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

“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.

“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.”