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

Ebook the Power of Ten 6: The First Month Part 2, is finally released on Amazon!

EBOOK SIX IS NOW OUT ON AMAZON! The First Month, Part Two!

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Wild and twisting lights blew through scores of Wisps clustered out in the water by our entry point, and they shattered shrilly and fell into the waters as dissipating energy, the explosive nature of the Kickers and especially Holy energies quickly drawing attention from other Wisps nearby, which began to close in on the source of the new activity.

Kris raced down the Shoreward, peeling it open, and the Barges, Wagons, and Disks re-entered the area of Asheron’s Island, the first volleys already spinning out and popping incoming Wisps before all but a few could throw the first spells, which crashed into and licked at the Hardened Mantlets protecting all the Vehicles there, ultimately failing to do any harm.

The Mick advanced slowly, while I spun up Darts to Chain together and pull more Wisps in, basically acting as the aggro dealer with the showy magic attracting attention.

Hissing enhanced Darts enhanced by a lot of Kickers went out, Spellwarped into dual Rays, Chained, and blew through two dozen targets, harvesting them. Several dozen more Wisps reacted and started coming our way.

The Spotters lit them up, the archers released in series as they came into range, and Wisps died, only a handful getting off their magic before they were dead.

They were free-roving Summons, of programmed behavior, definite short ranges of attention, and they would always zip up to the attack, maybe shooting spells as they came, maybe not. They wouldn’t be clever and stand off and bob and weave, trying to evade spells. Nope, it was Cast or charge into close range… and the archers weren’t going to miss at close range.

Taking the withdrawal route we’d used earlier in reverse, my Ring Zeks busied itself harvesting arrows by the hundreds and thousands via Telekinesis, sending clusters of them zipping down to waiting archers waiting in reserve to stuff into quivers, while rocks stacked themselves up neatly for the lugians on Disks Summoned up for that reason.

There were a lot of arrows to harvest, not all of them were still viable, but the raw numbers meant someone else had to filter them out. I was staying busy both pulling Wisps and dealing with any overflows that came in too close, although our pace was slow enough that it generally wasn’t a problem… and Zeks could actually harvest faster than the archers were shooting, so it was fine. I just had to run a custom Detect Arrow so it could pluck the arrows and throwing rocks up in broad batches all at one time and send them to the waiting archers from where they were scattered all over the landscape.

It was a lot of arrows, but then, there’d been a whole lot of Wisps.

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The hours crawled by as we advanced across the island, cycling the teams in and out to keep everyone fresher and reserve the Potions and Alchemical Foods we had only limited amounts of. There was no rush, as the Wisps would stick around forever, imprisoned on the island, but for now they were nice and clustered up, making them easier to kill in numbers.

The Karmic harvest was impressive, too. Everyone had gained Levels in both Systems, shooting skill increasing, Feats taken, Masteries advanced, Stats gained, generally maxing out everything possible they could for two days in a row.

That was an incredible amount of Karma for anyone of decent Level, and it wasn’t stopping. Or, at the very least, none of them wanted to stop and miss out on this.

The numbers of them around where the Rift had been were incredibly thick. Poking just one of them generated a veritable flood of Wisps in the direction of where they thought the attack came from, so Kris was usually elected to pick one out while I waited with a full Shard array spread out to obliterate a bunch of them from the incoming cluster if needed.

A Dartray combo was usually enough to deal with them once they left the main mass. The archers were having a fine time of things, and the way the Wisps staggered themselves between charging in and pausing to Cast spells always delayed the full mass of their attacks enough for the back-ups to finish any truly stubborn ones that came in too close.

Kristie able to put a bolt through up to a dozen of them at a time got a lot of attention, too, even if she only killed the ones she managed to hit squarely and crit on. That was fine, as the wounded ones she hit were all staggering, sparking, and finished off with one arrow each.

She also wasn’t on the Wagon, but instead down there next to the Mick, her Null protecting him as he kept with playing Spotter, not that he wasn’t casually juking to avoid most of the potshots coming in at him, the two of them the preferred targets as the first living things the Wisps usually came in range of.

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“Visitor coming in behind.”

Ryin’s voice broke over Briggs, who was surveying the land and sprawl of the writhing mass of Wisps ahead of the line of archers intently. The formation of the archers changed subtly, silent /commands going out to change arcs of fire among the Spotters, sometimes spread, sometimes concaving, whatever eliminated the Wisps at the best rate with minimal risk.

-Kris, take over, back off the kill rate twenty percent and then pause for a break,- he /instructed his girl. She promptly kicked off backwards, sliding in reverse until she drew close enough to the Wagon to hop into the air, two Mantlets there turned aside to let her land smoothly, and she didn’t even lower Drop as she did so.

Briggs directed his Disk back and around to the rear of the formation to await Candeth Martine.

The Prodigal Human was clad in a full-body blue-black robe, with a white theater mask showing a frowning face covering his own.

