Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

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.

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.

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“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.