is to make the walls into Walls and have something in them which can use up all those energy surges. As long as the surge doesn¡¯t hit the whole Wall at the same time, there shouldn¡¯t be any issues.¡± ¡°What kind of magical effect?¡± Kris asked, sniffing out a grimly ironic surprise. ¡°Glyphs of Warding with vivic Kickers, I¡¯m thinking. Can plug them right into the ley lines, no sweat, let the land power them up. If they want to feed the Wall power, let them.¡± ¡°How about blasting them down?¡± Maga Thera asked, the brown-haired Aluvian likewise intent on our problem. ¡°Once there¡¯s a ley line connection, that¡¯s almost moot. They¡¯d have to sever the connection or bring out real Empyrean magic to overcome a mana-reinforced wall, and they don¡¯t have the physical power to chop through it in any reasonable amount of time. Plus, there¡¯s a problem with blasting or hacking a section of wall.¡± Briggs¡¯ smile was grim. ¡°Interested parties can tell exactly where you are and come over to dissuade you.¡± Golden Light shimmered over Kris¡¯ hand, turning her hand into curving razored finger-blades. ¡°And some of us are better at climbing sheer walls than others,¡± she purred in anticipation. Briggs nodded at that. ¡°Okay, we¡¯ll take a survey of the teams working the shore here, see if and where they want other dividers to be put in place. Breaking up the open field with clear avenues of retreat without worrying about triggering other spawns should be a popular idea if we set it up right, and we can turn this place into a real training area, instead of a free-for-all like we have now. ¡°Tomorrow, we¡¯re going to make some progress and keep it. We¡¯re bringing the Wagon up the slope once the Walls start going up, and when the undead come down to try something, I think we¡¯re going to light them up.¡± I nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll get my Resurrections done early, after everyone¡¯s done Investing,¡± I nodded at the plan. The planning devolved to exactly what Spawn Points and where I¡¯d displace them, clearing what and who and plotting everything out in Visual Files for tomorrow so we¡¯d make good progress. Me, I was designing the Glyphs to be splayed over the Walls going up, and the basic Formations to put inside them to tap the ley line running right down the center of that ridge of Tainted blightstone up there, and how I was going to mess those undead up. Tomorrow was going to be a decent day. ------- Briggs wasn¡¯t actually there the next day. He¡¯d promised his Stonehold lads some days of personal attention, and he led them over to work the Vissidal spawns, hunting gold pack bosses along the shores there for Luminance opening, giving them the feel and confidence to take on the creatures there repeatedly and confidently. It was fine, we had plenty of offense, and he¡¯d mostly been here because Kris was here and he enjoyed beating on tough things that thought magic could take him down. The Skeeters and the Roaches were two groups of the toughest adventurer-types in all of Dereth now, with Warfang Weapons of Lost Light and Blackfire that were definitely the best on the whole island. They went about the task of wiping the spawns out again with cool professionalism, and made record time as I paced them with the Walls going up smoothly just behind them. All of them had minor Levitation magicks at the least, or enhanced jumping, and could get to the top of a thirty-foot wall without too much trouble, even if they had to be dragged up by someone else by riding a Disk and keeping even with them. Heck, Disks could walk them up in steps without too much of an issue, and running through a few drills where Disk-steps were lined up quickly so everyone could just race to the top became a drill the next day during a short rest period, everyone assigned a ¡®step¡¯ and testing how fast the Disks could be placed in position by the person in front. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Something else to drill and practice, nobody satisfied with the speed, but it would do for now, as we were in a combat zone. As before, everything was vivified, kills of the bosses were carefully allocated among those who needed them, Mnecromonic keeping track of kill credits and Visual Files enumerating everything. It was a lot of kills to get, and definitely not something normally done in a single day, especially as people traded off the primary damage roles and luck¡¯s damn RNG had its own role to play. Up the beach, forming a path fifty yards wide between two Spawn Points I bumped left and right, the Walls marched from the shallows up the steep slope to the top of the hill, where the land leveled out partially and the Spawn Points started reappearing. They weren¡¯t too dense up here, but could still flash and flare and suddenly surround us in respawned numbers if we were unlucky, or draw neighboring Summons over which logically should have been fighting one another madly, and instead all went after us. The toughest part was killing the dense Spawn Points around the shallow crater where Vaeshok and the blighted Shrine had been, as triggering one spawn of them from a distance dragged three over at a time, which wasn¡¯t exactly fun. Sending up Kris to bait them over was more useful, and she was constantly Skating back and forth, pulling them in regularly as they were surrounded and cut down by wolfpack tactics and some intense arrow fire. From there it was a march along the ridgeline. I raised the Wall parallel to the slope falling away to the north there as we progressed. Selene pointed out the Falatacot undead in the distance, watching us advance from at least a half-klik away, not bothering to get any closer. The only sign they might have been a little upset by what we were doing was when the numbers of watchers grew, and then red started appearing among the black robes of the male guards, indicating the priestesses were taking a sudden interest in what we were doing. They could stay downslope or further along the ridge all they liked, of course. All they could see behind us was a Vivic Wall of Fire burning atop the defiled shrine, staining the black stone white over there, crawling mists of purity slowly sidling down the hilltop toward the white circles scattered like measles of purity on the tainted blightstone there, spreading the love and the cleansing through a wider and wider area. When it came time to stop for the night, I simply drew the Wall right across the front of our advance, sealing off a strip about a hundred paces wide along that ridgeline and its fossilized blighted coral formations. I also dropped a bunch of Vivic Eternal Flames on said coral formations, turning them into nice big vivic bonfires spreading the love around. The Wagon was trailing along behind us, the archers and mages using it for elevated cover fire readily, half up top, half on the ground as needed for the fights. The Wall rose from the blightstone, white-streaked brown as I Shaped up the purified stone into the form desired, and there it sat, a pale snake on the oily black skin of the Dark Isle, daring the undead to do something about it. ----- Nobody else bothered to help, because there really was no need for them to. Yes, the undead had a couple thousand Health. Yes, there were like forty of them, combining forces to blast away at the Wall in front of them, and really not liking the results. Mana-reinforced walls really ignored Isparian-class magicks trying to harm them once set up. There was a big patch of white ground where they¡¯d come too close after their attempt to Surge lit up the Glyphs along the faces of about a hundred yards of wall, and blew out on them. Didn¡¯t kill any of them, but did set them en vivus and desperately beating the stuff out with acid magic and the like, as rolling on the blighted ground just set the ground en vivus, too! So, I walked up Invisibly, looked down at the cluster of them blasting away, and I unloaded on them fast and heavy. I knew there were more undead looking on from the distance, I could see them right over there, heya hiya, and I could probably reach out and touch them, whether they liked it or not. But, no, killing these would be sufficient for now, and I didn¡¯t need to be giving away my killing range to any survivors I could not see. ¡°Tremble,¡± I whispered in Necrus, and they all looked up at me in shock. Twinned Admixtured Chained Shardrays with Fastcast Twinned Chained Shardrays, both Split, both with Undead Slayer, both with Disruption, both with Legendary Healing Prowess for that sweet +50% Kicker, maxed out with Holy Metas and die-increased and +50% twice for oodles of fun, and the Lost Light was shining and thrumming through it all as a Blackfire Starfield lit up like an aurora in the night. They didn¡¯t have much of a chance, and that was entirely by design. This was basically Force and Radiant energy damage, the Elementals were just on there for additional Kickers and free Metas. The whole force of undead lit up and was connected by raging strands of undead-eating starfire pulses binding them all¡­ and then they evaporated, blasted to dust and less, and their clothes, disintegrating under the force of the Elemental Kickers, fell to the ground, and dissolved to vivic powder with the rest of them. I eyed the undead in the distance, then fell back into the shadows of the night and left them behind. I didn¡¯t expect any more trouble that night, and there wasn¡¯t any. --- -Lady Magos, the situation you warned us of has come up! We¡¯ve got a force of Falatacot undead and sclavi moving along the southern beach with all speed, coming right for us!- Presper Farnshall was one of my Wizard students, and like most of them, had advanced quickly because his services were in very high demand. Paramounts loved them some support Casters, and they really, really loved folks who could Teleport. They were plenty happy to help him gain Isparian Levels with high-Karma hunting, and vary it all up to get him to Nine so they could go out to a hunting zone way across Dereth and then be back home in time for dinner. Supplemental Mass Resist Elements to give the finger to the spellflingers of the Dark Isle were nice, too. Messages to scream out alarms when needed were even better at key times! AF Chapter 459 – Dark Lessons Learned -Retreat immediately, no arguments. Head to the Pit and the Teleport Focus there. If they advance past the Shrine, you immediately Teleport out, no hesitation. If anyone argues, just leave them behind, because they are going to die.- -Affirmed!- he /replied shortly, mental motion in the background. Their support mage screaming at them to run by order of the Lady Magos as he booked should prompt even the overconfident paramounts to turn their heels and exercise some discretion. There was nothing in the place worth dying for. ¡°Second scenario on the beach. ¡®Porting out!¡± I announced to everyone. ¡°Give ¡¯em Heaven, girl!¡± Kris whooped confidently, none of them breaking away from the middle of a slaughter of the powerful shades of this place, the need to kill them dead quickly too high to interrupt anything. With a shimmer I was off and away, and amazingly, I had a Lived-Line running right through the Wall I¡¯d put up down there, so I could unerringly pop myself down on top of it. I stood there and looked west at the horde of berobed Dark Falatacot Cultists, a good dozen red robes bright among them, with a score of sclavi guards escorting the priestesses. Probably five hundred black-robed undead there, most of them scooped up off of Spawn Points on the way here. Wizard Sight let me see which were Summons by the simple fact they emanated Conjuration magic, which let me paint the ones that were not Summons as my targets. They were the only important ones. Without their orders, the Summons would turn around and run right back to where they came from. This, see, was why I hadn¡¯t alerted them to my range yesterday. I was Invisible, so they couldn¡¯t see me atop the Wall that was stretched across the beach now, cutting off the view to the far side, the pale stone destroying the sanctity of the Blight here. However, the Shoreward here ran out past The Deep¡¯s shoal and to the far side out there, and I hadn¡¯t built the Wall out that far. Thus, they could run out into the water and around it, sweep up behind us, and initiate a Surge that would travel up along the inside of the Wall and undo pretty much everything we¡¯d done fairly quickly. They didn¡¯t even have to attack us, just show how futile what we¡¯d done was. And that was why they all died. Presper¡¯s group had retreated down the Shoal to the Deathstone Pit and the Seal Focus nearby. It was the traditional arrival spot long ago, and a good, safe place to pop into, all other things being equal. The undead obviously saw the paramount team retreating rapidly and prudently from them, swinging out past the edge of the Wall and retreating to the far end of the shoal, ready to disappear. The horde moved to do the same, the real Falatacot hanging back and letting the Summons lead the way. Then I lit them up, and suddenly it wasn¡¯t a concern of theirs anymore. The real undead were my primary targets, and the most vulnerable to me by far. That didn¡¯t mean I couldn¡¯t kill the sclavi, I just needed to have six different sets of Burning Chains go through each one of them to bump them off. I didn¡¯t need to do quite so much to the undead, as they were taking x8 damage in comparison, and were innately vulnerable to Fire¡­ although they¡¯d also Buffed against Fire, so that was pretty immaterial, and basically only on there as Kickers. No, they got the Holy Lost Light treatment, and funnily enough, didn¡¯t have any Void Magic to guard against Force and Positive energy having puppy-kittens. The screams of the undead were cut very short, the hissing thrashing of the sclavi lasted a bit longer as they went down in the drink, churning it as they thrashed at the holes punched through them, and then were still. The onrushing horde of male Falatacot undead in their hooded black and gold outfits stopped, turned around, and looked at the circles of clear white water with the robes and cloths dissipating. Their orders broke, they realigned themselves, and started to head back the way they¡¯d come. Well, ducks, sitting, what¡¯s a girl to do? It took me two more volleys to wipe those that remained, lines of Chains boring through the closely-packed undead there and downing them. Amusingly enough, that also popped up a grand total of over a hundred crimson Priestess pack-bosses and their two bodyguards each, giving me another three hundred undead to play with. I was a hundred yards away from them and they didn¡¯t know who had spawned them, but their Spawn locations were locked to their arrival points, so they weren¡¯t going anywhere. Two more volleys ripped through them, and I got a second set of boss kills for The Deep, just like that. It did cost me a lot of Valences and Mana to supplement it, but that was fine, good AoE opportunities were worth the expenditure. I¡¯d just have to stay in Aurora Stance to build the rest of the Wall and let the others handle support for the next hour or two. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! I waved to Presper and his team, and they waved back in relief. The waters for a good hundred yards around the kill points were all crystal clear, the sands had gone pure white, and fallen khopesh weapons were bubbling and rusting very quickly under the surface. -Good down here. Coming back,- I /messaged Kris, and Linejumped Invisibly thataway in a flash, materializing over top of my previous position and gliding smoothly down to the base of the Wall where they were all waiting for me to return. ¡°Oh, they were watching to see if anything happened on our end,¡± I noticed, seeing two red robes in the distance. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re going to like what happened to their expeditionary force.¡± Kris walked up, grabbed Crown, and rolled her eyes sideways as she tracked what had happened. ¡°Eight hundred undead. Ten spells,¡± she informed everyone, and everyone groaned very loudly and threw their hands into the air as if they¡¯d practiced for it. Well, they probably had, the snarkers! ¡°Right, let¡¯s see how many more of their own they¡¯re going to throw away,¡± she grinned, hoping they would. Aun Moaha¡¯s paramount team was working the north side, so they¡¯d see any approach by the beach from that direction, and I could pop back down as was needed if that was so. I adjusted myself into Aurora Stance, the flickering lights of the magic around me telling everyone what I was doing. They knew I was on final Support, which was cool, as Thera and Nippo should have no problems with the secondary Healers scattered among the main fighters able to deal with emergencies. Vivic Shaped Stone flowed up out of the ground, poofs of mist Burning at the blightstone as it amassed into a ten-foot wide, thirty-foot tall Wall, the outside gleaming with some nice Glyphs ready to be powered up by ley lines or power surges. The Wall marched along behind the steady progress of the Wagon and the killteams of the Skeeters and Roaches. The Temple and the Shrine where we needed to go were two different places, but we were going to have to hit both of them, and we all knew it. The pace was easy and the fighting was steady but not pushing it, as we did indeed have miles to go¡­ ------- There were two more abortive attempts to stop us from progressing. They did indeed send a group of two hundred Summons to attack us during our Sealing work. Unfortunately for them, I could pick out the one real cultist giving them orders. I lit him up with Faerie Fire and Imperil, and the Archers filled him full of vivic holes. The others turned around and ran away, and for some reason those off in the distance watching us didn¡¯t send them back with more overseers, imagine that. --- ¡°A truce flag?¡± Kris asked aloud, laughing under her breath. ¡°They must be vastly irritated with us if they would deign to speak with us. Proper fanatics should just die blindly following the dictates of their unmentionable gods, right?¡± Snickers rose all around, but none of us went out to meet her, given there were Summons scattered all around the area who could be pulled up to fight us with little effort. The seven-foot female in the tight red garments and hood with the glowing eyes had a crude white flag in her hand as she approached, arrogance and confidence showing in every step, refusing to show any fear just because the ground was stained white behind us¡­ in a whole bunch of places. ¡°Approach, Priestess,¡± I said in Necrus as we lined up to face her. She paused at being addressed in a language that she didn¡¯t know, but which she understood perfectly. It threw her off a moment, but she sneered and let the flag lower, striding forward to within easy charging distance from us, stopping about twenty yards away. Kris stepped forth, Quaver droning the Deepsong and letting the undead woman know that we had our own Sponsor looking after us. ¡°I am Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha, Warlord of the Free Armies of Osteth. You play a dangerous game, Elder. What do you want that is not better solved by us dusting all of you?¡± she asked in proper barbarian princess fashion¡­ and in perfect High Dericost, right down to the utterly correct sneer at a social inferior. The priestess actually blinked at someone daring to address her with such confident effrontery, and Kris just curled her lip back at her, exposing two gleaming canines ready for work. ¡°I am Matriarch Xil Riai, of the Temple to N¡¯cthail!¡± she was obliged to identify herself, her glowing eyes scanning the rest of us and reading just how unimpressed with her we all were¡­ and just how real and dangerous those Vivic Weapons looked to her. ¡°For what reason are you bringing those defiling Weapons to the sacred soil of N¡¯cthail¡¯s chosen land?¡± she challenged us arrogantly. ¡°By the will and command of The Deep, Elder,¡± Kris answered, her head tilting sideways and her accent indicating that was like the queen of stupid questions. ¡°There is a shrine to It right down there off the shore. You can go verify the matter with It if you like.¡± ¡°The Deep has no realm or influence above the waves!¡± the priestess shot back curtly, making a cutting motion. ¡°It has no say in matters now that the island is once more risen!¡± Kris¡¯ smile grew dangerously, monstrously, eight canines wide. The Deepsong spiked, trembling at the very edge of two very specific notes the undead had been hearing going off for days now, and every time they sounded, Summons died with brutal speed. ¡°I think, Elder, that you had best choose your next words most carefully,¡± I said in Necrus, before Kris could verbally rip into her and start a fight. A Name began to warble on the edge of the Sublime Chord, and the undead Priestess took a full step back as the manafield bent. She felt a distant presence suddenly become aware of her as that Name echoed in the winds and waves all around her, and the magic itself turned hostile to her. ¡°The Deep considers that the souls of those on the island when it rose are its, too slow and confused to flee when it was proper. But if you think that excuses the influence of T¡¯Thuun you have let seep into the land and the infestation of its corrupted golum servants, helping the Blight spread into the seas and giving Its great enemy a continuing hold on this world still, I think you gravely overestimate The Deep¡¯s respect for the powers you venerate.¡± ¡°The Lost Light is here, and the Radiance calls to it!¡± Kris roared at the undead woman, for just a second every inch the killer Hag, and the priestess actually jumped back a step in shock at Kris¡¯ aborted lunge¡­ and the shining Motes flaring proud and deadly upon Quaver, and indeed, every Weapon facing her! AF Chapter 460 – Freeing the Radiance ¡°You think The Deep cannot feel your masters siphoning the souls of Its faithful servants from the seas to fuel your little Summons here? Do you think It will put up with such an affront?¡± Princess Kristie sneered extravagantly. ¡°Take your paltry, withered forces from this place of failure, Elder. N¡¯cthail shall take no more souls from The Deep, and The Deep will not tolerate the Blight of T¡¯Thuun here. Grael is damned elsewhere, and while The Deep makes no claim above the waves, It guards its borders most jealously. By payment and free mortal will, mortals are to clear this island of Taint, Blight, Corruption, and the Dark. If your master wishes to oppose It, then so be it. The Deep¡¯s will is long known on these matters, and mortals will continue to come,¡± I promptly backed her up. That The Deep could actually open mortals to The Luminance was a completely different factor, but they didn¡¯t need to know that, either. It might actually spur them to call for reinforcements or something, so why inform them? ¡°The Lost Light looked upon undead abominations before Dericost was a curse in the muck you rose from! We will free the Radiance once more, and you will not stop us!¡± continued Princess Kristie with a hiss. ¡°Flee to your benighted worlds out in the Aether, Elder! One day, the Lost Light will find them, too!¡± Kris is definitely enjoying herself, I thought, noting how so many of the fighters were trying not to smirk at such over-the-topness barbarian princess hyperbole. Xil Riai tried to look more at me, giving me a fractional nod, trying to ignore the Sword pointed her way and the Deepsong arched like a poised wave, ready to wash down over her and sweep her body and soul away to a pitiless master. ¡°I will take this to my sisters,¡± she actually bowed slightly to me, spurning Kris, and hurriedly spun on her heel to trot off. She made an aborted gesture to throw away the white flag, then thought better of it and clutched it tighter in her withered hand as the Deepchord followed her until she was a nice safe distance away and I let it fade away. ¡°¡¯Benighted worlds¡¯?¡± the Mick repeated for everyone as everyone watched the undead Dark Falatacot Matriarch running off. ¡°Awww, she left before I could go on a proper pompous barbaric rant!¡± Kris sniffed loudly and unapologetically, and everyone broke out chuckling at that. ¡°Will that actually do anything?¡± Captain Sonya asked curiously. ¡°Well, given the speed of their decision-making, who knows if it will be in time. We¡¯ll know if the watchers get pulled. Also, remember that Lady Aerefalle is gone and Dericost politics are in the most active state they¡¯ve been in millennia because of it,¡± I reminded them all. ¡°I emphasized the fact that this isn¡¯t actually holy ground. It¡¯s a monument to the failure of N¡¯cthail and its servants to contain Grael. Once they realize that, abandoning this place for some sites of actual importance seems like the proper thing to do¡­ even if they have to seem to run from dust motes to do so.¡± ¡°She was about to become that dust, and I¡¯ll be happy to send the rest of them there, too,¡± Kris growled, her eyes turning on the nearest spawn, remorans who were huddling close to the ground under the suppression of the Deepsong coming off of Quaver, and the echoes of the Deepchord tearing at their bloodline. ------ Coral formations were Burning with vivus, the ground thick with slow-moving streams of the mist after being set alight by cutting Weapons or idle plinks from arrows. There were a couple places the Wagon had a tight fit getting through, prompting Kris to just hack the things through and push them over with complete lack of care for how tough they were supposed to be. Everyone walked up on the Mick, who was standing there on the hill overlooking the main temple building. ¡°Color me purple, ¡®r there¡¯s about a third the things standing about there that there should be,¡± he said, looking over the undead and sclavi sitting at scattered locations around the edifice. ¡°Kinda matches up t¡¯ seeing nae o¡¯ the peepers admiring me manly physique an¡¯ grace from the shadows, aye?¡± ¡°Good,¡± Kris sniffed. ¡°Let¡¯s clean out the place, break it from the ley line, take it apart, and get to our real goal.¡± ----- The ancient shrine to the Radiance was less than a quarter-mile away from the Empyrean temple. It was a very old cave system, extremely long and convoluted, and replete with a lot of sclavi Summons happy to get in our way and make nuisances of themselves. There were no truly pitched battles in numbers, all of us ready and waiting for some kind of mass rush or ambush¡­ but one never materialized, although that didn¡¯t reassure me at all. The Radiance was a major weapon used against the undead and the Dark Falatacot, so I didn¡¯t expect them to give it up easily at all. But at last, we mapped out the confusing layout of the place, descending to the ancient depths of the maze of passages, where glowing lava radiated through ancient magma flows with an oddly pure light, and the usual assortment of magma and gas golums with a few tough Elementals made the place an unfriendly realm for undead and sclavi alike. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. We cut down the outermost guardians with icy Coldphasing Weapons, looking around warily as the final passageway was before us. Kris sniffed once, then more deeply, holding up Quaver to stop us. ¡°I smell undead. Within the past day.¡± Nobody bothered to ask her how she still had such a keen sense of smell in a place filled with way too many brimstone and caustic odors. ¡°Lord Mick, you said the Radiance is the product of a heavy mana ley line in the same chamber, right?¡± I asked for verification. ¡°So it were explained t¡¯ me, lass. Nae expert meself on such things,¡± he admitted. ¡°Fuckin¡¯ with the ley lines, they be?¡± ¡°It¡¯s what I¡¯d do. Starting a lava breach would bury the chamber entirely, but they didn¡¯t want to be caught in it, for some reason. Heavy mana might mess up their Recalls and Rebirth processes.¡± ¡°Can you break it?¡± Kris asked me neutrally. ¡°If I can discern it, I can break it,¡± I stated confidently. Even with Ritual Magic, they didn¡¯t have the Caster Level to stop me. ¡°I imagine I¡¯m dealing with a multi-level magical trap, where if I break or set off the wrong spell, a lava breach starts and we get a fresh volcano here, probably with planar distortions so we can¡¯t ¡®port out.¡± ¡°Hrm. Lass, I gots full faith in yer abilities t¡¯ crack any trap they have, but if they can activate it from a distance, or worse, have something here to trigger it¡­¡± the Mick trailed off. ¡°Properly underhanded of you, Lord Mick,¡± Kris just smiled, tilting back her head. ¡°Ryin, evac tunnel, straight up. Everyone in a line and on Disks, Lord Mick you¡¯re Cloudstepping for altitude if anything goes wrong. I¡¯m going along to tank any other guardians.¡± I tapped Crown against the wall there, and immediately Shaped a three-foot cylinder up the side of the wall, shooting up hundreds of feet to the surface of the island above. Mick obligingly walked over to the vent and stood there, vapors already building around his heels as he looked up. There was a distinct pop far above, and an instant shift in the ventilation as the hot air found a new way to get out of this place and took it, probably to the detriment of the air circulation in the rest of the Dungeon. Unafraid of the consequences, Kris led the way in with Quaver in full ice mode, ready to cool down anything that got in our way. --- ¡°They definitely spent some time here,¡± Kris sniffed flagrantly. I was running scales in the Sublime Chord, and magic was dancing and glittering up and down as the various manaflows glittered and faded in and out. Not even the subtlest trigger mechanisms were going to activate off the manafield fluctuating like this, but there was a whole lot you could read from it. If it had been anything but magic, Kris could likely have read it accurately. Instead, she was looking around suspiciously. ¡°Recent carvings in the stone, too.¡± She looked down at the floor, amused and not stepping ahead at all. ¡°Secondary triggers or warm-ups or diversions?¡± ¡°Yes to all three,¡± I murmured, a layered look at the magic building in my Visual File for her to peruse. ¡°They¡¯re tapping the heavy mana flow. You should be able to feel the pressure on your Null from that crevice there.¡± I pointed at a faintly glowing crack in the floor, the light there both clearer than a lava crack and fluctuating like a wind mirage despite the lack of air motion. The altar was on the other side of the room next to that crack, and the glowing orb of the swirling Radiance Infusion waited patiently on the top of it. There were a lot of very sensitive threads of mana anchored to that thing. ¡°Why, I think I should just stroll over there and snatch that little geegaw up and have done with it, you think?¡± Kris asked rhetorically, then squinted at me. ¡°You have an annoyed look on your face.¡± ¡°This trap is touching on Empyrean magic. Some of the magic is fading in and out of higher and lower dimensions. It¡¯s not designed to be disarmed once set up, it¡¯s designed to trigger inevitably.¡± ¡°So trigger mechanisms in other places to set it off, or a timer even if you get all the triggers,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°So, the most you can do is delay it?¡± ¡°Oh, fuck no.¡± I crooked my finger, and she obligingly retreated from the chamber. ¡°When the going gets tough, the tough use cheese.¡± She kept her Null in tight as the Summoning Pentacles flared up below me, and I pulled at the manafield with some nice tight Primal Energy¡­ and the Lost Light and Elemental Command as I went Fireform. The ground just inside the room went molten, and a huge form rose up, up, and up from it. It wasn¡¯t a Fire Elemental Lord, but it was a being at least as mighty as the Helion Lord in the Esper Crater in its own way: an Elemental Monolith of Flame that looked like a massive shelled tortoise, burning right through the magma into sun-hot purity as it pulled free of the lava far below. Its shell was more solid than a mantle of diamond, its eyes were coals burning the essence of existence. ¡°Summoner,¡± it rumbled in Pyric, not unfriendly. ¡°What need have you of a Lord of the Fires?¡± ¡°Elder, this one is Devra al-Ryinth, called Ryin, Magos of the Void Phoenix!¡± I bowed deeply to the mighty Elemental, not beyond my ability to Summon, but beyond my ability to Command. Diplomacy time! Using Primal mana meant it was much friendlier than a pure arcane Summoning, however. ¡°Undead mages of N¡¯cthail have bound a manifestation of the Radiance in a trap there.¡± The flexible flames of its neck extended as it peered in the direction I indicated. ¡°The trap seeks to disrupt the mana flow and erupt the lava, burying the Radiance and hiding it from the Lost Light.¡± It looked back at Kris and I, and the motes of Radiant energy whirling around Stave and Sword. ¡°I do not think I can stop what they have set into motion.¡± ¡°The Radiance and the Lost Light have been allies since the First Fires shed light upon Creation,¡± the mighty tortoise rumbled in distaste. ¡°I will manage the eruption, Magos.¡± His head shifted. ¡°You bear a Token of The Deep?¡± the Monolith asked warily. ¡°T¡¯Thuun has Blighted the island above us, and the Shadow in the Void has Tainted rock and soil, among others. The Deep does not wish the pollution to further besmirch the surrounding waters, and has enjoined mortals to cleanse the Corruption from this place, running off the servants of N¡¯cthail who thought to claim it, mighty Lord!¡± AF Chapter 461 – Radiance Released ¡°Ah, the Great Old Ones at play,¡± the Monolith nodded, raising his head high. ¡°Well played, to gain only a Token and not be taken instead.¡± ¡°I am a Servant of Heaven, Elder, and that is TRUTH.¡± For a moment, the corrupted mana of the intricate weavings of the Falatacot cultists was searingly obvious in all directions. The burning eyes of the Monolith widened significantly, and then he slowly bowed his head. ¡°So you are, Summoner! A True Word, and Well Spoken!¡± With disconcerting ease and lightness, the great tortoise spun around to face the altar. ¡°What do you seek done here?¡± ¡°Move the altar of the Radiance to the surface, Elder. We can erect a suitable shrine around it there.¡± ¡°It will be done! Depart to a safe distance while I manage the eruption.¡± ¡°Lord Mick, take them out. We¡¯re on the way!¡± I announced in Magevoice. This time, Kris¡¯ Disk swirled out and under her instead of me, while I bowed. ¡°Elder, thank you for your grace!¡± ¡°For the Radiance and the Lost Light, this is a small matter! Know that you have called upon Ancient Schotiel for this solemn duty!¡± he boomed back, the temperature already over a thousand degrees in the place and climbing. ¡°Get you hence!