Chương 140: AF Chapter 139 – Prepping for the Big Time

Feats, Masteries, Levels. The torrent of information about the Matrix slammed into them with overwhelming amounts of data and thoroughness, at least by real life standards. Telepathic communication conveyed so much more than mere words so quickly, however, that they were learning at least ten times faster than anything they'd ever processed in their lives. Their job was to work the System and get every benefit out of it they possibly could. They weren't idealized students, and they weren't geniuses.

They were hard-working, devoted people trying to survive in a magical world, get good enough to do so, and maybe do something more so they could get back at the enemy. Their 'balanced' Stat lines meant they weren't going to be as good as the specialists at a task, but that was fine. They could be better, and they could be versatile, applying knowledge and skills from multiple avenues of advancement to do what they thought they should. And oh, there was so much Gear that had to be made.

They were sort of stunned when they were told I could cycle Mana as fast as I could with Mana Boost IV, and could power up an entire Healing Wand holding 100 charges in just minutes, dozens of time faster than just Meditating and relying on Mana Renewal to accelerate matters, as most mages did now.

They couldn't do the same, so one of the things we were going to be learning was advanced Meditation with their handy-dandy new Skill Ranks, so they could conjoin efforts and really start using their Mana for what they needed to get done. An Amulet or Ring that could enable them to do what the Healing Kit had done and was not consumed while doing it was also a welcome idea. The idea of The Enduring Road powering Vigor uses for more monstrous self-Healing was also very well received.

Now, they just needed time, Karma, Levels… and loot to power Gear. All of which would be helped on the front end by having a Caster here who could Buff them up to perform beyond their Levels, and Heal them up when they were injured so they could get back to the fight. And we still had a trio of arseholes to go meet, and leaders of the Aun tumerok and Royal lugian enclaves. That was okay. We were just going to have to be careful about the enclosures we raided.

The undead of the ancient temple complex were left unenclosed within it, mostly because infiltrating undead always tore down the enclosures before being killed themselves, and putting them back up was a pain. Thus, overland traffic diverted around the temple, the undead didn't bother with the random Summons on the landscape so much, and the temple itself was a wild and woolly fight where those on the edge of greatness could test themselves against powerful creatures to see how they really rated.

The sheer number of Gold and Pyreal-tier spells they were dodging let them know they weren't being rated all that high, but that was simply par for the course. Ithaenc was not a cakewalk, but teamwork and good tactics suddenly became very important. The Evasion Class ability from Scout and really good Reflex Saves to avoid the Bolts of magic flying from all directions were really, really important, too.

I did a lot of Healing during the clearing of the temple, a lot of Buffing them (mostly Prots against Elemental damage to save them from spells), a lot of Dispelling (to stop the Vulns dropped on them which could mean one-hit kills), and only occasional uses of combat magic, mostly Emerald Shards to paralyze some of the sclavi, or flaming Shards to soften up some of the undead. Pointedly, I didn't actually kill anything, but that was by design. Because I could feel something waiting.

There was some old and powerful magic laying here, the ground covering up something old and powerful. It definitely was reacting to my presence on several levels. As a result, I was extremely wary of doing any Casting to kill, especially with vivus tacked on, fearing that I'd rouse something truly nasty. We could have shut down the Temple entirely, but the Mick outright forbade it. Ithaenc was the least settled island simply because it was the high-Level playground.

Even now the post-100's living down at the southern end wandered out whenever they got antsy to wipe the landscape spawns, it being the only readily available place to really test themselves. The temple was just an area with concentrated respawns that were ideal for testing both individuals and teams. Lord Mick still had no problems clearing the place himself, even without the Gear and Buffs that he'd once had.

Of course, the real reason it wasn't much settled save for the hunters and high-Levels was also the high incidence of wasps, zefirs, wisps, and slithyr tentacles, which manifested more strongly here than on the previous two islands. Again, while they could pop up on Summon points and did, they could also form spontaneously off the manafield or come here via immigration. As anything that could survive here was at least letting off Gold spells, that turned it into a high-risk hunting ground.

The lugians and tumeroks who dared to live here only did so because they had decent Wards and secure areas for their families. Even they had to work up their younger fighters to the risks here. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. After a review of the fighting tactics, what worked, what hadn't, and what they needed to work ON… it was off to the lugian's area first, as we'd get to it before the tumerok encampment among the falls below the cathedral.

The enclosures were looser and less formal than on the other islands, more danger zones to prep for the encounter than shields for those traveling by. The random creatures that wandered free of the Summons points also had to be watched for, so everyone was definitely on alert. It was a good thing the slithyr were the only ambush predators.

