Chapter 218
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There were now two lines of Disks forming steps racing up to the walls. The dragons all waited until they were together, and then used the Amulets of Spell Knowledge they were wearing. The spell within, naturally enough, was Spider Climb.
It was like we planned how to get dragons up over the walls in a no-fly zone, or something.
The dragons swarmed up the side of the basalt walls every bit as quickly as the xenosyms could, poured themselves over the battlements at the top, and triple lightning breaths scythed through the masses on the walls in their arcs of fire. Silver jaws reached out to crackle and crunch a couple 'syms who were too close and too full of themselves.
They went over the walls, and started down them, and suddenly the wall-crawling xenosyms found some really big competition for wall space, and some big-ass tails and wings flinging them down fall-go-splat.
The Valor dragons didn't bother wasting their breath weapons, as the syms were quite resistant to cold damage. They just bit, clawed, buffeted, and smashed while on a vertical plane, not at all put off, and bulldozed a path through shrieking 'syms.
The Torcs their Amulets were hanging from flared repeatedly as mind-control magic went the dragons' way. Betrayed by the psionic displays, the guilty 'vores and their rides were promptly hatracked by archers waiting for those very signs. The dragons were also very curious about how the 'vores were going to taste...
The Rockborn, being the slowest of the troops, arrived last, with one of the Priests with them whipping up a wall of stone in spiral stair format, forming a tight rising stairway to the top of the walls. The dwarves tromped upwards tirelessly, their Spears held tight, their cadence on point with every step, reaching the top at a trot and pouring out onto the battlements in a steady stream.
An elf dropped over the side of the wall, immediately followed by a dozen berserkers. Five feet from the ground, the gentle white cube of a Featherweight Zone went off, and everyone hit the ground softly in the midst of writhing xenosyms.
Berserkers zerked, jumping away as another dozen of them came leaping down with excited cries, hit the ground, springing away as the next wave came down.
Right after them came the dwarves, to set up the relief line behind them. Brawling berserkers found Rockborn Spears driving into the guts of the writhing aliens they were hacking into, and soon the hedge of Spears was up and the dwarves were taking ground, as the berserkers pulled back to get healed.
The scampering dragons made every effort to catch up to AA and Sama as they made their way around the walls in explosions of black carapaces and glowing green blood. Everyone made mental homage to the Casters who'd doled out the Mass Resist Acids for everyone, given how acrid the air was becoming, and as the dwarves and berserkers below followed after Briggs, the rest of the troops secured the walls and battlements.
The griffons and the Hellpoodles were the last ones to come up the Disks, following in the tracks of everyone else. The griffons were annoyed by the Null Interdiction keeping them from flying, and occasionally got to mix it up with a xenosym and further realize why they didn't like not being able to fly. Captains Fido and Shirley stayed alert for any surprises to the flanks, which their slavering jaws and massive claws were more than happy to greet with fire, cold, and lightning.
With Errant keeping his flanks solid, and dragons playing flick-the-wallcrawler below him, Ancientaxe made very good time, his Glaive Zeitgeist happily vivisizing a bunch of angry Aberrants. He naturally didn't give a damn about the 'vores in charge, their psionics finding him less substantial then a ghost, and he picked them out anywhere in his Helix, no matter how hard they hid, painted them into the Mark-Up Display, and the Archers hatracked them if they were out of his reach.
Sama reached the far side, sent three shrieking strokes of Tremble through the door in front of her, psionic energies shattered shrilly in protest, some things inside started boiling out at her, and she went right in after them.
Quaver and Tremble's ominous notes didn't stop at all, and the sounds of whatever was inside there contributing a stanza to their Song would probably have caused a lot of nightmares if everyone wasn't humming along with Heaven's Elevator Music.
The great drawbridge over the naturally unfathomably deep moat slammed down, severed chains with jagged ends falling down to dangle above the depths. The dragons slithered up over the walls, down the outside of them, along the gatehouse, over out onto the bridge, and across it quickly, facing the new xenosym and 'vore forces coming up from the settlement below.
A good number of the cerebrovores were riding sentients instead of 'vores, including humans, apes, lizardfolk, anthros, orcs, ogres, and even a couple Jotuns, Drakes, and other monsters.
That was totally fine. AA, Errant, and Sama bounced off the walkway, skipped along the walls, leapt out to land lightly on the dragons' backs, bounced again, and Void and Null landed right in front of the walkway just in time to meet the barrage of spells, psionics, and natural abilities from suborned hosts getting tossed at the dragons.
It was an explosive display, very colorful, eye-catching flames and crackling arcs of power, rings of energy, mind-bending auras and waves. When it was all done, and people could open their eyes easily, Sama and AA stood there unharmed, his Helices up and spinning blacks and greys, while Sama just looked annoyed.
The heads of five dragons rose behind them, looking very smug, while Errant just looked amused.
And then all the spells went off from the elves on the walls.