¡± ¡°A final gift for Elder to use¡­¡± I palmed a fistful of golum jewels, and I filled the chamber with an Arcane Primal Divine Sacred Purified Vivic Wall of Fire using them as the fuel for the Permanency. The flames could have burned him without difficulty, but I¡¯d Summoned him up with Holy mana, and he was Good-aligned. Furthermore, he¡¯d gifted me with his Name. Magic of the Holy Metas does not harm Good souls in the slightest, regardless of how profoundly dangerous the flames are, and so the vivus wouldn¡¯t even touch his fiery self, save to heal him. His burning eyes turned to consider the transcendent power and beauty of the Fires all around him while we henced, and we were outta there. --- Tight and disciplined, the lads and ladies on Disks were all out of the room by the time Kris and I got there, and I zipped up the vertical shaft at top speed. Kris just crouched on her Floating Forge behind/below me while a less-dim spot up above grew rapidly clearer. Behind us, the stone all flowed closed as Crown scraped the stone and sealed it up smartly on our heels. I broke into the open sky, shooting a hundred feet up and over before my momentum and this world¡¯s hate of aeromancy took over and King Gravity solemnly bade me head back down towards the ground, waving a chiding finger. I saw the Mick retreating along our backtrail. The waters would have been convenient, but, you know, scores of Spawn Points between us and them, and the weaving tunnels of the Dungeon had actually taken it down and underneath the N¡¯cthail temple, so my hole actually brought us out only a hundred paces uphill of it. The popping of all those traps going off below was like bells breaking against the Sublime Chord, pinging all around us. About a second later, the ground lurched, and the Mick and his doubled row of trailing Disks all bounced into the air as a visible wave of dust and small stones blew past him. Behind us, superheated gases blew the spire-like top of the Dungeon completely off, basically turning into a blowtorch of flame a few seconds later. I glided down next to the Mick as he was likewise sliding down the air in a long, controlled skiing motion, totally ignoring the extremely loud cracking and crunching coming behind us as the Dungeon began to break down and break up, flows of lava surging forth as the caves and tunnels of the Dungeon below gave way. ¡°Gordammit,¡± the Mick swore as we glided into range of his Claymore¡¯s Sound Bubble and the rage of the new volcano was cut off, ¡°we¡¯re gonna have t¡¯ Seal all them Spawn Points again, ain¡¯t we?¡± he whined dramatically, and all the others in the interlinked Sound Bubbles groaned along with him like dutifully-trained Roaches and Skeeters. ¡°Not likely, actually. They¡¯ll end up scattered around the new Caldera, and their nature will likely change with the new Radiant Lord claiming the location,¡± I informed him serenely. ¡°Ach, so we¡¯re NOT going t¡¯ have a time o¡¯ it getting our Radiant Infusions?¡± he asked brightly, his mood whipping back to great cheer instantly. ¡°Tomorrow,¡± I said calmly, looking back as the first plumes of lava began to jet a hundred feet into the air and started forming the caldera that was coming. In the middle of them, a great rounded form, surrounded by a shining ring of transcendent Flames, stood guard above a simple stone altar where a point of Light gleamed, waiting for us. -Anyone see any spotters around?- Kris /asked in Fellow-Mark. -I want to convey my appreciation for their astute planning and warm welcome.- If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Everyone paused, including me. The Mick and I braked, still twenty feet above the black ground, and turned with everyone else to look around. Masks of Clarity gleamed on everyone¡¯s faces as we all stood there and looked around while slowly drifting towards the ground. -We don¡¯t have the angle to see the shore spawns, an¡¯ they knew we were coming from up top,- the Mick /remarked, looking back towards the temple. ¡°If Elder could see to it the heavy mana disrupts dimensional travel for a bit longer, we would like to extend the welcome of the Lost Light and the Radiance towards the undead who set these events in motion.¡± The great horned head, plumes of fire lighting up like horns at the corner of his eyes, turned in my direction. Unseen flames running along the Veil with disruptive influence became a bit stronger and steadier than they might have with the new fireflow coming into being. Kris hopped off her Disk as we hit the ground, and I stepped onto it for sake of simplicity. Our line of retreat reversed, and we were now headed for the southern end of the most volatile area, where Summons were being shaken off their feet and had their eyes glued to the liquid fire being belched out of the earth, unable to flee. It took only seconds to reach a better angle. ¡°Eleven o¡¯clock from the temple, out in the water!¡± Milee saw the flash of red first. ¡°Two of them!¡± towering Colmus added quickly. ¡°Drive right through the spawns. I¡¯ll make the hardpoint for the fight. We can retrieve the Wagon later.¡± It was currently disguised as a running ridge of black stone within the area of the Wall, which was currently actually completely sealed behind us so something didn¡¯t sneak in while we were busy and annoy us by undoing our work through the opening. The Mick glided a stride behind Kris, giving her the lead position and making her the auto-target for the Summons we were going to run on through and past. The Deepsong rang out, accompanied by the Deepchord, and the sleeches and remorans fell to quivering prostration as we swept by them. The undead ruschk, Falatacot cultist spawns, prancing black and red mukkir, and Blighted coral golums weren¡¯t so helpful, but were having problems keeping their feet in the wake of the quakes. The shades, hovering on clouds of shadowy voidsmoke, weren¡¯t so affected, and so were also happy to chase and throw War Magic at our flanks. Gros and Kopf snorted in contempt from their positions at the rear of the double lines, taking all such shots on their great Shields and sneering at the things chasing after us. I brought up a Twinned Admixed Chain Crown of Stars coldly, forty times four blazing motes of Lost Light from Crown peeling away in a solid spiral from its length and multiplying around my head in readiness, like I was wearing a diadem woven from the stars of the firmament. We blew past the last spawn of golums there, the lot of them trying a couple swings as Kris swept past them¡­ and a long line of cleaving Swords chopped through the closest golum as she batted its weighty arm out of the way. The undead watchers couldn¡¯t rightly not see us coming, but it wasn¡¯t going to do much good. I brought up my Shards around me, forearm-sized short javelins blazing with So Much Magical Shit, the waters around us a chorus of worship to The Deep that was actually drowning out most of the roar of the fires of the earth being let off uphill, and the stupid bastards had the idiocy to be standing in Its waters? I Spellwarped my Crown of Stars, and starfire lit up the day and threw all else into shadow. The first group of six didn¡¯t have a chance as a good two hundred Star-Shards became four beams of Burning annihilation, all focused on their crimson priestess, then Chaining out and through the rest of them. There was nothing for anyone to carve though as Kris blew right through evaporating mist and falling dust across the top of the singing waters, and the other group turned to run. My normal Shardray volleys of Spellwarped Shards smashed into the backside of their priestess leading their flight, letting them all see her blow into less than glowing ash and mist¡­ and then all four Shardrays arced around and came right back at them, meaning they were running right into their own annihilation. Fucktards. Kris braked in a nicely impressive arc of splashing water, cutting a solid arc as she came around. The Mick deployed the lines behind him at the same time as he followed her around, while I plunged Crown down to touch the white sand at the bottom of the utterly clear waters beneath us all. The incoming hordes of Summons chasing us, splashing energetically through the waters, saw the Wall of Stone heave itself out of the surf in front of them. I Shaped up secure footing underneath everyone else even as the Skeeters and Vanguards were rolling off their Disks. The Archers were moving into overhead firing positions, while the Support Mages and I were looking above the eight-foot wall that was enough to give us targets to Imperil and Vuln. The Mick and Kris were right on the edges, Gros and Kopf split one to each flank of them, helping contain the push as the Knights of Lost Light spread their lines, and the defense was on. Summons didn¡¯t readily use tactics, so the idea of spreading around the fighting combatants didn¡¯t occur to most of them. Their programming was flexible enough that when they couldn¡¯t reach Kris or the Mick they went after the next nearest target, which meant the flanking Knights were constantly gaining their own attackers, moving back into the defensive line, and a new flanker took up the end of the line. Imperils flashed off, then Fire Vulns. The only difficult ones to kill would be the Coral Golums, as bludgeoning was the best attack against them, meaning the archers couldn¡¯t help against them¡­ but it also made them the best targets for Nippo and Thera to Bludgeon Vuln and then pound into with War 7¡¯s in tandem. I didn¡¯t bother to get fancy, simply flashing a Phoenix Healing Fireshard Ray through everyone every twelve seconds, dealing with the accumulated damage, and with Empowered Healing, the extra Health not used became temporary Soak for one minute per Caster Level¡­ or more than long enough to take the brunt of the next spell attack, if such happened. The rush of hot and cold energies cycling through them and flaring up to defy incoming War Magic from annoyed Summons was not something I¡¯d employed often, basically a Mass Curing variant that only worked because of Phoenix Healing Flame. It was only an I Valence, so I could keep it up for quite some time as needed, and still have another Crown of Stars on hand for spot healing on top of it. Backed up by some really potent magic and the Archers on duty hatracking each fighting Summons one by one starting at the ends, the Knights there were freed to wrap around and Wolfpack and kill the things even faster. Our impromptu hardpoint held and butchered things one after another with increasing speed. AF Chapter 462 – The Penultimate Infusions With a double Bludgeoning Bolt salvo, the last of the Blighted Coral Golums went down, and Thera and Nippo started dropping more Fire Vulns, the recipient Summons of such dying within seconds as the Archers followed the flare of ruby light like beacons of death. Our fights began to wrap up much more quickly. Of course, the fact the bosses were Spawning in as the lesser ones died was a significant event, and naturally dragged things out longer than we wanted them to. They had to be Imperiled and Fire Vulned as they arrived, or in the case of the golums, they delayed how long Nippo and Thera had to take before they could get back to the others. I was dishing out Shards of Phoenix Fire Healing constantly from my Crown, flashing a Shardray through everyone every twelve or eighteen seconds, and using a Triadspell to drop a Vuln/Imperil combo at the same time as the bosses and their helpers came in. It was burning through a lot of my mana and Valances quickly, but that was why we didn¡¯t normally fight like this. Way too easy to chew through all your mana and Valances and basically be next to dead weight to everyone like this. But the undead had lost more of their precious cultists and priestesses permanently, so it was worth it. ------ It took about three minutes to clear out everything chasing us, fighting ferociously the whole time. Anyone who cleared an opponent automatically rotated to the next, the Wolfpack on the hunt and going for blood as the Fire Vulns and Imperils did the job of weakening them for the mauling precision of multiple Firephasing attacks cutting through everything. When the last one dropped, everyone staggered in place, keeping themselves from falling over only with effort. Disks scooted around at the call of their owners, and soon everyone was sagging against them, breathing deep and regulating ki to get back their stamina more quickly. I took down the wall which had divided and crowded up the Summons, basically everyone watching as Kris, a bit singed and scalded on her Armor, went toeing through the remnants of the coral golums Burning heavily there while Quaver did the Sifting and pulled out any gems crystallized among the remnants of their Matrices. ¡°Seal their Spawn Points?¡± Kris asked me perfunctorily, having seen my Darts going streaking out into unseen targets in the distance. ¡°What, you wanted to kill the spawns all over again?¡± I asked, leaning on Crown. ¡°You are down a LOT of mana,¡± she stated, squinting at me. ¡°I¡¯ve a hundred or so left.¡± A couple of the fighters whistled, as I never got down that low if I could help it. It put them all at risk, me not being able to Heal them consistently long enough to get them away from danger. ¡°I can do the Mana Boost trick and get back up, but that burns the deep reserves. We should head back to the Wagon conservatively.¡± Everyone agreed, with the note that it was going to be somewhat easier as a bunch of those spawns were now already cleared. ¡°Slow and easy it is, then. We¡¯ll make do with just Imperils,¡± Kris agreed. ¡°Ten minutes, everyone. Mana and stamina, Meditate and top it off, everyone. Then we head back for a rest to the Wagon, and call it a day.¡± ¡°Sir!¡± was the general reply to that, everyone taking up either relaxed positions or meditative Stances to begin the process. Ten minutes wouldn¡¯t gain me back much, even with the Rose of Celdon helping out, but that was fine. Something was better than nothing, and I still had the Mana Boosts in my back pocket for real emergencies. I could get off 7¡¯s for ten mana and less, which would stretch them out quite a ways if I didn¡¯t get fancy. I had a lot of empty Valence Slots, and it was going to take hours to refill them all, but that was the cost of wiping a lot of undead really quickly, one way or another. ------ The next day¡­ I shimmered back into place on the Seal Focus, accompanied by Lord Mick and the Roaches. Kris, the Skeeters, and the lugians had remained here overnight, a wee bit curious to see if the undead would try another Wall run with the volcano still growing there a mile away and whatnot. But, no. It seemed the intelligent undead had withdrawn, or at the least had concealed themselves among the rote Summons and weren¡¯t trying to get close. I could do a Wizard Sight survey and look for signs of them, but that wasn¡¯t important. We brought in fresh hot sausages and warm honeybuns dripping with butter and sweet cheese, with plenty of warm milk to chase it all down. It was all much appreciated as we all shared a pretty hearty breakfast, all things being equal, and I listed out the names of those returned to life that morning after Aru rose. Everyone nodded somberly at the news, the Resurrections I was still doing every day, and had been for months now. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. But then it was time to get back to work here. We moved out, the Wall extending forward along the ridgeline, not directly towards the volcano. ¡°Think we can get the Infusions?¡± Kris asked me as we closed in on the growling, rising form of the crater there, rising unnaturally high and steep with the influence of the Fire Monolith Tortoise inside. It had not-coincidentally run off to the south, flowing completely over the remains of the Empyrean Temple there, which had fallen into the molten rock and was now half-dissolved and scarcely visible under the black stone that had managed to reach all the way to the ocean last night. It had swallowed probably twoscore Spawn Points along the way of it all, forcing others to move away from the blazing stone or kill their Summons just from radiated heat. ¡°All depends if we can withstand the heat. Everyone has to at least get their own, and we want extras for the Font.¡± ¡°The extra Infusions.¡± We all looked to the Mick. ¡°Skeletons, Olthoi, Shadows. The Infusions t¡¯ grant Slayer effects to the Weapons were empowered with Radiant Infusions, too. So, one for yer Weapon, one for the Slayer Infusion ye want.¡± ¡°And one for the Blood of Palacost, once we find it and purify it,¡± Kris stated, shaking her head. ¡°Did you really all have multiple Weapons of Lost Light back then, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Aye, actually. Had me a full set o¡¯ five of the things, including the Lost Hope. The only one of the Slayers worth much were the Shade Slayer, and that if a mage were along to Vuln. Were pretty sad that they weren¡¯t the equal o¡¯ a standard Weapon that had an Elemental Cleaving at the time otherwise, however. The Sword o¡¯ Lost Hope were an awesome Weapon because it added the Acid Cleaving.¡± ¡°I am curious as to what the Radiant Infusion will add on top of the Greater Blackfire Stones,¡± Kris admitted, everyone nodding. Three jetsilver Diamonds gleamed along blades and heads and bowgrips of everyone¡¯s Weapons, the Motes of Lost Light spinning through them and picking up flickers of obsidian razored radiance in so doing. Together they added Armor Cleaving, Legendary Blood Thirst and Epic Heart Thirst, basically bonuses to damage and to hit, to the Weapons. Those were incredibly valuable additions, taking each up to extraordinary levels of power that was much appreciated against our opponents. The Infusions, however, would empower and be part of the Weapons themselves, and everyone was very curious to see what the final effect would be. We already had the Major and Minor Elemental Stones on the pommels and guards, which could be swapped in and out to exploit Elemental weaknesses, such as the Scorching Stones that were so useful here. ¡°The Blood represents another clear upgrade, aye, we dinnae know how it will work if we manage t¡¯ purify it. I agree the Slayer effects are summat best served as Artificer work fer short periods if possible, or mayhap we can find a way t¡¯ make a Slayer Stone out o¡¯ them, like the Elemental Stones are?¡± the Mick mused wishfully. ¡°That is what Harlune is working towards,¡± I informed everyone, nodding at them. ¡°His main problem is finding suitable jewels for the effects, but if it happens, we should have more modularity in all Warfang Weapons, not just the Lost Light ones.¡± ¡°Any guesses on what the Radiant Infusion will do now, Ryin?¡± Kris asked. ¡°Plenty, none relevant if they are Slotted effects. These are incredibly powerful and dangerous energies. If all it does is increase base damage and threat range, we¡¯ll all still be happy, right?¡± Everyone nodded. The Warfang Weapons everyone held were without a doubt the finest in all of Dereth. Lacking Elemental Cleaves was a weakness, and since such things didn¡¯t exist any more, even as an Artificer Infusion, nobody was worried about them. ¡°Well, pick up three each, then. If we need to come back in the future for more, then we will. One for your Weapon, one for the Font, and possibly one for another Infusion in the future.¡± Everyone grunted and nodded agreement. I naturally ladled Mass Fire Protection, Resist Fire, and Protection from Fire over everyone. The first was a straight 65% reduction in damage from fire. The second was a straight 30 point reduction in fire damage, after the reduction. The third would absorb the first 300 points of fire damage after the first two before burning away, which should allow everyone to gain an Infusion without much risk. Then we went sidling over to go into a flowing, belching volcano. ------ Ancient Schotiel was still standing over the altar to the Radiance, and the beautiful transcendent Flames of the Vivic Wall of Fire were still dancing around him, juiced up by heavy mana and filling the caldera. He caught sight of us instantly as I came up on the rim and waved at him. ¡°Ah, Magos Ryin of Heaven. Come,¡± he indicated, lowering his head to the altar. ¡°The Radiance awaits you.¡± Being immune to Elemental Fire, as was Kris, I brought her on her Floating Forge with me as we headed into the caldera below, far smaller than the other Courts we¡¯d visited¡­ but it hadn¡¯t been long, and this place had plenty of room to grow. The Wall of Fire, of course, wouldn¡¯t harm any of us, since it did no harm to Good people whatsoever, feeling like little more than a warm balm against our skin. ¡°Ancient Schotiel, may I present to you Imperial Princess Kristie Rantha-Briggs, Warlord and Knight of the Lost Light,¡± I introduced her as we came up on the dais which the Altar of Radiance, such humble plain gray stone, rested upon. The solidified Radiance swirled gently there atop the center of it, undeterred by the roaring and rumbling of the flames and the lava. Kris saluted the towering bulk of the Fire Monolith Tortoise with elaborate grace and a deftness that made the Salute look like a simple child¡¯s effort, unworthy of mention. The way the Motes of Lost Light flowed around her like lethal stars was not something that could escape his blazing eyes, however. ¡°Oh, a true Swordmaster. The Lost Light enjoys you, I can see, with a Soul dripping Gold.¡± He hummed in pleasure. ¡°Come. The Radiance will regather quickly. You are worthy of it, as your Weapons proclaim for you.¡± I let Kris go first, which she did without hesitation. She approached, bowed to the altar, and plucked up the first Infusion. Without hesitation, she crushed the ball of light against the blade of Quaver, and we watched the Lost Light converge on the leashed liquid Radiance therein, prismatic rainbows flaring around them in joy as they dove through the Radiance and returned to the gleaming metal below. Kris ran her hand slowly up and down the length of Quaver, until the Radiance was gone and iridescence ran all along the golden edge of her Blade. The heavy mana in the air was converging and swirling into another globe of Radiance upon the altar as she finished up. AF Chapter 463 – Radiance Returned ¡°And one for the Font,¡± Princess Kristie bowed to Ancient Schotiel. The great Fire Monolith Tortoise, his head bigger than either of us, nodded agreement as Kristie plucked up her third globe of Radiance and stowed it away. ¡°Knights of the Lost Light, one by one!¡± Kris called out to them, and I headed off to bring each one down on a Disk over the burning lava of the caldera to the altar, there to salute the Fire Monolith Tortoise standing guard there, and gain their own Radiance. ----- I gave my respects to Ancient Schotiel, being the last to gather up the Radiance for myself. I towed Lord Mick and Kris out of there as the Monolith bade us go, his attention turning back to the Court he was building there on the Dark Isle. We went back up to the rim of the Caldera, and then retreated with the Wagon back to the Wall we¡¯d put up. There we set the Wagon down, blocked off the Wall again just in case, and then Teleported off to the Halls of the Lost Light. The Pyramid I¡¯d raised near Candeth Keep during my time off active hunting was only a twenty-stepper, but the Halls were still inside its Interdiction zone, something only bypassed if you were attuned to it properly. That was basically restricted to those Candeth Martine Marked, his fellow Prodigals, or those bearing Weapons of the Lost Light. It had done wonders for controlling the flow of traffic and threat level from undead, who couldn¡¯t Recall anywhere within twenty miles to harass us. That was enough to cover what was now The Deep¡¯s Island and the Withered Zone, coming up just shy of the shores of the smoldering Singularity Caul. It also meant the concealed scrying sensors thoughtfully installed about the Halls could see such forces coming from some distance away, allowing a sufficient force to be assembled to meet any would-be raiders. Only one such force of undead had dared follow up on the disastrous earlier attempt from the ancient company of undead that had ambushed and slaughtered the Knights in the past, and they had gotten nowhere near the Hall itself. They were threading their way through a valley nearby when the Chained Shards blew through them in layer after layer of killing fire, and were completely unprepared when the Knights of the Lost Light threw off concealing illusions, smashed into them, and mowed the survivors down. Anything magical was taken away and soon Burned, the rest was buried, and the white smear that remained after vivus was done with them was gone with the dawn. There hadn¡¯t been any other raids since, only the occasional scout creeping in to see if anything interesting had been done to the Halls. We had debated putting a thirty-foot wall around the Halls, but decided against it. It had lasted a great deal of time without such a defense, and there was always a force of acolytes based there, working the Spawn Points nearby in a rotating duty. As the Font returned to life, the influence of the Lost Light was clearly more pervasive in the place. It was clearly anathemic to anything unliving or of Shadow. Just coming inside now they¡¯d start to Burn, and the Vivic Lights and Fires spread through the Halls only helped spread the Lost Light¡¯s influence more. The Font itself had been fed with the Infusions from three volcanoes, fires crimson, white, and azure, and now we added the Radiance to it to complete the quadfecta. The fountain of Lost Light pouring forth now was aglitter with waters of Gold, Silver, and Rainbow, joyous and effervescent in its power and illumination, lighting up the whole of the Fountain Hall brighter than a sunny day. Mana swirled around the place as thickly as any ley-line-tapping menhir Henge, making the room an ideal place to rest and regain mana, and it strengthened the whole of the Wards covering the Halls at the same time. The Lost Light had returned to full strength, and was clearly a tool of the Heavens the undead so clearly spurned. We¡¯d just have to see what that was going to do to them. ---- ¡°Well, there it is. Harlune is going to laugh when he sees the effect.¡± It turned out the new polychromatic rainbow edge to the Motes of Lost Light was a Protection from Void spell at VII, granting any wielder of such a Weapon considerable protection against all Void Magic attacks. Combined with the Cantrip from his Rose of Celdon Rings, and the defense against such normally inviolate attacks was over -75%! Our Weapons had received a minor damage upgrade, equal to that of an increase in Profound damage rating, but that iridescent razor on the edge of the Soulfire was actually a Radiant damage effect occurring parallel to any other damage the Weapon inflicted. In other words, any damage would be of the normal nature of the blow, or Radiant damage, whatever was more effective. That was similar to Void Magic, which never struck at less than average damage against almost anything. It also meant we never had to worry about striking against a creature with something it was very resistant to, as we¡¯d do at least average damage with the Radiance from the Weapon strike. The boost to spells was more minor, and actually guided by the Blackfire Stones. The Blackfire Stones on my Staff did Implement Kicker Force damage of +1d6 per Stone instead of Legendary Blood Thirst¡¯s +10, and the Radiant Infusion added another +2d6 of Radiant damage on top of that. That was an extremely impressive +5d6 Kicker damage, although minor in regards to the amount of Health that creatures in Dereth often had. Still, it was basically typeless and bypassed immunities and armor, so useful against almost everything¡­ and if you used Damage over Time effects, it stacked right on top, along with vivus, Banefire, Holy damage, and everything like that. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. My Shards, for instance, now had tiny Motes of Radiant Blackfire Lost Light circling around them when launched, quite eye-catching if you were looking closely at them. Despite all that, the undead and Shadowed creatures didn¡¯t actually take extra damage from the Radiant Lost Light, which was a bit of a shame. But since everything did normal damage, everyone got over it. The Mick¡¯s Bunita¡¯s Kiss was fairly typical of the Weapons of the Lost Light now. ========== Bunita¡¯s Kiss Radiant Infused Heavy Adamantine Warfang Claymore of the Lost Light Base damage: 2-16/4-24 ¡ú 10-27/15-38 (24-56/30-70 wielded, Profound Weapon) Jadework Bonus: +4/+4 non-magical (Radiant Infusion), does not stack with normal Enhancement bonuses. Radiant Blackfire Motes of Lost Light: Wielder gains Deflection bonus on AC and Sacred bonus to saves against Evil magic equal to magical Enhancement bonus, Void Protection VII (65% Void Damage Reduction). Radiant Weapon: Weapon does either Radiant or normal damage, whichever is better. Crit Range: Base 19-20 (13-20/x5 with Improved Threat/Improved Critical) Warfang Runes: Biting Strike (x3 Crit Range), Crushing Blow (x4 Critical Hit Damage) Blackfire Stone Sockets (Set of 3): Armor Cleaving (?, max 1/2 MAB), Legendary Blood Thirst (+10 damage), Epic Heart Thirst (+2 To Hit) Guard of the Minor Stones: Elemental Protection VII (Opposite Element), Elemental Dominance (+2d6 damage and secondary effect vs. opposite Element), Elemental Slayer (Opposite Element) Pommel of the Major Stones: Elemental Phasing (Stone type), Elemental Strike (+d6 Stone Type), Protection from Element VII (Stone type) Major and Minor Elemental Stone Set Bonus: Elemental Burst (+3-30 Major Stone Elemental damage on crit) OR Prismatic Stone: Elemental Slayer (all), Greater Armor Cleaving/Elementals (full MAB) Slotted Effects (Zehn Slotted): Greater Soulbound (2), Vivic (1), Blooding (1), Sharding (2), Bane of Legends (1), Healing Edge (3) Supplemental/Slotless: Impervious/Indestructible, Morphing Attachment: Greater Baneskull vs Undead: +2 To-hit/Damage, +2-12 damage (Banefire) Attachment: Greater Token vs Undead: +d6 damage, Ignore Damage Reduction of Undead, Treat as better of Fire or Force damage against Undead. Base Weapon: 38-70/44-84 +1d8 Positive +d6 Vivus (13-20/x5), +6 to Hit, Armor-Cleaving, +Banes, +Elemental Damage/Burst, +Slayers, Heal 1-8 Health on Hit; Inflicted Wounds do not magically heal, Regenerate, or Fast Heal; Sharding attack as ranged attack (15¡¯ increments/75 feet). +4+Bane Deflection bonus to AC and Saves against Evil Magic. ========== Yeah, Bunita¡¯s Kiss was an incredibly brutal Weapon, and the Mick hadn¡¯t even gone for intelligence on it, yet. He had several Baneskulls he could use, although he rarely changed out, and of course he could Infuse different effects into Bunita¡¯s Kiss as he saw fit if it was appropriate, usually replacing Sharding. Add on the acceleration of extra attacks, the extra damage from Feats and Weapon Mastery, and yeah, the Mick was putting up a lot of damage on the things we were fighting, as was everyone else after a year and more of relentless Naming Karma upgrades to their Weapons. The Lost Light was now broader but somewhat less potentially powerful than it once had been. Magic modifying itself slowly and subtly... It was still all good to see, good to see¡­ -------- Kris was serious about seeing if the Purified Blood of Avoren Palacost, the son of Bael¡¯Zharon, could be upgraded to form the way to a final upgrade to the Swords of Lost Hope, which meant visiting that Dungeon. Originally access to the Dungeon involved traveling all over the landscape and finding various components in various Dungeons, then assembling them with magic into an access jewel. The materialization of all the hidden Dungeons happily rendered that moot, and there was only to go to the coordinates at the center of Dereth, north and west of Qalabar, close to the shores of the Inner Sea, where once people had exited from the bottom of the sepulcher Dungeon where the body of the child had still laid exposed after all these millennia. We were not too surprised when a dark and gloomy tomb was revealed there, heading into the ground. The atmosphere about it was not much different from the Quiddity Dungeon on Ithaenc Island, and Kris could even smell grievvers from the top of the place. The doors to the place were thick metal, locked and shut with powerful magic. One Null Strike later, Kris kicked them open as the severed magic collapsed, and led us all inside. There were grievvers within, Shadow-tainted as normal, and powerful shades, much like other shadow Dungeons, although thankfully no mukkir. Why there were grievvers in an ancient tomb from long before the olthoi came to Dereth was another question entirely, probably having something to do with the line ¡®we thought it would be cool¡¯, and that was that. After Ithaenc¡¯s challenge, this Dungeon was not much of a threat, and we slaughtered our way through it fairly quickly, the shades probably a little astonished at how readily they died and their Spawn Points were Sealed. I had no wish to keep a place as Tainted as this intact, and everybody concurred, the Roaches tracing Vivic Weapons over the blackened rock and setting everything on mistfire around us as Kris, the Mick, and I did likewise, with Bursting Darts flitting about and blowing little spheres of whiteness into being as they hit the walls and ceilings and feasted on Taint. The end of the Dungeon was another of those nonsensical leaps down to the outside of the burial chamber, an idiot¡¯s ploy if there weren¡¯t Recall spells or a Portal there to bring you out of the place. But why not rely on magic being around for everyone, right? The shade guardians in the place were half-dead before the archers floated down with me and shafted them in the back as they tried to whale on Kris and the Mick, Fire Vulns making sure their efforts were muchly short-lived and they died Burning en vivus. The boy¡¯s body was still laid out on the altar, sickeningly enough. He was remarkably well-preserved for something dead for all these thousands of years, the necromancy thick around the corpse¡­ and yes, his Blood had regenerated. I drained it all into a vial of some size, extracting a good gallon of the sickening, corrupted stuff. It was red, tallow yellow, green, and black, swimming with necroic energies of the foulest sort. When I was done, I nodded at Kris and the Mick, and they plunged their Blades into the corpse, setting it instantly and brightly alight, the necroic regeneration meant to preserve the corpse actually feeding the vivus faster than it could restore it. Really fast and really brightly, actually. Kris looked at me, I threw up the Dimension Door, and everyone bailed. AF Chapter 464 – A Bloody Infusion The ground heaved upwards in an eruption of dust and sand and anathemic forces doing battle down below, then settled back down with groans and roars, falling in on itself and forming a long and extended crater atop where the tomb had once been. ¡°Well, lass, looks like ye don¡¯t have to fill that one in,¡± the Mick remarked as I waved my hand and drove the dust clouds back down to the ground, mostly by sweeping up a big fog cloud and making it rain lightly over the area. ¡°Pity.¡± I stared at the flow of magic down there. ¡°The vivus blew through the entire place and took out the aging support magicks down there. It¡¯s eating up the last of the Taint and will clean this out. We¡¯re good to go, and that young man hopefully can pass beyond, now.¡± ¡°Bael¡¯Zharon might not see it that way,¡± the Mick noted blackly. ¡°Optimism gets you everything, Lord Mick. Let us hope that is enough to drive him to appear!¡± Kris just grinned. ¡°I¡¯ll get this to Harlune. He¡¯s going to have such a face when he sees it. I¡¯ll probably be the one doing most of the tests on it, given how few people can channel decently sacred energies.¡± I lifted the bottle of horrifyingly Corrupted Blood, shaking my head. ¡°And you put this on Swords of Lost Light¡­¡± The Mick just sighed, not wanting to look at the crap, either. ¡°Aye. Swords o¡¯ Lost Hope were no joke.