He was also levitating with effortless grace above the ground, shimmery red-purple energies glowing faintly beneath his feet. An Aura of power that ruffled the dust on the blackened stones and soil about him was even faintly visible in the air.

Briggs didn’t look aside as King Borelean and Master Oswald silently joined him on Disks of their own.

“Borelean. Oswald,” the raspy voice of the single Prodigal Human spoke up as he glided up, glancing at both men, young in spite of their years, before settling on the towering Ancient standing between both of them, hands on a massive Hammer that fairly pulsed with deadly intent. “I am not familiar with you…”

“I am Commander Briggs, Warlord of the united force to take back Osteth, and the architect of the plan that released you from your de facto imprisonment, Candeth Martine,” Briggs ground out in a magnificent bass voice that gave the extremely powerful spellcaster pause, for it totally belied his primitive demeanor. The verdant emerald eyes fixated on him were definitely not those of a dumb brute. “I would like to thank you for keeping the Harbinger and its Elemental horde imprisoned on this island these many years. I imagine the undead and virindi could have come up with something to chase it off, but we do not know what might have happened in the interim, especially with Gaerlan’s admitted hatred of Isparians and other races.”

Martine actually paused to formulate a reply to that, studying the way the brute was staring at him without fear or nerves… and feeling the way his Aura of magical power was being subtly blown away, unable to approach him.

“It was my pleasure to see Gaerlan tormented these many years under the attentions of the thing he attempted to enslave, and keep both of them imprisoned in a place of their own making,” his raspy voice finally replied, surveying the group of them, and then looking past them at the Wagons, Barges, and Disks, where Isparians, Aun, and Lugians had all paused in their slaughter of Wisps and were turned to face him.

Hard eyes that had seen a lot of slaughter and death, and death you couldn’t come back from easily. He saw the Banefire to Aberrants Burning cerulean on so many Weapons, Runes and subtle changes to magicks he wasn’t familiar with. His glowing eyes finally settled on me, facing him with Crown in hand.

“I do not see the Imperial Princess,” he murmured, attempting to pick her out.

“She’s getting ready to kill you if need be, as she killed Gaerlan and popped the Harbinger. You won’t see her unless you depart in peace, or depart in death, Martine,” Master Oswald half-smiled, crossing his arms.

“You are in no danger from me,” Candeth replied after a moment, ascertaining the threat and slowly turning his head. Just like back then, he was unable to sense her with magic, a disconcerting fact that had intrigued him.

“Perhaps,” King Borelean spoke up then. “But your past record of instability and ambition are not so easily set aside, Candeth. Your work in this matter is commendable, but your power is great and past deeds not so easily forgotten. We would know your goals and desires at this time.”

“Oh? Do you have designs for me and my power?” His scratched and hoarse voice was amused as he spread his gloved hands. “Do you think that you can comprehend the sights I have seen, the powers that I can wield?!”

“The True Death you’ve escaped once, but won’t the second time?” Briggs replied levelly, unruffled by the display or the spike in Martine’s Aura.

“You believe you are a danger to me?” Martine’s voice was half-sneer, half-warning. “I think you-”

Briggs lifted Endure, and put it back down, tapping it on his Disk.

All the Disks, Wagons, and Barges abruptly jerked and dropped to a mere six inches off the ground, those riding them swaying for a moment at the suddenness of the movement.

As for Candeth Martine, he dropped from his floating position down to the ground, stumbling and falling down in his shock at being dropped from the air so quickly and easily… and he’d only felt the barest hint of any kind of magic sweeping out!

And despite willing it, he could not lift himself off the ground he was sitting so ignobly upon!

Briggs stepped forward off his Disk, booted feat crunching on the stone with ominous purpose and weight, the pebbles forced away from each foot as it set on the ground and grabbed the soil with more than mere gravity.

“Candeth Martine,” Briggs said gravely, “If you wish to start a fight here, we will take you up on it, and you will die. It will be a sad reward for the noble thing you have done here, but if you expect us to bow down to you simply because you have power, you have learned nothing from the examples of Asheron, Rytheran, Aerefalle, Bael’Zharon, Gaerlan, the Olthoi Queen, or the Singularity. Their power equaled or exceeded yours, and we did not just bow down to them, either.”

Martine slowly rose back to his feet, picked up magically directly back upright, but his feet still did not leave the dirt beneath them.

“An impressive trick,” Candeth admitted, straightening up, anger and caution warring in his voice as he looked up at the hulking warrior who was making the ground subtly tremble beneath him, and finally according him a measure of careful respect. “How did you do it, if I may ask?”

“I increased the power of the natural laws your levitation is fighting against a hundredfold and more. The amount of power you’ve allocated to your ability to fly is completely unable to bend the will of King Gravity. I am a Pillar of Reality, and you don’t have the power to ignore those laws in my presence,” Briggs stated, as grimly serious as a thunderstorm on the horizon. “I am a Forsaken, and I will never craft a single spell in my life, but any dweomercrafter standing before me would be well-advised to check their attitude at the door, Candeth Martine.”