Acres of ground vanished from sight under a lot of fireballs singing with banefire, swallowing every part of the small army out there. Although the cerebrovores riding the skulls of their hosts were mostly unharmed by the magic, the same thing couldn't be said for their host bodies. Overlapping flames tore into them from every direction, burning to ash what was only still living by psionic energy, and suborned throats screamed in irritation at this event happening, and maybe just a little pain from the feedback... which was a new and splendid experience, and so not nearly as off-putting as it should have been.
What it did do is get rid of a whole bunch of xenosyms, and Brother Ancientaxe and Sama were off like launched bullets. Lines of 'syms in the way parted ways like cloven waves, gouts of corrosive blood flew into the air... and no, the stolen bodies weren't immune to the blood, either. Might they possibly be taking the splash effect into account when cleaving? My, they would have had to be pretty damn good to do that...
Glaive, Swords, and Autobows went hunting for 'vores, shearing through skulls and splitting them inside their rides. For those whose rides had died and were extracting themselves from their carriages of charred bone, streaks of spinning Helices and wrathflame divided them, and their wielders kept going.
The dragons, however, were bellowing for attention, and the surviving xenosyms reacted to the stimuli, swarming toward them in a wave of gleaming, writhing black alien bodies.
Dragon tails and wings are incredibly strong and quite heavy. The dragons flowed into a five-part circle of motion while Errant began picking off 'vores here and there who, it just so happened, were not immune to The Light of Heaven, and Purity blazed like a small star as chained Rays of radiant energy speared out and let their thoughts out into The Light.
Massive wings and slamming tails scooped and hurled xenosyms sideways with great energy, lunging jaws grabbed and hurled them like sides of beef. They hiss-wailed strangely as they went hurtling over the side of the moat, were pounded past it with crushing tail-swipes and swept flying with hurricane-force winds picking them up and sending new offerings down to whatever Thing existed down there in the darkness.
The wind coming up from the moat stopped, too...
Standing up there on a small Ward Wall just above them, Errant ripped Walls of glowing fire right and left, chained bolts of Wrath, and picked out the 'vores for the archers ready on the walls behind him to hatrack with True Seeking Arrows. There were a lot of them, but ten of them were basically dying every breath, stolen skulls transfixed by quintets of arrows as their wounded host bodies staggered and tried to attack before being brought down by uncannily accurate arrow fire.
But AA and Sama were moving with appalling speed, zigging and zagging from 'vore to 'vore, narrow lines of destruction exploding in passing, and 'vores were getting to investigate Life's Final Mystery in numbers as the two zipped hither and yon, and split skulls and the squirming things within were flying in their wake.
Cold swallowed a cluster of 'syms, two of them, doing scarcely no damage to them, but the follow-up lightning bolts went through them as if supercharged, blowing many of them apart violently as superconductivity did its thing. Valor and Shield dragons glanced at one another, made little neck shakes that amounted to 'hee hee hee!', and continued flinging 'syms and some overconfident 'vore host bodies over the lip of the moat and down to their doom.
------
The inner gates groaned slowly open, and Briggs marched out at the head of the infantry corps and the griffons.
He saw me glance at him, his helm opened slightly so I could see his grin, and he patted his chest. Probably three or four pounds of gory remnants of things fell off his Skinplate with a hissing, wet squelching.
Tremble started flashing, hands went up, and the Healing was doled out quickly. There had been some impressive traps and psionic energies used inside, but the Healers were on them, and the White Staff had already brought back two berserkers and a dwarf who'd been reduced to meat paste, a blasted corpse, and nearly bit in half, respectively.
The force outside had a fair amount of carried Gear and jewelry, as bling seemed to be a vanity statement for 'vore host bodies. Nobody protested their odd tastes in style, as we were just going to Invest or Infuse it all, anyways.
"Got some nice spoils. Although some of the shit makes my eyes want to bleed." He picked up a coffer of some slick, greasy pseudo-metal. Some kind of Void-Energized palladium, I thought...
He'd naturally relayed most of his finds to me, a huge chunk of it weird trade goods bartered for passage, in addition to a lot of coin from tolls cum offerings. What was in the coffer was pretty nice, given how warded up and sealed it had been in a corner of their secure storage area.
He popped it open with his thumb, and a cool, pale blue light rose from within. We looked at a pentagrammic star inlaid with a very unique Rune that pulsed with an inherent strength of reality, and disdain for those things not of Creation.
"A Cerulean Seal." I smirked despite myself. "And they didn't throw it into the moat, why?..."
"Probably it made them forget about it. It represents just how much Creation doesn't like them, after all." He snapped it closed, and tossed it over his soldier.
Barus, who was just walking up, caught it reflexively, startled. "It's made for Druids. Enjoy."
The Druid of the North Wind's eyes lit up, and he bowed shortly before hustling away, Brown ambling like a small hill after him.
