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

It turned out the acid-seared eyes of the monolith made for decent raw material, one for an Orb, and the other for a Crystal Ball. Having a decent scrying tool available when needed was never a bad thing, especially if cross-enchanted as a backup Divination-enhancing tool, which pretty much any kind of crystal was good for.

Force magic was a derivation of Earth, the highest end of Earth magic, as it were, structure and rigidity without mass. The Monolith’s eye was perfect for a new Orb atop Crown, as Force magic was my favorite kind of magic, bar none.

Xarabydun itself was a complete loss, but getting the undead completely out of southern Osteth was totally worth it, and Neftet’s potential area wasn’t too far away, regardless.

-------

Weapons hacked away at the demented head-sized gummy drop that was shooting out explosive volleys of Force magic at us in synchronized hacking attempts. I snuffed one, two, three Volleys as the gumdrop tried to blow the Roaches back and failed utterly to do so, eventually being chopped apart as its Health Qi failed and the injuries inflicted on it failed to heal.

Everybody was breathing hard, a little wide-eyed at the savagery of the past two minutes. Vivus popped over the Summoned thing, ensuring it would not respawn, as it had the five before it.

“Along the wall now,” Lord Mick said easily. “Leave the three left for anybody who needs exposure to high-end knaths, we’ve separated them nicely enough.” He quickly led everyone away from the remaining Gummy Drop Knaths, around a divider and up towards the next level.

“That place must have killed a lot of people, Lord Mick?” Selena asked, shaking her head. This was a place for sword work, not missile fire, as all the targets were small, fast-moving, and quarters were tight, with little room to maneuver for a better angle.

“Aye, people talking to Santa Sclavi found themselves in a high-Level Hell, stumbling through those Gumdrops and unable to keep up with the spells being chain-launched here.”

“Five k Health, too. For something with the body consistency of thick jelly,” I muttered from the back, pulling up as Mick raised a hand.

“Now ye get to practice archery. Lass, I’ll have ye Imping each of the targets if ye care to.”

They went to negative Armor fairly quickly, so it was better than Vulning for an opening move.

Mana Conversion was the first Isparian Stat of any kind I’d maxed out, a trend followed by everyone who needed to closely restrict how much mana they used at a given time. My Sorcery Slots gave me lots of backup mana if needed, but backup was what I wanted it to be. So, a spell that should have cost me forty mana base normally went off for four, which stretched my mana out a lot more.

The Roaches were breaking out the bows and lining up to maximize their shooting profile. First row kneeling, tallest people in the back, three ranks of shooters. I stood on the side and looked down the long hall with the rows of gumdrops rocking back and forth or milling around in circles.

“Mass Imping them all at once, drawing fire with an illusion,” I informed them, materializing the Spectral Force in the room in front of the Knaths, very near the wall.

There was an instant fusillade of shots from the nearest two knaths, who ignored the humans lined up in the hallways just outside the doorway. The knaths’ shots seemed to explode on a force barrier, in reality detonating across the wall behind the illusion of me that was gesturing dramatically to keep their attention.

The Imperil IV’s snapped up one by one, and the arrows followed them unerringly as the Gumdrops scooted forward towards the illusion obviously Casting the spells at them, yessir.

Summons intellects, have to love them.

The Autobows and Bows thrummed all together, and gumdrops kicked over and died one by one as they shuffled to the attack with steady patience and rains of exploding Force magic that wasn’t threatening any of us.

Zeks calmly moved each impaled candy-monster corpse back to its Summon point to Burn down.

“Each of ye talk to a Moarself in one o’ the cells here, an’ dodge the Gumdrops on the other side, mind ye,” the Mick said genially, walking ahead to the first cell and throwing it open before striding in to lay a gentle hand on the cowering small moarsman within. “Ye’re free. Go,” he said simply.

Whatever programmed speech was going to be blurted out from the thing seemed to have faded after so long, and the Mick breaking the normal pattern. “Th-thank you, savior!” the ‘Moarself’ stammered, bowing and almost losing its bright red cone-cap with the white ball atop it.

The Mick waited until it vanished from in front of him, then dropped a Vivic Light spell atop its Summon point before turning back to face us.

“Most of fifteen years it be waiting in here for folk to come through here, I reckon,” he said flatly. “Nae again, I be thinkin’.”

The Roaches all nodded and hurried to their own cells to follow the example of what he had done.

“Get Karma for releasing them, I gather?” I asked him as I strolled to the last cell in the rows.

“Aye, at the very end. But we’ll likely be stopping them from returning too, I be thinking,” he nodded at me, dark eyes thoughtful. “Near twenty years stuck in these cells. Even NPC’s should nae be subjected t’ such a life, aye?”

“Truth. What are we looking at next?”

“More Gumdrops, then the Rolling Balls o’ Icy Death. Should nae be a problem with yer Walls.”

“Literal death?” I had to ask.

“Aye. They hit ya, freeze ye solid if they do. Seen it, felt it. Were not fun.”