¡± ¡°Just adding a Render would be an awesome accomplishment, if it can still be done,¡± Kris noted, her voice neutral but not hopeful. ¡°I¡¯m not sure of the alternates, nor if you¡¯ll have enough blood for all the tests, or to use if you are successful¡­¡± ¡°This shit is regenerating.¡± I watched everyone grimace in revulsion-ick. ¡°Yeah, this is some nasty crap. It won¡¯t run out unless we vivify the lot of it.¡± It was the dirty crimson of blood drying out, but never getting there; the rancid yellow of dissolving body fats that were diluting and gathering at the same time; the rotting green of moldering meat; and the slinking black of Shadow¡¯s Taint threading through it, gathering and then breaking apart like a living thing. ¡°Nobody mentions this actually exists to anyone. I don¡¯t want any shades to come looking for it in outraged remembrance of their beloved leader.¡± Nobody had any problems promising that. Just to cover ourselves, I Teleported the lot of us directly to Aerlinthe Island. There we joined Briggs and the elites of Stonehold and the main army in slowly clearing any and all Summons points that produced Blighted golums, extinguishing them from Aerlinthe Island¡­ and hunting down the Black Phyntos Wasps and their Hives that had taken up residence there, and just like Freebooter, were ignoring all the Summons. Nobody except Briggs and the Royals and Harlune were told we¡¯d taken a short detour, and if the tomb had collapsed and been purified, well, shit happens in a magical world. Let the shades wonder what had really happened... ============= ¡°Master Harlune, your return really has accelerated a whole lot of things,¡± I told him in admiration. ¡°You are absolutely a machine at this!¡± He smiled slightly at the compliment, but shook his head slightly. ¡°Young lady, you do remember you pointed out at least a dozen contradictions and inefficiencies in every one of those Rune Formations after I began correcting them, do you not?¡± ¡°Master Harlune, I burned shut the roads that weren¡¯t going anywhere, but I didn¡¯t create any new ones. I am very good at cross-referencing matters across and within Traditions, but I didn¡¯t have the depth needed in Empyrean Magic to truly do what we needed.¡± ¡°You converted ten different Slayer Enchantments to Artificer Infusions once I managed to discern the underlying theory and noted the similarities!¡± he chided me. ¡°Once you go over the mountain, heading downhill is much simpler, relatively speaking. Building a road without anywhere to go is a waste of time and effort, and for some reason nobody credits master road-builders much, so thank you for that recognition, at least,¡± I winked at him, and he snorted before sitting back, appeased. I put down the last set of pages, describing the full array of what was needed for Shadow Slaying. They were now in my Visual File and I¡¯d not need to reference them, but they were the original copies and so extremely valuable to all our Artificers and would-be Warfang smiths. ¡°Now the sixty-four thousand pyreal question.¡± He quirked an eyebrow at my choice of terms as I picked the delicate Staff of Clarity off the top of the table. ¡°You actually know the basis for the internal operations of the alloy configurations in this little toy?¡± He held out his hand, and I passed it to him. ¡°I have repeatedly gone over the configurations of the Imbues of Elemental Cleaving and Renders in the surviving Weaponry. At the time, I did not question that they worked, and for some reason I never compared them to what I knew of the other Runic Enchantments. ¡°Simply put, they do not work at all under Empyrean Magic.¡± Stolen story; please report. I blinked. I lifted a finger, thought about it, and then put it back down. ¡°That¡­ explains a whole lot all by itself, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°It does. Under Empyrean Magic, no Bludgeon Render or Cleave will work, so does it matter much what form it seems to take?¡± The look he gave me was heavy with knowing. ¡°Well, damn. How are the lugians taking that?¡± ¡°They believe me, but they are also committed to their Task of Failure. They absolutely wish to finish the testing out if at all possible, and so remain fixed on completing the work. They say it will be one of the greatest Failures in their history if they prove it is not possible.¡± He smiled and shook his head at their fixation. ¡°It may not be possible without Legendary Alchemy to fall back on,¡± I admitted, flicking my fingers and tossing him a little green sphere. ¡°Like those.¡± ¡°Peas?¡± He frowned, about to say something more, then narrowed his glowing eyes as he stared at the Lead Scarab Pea more closely. ¡°It¡¯s just a Pea¡­ but there were no records of Pea in any of the Empyrean Magic that I know of¡­¡± he trailed off. His eyes closed and he took a deep breath as his long fingers closed around the Pea. ¡°More mind-fuckery, as the Lord Mick is most apt at saying¡­¡± he hissed in recognition. ¡°Yes. The making of Quintessence is not unknown to me.¡± He gave me an interested look, and I demonstrated the spell to him, slowly conjuring up a small sphere of congealed silvery time an inch across. ¡°It¡¯s a IV Valence, basically a localized stasis field. But as you can see, it radiates the source energy used to gather it. I am told it can also be gathered psionically, if that has any meaning to you.¡± ¡°That Tradition is rumored to exist on worlds other Empyreans have visited in the past,¡± he nodded, holding out his hand. The small sphere floated across to his palm, and he examined it curiously, comparing it to the Pea in his other hand. ¡°Despite the change in hue, this Pea is clearly Quintessence, yet without magic and bearing a¡­ very sophisticated spatial aspect to it. Alchemy, then, and at a level higher than I have ever seen¡­¡± He shook his head slowly in disbelief. ¡°This should have attracted all my attention when they first came into being, and yet I ultimately dismissed them. I cannot say I am a Master of Empyrean Alchemy, but I know enough to know that no Master I knew was aware of how to literally collapse a bit of the universe without powerful magic to back them.¡± ¡°So, definitely a IX Valence or higher to do the same thing?¡± ¡°Indeed. If I may?¡± He held up the silvery dollop of gooey time, and I waved it off as negligible. He quickly stowed it away in a small vial. ¡°As far as the Vulning operations, we can¡¯t employ them in the format they were used in. Incidentally, the same use-activated operations employed in the Royal Runed Weapons don¡¯t work, either.¡± ¡°Color me unsurprised.¡± The Imperil going off from a Royal Runed Weapon should have triggered on every solid hit or on a crit, at the very least. Instead it went off completely randomly compared to every other effect of the Weapon. ¡°Rending and Cleaving are basically ways of restating ¡®this attack form does extra damage when you hold this toy¡¯. Once you do that, it is clear how powerful an effect Renders and Cleaves actually are, and why they don¡¯t work as I remember. ¡°However, replacing them with a Channeling effect isn¡¯t all that hard to do. The modularity of the Staff of Clarity might be possible with that, giving non-Life Casters access to Vulns with their own mana, or using charges from the device.¡± ¡°The Blackfire Wands proved useful, then!¡± It was a good thing! ¡°Yes, but actually the study of the alchemical vials used by the sling users was actually most helpful in this respect,¡± he pointed out as the right reference. ¡°I really should lay in a supply of those. However, the modified cost of them was simply too prohibitive before we came into the MMD notes.¡± The vials had once been standard tools used by those using throwing weapons or slings. If they hit an opponent, they coated them with a powder, dust, grit, oil, or droplets that mimicked the effect of an Elemental Vuln for a short time. Making them had not been much of an issue back when there was unlimited pyreal and alchemical supplies. Once reality crashed back in with the Fall, use of them was sharply curtailed, both for the cost and the rarity of the supplies. As special issue supplies, they were definitely things squads and Fellowships wanted to have in reserve! Alas, the QL of 35 meant once-again you basically had to be an adventurer to get the Karma to be good enough to make the best versions of them! ¡°My recommendation is to take the modular Clarity design you proposed as a full Seven-Element Implement that can be altered to Cast the Vuln you want, Channeling your own mana through it. All but the most idiotic of people will have the appropriate amounts of mana to use it at least once or twice. I am unsure if we want to risk charges in the Isparian manner, however¡­¡± ¡°No, and if we use Staff or Rod mechanics, that will drive the costs up significantly. Channeling Staves are not unknown on the Matrix side of things, effectively allowing you to have more spells in memory than you normally have as a Sorcerer or Wizard. This would be little different.¡± I nodded, and flicked up a diagram of how such a thing might appear as a Staff. Harlune studied the multiple displays of concentric formations and Rune Circles with professional interest. ¡°An interesting and novel display of Theurgy between the two Traditions,¡± he nodded sharply. ¡°That looks like it would work, and the materials seem sensible.¡± Basically it would take seven different metals and gemstones, Energized to the different Elements. When a gemstone was rotated into primary, its metal would revolve into receiving input and aligning the mana to the desired type, instead of simply transferring and channeling mana into a typeless slurry. ¡°I see it as an off-hand Wand,¡± I admitted, gesturing at Mortus Dius. ¡°If it is done right, one might even be able to use it in addition to spellcasting, something like using Dual Wands.¡± ¡°Dual¡­ Wands?¡± Master Harlune repeated carefully. ¡°I don¡¯t think that ability has been described to me before...¡± ¡°As an Artificer, you know Wands are both an Implement and a storage vessel for charges of spells.¡± He nodded. It was true for Isparian Magic as well, although there were no particular benefits to enhanced Wands beyond potential damage increases, especially if Vulns weren¡¯t available, and the Weapon Runes didn¡¯t work on Implements like they did Weapons. ¡°There are additional Feats to increase the Caster Level of Wands, other Feats to use Wand charges at your own Caster Level, and the Dual Wield Wands Feat, so you can use two Wands as fast as you use one of them. ¡°So, imagine being able to trigger two Blackfire Wands, bam-bam.¡± I mimed the overhand and down aiming and firing motion of an Isparian Wand, only with both hands each grasping an invisible Wand. He blinked. ¡°That could be very useful for a lesser Caster!¡± he said quickly. ¡°And not bad for a senior one, either. There¡¯s supposed to be a Legendary Feat where you can unleash Wands as fast as Weapon attacks, too.¡± Wouldn¡¯t that be a heck of a combo?¡­ AF Chapter 465 – Crunching Some Bone We walked away from that little conversation with the sure knowledge that you couldn¡¯t make Slayer Effects modular within a Weapon or Gemstone. If you wanted a Slayer effect built into a Weapon, it would have to be permanent, and you couldn¡¯t swap it except by using Artificer Infusions to change it for the short term to something else. It also happened that Disruption basically did everything that Skeleton/Undead/Ghost Slayer Infusions did, although it took Slots, not Runemarks, and so adding a Slayer effect to a Disruption Weapon, eh, disrupted the Disruption. Which was annoying as heck, but such is life. Disruption was also relegated to blunt Weapons for some unknown reason, and those weren¡¯t all that popular. There were definitely some lugians around who wanted to swing a Greathammer like Briggs could, however. Whatever. Just put the Slayer Effect into a Main-Gauche Wand was my way of thinking. If that meant I needed a Christmas tree of Wands, well, I could fuse a Baneskull to ¡®em, too, and go all Edgelord-y with my collection of skull-topped Wands, messing up my wholesome image. Actually, no, that would be perfect for a Wand Sheathe of Holding, which honestly was a better way to store Baneskulls, regardless. Hey, just a little more downtime Crafting. I had to have something to spend my ungodly fortune on. ------- Several weeks of planning pass, with days filled with tons of mana expenditure for a too-dutiful and absurdly generous spellcaster with rather too much pyreal to spend... ¡°Come on out, Bonecrunch. It¡¯s time to die.¡± Magevoice could be heard up to three miles away. Barriers and locations didn¡¯t matter, only who you wanted to hear it within that range. Convenient, powerful, and ear-catching. There were no drudges left spawning around Cragstone. Briggs and Kris wandered up there and butchered any who were set in place whenever they had an hour or two to spare, and re-Sealed the Spawn Points just to make everything the more irritating. I reached down and snipped off the ley-line taps of the Drudge Fort once again, and the gathered mages and warriors of the Freehold Forces, a full army of which were here, went to it with fire magic and Firephasing Weapons, chopping through the reinforced magical logs and destroying them, with a score of Aun Shamans there to make sure they did not regrow at all. There were drudges of all of the stronger advancement paths inside the walls, but they died, too. The walls came down, the forces rolled in, and blazing Weapons reached hungrily for them in lines of spears and shields in lockstep formations. Bonecrunch didn¡¯t show. He wanted us to come down and get him in the ruined chambers below, so that was exactly what was going to happen, right? Well, that was what he thought. When you have someone who can Shape massive volumes of stone, that wasn¡¯t exactly necessary. --- To say he was surprised when the ceiling of his throne room vanished and he blinked up at the sun and a brooding gray sky above was not an exaggeration at all. Then the walls of the throne room and the very floor receded into the ground, like water flowing down into sand, and there was only him, his throne, his Chest, and the great mound of bones and skeletons of his victims mounded up in a tumbling horde behind him. Oh, and over two thousand Isparians with flaming Weapons around him and pointed his way as he sat there in the clearing at the center of the Drudge Fort, its walls burned down to smoldering embers around him. There was one simultaneous thrum from hundreds of Bows. Streaks of white fire arched up, and as the Prodigal Drudge flinched, descended upon his mound of bones, his kill trophies, and swallowed the whole mound in vivus. There was very little doubt that if all those arrows were aimed at him, he¡¯d be dead in short order. The crimson Rune on his forehead burst into fire as his green eyes glowed with leaking virindi energy. His semi-transparent form seemed to grow a little bit more phantasmal as he crouched to charge. Three people stepped forward from the host, directly in front of him. In the center was King Borelean, his long Sword Hoshino a-swirl with Motes of Radiant Lost Light¡­ and Drudge Slayer, with a Baneskull against Drudges additionally adorning the pommel. Ceding him pride of place, Kris stood to his right hand, Quaver ringing gently, somehow conveying a note of irritation that they weren¡¯t going first. Tellingly, both of them wore suits of form-fitting Olthoi Celdon armor in its eye-catching swirls and folds. It was totally non-magical, and so completely useful against the chorozite-laced hollow attacks rippling in bands of sapphire and ruby about Bonecrunch¡¯s over-sized claws. On the King¡¯s left, Briggs loomed tall and menacing in his blue-black adamantine Named Armor Coat, Jadeworked to a full +IV and so its foundation also unmoved against hollow attacks. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°As you have sown, so will you reap, Butcher of Cragstone!¡± King Borelean declared grimly, raising his long straight Sword. Spiraling Motes of radiant energy lit up around it in preparation for what was to come. ¡°Now come at me, and see if I am like the helpless souls whose remains Burn behind you!¡± ¡°Bah! Isparian King! You run from me once, Bonecrunch shall make you run again!¡± the drudge spat back in quite passable Isparian. Borelean¡¯s only reply was a hard smile. ¡°I have two arms, and my lady is again at my side this time, drudge! Let us see if you are as dangerous now as you were long ago!¡± The drudge charged. So did the king, Sword and Shield very ready, indeed. The drudge was a whirlwind blur of attacks, a savage and yet calculating fighter, virindi energies playing at the magic around him. His flesh was both ephemeral and harder than oak at the same time, magic bent and twisted the very space around him to deflect attacks, and a whole lot of Health Qi bubbled and boiled in and around him. But King Borelean¡¯s Sword training under Kris had been very thorough, and the one creature he wanted to defeat above all others was Bonecrunch the Drudge, the Butcher of Cragstone. Way of Wind at III. Way of Fire at III. Way of Water at III. Way of Iron and Stone at IV. Hoshino¡¯s misting edge cut through the deflective fields around the drudge, barely registering them. Silver Soulfire pursued his superhuman agility, somehow keeping up with eye-blurring reactions and hand-speed. Fluid swordstrokes flowed through the Drudge¡¯s reinforced hide and enhanced musculature and bone. Infused Ghost Touch made Bonecrunch¡¯s partially-phased body entirely real. Blooding meant his superhuman vitality couldn¡¯t regenerate. Greater Soulbound, Enmity to Evil, Bane of Legends, and Bane to Drudges meant +X bypassing any resistance to non-magical damage whatsoever and slicing through his Legendary Damage Resistance as if it was not there. Sword beats Fist triggered regularly as the claws reached in and exposed the Drudge behind them, Hoshino slicing up the arms, through the throat, across the sinister glowing eyes. Riposte drove into the gut and heart and throat as Borelean¡¯s Shield stopped some of the blows. Healing Edge kept him alive as the claws and kicks of the creature in front of him tore and smashed with superhuman power at his Armor and Shield, and the Ways of Iron and Stone took the blows and reduced them down, down, down in strength as magic could not. Efforts were made to grapple him, and Close-Quarters Fighting erupted in boiling Health Qi as clawing phantom hands were nearly severed. Blizzards of standing and ripping claws triggered Defensive Sweep when Bonecrunch failed to move, and when he did try to step and circle, Thorned Stance punished him again, and again, and again. Biting Strikes drove in crits, Crushing Blow magnified those crits from running drawcut slashes to gaping wounds billowing Health Qi as they were fixed frantically. Positive energies flashed and burned across the king¡¯s body as he flowed through the attack motions, advancing, retreating, circling, pouncing, his eyes intent and his Combat Focus firmly in place as he took the steel-rending blows that couldn¡¯t quite manage to just destroy his olthoi plate, although it chipped and crumpled and tore at the force of the blows against it. But delivering those blows cost the pale ghostly Prodigal Drudge delivering them, the swirling stabs and thrusts of the Sword opposite him as fast or faster than his own clawing attacks, armored feet impossibly light and nimble, or just as stalwart and immovable as Bonecruncher¡¯s own unnatural strength and swiftness. Hostile magic churned in the Drudge¡¯s blood and on his flesh, and his energies could not heal and restore him. He was dying by inches, but those inches were adding up with a terrifying speed! I could see the moment when he passed below a quarter-Health, greenish Health Qi venting in particle effects as the Lost Light buttressed every blow, Improved Power Attack crashed and cut, and Weapon Mastery worked on diligently and profoundly all did their things. Bonecrunch was basically a barbarian warrior running on rage and cunning, a near-berserker frenzy that his impossible constitution and deranged emotional state could keep going forever. He had never really had a teacher, especially in profound combat. King Borelean hadn¡¯t forgotten the lessons or methods of Master Oswald, either, and had Way of Shadow at III, also, along with his Cunning Damage triggering on all those Attacks of Opportunity, among other things. The tip of Hoshino was a cobra, a scythe, a knife, and a spear, always moving into every undefended area, impossible to grasp, shrugging off steel-shattering blows as it knocked aside those swiping claws and grasping hands to sink into sensitive areas that would be lethal on any other foe, Health Qi erupting to keep Bonecrunch alive. Alive, but not for long. King Borelean had also long maxed out his Favored Hunter Mastery for Drudges in the Direlands, taking care to hunt down and kill any of the spawns he encountered. Bonecrunch¡¯s overconfident attacks, used to ignoring magic and taking down plain steel, held no surprises for the King, and his eyes were those of a hunter taking down his prey. Not mere vengeance. Not empty hate. They were the eyes of a king bringing justice for his people, and if Bonecrunch was the great hero of the oppressed drudges, that was not the truth in the eyes of the many, many people of all the other races who had fallen to his claws. Swirling flurries trailing light and fire and mist now chased after the drudge as he attempted to retreat. But all directions around the circle, save where the deadly swordswoman and the towering Hammer-wielder were standing, were replete with layers of flaming Spears ready there to greet him. Oh, he got in his licks, here and there. Bone cracked, flesh bruised, skin broke, muscles tore, ligaments strained, armor cracked and pressed into meat as it deformed under tremendously powerful Hollow blows. Healing Edge swirled on the injuries and mended anything that would impede the fight, stopping the bleeding, mending the tears, easing the pain of crushed bone, and it kept King Borelean firmly in the fight. Bonecrunch tried to stumble back, a plunging point plucked in and out, and this time the energies that spurted out of the cut in his phasing flesh were more liquid. He was bleeding! Truly bleeding! His bleat of pain came out unforced, and he knew he was going to die. There was no mercy in the eyes of the Isparian in front of him. Massive forms moved through the press behind the King, looming over the soldiers as the spearmen shifted out of the way. Bobo, Oolutanga the Tusker King, the Prodigal Tusker, moved slowly and grandly up to the edge of the circle, the great tusker¡¯s bright orange fur and armor giving him an impression of true invincibility. In front of him, Harraag the Prodigal Banderling with his burning red eyes crouched impassively. To Bobo¡¯s right side floated Candeth Martine, the Prodigal Human¡¯s purple-blue eyes glimmering behind his white mask. Hea Rheaga, the Prodigal Tumerok, floated to his left, shimmering golden eyes somehow enlightened and at peace. AF Chapter 473 – Chambers of a Lightning Olthoi Queen ¡°They must be good climbers.¡± I toed the edge of the pit there, which dropped a good hundred feet down. It was scored with deep gouges from chitinous claws and barbs latching into the rock deep enough to support massive insectile bodies coming up the stone. ¡°Or they all fly now?¡± Kris wondered, looking over the edge. There didn¡¯t seem to be any olthoi visible down there, but they could easily be hiding just out of sight waiting for us to come down, which the Mick had assured us was standard procedure all the many times he¡¯d done the Quest in the past against a younger, weaker Queen. ¡°Any virindi?¡± Kris asked calmly. We¡¯d only found a dozen Virindi Agitators during the rather epic brawling battles on the way down, zipping out of side rooms where they were watching over mutated eggs or grubs or the like, completely ignored by their mutate creations. It only made sense that there would be some down here watching over the breeder of their creations, likely taking the eggs and levitating up the wall to deliver them to the birthing rooms we¡¯d popped so many of them in. I dropped a Wizard Eye down the Pit, setting up a Holo everyone could see as it fell down and gave us a view of everything that was waiting for us down there. The overhang vanished, and I swept the view across the entirety of the room. Then I clenched my hand as all of the Virindi turned as one and stared at the Eye, dispelling it before they could reach out and fuck with it and me. The stillshot of the Eye remained behind up above, however. The sapphire-and-purple form of the Lightning Olthoi Matron Queen towered over everything, naturally enough, a good seven paces tall and twice that long with her wicked tail. Four arms with great talons, crested head, standing tall, lower body bulging with eggs visible right through her abdomen, pulsing and glowing with alien energies. There were a dozen more Virindi Agitators around her, the same number of Lightning Swarm Sentinels, and at least threescore Lightning Hive Warriors and Eviscerators! ¡°That looks like it going t¡¯ be quite the fight!¡± the Mick murmured for everyone, taking in the scene. ¡°And here I thought blueslaking or silverslaking our Armor was taking it a bit too far,¡± King Borelean said grimly, clutching Hoshino harshly. Each Hive Warrior was a massively tough fight for almost any single character, and the Queen would take all of their attention. Having to cope with that while under bombardment from a dozen virindi could easily become catastrophic! Lightning Banes wouldn¡¯t affect the Hollow Lightning attacks that were going to be coming in. Alchemical Slaking would, however! ¡°I daresay some cheating is in order, Magos,¡± Briggs stated flatly, making a show of looking around. ¡°Huh. I don¡¯t feel any Interdiction effects in place,¡± he remarked, his voice heavy with schadenfreude. I turned and made a chopping motion down the middle of the gathered formation of soldiers. ¡°Make a hole!¡± I ordered them, and the men quickly split apart and made room for what was about to happen. -Big Guy, get everyone to hit the Array and prepare for olthoi!- I /told the target of what was about to happen. There was a happy surge of excitement in /reply, and the motion of bunches of things hitting a floating, glowing crystal that dumped all the Plat-grade Life Protection spells on those touching it. Then I dropped the Teleportation Circle¡­ the exit point, as the entry point was a towering arch in Mayoi, arranged on what was called the Plaza of Warriors. It was towering because it had to fit who might be coming through. It was less a circle than a crack in space, reaching way up into the air. A mighty form in silver Armor forced the dimensions out of the way as he took a big step forward, his massive Club Smash gleaming with power and readiness to pulp olthoi. Eager deep calls echoed off the stone as eight massive black-furred Annihilator Tuskers in heavy silverslaked Armor followed the Tremendous Monuga through the rip in space, led by the towering figure of the Champion of the Tuskers, Mowen, his own enchanted Fists, the Paws, cracking loudly on the stone. ¡°Elder Tim, after you!¡± Briggs stated, Endure pointing into the pit. With a bellow of challenge that shook all the stones and the very air, Tim launched himself over the edge, all of the tuskers howling enthusiastically and hurtling right over after him. The Featherweight Field caught everyone ten feet above the ground down as we all surged forward after our monstrous allies. Tim¡¯s many tons crashed softly to the ground, one step taking him well out of the way of those following behind. He caught sight of the Olthoi Queen Matron standing over there and promptly bellowed a challenge in her direction loudly enough to make all the olthoi there tremble at the waves of it. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The tuskers bounded up next to their big buddy, adding their calls of challenge to the cacophony, really riling up the territorial instincts of the olthoi. The Queen couldn¡¯t take it. She spread her arms, rose to her full height, tail lashing wildly, a full threat display that even the virindi controlling her couldn¡¯t overcome. With a wild chittering, the horde of extremely tough and deadly olthoi charged for us. The Vanguards slid between the tuskers like water between breakers, and slammed their Shields down in front of the incoming horde, forming an instant wall of adamantine against their charge. Spear-wielders inserted their Weapons into the cracks between the Shields, and the Shield wall grew many, many thorns swirling with Lost Lights, the Weapons pulsing the green of Olthoi Slaying. The olthoi crashed into the line with force and fanatical devotion, but the Vanguards of metal and flesh were anchored with heavyfoot and going absolutely nowhere. Olthoi screamed as hungry Spears lanced out for them, and the fight was on. Ramps of stone rose behind the lines as the first Debuffs starting going off on the soldiers, especially focusing on the great figure of Tim there. -Tuskers on the virindi! Grapple and bash them down! Tim, keep that Queen rolled up and occupied!- Princess Kristie /ordered, and the whole line of tuskers and monuga charged up the ramps, launching themselves right over the entire line of olthoi in one magnificent show of fur and muscle and strangely agile three-eyed Jotun. Behind them, the Archers of the company rose up above the ramps on their Disks, Bows and Autobows leveled and gleaming olthoi green with Slayer Infusions. Between them, the Skeeters and Roaches flowed past, also leaping over the olthoi horde, led by the Mick, Princess Kristie, and King Borelean, while Briggs held the center of the line with the pounding, thrumming beat of Endure making every heart pound in time to its beat. Moving with incredible bounding speed, the massive Annihilators and Mowen swept into the virindi, smashing into them and bouncing them around to spin like ping-pong balls. Huge slamming arms sent them whirling and ricocheting off one another, herding them together and into one another in crunches and crackles of virindi energies and ringing armored robes. Expertly, as if trained for this very tactic, the virindi, the nasty spellcasters of this entire effort, were thrown together by the tuskers and crushed together by the weight and mass of the ape-like warriors. A wall of heavy armored bodies drove them against the stone walls, locking them in place and making it nigh-impossible for them to move, to Cast their magic, or to do much of anything in coordination or independently. Silver Magic seethed over Tim, and the Debuffs from the virindi ladled over him were torn apart and evaporated. The Olthoi Queen burst into motion at him, leaping up towards his closed helm, and they crashed together in a devastating impact. Tim outweighed her at least five to one, spindly thing that she was, and she was smashed backwards, taking a heavy hit from Smash she definitely didn¡¯t appreciate, and then it was heavy Gauntlets with deadly black Spikes erupting from them against claws, talons, and tail, trying to fight back against superior strength and mass with a vicious array of natural weapons that might just have been enough to win that fight in normal circumstances. The Wolfpacks drove into the backside of the olthoi horde, Weapons of the Lost Light driving in as raised Shields plunged into the olthoi and forced them back into their own, not allowing them to scrabble for room or to dance at their preferred combat range. Arcing limbs stretched past those Shields, ringing off Slaked Armor with flashes of purple Lightning, but the first set of Chained Darts swept through them, and my Healing was on the job. The second salvo of my Darts was Fastcast, allowing a Platinum Mass Bludgeon Vulnerability to reach out to all those crowded virindi mashed up in tight circle, flaring over them in a deep reverb of resonant amplifying fields of force. The mighty Mowen, blue-green fields of Virindi Slaying on his Paws, clambered up the backsides and shoulders of two of his Annihilators, looming up over the trapped and herded Virindi, who tilted their frowning crimson masks up to look at him. He raised the Paws up, staring at the things who dared to enslave so many of his people out in the Direlands, and he began to drum on them. Literally. The Princess Kristie had him practice his drumming to increase his hand speed, and he had been getting pretty good with pounding on a grand kettle drum made especially for him and his tuskers. He began to drum on the virindi, and they began to break. Two more Annihilators, their own Fists treated with Virindi Slayer, bounced up on the shoulders of their brethren, and moved to accompany him with wild cheering hollers. Health Qi crackled and spat. It turned even worse when the Mass Imperil swept over the virindi, softening them up more, and the three tuskers could even up the tempo a bit more with the better rebound! Kris and the Mick swept down the line of the olthoi horde in opposite directions. The Mick¡¯s Imperil Lense flared and flashed with carapace-softening gray light, sucking down his Mana Pool. Opposite him, Princess Kristie was doing the exact same thing, but with the flaring yellow-white of a Piercing Lense instead! Forsaken couldn¡¯t Cast spells, but that didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t develop a Mana Pool or hold Valences! I knew exactly how much pain it was going to take Kris to refill her Mana Pool after this, as she had to sacrifice Constitution to form the mana needed for her Pool, just like her Valences. It was why I only pulled on her in emergencies, or for spells for her personal use, like the Sendings reporting home to her mother. But she had actually trained Mana Conversion up to the highest level she could, just so she could employ Lenses in situations like this, where they were needed! She was also a Null Forsaken, and it turned out that she used Constitution AND Self, which was Wisdom in the Matrix method, to form her Mana Pool, just like Briggs also added his Strength in the formula for his. Forsaken had ENORMOUS Mana Pools by the standards of Isparians. Until the Lenses, they never had a real use for them, apart from a Bond mage. But being able to channel mana into their Weapons via a Wand Chamber to the device inside? Well, now, that had opened up a whole new can of worms! It meant needing a Christmas List of Lenses, but they now had a use for all that Mana on their own! Forsaken, always using the hard way to get what they needed¡­ and the expensive way, too! These abominably tough olthoi were now reaping the fruits of it all, however¡­ AF Chapter 474 – Death of an Olthoi Queen Like me, the other Casters were focusing on Healing and Revitalization of the combatants, conserving mana rather than spending it on War Magic. There was a lot of math involved in that, as everyone wanted to be blasting apart olthoi heroically¡­ but the same amount of mana used to Imperil effectively wiped out a third to half of an olthoi¡¯s Health by accelerating the speed at which damage was done to it. A Pyreal Vuln effectively dropped the Health by another half! At the same time, pumping stamina into a flagging Melee effectively doled out additional damage every time that stamina fueled another swing of his arm, a total that was literally dozens of times higher than most War Magic, it just took longer to be dealt. Likewise, Healing a Melee meant he was dealing additional damage all that extra time¡­ and taking damage the mage did not have to. Support Casting was thus far more effective than combat Casting over any period of time. Only if you had effective no-cost offensive spells should you routinely shoot things like I might. Debuff, let the Melees and Archers do the killing. Heal and Revitalize, keep them in the fight. It all maxed the use of mana, and mana management was what it was all about. The Wolfpack techniques at the back of the horde, two or three on one, were having the desired effect. The Mick and Kris were constantly moving to the next olthoi when one chittering bug fell after another, the Wolves jumping to the next target¡­ and Kris flitting past on their shoulders, chopping down into carapaces to get off the Pierce Vuln for them, while the Mick flowed by below, in and out of their formations smoothly and precisely to do the same with Imperils. Tim and the Olthoi Queen Matron were rolling and ripping at one another energetically, meat and armor and carapaces crashing into the stone of the wall as the Queen found our Tremendous Monuga to be every bit as tough as his reputation, if not tougher. His incredible Fast Healing was keeping up nicely with the damage she was doing, he had far more Armor and Natural Armor now than he¡¯d had a year ago, and he was slamming on her consistently and forcefully, not letting her go. His wrenching and tearing at her was shredding her Health Qi at least as fast as her multiple attacks were dealing it out of him. Briggs had a Piercing Lense inside Endure¡¯s haft and was doling them out to the olthoi by both bashing olthoi in front of him with Endure in Pick Mode, and opportunistically tossing his Hammer out, crashing into an Olthoi and delivering the Vuln for the attention of the Archers waiting for those targets and zeroing in on them instantly. The olthoi in front of them were being impaled by the Spears working to either side of him, and the center of the horde was depleting at thrice the rate of the rest of the Shield Wall as a result. It was a shame he couldn¡¯t bounce his Hammer around and deliver multiple Vulns, but he could only prep the Lense for one Vuln at a time. The Casters behind him focused on the Imperils when they had a moment, and soon enough pretty much every surviving olthoi in the horde had been double-tapped with Debuffs. I glanced at the tuskers, noticed three of the extremely tough virindi had been shattered and another six were in various stages of being drummed to death. When three more of them had masks crack and shatter and vivus erupt over them, I noted that to Briggs. -Three tuskers on the Olthoi Queen! Tie down her tail and hind legs for Tim!