A Cerulean Seal was essentially a minor Artifact designed to really piss off Aberrants. It had Greater Bane effects, sensed them nearby, could Turn them like they were undead, trashed their spell resistance, and generally made them feel very unwelcome here in Existence. He'd be able to do some major bullying of Aberrants with the thing. As its origins were Druidic, it only made sense for him to be the bearer of it.
Vivic fires were everywhere, burning merrily. We'd gotten some blood and organs off some of the more magical monsterish hosts, the dragons were trying out different seasonings, frying, boiling, broiling, roasting, and mincing the crunchy cerebrovores left all over the place.
The little sisters trooped up, their trim outfits of deep green, burnt crimson, and bright white and blue with ribbons had some gashes and gouges in them, which Tremble would fix up when she got a minute or three.
"Oh, Sama, was that 'vore surprised when I punched it in the jaw and got all the way up to its brain!" Verd buffed her fist proudly.
"Sooooo irritating," Amber sniffed in contrast. "They run around naked, and only have like three good places to stick them. No style at all." Her scarlet eyes fixed on the town a mile down the hill with interest.
"Everything in that town is ridden by a cerebrovore," I informed her blandly, and her face fell again. How was she supposed to get any Night Rose practice in with Aberrants riding hosts everywhere?
I looked down at Veis, who looked so cute in her outfit, totally out of place here. Of course, it could morph to a ninja body-stocking in a heartbeat, but that hardly meant she was going to give up her loli cuteness if she had a choice.
"Two 'vores!" she chimed up, her twin Kukris flipping up like ready snakes, and just as quickly flipped back down into their scabbards. "They were trying to run away. They look really funny when they run," she added in a stage whisper.
"They do," I agreed, knuckling her head. Ribbons and bows... "We aren't done, of course."
Their eyes joined a bunch of others looking downhill. "We have to purge that?" Verd asked grimly.
"Basically," I agreed. "Really, just get past it, loot, plunder, kill everything in our way... you know, Heaven's Brigands."
They all smirked despite themselves. "Murderhoboing?" Amber cackled despite herself.
"Yeah," I agreed with a lop-sided smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"And that'll wrap up this zone," Briggs contributed, with a glance at me.
"What? All this is one zone?" Verd spoke up in alarm.
"Both sides of the bridge, yep," I informed Busty Little Sister.
The girls looked back, thought about everything we'd killed, how much more we had to kill, and pursed their lips.
"So..." Amber drawled, "how many more of these zones do we have to go through?" she asked slowly.
"Twenty?" I asked Briggs, who made a 'thereabouts' shake of his hand. "And of course, the three super-zones around the Obelisks."
"So, this was just light exercise," Veis piped up.
"A casual harvesting of alternative draconic culinary fact-finding components," I answered with a straight face.
"I bet those things would taste really good in 'sym acid blood that's been gently electrified," Verd mused, and went off to volunteer that to the dragons, her sisters darting after her with great interest, coming up with a half-dozen more totally weird and inspired suggestions on the way. Hag Akasha at work...
Briggs smirked after them. "All of you are characters," he supplied helpfully.
"Well, duh." I glanced at Errant at the far edge of the temporary camp, speaking with Estemar as their combined Eyes of Heaven scanned for any sign of intruders incoming. "Freaking predetermined combat zones. So glad the Brothers scouted us right into them."
"I'm more worried about the stuff we are avoiding," Briggs admitted, and I couldn't say I blamed him...
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There were now two lines of Disks forming steps racing up to the walls. The dragons all waited until they were together, and then used the Amulets of Spell Knowledge they were wearing. The spell within, naturally enough, was Spider Climb.
It was like we planned how to get dragons up over the walls in a no-fly zone, or something.
The dragons swarmed up the side of the basalt walls every bit as quickly as the xenosyms could, poured themselves over the battlements at the top, and triple lightning breaths scythed through the masses on the walls in their arcs of fire. Silver jaws reached out to crackle and crunch a couple 'syms who were too close and too full of themselves.
They went over the walls, and started down them, and suddenly the wall-crawling xenosyms found some really big competition for wall space, and some big-ass tails and wings flinging them down fall-go-splat.
The Valor dragons didn't bother wasting their breath weapons, as the syms were quite resistant to cold damage. They just bit, clawed, buffeted, and smashed while on a vertical plane, not at all put off, and bulldozed a path through shrieking 'syms.
The Torcs their Amulets were hanging from flared repeatedly as mind-control magic went the dragons' way. Betrayed by the psionic displays, the guilty 'vores and their rides were promptly hatracked by archers waiting for those very signs. The dragons were also very curious about how the 'vores were going to taste...
The Rockborn, being the slowest of the troops, arrived last, with one of the Priests with them whipping up a wall of stone in spiral stair format, forming a tight rising stairway to the top of the walls. The dwarves tromped upwards tirelessly, their Spears held tight, their cadence on point with every step, reaching the top at a trot and pouring out onto the battlements in a steady stream.