The wisps were basically dancing balls of light and easy to see, the zefir couldn't remain still if their life depended on it, and the wasps were generously loud and brightly colored. The archery side of the roaches' skills got a definite workout as we trekked slowly across the island, alternately ganging up on stuff in melee or with ranged attacks to see how fast they could be taken down. Got in a lot of work scattering to avoid sprayed magical spells, too.

We had come down out of the jungle out into the water, towed out there by Kris at the Mick's insistence. From the distance we could see a tiny island out there, and there were Summons points under the water here and there, with sclavi and undead standing around rotting away, or the fliers hovering in place above the waves until something came by and swatted them.

We cleared the way through with ranged fire on the approach, Kris rarely needing to break stride as we ended up a quarter-mile offshore in the shallows, and paused about fifty yards off the shore of the island there.

"Those are Ruschk," the Mick said, pointing out to us the extremely brawny, light-blue skinned humanoids wielding crude spears of ice there, keeping watch along with a trio of shades. They seemed to be guarding a very dark passageway leading into the ground, one leaking energy associated with both shadows and cold… both of which were fluttering about those Ruschk.

It was a jungle area, but they were wearing crude furs and veils, and ignoring the constant wet congealing about them, melting, cooling, melting, cooling. I could only imagine how many times they had died out here from starvation, then been re-Summoned.

"This be one of the higher-Level playgrounds, with more mukkir, twisted an' corrupted versions of the Ruschk, down below, magical traps, jump tests, and o' course, an aspect o' Grael his many-clawed self down at the bottom, waiting for ye. As ye kin see, there's at least some sort o' arrangement a'tween the shades and Grael's people, beyond the fact that they likely hate the Empyreans together."

"I gather they had to be Summons because no living Ruschk would tolerate living in a damn jungle?" Kris spoke up.

"Their body temperature is literally below freezing. This place would be insufferably hot and annoying to them."

"Aye, they be cold-blooded in the literal sense o' the word," the Mick agreed.

"Masters o' cold magic, an' mark the spears, those be enchanted ice, Coldphasing, as it were. If ye want a good fight with weapons, they'll give it to ye, an' they be tougher than Isparians, overall. O' course, the shades might decide t' jump in."

"Lord Mick, I see three Shades over there," I said softly.

"But I only see two Summons points…" He bounced instantly to his feet, staring at the shades himself, two of whom didn't react… and one of whom turned her head to look at us.

"Piss-boiled scumrat scrotum crackers!" he swore loudly.

"Being clever an' hiding in plain sight, are they now?!" he spat, Bunita leaping off his back into his hand." Vuln the bitch t' Slashing, lass! Highness, if ye'd be so kind to Firephase yer head-taker there and lead me in so I can pass the Ruschk.

"Broadheads up! Fire at the leftmost shade as soon as it reacts to me!" The Royal Scouts all had missile weapons up, and bows and crossbows were drawn back in seconds.

"Lass, as ye wish on the rightmost!" Kris blurred into motion, the Disks let loose and now drifting forward slowly under my command, only the Mick's following her as she was in a full charge with speed that would have blared all sorts of alarms to anyone with any experience of physical combat. They were Summons, their programming didn't care about such threats, so only the real one had any of that common sense, and it paused for a second as ding! ting! rolled past it.

The Mick infused Vivic Weapon atop Bunita, the killing ki about it and its Orange soulfire edge doubling the width and all the ominous presence of his Blade. The two pale-blue-haired Ruschk Laktar turned to charge at Kris a bit on the late side, allowing her to make the beach. I Cast the Silver Blade Vuln on the spying shade, which decided to use the better part of valor and started to turn towards the hole leading into the ground. Kris smashed right into the advance ruschk, KE =.

5MV 2, and it was bulled right over with a blazing Sword with burning Light flowing around it buried right in its throat. The Mick simply jumped before he lost any velocity. Okay, he had invested in his Lightfoot, because he cleared over ten feet from his starting height, hurtling forward as he raised Bunita high. Hissing broadheads spun past him on the left at the shade there, biting deep and pitching it backwards off its feet with a grunt.

The spy shade didn't get more than five feet before Lord Mick was coming down on it in a bright and very, very smooth Weight of the Waterfall. It wasn't one of the madly-infused shades from Tou-Tou. Multipliers tacked on one another, and he hewed completely through the female floating on a cloud of darkness in one glowing wall of dawn of the soul. The other shade was turning on him and whipping its arms back to administer some handy-dandy War magic on him, I could see the magic converging. -Roll left!

- I /ordered him, and my burning Shards streamed out, a Silver Fire Bolt riding them hard as they slammed into the side of the female Shade. The Mick fluidly rolled off to the left, and the five-foot whirling star-cutter of the Slashing Bolt raged past him, not touching him as the Caster was blasted sideways and over by the impact of the spell, sending it spinning wildly off into the distance instead of hitting the Mick at point-blank range.