Chương 132: AF Chapter 131 – All for your Entertainment

Moarsmen clawed, swiped, and bit, and blades and axes were there to get in their way with the speed of Fire-path weapon techniques. The killing speed of the Scouts had just doubled with one Feat against these enemies, and Outflank drove the wolfpack-style team-up techniques that enabled both parties flanking a foe to seize openings faster and more smoothly, improving the normal bonus from +2 to +4 to hit… or dropping Melee Defense by ten to twenty percent, it was hard to tell. They swung faster, and they hit more.

Perfect recipe for faster killing. The Mick was absolutely delighted to see the marked improvement in their performance.

"Wait until they get the Scout Levels and start taking Way of Shadow," Princess Kristie said, watching with folded arms. She'd slaughtered her way through multiple clusters of these things, proving her combat ability was no fluke, and although the Mick was getting better and faster, he still couldn't equal her speed at slaughter. The Scouts had just kind of gaped at how fast she could kill things, barely able to follow her blade.

"Aye. Unique Hea tumeroks, mostly, or those that popped up in the Valley o' Death." We turned to look at him again, and he sighed and shook his head.

"A place out in the Direlands, on the other side o' Dereth. Popped up a bunch o' powerful an' nasty stuff t' test ourselves against. The only place ye could routinely find Tremendous Monugas t' fight, if ye cared to. And, eh, some powerful and annoyingly tough Hea tumeroks. Some o' whom like d t' use Shields." He smiled back at the memory.

"Let me guess. Imperil, Vuln, Bait. Annoyingly tough Hea goes down in… one hit?" Kris guessed.

"If ye got lucky and crit, aye. Normally two, three hits tops. There were other creatures there what went negative on the armor to Imperil, it were where the effect were first noticed. It was there on weaker stuff, but we never noticed the difference, it were always Imperil, dead. Were a bunch of odd combinations because o' it. Like the Lugians which spawned there. If ye just fought them straight up, ye'd use Lightning, as they've a racial weakness to it.

But if ye Imperiled them, well, the mages would still use Lightning, but the fighters an' archers would break out the Crit Strike Frost Weapons, an' tear through the blighters like cheese. They'd be ten times tougher than a Gotrok, but die even faster than one."

"Ensuring that you had to carry around a dozen Weapons to attack everything optimally," Kris sighed once, shaking her head.

"Ye telling me there be Artificer Infusions that can make me Bunita the Element o' the moment whenever needed warms me heart, Yer Highness!" the Mick agreed with her.

"And you used Crit Strike Weapons, instead of the more powerful Armor Renders, because the Armor Renders would halve the effect of going to negative armor back then," I noted. Because they reduced armor by half, regardless of how much it was… or how negative it was, not eliminating a fixed amount of it.

"Well caught! Aye." The first moarsman dropped, the second and third following within a breath, and then the last of them had six Scouts on it and dropped in a flurry of stabbing strikes and cuts.

"It were always a great feeling t' watch this creature with its utterly impossible Health totals get crit inta oblivion with fantastic speed. There was this one construct-undead thing in the Colosseum that were a total frustrating fighting experience. Regeneration waaay too fast t' kill it with the amount o' Elemental Resistance it had. But ye Imperiled it enough, and suddenly it were just another tree waiting t' be chopped down in great honking measure."

"The Colosseum?" Kris and I asked together, staring at him. His smile opened, faltered, and he looked away again.

"Quit reminding me that some o' the most fun times o' me life were naught but dancin' on a stage, ladies," he muttered, mock-crossly.

"Performing for others can be damn fun. Performing because you're a rat in a gilded maze led along by the nose, that's a different matter," Kris agreed as I moved forward to administer the Healing spells to the happy and enthusiastic Scouts. All of them had been smacked, slashed, or cut somewhere, but any contagion from the blows vanished with the death of the Summons, and knowing a good Healer was present helped morale tremendously.

I was actually able to perform almost like someone from the tales the Lord Mick told them… and I could even quick- Mend damage to their leather armor!

"The Colosseum… were a set o' challenges for individuals or teams, as ye like, mostly the latter. Ye entered a room, rang a bell, an' specific monsters be Summoned in for ye t' fight." The Mick frowned as he recalled the memory.

"Some were best killed by spells, some by weapons, an' they ranged through all the Elements an' types, so ye had to be up on yer Weapons, an' then time and error t' figure what each room was best fought with an' how, an' the tactics to use t' kill them the fastest. It took some time fer us to make it through all twenty rooms in under the hour limit.

"It were quite the thrill to be on a team that beat the challenge, at the time. It set the tone fer what the teams do up at the Quiddity Dungeon up on Ithaenc now. Well-oiled machines tearing through stuff with teamwork an' good timing."

"There's just something magical about good teamwork that stirs the soul. Giving up individual glory just to make sure the whole team wins is something everyone but the most self-centered can understand and appreciate, and every community appreciates it when everyone pitches in and contributes together," Kris nodded, able to appreciate how he was enjoying the memory.

"Ritual Casting can work much the same way for Casters," I agreed wholeheartedly.

"Start doing it with multiple spells, and you're paving the way for Eternal-Class spells, among other things."

"Teamwork, teamwork, rah, rah, rah! Just make sure we don't forget to do our Infusing and Investing," Kris mock-cheered. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Blaring Visual File alerts tagged to Detect Time," I nodded with exaggerated care.