An elf dropped over the side of the wall, immediately followed by a dozen berserkers. Five feet from the ground, the gentle white cube of a Featherweight Zone went off, and everyone hit the ground softly in the midst of writhing xenosyms.
Berserkers zerked, jumping away as another dozen of them came leaping down with excited cries, hit the ground, springing away as the next wave came down.
Right after them came the dwarves, to set up the relief line behind them. Brawling berserkers found Rockborn Spears driving into the guts of the writhing aliens they were hacking into, and soon the hedge of Spears was up and the dwarves were taking ground, as the berserkers pulled back to get healed.
The scampering dragons made every effort to catch up to AA and Sama as they made their way around the walls in explosions of black carapaces and glowing green blood. Everyone made mental homage to the Casters who'd doled out the Mass Resist Acids for everyone, given how acrid the air was becoming, and as the dwarves and berserkers below followed after Briggs, the rest of the troops secured the walls and battlements.
The griffons and the Hellpoodles were the last ones to come up the Disks, following in the tracks of everyone else. The griffons were annoyed by the Null Interdiction keeping them from flying, and occasionally got to mix it up with a xenosym and further realize why they didn't like not being able to fly. Captains Fido and Shirley stayed alert for any surprises to the flanks, which their slavering jaws and massive claws were more than happy to greet with fire, cold, and lightning.
With Errant keeping his flanks solid, and dragons playing flick-the-wallcrawler below him, Ancientaxe made very good time, his Glaive Zeitgeist happily vivisizing a bunch of angry Aberrants. He naturally didn't give a damn about the 'vores in charge, their psionics finding him less substantial then a ghost, and he picked them out anywhere in his Helix, no matter how hard they hid, painted them into the Mark-Up Display, and the Archers hatracked them if they were out of his reach.
Sama reached the far side, sent three shrieking strokes of Tremble through the door in front of her, psionic energies shattered shrilly in protest, some things inside started boiling out at her, and she went right in after them.
Quaver and Tremble's ominous notes didn't stop at all, and the sounds of whatever was inside there contributing a stanza to their Song would probably have caused a lot of nightmares if everyone wasn't humming along with Heaven's Elevator Music.
The great drawbridge over the naturally unfathomably deep moat slammed down, severed chains with jagged ends falling down to dangle above the depths. The dragons slithered up over the walls, down the outside of them, along the gatehouse, over out onto the bridge, and across it quickly, facing the new xenosym and 'vore forces coming up from the settlement below.
A good number of the cerebrovores were riding sentients instead of 'vores, including humans, apes, lizardfolk, anthros, orcs, ogres, and even a couple Jotuns, Drakes, and other monsters.
That was totally fine. AA, Errant, and Sama bounced off the walkway, skipped along the walls, leapt out to land lightly on the dragons' backs, bounced again, and Void and Null landed right in front of the walkway just in time to meet the barrage of spells, psionics, and natural abilities from suborned hosts getting tossed at the dragons.
It was an explosive display, very colorful, eye-catching flames and crackling arcs of power, rings of energy, mind-bending auras and waves. When it was all done, and people could open their eyes easily, Sama and AA stood there unharmed, his Helices up and spinning blacks and greys, while Sama just looked annoyed.
The heads of five dragons rose behind them, looking very smug, while Errant just looked amused.
And then all the spells went off from the elves on the walls.
Acres of ground vanished from sight under a lot of fireballs singing with banefire, swallowing every part of the small army out there. Although the cerebrovores riding the skulls of their hosts were mostly unharmed by the magic, the same thing couldn't be said for their host bodies. Overlapping flames tore into them from every direction, burning to ash what was only still living by psionic energy, and suborned throats screamed in irritation at this event happening, and maybe just a little pain from the feedback... which was a new and splendid experience, and so not nearly as off-putting as it should have been.
What it did do is get rid of a whole bunch of xenosyms, and Brother Ancientaxe and Sama were off like launched bullets. Lines of 'syms in the way parted ways like cloven waves, gouts of corrosive blood flew into the air... and no, the stolen bodies weren't immune to the blood, either. Might they possibly be taking the splash effect into account when cleaving? My, they would have had to be pretty damn good to do that...
Glaive, Swords, and Autobows went hunting for 'vores, shearing through skulls and splitting them inside their rides. For those whose rides had died and were extracting themselves from their carriages of charred bone, streaks of spinning Helices and wrathflame divided them, and their wielders kept going.
The dragons, however, were bellowing for attention, and the surviving xenosyms reacted to the stimuli, swarming toward them in a wave of gleaming, writhing black alien bodies.
Dragon tails and wings are incredibly strong and quite heavy. The dragons flowed into a five-part circle of motion while Errant began picking off 'vores here and there who, it just so happened, were not immune to The Light of Heaven, and Purity blazed like a small star as chained Rays of radiant energy speared out and let their thoughts out into The Light.