- Three Tuskers who weren¡¯t needed to press in on the remaining virindi promptly turned and rumbled over to help their big buddy in his nasty grappling of a fight. I didn¡¯t bother to Debuff the Olthoi Queen, as she had self-Dispels of great power she could get off with a thought. Blooding Weapons would have to do the job of beating her down against her natural Fast Healing¡­ and just pinning her and heaping up the damage. Tons of monkeys threw them into the fight, tackling the Queen¡¯s lower extremities, clamping on with their armored Fists to her legs and tail and immobilizing both of them. Tim bellowed, grabbing her upper arms and ignoring her jaws as he twisted her. The tuskers rolled with his move, forcing her to spin over with his superior strength and their mass, and suddenly Tim was behind her. The Annihilators nimbly kept out of the way of his boots as he lifted them and brought them down on her secondary arms. Steely chitin cracked and was pinned to the ground. His gauntlets closed on her upper arms, and he pulled back and up, bending her up and backwards as she screamed and writhed, trying to get free of him, but the Annihilators kept her legs and tail in a death-grip, and she wasn¡¯t going anywhere. The masks of two more virindi shattered, vivus devoured the rush of virindi energies, and Mowen leapt from the shoulders of the Annihilators there. Four of the six Annihilators wrapped up a virindi each, pinning them with fists and feet, leaving only the masks exposed as they drove them against the wall or floor. The two Virindi Slayers concentrated on one virindi at a time with pounding enthusiasm for the task. Stolen story; please report. Mowen raced right over to Tim. Completely ignoring the queen¡¯s lunging jaws, he rolled over her shoulders and seized her upper arms below Tim, bracing against her back as Tim let go. Smasher spun through the air to Tim¡¯s waiting three-fingered grasp. With a roar of appreciation for all the gouges she¡¯d put into his exposed hide, he brought his colossal Club down onto her skull. THAT was when I dropped the Bludgeon Vuln + Imperil Combo on the Queen, because she was going to be far too dazed to get off any Dispels while Tim was playing whack-a-mole with her head. She was incredibly tough, there was no doubt about it, an easy half-million of Health Qi and Health to pound through, body reinforced by virindi energies and shielded by the same. Under the relentless pounding of a Tremendous Monuga, the pinned Olthoi Queen could only sit there and take it, splashes of electrified luminous yellow-green olthoi blood erupting and vanishing in flashes of expended Health Qi. The horde tried to turn around and get to their queen, but two-thirds of them were dead, they were still being pressed together, and now most were being attacked from two sides, driving the Wolfpack slaughter even faster as Attacks of Opportunity were handed back and forth, while the Olthoi Hunter Archers picked them off one by one with murderous focus. A virindi died. The Annihilator rolled over, and leapt to go help Tim, racing up to the side of the Olthoi Queen and proceeding to start pounding his Fists, gleaming with green Olthoi Slayer Infusions, into the side of her thorax with energy and enthusiasm. Thirty seconds later, a second virindi died, and another Annihilator raced to help out Tim and his buddies. A breath after that, Kris and Briggs lunged forward, two Hive Warriors died, and suddenly the olthoi line was cut in two places¡­ which gave the two of them targets to either side to ladle more attacks into, and to trigger more AoO¡¯s into. The shredding of the last of the olthoi horde reached a whole new murderous thrusting crescendo as the lines achieved full encirclement, multiple Weapons coming in from every side against the olthoi now. The last twenty olthoi died in about a quarter of the time it had taken the twenty before them. ¡°Vir Slayers on her limbs! Tim, get in front and Pendulum! Other Annihilators on her back!¡± Briggs ordered, leading the run towards the Olthoi Queen as the tuskers finished up with the last two virindi. The tuskers leapt quickly to obey. The Virindi Slaying tuskers grabbed her lower arms and rolled the broken things up, allowing Tim to step over in front of her and change his stance. Without Mowen in front of him, he could now swing back and forth instead of just up and down. CRACK, Smasher came in. CRACK, it came back. CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, the crested head was batted back and forth in eruptions of Health Qi. At the same time, the last two Annihilators had jumped onto her back under where he¡¯d been standing, and were joining the drumroll just behind Mowen¡¯s iron grip. The Olthoi Queen couldn¡¯t even scream properly, even when the Isparians, Lugians, and Gear Knights spread out to deal with the many, many eggs scattered in rooms extending off the Queen¡¯s chamber here. ----- CRACK RIIIP. The Lightning Olthoi Queen Matron¡¯s head, already lolling limply, was torn off its chitinous neck and went flying across the chamber, bouncing, rolling, then sliding across the floor as hissing, sparkling, and acidic olthoi blood boiled and bubbled on the stone. Her body still writhed and twisted, but her Health Qi was done, and her carapace plates either shattered or separated from one another, gouts of her blood soon spilling forth. Spilling forth, and then rising in a glowing stream and plunging into a big glass jar there as I salvaged it for the future. The air trembled with her psychic death cry, and distant chitters seemed to carry through the Hive as the olthoi here lost their reason to exist. The virindi might be able to order them around, but they¡¯d be little more than automatons at this point. In counterpoint, down came Glory, reaping our own reward as the Olthoi Queen of Marae Lassel was finally and permanently dead. Vivus was making sure the virindi couldn¡¯t Respawn her here, like they had in the past. She was truly dead, and her Hive, and all the olthoi on Marae Lassel knew it. Only when nothing was moving did the Annihilators stop their pounding and loosen their grips, calling out their victory in great rolling bellows with Tim and their fellows. ¡°Brute Squad, evac!¡± I stated crisply, bringing up the outbound Teleportation Circle. ¡°Healers are waiting for you!¡± Only a little bit wobbly from their exertions, Tim, Mowen, and the Annihilators headed out the circle in space that Tim levered open into a full rift, opening to the night and brightly-lit Plaza of Warriors beyond quickly. ¡°We are on salvage mode! As many olthoi plates as we can gather from here, move it! Kris, Item that head! Roaches and Skeeters, chop up the Queen! Vanguard, wall across the entry for the death-rush that is coming! Archers, back them up! Spears, how we doing on the eggs?!¡± Briggs demanded quickly. ¡°We¡¯ve got about two hundred eggs not crushed in the fighting, Briggs!¡± Borelean called out, clusters of the sparking, glowing things being brought out on Disks. ¡°The Alchemists at Freehold are waiting for them! Finish gathering them and Casters get them out of here so they can be held in Quintessence and preserved for future use as needed!¡± And not used to birth more mutant olthoi. Olthoi eggs were actually really good eating if prepared right, and useful in a broad array of alchemical cooking and Potions. It was like each was their own Royal Honey, or something. I set up the Focus Seal for the Teleporting out for the Casters who could do so, the magic of the Wagons providing the link back there required for them to do so personally. The rest of the goods, including the carapaces still mostly intact from all the dead olthoi going slowly vivic, went into a box which was Tapestried, Itemized, and stowed away. Elements of the hive came raging down, possibly spurred by virindi. Many of them broke carapaces and limbs slamming to the uncaring stone floor of the Queen¡¯s chamber. Still, they dragged themselves to what remained of their limbs and attacked the waiting line of Vanguards without thought for their own lives¡­ which, in the end, didn¡¯t help them at all. AF Chapter 475 – Unglorious Finishing of the Job ¡°We have to clear this entire hive, from top to bottom,¡± Briggs declared without compromise. ¡°If the virindi have secreted away more eggs, they can potentially raise one into another queen. We wipe the entire place clean of everything. ¡°Magos, fill it in as we go.¡± ¡°Yes, Commander.¡± ------ Disks lifted everyone back to the top of the jump, and then I sealed off the top with ten feet of stone, just to make sure nothing was going to get through easily again. Briggs, Kris, King Borealean, and the Mick led the way out, and I trailed behind this time, filling in as much space as I could in the hive while keeping up with everyone else. The cleaning was two-pronged, Briggs and Borelean taking half the forces and going in one direction while Princess Kristie and the Mick led the rest in the other direction. I could only follow one of them, but I made sure to keep my Visual File open so I didn¡¯t block off any important routes that would trap the other group, and I could always stay down longer than anyone else, In addition, once rooms were cleared, I didn¡¯t have to fill them in, just make sure they were washed in vivus and the tunnels and any other openings into them were sealed off. It still took all night to rotate through the whole place, tunnel by tunnel, making sure nothing was missed while we carved through the olthoi ecology and destroyed it piecemeal. Nothing was allowed to survive, from the acid pools for the larvae to the over-sized mushrooms to the viscous glowing food basins. Everything was torched, everything was carved and set to vivus¡­ and, if they were real, they were all salvaged, too, as olthoi carapaces made useful armor and components for Olthoi Slayer Weapons. The dozen virindi guarding other egg and larva chambers died forever, too. ----- ¡°Well, Adso?¡± I asked him. We were camped out near the northern end of the Plateau, shutting down another one of the olthoi Dungeons here. The Hea were actually taking care of many of them, proving their bravery while a couple Knights went along with Vivic Weapons to Seal off the Spawn Points and shut the Dungeons down permanently. The landscape spawns were also evaporating, soldiers under King Borelean¡¯s command fanning out and clearing them, marking them, Sealing them. The high-Level Dungeons with the virindi storing and building up more Hollow Lightning Olthoi had been our first stops, suitably epic rampages against overly tough olthoi and equally tough and annoying virindi. Annoying bastards we were happy to get rid of! Adso, Master Oswald¡¯s right-hand man, moved in next to me around the fire there. I passed him over some coffee, and he took it without comment. ¡°Not used to others being able to tell when I am there,¡± he admitted, taking a sip, and then accepting a rolled burrito as well. ¡°Stealthing a mage is the primary way to kill them. Funnily enough, most mages know this and take steps against it,¡± I replied. ¡°The rest of the team is welcome to come in, too.¡± I waved a hand at my Disk, and more coffee and a whole platter of burritos popped up. The others out there sighed and materialized out of the darkness, riding the Disks that had popped up behind them so they could sit down. White and blue sparklies went down the line of them, chasing away a few days of grime and B.O. on each of them. Adso sniffed himself, grunted, and grabbed another burrito with Mage Hand, the first one having vanished already. ¡°We found the Dungeon,¡± he said softly, but his dark eyes held immense satisfaction. ¡°Three of them!¡± he added under his breath, studying my face for my reaction at the unexpected number. I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky. ¡°Well, fuck.¡± All four Scouts smirked, which faded at my next words. ¡°Nuhmudira had a base under the Plateau for at least ten years,¡± I informed them in return. ¡°What!¡± Sabritha blurted out. ¡°We checked the town at least once a month!¡± she protested vehemently. ¡°But did you check the Pit?¡± I asked her, and her mouth clamped shut. ¡°No. Once we ascertained there was no Portal at the bottom, the place lost all importance after it came into the world like all the others,¡± Adso stated, reviewing their own actions over the past near-score of years. ¡°They expanded up under the Plateau after using the Pit as a base of operations, although I¡¯m not sure why. I can imagine that having a base right under your noses that you were checking on regularly was part of it all. ¡°You can be irritated, but your Master wasn¡¯t too happy to learn that she was that close to Stonehold all those years, and he didn¡¯t catch her there, either.¡± They all sighed, and chewed burritos in disappointment at themselves. ¡°Is the Master entertaining himself?¡± Adso asked knowingly. ¡°I did say HAD a base under the Plateau.¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. They all got that expression on their faces. ¡°I take it the witch got away again,¡± Adso murmured. ¡°Naturally. She has no idea what powers Master Oswald commands, and wisely doesn¡¯t want to find out. The Raven Hand makes convenient expendables she won¡¯t miss to stop him in the interim.¡± ¡°She must be running out of a lot of them,¡± Sabritha commented wickedly. ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll be greatly missed,¡± I said with a straight face, and nobody believed it at all. ¡°I didn¡¯t feel any great movements of magic and none of you are dead, so I¡¯m assuming you played the better part of valor and withdrew discreetly.¡± ¡°Master Oswald might want to try out an infiltration simply to test his skills, but none of us believe we are adept enough to get through a High Empyrean¡¯s defenses,¡± Adso responded for them all without ego. ¡°Then you are indeed well-trained.¡± ¡°Are you going to investigate?¡± he asked, glancing at the Skeeters at the neighboring fire, who¡¯d all noticed them, but I¡¯d waved them off and they made no efforts to interrupt us. ¡°I might come in the second wave, if Princess Kristie thinks she needs help.¡± Which she might, but that all depended on how secret Gerraine thought his bases were. ¡°Bringing me along means she needs some magical muscle, not help being sneaky.¡± They were shuffling a bit, obviously wanting to ask something. ¡°Yes?¡± I prodded gently, refilling all their mugs of coffee with a gesture. ¡°Did she really kill Lady Aerefalle?¡± Sabritha whispered. I just snorted. ¡°Master Oswald told you he was promised the kill on Rytheran, right? Think that might have been for a reason?¡± All assassins had their pride. Master Oswald might no longer be taking money for his kills, but the times he¡¯d failed his kills had to weigh on him, and he definitely wanted to prove he could still operate at the highest levels¡­ and go beyond what he had ever dared to accomplish in the past. Killing things that threatened the mortal world was the highest level of service, and popping them off with a blade from the shadows was as valid as fighting them openly in the light. If a hoity-toity princess-born like Kris could take out Aerefalle, a true master who¡¯d come up through the streets could definitely take out Rytheran, right? Well, if he could master some really good Dispels to get around Wards and magical defenses, yeah, he could, as well as the Divs to sense them in the first place. Stealthing past undead who could feel life energies was a thing, as well¡­ That was as far as I was going to say anything. ¡°Do you know where Rytheran is?¡± Adso asked. ¡°According to the Ambassador at Candeth Keep, he has moved his base of operations to the Heiromancer Halls near Fort Teth. It is probably one more reason why Hea Arantah is here and has started pulling his people out of the Overlord Fortress near there. There are now a LOT of undead in the area, and they are not allies in the slightest.¡± ¡°He doesn¡¯t believe you were involved in her death?¡± Adso was impressed. ¡°He has testimony from many, many of her servants as to our whereabouts at all times. Indeed, we had just finished heated combat with the Behemoth at the time she died, and could not have been involved in whatever happened with her death. The obvious conclusion is that a traitor used the distraction of our presence to strike at her and slay her while her defenses were down.¡± ¡°Well, obviously,¡± Sabritha snickered, then frowned. ¡°Hey, what about Master Oswald?¡± ¡°His lack of interest in Master Oswald indicates that Master Oswald¡¯s trips to Aerlinthe in the past were not unnoticed, which I indicated to him was probably true. He doesn¡¯t have the magical ability to escape the notice of Aerefalle on her island, and he obviously wasn¡¯t there. It¡¯s likely all Teleporting arrivals and departures there are noticed by the Wards in place¡­ or at least, they were.¡± ¡°That was probably true in the past, then, too¡­¡± Adso realized softly. ¡°Recalling there, entering the Dungeons or exiting them through the Portals¡­ yes, Aerefalle was probably aware of them all. Isparians never surprised her on her island, yet clearly she was surprised.¡± ¡°And I imagine Vivic Weapons have gone missing here and there¡­¡± ¡°Unbelievable that there would be such treachery among loyal Isparians, right?¡± I replied in another flat tone that drew more snickers. Vivus was only a threat to us in making it very difficult to Resurrect, but that was it. To the undead, it was an end to their eternity¡­ and yet, it was an ideal weapon that could be used to finally and completely settle festering grudges that had accumulated across millennia. The Smiths who were selling them to the undead were doing so for great prices and resources we wanted. The Freebooters wanted to corner that market, of course, and were rather vexed that they couldn¡¯t. The vast majority of Vivic Weapons were Named Weapons, which only retained their magic if their owners paid goldweight for them to make them permanent¡­ and thus worth the time to steal. Thus, most warriors used goldweight to make defensive talismans and the like, not to upgrade their Weapons, and oddly enough, the knowledge of how to Runecraft Vivic Weapons had only been released to a few specific people, most of them lugian master smiths who wouldn¡¯t tell a soul about how to do such things without royal permission. ¡°Do you think Gerraine is in any of the Dungeons?¡± Adso asked quietly, a more professional question. ¡°He is the true leader of the undead, Rytheran and Aerefalle were merely his visible hands. The chaos has forced him to personally intervene here and there among his followers. The Gelidites are taking the opportunity to contest his authority, and among Eternals, that is the only real coin there is. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think he¡¯s actually in any of them. Kris will confirm that, which doesn¡¯t mean we can¡¯t close them down. The fewer places he has to retreat to, the better it is for us. The undead have at least fifty dimensional strongholds that were forced out into the open at the Fall. He is doubtless using at least one of them, one that Isparians have never seen or investigated before, and he can doubtless run like smoke if need be¡­ probably off Dereth entirely, if it is required.¡± ¡°So the only way to kill him is by complete surprise¡­¡± Adso murmured, shaking his head. ¡°And with a soul-cutting Weapon that can overcome the method keeping his soul here in the first place, as well as punch all his personal Wards and Contingencies. There¡¯s a lot that has to go into such kills.¡± ¡°And yet Aerefalle died.¡± ¡°Yes, and the undead don¡¯t want to believe she has died¡­ except her very Keep fell, and that has never happened before. So, just maybe¡­¡± I trailed off neutral schadenfreude. ¡°It really can be done?¡± Adso wondered aloud, referring to more than Aerefalle. ¡°Undead are either blind or ignoring how much reality really doesn¡¯t like them, unnatural as they are. Their strength transcending that which they had in life means they don¡¯t consider the possibility that their vulnerabilities can be just as powerful. ¡°Just relax. Kris is departing the talks with Arantah to get your personal reports and will be here shortly.¡± Oswald¡¯s Scouts nodded and grabbed more burritos with practiced patience. AF Chapter 476 – Burning the Hallowed Halls of Yore They were irreplaceable. They were books, tomes, histories, volumes of lore and learning and records and thoughts and biographies and philosophies and art and stories. Tens of thousands of years of Empyrean history, four distinct Empires represented among them, an archive of breadth and depth that would have kept the scholars among the Freeholder sages actively engaged for literally centuries going through it all. It burned. It burned hot, and it burned fast. But not before I read EVERYTHING. Reach Scholar¡¯s Touch turned the instant-reading spell into a Short-Ranged spell. Spellwarping turned it into a Ray. Chain Spell made that Ray hit twenty additional books at a time. Scholar¡¯s Touch made touching a book the equivalent of giving it a good solid read-through. With my Intellect, that meant I basically photographed the book and stored all details as interactive in my Visual File, while also digesting all the knowledge instantly and completely. The Spell nominally lasted one round (six seconds) per Caster Level, with one touch per round allowed. Thus, the Casting of the spell basically allowed me to read over twelve hundred books from cover to cover. The exceptions were those books that radiated fell energies, leaking evil intentions and dark, twisting powers just by what was written inside them, or by the energies that had been instilled into them. Those books went to Princess Kristie Rantha, who basically sat down there with a sneer and read every single damn one of them at speed, too. Ranthas were Hags, of one sort or another, and also Forsaken. The combination was very impressive in many ways, but one of the subtle ways was that Ranthas were connected to the Hag Akasha, not just the human one, and could potentially go dumpster-diving into the racial memory of beings that were huge traders of dark secrets and prime souls among the darkest planes, worlds, and beings of all Creation. Even mind-bending soul-sucking horrific knowledge just got dumped into that part of the Hag Akasha and didn¡¯t affect her at all. It just became more Ranks in Dark Lore of the rather very worst sort, records of things Empyreans had done and dealt with that had damned entire races, cost uncounted souls, and helped pave them a road to travel out into the stars, discover and dominate numerous worlds, and play with the lives of so, so many beings that they deemed less than themselves. The worst stuff I read were basically sanitized versions of what Kris did, where instead of learning the True Name of the Shadow in the Void, the tales just referred to this bringer of devastation to the planet Qual¡¯morr for resisting the coming of the Empyreans, reducing the planet with fire and shadow until nothing living walked its surface, but much that did not live, did. There were many stories of power and ambition, played out in intrigue and wars, conquest and exploration of forbidden places and even more forbidden secrets, brought back and turned into tools to advance one¡¯s self and station, the most basic and elemental of which became the Isparian magicks¡­ and which a great many more were involved in the higher Empyrean arts. The libraries of Prince Geraine were split between all three of his Dungeons, and accessing them required offing more than a few undead Librarians devoted to their protection, unraveling a lot of magical traps and sensors, neutralizing Wards and bound spells ready to destroy souls and unleash eldritch horrors upon trespassers, and doing it all without notifying the absent ruler of all the undead of Dereth that some mice were nibbling at his library. Twenty-six books every six seconds for me. 15,600 books an hour. Princess Kristie, let¡¯s say a page per second of horrifying, mind-melting knowledge that she digested with ever-increasing scorn. Her biggest hold-up was the many languages that her books were written in, some of them bespoke and only found within that book and its derivatives¡­ but I was reading all the derivatives. Did people know that the combination of approximately three hundred pages of writing, Comprehend Languages, and Scholar¡¯s Touch suffices for the ¡®one hour of exposure to a language¡¯ for Polyglot? Sure they did, it¡¯s not like it was hidden knowledge. A Comprehend Languages was a Valence I, but no spell would attach to a Forsaken for more than ten minutes before it would be forced off, ended early, or their Forsaken Field would simply start eroding it away until it grew weak enough to collapse. Ten minutes was six hundred pages to Kris. Or, if I Scholar Touch¡¯ed my way through a derivative book, I could simply Visual File that over to her with full comprehension of every line and whorl of ink and exotic hides. Gerraine¡¯s combined library was over two hundred thousand tomes in size. In sixteen hours, we obliterated it. It was all Burned in the Vivic Holy Eternal Flames from Kris¡¯ Floating Forge, and then just to be sure I Disintegrated the ashes, as there were spells that could rebuild books from ashes. I never imagined I would be party to so much destruction of irreplaceable knowledge on a distant world, while at the same time being the sole preservation of such knowledge. Three of my thoughtstreams were already going through it all with the zeal of born obsessive-compulsive disorders looking for all the links and patterns and making spreadsheets and drawing graphs of links¡­ and arranging some very, very dangerous knowledge in layers and lists as Kris fed me dribs and drabs that wouldn¡¯t threaten my sanity. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. My Amulet, one of its primary functions Faithfulness, warned me against reading a lot of that heretical and blasphemous shit. It wasn¡¯t so much that I¡¯d be converted by what I read, Truth being marvelous at separating truth from lies, but my reaction to those that had spread such filth would probably be extreme in the very worst of ways. I wouldn¡¯t be damned by being converted, but Damned by what I¡¯d do to the things trying to spread such shit, and the lengths I¡¯d go to in order to stop them. The fact I¡¯d probably be right to go DO those things in order to save others only made it worse. It was the way Hell preferred to get the great and the Good, and I had to refuse repeatedly some of the things Kris was willing to give me as a result. ¡­ ¡°Well, this has been an instructive day,¡± Kris murmured to me as I wiped black tears away from my face. ¡°I don¡¯t think I ever appreciated just how much the Rantha lineage insulates me against the utter shite of some of the stuff out there.¡± ¡°I have the Words, and they help a lot, but I don¡¯t have an active Heavenbound Pact to actively rage against this stuff,¡± I explained with a sigh, watching the very last of an utterly magnificent collection of tomes burn away with accelerated speed. The fact they preferred various kinds of hide, vellum, and animal products was helpful in powdering them, especially since everything undead authors associated with magic had to be on human skin¡­ or the hide of something suitably magical, if not. Some of the books had been works of beauty, the soul of the author singing as they put themselves together. Some had basically been madness inspired by depravity or voices in the head, and some were as dry as reading housing codes, just lists of facts and numbers that might be mined to fuel some suitable grudge from ten thousand years ago. They were all ash and dust now. Nobody except the Prince or his personal librarians had handled any of these books for thousands of years. Their loss should infuriate the heck out of him. More when there was no sign of anyone being here, and all his minions were less than dust and impossible to recall. ¡°I just watched you cry normal tears, tears of blood, and tears of attempted Corruption. My apologies for subjecting you to this kind of thing,¡± Kris said softly to me. I just sighed and waved it away. ¡°The Karmic Reward was surprisingly high, given that this involved the destruction of so much pure knowledge.¡± ¡°How much Karma?¡± ¡°I can take Sixteen.¡± Kris regarded me coolly, looking at the single darkly-bound book in her hand. The hide on the cover was slithys tentacle. With a sneer of scorn on her face, she tossed it into the flames. There was an instant scream of outrage, and something shot up from the depths of the book, starting to manifest. The Floating Forge had many uses if you kept inscribing Patterns on it. The shrieking spirit, looking like the ghost of an ancient Empyrean woman in Falatacot robes, slammed right into the Binding Circle scribed at 45 QL or so on Kris¡¯s Floating Forge, absolutely binding and preventing the ancient spirit from getting free. ¡°Vermin!¡± she screeched at us in really old Falatacot, already starting to blaze gold and unwhite as Holy Vivus leap eagerly to the task. Whatever magic she was going to wield sizzled and sparked impotently on the fields of the diagram as she began to Burn. ¡°You have destroyed it all, millennia of work! All the glory of the Empyreans, their grand works-!¡± ¡°Your master put cognition traps across every single tome in this library,¡± I said softly back to her, shutting off her outraged rant as she stared at me. ¡°Phrases, words, images concealed between the true writings and illustrations. Yes, I figured out what was happening, and anticipated similar cognition traps. That¡¯s why all the really dangerous stuff was only read by my incredibly magically inert companion here.¡± I stared the shocked and outraged spirit right in her abyss-hollow eyes. ¡°N¡¯cthail¡¯s work, seems like. Probably spent a lot of time on it, millennia of work, as you said, spreading spiritual corruption through these books, their other copies, and all those who read them. ¡°The downfall of mortal Empires of nigh-eternal mages who thought themselves above such things.¡± A massive Karmic reward for destruction of knowledge. Heaven didn¡¯t reward anyone for destroying great art, uplifting works, fine stories, true histories, and such things. The lessons of history were meant to be learned from, not burned in ash. Rewarding us for destroying this, book by book, without exception, indicated that something far vaster and very dangerous was happening. Thoughtstream #4 had been keeping busy looking at everything with Truth, and excising falsehoods and extraneous things in what I¡¯d read right out of my memory, even as the others tracked how fact A from Book 11456 linked in with fact X from book 3133, and so forth, building an empty diagram that nevertheless was self-assembling in my memory. ¡°You must be Eibhil, the one who wrote that Book. Well, all evil things come to bad ends, by definition, and this one is yours. I trust you had a very bad life and deserve everything that is coming to you that you probably fooled yourself into believing never would.¡± ¡°Insolent barbarian! You do not know who or what you are dealing with!¡± she screamed at me, dashing up against the Barrier and causing it to spark and seethe as she tried to reach me, her spectral face distorting horribly. Kris¡¯s fist smashed her right in that face, without even disrupting the Binding field, knocking her down and into the Flames in utter shock. ¡°Fuck off, skank. You whored yourself off to an old god, and now you¡¯re his next meal. En-fucking-joy,¡± she smiled, eight canines gleaming at the ghost, who was writhing madly as Holy Vivus covered her now, her screams louder, yet more feeble as her ectoplasm was consumed. When she collapsed into a point of darkness and vanished, just as the fully intact Book blazing with vivus likewise collapsed fully into powder, neither of us was much surprised. ¡°Man, I so want you to blow these three places to dust and fill them in and let that fucker stew,¡± Kris said coolly. ¡°That¡¯s a known tactic for what I do to unwanted Dungeons. Let him wonder who acted against him, and curse them damn Gelidites who refuse to obey him when he blames them,¡± I sniffed, waving my hand. Green light flared, and the ashes of thousands of books vaporized into much, much less than dust. ¡°Time to go, then.