“And likely worse now, if you don’t have a means to be Revivified quickly. I’ll note that an unnatural Wall will be attacked and probably shatter quickly, so we won’t be able to dawdle,” I warned him.

“They weren’t hard t’ avoid back then if ye weren’t a cocksure arsehole missing half their wits. Will nae be an issue, an’ with luck, we’ll be the last people ever coming through this place.” He paused for a moment as I walked down, released the Moarself there, and dropped a Vivic Light on the Summons point.

If they respawned, the vivus would eat the attempt and Seal the Summons point, and that would be that. Given the normal speed of a Dungeon with no other drains on its mana, that would be in about five minutes.

---

Staggered out just enough in pairs, the Gumdrops fell to Imperils and volley fire taking them down before they could respond properly to the Illusion of a charging Mick racing up to them and hacking away. Everyone enjoyed his flamboyant show, complete with sliding around, doing a 360 wall-ceiling-wall run, cloak billowing out magnificently, and the damn Gumdrops trying to blow the piss out of the Illusion.

The hallway out of there did indeed lead to a room with great rolling balls of frost, the temperature dropping well below zero with a blast of subzero chill to the face. I flipped up the Mass Resist Cold to deal with it for everyone.

We watched the rolling boulders of Cold energy rolling back and forth across the room. The Mick was right, it wasn’t a complex puzzle if you had half a brain about you.

I raised my hand and pulled at the floor of the place. A Wall of Ice erupted on the diagonal towards the short side of the room, blocking off any sudden surprises from that angle.

The Mick promptly strode out onto the floor, moving quickly and keeping an eye to his right. One of the balls rolled into the Wall of Ice, releasing a devastating sphere of cold as it exploded and expended its load into the Wall, which promptly gained six inches of ice while simultaneously cracking throughout its width in that area.

Nobody needed to be told to hurry, racing through the place as another detonation on the sealed side sent more cracks racing through the length of the barrier. We were through swiftly, although we did pause to turn back and watch the next ball of frost roll into the Wall and blow apart the overstressed ice it was made of apart with another blast of killing cold.

“Freezing ice t’ destruction. ‘Tis some nasty magic, right enough,” the Mick nodded. “Now, the next section is going t’ suck. The combination be Uber Penguins and Snowmen Sentries, except the Sentries are in the next room up high an’ casting Life Magic on ye through the walls.”

The Roaches shuffled thoughtfully. “Wasn’t soloing an Uber Penguin one of those coming-of-age moments for a proper warrior back then?” Rogar asked, hand on the shrunken Glaive hanging from his belt.

“Aye, back when we had the proper Gear. The penguins also cough up Platinum spells, with hides like feathers o’ steel. Fire be best against them an’ the snowmen. Lass, we’ll be needing protection from Lightning, too.”

Mass Resist Electricity danced across everyone, purple sparks sinking into them.

“They use both Bolts an’ Rings. So, grouping on them is belike painful, but not near as painful as killing ‘em quick. I still hate the things after all these years. If ye can double-tap them, ‘twill be very, very useful for us, lass. Quarters will be tight in the rooms, but I think us lads will tie them up while the lasses burn them down.”

That meant he was going in first to soak up all he could, meaning I’d have only one Heal target unless they Ringed, and the men would wolfpack while the women shot the penguins down.

The combination would kill the penguins off very quickly if I got the Vulns off on them, then the Imperils.

He’d also be the target of the Snowmen in the next room, which would save the rest of us some Vulns and Imperils coming in.

Rogar, Hundig and Camwise followed the Mick up into the room, charging up on the three Penguins who had worn right through the ice on the floor with their pacing and normal motions, yet were still caught by surprise because of the Sound Bubble containing the noise we were making.

The Mick’s charge reached them right after my Mass Fire Vuln went off on all three of them, and Bunita’s flames blazed through magically-reinforced feathers. The three backed the Mick into the last corner to poke at him with razored beaks totally capable of etching stone, and the lads leapt into position opposite the Mick behind each screaming bird.

They also kept the lines of fire open for Selena, Politia, Milee, and Mizaya.

“Your bones will freeze and your blood explode!” squawked one of the birds in totally legible Isparian as a burning Saber cut into it from behind. Bunita was a spinning wheel of fire, flames erupting around her path as the Mick hacked at the thing, and his Shield Clan ate a point-black blast of Lightning completely, making the Mick grin at the shit-talking penguins.

“I eat penguin eggs fer me breakfast!” he retorted, and something sparked in the dead black eyes of the penguin, spurring it to flap to the lunging attack, beak ringing loudly off the Mick’s greave and totally ignoring Rogar hacking into its backside.

Flaming Weapons tore and ripped in savage unity as the Mick focused on the first one, but spared one attack each for the other penguins… which naturally spurred a flood of Attacks of Opportunities for the archers and the lads, and a few more of his own as they pitted their beaks against the counter-smashing Shield holding steady against the beaks snapping in with force far, far beyond their size would indicate.

It didn’t save them.