Chương 143: AF Chapter 142 – Greetings from the Tonk

A warning buzz murmured through the forest. It was nothing special, as phyntos were anything but uncommon here, but the key point was that it was the middle of the night, and phyntos were diurnal predators. Only Summons flew in place at night, and even then, they would land for a time if they were the slightest bit tired. It might mean that something had stumbled across a resting, hidden phyntos, but there weren't any close by, the Auns and our scouts had made sure of that.

-Hsst, - Kris /whispered into the Marklink, and abruptly everyone linked who was dozing or sleeping was quite awake. -South side, - /confirmed the Mick, listening to the rise and fall of the immaculately-imitated thrumming. He cleared out his throat, and to pretty much everyone's delight, let out a subdued coughing warning that sounded exactly like the vicious dark red reedsharks that still popped up on some of the Summons. The thrumming died away. Message received.

Our spotters zoning off in the night were now very much awake, although the active nocturnal life of the jungle made picking things out rather difficult. Just because they'd been noted as coming from the south didn't mean they wouldn't have more coming from the north. Which proved to be the case. A whooping warning of a nightbird echoed from that direction, and the Mick whipped out a delicately-carved bone flute that warbled back something from a different bird when blown. -Well, at least two coming in.

Must be that time of month, - he /muttered into the Marktell, but there was only silence in the camp as everyone remained motionless. -I've got something moving! - the petite Milee /said, although she couldn't see anything from her vantage point, and didn't move a muscle as she sat there in a tree under a vine shroud the Aun had quickly woven together for her position. There was a moment of moonlight, and light reflecting off a pale skull and the purple-blue flesh it was covering. -We've undead involved.

Surprise, surprise, - the Mick /murmured as the undead moved silently but without a great deal of care through the undergrowth. -Still an arrogant shite, even as a scout, - he /sniffed, enough to draw snickers from the Royal Scouts also watching. Princess Kristie had already left the camp, moving like a shadow, gone before anyone realized she was absent. I gave her a silent thumbs-up for the Batman move, and she /snickered back to me, heading for that undead moving through as the closest target.

Our main beach spotter was buried in a bunch of flotsam artfully arranged to look as if it had washed up with the tide, a veil over his face to deny the crabs and things scrambling over the sands and stuff. Rogar was pretty stoic and disciplined, and it was about to be rewarded as he saw something hop off a forty-foot cliff and hit the ground, the utter darkness of its form standing out against the paler stone behind it and the reflective sands beneath.

-Move out to the south, - the Mick /ordered quietly, and the scouts slid out in disciplined pairs after him as the southern intruder was ahead of them, so they could head for one of the slope points down. I was along Invisibly, and Flying now, into the tree level and heading for Rogar to make sure nothing happened to him.

Another mental call, and we looked at the relay as Rogar watched an undead, probably a Dark Magus by the ranking of its attire, clamber down the central slope with an awkward grace and strength that nevertheless displayed artful control… and a lack of the usual limitations of human movement imposed by muscle and sinew.

He didn't see the last one jump down, as it was too far away, but the undead and shade went out closer to the water, waiting only a few minutes before a female shade drifted up on vaporous smoke to join them. Together, they headed out into the waves toward Black Wisp Atoll.

The Aun and the Scouts were only a minute behind them, all of them making their way down to the beach and rendezvousing at Rogar's position. He was pulled unceremoniously out of the soil, I cleaned him off with Prestidigitation, and then everyone piled onto the Disks the scouts had brought with them, dark mats of vines and branches thrown over them to hide the dull silvery gleam of Force Magic they represented. Everyone was also dressed darkly or painted the same, weapons sheathed or also blackened.

Still, there were a bunch of us, and we'd be a big shadow on the water, so a little Phantasmal Force in front of us, displaying the hills and forests behind us to anyone watching from out in the water, was put in place by yours truly to hide our advance entirely while not stopping our vision at all, since we knew it was an Illusion and could look right through it. Having to wade through the water, even if it got no higher than the chest, had slowed them down.

The female's levitation didn't seem to work above the water, although she cut a smaller wake than the other two. Superhuman strength seemed to compensate for less mass as they headed towards the island, and we stayed about fifty yards back of them once Kris caught up, watching as they advanced on the atoll… and then ground to a halt about a hundred yards out as they realized the area above the abandoned rock was writhing with motion they couldn't clearly make out.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. No ruschk on guard, either. So, not perfect night sight, and they couldn't hear the vibratory notes of the wisps over the waves as yet. Clearly curious about what was going on, they edged in closer and closer, wondering what exactly was going on. Selene's arrow hit a wisp, not doing enough harm to do any damage, but the reaction was instantaneous.