¡± Kris put her Null down, and Forsaken disruption wiped the place clean of any magical trace of us, even as I popped us away. AF Chapter 477 – Sixteen Sixteen could have been a long level, but I wasn¡¯t planning on it. Seventeen and IX¡¯s were calling me, and I¡¯d take the higher costs of going Wide once I got there, unless I received a truly ridiculous amount of Karma really fast somehow. Kris and I couldn¡¯t have been responsible for what happened here, of course. She was known to be out at the Withered Beach overseeing a new crew of fresh Knights of the Lost Light testing their Swords out on the Withered lugian and banderling spawns there, which was actually a Simulacrum who was perfectly good at that particular task. The students had been carefully told not to get into a situation where she should have to fight¡­ mostly because the Sim couldn¡¯t draw Quaver. Likewise, it couldn¡¯t have been me, because I was with the many Clerics putting the new White Staff through its paces in Mayoi. Staves could be recharged by anyone, you didn¡¯t have to be able to Cast the most powerful spells they could throw out to do so. Furthermore, it could totally be quick if you made the Staff easy to recharge that way. White Staves of Amana in their basic forms were common Healing items in the Power of Ten Game for Priests, able to dispense a wide variety of Healing spells for emergencies that might exceed the limits of those bearing them. Lesser Staves might only have Valences up to III, which took care of diseases, most combat conditions like stunning or bleeding or dazed, ability damage, and injuries via Cures up to Cure Serious Wounds. But nothing said a Staff going all the way up to VII¡¯s wasn¡¯t possible. It just took multiple charges to get off a Resurrection, and it cost money. A LOT of money. Like, 50 times the cost of the Resurrection spell¡¯s onerous 20k goldweight requirement, optimally paid in Life Diamonds, plus a minimum of CL 13 x Valence VII x a goldweight, for another nearly 50k in goldweight. That also meant it had taken a LONG time to make the bloody thing, but that was fine. I¡¯d started it a long time ago, and the Clerics and Healers had traded daily infusion time, while the Cursed Dead and those who had once been Cursed Dead were constantly out hunting the stronger Elementals and Golums of all kinds for the occasional diamond drops which had to be Energized to Life and used as part of the enchantment process. Briggs and Kris had helped by making the damn thing out of pure mithral and forging it up to CL 40 with Legendary Crafting, able to do thousands of gold of work on the thing in a day and really cut down the time for all that Infusing. But The Staff of the Mother had finally come online for use, and the day we went after all those hidey-holes, I¡¯d been seen to do my six Resurrections, and then the Clerics had brought out The Staff of the Mother and proceeded to start doing more¡­ one per hour, around the clock. It was only possible with my Simulacrum being there, singing the Sublime Chord for a nice +8 to the Caster Level of the Staff raising the Caster Level high enough to reach all the way back to the Fall. One Resurrection, recharge for the rest of the hour, rinse and repeat. Seven charges for the Resurrection, sacrificed actual Valences of magic to recharge the Staff, do it again. I was obviously there helping the dozen Priests proud to return the Cursed Dead to life, so I couldn¡¯t be out there devouring the contents of an ancient library and then Burning it all to less than dust, now, could I? Of course not. The use of The Staff of the Mother was a major event that everyone knew of, and who else could Sing the Sublime Chord out like I could? Letting them know that Simulacra were a possibility was not something that I was going to do anytime soon. But the Book of Eibhil was gone. There was something I had needed to do. ------ Setting up the whole Pyramid was a little annoying, but it didn¡¯t have to be that big. A ten-stepper was 385 blocks, and I wasn¡¯t going for radius of effect, but intensity of effect. I could totally break Rytheran¡¯s Caster Level, but the Curse he¡¯d made was Legendary-Class, wrought from and with the aid of the Book of Eibhil and the direct touch of N¡¯cthail¡¯s power. Breaking it would require something more. It would require Feeding it to the Land. We made no real secret of what we were doing, as every Paramount Classer from before the Fall, as well as every 200+ in the current times, was invited to help out. The only ones who couldn¡¯t help directly were the Cursed Dead, and even a lot of them stood vigil outside the area as we went to the Graveyard to end it. We didn¡¯t shut down the Spawn Points. Those were the fuel for what we needed to do. Even copious amounts of vivus weren¡¯t going to stop the Curse from working. At dawn at the very latest, any vivic Seals on the Points would disappear and the Cursed Dead would be drawn back here to be reborn as mindlessly savage slaves to the Curse, their deaths ten thousand years ago at the hands of Rytheran continuing in tormented undeath once again. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. They were lured to the center of the graveyard in their waves, and they were killed with vivus, not that it was going to save any of them directly. But vivus did the job of purifying the stone I pulled up out of the ground, and the Pyramid I was putting up. A Pyramid to Hallow this place, and every Cursed Soul within it. Runners swept the place continually, dragging the Skeletal and Ghostly Summons that were appearing ever more quickly as the Pyramid rose. The Curse, a thing backed by the power of an Old One, was semi-sentient and could feel the threat to itself. It replied with ever more Wisps, then the enslaved souls of the Undead legion of Rytheran that had prosecuted this great Curse on the House of Mhoire. The endless Rats that inhabited the tunnels beneath this place were products of the foul magicks here as well, and I brought up an Earth Monolith to close every single den and tunnel under the place, crushing the Rats within them as needed. Soon enough swarms of impossibly tough Rats were erupting out of tombs and burrows and making sure that nobody was bored waiting for anything. Bound to the Graveyard, the Rats couldn¡¯t run any more than the Summons and Cursed Dead here could, and as their lairs and tunnels emptied out, the malevolent little buggers died, too. When the massive boar-sized leaders, the Deathtails, of the various burrows came to the surface one by one, they were double-tapped and Lightningphasing Weapons were there to hack the boss Rats down, despite their rodentine fury and half-phantasmal bodies reeking with necroic energies. The respawns began to occur ever more quickly as the Pyramid rose, white stone gleaming with Runes of pyreal Burning with Holy purpose and energies, gleaming with The Light and each with its own hymn rising into a gentle choral melody. The air was filled with purpose and a Hope that this place had not held for thousands of years. As the undead, corporeal and incorporeal alike, approached the Pyramid, they began to Burn, the Curse no longer enough to allow them ignore The Light of life, or the siren call of the hereafter they had earned. Yet still they came, Burning as they ran to their dooms against the warriors and Casters waiting for them with Vivic Weapons. They were Fed to the Land, and they gave me pure stone to work with I could haul up out of this long-Cursed ground. Three hundred and eighty-five stones, about six and a half hours of work. ------ The ziggurat Pyramid was definitely not Empyrean design, as Empyreans liked their straight angles and merged lines. The stepped version was not found among them, and honestly, Ryin had said, was not as purely good as an actual integrated and perfectly angled Pyramid. It was a WHOLE lot easier to modify and integrate odd stuff into, however. Pure five-sided Pyramids had to be precisely that to take advantage of perfect geometry, otherwise they weren¡¯t any better than a stepped ziggurat. The Summons were coming in waves only a minute apart, slamming into the layered shield wall around the Pyramid rising up behind them. Curiously enough, no attempts were made to shoot at the pure white stone of the Pyramid itself, the scattered spells that had done so having been absorbed and seemingly just empowering the stone more. Kristie Rantha, Princess and Knight-Commander of the Lost Light, was ripping her way through the Cursed Dead, both the afflicted Mhoire Skeletons and Rytheran¡¯s own trapped pawns, also betrayed and abandoned by their master. The fact they were ablaze with vivus and Holy energies helped some, but these were tough undead and it actually took several minutes for the softly glowing Silver Flames to Burn one of them down. The Flames did seem to make them even more vulnerable to Fire attacks, so Firephasing Weapons were reaping basically everything here quickly enough, keeping them from reaching the Pyramid. She noted that Briggs had the whole defense clearly in hand (as expected), rotating out the members of the shield wall regularly, and even resting the Archers on their Disks in rotations to prevent fatigue. Any mages not in direct Healing and Revitalization mode were in Aurora Stances and group meditations to get their Mana back as fast as possible, a necessity with the sheer number of Curse-driven creatures assaulting the lines. It was still daylight, but the gathering energies of the Curse trying to fend off the Hallowing were trying to darken the skies, being beaten back by The Light. The Lost Light of a hundred Weapons were blazing in tune to the Sublime Chorus, and Kris had been Singing with it for hours, too, although not always the Trembling Song. Hey, Rantha endurance applied to vocal chords, too. Her sisters could gab for hours and hours¡­ But now, the final block was forming. Everyone could feel it, a pricking on the skin as something awesome and powerful was coming together. An edifice of stone that would have taken muscle and tools days, weeks, even months to assemble was nearly completed, and when it did¡­ This damn Curse would scream! ¡°TREMBLE.¡± The word hung in the air, the Truth, Hope, and Valor of the Sublime Chord echoing about it. No fear for her fellow warriors, only growing awe and wonder. ¡°A new day, and a new night. A final end to a meaningless fight. Today we crack the Doom, we rend and break the Loom, Of Fate¡¯s most wretched sights. Tremble, ye Souls now bound.¡± The incoming undead, programmed and forced to fight, compelled by an ageless and uncaring hand, slowed and quivered as they came to a halt, for that stone was rising, and something was building in the air, and in their souls. ¡°Tremble, for Hope you¡¯ve found. ¡°Tremble, for Truth be now in sight, ¡°Peace once denied, the end of your fight. ¡°Tremble, warriors, for She Comes to welcome you home.¡± Serene and radiating a gleaming, soft Silver Light, the ten-foot block of Rune-worked stone slid into place atop the Pyramid. Something broke in the air. The sensation of some awful, horrid twisting of Fate and Destiny shattering sent everyone wobbling at the feeling of something essential, something central to all of existence being perverted¡­ and now shattered. The surrounding undead sank to the ground. Burning limbs rose up in supplication to the building softness of that Light that reached out for them with gentle hands, and took them up and beyond that perversion¡¯s reach. AF Chapter 478 – Thinning the Opposition The Glory Award for ending the Doom of the Mhoires wasn¡¯t received until we cleared out four Dungeons there: Castle Mhoire, the Jester¡¯s Prison, the Mhoire Armory, and Lord Mhoire¡¯s Tomb. There were other, lesser Dungeons, but the Hallowing of the Pyramid of the Graveyard was clearing them without us needing to investigate. All of the older Paramounts had experience in the Graveyard, so the Dungeons were dangerous only if proper care and tactics were not used. Nobody felt like truly dying, so teamwork and proper tactics executed smoothly were the bragging rights of the day, not soloing something and risking death to do so. Each Dungeon needed a single Block of its own brought up there with a half-dozen Disks to Hallow the place as they went carefully along and finally scoured it, fitting the Block into the Divine protection being fitted over this place. Once it was done, and we¡¯d cleared out any real undead and lingering unbound spirits (the Lord, the Lady, the Child, the Smith, the Jester¡­ just, ugh) with respect, the Hallowing of the Graveyard meant any Summons coming in anywhere there would Burn away as they arrived and be sent off to the hereafter. Soon enough, there would be no spirits here to manifest, the Spawn Points warped by the Curse of Eibhil would return to their original locations and functions, and this place would return to its natural functions. ------- Then, then it was time for some vengeance. The Fall had been eighteen years ago, but nobody had forgotten the forces that had hounded us. We¡¯d cleared them back out of Osteth, and we were watching, but we hadn¡¯t reclaimed the whole land, because we didn¡¯t have the people to do so. What we did have was a rebuilt core of Paramounts and aspiring Paramounts, backed by Class Levels, burgeoning magic both new and long-lost returned to the light, and a bellyful of resentment that seeing all those spirits released from a Curse that had doomed and damned a noble House that simply didn¡¯t want to be ruled by undead for ten thousand years had only lit another smoldering fire under. It was time to take advantage of me not killing a certain noble revenant lord some time back, and the Scrying I¡¯d done intermittently since then. There were a lot of Dungeons and strongholds of the undead, shadows, and virindi in the Direlands, no longer sequestered in Aetheric space, exposed and obvious in their locations, possibly well-defended and occupied, possibly really vulnerable if you decided not to walk in the front door, and, oh, instead made assaults from the sides or bottom via the services of someone who could Shape a whole godsdamned lot of stone. Interdictions, Stillflight Fields, Divinatory disruptions. Paths of escape shut off, dimensional travel stopped, flying halted, and any notifications to outside forces gone quiet, we started going in and hitting the many, many bases that Scrying and careful follow-up scouting had located, and we went after them. There were precious few signs that anything was happening at any of the locations at all. If an alarm sounded inside, it tended to draw exterior guards inside to be killed. Any that stayed outside were brought down as quietly and with as little flash as possible. Once they were cleaned out, they were looted, and then I filled them in, stone flowing in to reclaim that which had been displaced, wiping away any trace that the undead had ever been there. The only thing that might be left were some surface defenses, all built around ramps to the underground and tunnels or wells going deep that were no longer there. Equal parts distracted by the witch-hunts and rivalries between themselves and their own instinctive lack of urgency about temporary delays, there was little to no response from the undead or the shades until basically the whole of the South Dires was absolutely clear of any of their holdings or bases entirely. By the time they realized those forces weren¡¯t randomly hunting in the Direlands, working the Elemental Fields, or exercising on Freebooter, thousands of undead, shades, and virindi were off the board, their bases were gone, and there was nothing they could do about it. It startled the undead, that was absolutely true. Many unique and noble undead were gone, and did not respawn at all. The shades were more well-informed and believing of what vivus had done, as the souls of their ilk did not return to the Shadow in the Void at all. The virindi lost a good chunk of the Singularity that they didn¡¯t want to lose, and began withdrawing to the Obsidian Plains from their mines and other locations, abandoning the mines and excavations of the Gotrok and Hea entirely as they finally processed what mortal beings with Vivic Weapons could do to them. Abandoned by the virindi, more and more of the Hea withdrew to Marae Lassel, some of them even returning to families in Osteth, and the virindi did not stop them or choose to follow. Likewise, with their virindi patronage drying up, the remnants of the Gotrok had mines producing ore that nobody was buying or trading for, and their circumstances grew grimmer by the day. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. There was a chance that the forces we were fighting with could find some level of common cause, it was true. But, Bael¡¯Zhaon¡¯s people weren¡¯t going to ally with any of the undead, and had little but disdain for the virindi. The undead could barely hold their seething anger in check under the heavy hands of Rytheran and Geraine, both of whom the Gelidites loathed. The virindi themselves were utterly pragmatic and dismissive of the chaotic minds of mortal organic beings, and also extremely wary of the effects of permanently losing portions of the Quiddity and the Singularity. Thus, there was no alliance as such, merely withdrawal of lines of conflict and the raising of defenses against further incursions, not that they knew how the earlier attacks had been executed. -------- The last stones flowed down into the ground and out of existence, reducing the proud castle down to a level white clearing of stone. The walls, bailey, and keep were gone, flowing down to fill in the expansive dungeons and chambers below that had been carved out of this mountain atop which it sat. The last trace of the Mhoires was gone, save for the floating Empyrean Battle Platform that had once floated over the place. Harlune had quietly come in, taken over control of it, and floated it south to Candeth Keep, where it had been turned into a mobile artillery and missile platform for the Keep there to use. The Stillflight Fields around the Keep kept it very low to the ground, but it was still a mobile troop transport capable of shuffling rapidly around the Keep¡¯s walls to face any intruders. Also, a sign that we could take the creations of the undead and use them for ourselves as needed. Kris was there as the last of Mhoire Keep receded into the stone and was gone. She walked over to the edge, and looked out over the graveyard below. The various mausoleums, monuments, and buildings of the Graveyard had been unmade, the spaces below them filled in. What remained was an expanse of green grass, thick and lush, with trees already starting to poke through here and there under the encouragement of the vivus. Silver Flames Burned here and there as Hallowed Summons were quietly incinerated and crumbled down, freeing their spirits and Feeding the Land. The only construction was the hundred-foot-high Pyramid of the Mother floating a foot above the ground in the center of the place, glowing a faint Silvery Light as it maintained the Hallowing of the place. ¡°Clean-up is always the best and the worst,¡± she murmured, looking down upon what had been one of the best combat and loot zones in all of Dereth before the Fall, and now was just a quiet monument to the enslaved now freed of a Curse lasting longer than Isparian history. ¡°Not all Evils can be undone, or even buried, but they can still be remembered properly.¡± The history of the Mhoires, such as I knew of it, was among the runescape around the perimeter of the Pyramid below. ¡°The worst part of it was that ten thousand years was not enough to outlast their tormentors.¡± Kris¡¯s face turned grim. ¡°Oswald had best hurry up on Rytheran¡¯s part, then. Geraine knows he lost his library, there¡¯s some blackened pits where the Dungeons used to be now. The Hea had to vivisize them, they were bleeding Taint.¡± ¡°Well, the shadowy mastermind blew his cool. When he Scried all over the place and couldn¡¯t locate a single book, probably,¡± I guessed. He probably couldn¡¯t conceive that anyone would destroy ALL the books, and that said destruction ended up being the whole goal of the infiltration. I could only imagine the vile things that collection of books had done over the ages, and wonder how many copies of them still existed. Destroying three, four empires of nigh-Eternal beings was a pretty big checkmark on the Evil side of things... ¡°How close are you to Seventeen?¡± Kris asked neutrally. ¡°Five minutes ago. You and Briggs?¡± ¡°Nineteen is just a step away. These big Quests ending ancient foes are like Karmic stew.¡± Fewer Classes to raise helped loads, and that was with them going Deep and Wide all the way through. ¡°Seventeen means you¡¯ve got Nines. How many Slots?¡± ¡°Currently ten.¡± She gave me a funny look. ¡°Base three, standard for a new Valence. Archsorcery, doubles to six. Bonus Slots from Intellect, three. Bonus Slot from Extra Spell Slot Feat, one. Ten total.¡± ¡°Hah! So you¡¯ve got at least sixteen VII¡¯s, then.¡± I nodded once. ¡°How¡¯s your Mana Renewal?¡± ¡°Base Meditation from Aurora Stance divided by ten is 10 per minute. Cantrip Dumping is another 5 per minute. Pyreal Mana Renewal is +85%, Arcane Restoration is +50% to the Renewal Rate, so about 28 per minute in Aurora Stance.¡± ¡°So¡­ you can cast a Rapid Ritual Resurrection once per five minutes, or use and recharge the Staff of the Mother once every how long?¡± ¡°Recharging the Staff requires Valence Burn, so all it does is save time. If you can¡¯t Cast the VII, you lose a Valence Tier on the recharge, so it takes a LOT of lesser spells to give it a recharge, and ten minutes per charge in Meditation¡­ which is damn fast, especially for not requiring gold,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Mmm,¡± she agreed with a nod. Putting charges in most things was basically similar to initially enchanting in that respect. ¡°But that means you can easily do a hundred of the Cursed Dead a day now.¡± ¡°Faster, if it can be done near an active Standing Stone set, like in Holtburg. That¡¯s roughly 45 mana a minute, if you recall.¡± ¡°Ah, right, yes. You set up that branch of the Matrix Magery school in Rithwic just to take advantage of the Henge there.¡± ¡°It is obscenely good for rep counts,¡± I agreed calmly. ¡°I pop into the one in Holtburg whenever I need to accumulate Rep Counts for higher Valences. Best is that it works passively, you just need to stand there and get filled back up.¡± ¡°Ten per minute is unreal back on Ispar, and yet so damn slow if you have the Transfer spells instead.¡± ¡°And no Pool Burn for using them or the Boosts,¡± I agreed. ¡°On the flip side, none of the undead or virindi can use them, either, and that is insanely valuable to us. I¡¯ll take Meditation over intelligent enemies with unlimited mana and insane mana renewal.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t argue against that, even as a Null. The Caster Levels of the creatures here are as insane as their hit points.¡± I just snorted at that. ¡°What?¡± she smiled. ¡°You broke a thousand on combined hit points, didn¡¯t you?¡± I just sniffed. Double canines gleamed. ¡°Rantha Hag Levels are so damn sweet, you gimpy human you!¡± she admitted cheerfully. ¡°You¡¯re harder to kill than an ancient dragon, and complaining about inordinately powerful creatures here.¡± I just rolled my eyes. ¡°Awww, just because it cuts into your abilities to wipe out entire armies of things that aren¡¯t undead!¡± she rebutted cheerfully. AF Chapter 479 – The VOD ¡°So, we¡¯re going after the OP next?¡± I had to ask. The strategic considerations of securing the south of the Direlands against massive attack was behind the elimination of the strongholds of shades and undead there. Both forces had over ten times the number of forces in the northern Direlands, leaving everyone wondering how Fort Tethana had ever managed to survive there. The virindi, conversely, were centered in the Obsidian Plains. Neither the undead nor the shades were going to lift a finger to save the axiomatic hive-creatures, aberrant outsiders that they were. They were unwanted in the first place, and simply shouldn¡¯t have been on this world at all, let alone for a good two generations. ¡°No. The Valley of Death.¡± I frowned. ¡°Two Dungeons in the Valley, one dangerous, one not really, but the toughest land spawns in all of Dereth. They¡¯ve never been seen outside of there, so why are we worrying about them?¡± ¡°Personal favors, more than anything.¡± I lifted an eyebrow. ¡°There¡¯s Tremendous Monuga spawns in there, which means TM¡¯s slaved to the System. Tim would like the chance to speak to his elders, if we can release them. ¡°There¡¯s also an incredibly tough tusker called an Obliterator. King Bobo would like speak to it, if at all possible.¡± ¡°Okay¡­¡± ¡°There are powerful lugian and Hea champions there, stronger than any others in the Direlands or elsewhere, yet nowhere in their tales are there any so powerful. King Kresovus and the Hea shamans would like to know if they are enslaved souls enhanced like the Withered are, or champions of their peoples who can also be freed.¡± I sighed as I put my palm to my forehead. ¡°Being heroic types is such a goddamn pain in the arse at times. We opened such a can of worms recovering those souls.¡± ¡°The first of them should be regaining their mortality within the month now, including Bunita,¡± she reminded me. ¡°They¡¯ll be extremely motivated to grow stronger.¡± ¡°They should be motivated to have more children,¡± I sniffed in return. ¡°Bringing back the dead is is not the best way to increase the population, and there¡¯s a whole lot of land to be occupied we don¡¯t have the numbers to hold¡­ or the people to hold it for.¡± ¡°Not arguing, just noting the reality of the situation. Most interestingly, we have a similar request from the dragons concerning the gromnies in the Valley of Death.¡± ¡°The gromnatrosses want to know if they can recover gromnies from the System?¡± I asked, shaking my head. ¡°I imagine the gromnie spawns in the Valley are near the level for sapience, then¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s what they passed on.¡± She glanced at me curiously. ¡°You¡¯ve made exactly zero attempts to meet any of them, which hasn¡¯t gone unnoticed, especially when you¡¯re the one who brought the Viridian Rise back into the world.¡± ¡°I have no plans to get myself involved in the inscrutable aims of dragons, benevolent or otherwise. Let¡¯s just say I inherited a cool disdain of dragons from Aelryinth.¡± ¡°There¡¯s dragons back on Earth?¡± she asked, surprised. ¡°Invaders. Like all the other invaders, they are killed when they are found. Unsurprisingly, dragons don¡¯t like being treated like vermin. They went and tried a direct strike against Ael¡¯s home and killed his firstborn daughter.¡± ¡°Oh. And by your expression, using a method where she couldn¡¯t be brought back¡­¡± ¡°They had help from both the Unseelie and Hell.¡± Those memories were really vivid and painful, because Ael had REALLY high Stats on the mental side, and his emotions about those things were superhumanly intense. ¡°Ael and his wife both have Dragon-names, given to them because of the number of dragons they¡¯ve slain. I don¡¯t have that Name, but I have no doubt I have the echo of it, and dragons are one of the few creatures I actually enjoy killing. ¡°The gromnatrosses are described as noble and fairly benevolent. Nobody needs them feeling the echoes of the deaths of dragons about me and wondering in horror how I killed so many of their kin.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure they would understand the circumstances, especially the fact that dragons elsewhere are no better in their behavior than their savage children, while being just as smart as they are?¡± Kris offered. ¡°It¡¯s something I¡¯d rather not put up with until I have to, given how much other stuff is on my plate. The rage involved in those memories would likely kill a normal person, Kris. You¡¯ve not had to put up with that manner of loss yet, but can you imagine your or Briggs¡¯ reaction if one of your defenseless children was slain in front of you?¡± She looked away, considering. ¡°Post-30 Charisma scores?¡± she finally answered. ¡°Everything quietly gets put aside, and then whoever did that dies, and any who stand with them.¡± ¡°Right. So every time I see a dragon of any kind, I see one of the things that killed his daughter. I have a very unfavorable attitude, and I don¡¯t need to be showing it if I¡¯ve the choice.¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Understood. They are isolationists, regardless, and if they don¡¯t want to get themselves involved in our problems, then doing little favors for them is all we¡¯re going to do in return.¡± ¡°In any event, I think the odds that their spirits are salvageable are little to none. There¡¯s been no normal gromnies found of that size, probably meaning it takes a long time to evolve that level, and none have done so in any Isparian records,¡± I pointed out. ¡°Just like there¡¯s never been a wandering Obliterator seen anywhere¡­¡± she nodded in understanding. ¡°And only the one Tremendous Monuga Aerbax managed to mutate, and it had to be put down.¡± ¡°Outside the Colosseum.¡± ¡°Outside the Colosseum,¡± she agreed. The late room with double spawns of three Tremendous Monugas had been quite unforgettable for those involved¡­ but that was back when Armor and Life Prots could bounce twenty tons of mass stomping on you somehow. ¡°I will go, of course. Just let me know when. Are we clearing the Spawn Points there?¡± I inquired. ¡°Of course. We¡¯re not sure if they¡¯re going to stay that way, of course, but we can at least try to do so.¡± The Spawn Points being more powerful than normal also tracked. Who knew? ¡°I¡¯m going to get in contact with the Mick¡¯s uncle and Master Ben, and have some additional Cursed Dead gather in Holtburg. A hundred a day should clear all of them up in only a month, I believe.¡± ¡°Not wasting any time, I see,¡± she grinned. ¡°You were talking about some motivated individuals becoming available¡­¡± She laughed. --------- The Valley of Death was an area in the Direlands, just north of the Obsidian Plains. It wasn¡¯t a single Valley, more of a spread of them through the unnaturally steep mountains that made up the area. More than a few of those thousand-foot mounts had Spawns atop them, or Dungeons in the craters of them, in addition to fairly dense spawns of the toughest monster variants in Dereth. Some of the most vulnerable, too, once their armor went negative and your good friends were using the right Element type. Mercy and Merciful Spell weren¡¯t things we commonly used, but they were appropriate in this situation. Both changed inflicted damage to non-lethal subdual damage, which was enough to give us the opportunity to inspect the Summons that we wanted to see if they had intact souls within them. I inspected the Aura of the lugian in front of me. These VoD lugians were actually famous, for they¡¯d been the ones who¡¯d started the whole trend of negative Armor and massively magnified damage. If you used the cold damage they were usually resistant to and their armor went negative with Imperils, their armor magnified the damage done to them by a factor of seven or so, and they died with incredible speed. The local rhino-sized gromnies and gator-sized armoredillos died pretty much the same way. Most of the other creatures had to be double-tapped with Vulns and Imperils both to soften them up to a reasonable level of x4-5 damage. ¡°There¡¯s a very old soul in here,¡± I admitted. ¡°Based on the pull, I¡¯d say a minimum of five hundred years dead. ¡°The Aura is also Brown, basically at the level of a trained animal. There¡¯s no Name that I can see or discern here. By one means or another, this soul has been largely wiped of identity and is just a tool of the System now. Using vivus would be a mercy, releasing it to the Land and reincarnation at this point.¡± Vanguard Kopf sighed heavily, standing there as the lugian representative of this inspection. ¡°That is horrible news from a moral standpoint¡­ but not as disappointing as having to finish off the Gotrok Summons in the Direlands,¡± the big lugian said roughly. ¡°Not finding lugians loyal to their kin and kind slaved to the System after death was actually a very, very good thing in my eyes,¡± I replied softly to that. ¡°To think I had been killing loyal heroes who died defending their king and people, dragged out of the past and made to serve the System¡­ that would have been horrible, Elder Kopf.¡± The big blue guy¡¯s jaw worked a moment at that observation. ¡°I had not considered those two facts. The knowledge that we are not releasing the Gotrok enslaved to the System save to their proper warrior¡¯s fate is another blow to the leadership of the rebels.¡± ¡°Indeed. I regret this is not good news of itself¡­ actually, this is very bad news on the higher level. The System has had access to lugian souls for at least five hundred years¡­¡± Kopf grunted, then sneered. ¡°A true thief of souls, stolen from our homeworld?¡± he realized. ¡°Ancient heroes, back when the Tukora were truly valiant, caught and doomed to this fate?