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

Chum-li was the last of Kris’ students, he of the Bronze Foo Wolf Mask, and the only Natural Swordsman among the set. He was a quiet and introspective individual who had once wielded his grandfather’s katana… until Kris made him give it up for a chance at one of her own QL 40 creations, which nobody in their right mind was going to turn down. He set it aside for his son, and was undoubtedly the most formidable swordsman among the students, with the downside of not being quite so up on the other skills the others were gifted at.

Everything in balance.

He was up as Colmus’ backup, as Xena had taken the option of sticking a Lightning- phasing Longsword into the Formation at the lowest point of the mana surging, failed to establish complete conductivity through the pattern before the Earth mana faltered and crystallized, resulting in the eruption of a whole bunch of ten-foot stony tentacles flailing madly about. Colmus had chopped two of them down as Xena somersaulted back frantically out of their range, then retreated with a parry or two keeping him from being locked up. The depressed students who thought they’d worked out the reason why instead had glum glances at their definitely amused instructor.

Colmus was thus the first to put his Bastard Sword carefully into the spiraling vortex formation, and administer a shock to the whole system that abruptly dissipated the mana involved in it, rendering it inert and collapsing the spell entirely.

The students celebrated briefly, and then Chum-li led the effort around the pit where Xarabydun had once been, ringing around the thing at the middle of the crater. They popped trap after trap if not routinely, at least with great speed after they verified that each one was indeed set up the same way and there were no great surprises to be found.

Then it was time for the Boss Fight, as it were.

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“Yeah, it’s aware of us. A quartz jewel popped up out of the bottom down there a while ago, probably an eye, after we popped the second-to-last trap. It stopped sending out so much power from the ley lines, and stopped completely after the last trap failed.” Kris leaned her head from side to side, popping her neck. “So, can you contain it?”

“Already done.” Everyone looked at me in surprise. “Oh, please. We made three complete circuits of the thing. Do you think I was really doing nothing more than looking on and preparing to Heal you all?” I just rolled my eyes dramatically for them. “I am an advanced Warcaster and magos, and the fact that I can be the support mage with great efficiency does not change what I am.

“You all were a nice distraction. Every time a trap collapsed or triggered, it formed a perfect cover for the Circles I was completing and cross-linking. This thing in the middle is totally confined and not going anywhere. You can all retreat any time you like, and it won’t be able to do anything about it. Once these Circles activate, it’s going to be forced out of phasing and into materiality.

“Just say when.”

The students were too impressed to say anything, so it fell to Princess Kristie, who just grabbed my head and gave me a noogie. “See?! SEE?! Awesome bondmage is awesome!” she proclaimed, while I reclaimed my head from her with a uselessly aggrieved expression.

“Base Natural Armor +25,” I grunted at her.

“Huh.” She looked at her students pensively. “They aren’t getting through that...”

“DR 15/-.”

She snarled visibly. “Okay, even worse. Can it be overcome by anything?”

“I’m thinking a full-out acid onslaught of Acidphasing, Acidic, and Neutralizing will chew through its Damage Reduction like a firehose of sulfuric acid. You might even trigger Anathema if you’ve got enough Penetration...”

“Can you Brilliant all of their Weapons? If so, they can go to town with the Infusion trifecta.”

“Certainly.”

“You heard her. Let’s see a lot of dripping green on those Blades, and go kill us a hill.”

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I slammed Crown down on the Summoning Circle, and dumped a V+50 Mana into the submerged circles of stone I’d Shaped underneath the sands here.

They blazed to life, rising to the surface in flashes of crystal and throwing off the sand and earth above them as they shone with energy.

There was a hollow rumbling and explosion of earth and sand as the monolith at the center of the Formation was forced out of its Phased Earthgliding state and onto the surface of the pit.

They all came down on it even as it was erupting forth, Swords descending in Cuts the Waterfall all blazing liquid green and solid fluid emerald as they hacked into the monolith.

The massive Earth Elemental definitely didn’t like all those Charging Leap Attack One Strikes slamming into it and carving so many glowing furrows down its sides a full foot deeper and longer than any of the Blades themselves were.

Princess Kristie’s were particularly noticeable, as she started up by the conical lump that was its head, sliced right through a big chunk of crystal that was probably an eye and down and around its no-neck and actually across three other furrows. Lost Light ripped and tore open the gash to huge effect, and despite coming down after her students, she hit the ground and plunged Quaver into its side at the same time as they did. All of them took six powerful steps around it counter-clockwise, linking up a horrible set of wounds that would have disemboweled something that wasn’t made out of sand and stone, before just as abruptly and quickly leaping away.