DOZENS of wisps came boiling off the island directly towards the trio of returning infiltrators! The trio realized what the writhing darkness was a wee bit too late, and turned to run through the water from the very quick wisps moving over top of it. Naturally the wisps spotted them before they got very far at all. There were dozens of booms as Pyreal Lightning and Fire Bolts went roaring out for the trio, along with other wisps just charging them.

The spies tried to juke and dodge, but there was just too much stuff, and the droning keel of Harm magic randomly smacking against Health, Mana, and Stamina erupted off them in motes of venting red, blue, and yellow light. They looked like they wanted to scream as they raised their hands, and then the wisps were on top of them, point-blank War Magic was going off, and an orgy of destruction blew them out of the water and existence in a very wild extravagance of expended spells.

Kris had backed up an additional fifty yards, and my Illusion was still up. I didn't know how the wisps perceived the world, but if they saw magic, all they were going to see was a block of magic if they looked our way, with nothing behind it. As a tribute to just how far the vivus had spread, there was a spurting from under the water, ghostly white light started to dance, and vivic fire began to eat the blasted and scattered remnants of the spies' corpses.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, instead of returning 'home', the twenty or so Nightmare Wisps swirled and danced in place for a while, and then began to randomly wander off in all directions. Clearly the hole in the ground didn't have the same allure if it wasn't right in front of them, and they didn't have the longest of memories. It looked like we were going to be getting some late-night hunting in, as I wasn't going to be Shard -sniping them so close to the still-huge mass of them on the atoll.

I'd have to wait until they were out of curiosity range of the huge mass of Wisps on the atoll, and definitely out of doubled respawn range. That was fine. There was still some crackling and new wisps coming into existence there, so something down below was still trying to make a fight of it. I wished them good luck, as Kris took the scouts and I took the four Aun Hunters, splitting up to hunt down the wandering wisps before they made it to the jungle and created some havoc there.

Having a Nightmare Wisp pop up made out of shadows that you couldn't see at a distance, versus the hot pink of a Cursed Wisp, was definitely a way to get killed if you didn't flee immediately!

Kris tossed an orange rind at me, which bounced off my Force Armor as I gave her a haughty smile.

"Just because you can see magic and follow them at a distance doesn't make you better hunters!" she scowled at me menacingly for daring to beat her in wisp-popping, fourteen to eleven!

"Strength bows," was my rejoinder, which got attention from the scouts.

"Done in the old Aun tradition, not the Stance tradition common among the Isparians. You actually need muscle to draw those things." The pleased Aun found themselves quickly swarmed by human scouts anxious to test out their bows, finding that they indeed could not smoothly draw the tumerok Hunters' bows much at all, while the Hunters scoffed at the Scouts' own elegant bows as the tools of children, if well-made.

It meant the famed archers of the Aun actually were shooting out stronger arrows, without using Profound Archery. The Stance-based archery Tradition of Ispar was all about channeling energy and perfection of form and release, imitation of perfection turning into damage in a variety of Zen Archery based on Coordination. It meant anyone nimble and smooth in movement, with great hand/eye coordination, made a great archer, and strength was only a minor concern overcome with some Karmic Investment.

There were plenty of archers back home who were even weaker than I was, relying on Stance Mastery to put the arrows home and do more damage. Or, you know, you could also use more powerful bows and shoot heavier arrows, at the cost of having to get the arrows custom-made for your strength and draw. Stronger archers DID have an advantage over their weaker rivals, or the Welsh longbowmen would not have existed, right?

However, there was absolutely no denying the efficiency of having your main to-hit Stat and your main damage Stat be one and the same. The fact that Strength contributed to range, damage, arrow size, and so forth was often simply swept under the rug in the glory of getting more accurate and more deadly by simply raising Coord… and being able to use the same normal arrows that everyone else did.

"I think you just started a massive interest in the Bowyer Skill," Kris mused to me quietly, while the Aun found themselves lecturing to a suddenly very-interested collection of humans about the composition of their bows and arrows and how to make them. The Mick was listening with us, an odd expression on his face.

"'tis strange," he mused.

"They be talking about horn an' sinew and' bone and wood all together, melding them into something greater. They did something similar when making a Composite Bow in the past, but the Bow were still dependent on skill to use an' make, nothing with strength, though the magic Bonded it to ye so others couldn't use it."

"The folks started introducing Mighty Bows to some of the archers back home," Princess Kristie admitted quietly.

"It was why the archer companies under them started developing such deadly reputations. They didn't even bother making the bigger and stronger bows, just added Mighty so that the archers could use thicker arrows and shoot them farther and harder.

"They had a full-out Strength Archer training program going behind the scenes when I left. The archery companies they field now are at least half-again more lethal than they were during the Blue Crusade. The discipline is slowly finding its way out to routine hobbyists, competitions, and hunters, so it's not an issue like it is here."

"Aye. Frantic enough to rebuild what archers we could, not upset the apple cart," the Mick agree solemnly.

"Now that we've got some, time to improve a wee bit, mayhaps?"