¡± I watched him shudder as I finished my inspection of the second of the three here, shook my head, and moved to the last one. The results were similar. Ancient souls, the last one at least seven hundred years old, wiped out by either time, multiple incarnations, or the power of the System, just a programmed shell to gather ectoplasm around. Once a soul headed to its afterlife, now caught and tasked to slavery by the System for who knew what reason. How the lugian had come here was another consideration entirely. How long had the System truly been taking heroes from other worlds like this? There were no Isparians among these spawns, and the only spawns with them we¡¯d found were basically based on those who had immigrated here, none taken from Ispar itself. At least that we knew of. I got to my feet, looking over as the team hacked down enormous grievvers, larger than any I¡¯d seen elsewhere in Dereth. The Lenses in the Wand Chambers of the Roaches were spread between all the Elements now, allowing everyone to take up Debuff duty, depending on the proper Element to use on each foe here. Hundig had the Slashing Lense, and had softened up the massive spidery creatures for the rest of the team, with the Mick handling the Imperils for them for the moment. Kris usually focused on opening up Attacks of Opportunity for everyone on multiple foes at once, driving the Wolfpack Engine to greater killing speed. The Lenses were the new hot item for everyone to imbue with their pyreal bar allocations once their value was made apparent. Tool-users using their best tools, and helping free up the Casters to put their mana where it was needed¡­ which now could include more War Magic as desired. The Mick was having fun taking on these old foes again with his new equipment and tactics, and yes, he had soloed several of the spawns here with enthusiasm. The creatures going negative Armor were particularly vulnerable to him once he had the right Element going¡­ I surveyed the area, unworried about the Roaches. They had become a lot more melee-focused of late, although none of them were anything but deadly archers. The Lenses and the Wolfpack techniques made personal combat much more more effective, although it demanded more Healing on them¡­ but that was what Healing Edge, Combat Vigor, and such things were useful for... AF Chapter 480 – The Obsidian Plains A week later¡­ The Obsidian Plains. A long time ago, a fellow named Bael¡¯Zharon was really badly treated by the Yalaini Empire, swore vengeance, and made a Pact with the Shadow in the Void, effectively becoming the mortal avatar of an Old God and suddenly as powerful as any Empyrean alive. He shadow-bombed whole Yalain armies and forcibly turned them into shades to follow him, as well as civilian men, women, and children. The Yalain set a trap for him at one of their magical academies, the Jailne Lyceum. He entered it, and there was a monstrous explosion that wiped out all the participating archmages, save one Asheron Reladain, and banished Bael¡¯Zharon from the mortal world¡­ tossing the problem into the future for later generations to deal with in the true Empyrean way. It also created a massive field of black stone, warped magic, weird hexagonal crystals, alien mushrooms, and really unpleasant elemental interactions that for some reason overly intelligent spellcasters found really interesting. It was a place where the soil was burned black with Arcane Fire and Shadow residues, where the weather could be Hell on earth, cut by canyons scattered like careful cracks in the world, and a lot of really dangerous stuff lived there, just to keep things interesting. The virindi loved the place and set it up as their base of operations, especially the center of the place. Above the center of the OP floated a weird laboratory/base, taken over by Aerbax the renegade as its Citadel, a powerful virindi who got a wee bit too interested in alternate and corrupted forms of energy, and even tried to form its own Quiddity and Singularity. Everyone had hoped it was dead and trapped in the System, bound to that floating laboratory, but that was not the case. The locus and concentration of the virindi, plus the machinations of otherworldly powers irked at them, unleashed the rynthids, ancient Chaotic enemies of the virindi who embodied the emotions they so despised, upon them, somehow freeing elements of the species from the great Aestral prison the virindi had finally trapped them in. They rapidly began to affect everyone in the Obsidian Plains, including the virindi themselves. The rynthid never spread outside the OP, and nobody had much gone into the Plains after magic went crazy. Going in there without excellent Gear was a death sentence, as the virindi were not much affected by the changes to magic and certainly not the destruction of Gear. Their aetherium reserves, sure, but that was a different problem. The Black Hills, the strange mountain-plateaus around the OP, formed a lot of flat-topped surfaces scored by the fallout energies of the imprisonment and de-powering of Bael¡¯Zharon, as well as the personal holdings/Dungeons/strongpoints of dozens of undead lordlings, and later shades who seized those holdings or made their own. Nobody knew that, of course, for such were hidden and private, accessed only by those knowing the proper spells to Recall into them. With no way to fly, explore, look for dimensional connections, or the like, they were just the Black Hills, weird and mysterious. The Fall had brought all of those secret hiding places crashing back into reality, and now the Black Hills were topped by a whole lot of Empyrean fortifications, bunkers, and buildings, all of them leading down into the plateaus beneath them, where undead and shades pursued their own goals in the darkness, despising one another, yet not enough to wage war across the canyons between themselves. They still didn¡¯t know how to fly or Linejump to any extent, see. My orbital survey hadn¡¯t revealed anything of that, of course. Massive illusions and magical obscurement, plus fallout from the burning of an Old God¡¯s power, covered the whole thing and made details from anything from over a few hundred meters in the air a blurred mess, the whole area swimming with anti-divinatory stuff and disruptive influences that turned subtle magic on its ear. The sudden elemental storms that whipped themselves up out of nowhere weren¡¯t much fun, either, but hey, just hide behind the obsidian crystals sticking up out of the ground, or the gigantic mushrooms which somehow still grew there, and you¡¯d be just fine. The OP itself was largely accessed by the few canyons that cut through the Obsidian Rim, the towering straight wall of fused black rock looming hundreds of feet into the air, forming an unnatural and very circular neo-crater around the place. The town of Wai Jhou was known for having one of those canyons nearby, with a Deathstone for easy resurrection close by if you were killed. The town and the stone were gone, but the canyon was still there, and really, no reason not to clear off the former before taking advantage of the latter. ------ The last of the markers was pounded into place atop a Spawn Point that existed within the former town of Wai Jhou, obviously indicating that the place had never been meant as a training facility or settlement, and someone was just half-mad for setting it up. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Hey, there was a Deathstone, had to be a good place, right? The Skeeters and Roaches were both on hand for this probing mission. Someone had to get in and see what was going on here, even if we didn¡¯t want to. Furthermore, if we wanted to push the virindi and probably the rynthids off the world, we¡¯d have to do so from the Obsidian Plains where their ties to Dereth were the strongest. Axiomatic energy beings and thus Aberrants, the virindi despised anything that was subject to emotions and any form of chaotic behavior, which included almost all mortal beings. They were willing to make use of us, of course, being completely pragmatic about such things, but had no valuation of us outside that use, no respect for life, and nothing like honor or morality. There was only the hunt for more data, more information, and fighting against the Chaos of existence. The Mick had a Lived-Line tie here, but in the interests of being able to get here on demand, naturally the first trip was made overland to get everyone at least access to a canyon up into the place. That also gave us access to the Rim Swamp that circled the entire place somehow, vaguely draining off near Wai Jhou to the east. When heading up to the Valley of Death, everyone had basically gone overland from the Graveyard, taking the opportunity to head west to Wai Jhou (the nearest settlement), swing into the Rim Swamp, circle north and west, and then proceed between the Black Hills into the Valley itself. Double duty, it allowed us to Teleport back closely to the canyon we needed here without making a separate trip. The shades, like the many Direland creature spawns we¡¯d encountered on the way, most of them of multiple powerful creatures of their types we¡¯d met along the Rim, didn¡¯t last very long. ¡°Not going to go right up the Rim and make an instant impact?¡± I asked Briggs as the two teams finished their quick review of the remains of the town, basically reduced to blasted ash and moldering remnants after a generation of War Magic and random elemental storms had pounded Wai Jhou down. ¡°No. According to the Mick, the outer and inner areas of the Obsidian Plains are divided by another set of blast craters. The virindi are strongest in the center, while the rynthid infested the Spawn Points outside the area and the Inner Rim. We have no idea how matters are, so going through the canyons and ascertaining the balances of power is more important than trying any vivisizing of the landscape as yet.¡± I could only agree. Vivus was plainly hostile to virindi who died, consuming their energies and not allowing them to return to their collective. The virindi could use the Spawn Points to their advantage, and did so relentlessly, hence their strong grip on the center of the OP historically. None of the other forces had been able to chase them off, as the Spawn Points remained committed to popping up more virindi, and no one before us had the power to Seal them. We had little doubt they¡¯d fight tooth and nail to stop us from Sealing the Spawn Points in the Center, too, but if we did so, we could cripple their grip on the world, as their ¡®living¡¯ members numbered nowhere near what their Summons did. They just tended to be more powerful, which was fine by their Singularity. ¡°How did King Bobo take the news?¡± I asked him. He and Briggs had struck up a decent friendship, particularly after Briggs threw the Tusker King across his own audience chamber without much effort, and had proven able to arm-wrestle Mowen. ¡°Disappointed, but not unexpected.¡± The spirits of the four Obliterators we¡¯d found had been at least a thousand years old, maybe older. They didn¡¯t seem to be artificial, but like Tremendous Monugas, the final evolution of a race native to these islands. ¡°Perhaps they are related to how the TM¡¯s are made, perhaps not.¡± We¡¯d only found two of the TM Summons in the Valley, brought both down with Mercy, but again, the spirits were over five hundred years old and basically mindless. Tim had no peers in all of Dereth. Paul the TM and Babe the Blue Auroch up in the north notwithstanding. They were basically magical automatons; the sight of them endlessly piling up tree trunks that vanished from the stack and reappeared to be cut down again, engaging in that mindlessly for decades now, had been extremely heart-breaking to Tim. Paul was also ungodly tough, if not dangerous. It took two full squads an hour to do enough damage to bring down him and his auroch, mostly because the two of them were completely immune to magic¡­ at least until they died, and the vivus had kicked in and Burned them away. Then Tim had picked up that massive lumberman¡¯s axe, chopped down those goddamn trees, and we¡¯d seared the stumps with vivus and fire, making damn sure they didn¡¯t grow back! We had even reported back to the Hea on the spirits of the champions found in the Valley of Death, none of whom were less than two hundred years dead. It appeared that the System here had been stealing souls for far, far longer than they had believed. It had been an interesting time, sweeping the Valley completely clean as far as we could tell, and then delving the Dungeons to wipe and Seal them as well. The mukkir-infested Dungeon was particularly unsettling and large, taking a long time to cleanse and bury¡­ Nobody expected the spawns here to be as dangerous as the Valley of Death, but the difference was that real virindi and other forces could be here, and command the Summons. There were a LOT of virindi mixed forces, comprised of lesser virindi, minions, and tuskers just down here in the Rim Swamp, and they popped up more frequently and closer together up in the OP. There was a reason nobody challenged the virindi here. Not even Master Oswald had gone up into the OP without really good reason during the Fall. Virindi having the ability to sense active magic made stealth magic extremely counter-effective here, after all. ¡°Bad feeling, Fuzzy?¡± Kris asked, stepping up with us as everyone prepped to cross the swamp and enter the canyon on the other side waiting for us. ¡°This place is like a magical atomic blast site. The shit we¡¯re going to have to do to Cleanse the place is going to really suck,¡± he said, shaking his head, then tilting his ear at the sound of distant, crackling thunder. ¡°The job is to test the strength of what is present and see if we can clear a road into the place, not to clean them all off,¡± Kris stated firmly. ¡°You don¡¯t think we¡¯ll have a problem with that, do you?¡± Briggs shook his head. ¡°No. I¡¯m considering that there could be complications from unforeseen outside vectors.¡± Kris and I both were silent as we considered that, but her only for a moment. ¡°Sounds like fun, Fuzzy!¡± she grinned wildly, and he could only grunt and smile with her. AF Chapter 481 – Dude, Everything is OP Here… ¡°Controller on the hilltop! Due south!¡± Briggs called out, Endure crashing down in a cleaving arc of angry Lost Light that chopped a Dark Phantom diagonally in half, continuing over to slam through a Panumbris and sending the disintegrating remnants of the shade flying backwards to crash in an eruption of vivus against the canyon wall. ¡°Hundig! Kick him down and follow!¡± I swore, flicking up the Dimension Door. The Saber-wielding Gharu¡¯n Roach dove through the square of blackness. A second later a somehow whispery scream sounded as a figure made of blackness came hurtling over the edge of the cliff above us, followed by Hundig diving right after him, avoiding half a dozen blasts of vari-colored War Magic as he did so. There was just a beat as Endure intercepted the real shade in midair and blasted him hard against the stone of the cliff face before bouncing back to Briggs¡¯ hand. That didn¡¯t help the shade there at all, Hundig sweeping past it in mid-roll and venting a good chunk of his falling damage by ripping his Saber Qamar through the inky darkness of the thing in a perfect cut of Lost Light and vivic fire, before a casual flaring of his Cloudstepping Sandals Tats stopped him only a few feet above the ground. Then he was on the ground and running back into the fight. The small horde of shades rippled as the controller above died, and everyone in combat promptly disengaged coolly, or finished off their current opponents in a blur of Weapons-play and then hopped back. The Summoned shades wavered, and then turned around and began hurrying back the way they¡¯d come, their Spawn Points their only destination now with the lack of a living commander. Over a score of dead shades littered the area, vivus killing them extra quickly with the combination of shadow and ectoplasm making them pretty much ideal fuel for the unwhite fires. The same number were heading off down the canyon now, ignoring any injuries in their hurry to head home. There was no benefit to killing Summons off their Spawn Points, except possibly for some Naming Karma we didn¡¯t need, or a bit of fuel for Isparian Levels. ¡°Annoying bastards,¡± Kris mused, eyes elevated with everyone else to scan the tops of the canyons. ¡°Can confirm they didn¡¯t act quite so clever in the past, Highness,¡± the Mick related. ¡°That¡¯s four times now, an¡¯ quite the control range. Ye think they play war games against one another here, or summat?¡± ¡°They definitely don¡¯t want to see us here.¡± Briggs had a thoughtful expression as he looked over our backtrail. ¡°Thirty-seven group Spawn Points in only a mile. A busy place,¡± I mentioned, waggling Crown at Mizaya, who hastened to come up and start taking some Healing Reserve while we sat there. Motes of Lost Light started to pump into the Sho Roach and rapidly mend up a cut on her cheek and doubtless some bruising on her chest from the umbris that had been pounding on her. The half-dozen others needing Healing lined up behind her, while everyone else got into Aurora Stances and focused on getting back any expended mana used through Lenses. Our back trail was a combination of Shaped Markers and broad white spots in the sands of the canyon floor, most coming from a lot of vivified Summons dying on their points of origin. The three really big splotches had been more of these hordes being directed to attack us by real controllers. One had been a Virindi Master commanding waves of banderlings and drudges down here, the others had stayed up high and had to be killed up there or brought down here. ¡°Final assessment, Mick?¡± Briggs asked coolly, making no move to advance. ¡°Assess Critter be confirming what I be thinking. There be some manner o¡¯ ¡®Dires¡¯ boost t¡¯ everythin¡¯ we be fightin¡¯ so far, weren¡¯t there before. Umbris an¡¯ panums should be perhaps two hits, tops, and one with a crit. Taking two crits, four normal blows to eat ¡®em through, an¡¯ they be hitting harder an¡¯ more accurately.¡± He raised a hand, turning around and meeting eyes. Heads nodded, and his fingers came up to count those agreeing with him. Everybody basically nodded. They¡¯d all fought variants of these creatures down further south, even right outside the Obsidian Plains. Somehow they were all twice as tough inside the Rim. ¡°Any reason for not seeing any Rynthids?¡± I inquired, glancing up at the walls above as Kopf clasped Crown and started getting rid of the results of three blasts of War Magic from the side and to his face. I¡¯d actually had to do combat Heals of him and Gros, the two lugian Vanguards stoically tanking for the group. Hundreds of blasts of War Magic had slammed into their Shields so far today, ¡®properly seasoning them¡¯, as the lugians liked to say. ¡°Nay. In me day back then, they Spawned low in the canyons, as well as up top on the Inner Rim.¡± He squinted up at the walls, considering. ¡°Are they up there?¡± he asked me. I didn¡¯t interrupt the Reserve, summoning up an Eagle¡¯s Vantage and tossing it into the sky two hundred paces up above us and displaying the results in the /Marktell for the Fellowship here. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. They all watched its view of us recede as the point of light gained height, and then spin to survey the blackened lands far above us. There were points of light in the darkness, as well as splotches of colorful furs and war paint. ¡°Aye, the wild colors dancing, there an¡¯ there, for starters,¡± the Mick indicated, pointing mentally at Spawn Points as I revolved the view. ¡°Ye can see the static glows o¡¯ the Hollow Minions¡¯ fists.¡± ¡°No olthoi spawns, Mick,¡± Kris remarked. ¡°Aye, same as down here. Another change with no reason.¡± There were hundreds of spawns in visible range. It wasn¡¯t quite as bad as the northern Hlaetians had been, but it was still very impressive¡­ and probably close to being as dangerous. We hadn¡¯t found a clear normal way up out of the canyons, and the nearest turn going further towards the center was another half a mile ahead of us. It would eventually rise up to the surface as it closed on the Center. ¡°What do you think of pulling out now and seeing what happens, Magos?¡± Briggs asked me as my Vantage completed a full circuit. ¡°We need a lived-line connection to the top of the place regardless, I could zip up and establish a Seal Focus up there, and I think we should all get it, too. The main concern you have is if the forces here intend to break the Seals on the Spawn Points, I believe?¡± ¡°Yes, we want a clear road to the Center if we can make one,¡± he confirmed. ¡°I believe they don¡¯t even have to make that decision.¡± I waved my hand at the canyon floor. ¡°Logically, this should all be covered with black dust and erosion from the higher elevations coming down.¡± Everyone looked up and around, digesting that. Kris crouched down and scraped her fingers through the ground. ¡°Sandstone mostly,¡± she judged, her pale violet eyes narrowed. ¡°There¡¯s basically none of the energies in the stone up top down here at all. That¡¯s not right.¡± There¡¯d been two storms up top while we¡¯d been hackfesting our way along here, after all. ¡°The effects of the storms are really minor down here, too¡­¡± Like, we barely had to worry about the acid rain from the first storm. ¡°There¡¯s a slow but constant energy flow moving along the canyons, and its effects are fighting against the wild magic up top,¡± I surmised. ¡°Given that constant pressure, I¡¯m going to assume it slowly forced any Rynthids up top.¡± ¡°And it¡¯s going to wipe the vivic Seals and open the spawn points up at dawn?¡± Briggs guessed quickly. I pointed at him. ¡°Point! So I believe.¡± ¡°Mmm. Does that make this fruitless?¡± he frowned, not pleased by that possibility. ¡°No, but it does mean we have to take another step,¡± I shook my head. ¡°We have to Mark them with ongoing vivus, don¡¯t we?¡± Kris said, her arms crossed as she looked back at the way we¡¯d come and the striped Markers on them. ¡°Vivic Eternal Lights or something similar?¡± ¡°Two points to the Hag Princess!¡± I nodded. ¡°It will make it obvious what is happening and easier to stop. Not too hard to destroy an Eternal Light Marker if you are inclined, then just let the flow of mana uncork the Spawn Point for you.¡± ¡°And of course we helpfully tell them right where to do that.¡± Kris rolled her eyes dramatically. ¡°Kind an¡¯ considerate folk that we be,¡± the Mick half-laughed at the irony of it. ¡°We¡¯ve got most o¡¯ the combat information we wanted, Commander, save the Rynthids, an¡¯ we can¡¯t find that down here.¡± There were none of the wild lights anywhere in the canyon¡¯s spawns ahead of us. ¡°Then we go up as soon as we can¡­ but I want any real creatures up top identified as rapidly as we can.¡± ¡°Make for that Rynthid spawn there.¡± Kris pointed it out in the /Marktell Map. ¡°Our avenue of retreat if we get swarmed is going to be jumping off the edge, so we need to stay close.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t be able to discern living from Summons without direct line of sight, so prep your running shoes once we clear the edge, Kris,¡± I told her with not a little amusement. Quaver rang a stern note immediately. ¡°Always ready,¡± Kris winked at me. ¡°So the Commander swears by.¡± A bunch of eyes widened as that let go, and then Kris was laughing louder than anyone else, while Briggs went beet red. ¡°We can rise up at any time, Commander.¡± The Mick had to spin around and experience a sudden coughing fit at that. Briggs gave him a hairy eyeball at the length of the sudden laughing fit, while everybody else was trying really, really hard not to look at the two of them and keep their faces straight. Kris flowed up behind Briggs and up his back, entwining her arms around his thick neck and proceeding to nibble on his ear. ¡°My Fuzzy is always right in his statements about me,¡± she cooed in his ear, and he groaned in defeat. ¡°Since everyone is concerned about rising to the occasion and is done with Healing, Cloudstepping on. Magos, pop the wings and take us up.¡± Misty vapors swirled around the feet of everyone present, and everyone lined up at the edge of the canyon, hands held to either side. I popped my star-filled Wings, and lifted off the ground. Kris and the Mick grabbed my boots, and with basically no effort I hauled everyone up so they didn¡¯t have to run the distance, Crown scraping the side of the cliff as we ascended, said action imitated by dragging toes to establish Lived-Lines. The shades that had been around our friendly controllers had run off to somewhere as I came up over the edge, the line of our forces spread out to either side and ready to enter combat. They let go of one another and stepped forward onto the black soil, the sands equal parts fused and affected by unclean energies. No Summons within sixty yards. Weapons hissed around, grounded, and unsurprisingly, the ground touched by swirling Motes of misting Lost Light rapidly popped with vivus, poofed white mist, and turned white. ¡°That be not worrisome at all, it be,¡± the Mick said, shaking his head as he looked at the ground. ¡°How many hours did I spend wandering about this place back then?¡­¡± he trailed off. ¡°Controllers,¡± Briggs said, stepping up between Gros and Kopf. Arcane Sight was a case of elimination. Anything not radiating Conjuration magic was basically ¡®real¡¯ here. ¡°Virindi Director, there,¡± I pointed to a mixed squad of virindi, tuskers, and minions, the Executioners being nominally the most dangerous, if you ignored the threat of the hollow attacks from the minions. ¡°Pierce Vuln it. Arrows!¡± Briggs ordered coolly, and the Roaches hopped up on the Disks that peeled out of their Masspacks, multiple Bows and Autobows coming to bear. ¡°Go!¡± Briggs ordered. Harsh yellow light scintillated about the Director. It turned more fully to look at us, started to bow and clasp its sleeves in the monkish Casting motion they used, while the entire spawn of creatures turned my way, staring at me above Briggs and the two Vanguards¡­ and then the arrows came in and swatted the Director dead instantly. It didn¡¯t stop the Summons from charging us, but that was fine. They died quickly. AF Chapter 482 – The Center ¡°Now that is rather a lot of tuskers spawning there. The Hell?¡± Princess Kristie asked, hands on her hips as she surveyed a circle of a good twenty of the bright orange Tusker Guards and Slaves favored by the virindi. They were about a half-mile away at this point, and we weren¡¯t looking at getting any closer. The spawn of Rynthids possessing Minions and Marionettes had proved about twice as tough as the Mick remembered, but they were not much more dangerous on offense. The Vanguards, Briggs, and Kris soaked up most of the magic, and teams took turns bringing them down, testing their defenses and getting a feeling for them, erratic movements and irregular behavior notwithstanding. ¡°Huh!¡± the Mick murmured, examining the cluster. ¡°Twenty years, an¡¯ they still have the trainin¡¯ camps¡­¡± His brow furrowed in thought. ¡°We¡¯d call ¡®em fast-spawns now, I be thinkin¡¯? Lazy folks would sit near them an¡¯ wipe out the entire spawn, then pace themselves killin¡¯ the respawn fer hours an¡¯ hours. Worth doin¡¯ for the Karma an¡¯ not havin¡¯ t¡¯ run around, if ye were a bit brain-damaged. Er, disciplined an¡¯ focused, right, right,¡± he corrected himself, to the amusement of everyone. ¡°Roving spawn coming from the west!¡± Selena sang out from atop her Disk. ¡°Looks like a trio of virindi,¡± she went on, her silver and gold sun Mask of Clarity down and enhancing her eyesight. ¡°They are working around the shade, undead, and rynthid spawns, but the other virindi, tumerok, drudge, banderling, and lugian spawns are all ignoring them.¡± ¡°Now isn¡¯t that interesting,¡± Briggs murmured, stepping up into the air on Cloudstepping Sandals for his own view over the Summons in the way and the odd hexagonal crystal pillars jutting out of the fused black earth here. ¡°It seems spawn neutrality doesn¡¯t work for the virindi here?¡± ¡°They are known for clearing paths in the Dires with their larger forces,¡± Kris reminded him. ¡°The undead, too, as I recall?¡± There was a flash of magic in the distance, and something flared, popped, and died as the Whirling Blade chewed through it. ¡°Wisp bought it,¡± Rogar murmured calmly. ¡°Not neutral, either. No golums in their path, or random Fragments in their way¡­¡± ¡°Ignored by only more than half the spawns in the Dires. Horrible imposition on them,¡± Kris grunted. ¡°They are heading for the spawn circle?¡­¡± ¡°Quick way to get an escort, especially if they are coming this way. Bright trail an¡¯ all,¡± the Mick said, glancing back with everyone else at the swathes of white behind us, and the striped Markers stuck in the ground there. There was motion among the tuskers there, the Summons turning around at a silent command and running over to join the virindi, forming a rough throng around them. A moment later the virindi turned around and headed south, ignoring us as it did so. ¡°One wonders where it is headed with its new escort,¡± the Aluvian Skeeter Fendro wondered, watching it go with all of us. ¡°Also, it¡¯s not deviating for stuff anymore.¡± There was a flash of Vulns and Imperils going off, and the tuskers thundered forward into a trio of Diamond Golums, bashing them apart before they could really fight back at all. ¡°That answers the question about the golums¡­¡± ¡°Shit!¡± I blinked, everyone turning to look at me, and I pointed. ¡°The Summons! They respawned!¡± Everyone¡¯s heads snapped around, watched as magic surged and flashed, and more Tusker Guards and Slaves materialized off the ring in the ¡®training camp¡¯. Eyes bulged in disbelief. We could still see the other Summons! ¡°Well, fuck,¡± the Mick summed up for everyone, puncturing that with a low whistle. ¡°That be not good news, methinks?¡± ¡°They¡¯ve worked out how to sever the link between a Summons and its Spawn Point, while keeping it extant?¡± I slapped my hand to my forehead. ¡°Did all of the virindi depart with that throng?¡± I demanded instantly. Now all the scouts were looking hard that way. ¡°There¡¯s five virindi in the center of the ring. There were only three before!¡± Selena stated hurriedly. ¡°The tuskers are moving¡­¡± We watched the new tuskers turn and peel off under silent command, following another virindi directly after the first group. ¡°Damn,¡± hissed Briggs, staring at that. ¡°First respawn really fast, none since renewal. If it¡¯s a Fast Spawn, then five minutes to the next one.¡± ¡°What happens if the controller is killed? Do the tuskers come back here?¡± Kris asked urgently. ¡°We don¡¯t know. This is unprecedented,¡± I stated coolly. ¡°Kris, go camo and follow them and find out. They have to be fighting an intelligent foe to do that, who¡¯ll focus on taking out the virindi.¡± ¡°Done.¡± Her dark hair swirled like a cloak, shadows drew together out of nothing as she flowed into motion, and then she was gone, like she¡¯d just melted into the background somehow. Even those who¡¯d seen her do it before were impressed by it. ¡°Hiding in Plain Sight. Always a pleasure to see,¡± Briggs half-smiled, making no move to follow, totally confident in Kris¡¯ ability to evade notice. She infiltrated Aerefalle¡¯s Keep, after all. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I, of course, would be sensed with absolute ease by the virindi, as would the other Powered wielding any magic. --- Five minutes passed with inexorable impatience¡­ and nothing happened. Briggs glanced at me. ¡°That might signify something. Another five to a normal spawn. You¡¯re absolutely sure that¡¯s a Fast Spawn site, Lord Mick?¡± ¡°Nope. But I be absolutely sure it WERE a Fast Spawn site twenty years ago, aye.¡± Which was an important distinction. ¡°I also be noting¡­ the Virindi had three Dungeons what were inhabited by loads an¡¯ loads o¡¯ tuskers, the Black Spawn Dens. All of ¡®em were Fast Spawn Dungeons.¡± ¡°Close?¡± Briggs asked, frowning. ¡°Aye, actually. About two miles that way¡­¡± His own Mask came down, black and green, rather catlike. ¡°Were right about¡­ aye, big pit leading out o¡¯ sight¡­¡± he squinted. ¡°Ah, fuck me.¡± Everyone looked in that direction over the blasted landscape. It was a good couple of miles away, but with Masks down all around, everyone could see a couple virindi leading a whole train of tuskers out of the place. ¡°Slaves and Guards again. Almost identical, obviously Summons,¡± Briggs grunted. ¡°There¡¯s at least fourscore of the things¡­¡± ¡°Aye, were plenty o¡¯ them in the Dungeon,¡± the Mick agreed somberly, turning his head to scan the area. ¡°I don¡¯t see any such numbers ahead o¡¯ them, might be a first batch?¡± he hazarded. ¡°Which means the second batch should be really fast,¡± Briggs nodded at the point. ¡°Be a delay in gathering them, likely.¡± ¡°Aye. Lady Roaches, eyes on that Pit, mark the time. Lads, on the landscape, looking for motion.¡± The Mick squinted as he looked around. ¡°They didnae bother taking any o¡¯ the landscape spawns,¡± he noted professionally. ¡°Said spawns are impediments to others trying to get through the area. If they are killed, they might respawn as anything else, right? They only exercise real control in the Center,¡± I spoke up. ¡°That be true.¡± The Mick scratched his jaw. ¡°There be another camp, but it be miles south an¡¯ west o¡¯ us. The other BSD¡¯s are north o¡¯ Ayan and way north and west in the north Dires.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Gotta be some limits on this, Commander. This be too strong. We¡¯ve not been in the Dires t¡¯ see all the conflicts here, aye, but the virindi would be rolling out endless armies without needing to go back t¡¯ Spawn Points for them.¡± ¡°They are fixed Spawn Points,¡± Briggs observed coolly. ¡°So are Dungeons. Are there any other Dungeons that could qualify?¡± The Mick considered that for a minute, running through old Dungeons and adventures in his head. ¡°Two Dungeons flush with Minions: Tumideon an¡¯ Sotiris. One to the north o¡¯ us, other south an¡¯ west.¡± ¡°Across the canyon? ¡°Aye, probably five miles as the crow flies?¡± ¡°So it might take them a while to get here, even if they don¡¯t get tired. We should still see the chorozite effect from a good distance, however.¡± ¡°They weren¡¯t Fast Spawn, as I recall,¡± the Mick pointed out. ¡°The spawning rate might be important, might not be. Fast Spawn will be twice as quick as normal and make a better resource by default. If it is NECESSARY¡­ that¡¯s something else,¡± I interjected. ¡°So, no Minions might mean it¡¯s not possible, or it might mean they just didn¡¯t take any from there. Seeing some, however, means that the fixed spawn is the important thing, not the spawn rate,¡± Briggs nodded. ¡°So, we wait and see, while Kris sees just who exactly is fighting who and why.¡± ¡°And if they send more virindi to gather more forces for the fighting. If they do, they are also showing they are willing to make this a real battle.¡± ---- At about the same time, a new spawn of tuskers popped up around the camp, and a virindi promptly led them off. Selena then called out that more tuskers were coming out of the Black Spawn Den Dungeon in the distance, following after the first line of tuskers heading south. Ten minutes after that, the pink and blue flashes of refined chorozite fists were visible in the distance, and we watched the jerking, twitching purple and green forms of the scarecrow-like Tumideon Minions heading south behind a virindi. Ten minutes later, the twoscore minions were followed by a second run of them. It was a full twenty minutes before the camp respawned again, ten minutes for the Black Spawn Den, and twenty minutes before we saw another run of the Minions. The next spawn was a full forty, twenty, and forty minutes, respectively. The last spawn took a full eighty, forty, and eighty. ¡°Doubling every time. Apparently keeping severed Summons intact takes a load on the System to build up more power. Do you think Natural Renewal wipes them away?¡± Briggs asked me neutrally. ¡°That does seem reasonable, as that¡¯s the point a Spawn Point will reset. At that point, any Summons not actively tied should just dissipate with the dawn. We won¡¯t know until we witness it ourselves, however.¡± Briggs looked south, but the uneven, blasted landscape hid any activity going on in that direction. ¡°Signal to Kris that we¡¯re pulling out of here. We¡¯ll come back tomorrow, check the activity of the Spawn Points that we marked up, and if we have to Light up a path through to the Bore at the Center, so be it.¡± ¡°Firefall incoming from the Bore!¡± the Mick sang out, and our eyes turned to a winding, whirling chaotic flux of magic that was starting to build up to our south-west and the larger line of hills that surrounded the very center of the Obsidian Plains. ¡°Ten minutes, be thinkin¡¯,¡± the Mick said. ¡°Magos, get us out of here. We¡¯ve all got better things to do than wait around watching virindi march reinforcements around.¡± ¡°Yes, sir, Commander Briggs!