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

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…

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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…”