Massive wings and slamming tails scooped and hurled xenosyms sideways with great energy, lunging jaws grabbed and hurled them like sides of beef. They hiss-wailed strangely as they went hurtling over the side of the moat, were pounded past it with crushing tail-swipes and swept flying with hurricane-force winds picking them up and sending new offerings down to whatever Thing existed down there in the darkness.
The wind coming up from the moat stopped, too...
Standing up there on a small Ward Wall just above them, Errant ripped Walls of glowing fire right and left, chained bolts of Wrath, and picked out the 'vores for the archers ready on the walls behind him to hatrack with True Seeking Arrows. There were a lot of them, but ten of them were basically dying every breath, stolen skulls transfixed by quintets of arrows as their wounded host bodies staggered and tried to attack before being brought down by uncannily accurate arrow fire.
But AA and Sama were moving with appalling speed, zigging and zagging from 'vore to 'vore, narrow lines of destruction exploding in passing, and 'vores were getting to investigate Life's Final Mystery in numbers as the two zipped hither and yon, and split skulls and the squirming things within were flying in their wake.
Cold swallowed a cluster of 'syms, two of them, doing scarcely no damage to them, but the follow-up lightning bolts went through them as if supercharged, blowing many of them apart violently as superconductivity did its thing. Valor and Shield dragons glanced at one another, made little neck shakes that amounted to 'hee hee hee!', and continued flinging 'syms and some overconfident 'vore host bodies over the lip of the moat and down to their doom.
------
The inner gates groaned slowly open, and Briggs marched out at the head of the infantry corps and the griffons.
He saw me glance at him, his helm opened slightly so I could see his grin, and he patted his chest. Probably three or four pounds of gory remnants of things fell off his Skinplate with a hissing, wet squelching.
Tremble started flashing, hands went up, and the Healing was doled out quickly. There had been some impressive traps and psionic energies used inside, but the Healers were on them, and the White Staff had already brought back two berserkers and a dwarf who'd been reduced to meat paste, a blasted corpse, and nearly bit in half, respectively.
The force outside had a fair amount of carried Gear and jewelry, as bling seemed to be a vanity statement for 'vore host bodies. Nobody protested their odd tastes in style, as we were just going to Invest or Infuse it all, anyways.
"Got some nice spoils. Although some of the shit makes my eyes want to bleed." He picked up a coffer of some slick, greasy pseudo-metal. Some kind of Void-Energized palladium, I thought...
He'd naturally relayed most of his finds to me, a huge chunk of it weird trade goods bartered for passage, in addition to a lot of coin from tolls cum offerings. What was in the coffer was pretty nice, given how warded up and sealed it had been in a corner of their secure storage area.
He popped it open with his thumb, and a cool, pale blue light rose from within. We looked at a pentagrammic star inlaid with a very unique Rune that pulsed with an inherent strength of reality, and disdain for those things not of Creation.
"A Cerulean Seal." I smirked despite myself. "And they didn't throw it into the moat, why?..."
"Probably it made them forget about it. It represents just how much Creation doesn't like them, after all." He snapped it closed, and tossed it over his soldier.
Barus, who was just walking up, caught it reflexively, startled. "It's made for Druids. Enjoy."
The Druid of the North Wind's eyes lit up, and he bowed shortly before hustling away, Brown ambling like a small hill after him.
A Cerulean Seal was essentially a minor Artifact designed to really piss off Aberrants. It had Greater Bane effects, sensed them nearby, could Turn them like they were undead, trashed their spell resistance, and generally made them feel very unwelcome here in Existence. He'd be able to do some major bullying of Aberrants with the thing. As its origins were Druidic, it only made sense for him to be the bearer of it.
Vivic fires were everywhere, burning merrily. We'd gotten some blood and organs off some of the more magical monsterish hosts, the dragons were trying out different seasonings, frying, boiling, broiling, roasting, and mincing the crunchy cerebrovores left all over the place.
The little sisters trooped up, their trim outfits of deep green, burnt crimson, and bright white and blue with ribbons had some gashes and gouges in them, which Tremble would fix up when she got a minute or three.
"Oh, Sama, was that 'vore surprised when I punched it in the jaw and got all the way up to its brain!" Verd buffed her fist proudly.
"Sooooo irritating," Amber sniffed in contrast. "They run around naked, and only have like three good places to stick them. No style at all." Her scarlet eyes fixed on the town a mile down the hill with interest.
"Everything in that town is ridden by a cerebrovore," I informed her blandly, and her face fell again. How was she supposed to get any Night Rose practice in with Aberrants riding hosts everywhere?
I looked down at Veis, who looked so cute in her outfit, totally out of place here. Of course, it could morph to a ninja body-stocking in a heartbeat, but that hardly meant she was going to give up her loli cuteness if she had a choice.
"Two 'vores!" she chimed up, her twin Kukris flipping up like ready snakes, and just as quickly flipped back down into their scabbards. "They were trying to run away. They look really funny when they run," she added in a stage whisper.
