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

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.

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).