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

“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.

“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…