¡± I acknowledged without batting an eye. He resisted the Kris-urge to noogie me for being so uppity about his rank, and instead just watched as I Shaped up the Circles, everyone picked them in in groups of three, everyone Powered them up, and we were out of there. ------ Princess Kristie Rantha¡­ The run was nothing, staying unseen wasn¡¯t hard. Just keep her Null up and the virindi couldn¡¯t sense her as anything more than dust in motion at best. Kris shadowed the virindi and tuskers as they raced across the landscape south at a good clip, the tuskers easily keeping pace with the floating virindi. She was surprised they ignored many of the spawns of virindi, Minions, and tuskers scattered around, but they did clear away any golum, wisp, shade, or undead spawns that popped up, leading with Imperils and Bludgeon Vulns that made all such things easy prey for the tuskers who raced to the attack to pound them down for their masters. Five miles in, however, the virindi grabbed several other spawns they passed by, the Master taking control and using the lesser virindi to buttress its Casting, probably to save some mana. It looked like they only took the virindi, but the servants came along regardless for a short time, then ambled back to the Spawn Points without new orders, making sure that if the Summoned virindi died, new ones would just spawn in at that point. Good logic and efficiently keeping more virindi on the landscape. AF Chapter 483 – An Emotional Conflict The first spells became visible in the distance, errant or miscast spells going high, or spilling over after hitting something. The trademark of Isparian magic, with its focus on pure Elemental energy damage-dealing, was reassuring, as the pure flexibility and versatile attack methods of the Matrix Method was not something the virindi were using. Soon enough, Princess Kristie crested the third of the intervening hills, and could survey the battle below. ¡°Interesting¡­¡± she murmured under her breath, assessing the situation. It wasn¡¯t an opposed battle-lines and formal conflict of any kind. It was basically a horde smashing into knots of virindi-led forces, which seemed to be arriving basically from the north. More amusing was the fact that dark and scar-masked virindi seemed to be directing numbers of Rynthid-possessed Direlands spawns into these attacks, unleashing upon the virindi non-virindi-derived Summons. The Possessed were tougher, stronger, and more erratically magical than those the Rynthid were wearing, and were giving the more disciplined virindi forces quite the drubbing, even with the virindi Vulning and Imperiling for their forces, or following up with appropriate spells instead of random ones. Sometimes, it looked like Rynthids were leaping to the killers of their hosts, too. The harsh interplay of chaotic lights would jump to one of the tuskers fighting and it would turn against its fellows. Since it could just keep jumping if slain, the virindi would usually blast it dead with a couple spells from a safe distance, but it did affect the lines of tuskers fighting, although the scarecrow-like Minions of multiple varieties seemed to be immune to the emotional corruption. The older adventurers spoke about Aerbax and how that mutant virindi had led a schism against the Quiddity of the virindi race, it, its followers, and a couple other renegades leaving the Singularity and attempting to retain their own individuality and thoughts against the omnipresent hive-mind of the axiomatic race. Kris had little problem sympathizing with that mindset, but since the ¡®free¡¯ virindi didn¡¯t act with any greater morality towards things not of their own race, she had no more support for them than she did for the virindi proper. Gods above, the idiots had tried to rewrite TIME at some point, tryin to ensure that no non-virindi intelligent races ever existed on Dereth. That little attempt at temporal manipulation had failed, but it highlighted the fact that even messing with causality itself was not beyond the limits, power, or will of the species, and so any denizen of the mortal world was totally justified in sending the bastards back where they came from... or just feeding them to the Land. The black shells of the Renegade Virindi indicated at least some investigation into the magic of Void and Shadows. Which fact, after encountering Aerbax on Caul Island, didn¡¯t surprise her in the slightest. The fact they¡¯d found some means to control the Rynthids infesting the spawns in the Obsidian Plains and turn them against their kin only highlighted the depths they¡¯d go to in order to suppress and repel their own kind. The real objective was to kick them ALL off of this plane. Kris watched Possessed banderlings, drudges, undead, and shades fighting it out with tuskers, minions, marionettes, and virindi, with new arrivals streaming in from north and south steadily. There was a line of blue and white Minions coming from the west, and another group of them was coming from the north now, too, their chorozite fists glittering blue and pink and ready to crump magical defenses. The Constructs didn¡¯t have any magic, but they were tougher and more dangerous than the tuskers, and since they couldn¡¯t be jump-Possessed, were more reliable in some ways. The rogue virindi were nowhere near as numerous as the primary branch, but there were basically none below the level of a Master, the minimum level needed to have some sort of self-identity, and most had become much stronger. The defending virindi were naturally trying to target them and break their control of the Rynthid attackers, but the rogue virindi were excellent at sticking to cover behind their servants or some of the magic-ignoring black crystal stands scattered about everywhere in the Direlands. Surveying it with her predatory Mask, Kris just shook her head. If there was a material objective here she couldn¡¯t see it, and without vivus, there was no risk to anything involved here, unless a Rynthid got close enough to actually jump-Possess a virindi and turn them rogue. Even then, the virindi¡¯s essence would simply return to the Singularity if they died, so this fight was basically nothing more than using up a few shells from the real virindi on both sides who died, and massacring a lot of Summons whose only purpose in life was basically to fight and die. If there was a method to the madness beyond ephemeral mind games that amounted to nothing, this war of guided emotional combatants against dominated disciplined combatants meant absolutely nothing in real terms. It might mean something on some intellectual level only the virindi truly appreciated, but she could care less about their perceptions of such matters. It might just all be about emotion, the rogues demonstrating anger and fury at their progenitors and happily displaying such to them, showing the power it brought, tempting the defending virindi with their displays... If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. After three hours of watching Summons beat on one another, with virindi leading lunges into the flanks as waves of Rynthid-possessed Summons streamed in erratically yet constantly, Kristie gave up on the show, choosing to withdraw from sight and Teleport out of there using Quaver. This was just an inane show of flexing with neither purpose nor penalty behind it. Now, if vivus was brought into play, things might have been quite different, and she was pretty sure the rogues would quit the field in haste, as their lower numbers would be far more susceptible to removal of their people. The main faction would retreat as well. Losing EITHER side meant the main faction lost, as they¡¯d not reclaim the virindi that had gone rogue and return them to the Quiddity, either! A tough position to be in! ------- The next day... ¡°Well, they didn¡¯t destroy the Markers, that¡¯s a plus,¡± the Mick noted, as I laid a Vivic Eternal Light on said striped pole. It circled the base, and even though the soil was already stained white with the dead shade Summons who¡¯d popped up at the Spawn Point, it still puffed and misted slowly, as if reacting to long-term taint or mana flow we couldn¡¯t easily sense. ¡°We¡¯ll know what they really think when we leave again. If they destroy the Markers, they definitely don¡¯t want us clearing a road, and we won¡¯t be able to enforce one, given the energies flowing through the place,¡± Briggs started, pointing ahead with Endure. ¡°No testing, minimal stops, maximum efficiency. Everyone knows what to do. Clear the road, quick and mean. We¡¯re not testing stuff today.¡± The Mick and Kris just nodded, leapfrogging teams from one Marker to the next, while I dropped Vivic Eternal Lights and lagged after them, towed by Briggs so I didn¡¯t have to break Aurora Stance and could get my mana back. Thera and Nippo had the Healing if it was needed, but the Lenses and layered ways of getting back Health and Soak for the combatants seemed to be dealing with most of it. Today we went counter-clockwise around the circle, not heading up to the top to the south where we had yesterday. The spawns in the canyons were much less dense than up top, and there didn¡¯t seem to be any ¡®real¡¯ creatures down here, they all preferred to remain up high. There was only one horde of creatures called over to engage us, a virindi Director bringing in several spawns of banderlings, drudges, and virindi squads upon us. Kris went up the canyon wall to cut it down, then its accompanying circle of Servants and Puppets in short order. I blew up a Wall of Fire from one side of the canyon to the other, setting everything that passed through it ablaze and weakening them greatly for the attention of the two Fellowships waiting on the other side¡­ and also killing them permanently, although we¡¯d still have to hunt down their Spawn Points. Mostly, the teams just cleaned house quickly and efficiently, nothing out here that much of a threat to them, while I marked the Spawn Points, dropped a misting source of very long-term illumination on them, and trundled after those fighting. Briggs basically amused himself by tossing Endure around here and there, practicing his ricochets selectively. It would be a bad idea for anyone to think Briggs couldn¡¯t reach out there and touch them¡­ ----- The canyon jagged left and around, sloping upwards and bringing us to the blackened surface about a mile shy of the jagged, rough hills that obstructed the Obsidian Center. Between us and the hills were at least twoscore Spawns of assorted types, with roughly half a dozen real watchers in visual range. Whether they would choose to assemble a horde here, with rivals watching who might also choose to act, was a question we had to consider. Briggs wasn¡¯t much worried. ¡°What¡¯s extreme long range on a Shardray from you, Ryin?¡± he asked keenly. I eyed him, then the surrounding terrain, which was mostly pretty flat, save for the constant leaning stands of hexagonal black crystals jutting out here and there. ¡°Four thousand feet, at least,¡± I said calmly, earning me startled looks from all the non-reincarnates there. ¡°Correct me if I¡¯m wrong, but none of those watchers trying to stay hidden are actually all that tough.¡± ¡°If I do a Split Ray and Pair the spell, I¡¯ll kill any of the ones I can pick out,¡± I promised calmly. ¡°However, I¡¯d like to keep the magic displays of Matrix magic to a minimum around them. The virindi, shades, and undead are all intelligent Casters who¡¯d just love to see more magic for them to figure out and emulate.¡± ¡°Gor, Commander. Ye imagine if they could start sniping at us from a thousand feet or more?¡± the Mick whistled. ¡°That could be very bad,¡± Briggs agreed after a moment. ¡°Is dropping these Lights going to be a problem?¡± ¡°They might come up with a Protection from Vivus spell that¡¯ll shield them from perma-death if they have it up, if we give them examples to work from. However, them wielding vivus isn¡¯t going to be an issue. None of them can actually work vivus, and any spells like that can be Dispelled and will be fairly obvious, being variations on Life Wards or reversed Void Protection.¡± ¡°So not something they aren¡¯t going to be coming up with anyway. Good to know. Let¡¯s continue, people. If they start sending hordes at us, then Kris is going to be flitting out to make her displeasure known. The magos has our backs in an emergency, and you know she¡¯s watching!¡± There were calls of affirmation. Actually, they were all totally aware of that, because just because I was conserving mana didn¡¯t mean I couldn¡¯t contribute. Triple arrays of close-range Darts and Zeks¡¯ Telekinetic manipulation of Hexar Shields, lengths of Chain, or just slapping away thrown or launched missiles were constant things used in support of everyone, intercepting War Magic as needed on Hardened and Impervious adamantine, or even sucking all Elemental magicks in and making it a pure melee/missile grind, which they all didn¡¯t mind at all. Actually, Thera and Nippo didn¡¯t mind it, either. War Magic was the thing that forced them to Heal and spend mana the fastest, and if they didn¡¯t have to Heal that stuff, as well as not launching War Magic of their own, they could do much better support Casting and conserve a lot more mana for key moments. Confident and prepared, Hexar Shields with overlapping areas of Elemental draw warding them, the Skeeters and Roaches advanced ahead, the big lugian Vanguards Gros and Kopf taking the lead, and we headed towards the sharp wall of the Center ahead of us. Some disapproving stares watched from the distance, debating whether or not to try to bum-rush us with more hordes¡­ hordes that hadn¡¯t beaten us, and had cost the lives of their controllers. AF Chapter 484 – The Center of the Obsidian Plains It was with a sort of vicious finality that we breached the rim of the Obsidian Center through one of the cracks in the Inner Rim, opting to walk to the top instead of wall-climbing over it. This was about making a path, after all, and although they¡¯d be foolish not to have the options, not everyone coming after us was going to be capable of flight or rapid vertical climbs. So, we left a bunch of Burning Spawn Points behind us, the white remnants of vivic scarring very bright against the black of the Obsidian Plains and its stain of shadowed Taint, three hostile forces wondering what to do about them and wondering if they should even bother. Well, two of them didn¡¯t mind it. Eating away the Taint was only good for them, and fewer Summons wasn¡¯t really an issue out here, hurting all of them equally. And it did make a path they could move their own forces along without interference¡­ The shades, however, knew that this was a purifying effect, and certainly didn¡¯t want it around, which was actually a good reason for the virindi and undead to keep it extant. As long as they didn¡¯t walk in there and lay down, no harm, no foul to them! Ahead of us was the Obsidian Center, which was completely dominated by the virindi, save for some occasional rynthid corruption popping up along the perimeter where the chaotic emo-forms were manifesting and driving lesser virindi mad with intense monoline emotions like fear, hate, rage, and sorrow. Couldn¡¯t happen to a friendlier bunch of axiomatics, sure enough. The fact there was a mushroom forest there was incredibly impressive. The ground was still blasted black, there were still columns of black hex-crystals jutting out of the ground, but somehow all sorts of colorful giant mushrooms had survived and were thriving here, without being warped or twisted by virindi or Shadow energies. The Center was about five miles in diameter, sloping down fairly smoothly towards the center from the blast crater rimmed by the hills we were standing on. The very center was marked by the Singularity Bore, probably the central holding of the virindi here in the past, manned by drudges in great numbers who had helped the virindi with mining, maintaining energy fields in a Dungeon there, and the like. A plume of purple-blue virindi energies rose from the center of the place, once marking a Portal into the Bore, now likely marking the entrance to a large Dungeon. Directly OVER the Singularity Bore, about two hundred feet up now, floated Aerbax¡¯s Citadel, a cross within a diamond-shaped floating edifice of crystal. It was the largest such flying structure in all of Dereth, completely dominating anything raised by the Empyreans, including the floating towers used by the shades whose remnants we¡¯d seen in a couple of places. It was a convenient aiming reticule aimed at the Bore below, tapping the plume of energies coming up out of there for its own purposes, and the virindi didn¡¯t seem to be able to approach it or do anything about it. ¡°Well, Ryin?¡± Briggs asked shortly, everyone studying the scene in front of us. ¡°I count at least forty-three real virindi at the Consul level or higher scattered across the landscape in front of us. I can see at least five thousand scattered Summons they can control to stop us from advancing, and unless we are capable of killing a thousand a minute, that means we can¡¯t advance just on this side, let alone at least double that more are probably unseen.¡± ¡°That be totally unfair,¡± the Mick grunted, but he had no desire on his face to try out that particular brand of slaughter. ¡°Would need multiple sets o¡¯ that Hexar Shield cover an¡¯ nigh the whole Royal Army t¡¯ get through in that event.¡± I eyed the sky, which was starting to grumble and flash with embers. ¡°Fire storm coming. How about we just wait out the weather for a half hour?¡± I said kindly. The stone about us, vivified by the tips of unsheathed Weapons, was stained white and was easy enough to Shape. ¡°It won¡¯t take her half an hour to get there,¡± Briggs smiled knowingly. ¡°I gather you don¡¯t want to deal with any wild magic surges in the interim.¡± ¡°I tend to be conservative about such things,¡± I agreed, as a wall rose out of the ground and arched over us to provide cover. Everyone scooted underneath it as there was a great loud woooosh overhead, like someone had struck a really, really big match. The first fiery embers were driving down from the sky, hitting the ground and bouncing and flaring once before dying away¡­ and visibly reducing the white on the ground with the excess energy, even if it didn¡¯t bear any Taint. ¡°None o¡¯ us want t¡¯ appear in a wall or floor, lass,¡± the Mick said pleasantly. ¡°She won¡¯t have a problem sneaking past all them virindi, aye?¡± ¡°They are sensitive to magic, not alchemical camouflage and light-bending,¡± I sniffed, able to feel Kris advancing at the pace of a slow walk, basically on all fours spread out flat, not touching the ground and skimming along just above the soil. All her magical Gear was sitting on my Disk next to me, while I began to erect interwoven Seal Focuses on the ground in front of everyone. I filled up Briggs¡¯ for him and Endure, and everyone else slowly filled up their own, using the opportunity to top up their mana pools off the harsh, raw mana in the air and ground at the same time. ¡°I¡¯m in no mood to alert them to the difficult and alternate means of detecting a Null slinking by.¡± Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡°Och, ye cruel and facetious fellow spellcaster, discriminating against yer fellows? ¡®Tis hypocritical, I say, I does,¡± the Mick chided me with a perfectly droll face. ¡°Axiomatics. If you¡¯re not with them¡­ and I¡¯m not.¡± Black and white logic was seldom appreciated when turned back upon those practicing it. ¡°I¡¯m guessing about fifteen minutes.¡± Fire rained down from the sky, but the storm was being forced out by the continuous welling of pressure from the Singularity Bore at the core of the Center. It would be gone and expending itself on the landscape before we needed to shift over. ------ The plink against our Magebond was immediate, even as a Teleport Focus flared to life right over there. I was sure the virindi sensed something, but while they had time to react, they didn¡¯t have time to respond effectively. I took command of the waiting Teleport energy and promptly sent us all shifting sideways through space and in a long line off the beacon shining in my awareness over there. The swirl of the world rearranging itself straightened itself off instantly. I took no more notice of the fact that we were in a sloping corridor lined with virindi patterns and schema before turning around, Dispelling the magic along a set of lines behind us, and then promptly filling the space leading up to the surface about sixty feet away with a wall of stone, yanking the material out of the rock as I disrupted the engrams worked into the stone and structure here to channel the energy of the Bore to some other use. The first virindi¡¯s head had just hove into view at the far end as the stone flowed in and sealed off the ramp. I filled in more and more of the entire length leading up, until all sixty feet of it was plugged shut and nothing was getting in¡­ although the trembling of spells outside indicated that they were trying. Kris was re-equipping herself off my Disk speedily, slapping armor into place and holding it there with her Vajra as she slung on her Amulet and other Gear. Briggs and the Mick were already moving the Skeeters and Roaches out, the lugian Vanguards leading the way with their much-abused Shields, while the Skeeters were using my Hexar Shields to absorb all the incoming War Magic and turn this into a melee fight, our greatest strength. I could hear spells going off below as I surveyed the area and looked up. ¡°Okay if we leave you?¡± Kris asked shortly, pulling on her gauntlets last. ¡°Give ¡®em Hell,¡± I nodded, looking up at the crystal formation on the other side of a good forty feet of rock, massive draws of energy moving through the rock around us. ¡°I¡¯m going to annoy the Hell out of these things.¡± A five-step Pyramid would take me less than an hour, its effect would cover the whole of the Obsidian Plains easily¡­ and it would totally rechannel and re-align the energies of the Singularity Bore above in all ways. The virindi were about to lose their stronghold, and the Obsidian Plains were going to finally start the process of being cleansed! While the others wrecked the place below and totally disrupted all the work the virindi had done on everything, I was going to wreck everything above! Kris dashed off after the others, leaving me alone with a lot of magical energy flowing through some axiomatic circuits. I smiled as Arcane Sight read it all, planned out what I needed to do¡­ and then I reached out, and began to twist and Shape that stone to what I wanted done. Oh, the virindi weren¡¯t going to like this at all... ------ I could feel the progress of the others just by watching the remnants of the virindi ¡®magic circuits¡¯ embedded in the walls around us, flickering and guttering as Vivic Weapons and adamantine did their combined work and started mucking things up. There were some strong virindi here, but nothing they couldn¡¯t handle, and the lesser servant Summons were even less of a threat. If their general level and toughness was two to three times greater than it had been historically, well, so were all the Summons up top. We¡¯d been expecting that as we went into their strongpoint. No, the group was not splitting up, because there were real virindi down there who could take charge of stuff, and so the fighters had to remain close together, covering and relieving one another as the fighting below escalated very rapidly. I had to first clear out space enough to raise my Pyramid, so a room over a hundred feet squared and the same distance high. Technically a lot of stone to move, but actually I could Widened Rock to Mud a tremendous amount of that area and simply send the muck draining in a mudslide down a connecting tunnel leading out, one which did not happen to have a bunch of rambunctious mortals slaughtering everything in it. Whatever was below was washed away, then imprisoned in the stone when I Dispelled the transmutation magic. Being the thoughtful type I was, I also Sealed off that tunnel out, and I had a big empty room for putting up my Pyramid. Twenty-foot blocks of stone used to channeling immense amounts of redirected magic energy began to glitter with quickly-infused Runes as the stones heaved themselves out of the ground and began to float there, and build, and build¡­ --- The virindi could sense we were doing something, given the immense amount of disruption no doubt flaring in the energy plume of the Bore above, but they had a lot of stone to blow their way through, mana-reinforced stone whose ley line connection was a hard feed they couldn¡¯t block or seal. Their control of the ley line nexus that this place was had already been shattered before they thought of trying to shut it all down or feed it back, and, I imagined, some of the senior virindi below needed to do that had already been vivified by application of adamantine and vivus to the energy nexus. My own Obsidian Pyramid rose rapidly. It would be short and sweet, but it was mainlining an immense energy flow, and when it lit off, the plume of the Bore above was going to really, really change¡­ AF Chapter 485 – A Boring Job is Sometimes Glorious Five by five blocks, the solid foundation above the mucky floor of my expanded room. They charged up with incredible speed, cross-linked organic elemental circuitry of a very, very different style from the virindi lighting up as the single strongest magical nexus in Dereth poured into them once they were connected. Oh, yeah, this was working just fine. Vivus sparked at the corners already, and began to dance and sparkle in unwhite mist. There was no Fellowship or Mark chatter, because the virindi could just listen in to such stuff, so it was self-defeating. On the other hand, Briggs and Kris were likewise sensitive to the hivemind connections shouting back and forth, and if they couldn¡¯t really understand what they were saying in their group mind, it was pretty damn impossible for the virindi to surprise them when the two had excellent ideas of where all of the creatures were. If Kris was broadcasting a lot of killing intent and enthusiasm for the fight as the Trembling Song reverberated through the stone and filled the virindi with uncomfortable thoughts of the emotional killing power of their Rynthid rivals, well, too bad for them. Fourth level, sixteen blocks. Third level, nine blocks. Ho, getting pretty loud up top. A lot of magic was being used to bore into the ground and try to excavate a way down here. Yeah, they had five minutes and whatever Ritual they tried to use wasn¡¯t going to happen in time. Second level, four blocks. Capstone, bringing it all together. Ho, would you look at that, a freaking wave of magical force coming down and ripping apart the stone with overwhelming power. It blew past my Pyramid and tore open a sheer access route to the sky, down which a solid stream of virindi started pouring, itching to get down and at us. I dropped the capstone, and the Obsidian Pyramid lit up with a whole lot of Silver Magic as the primed power poured into the stone. Before any of the incoming horde of virindi could let off a single spell, the capstone lit up. There was a pulse and a surge as its Domain went off, and ALL the magic around converged on it. Hundreds of virindi wobbled, crashed into one another, and fell awkwardly down to the ground, scraping it with their armored shells as all their spellcasting was instantly disrupted. The air filled with vivus, the weight of the world got very Heavy indeed, and it blew outwards. The stone above the Pyramid opened up like a flower, and a fountain of vivus more like a jet shot straight up. Somehow, the Bore Crystal was right above, and it ate that jet of vivus and huh, wasn¡¯t that a big change from raw Elemental and unconstrained ley line mana. The guttering plume of virindi energies became a coruscant flare of hot, bright mana blazing forth, right up into the receiving formation of Aerbax¡¯s Citadel. The pressure on the Veil expanded in a visible sphere, vivus sparking and flaring at wild magic in the air. It swept over everything around us, and things not of this world were politely shoved off it as the Banishment Domain took hold. The virindi, and ALL the Summoned creatures, wavered, and popped out of existence, forced off the planet by the weight of Reality pressing down on their magical selves. Ectoplasm and energy matrices didn¡¯t quite do the job, and away they went. Vivus spat and swirled around Spawn Points, Sealing them in passing as their residents were forced away. Empty armored robes from real virindi were scattered all over the place, sparks of vivus poofing up here and there as the Domain expanded, expanded¡­ while up above, the receiving Formation began first to spark, and then it began to Burn. Not set up to handle the vivus-enhanced, interwoven Elemental fury that was punching up now, delicate crystalline lattices and Rune-matrices sparked, ignited, flared, and then popped, starting to blaze as they collapsed. As they did so, they conveyed uncontrolled surges of mana out along the arms of the structure to the floating towers and platforms at the ends of the diamond shape. I watched the mana circuits lighting up and popping in showers of Burning crystal and bright mana, the whole platform above the Bore shaking and shuddering¡­ and as the central tower above fully ignited in a holocaust of blazing mana and shattering Runeworks, rupturing and taking out the central Formation and precipitating a rapid fall towards the Bore as they did so. The crystals of the Bore were now fused to the capstone of the Obsidian Pyramid, power continuing to blaze upwards even as the Pyramid¡¯s Domain continued to expand. I watched it crest the inner hill line of the blast crater in the distance, leaving behind mushrooms and some random mounds of empty armored robes and masks, the tips of the hills igniting in little plumes of vivic flame as the Domain passed them and expanded out into the plains proper. The virindi, rynthids, and all the Summons were going to be Banished, the Spawn Points being Sealed by vivus as they did so. The only creatures left alive were going to be real shades and undead, who would find themselves basically alone, save for one another, on a landscape dotted by many, many spots of vivus, and they would not be able to Portal away. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I expected some rather sudden violent activity directed at one another. More pointedly, I expected the teams of Royal Guards flowing up along the trail we¡¯d blazed to spread out and clear the entire Obsidian Plains of anything still moving. Probably two hundred powerful Tuskers led by King Bobo were already racing about with real speed to make sure it was done, too, hauling around Healers to keep them alive as they moved in squads of four to kill any of the shades or undead still left here. The virindi had enslaved uncounted numbers of tuskers for years and years. King Bobo had a very big and long grudge against them in general, and Aerbax the maker of Prodigal beasties in particular. The corners of Aerbax¡¯s Citadel settled heavily to the ground, shuddering and tilting as the hanging paths also hit the ground and surrounding mushrooms, allowing access up to them. The central tower was shattered and Burning away, falling away from the devastating flow of energy racing up to the limits of the Domain and consuming all the energies inherent to the place. I did see a twitching dark bundle fall from the central tower, blazing with vivus as it hit the ground, twitching and clawing with spidery, jagged extra limbs rippling with energies of shadow and lightning. The False Aerbax struggled to lift itself up on its limbs, slick Shadow Diamond armored shell spitting and trying to defy the veins of whiteness licking across it in waves and surges. It had just enough levitation to remain upright, but not to move. It used its limbs to turn, and its eyes settled on me, sitting there on the second level of my Pyramid, watching it. Watching it, and then unloading a whole mess of magic into it. It had made itself a Shadowed creature, which made it vulnerable to Disruption, positive energy, and all sorts of fun doubling effects. I pulled out Virindi Slayer on an off-hand Wand, Infused Shadow Slayer into Crown, and somehow was not surprised when both Effects somehow managed to stack on the composite thing. Add on Disruption¡¯s doubling against negative energy lifeforms that somehow also stacked, and the False Aerbax was taking eight-fold magical damage from my attacks. Aerbax¡¯s strongest defense was the power to render itself immune to magical, missile, or melee attacks in series. It could also Dispel most Debuffs quickly as needed, and it had like a million health to punch through, making taking it down quite the slog¡­ and this wasn¡¯t even the real one! However, an Arcane Fusion of Bestow Major Curse and Mana-Tier Vulnerability to Slashing wasn¡¯t quite so easy to deal with. Bestow Major Curse was used to deliver a 75% chance of spellcasting failure, which would put a severe crimp into all of its abilities. The False Aerbax took all the Shardrays slamming into it, and Toppling overcame its tentacles stuck into the ground and sent it slamming to the black ashen soil, flailing. It twisted and moved in ways things with bones simply couldn¡¯t, trying to get back upright, and my second volley slammed into it, even stronger than the first as Repeated and Residual Metamagic stacked ever higher on it as I began to pound the fucker. It took three desperate attempts to get its immunity to magic online as it struggled upright, while I punched holes into its armored shell which vented black and red-purple energies aggressively, lingering damage raging over it and demanding all of its attention as it tried to Cast. But it got the immunity out, shoved itself to its feet, and then began to scuttle towards me with impressive speed. Of course, that was plenty of time for Kris, Briggs, and the Mick to make it back up here at speed. Kris was naturally the first, bouncing off the bottom layer of the Pyramid and abruptly in its face, impaling it with Quaver in both hands and tearing it tumbling off its tentacles. They went rolling and shoving as it ripped and tore at her, and then she shoved it off of her with both feet, opening a huge gash in its armored robe. Oh, hey, Briggs was literally thirty feet in the air at that point, and coming down hard. Endure smashed the Construct down into the whitening ground with overwhelming force, cleaving open its backside in a massive venting of animating energies. Unable to do much more, I flipped Darts into Kris to Heal up the savage cuts from the Hollow Lightning-imbued tentacles, the gashes venting icy steam as her injuries closed. Briggs actually let go of Endure, reaching out to grab those lashing tentacles slicing in all directions. He wrapped them up in his arms, leapt and spun horizontally and heaved over to get the things coiled up and locked in place, now firmly wrapped up into a knotted mess around the handle of his Hammer and going absolutely nowhere. The False Aerbax was dragged off the ground just in time for the Mick to arrive and slice it across the throat. It was a killing blow, and would have worked on anything alive in a normal sense. The venting Health Qi was almost solid as it blew out, and then Briggs was keeping its tentacles locked and position fixed, the thing unable to even execute the normal virindi spin moves and chopping attacks as it faced the Mick and Kris erupting into full Wolfpack mode. Lost Light, Blackfire, and vivic streams bloomed around the two of them with unbelievable speed, Swords working faster than the eye could follow. Blood Roses of Shadow Virindi energy blurred, Seven Ripping Dragons fed Seven Circling Dragons, bonus damage piled on and was multiplied by Virindi Slayer, so much Precision Attack feeding in and finding all the weak spots that were becoming more and more obvious¡­ I just Healed the pair of them as desperate and ungainly sickle attacks attempted to drive them back and injure them, and instead found themselves glancing off adamantine Swords and not doing what they were supposed to as the Health Qi depletion only accelerated¡­ With a fifth effort, it managed to shift its immunity to melee to deal with the firestorm of death swallowing it. Two Swords licked out, and cutting sickles that could rip steel armor like taffy were locked in place against armored sleeves. The Mick and Kris twisted, even bringing up their feet and bracing against its robe to yank its sickles out of line and pin them in place. They also pivoted to make it totally vulnerable to me, unable to dodge or parry my magic at all. AF Chapter 486 – One Aerbax Down... A whole lot of Shards lined up around me. I didn¡¯t go into Spellwarped Shardray form and Split them for double damage now. Oh, no. I went all the way down to Weapon form, actual hit-rolls through its armor needed¡­ but opening this sucker up for quadruple-damage crits with a Biting Strike Threat Range of 12-20, Crushing Blow x4. Then, I hammered it. I didn¡¯t go with Fastcasting, as I needed to conserve mana. My mana pool was emptying out of twenty mana every six seconds as I pounded this bastard with Paired Admixtured Topped Shards with a whole lot of lesser Metas attached, Holy Metas flaring and giving it the business. The kinetic impacts bounced the False Aerbax around like a rubber ball in their grips as it ate all the impacts. I wouldn¡¯t say I did more damage than the Mick and Kris had been doing, but the sixty-eight Shards coming in were like a non-stop stream of exploding javelins driving deep into the bastard, and the crits blew out Health Qi in wild sprays of venting Construct. Of course, there was nothing for that but to switch its Immunity back to magic, but the Curse was still on it, and it had to wait for the first Immunity to wear off before it could erect another one. It was plenty of time for the first three of Kris¡¯s students to make it back to the top, line up in front of it in Stance, and just wait for it. There was a flutter of realigning magic and I left off my bombardment, flicking a Haste spell over the three Skeeters. Silver lightning crawled over them, and they started moving every bit as fast as their elders. They had worked together for a long time, and even in tight quarters their cutting motions didn¡¯t interfere with one another. Their ki swirled and fed into one another, pictures of poetry in motion as their elbows never knocked and their Blades never met. Chum-li had the middle with his Katana Lang, Colmus was concentrating on the right arm and shoulder with his bastard Sword Soerun, and Xena was on the left arm with her Longsword Donti. The Construct was trying to escape, but three masters of heavyfoot weren¡¯t moving, despite it being strong enough to send them flying even with complete lack of leverage, TK-level strength and what-all. But there was no chance of it getting free now. The Veil was hard as a rock, so it wasn¡¯t ¡®Porting out anywhere or anyhow, and it certainly wasn¡¯t flying anywhere. It did manage to get off a couple Ring spells of devastating power, but my Shardrays Healed everyone up, and its spell to reduce Hit Points to one point was a negative energy attack that bounced off Death Wards, while Protection from Curses stopped the attack which reduced a Stat to one and might render them vulnerable to a follow-up spell, or too weak to lift their Swords. Timer up, it shifted back to Melee immunity helplessly, and the three Skeeters jumped back out of my way. Ten more spells, a hundred more mana and ten Valences, each one hitting harder and surer, blowing apart its Health Qi, tearing apart its magic resistance, giving it no chance to do much of anything to those holding it as the gyration of impacts left it unable to Cast at all. ¡°Release!