"Good! Let's continue the Karmic Harvests. I'll be very, very happy to work a set of spawns near wherever we camp once our Investing is done and the others are all zoning off," she said in anticipation. We still had to post guards. Slithyr tentacles could still come randomly manifesting right into the middle of a camp, their eye-stalk popping up, registering prey nearby, and then the tentacles themselves lying in wait in ambush below as the eye-stalk quickly withdrew once potential prey came closer.

Wasps could fly in from the north, and this was the main island they came to, meaning we'd seen over half a dozen teams of archers moving through the place over the course of the day, whooping as the teams set upon the static spawns. Zefirs could coalesce out of the shadows between worlds, Fey things just warped into a strong location of magic, and Wisps, random creations of the bent and overpowered manafield, could spontaneously pop up anywhere.

I mentally noted that the universal hostility of the Fey was probably an effect of the twisting of the manafield here, too… Regardless, evening would be coming, and we were planning to halt for the night by the Gol u m Bridge to the next island in the chain.

"The spawns are fixed and set, an' pretty famous, overall. They also got in the way of a lot o' traffic. Making the enclosures for them were a true pain in the arse. The builders ha d t' run in, get their work done as fast as they could afore the next spawn, an' when it came, we'd have t' kill the Summons as fast as possible so they didn't damage the enclosures.

"Took us days t' build the damn things, but at least people can move along the road now, without that damn Dark Magus, its pet Diamond Gol u m, an' the Obsidian Gol u ms with it messing with the traffic. Maybe it even be appreciatin' the quiet, who knows?" the Mick mused as he showed us the famous archway to the next island.

"You said it's a relatively fast spawn?" Kris asked, eagerly eyeing the multiple spawns of Gol u m clusters around the eastern end of the bridge. T here were t hree along the road, the major one in the middle ahead, and one more off each side.

"Aye. A good team can bounce between them an' juuuust keep up with the rate of the respawns, barring having t' heal in between. If there's a good working Healer, well, it becomes a lot easier. Have t' have the proper weapons ta do it right still, an' since the fall, well, the bludgeon arrows work barely at all. The only way ta use bludgeon damage on them, the best type, is a sling or sling staff." He smirked at nothing in particular as he crossed his arms.

"Ye can use pierce ta go for the fractures in their force structure, but blunt force be best fer obsidians an' diamonds. The Dark Magus, we just used a flaming Weapon, or slashing if we didnae have one. Unfortunately, 'tis a lot tougher to kill now than back then, an' its magic hasn't fallen that far.

'tis dangerous to dance with it."

"I would teach you the Mage Slayer Feat, Lord Mick, but learning it would create discordance in your own magic, so it's not appropriate for the Powered, like you are." Kris glanced at me.

"Are the undead using true Isparian Casting, or SLA's?"

"They are Summons. Whatever spells they knew have basically been transformed into SLA's of a sort, as they can't change what they have access to. They operate on a limited set of tactics and choices due to being Astral Templates. Plus their effective Health Qi shields them from the pain of blows and makes it hard to disrupt their Concentration. The best thing to do is simply to Dispel the spells as they are forming," I replied. The Mick's dark eyes widened perceptibly.

"Ye could… just deny someone their spellcasting like that?" he asked shrewdly.

"It's a reason why Girding your magic and Dispelling spells are equally important sides of the same coin, Lord Mick. Also Counterspelling, Spell Turning, and similar tactics!" I explained.

"Aye, that ability would come in so handy when fighting things!" he agreed quickly.

"A Dispelling Enchantment on a Weapon Casts the spell on whatever it strikes at the Level of its wielder. It takes up 5 Slots, but if you're looking to shut down a spellcaster you are fighting, it is not a bad choice at all."

"FIVE Slots of the ten? Yer givin' me a heart attack here, lass!" He knew he only had ten to work with. Such a commitment would take away a huge portion of his potential offensive power!

"That's why most people who use it are Artificers Infusing it temporarily into a Weapon." His hands clenched at the air.

"Ye're actually making me thirst fer more magic now, instead o' less, lass!" he called out hungrily.

"You'll need to Cast at Fifteen and spend a V Infusion to do it, but it can definitely be done," I assured him.

"What about problems for Kris?"

"The Di amonds and Dark M agus cast Pyreal spells," the Mick said promptly, with the dry voice of a teacher and much experience.

"The O bsidians are only Silver, likely cannae touch ye. If the Golums can land on ye, it's best ta retreat, unless you've some major resistance t' bludgeon magic or spells in general. The Dark Magus be not very inventive or clever with its magic in the past, but after the Fall… well, they learned to Vuln, then follow with the same War Magic, an' if it didn't work they'd try a different set until they found one that did.

If ye couldn't beat one, they'd Heal themselves up quick-like and wait for ye to return, remembering ye an' what worked against ye."

"Summons aren't innately dumb, and they can definitely learn as they go," I said quietly.

"They are echoes of living souls after all, just set to a particular standard when they die. Give them long enough, they either develop habits or start manifesting them from the souls of those they are made of. Granted, few remain manifest long enough to do that, but the research is there.

"Very, very importantly, if you give them a Truename, you can bring them back, and they'll retain knowledge of you from life to life. You can also then upgrade them with more powerful magic, so that they come in as a stronger version of themselves, once you do that."

"Huh." The Mick thought that over.

"That… be very different from the Summoning Magic o' the past that we knew..."