Nedlike caught the sweep of a boulder of an arm, and went flying like he was a soccer ball. That was partly lightfoot, pushing off the arm even as he was smacked and sent out of range, but it would have splattered a normal human like a grape in so doing.

Happily, he just went sailing out of bounds, which I stopped with a Featherweight and blasted a series of cold Darts into him to take care of the physical damage. At least four broken ribs were reset with cold pain, but he drifted to the ground outside the containing circle a hundred feet away, irked, but basically fine. Everyone else joined him out of reach of the charging Elemental which could not even touch the Circle, let alone pursue them past it as it futilely tried to catch up to them.

The ones on the far side promptly raced towards it together, while Kris pounced right for its other visible ‘eye’.

The whipping limb it leveled at her would have punted her a good hundred yards or more, except she kicked herself abruptly over the blow, a cushion of Lost Light sliding her right along it and up towards its head, which it ducked out of her reach before she could zag back from her zig. Instead, this time she plowed a glowing green furrow down and around its backside in contrast to the one she’d left gaping and glowing on its front side, earning its attention and focus as it followed up with another full-power slam down at her.

The impact of that man-thick tendril sent out shockwaves, none of which truly discomfited or interrupted the driving attacks around its lower fringes, as glowing Blades plunged into the existing disemboweling attack around its base and sliced in deeper and more strongly than before. Combined with the prior damage, whole sheets and slabs of its mass broke free and slid away from it, sliding into and disappearing into the sands beneath like water dropping into a lake.

It had missed Kris, of course, and she promptly ran right up that pillar-sized tendril, Quaver ripping along the course and peeling its stony hide open like an overripe orange.

It spun around underneath her, having no bones or true physiology. The other tendril came around to smash at her, ignoring the others carving a glowing, sizzling path around its base and collapsing its body mass catastrophically in favor of the one who had just split open its second tendril and somehow managed to half-sever it from its base.

Kris’ students didn’t know I could have Banished this thing away with a single spell, but that wouldn’t have fed it to the Land, or really disrupted the conduit of power it was tied to and defending for its master. Feeding the Land really was the better play, and making the cost for the creature leaving an avatar behind a permanent expense it would long remember was the best play for us to use by far.

It obviously wanted to come back, or it wouldn’t have left the guardian behind to protect its way to do so. It didn’t matter if it was for revenge or curiosity, making it more reluctant to do so because it might lose even more was the right message to send, a defense of territory everything that lived understood on an instinctive level if it had any intelligence at all.

I added triple Dart hardshots to the thing’s woes, just because I could, leaving Fastcasts for emergency Healing while blowing out craters in its bulk. I drove them into cross-pattern joins, detonating Elemental and Holy energies inside it to crack and shatter and slough off more of its mass… and set it on eager vivic fire.

-Hitte!- Kris /ordered, and all of her students leapt away for all they worth as a combination of massive sweeping arms and pounding body mass tried to sweep the area clear and disrupt what they were doing to it all at once.

I had to Featherweight Colmus, who took a full smashing attack, and three of the others were also caught in the shockwaves and went tumbling like leaves in the air.

Nobody between me and the Monolith then, and it abruptly lost its head as a vengeful Kris landed on it and promptly Flurried the ever-loving Hell out of it, sending the top six feet of its body tumbling and away in blurs of emerald

A full Shardray volley of Acidic fun punched into all the cross-patterns facing me, driving deep into its mass and liquefying tons of mana-infused mass while Banefire chased its lifeforce throughout the mass of it, even as Kris ran around it and hacked off both of its tendrils somehow while doing so.

It was clearly not enjoying the fact it was coming apart, boulders cracking and sinking into the stone and sands beneath it, green-touched white mists starting to bleed out from within it and all the cracks and furrows carved into it.

Then Kristie was up and I was done Healing her students even as they all charged at once at full speed.

It was still regrowing its limbs when the corkscrew attacks chewed through and into it, and some critical lack of mass was reached. Light pulsed, another -Hitte!- went out, and everyone was in the air when it blew apart in a tumbling, ripping volcanic eruption that unfortunately for it had no heat behind it, and the green and whiteness was eating at the force of the blast, not enhancing it.

They had to do a lot of bouncing away from boulders and crushing rocks coming down all over the place, and I rolled my eyes as I realized I was going to be Healing more after the thing was dead than from when it was alive and well.

But the monolith left behind was dead, the message was sent, and Xarabydun was no longer in the hands of the undead.