"They do," I agreed, knuckling her head. Ribbons and bows... "We aren't done, of course."
Their eyes joined a bunch of others looking downhill. "We have to purge that?" Verd asked grimly.
"Basically," I agreed. "Really, just get past it, loot, plunder, kill everything in our way... you know, Heaven's Brigands."
They all smirked despite themselves. "Murderhoboing?" Amber cackled despite herself.
"Yeah," I agreed with a lop-sided smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"And that'll wrap up this zone," Briggs contributed, with a glance at me.
"What? All this is one zone?" Verd spoke up in alarm.
"Both sides of the bridge, yep," I informed Busty Little Sister.
The girls looked back, thought about everything we'd killed, how much more we had to kill, and pursed their lips.
"So..." Amber drawled, "how many more of these zones do we have to go through?" she asked slowly.
"Twenty?" I asked Briggs, who made a 'thereabouts' shake of his hand. "And of course, the three super-zones around the Obelisks."
"So, this was just light exercise," Veis piped up.
"A casual harvesting of alternative draconic culinary fact-finding components," I answered with a straight face.
"I bet those things would taste really good in 'sym acid blood that's been gently electrified," Verd mused, and went off to volunteer that to the dragons, her sisters darting after her with great interest, coming up with a half-dozen more totally weird and inspired suggestions on the way. Hag Akasha at work...
Briggs smirked after them. "All of you are characters," he supplied helpfully.
"Well, duh." I glanced at Errant at the far edge of the temporary camp, speaking with Estemar as their combined Eyes of Heaven scanned for any sign of intruders incoming. "Freaking predetermined combat zones. So glad the Brothers scouted us right into them."
"I'm more worried about the stuff we are avoiding," Briggs admitted, and I couldn't say I blamed him...
There were now two lines of Disks forming steps racing up to the walls. The dragons all waited until they were together, and then used the Amulets of Spell Knowledge they were wearing. The spell within, naturally enough, was Spider Climb.It was like we planned how to get dragons up over the walls in a no-fly zone, or something.The dragons swarmed up the side of the basalt walls every bit as quickly as the xenosyms could, poured themselves over the battlements at the top, and triple lightning breaths scythed through the masses on the walls in their arcs of fire. Silver jaws reached out to crackle and crunch a couple 'syms who were too close and too full of themselves.They went over the walls, and started down them, and suddenly the wall-crawling xenosyms found some really big competition for wall space, and some big-ass tails and wings flinging them down fall-go-splat.The Valor dragons didn't bother wasting their breath weapons, as the syms were quite resistant to cold damage. They just bit, clawed, buffeted, and smashed while on a vertical plane, not at all put off, and bulldozed a path through shrieking 'syms.The Torcs their Amulets were hanging from flared repeatedly as mind-control magic went the dragons' way. Betrayed by the psionic displays, the guilty 'vores and their rides were promptly hatracked by archers waiting for those very signs. The dragons were also very curious about how the 'vores were going to taste...The Rockborn, being the slowest of the troops, arrived last, with one of the Priests with them whipping up a wall of stone in spiral stair format, forming a tight rising stairway to the top of the walls. The dwarves tromped upwards tirelessly, their Spears held tight, their cadence on point with every step, reaching the top at a trot and pouring out onto the battlements in a steady stream.An elf dropped over the side of the wall, immediately followed by a dozen berserkers. Five feet from the ground, the gentle white cube of a Featherweight Zone went off, and everyone hit the ground softly in the midst of writhing xenosyms.Berserkers zerked, jumping away as another dozen of them came leaping down with excited cries, hit the ground, springing away as the next wave came down.Right after them came the dwarves, to set up the relief line behind them. Brawling berserkers found Rockborn Spears driving into the guts of the writhing aliens they were hacking into, and soon the hedge of Spears was up and the dwarves were taking ground, as the berserkers pulled back to get healed.The scampering dragons made every effort to catch up to AA and Sama as they made their way around the walls in explosions of black carapaces and glowing green blood. Everyone made mental homage to the Casters who'd doled out the Mass Resist Acids for everyone, given how acrid the air was becoming, and as the dwarves and berserkers below followed after Briggs, the rest of the troops secured the walls and battlements.The griffons and the Hellpoodles were the last ones to come up the Disks, following in the tracks of everyone else. The griffons were annoyed by the Null Interdiction keeping them from flying, and occasionally got to mix it up with a xenosym and further realize why they didn't like not being able to fly. Captains Fido and Shirley stayed alert for any surprises to the flanks, which their slavering jaws and massive claws were more than happy to greet with fire, cold, and lightning.With Errant keeping his flanks solid, and dragons playing flick-the-wallcrawler below him, Ancientaxe made very good time, his Glaive Zeitgeist happily vivisizing a bunch of angry Aberrants. He naturally didn't give a damn about the 'vores in charge, their psionics finding him less substantial then a ghost, and he picked them out anywhere in his Helix, no