¡± They all let go, and this time I Split the Shardrays as everyone jumped as far away as they could. The explosion wasn¡¯t that big, but it was totally lethal, even as it was being converted to vivus before it could spread very far. The blast of it blew my hair back, spattered ash and dust through the air, and filled the area with a black and white whirlwind of energy and disintegrating matter as the essence of this False Aerbax was annihilated and fed to the Land. Primus flexed, and the air emptied itself of dust and vapors, clearing from the top down as everything precipitated back to the ground, giving us a clear view of the shallow crater, purest sparkling white, where the False Aerbax had been. --- The Glory Award came down ten minutes later, when the last key elements of the virindi¡¯s ley line-siphoning Formation below was cut through and set en vivus. It was not small. This place was a blot on the land that had endured for literally thousands of years, as well as the center of power for a deity-class hivemind Entity of tremendous power. We had cleared the entire Obsidian Plains of Summons. Kings Borelean and Bobo were wiping any shades or undead from it, Feeding them to the Land as well. More importantly, the Pyramid was igniting the ley line energy flow with vivus. A circle of white was spreading from the Pyramid, reaching out into the elements of stone and sky alike. It was purging the Taint that had endured here for so long, mending the planar imbalances that still rippled here after the ages, and starting the work of stilling the wild Elemental imbalances that went storming out from this place. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Chopping down Aerbax and his Citadel, which was profiting from said imbalances, was also key, of course. I received the largest amount of the Glory Award, naturally. The Obsidian Pyramid, its stones blacker than black now, Runes like silver stars and galaxies glittering on and through it, was the crux of all of this. The circle of vivus was expanding at maybe a foot an hour. It would take a few years to completely do the job even if the consumption rate increased slowly, but that was fine. After suffering for a thousand years, the Land was going to drink deep of this stuff, and where had stood a testament to foul magic and dark forces, a green and fertile land was going to come into being. One free entirely of Summons, right in the middle of the Direlands. I had very deliberately made the Pyramid so that its Domain and purpose could not be repurposed by any artificer or mage who fancied they could do something better with all the power of the Bore¡¯s Ley Lines. The rest of the Skeeters and the Roaches came out of the deeper mines, their Disks laden with some loot and ores, mostly from collapsed virindi Banished when the Pyramid fired up, some as excavated spoils that had been dug up and hoarded against some esoteric use. The air hummed with fresh, invigorating energy, like a new spring, in contrast to the surrounding barren black landscape. ¡°The mushrooms?¡± Kris asked, plopping down on her own Disk next to me, everyone spread out on the levels of the Pyramid to look over the area. It turned out the Pyramid worked as a decent Henge site, with that much magic flowing through it. Lense-fueling took a lot of mana, so everyone was getting it all back and watching the changes. ¡°You noticed. Yeah, the mushrooms were feeding on the interaction between Void, Shadow, and Elemental energies. They are going to go up like torches when the vivic Burn reaches them. In the meantime, I advise NOT eating them.¡± Kris pointed to the east, where lines of motion were coming through a crack in the hills there. ¡°Make sure you tell them!¡± she half-laughed. King Bobo was mostly alone as he trotted into the center of the mushroom forest and gazed upon the new Pyramid blasting a radiant fountain into the sky. His sparkling eyes settled on me. ¡°A good plan, Lady Magos!¡± the massive tusker with the towering green silk miter bellowed respectfully as we waved at him. ¡°The Plains empty out by the moment! It is a wonderful thing for Bobo to finally witness with his own eyes!¡± ¡°A pleasure to be of service, Your Majesty. If you could kindly warn your people not to eat any of the mushrooms to be found here. They are full of processed Taint, although they may not look like it. Let them Burn to the vivus.¡± ¡°Bobo will do so!¡± He looked away, thoughts transmitting to his fellow tuskers, and then he resumed his advance, hopping up and pulling himself over each twenty-foot Pyramid level in series, just like an ape or monkey might, until he was also on the top level, a bit cramped for him. Two custom Disks peeled off his back, wider ovals than normal circles, and he settled in on them, front paws on one length of steel and back feet on the other. He couldn¡¯t keep his lips from splitting open into a wide tusked grin constantly as he slowly ambled around the top, avoiding us deftly as he took a good look in all directions. ¡°So good to see, little ones. Not a one of Bobo¡¯s enslaved people, not a one of the cold masters, and none of their other rivals or slaves, either. Just a black land, waiting to be Burned away by the white flames.¡± ¡°Would that it was so simple for all such areas,¡± Briggs murmured, shaking his head. ¡°Not a solution we can use on the northern islands so easily, King Bobo.¡± ¡°One takes one¡¯s rewards where one can find them, Commander Briggs,¡± the mighty tusker king said calmly. ¡°Long has Bobo waited for this day, knowing Bobo could never bring it to pass himself. To see the cold masters so humbled¡­ ah, such a wonderful feeling!¡± ¡°They aren¡¯t defeated, Your Majesty,¡± I reminded him pointedly. ¡°This was their strength, but they do have other holdings. One could say we¡¯ve regressed their grip and their strength, but we haven¡¯t gotten rid of them, only cost them time. The next step is to clear them out entirely.¡± ¡°Ho. Bobo looks forward to seeing how you would do this,¡± the great tusker nodded slowly. ¡°Since you are here, a point of knowledge. What is the most powerful and well-informed virindi that might manifest here?¡± ¡°Hrm.¡± The pleased smile on the tusker king¡¯s face turned down in thought. ¡°Powerful, with authority and information? Bobo has recollections of a being called the Grand Imperator impressed into his brains by the virindi, the highest member of their caste system of incarnations. It is very powerful, and will be difficult to deal with¡­¡± ¡°Not as difficult as it might think.¡± ¡°What are you thinking, Magos?¡± Briggs asked calmly. ¡°The virindi should not be here, but they are being continually occluded from realizing that. If I can make a powerful virindi realize that, it may catalyze them just enough to withdraw from Dereth entirely.¡± Kris smiled slowly. ¡°The power of Truth affects even Axiomatics, does it not?¡± she asked. I nodded once. ¡°It does. If this Grand Imperator has the authority to order the virindi to withdraw from Dereth, all we need do is wipe the last of the spawns of them from the landscape, and they will no doubt depart in some haste to get away from whatever influence brought them here originally, and has manipulated them so.¡± ¡°Good plan, and hunting down the virindi will be decent work for the scouts. If the information can be leaked to the shades and undead, no doubt they¡¯ll do a great deal of the work for us, too.¡± ¡°It also means having to track down Aerbax and its renegades. I doubt there is much question that they are being unduly influenced by old powers and corrupted along paths they shouldn¡¯t take. The withdrawal of the true Singularity and Quiddity will doubtless destabilize them, as they draw on the virindi collective whether they wish it or not.¡± ¡°I imagine that¡¯ll be a big surprise to ¡®em. Also, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any rynthid spawns outside the OP, so we should¡¯ve seen the last of them with ye getting rid o¡¯ them here, lass.¡± ¡°Good to know,¡± I nodded. We didn¡¯t need anarchic emoforms around any more than axiomatic hiveminds. ¡°They haven¡¯t parked one of their Masters in Candeth Keep or anything since last week?¡± Briggs asked, frowning. ¡°No. But the undead ambassador is still there.¡± His expression cleared up. ¡°Ah, yes. The undead will certainly have a way to contact the virindi diplomatically¡­ AF Chapter 487 – Imperious Disengagements The area chosen for the meeting was Ayan Baquar, amusingly enough. It had been the primary point of contact between the virindi and the mortal population of Dereth for the full prior generation before the Fall, and if mortals had corrupted most of the virindi who had been assigned as intermediaries, well, it was what it was. That meant Harraag showed up and was basically the host, the banderlings excitedly forming security around the place in a show of force and importance. With the Prodigal Banderling in charge of them, they no longer had to fear or be bound to the whims of virindi or shades or undead, and they were trying to carve out something resembling a nation or state of their own. Their aggressive territorial instincts couldn¡¯t be helped, and were certainly going to create trouble in the future, but there was no way around that. Every people had to experience conflict to gain Karma and grow. The Grand Imperator had no easy way to manifest on the world, so we literally had to Summon him into being. Thus, I had to make up a big Summoning Diagram, I surrounded that with three Thaumaturgic Circles just to let the thing know we acknowledged its power and importance, and then a dozen of us filled it with the energy to punch the Veil, reaching out to the Singularity and bringing the most powerful of all virindi forth from the aether/portalspace and onto Dereth in a swirl of multi-colored Prodigal magic. Yeah, all the Prodigals were here, even Bobo. I watched the magic stratify and try to spin itself into ordered layers as the inhuman form gathered a shell of ectoplasm and wove it into the semblance of a physical form. I promptly began to Sing, and the strands of magic jumped free of the grip of the incoming axiomatic, thrumming in joy and wonder as Words of Creation caressed the Sublime Chords and kept the magic under my control. About eight feet tall. One set of extra limbs in crystalline white, armored scales of black also edged in white. Its mask bore a lofty, arrogant expression, accented with diamonds or their equivalents, and the light within flickered harsh and intense as it congealed into materiality, studying its surroundings. I could feel its intent upon the manafield, a single test of my control of the same bouncing and rejected as the Circles about it constrained it and prevented it from moving or Casting outside them. They did not, however, restrict it from simply leaving, which it could do at any time. ¡°Per the Codex of the Edicts of the Eternals, this one greets the Grand Imperator of the Virindi who has responded to our Summons. This one asks forbearance for interrupting the Imperator in its endless tasks, but there is a matter of much importance that needs to be brought to the Imperator¡¯s attention, and only it has the power to make a ruling on said matter.¡± ¡°You Are The Fleshling Whose Magic Removed Us From The Obsidian Plains. You Will Remove Your Anathemic Edifice And Withdraw From Our Chosen Center Of Operations!¡± the deep, static-chased, and multi-stereo voice of the Imperator promptly declared, utterly sure of its authority. ¡°Per the Codex, matters of Axiomatics interfering in matters of the Prime Plane are either of Null authority or at best a contest of power. This one has the power, and this one bars the virindi. The matter the Imperator has been called here for is not a demonstration of relative magical power, however. Is the Grand Imperator of the Virindi willing to demonstrate its knowledge and authority over its own people?¡± I counter-proposed calmly, undeterred by its behavior. The Imperator spun around slowly, surveying the Prodigals and their glowing eyes, as well as the paramount-mages who had helped me with this matter. There were a hundred banderlings circling us at a very respectful distance, clearly not wanting to get any closer to a virindi emanating such a fearsome Aura, nor the powerful individuals gathered and waiting here. ¡°The Grand Imperator Has Full Authority To Negotiate On Behalf Of The Collective. Why Have You Summoned It?¡± it finally intoned, its continuing attempts to exert its power constrained by both the Thaumaturgic Circles and my own grip on the manafield. ¡°Analysis. Given the information gained by the virindi from these mortal lands in payment for their time, given the losses the virindi have endured during this time, should the Collective of the virindi still remain extant upon Dereth? I ask this under the Aegis of Truth.¡± The axiomatic creature shuddered in shock at the power of the Word, which was there and gone and impossible for it to comprehend, despite all of its supernatural intellectual ability. Its very soul quavered under the weight of the Word, and despite its affinity for knowledge, it knew that understanding that Truth meant it would be virindi no longer! It also knew that searing clarity was streaming through its own analysis, and that¡­ something was Wrong. ¡°The Collective Should Have Withdrawn From This Mortal Realm Approximately Nineteen Years Ago,¡± it finally responded, and was that a bit of shocked enlightenment suffusing its voice? ¡°Given the price the virindi have paid, should the Collective ever have come here at all? Again, under Aegis of Truth,¡± I went on pleasantly. The Grand Imperator shook uncontrollably again, but its analysis seemed to be accomplished with even more speed and energy. ¡°The Losses To The Collective Have Not Been Balanced With Sufficient Understanding. This Excursion To The Material Plane Has Not Been To The Benefit Of The Collective to a figure of 20.66%,¡± it finally intoned with what might have been awed realization. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°What is the likelihood that the Collective has been influenced by a power it cannot sense or comprehend, forcing it to remain here past a time when logically it would never have come, or would have withdrawn in the face of negative returns on its efforts? Under Aegis of Truth.¡± The Grand Imperator shuddered again, multiple lights strobing behind its eyes and around its mask, even the wisps escaping from beneath it and keeping it aloft pulsing at frantic speed. ¡°The Probability Is 97.72%!¡± it finally intoned, gasping in realization. ¡°The probability that the knowledge of the Grand Imperator concerning this matter will be wiped before it can rejoin the Collective without the Aegis of Truth to protect it?¡± I finished calmly. Everyone watched in fascination as the Grand Imperator vibrated like a metal spring back and forth, virindi energies spilling forth from it in mathematical desperation as it calculated. ¡°Probability: Absolute!¡± it almost screamed at me in frantic realization. ¡°The Grand Imperator has the authority to order the complete and utter withdrawal of the virindi from Dereth in acknowledgment of the survival of the Collective!¡± This speaker was Hea Rheaga, the Prodigal Tumerok¡¯s glowing green eyes sparking with his own slice of virindi energies. ¡°The mortal races of this place agree to affect the release of all virindi spirits bound in Summons and otherwise extant beyond the control of the Collective and restore them to the Quiddity if the virindi withdraw the Singularity and retreat from this world with all the haste required to escape their unknowing subservience to outside influence. The Grand Imperator¡¯s knowledge cannot be removed while under the Aegis of Truth; it may give the order and see it obeyed while extant at this time and place!¡± the Prodigal Tumerok so informed the Grand Imperator, who had spun around to face him and his words in agitation. ¡°Calculating¡­ 98.04% Probability Of Being Correct-¡± ¡°Truth.¡± ¡°-Calculations Revised, 100% Probability Of Being Correct! Orders Being Issued To The Quiddity And The Singularity. Absolute And Complete Removal From The Worldspace Of This Mortal Plane To Be Undertaken With All Speed And Overriding Priority. All Projects To Be Abandoned In Light Of The Survival Of The Collective. Withdrawal Commencing¡­ Meat Units Will Return Extant Virindi Unable To Withdraw From The Magical System Of This Realm Under Their Own Power?¡± ¡°We shall!¡± Briggs called out from behind me, and Fate moved. The Grand Imperator actually dropped a foot, its fluctuating armored robe almost touching the ground as it felt all probabilities align in the direction of a Source Oath. ¡°Agreement Acknowledged And Accepted. All Virindi Withdrawing From The Worldspace. The Singularity Is Withdrawing From Aetheric Conjunction With Mortal Worldspace. The Quiddity Awaits The Return of Trailing Members. Grand Imperator Withdrawing Beyond Worldspace With All Speed¡­¡± There was a shuddering of energy and movement of powerful magic, and the pressure of this most powerful of virindi entities evaporated as the shell it had been wearing collapsed limply to the ground, the seething nexus of power that had filled it escaping as rapidly and completely as it could. The Thaumaturgic Circles fizzled and dimmed into inert status once more, while the shell of the Imperator began to mist and break apart as the compressed ectoplasm returned to its natural state. Those surrounding sort of blinked. ¡°That¡­ is all it took?¡± Candeth Martine asked in some disbelief, ignoring the sparking blood trailing from his own eyes and nose at hearing Truth multiple times, a sight replicating by a great number of those around, including many of the banderlings who¡¯d been listening too closely and had received an enlightenment their savage hearts were not ready for. ¡°Along with Hope and Valor,¡± I confirmed, and heads were thrown back, chests swelled, hearts thrummed as all those who heard it inhaled at Thunder pounding in their hearts, minds, and souls, letting them know this was a Damn Good Thing, and they could make it even better! ¡°The People of Harraag will send the Cold Masters from this world forever!¡± Harraag bellowed, his own crimson orbs spitting fiery energies now, unable to keep the awe and wonder from his voice. His cry was taken up by the hundreds of banderlings inhabiting the city of Ayan Baquar. All of them had heard those Words and were shaken with the enlightenment of Heaven coming down upon them, showing them there was so much more beyond feed, breed, fight, and survive! They, they could become lions among mortals, they could tread the worlds as giants in heart and soul, and become so much more than they had been-! ¡°Then please take the lead in this effort, Brother Harraag, and let us know how we may be of aid in your efforts,¡± I said to him. ¡°HEAVENSPEAKER!¡± the Prodigal Banderling announced, and he threw himself flat upon his face. All around, without the slightest hesitation, the banderlings of Ayan Baquar threw themselves on their faces towards me. Gravely amused, Harraag¡¯s Prodigal Brothers went down to one knee, even King Bobo lowering his head now. Behind me, Briggs also went to one knee, and Kris, shit-eating smile firmly in place, did the same, leading Isparians, Tumeroks, and Lugians to follow suit. ¡°The Heavenspeaker has spoken! We send the virindi home, freeing us from their plans, and freeing them from their unknowing slavery!¡± Briggs intoned in his magnificent Warlord¡¯s Voice. ¡°By the Thunder of Heaven!¡± ¡°TRUTH! ¡°HOPE! ¡°VALOR!¡± I agreed for all of them, and Glory came down to finish what the Words began, recognizing that this was truly a Good Thing we were doing and had done, and Heaven would reward them all for taking up the Quest of a Source¡¯s Fate-making¡­ and nothing was going to stop us! ====== ¡°Very well done, Heavenspeaker!¡± Kris gave me a consoling hug as we watched the banderlings already breaking up into teams and Fellowships. Information was already being shared about Dungeons with virindi Summons in them that would have to be cleared completely, while the Direlands would have to be combed from shore to shore to remove any random virindi Summons completely. With the Singularity receding, it should be pulling out any non-corporeal virindi spirits completely from the System, which should mean any virindi, simulacra of the Collective, rifts, marionettes, and minions should no longer be Spawning in anywhere, except... ¡°We¡¯re going to have to go back to the Singularity Caul,¡± I noted to her. AF Chapter 488 – Cauling All Legends Princess Kristie Rantha nodded. ¡°Marionettes, virindi, minions, simulacra, and Aerbax itself might still be there,¡± she agreed. ¡°How has this been for your Karma?¡± she asked directly. ¡°I can take three more Wide Levels as I need.¡± Kris inhaled softly, watching as banderlings and tuskers began to group up and split off in Fellowships, taking care to have devoted support Casters among them who could lay Fire Protections on the tuskers especially, and Heal all of them as needed. Word was already going out to kill all creatures of the virindi without using vivus, which basically meant all but the tuskers. The enslaved Summoned tuskers should still be vivified, which was needed to liberate them from the System, as the others were all aspects of the Quiddity given form, limited as they might be. The killing was already on across the southern Dires and starting across the north, with teams being assembled for all the Dungeons we knew of. ¡°Briggs and I are at Twenty. A nice big Glory Award, and we can take the Big Step,¡± she informed me. ¡°Noiz!¡± I said, giving her a hug back of congratulations. ¡°I imagine you¡¯re not huge to take that step now that you¡¯re on the precipice¡­¡± She laughed softly, looking away. ¡°I was so eager to get there and beat my mom to the step, I was not prepared for the spiritual wall in front of me. I look at the height of it and the shit that is going to be waiting on the other side, and suddenly I lost so much drive to get past it.¡± She glanced over at Briggs, in discussions with King Bobo and Harraag, who were enthusiastically shouldering so much of the search and destroy mission for all the virindi on the landscape. ¡°I think, I think we want to have our family before we take that step. We¡¯ll build all the way up to the edge of the wall, and then make those stairs as wide and deep as we can, but until we have a family of our own, we aren¡¯t stepping past it.¡± I inhaled deeply. Briggs was a Source, and Sources would naturally draw attention from forces that got in the way of their destiny. If they kept adventuring, they were only going to stir up greater and greater forces as they did so, and something as mundane as passing on the bloodline just wasn¡¯t ever going to happen. ¡°I can Gate and Worldwalk. I can bring your folks over here, help them Level. They¡¯re only like Fourteens, you know, and not nearly as Wide or Deep as they could be. Even being Imperial doesn¡¯t feed you real Karma, especially for those damn racial Classes of yours.¡± ¡°Ispar just doesn¡¯t have the same level of radical shit there that this place does. That¡¯s probably a good thing for them, but given the time being Ranthas gives us, they likely aren¡¯t in a hurry, either. Working some of the funner Dungeons would be a good vacation for them, I imagine,¡± Kris nodded. ¡°Making a Worldjumping Gate is also a possibility. There aren¡¯t too many who want to go home as yet, but some will still want to, and there¡¯s always visiting the relatives. Putting a receiving Jumpgate in each homeland isn¡¯t too far outside the bounds of possibility, at some point,¡± I noted for her. ¡°True IX¡¯s.¡± Kris¡¯ lip curled. ¡°Nuhmudira would love to kill you and dissect you to figure out how you did such a thing. All her scrabbling after secrets and she still can¡¯t Worldwalk, or she would have fled this place a long time ago.¡± We believed she was in a base in the Black Hills she¡¯d cleared out, one among the many formerly hidden ones that had popped out of nowhere, and who were likely looking at the cleansing of the Obsidian Plains with very mixed feelings. Oswald had pursued her and Xunidara relentlessly until they¡¯d lost him, but his instincts were good¡­ and the number of Freebooters and Raven Hand Cultists who could support her were now mostly dead and not coming back. He¡¯d long known how to kill people and circumvent Deathstone-style protection to do so, and her hapless helpers had found out he wasn¡¯t reluctant to use it on them, either. A little vivus to clean up the bodies and make Matrix reviving next to impossible, and no, they weren¡¯t coming back in any form. The Empyrean secrets of traveling to other worlds were basically known by Asheron and some of the Falatacot Elders, and naturally considered great and dangerous secrets not to be shared readily, even outright hoarded. Even Harlune had only gone to Ispar with Asheron¡¯s help in the past, and could not raise the Portals himself to do so, especially with the chaotic mess of the aether between Ispar and Aubarean now. Matrix magic worked on different paradigms. Interplanetary Teleports had unlimited range within a dimension. Worldwalk spells were designed for transport between magical worlds, and could transport all those who could walk through the Portals they opened. Gates could punch through space and dimensions, and were actually a form of Conjuration magic, able to bring in things up to the power of the avatar of a god on behalf of the Conjurer. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The big thing they all had in common was that you had to know where you were, and where you going, being able to conceptualize it on some level. With Aubarean undergoing some sort of dimensional shift, its relationship to other worlds and planes had shifted, and the old knowledge of how to reach those other worlds was ¡®out-of-date¡¯, as it were. Very effective, very powerful magic when it worked, capable of reaching rapidly across the stars to new worlds¡­ and also utterly useless when the magic didn¡¯t auto-correct for changes. You had to know where you were going to get there. That knowledge was something the Empyrean ancestors had bargained off of Old Gods and creatures of Mythos, who had no problem tracking such worlds and locations with their Divine Awareness. In the past, there had even been Divination spells that could identify new targets for Worldwalks. The Empyreans supposedly had records of tens of thousands of alternate worlds their civilizations had walked in the past, spreading their people and cultures across transfinity, often as followers of this or that Old God wanting to expand its own reach and followers, or to fight against the influence of an old rival who¡¯d had a world to itself for far too long... Dereth itself was but one of the worlds they¡¯d ¡®discovered¡¯, as the Empyreans weren¡¯t native to here, either. All of the Empyreans here were just descendants of long-ago colonists who¡¯d come here and raised empires of their own, in time¡­ And I, I was closing in on the level of power needed to do what they had done, which meant I could challenge their accomplishments, follow in their footsteps, or exceed what they had done. But that was something for the future. As for right now, this was THE place on the planet to be. Things were happening HERE, with the interests of multiple Entities involved, and whatever was buried under here, plus whatever and whoever was manipulating the System here. It was very, very likely that I¡¯d not have been able to reach this level of power so quickly anywhere and everywhere else on the planet. ¡°Do you think you can handle Aerbax without me?¡± I asked Kris. She frowned as she considered the matter. ¡°The real one was close to twice the size of the False Aerbax we killed, as you recall.¡± I nodded agreement. One of the reasons we knew it was fake is that it was only about eight feet high, not including tentacles. The one on Caul Island had been at least twelve feet in height, and correspondingly broader, with what seemed like seven tentacles, not four. ¡°I don¡¯t think we could bind it up like we did the Fake, and restricting its mobility would be equally difficult. I¡¯m sure it could bounce and jump around even in a Stillflight Field, given it had no difficulties going up the side of sheer cliffs and the like, and it¡¯s not a programmed Summoned thing.¡± ¡°I can deploy Hexar Shields against it, and save for Void Magic, we should be able to completely cut down on its damage-inflicting spellcasting, so its main threat will indeed be in melee combat,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Hollow Lightning attacks that can bend around shields. We¡¯ll have to use Defender Spikes to bolster the Uber Shields if we choose to use them, then. If you Dispel the short Curses it can ladle out, we should be good, although¡­¡± she drummed her nails. ¡°Will Elemental Protection against Lightning soak up some of its hits?¡± ¡°It should. Not much different from False Life, if you want to consider that.¡± ¡°A Mass version of that might be needed to stop an instant-kill attack, then,¡± she nodded. ¡°Can you stop its immunity defense? That was extremely annoying.¡± ¡°No. It¡¯s an internal quality power, like the gaze of a basilik, or an Elemental¡¯s affinity with its own Element. I could imitate it, actually, with Ur-Priest power, but I can¡¯t stop it readily.¡± I actually tilted my head at her. ¡°Did you try to Null Strike it away? That would be much more effective than a Dispel¡­¡± Her mouth opened and closed, and then she kicked the hapless ground energetically for daring to witness her absent-mindedness. ¡°Didn¡¯t even think about it, we just worked around it. Sunuva¡­¡± she trailed off, shaking her head. ¡°Chances are that thing was connected to the real one?¡± ¡°Almost absolute. Virindi are hiveminds, after all. It was probably monitoring the Obsidian Plains for the true one from up there.¡± ¡°Huh. So, it¡¯s not going to have any idea that we might be able to punch through its melee immunity.¡± Her smile went from disappointed at her own missing of that fact to gloriously scheming almost instantly. ¡°We also don¡¯t know if the immunity has an actual time limit, or is just something it can set. I guess we are going to find out,¡± I agreed with her assessment. ¡°I definitely wouldn¡¯t try wrapping it up at all¡­¡± ¡°Well, then, let¡¯s plan our attacks¡­¡± ----------- A week later¡­ The attack force wasn¡¯t much different from that which had gone against the olthoi queen. The main difference was the requirement for Void Magic Protection, which basically meant needing Rose of Celdon Rings, the only known items to bear the Wards for them. Teams of full Fellowships, generally fronted by two Vanguards of either the lugians or the Gearknights, marched out to begin the process of wiping and Sealing the landscape of Summons. There were plenty of creatures here with connections to the Virindi Hivemind, and true to our word, we wouldn¡¯t vivify them¡­ but neither would such creatures respawn. It did mean that we had to kill them, then wait for the respawn, then vivify the respawn and do the Sealing, as appropriate. I didn¡¯t have much to do, acting in oversight as the teams leapfrogged one another, coming together in large spawn areas, pulling apart, one team always in reserve in case the others nearby needed help. Everyone here was paramount-class, proven in combat and brave to a default, but the goal was for nobody to die here. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. Briggs and Kris concentrated on running everything smoothly, rotating teams in and out, making sure everyone wasn¡¯t too winded as we began the long process of cleaning up the Singularity Caul. There was no real attempt made to investigate the Caulcano in the center, even with the straight shot of leviathan-shattered landscape leading up to it. All the Spawn Points had moved to above the dunes the hills had become, if anything making it more difficult as the open areas were more prone to pulling in other close spawns. Nothing to do about it but kill them all, however.