matter how hard they hid, painted them into the Mark-Up Display, and the Archers hatracked them if they were out of his reach.Sama reached the far side, sent three shrieking strokes of Tremble through the door in front of her, psionic energies shattered shrilly in protest, some things inside started boiling out at her, and she went right in after them.Quaver and Tremble's ominous notes didn't stop at all, and the sounds of whatever was inside there contributing a stanza to their Song would probably have caused a lot of nightmares if everyone wasn't humming along with Heaven's Elevator Music.The great drawbridge over the naturally unfathomably deep moat slammed down, severed chains with jagged ends falling down to dangle above the depths. The dragons slithered up over the walls, down the outside of them, along the gatehouse, over out onto the bridge, and across it quickly, facing the new xenosym and 'vore forces coming up from the settlement below.A good number of the cerebrovores were riding sentients instead of 'vores, including humans, apes, lizardfolk, anthros, orcs, ogres, and even a couple Jotuns, Drakes, and other monsters.That was totally fine. AA, Errant, and Sama bounced off the walkway, skipped along the walls, leapt out to land lightly on the dragons' backs, bounced again, and Void and Null landed right in front of the walkway just in time to meet the barrage of spells, psionics, and natural abilities from suborned hosts getting tossed at the dragons.It was an explosive display, very colorful, eye-catching flames and crackling arcs of power, rings of energy, mind-bending auras and waves. When it was all done, and people could open their eyes easily, Sama and AA stood there unharmed, his Helices up and spinning blacks and greys, while Sama just looked annoyed.The heads of five dragons rose behind them, looking very smug, while Errant just looked amused.And then all the spells went off from the elves on the walls.Acres of ground vanished from sight under a lot of fireballs singing with banefire, swallowing every part of the small army out there. Although the cerebrovores riding the skulls of their hosts were mostly unharmed by the magic, the same thing couldn't be said for their host bodies. Overlapping flames tore into them from every direction, burning to ash what was only still living by psionic energy, and suborned throats screamed in irritation at this event happening, and maybe just a little pain from the feedback... which was a new and splendid experience, and so not nearly as off-putting as it should have been.What it did do is get rid of a whole bunch of xenosyms, and Brother Ancientaxe and Sama were off like launched bullets. Lines of 'syms in the way parted ways like cloven waves, gouts of corrosive blood flew into the air... and no, the stolen bodies weren't immune to the blood, either. Might they possibly be taking the splash effect into account when cleaving? My, they would have had to be pretty damn good to do that...Glaive, Swords, and Autobows went hunting for 'vores, shearing through skulls and splitting them inside their rides. For those whose rides had died and were extracting themselves from their carriages of charred bone, streaks of spinning Helices and wrathflame divided them, and their wielders kept going.The dragons, however, were bellowing for attention, and the surviving xenosyms reacted to the stimuli, swarming toward them in a wave of gleaming, writhing black alien bodies.Dragon tails and wings are incredibly strong and quite heavy. The dragons flowed into a five-part circle of motion while Errant began picking off 'vores here and there who, it just so happened, were not immune to The Light of Heaven, and Purity blazed like a small star as chained Rays of radiant energy speared out and let their thoughts out into The Light.Massive wings and slamming tails scooped and hurled xenosyms sideways with great energy, lunging jaws grabbed and hurled them like sides of beef. They hiss-wailed strangely as they went hurtling over the side of the moat, were pounded past it with crushing tail-swipes and swept flying with hurricane-force winds picking them up and sending new offerings down to whatever Thing existed down there in the darkness.The wind coming up from the moat stopped, too...Standing up there on a small Ward Wall just above them, Errant ripped Walls of glowing fire right and left, chained bolts of Wrath, and picked out the 'vores for the archers ready on the walls behind him to hatrack with True Seeking Arrows. There were a lot of them, but ten of them were basically dying every breath, stolen skulls transfixed by quintets of arrows as their wounded host bodies staggered and tried to attack before being brought down by uncannily accurate arrow fire.But AA and Sama were moving with appalling speed, zigging and zagging from 'vore to 'vore, narrow lines of destruction exploding in passing, and 'vores were getting to investigate Life's Final Mystery in numbers as the two zipped hither and yon, and split skulls and the squirming things within were flying in their wake.Cold swallowed a cluster of 'syms, two of them, doing scarcely no damage to them, but the follow-up lightning bolts went through them as if supercharged, blowing many of them apart violently as superconductivity did its thing. Valor and Shield dragons glanced at one another, made little neck shakes that amounted to 'hee hee hee!', and continued flinging 'syms and some overconfident 'vore host bodies over the lip of the moat and down to their doom.------The inner gates groaned slowly open, and Briggs marched out at the head of the infantry corps and the griffons.He saw me glance at him, his helm opened slightly so I could see his grin, and he patted his chest. Probably three or four pounds of gory remnants of things fell off his Skinplate with a hissing, wet squelching.Tremble started flashing, hands went up, and the Healing was doled out quickly. There had been some impressive traps and psionic energies used inside, but the Healers were on them, and the White Staff had already brought back two berserkers and a dwarf who'd been reduced to meat paste, a blasted corpse, and nearly bit in half, respectively.The force outside had a fair amount of carried Gear and jewelry, as bling seemed to be a vanity statement for 'vore host bodies. Nobody protested their odd tastes in style, as we were just going to Invest or Infuse it all, anyways."Got some nice spoils. Although some of the shit makes my eyes want to bleed." He picked up a coffer of some slick, greasy pseudo-metal. Some kind of Void-Energized palladium, I thought...He'd naturally relayed most of his finds to me, a huge chunk of it weird trade goods bartered for passage, in addition to a lot of coin from tolls cum offerings. What was in the coffer was pretty nice, given how warded up and sealed it had been in a corner of their secure storage area.He popped it open with his thumb, and a cool, pale blue light rose from within. We looked at a pentagrammic star inlaid with a very unique Rune that pulsed with an inherent strength of reality, and disdain for those things not of Creation."A Cerulean Seal." I smirked despite myself. "And they didn't throw it into the moat, why?...""Probably it made them forget about it. It represents just how much Creation doesn't like them, after all." He snapped it closed, and tossed it over his soldier.Barus, who was just walking up, caught it reflexively, startled. "It's made for Druids. Enjoy."The Druid of the North Wind's eyes lit up, and he bowed shortly before hustling away, Brown ambling like a small hill after him.A Cerulean Seal was essentially a minor Artifact designed to really piss off Aberrants. It had Greater Bane effects, sensed them nearby, could Turn them like they were undead, trashed their spell resistance, and generally made them feel very unwelcome here in Existence. He'd be able to do some major bullying of Aberrants with the thing. As its origins were Druidic, it only made sense for him to be the bearer of it.Vivic fires were everywhere, burning merrily. We'd gotten some blood and organs off some of the more magical monsterish hosts, the dragons were trying out different seasonings, frying, boiling, broiling, roasting, and mincing the crunchy cerebrovores left all over the place.The little sisters trooped up, their trim outfits of deep green, burnt crimson, and bright white and blue with ribbons had some gashes and gouges in them, which Tremble would fix up when she got a minute or three."Oh, Sama, was that 'vore surprised when I punched it in the jaw and got all the way up to its brain!" Verd buffed her fist proudly."Sooooo irritating," Amber sniffed in contrast. "They run around naked, and only have like three good places to stick them. No style at all." Her scarlet eyes fixed on the town a mile down the hill with interest."Everything in that town is ridden by a cerebrovore," I informed her blandly, and her face fell again. How was she supposed to get any Night Rose practice in with Aberrants riding hosts everywhere?I looked down at Veis, who looked so cute in her outfit, totally out of place here. Of course, it could morph to a ninja body-stocking in a heartbeat, but that hardly meant she was going to give up her loli cuteness if she had a choice."Two 'vores!" she chimed up, her twin Kukris flipping up like ready snakes, and just as quickly flipped back down into their scabbards. "They were trying to run away. They look really funny when they run," she added in a stage whisper."They do," I agreed, knuckling her head. Ribbons and bows... "We aren't done, of course."Their eyes joined a bunch of others looking downhill. "We have to purge that?" Verd asked grimly."Basically," I agreed. "Really, just get past it, loot, plunder, kill everything in our way... you know, Heaven's Brigands."They all smirked despite themselves. "Murderhoboing?" Amber cackled despite herself."Yeah," I agreed with a lop-sided smile that didn't reach my eyes."And that'll wrap up this zone," Briggs contributed, with a glance at me."What? All this is one zone?" Verd spoke up in alarm."Both sides of the bridge, yep," I informed Busty Little Sister.The girls looked back, thought about everything we'd killed, how much more we had to kill, and pursed their lips."So..." Amber drawled, "how many more of these zones do we have to go through?" she asked slowly."Twenty?" I asked Briggs, who made a 'thereabouts' shake of his hand. "And of course, the three super-zones around the Obelisks.""So, this was just light exercise," Veis piped up."A casual harvesting of alternative draconic culinary fact-finding components," I answered with a straight face."I bet those things would taste really good in 'sym acid blood that's been gently electrified," Verd mused, and went off to volunteer that to the dragons, her sisters darting after her with great interest, coming up with a half-dozen more totally weird and inspired suggestions on the way. Hag Akasha at work...Briggs smirked after them. "All of you are characters," he supplied helpfully."Well, duh." I glanced at Errant at the far edge of the temporary camp, speaking with Estemar as their combined Eyes of Heaven scanned for any sign of intruders incoming. "Freaking predetermined combat zones. So glad the Brothers scouted us right into them.""I'm more worried about the stuff we are avoiding," Briggs admitted, and I couldn't say I blamed him...
